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
First! 🙂
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First second! 🙂
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So then two questions.
1. Name the last Cyclone to make landfall on South Australian soil?
2. Name the most recent large scale wind plant to come into operation on the Queensland coastline?
Cyclones, be they Cat five, four, three two or one. Who cares?
There is no wind turbine manufacturer who will guarantee their nacelles and blades in any strength wind that can be categorised as Cyclone strength. The blades will be stripped off, unbalancing the whole nacelle, bringing it down also, and then all you are left with are huge concrete towers.
Why am I reminded of Ozymandias!
And anyway, aren’t those Cyclones supposed to be becoming stronger in intensity and more frequent.
Answers to above questions.
1. Sorry, trick question. No Cyclones have ever made landfall in South Australia, or Victoria, or Tasmania, the three States with the greatest number of Wind Plants. Pretty safe down there.
2. Sorry, trick question again. There are no large scale wind plants anywhere along the Queensland coastline, and I feel sure that any planned proposals will be now given serious second thought. No wind turbine manufacturer known would guarantee they would stay up in those winds. And Insurance. Forget it. The premiums would prohibitively high, and all costs would just be added to the cost per unit of the electricity generated, making it even more expensive.
And generate wind power in the South and transit it to the North. No way known. The power losses would be too high.
Oh, the eye of Cyclone Marcia passed almost directly over Stanwell coal fired power plant. On the morning after the Cyclone passed, Stanwell was back to full operation.
Wind replace coal fired power. You must be joking!
Tony.
471
I think where there’s a will, there’s a way, or more to the point, where there’s a big fat subsidy to be had, there’s a way to build a wind farm Why would anyone let a small matter of engineering limits come in to it?? Absurdly high electricity costs, damage caused by flying pieces of wind turbine, and no electricity for quite a while, is but a small price to pay for saving Gaia…
Think of the children, Tony!!
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Detachable blades. Pretty much what banana farmers have to do with their leaves if they want to save the plants. It is generally the leaves which bring down trees and a windtower would probably be able to stand in a cyclone. There would be an engineering solution in a cyclone area. Even aligned, stacked and covered blades.
However it raises the question of whether the extra cost is worth it, considering the wind tower is a complete a waste of money in the first place.
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The engineering challenge there would be substantial. Based on what little I know…
The blades are huge. They require a crane larger than the tower to take them down. You need a permanent secure lay down area for the blades to be stored. Doing lifts like that can only be done in low wind conditions and as far as I know it takes most of a day to get a set of blades on in good wind conditions. Sometimes they wait for days to get good weather. That means a dedicated crane and crew for every two towers if you want to minimize down time and considering the accuracy of hurricane/cyclone model tracks. Figure you’d have to make your decision and start at least a week before the arrival of a windfield you could not work in. Having lived in Florida for 25 years that’s not even realistic. The 5 day tracks from NOAA/NHC are woefully inadequate for the task and too short in time frame. It would be an extremely expensive crap shoot that would also require the nacelles to be designed to take those winds along with whatever system goes up to cover the holes left from blade removal.
I’m guessing you at least double the costs, maintenance skyrockets ’cause now you’ve got a bunch of dedicated cranes to store and maintain along with crews to keep trained. Then you have to assume that if you drop these things once a season, do they all go back together? Fatigue and settling during operation may make removal and re-installation of a blade impossible. It could spring out of shape once removed. I’m not a mechanical guy but the forces on those hubs have got to do some permanent metallurgical changes… what happens when the bolts are loosed? How many do you damage inadvertently? Now the real killer… what happens when the track shifts and you’ve got a bunch of half disassembled wind turbines, their most vulnerable condition, and it’s unsafe to work on them? Bye bye wind farm… so yes, don’t build the wasteful Condor Cuisinarts in the first place.
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However given that there are already 220,000 windmills in existence and many countries are stopping their construction, it is all too late and far too silly. Twenty years from now, few will be turning, more tourist opportunities than machines. Rotors will be damaged and the machines unbalanced and turned off. Then the rust. Then the contacts to dismantle them and recover the 300kg neodymium magnets and all the copper. A few will be left standing perhaps as tourist attractions, lighthouses for boats and even havens for eagles.
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The monument to the Don Quixote stupidly.
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At least Quixote was trying to stop the evil things. He didn’t realize that all he had to do was wait until their bearings froze up or blades twisted and they’d have killed themselves. I guess Cervantes wasn’t much of an engineer… or did he write about a “denier” named Quixote? Hmmmm… I guess we’ll never know.
50
Gee, that’s a good idea.
Every man and his dog has a few mobile 200 tonne capacity cranes in their backyards to just nip out and remove the blades with the aid of
You have all the makings of a climate scientist.a shifter!
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@Tony:
Glad you are ok …. Finally, the JCU CTS report has got into the local rag. See below.
AIMS, (Australian Institute Marine Science) occupies a large chunk of Cape Ferguson. A township sized operation with elevated land, sticking out into the north-easterlies off the Pacific. So, being greenies mostly, they thought wind turbines would work, but instead of just going ahead and putting them up, at least they asked the advice of SLR, the environmental engineering consultants. Verdict was basically “not cost-effective – forget it”. I would have thought that lower level vertical shaft stuff might work (having assisted in building a couple in Wales years ago), as long as it could be dropped to the ground when something nasty comes, but apparently not.
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Cyclonic storms do hit SA, Vic and NSW, and they have for more than a century. Two classmates lost their houses in one when I was a kid. Very old weatherboard houses that were together in what the Bureau called a mini-cyclone.
One in 1954 swept through here and the Riverina where it destroyed a wooden church.
Ok, not tropical cyclones but referred to as cyclones with 70-80mph (115-130 km/h) winds.
50
Who would have thought that Queensland would be saved from the stupidity of wind farms, not by our good sense, but by our damn cyclones. Well that proves the old proverb, “it’s an ill wind etc.”
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“No Cyclones have ever made landfall in South Australia”
Ahem! This may depend on how you define a cyclone or how you read history but…
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/84724805
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/161607354
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/133957702
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I was interested to read this article about software that learns from experience. I think what surprised me the most is that there are professional Breakout players still in existence.
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AI is fascinating. The main limitation now seems to be computing power, the human brain has at least a million PCs worth of compute power. Around a third of that capability is devoted to analysing our visual feed.
When the compute power issue starts to even out, probably in a decade or so, the world will be a very interesting place.
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I use neural networks to do some interesting work with , and it takes a few hours to ‘train’ it with existing data before it can start predicting what will happen next in an unfamiliar dataset. It can then recommend optimal drilling parameters to drill an oil well faster, but I do not think it could play Pong very well…
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“>The main limitation now seems to be computing power, the human brain has at least a million PCs worth of compute power. Around a third of that capability is devoted to analysing our visual feed”
Obviously the climate scientists and their R2D2 followers still working on how they could enter human brain category.
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The annual question on The Edge (an interesting website) was What do you think about machines that think. They didn’t ask any of the machines that think, though.
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Interesting concept the idea that machines can think – consider this,thought is matter,a very pure matter,so it could be said that a thought is a creation whereas a computer can only organise 1’s and 0’s?
20
Pachauri’s downward spiral continues…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/01/out-on-bail-ipccs-pachauris-downward-spiral-continues-resignation-from-the-indian-climate-council/
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Heart condition? Too many little blue pills perhaps…?
I guess pornographic fiction is a change from the IPCC fiction he is used to writing…
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They’re both fantasy …
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But only one is scientifically accurate… and it ain’t the
weatherclimate science.41
It is hard to believe his preferred Boris Karloff look which makes Rasputin look attractive. After two decades at the top with multiple jobs and flying 300,000km a year, it is time he retired anyway. We will see many of the promoters of Global Warming retire. Al Gore is 67. Many of the others are in their 60s. Like Tim Flannery and Al Gore, they will retire to their sea side properties after a lifetime of preaching about massively rising oceans. We can only hope their water views are ruined by rusting windmills.
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What about all the gullible politicians who believed, and still do, the hyperbole, Rudd, Combet, Turnbull ….
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He’s out on bail.
Maybe they have a couch free over at the Ecuadorian Embassy?
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On the morning following Cyclone Marcia, 97% of Rockhampton and its suburbs were without power, in a city with a population of around 75 to 80,000.
We were without power for 112 hours in all, five days and five very long nights. We came back on line on the Wednesday morning, and there were still 50% of the people without power. Even now, 9 days after the event, 10% are still without power.
This city has one of the better uptakes of rooftop solar power. Hell, I can see five homes from my home which have panels on their rooftops.
All of them totally and utterly useless, because without REAL mains power, they have no reference. They are not delivering power to the homes which have the panels and they are not delivering their piddlingly tiny amount of useless and unused power back to the grids.
Nothing!
Useless, the lot of them.
Since the power has come back on, one TV advertisement most conspicuous by its absence is the one shilling for rooftop solar power, and that ad played on average five times a night. There are two major companies shilling for them here, and both have gone missing from TV. Don’t think they’ll be selling too many of them in the future.
Tony.
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I’m glad you’re back on the air Tony, and relatively unscathed by events.
The panels (mostly) stayed on the roofs? Don’t tell me the installers actually stick to some sort of building regulations instead of cutting corners??
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“Islanding” systems add thousands to the cost. They need storage; i.e. batteries which are a maintenance item.
And the islanding module has to be approved by the electricity authority to NOT feed the grid from anything other than solar and to ensure that the grid isn’t fed until “present”.
Islanding modules often have a generator input and can automatically start the suitably equipped generator when storage is depleting. Such is of course also necessary for fully autonomous off-grid systems.
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When I installed my solar system I worked out the best payback was with a 3kW grid connected system. Since then the cost of panels has reduced dramatically so it became economic to reduce my grid load by installing an off grid system to run the sustained loads in the house. The off-grid is completely independent of the grid connected system.
The off grid system also has 3kW of panels and a 5kWh lithium battery. The battery maintenance consists of checking cell balance twice a year. I do not consider that a significant maintenance task. There are automatic balancers available but I do not trust the automatic balancers because the current crop are less reliable than the lithium cells and cause more battery failures than they prevent.
My income from the electricity exported more than pays for the gas I use:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Electricty_to_March.png
I have enough panels in the offgrid system to also run an electric water heater so I plan to replace the gas heater with an electric heater. The gas unit consumes $40/month in gas just to keep it warm. The new electric hot water units have very low standby losses by comparison.
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Can you imagine how excited I am to be paying your “income”.
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I expect you are enjoying the benefits of all the rooftop solar installed in Australia. It has provided true competition for electric power supply in Australia. It has reduced demand from large suppliers and is depressing power prices:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/energy-prices-crash-as-queensland-solar-takes-hold-21256
There is real competition in the power supply industry now to challenge the corporatised monopolies owned by offshore interests.
With term deposit rates as low as they are the best investment available to many Australians is to instal rooftop solar with a view to going off-grid when the service charges are cranked up to stem the losses. Those who have panels without storage have a sunk cost that makes the step to off-grid look even more attractive. With rates for TDs around 3% the $600 I pay annually in service fees for gas and electricity connection justifies a substantial investment to extend my system to go completely off-grid. All things being as they are I will not do that until my high FIT expires in 2024.
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Subsidising a product that has more energy bound into it’s manufacture than it’ll ever produce is “true competition”?
Truly representing the blind that will not see.
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If you believe that fairy tale about the energy to make solar panels you will believe CO2 in the atmosphere can cause catastrophic heating of the planet!
Panels cost USD400/kW to make – some modern plants in China are now under that. In a 25 year life installed on my roof in Melbourne 1kW of panels will produce 36,500kWh of electricity. So a tad over 1 cent per kWh. I do not know of any fossil fuel plant that can produce power as cheap as that as well as deliver it to my house, read the meter, send a bill that includes GST and other taxes in all the exchanges along the way. In fact my current price for electricity is AUD0.33/kWh. So there is plenty of margin for me to recover the cost of a panel.
My existing grid panels have been in service for 4 years and show no reduction in output. In fact the output increased when the original inverter was replaced under warranty with a different unit. There is no reason why panels cannot go well beyond 25 years – that is just the guaranteed life.
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The linked chart gives an indicative picture for the ERoEI for various energy sources in the USA:
http://8020vision.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/eroei_2011.png
One of the untapped reserves of methane iin the form of cathrates may work out to have better ERoEI than existing fossil fuels but exploiting this resource is in early stages. As far as I know only Japan has demonstrated economic feasibility.
Most people who think about rooftop solar take grid power generation and supply for granted. They simply bitch about the high cost. I have worked in coal mines, power stations and power distribution. I understand power metering and the billing systems that go with them. Sticking a few solar panels on a suburban rooftop is trivial compared with all the complexity of exploiting coal for power production along with all the expenses such as the high salaries that go to those at the top of the food chain in the grid power supply industry and the ease of taxing all the commercial exchanges involved. No one but me knows how much electricity I actually use in the house. The majority of my energy is free to me and I get income from my surplus power that is exported.
Rooftop solar makes economic sense in places as blessed with solar energy as Australia.
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I may believe you and your fairytale as soon as you provide supporting evidence that the solar panel manufacturer is operating it’s facility solely on solar power.
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Rick
Everything would be ok if I did not have to pay for this. I am at the stage of walking into people,s homes with solars and demanding my money.
You kidding about competition. Just like people saying that I am driving an electric car and hence I am carbon free. No. This needs to be plugged in and the energy comes from oil, gas and coal. The difference being is that to get to your confidently located power the energy company has to transmit this energy with the usual losses. Driving fuelled car there is no energy loss and hence much less carbon footprint. For all of you thinking buying electric car and thinking that you positively reduce you carbon footprint think again. The opposite is true.
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I do not know where you live but you can bet you would be paying a low more for electricity now if some housholds had not shifted to solar. The table on the linked page shows average AEMO prices for the last 15 years:
http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Data/Price-and-Demand/Average-Price-Tables
The table down the bottom shows the average across the States. These are not CPI adjusted. Prices in Victoria have dropped 20%. Do you think that would be the case if there was not such a large take up of solar power. SA has the biggest penetration of solar and is probably the best climate to benefit. It has dropped from $156 in 99/00 to $38 in 14/15.
At present there is no competition for network charges because use of batteries is very low but as they become more prevalent there will be increased competition for networks. High service fees and low FITs will force people off the grid.
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Dariusz, you seem to have a big opinion on electric vehicles but know very little about them.
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Sorry to be such a spoil sport, but ALL the electricity assets in Queensland are the property of the Queensland Government. So much so that the LNP lost the election over it! Strange enough, according to a recent (very) United Care Study, in Qld we pay twice as much as the privatized system in Vic…..
01
When you no longer have a power line going to your house and you paid for the panels 100% on your own, no tax break, nothing, get back to me and I might care. In the meantime, you’re not independent, you’re sponging off everyone else. I just love people signing the glories of solar while not actually using it exclusively and having everyone else help pay for it. Yes, that goes for everyone in America, etc. When you use tax subsidies and tie back into a grid, you’re not independent. There’s a word for what you are, but independent’s not it.
01
Sheri
I could go off grid tomorrow but then I lose the income from my net export. This chart is typical of my metered power this time of year:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Daily_Metered_Power.png
You can see from the grid perspective I export substantially more than I import. That is power being supplied into the distribution network where it is actually used not transmitted from power stations hundreds of kilometres away.
What you cannot see in the chart is how much power I actually use because a good proportion of my load is run off grid and not metered. Note that my overnight demand from the grid drops to 48W. I doubt there are many other grid connected homes running that low overnight.
My off grid system has no subsidies. I paid considerably more for my subsidised system than my off grid system, including its battery, because I purchased it before the prices began to tumble.
Like many you have a blind spot to this technology because you associate renewables with global warming and do not bother to analyse what it offers. I have simply increased my options with regard to energy supply. I can stay on the grid or go off grid. At present it is economic for me to stay on grid.
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Rick, please,
That is so much bovine waste.
Do you seriously think that power you return to the grid from your rooftop system is being used. If so, then you are actually dreaming.
Do you seriously think that the minutely miniscule, pitifully tiny amount of power you feed back to the grid (by comparison) is actually being used by grid controllers who absolutely have to have reliable power always available at the grid, slightly more power than what is actually being consumed, and your tiny amount would not even be noticed, so small is it, and even if there were many hundred rooftop solar plants in your area feeding the grid, again, it is wasted useless power that is not in fact ever being used for anything. Pity the grid controller or his supervisors all the way up the chain who relied on rooftop solar to keep power on the grid. Their feet would not touch the ground on the way out the door if the power went out and angry politicians asked why, and the reply was that rooftop solar went quiet.
Those large power stations near you deliver many thousand MegaWatts of power. If you think they throttle back a couple of KiloWatts that you might be feeding back to the grid from your rooftop system, then you are out of your mind.
You could have thousands of rooftop systems supplying the grid and those major power plants would not be delivering one watt less than their absolute maximum. You people have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of large scale power generation. You dream and think you’re doing something good. It’s all just confirmation for your own justification of a false economy.
You people provide such easy targets to shred.
Tony.
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Its not thousands of rooftop solar but now over a million – 10% of Australians live in house benefitting from solar. All those piddling amounts add up. So much so that there is an absolute glut of generating capacity in Australia:
“The latest forecast from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which manages the national electricity market, has spelt out the surplus that will probably keep wholesale electricity prices under pressure, barring a surge in coal or gas prices.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/reduced-demand-is-powering-a-deepening-electricity-surplus-across-australia-20140807-101g8r.html
The article finished with:
“AEMO said electricity generated from solar systems has risen by an average 23.6 per cent, which helped to reduce electricity consumed from the grid by 2.9 per cent in 2013-14 alone.”
There were 8000 solar system in 2007. By end of 2014 that had risen to 1.3 million grid connected anf more if off-grid are taken into account.
What you have to realise it that the increase in solar output is only what is metered. Most solar systems that are grid connected supply unmetered household demand. So the actual household usage continues to climb but is now not visible to grid operators. All they see is falling demand and have no idea what energy households are actually using.
Obviously all those piddling amounts from rooftop are being used by others connected to the grid and are having a dramatic impact on depressing the cost of for all users and reducing profits of the big generators. The network cannot distinguish electrons coming from rooftop panels from those coming out of a coal fired power station. The ones from rooftops do not magically evaporate as you suggest in your opening sentence.
You have such a large blind spot with regard to renewables that you have no idea about it. You should take some time to educate yourself on the technology that is available before making such ill-informed comments.
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Ill informed comments.
I’ve been writing about it for seven years now, almost a thousand Posts on renewable Power, based from my background in the electrical trade, both as a tradesman, a supervisor, an administrator, a writer of policy, and a teacher of that trade for six years.
All that solar power, now in fact almost 1.5 million installations averaging around 2.2KW, hence around 3GB in Nameplate.
So, at the current Capacity Factor of 13%, and that’s conservative because it’s actually closer to 11%, then total power generated comes in at around an average of 390MW. Now, because up to two thirds of that power is actually consumed by the homes themselves, that leaves 130MW returned to the grids. That is spread across the whole of Australia, so when individual grids are taken into account the amount fed back to the grid comes in at such a small, well, tiny really, amount, that it’s actually throw away power. It’s not used at all and has resulted in NO change whatsoever to large scale coal fired power.
It’s so close to insignificant, that you may as well call it nothing really.
I’m not the one with the scotoma Rick. Yours is a bl00dy great beam.
When you add up the overall cost of every little rooftop system, it’s a monumental amount of money to supply the tiniest and most useless power which is only used by the homes where we have paid for the panels. Then, the taxpayer funds part of EVERY system, and then the consumers pay so that there is an enormous FIT, in effect a bribe.
Me! No idea about renewables. You must be joking.
Tony.
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Writing about it makes you an authority??? On what basis does “writing” about anything make them an authority. You have no idea of the cost of current solar systems, battery systems or their performance. Have you ever used a lithium battery?. Your world view is so myopic you are blinded from reality.
I first started assessing and using battery power in 1973 for traction systems. My degree in electrical engineering specialised in battery power. I started considering the economics of rooftop solar 7 years ago – about the time you decided to “write” about it. I made the decision to install a 3kW system 6 years ago and that system has been operating for 5 years. I have concrete data for it. I am a knowledgable user and make the most of my system to my benefit. The good performance of that system encouraged me to go partially off-grid, which is now supplying 40% of my electric power needs and has yet untapped capacity to supply a large part of my heating needs. Based on my actual experience rather than just “writing” about it I know off-grid is economically viable now and the economics are getting better with time. Solar does not need subsidies to make it economic in Australia. The power supply industry are starting to realise this.
I do not know what you mean by 3GB – maybe you mean 3GW. Your other facts are distorting reality. Air conditioning demand underpins the peak demand in all Australian mainland States and that is when solar does its best. So much so that it has shifted the peak demand back by 2 hours. That means that there will not be need to increase large scale generation into the grid for the foreseeable future. Maybe never if rooftop solar continues its exponential growth. That means individuals who choose solar are paying for that capacity rather than the general community. Having the power source that reduces the peak demand distributed near the loads also reduces network costs by reducing losses and the need to upgrade.
Whether the power produced by solar is used within the boundaries of its installation or metered into the grid, it is load that is not otherwise needed to be supplied by other means. That is why there is now a glut of generation in Australia.
A side benefit of solar is that users have cause to look more closely at their energy consumption and adjust to reduce load or shift load. This is another factor reducing demand and depressing power prices.
I suggest you stop “writing” about it and start educating yourself by actually building a system. Build something portable to run your fridge 24/7. Come back to me when you have real numbers on the economics rather than the nonsense you “write” about. How about some “doing” rather than “writing”. The best way to learn is by doing – surely this is not beyond an electrician. Those who can do and those who can’t teach. Start small with a view to being able to expand it – no subsidies so you can sleep well.
12
Rick—Since you are such an upright, considerate citizen who generate power, I must believe you recieve wholesale price for that electricity. Otherwise, you would be driving up the price of electricity and receiving and unfair advantage over other power producers. Surely, you would not participate in such a greedy, unfair arrangement.
21
Also, under the scheme you push, you don’t pay as much for the grid but you still use the grid itself. Kind of like demanding you get to use the roads but you don’t pay as much road tax because you have an electric car. This means everyone else pays more or the grid, road or whatever, is lost. In essence, you are voting to wipe out the grid. You know, the one that is so economical for you right now. Obviously, you care nothing about anyone else or you’d think this through. I’m always amazed at the greed in green.
11
Rick Will,
TonyfromOz wrote:
And you replied:
And:
Tony has clearly explained on what basis he writes what he writes. Electrical power generation is what he does. It’s all he does. And it’s from that background, a lifetime of experience in this specific field, that he presents his case.
This information was clearly presented to you and you just ignored it. Instead you chose to misrepresent what was written and resorted to insulting the person when what you should have done is entered into a discussion on the facts. Any adult who has ever been ten years old knows that namecalling is just a childish ploy when used as a method of discourse.
And . . .
I too am sick and tired of all the selfish behaviour displayed throughout society. Especially by adults in positions of authority who decide the fates of tens of thousands of people based on their childish, self-centered outlooks.
And so, like Tony, when expressing my personal feelings about ppls’ behaviour and attitudes, like your sadistic insistance on providing electricity for yourself by having other people pay for it, I do so with all the contempt that every adult should legitimately display when confronted by another adult who refuses to grow up and take responsibility for themselves.
Oh, and one more thing. Your entire participation on this thread was off topic. Considering that the numbers you’ve provided are woefully incorrect as evidenced by a qualified expert in this field, my conclusion is that you’re just here to shill.
My definition of a shill: A troll in sheep’s clothing.
Abe
21
Sheri,
trust me, they’ll never wipe out the grid. They’ll try to destroy it with their millions of tiny little generating toys, which destabilise the grid, but without that grid, they have nothing.
Rick is big on something that will be used by less than 5% of total power consumption, and it will only ever be that high if they force people to install it.
Residential power consumption is 28% at most.
The other 72% of power consumption will ALWAYS be supplied by generating sources which actually can supply the huge amounts of power required and required on a 14/7/365 basis. Rooftop solar power is a niche market for rich people willing to sponge off the backs of people who cannot afford the luxury they do. They will always take the moral high ground, unaware that the rest of us are paying for their luxury, and they couldn’t care less frankly.
Tony.
22
Rick—What makes you an authority on solar just because you have panels and a 1973 tractor, with a degree in electrical engineering (you did take continuing education courses, right?)? Can I be an authority on gardening because I garden? Really? That is so cool. I don’t even have to be good at this or anything—I just have to be able to say “I grew a garden” and I’m an EXPERT!!! I have a degree in chemistry and took biology classes so I would know about plants and fertilizer and the like. Wow—it’s so easy to be an expert. I think I’ll start my own expert blog today!!
Oh, I won a science fair when I was eight by building a battery operated light circuit. Can I be an expert on batteries too?
21
People who install grid connected rooftop solar, subsidised or not, are increasing the capacity of the grid. It is now so significant that it has depressed the price of power and will do so for the foreseeable future. Solar delivers when it is needed most to lop peak demand from air-conditioning loads. There is now a glut of generating capacity so only the highest merit order generators get used. Solar has zero fuel cost so it is the highest order and gets taken first. That benefits everyone connected to the grid.
Someone who has been writing about rooftop solar for 7 years made up their mind 7 years ago when they first saw the subsidies through their narrow perspective and nothing will change their mind – they become zealots stuck in the past. All subsidies could be taken away and solar will continue to grow. It is economic against other energy sources.
And if you are a gardener you will know more about gardening than if you only “write” about it and never do it. Doing is the best way to learn. You may never be an expert but you will have true understanding of what it takes to grow something. You could read everything ever published on gardening and write as much as you like on the topic and still have no idea about it unless you actually get your hands dirty.
12
Rick Will: Yes, they are increasing the quantity of the grid—like lighting a candle in a stadium adds light. Wiki says “Solar power in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon. Currently, it has over 3,200 megawatts (MW) of installed photovoltaic (PV) solar power (February 2014),[1] and 700 MW of PV was installed in the preceding 12 months. At a capacity factor of 14 percent, this would contribute 1.1 percent of Australia’s electrical energy.” Doesn’t say if this includes roof top or not. A candle in a stadium, a very, very expensive candle paid for by people who had no choice in the matter while those who took money from others are so proud of their using other people. Hopefully I never have to depend on your “really useful” definition when it comes to food—”Look, my garden grew two beets! I helped feed Australia! I did, I did, I did!” Yeah…….
Someone as dedicated to solar as you are is obviously getting solar kick backs, I would say. You know, like someone writing about solar for 7 years had already made up their mind. Those kickbacks must be really high for such loyalty.
Don’t know about Australia, but I guarantee you from personal experience that solar is NOT economical. Many people give up and tie to the grid at a cost of multiple thousands of dollars because it’s cheaper than a full solar set up. Even with the subsidies, tax breaks and full retail price for selling back.
You can get your hands dirty gardening and still be a completely clueless on the matter. You have an interesting way of looking at expertise and knowledge. You can have a degree, use the product and still be clueless. That should be obvious to readers here at this point.
20
Those with their world view on renewable technology set in concrete 7 years ago should take the time to read this linked UBS report:
http://knowledge.neri.org.nz/assets/uploads/files/270ac-d1V0tO4LmKMZuB3.pdfarticle:
It opens with:
“Solar panels and batteries will be disruptive technologies. Solar is at the edge of being a competitive power generation technology. The biggest drawback has been its intermittency. This is where batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) come into play. Battery costs have declined rapidly, and we expect a further decline of >50% by 2020.”
12
And I lean further and further to the kickback probability, Rick. Look, I love some products, but you’d have to pay me to make such a fool of myself beating a drum and pounding out “Solar rules” “Solar rules” etc.
What part of “I know from personal experience and that of friends what solar costs and how well it works—Oh, wait, only YOU know anything about solar. The risk of us are just totally incapable of understanding your and solar’s greatness. I bow to your godhood—NOT.
Wait, if I order in the next ten minutes, will you throw in an extra panel for free?
11
With regard to the UBS report I should add that solar, without subsidy, is economic for me now. I base economic analysis on the rate I get on term deposits. When I decided to instal the off-grid system I was getting 6%. The rate is now down to 4% and falling. So my hurdle is lower than the 7.3% that UBS forecast for 2020.
01
Rick, so much denial so little time….
Did you remember your initial cash outlay? How many kwh would that have bought outright?
You are likely in denial about the life of your batteries.
Likely in denial about the lifespan of any inverter/grid tie.
what about the life safety aspect of lithium storage? On that subject, while you claim to be a trained expert, how do you feel about your average neighbor and his Lithium battery?
Additionally, you’ve denied the cheap coal input into the construction of your panels, the same probably for your batteries.
The only thing you’ve got is your subsidies and that won’t last as long as your batteries.
PS. I’d like to see your evidence that solar home installations are the cause of lower prices.
11
Battery delivered $2400, panels installed $3600, inverter $250, load controller $170, other installation $220 – total $6540. All retail prices without subsidy. Production over last year 1314kWh. Unsubsidised power saving is $433 per year. Income forgone from $6540 @ 6% is $393. Unsubsidised benefit $41.
Could be as there is little history on long term use of lithium batteries. The oldest I have is a small lipoly that is now 7 years old. Little used but still holds more than rated capacity. Have three years experience with large format cells on a sailing boat. Used about once a week – still work as new.
My off grid battery usually operates between 50 and 90% state of charge. Under this condition, type testing shows cycle life in excess of 10,000 – 27 years. I will be happy with 20 years. Given the subsidy on my grid connected system the battery actually pays for itself in three years. The subsidy reduces my risk.
The inverter in my grid connected system has a 7 year warranty. Original inverter failed after 3 years operation and was replaced at no cost to me. The particular inverters had a firmware bug – it was cheaper to replace the whole inverter with a different type than replacing the faulty card.
LiFePO4 batteries do not suffer the explosive failures due to overcharging that occurs with more volatile chemistry. The most significant risk is dropping a metal object onto exposed terminals. The batteries increase output as they heat rather than suffering plate polarisation that lead/acid batteries experience. Lead/acid cannot be shorted without risk but for a given capacity they do not vapourise metal like a Lithium battery can. I cover the battery to lower the risk of accidental damage.
I do not deny it – that is now history. New plants building batteries and panels now on the drawing board will be run mainly from renewables e.g.:
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/10/tesla-gigafactory-produce-20-electricity-needs/
Probably not. My grid-connected system is subsidised till 2024. I expect the battery to go beyond that. By then I expect to more than double my battery capacity and go off grid to save the service fee.
Why prices come down:
http://www.energy.unimelb.edu.au/files/site1/docs/39/Retrospective%20modeling%20of%20the%20merit-order%20effect%5B5%5D.pdf
The results in recent years can be seen in the table at the bottom of the page on this link:
http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Data/Price-and-Demand/Average-Price-Tables
11
My, what a long thread …
The military have been using them in aircraft, for some time.
One of the things that they discovered, was that the ones they were using, tended to fail by developing an internal short. From what I have read, there was no fire risk from this, but there were instances where other batteries in the array were also damaged, in a sort of failure cascade.
That is all I can remember, and I no longer have that material, but it might pay to keep it in mind.
10
Interesting. I did not know you could use a solar system as a savings account. I would love to see whether or not it can be converted to cash when you deperately need the $6500 dollars. Oh, are you one of those rich guys who doesn’t need the money? Like the power company? You failed to mention that. Again, I’ll have to check with my bank and see if they accept my 10 year old solar system as collateral for a loan or the grocery store will trade a battery for food.
I see a minimum of 15 year payback on the system, which explains why you are using the idea of it’s earning you more than your savings account was. Are the savings what the power company pays you at retail price for the electricity? Translation: Are the savings what other people are paying you?
You fully admit you took other people’s money to reduce your risk. What kind of a person does that make you? At least the power company has voluntary investors. You just raided people’s piggy banks.
21
The savings from the off-grid system is energy I produce and use on site rather than taking it from the grid. My retail price for electricity is 33cents/kWh. So without subsidy I would save 33cents/kWh for every kWh I produce from the off-grid system.
In my case shifting load to the offgrid allows me to export more from my grid-connected system. That has a subsidised benefit to me but it is not quite how you see it. The FIT has to remain attractive against the saving I can make by not paying a daily service fee. If the service fee continues to rise there could be a point before 2024 where it is economic for me to go off grid. The technology gives me a choice.
After years of hard work living in many locations over Australia and diligent saving and investment I have savings that gives me choices. I make investment decision on long term horizon; these days with high aversion to risk. There is sovereign risk with solar because at some point I expect governments will realise that people collecting and using solar energy in their premises have eliminated one of the easiest means of levying taxes so there will be pressure to tax solar energy or roofspace or network to property fee or land tax or any combination. At this stage it is not apparent that governments have yet realised the impact on revenue. Like many here they consider household renewables as marginal rather than mainstream of the future. I am retired from full time work but I do not take any government pension.
My children will likely benefit from the rooftop solar in the same way that any home improvement usually increases the eventual sale price. Data in California determined the solar rooftop investment was returning on average three times the actual cost of the system in increased price paid for the property. I guess buyers factor in the reduced cost of living and add it to the amount of interest they can pay on the mortgage.
Your view of taking other peoples money is also incorrect. What solar has done has reduced the amount of high cost generation to the benefit of the whole community. The paper I linked above shows why that occurs due to merit order scheduling and the AEMO cost data shows the end result. Improvement most significant in SA where they have the highest uptake of solar and the highest cost coal resources.
You see the story from big power and repeat it without analysis because you have linked renewables to CO2 hyping.
11
Rick Will, I invite you to consider this report: http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Planning/~/media/Files/Electricity/Planning/Reports/Renewable_Energy_Integration_in_South_Australia_AEMO_Electranet_Report_Oct_2014.ashx
And ask you how do you propose the AEMO will raise funds to put into place the additional grid system hardware necessary to secure a stable network with an increasing asynchronous (wind and PV) supply? Should the asynchronous generators be assessed?
10
How could such a piddling amount of renewable power cause grid instability issues!!!!
It is not AEMO’s responsibility to add any hardware to ensure stability under abnormal conditions but rather ElectraNet in SA. Any cost would be borne by the consumers in SA who benefit from the zero fuel cost of renewables.
Battery storage of solar that remains grid connected can even demand so the proportion of power from solar can increase without increasing risk of instability. Lower FIT will encourage more batteries. Low service fees may encourage systems with batteries to stay on grid. There may also be incentives and means for networks to control output from batteries to improve stability. There are some large energy users given price reductions on the basis that the network can control their demand – may never be used but it remains an option. Smart meters already give some limited control options.
Network owners also have the option of installing batteries to reduce demand or even provide “island” operation of sub networks such as what AusNet is doing:
http://www.ausnetservices.com.au/CA257D1D007678E1/All/E9A9712996D1B2D1CA257DC5001A89EF/$file/150106%20GESS.pdf
Ultimately if power is produced off-grid, loss of grid does not impact on individual users.
00
Rick, your previous links put me (eventually) to that report and solar and wind already isn’t a “piddling” amount of non-synchronous* supply. (*choose renewable if you’d rather)
Since you are an expert in the field I assume you know that it doesn’t mater about batteries they won’t help the grid. The grid as it is today MUST have a significant portion of the online generation stabilized by rotating generators. The report above stated clearly that without the Heywood link the entire system in SA could be destabilized with potential for serious problems. The report does it’s best not to sound too worrying however I read it with the mind that the authors were doing there best to cover their asses with paper.
Already the grid cannot function reliably without MANDATORY synchronous generation yet you want to squeeze those providers even more and brag about it as a good thing!!!!
Look, you have taken advantage of a financial boondoggle and I don’t necessarily blame you for doing that. You apparently have expertise that should allow you to continue with your gains without much problem for yourself at least.
But lets consider a solar prospect that is 55 years old. They have no mechanical-electrical ability (in fact they would be dangerous to themselves) and must rely on outside technical support. You have to admit that this would seriously affect their “return” on investment right? Then imagine the 55 year old who might be limber enough to clamber up onto the roof and clean the array, but what about when the array is 20 years old? Would they hire the neighborhood teen to risk his life or be required to hire a licensed contractor to go to the roof? What expense? Do the economics work out so well then?
Sorry Rick, Solar (or any homespun) power generation will never be more than novel. Good enough for competent experimenters but for the mass public? NO! Drawn by the lucre of subsidies will lead to serious life safety problems.
10
I forgot to address this:
OK so that would be YOU then (if you’re in SA) or all the others that have solar installed? You are the only one benefiting. The rest are paying you via subsidies they are not benefiting.
I agree you should have to pay.
10
The “piddling” comment was with a touch of sarcasm.
Any high inertia load as well as generator helps grid stability.
Batteries can reduce the peak output of solar and wind so any rotating generator or load will have a proportionally larger impact if batteries are widely used. There is no reason grid operators cannot eventually use demand control as well to help with system stability – smart meters enable that already.
A solar/battery system is infinitely simpler than a mobile phone and many over 55yo use those without problem. Modern automobiles are also infinitely more complex than a solar/battery system. I guess a reasonable proportion of over 55yo males would have some experience servicing their first car but very few, not in the trade, look in the engine compartment these days.
At a cost one can have the solar system remotely monitored and be advised if there are issues.
All power consumers in SA benefit from the zero fuel cost of solar and wind – one of the papers I linked to above describes how merit order load scheduling works. The AEMO price data shows how generating prices are falling as renewables increase. Sometimes coal stations will accept negative prices but that is not sustainable because they do not have zero fuel costs. Renewable power has zero fuel cost and low maintenance cost so is the highest merit order on a sustained basis. There will come a time when there is so much renewable power on the grid that its output has to be managed.
12
Rick,
“All power consumers in SA benefit from the zero fuel cost of solar and wind” so how come SA has the HIGHEST electricity tariffs in the 4 SE States?
It is because generators have capital and maintenance costs. An equivalent amount of wind turbine electricity has a capital cost roughly 3 times that of a coal fired station. (Divide cost of turbine by capacity factor). Turbines have a much shorter life than coal, gas or nuclear plants so payback times are shorter (i.e. more per year). Also maintenance costs of wind turbines are between 10 (UK) and 20% (Germany) of revenue generated.
And for your information the Manager at one of the SA wind farms stated that their cost per MWh was $A111, compared with $32-36 from coal. That was a coupe of years ago and I don’t have the link handy. Latest UK estimate of cost was over $A140 but that includes some off-shore (more expensive) wind farms.
30
This is some cost data from Europe:
“The index, based on contractual data submitted on a confidential basis by leading players in the wind energy sector worldwide, shows that the average price for full-service O&M offerings for onshore wind farms (including scheduled and unscheduled maintenance works and component replacement fell to $23,834 (EUR 19,200) per MW annually in 2012, from $30,358 (EUR 30,900) per MW in 2008 – a cumulative decrease of 38%, or just over 11% per year.”
From here:
http://www.pacetoday.com.au/news/wind-farm-operation-and-maintenance-costs-plummet
So about $20/MWh for operating and maintenance.
Annual report for Australian operator gives AUD23/MWh for O&M:
http://infigen2014.reportonline.com.au/management-and-discussion-analysis/australia
All new technologies take time to reach maturity. As experience is gained and reflected in the design and maintenance, process costs will continue to come down.
The costs are falling with renewables:
“Australia is unlikely to build new baseload power stations burning coal because of tumbling prices for renewable energy and the rising cost of finance for emission-intensive fuels, according to research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Even without a carbon price, wind energy is now 14 per cent cheaper than a new baseload coal-fired power station and 18 per cent cheaper than a new gas one, BNEF said in a new report.”
From this link:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/rising-risk-prices-out-new-coalfired-plants-report-20130207-2e0s4.html
Financiers are seeing high risks attached to coal projects. Here is an example:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/qld-coal-projects-carry-unprecedented-investor-risk-ieefa-93718
If the projects cannot get funds they will not proceed.
There is a death spiral for conventional generating assets once the new technologies are cost competitive. The lack of funding for the old technologies mean the assets age and degrade so performance deteriorates. R&D stops so there are no significant advances in technology.
00
Hmm!
Wonder what happens then, when two thirds of every watt of power being generated is required on a 24/7/365 basis.
Surely you’re aware of load curves.
Tony.
00
Rick
I am “off grid” and not subject to subsidies.
I have some solar and batteries, does a few lights, TV and computer. The economics is terrible.
For all else I have generator, gas, fuel stove and solar hot water.
You might like to explain a “5KWh” battery.
Despite Tony’s bad experience solar hot water is far more efficient. Unless of course your conscience will let you claim (and waste) “toorightmate’s” subsidy.
And for Tony
If my system goes “us” I have to fix it, and 5 days is unacceptable.
Doug
91
Doug
If you are using lead/acid batteries you have made a poor choice.
My battery comprises 16 LiFePO4 cells rated at 100Ah. The battery operates between 53 and 55V over most days. In winter it can get down to 52V if it does not fully recover on a particular day of low sunshine. I have panels oriented to make the most of winter sun. I have power to burn in summer with the off-grid system.
The overall cycle efficiency of the LiFePO4 batteries is close to 95%. With lead/acid it is usually less than 80% and as they age it drops even further. Also lithium can be taken down to 80% DoD and still give 10,000 cycles. The best lead acid will give around 2,000 cycles at 30% DoD. It is not possible to get an economic return using lead/acid batteries under present power pricing in Melbourne. The return using a lithium battery purchased and installed under competitive terms has an IRR around 7% in Melbourne. That analysis was a year ago. I have not updated battery or panel prices lately but I know the price of cells is creeping up as the exchange rate falls.
As a matter of interest I have taken my 100Ah lithium cells down to 49V on two separate occasions to test their capacity and both times I got 120Ah out of them. Cells were purchased from EVWorks in WA. After 15 months in operation I cannot detect any deterioration.
45
Rick
OK Hit me with some $ numbers.
My lead acid set are only about a quarter of your set and the last lot lasted 5 years. (There are only light, or short, loads.)
How much are your fancy batteries going to cost me remembering I paying 6% on my overdraft.
Doug
20
Doug
Your question needs context to give exact numbers.
I live in Melbourne. My solar panels average about 3.5 hours of rated sunlight a day. I have them oriented as best as my roof allows to make the best of winter sun. A good rule of thumb here is to have a solar array with a kW rating equivalent to your daily kWh demand. That means you will fully recover on a day with only 1 hour of rated sunshine – I have had as little as 20 minutes on one day followed by a couple of days not a lot over 1 hour. The lithium battery should also have the working capacity to store one days use. For example with battery working from 20% to 90% charge for a 3kWh load it needs a capacity of 3/0.7 giving about 4kWh. I expect to get 20 years from my battery but there is not many around to to get life data. My oldest lithium battery is 7 years old but it is only used intermittently. It still holds charge over a year and has the same capacity as new.
You can get prices for LiFePO4 cells here:
http://www.evworks.com.au/battery-systems/batteries/
You need 16 cells for a 50V system. I prefer individual cells to 12V batteries because you cannot monitor the balance of enclosed cells.
If you have different types of load then it makes sense to use multiple load controllers set at different cut out voltages. I use this type:
http://www.lowenergydevelopments.com.au/50A-48V-Solar-Regulator
I have one for fridge and freezer that takes the battery down to 50V before cutout and another for the yet to be installed electric hot water that will only use the top end of the battery down to 53.5V. I will rely on the thermal capacity of the water for energy storage.
This site is not bad for estimating the rated sunshine in any specific location. It has Australian capital cities and a few other locations:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/calculators/pvwatts/version1/version1_index.html
There are other sites that have solar radiation data for Australian locations. You may have your own information already.
31
Rick
OK so I’ve done some comparisons and if I am going to be around for more than another 5 years I would have been a little better of with Li.
But I suspect you have missed the point. We’re talking quite small powers. There is no way your power can be comparative with grid if you have to be able to cook breakfast and foot the initial set up bill yourself.
I have no choice. I have been doing this for 28 years and built this house with a steep north facing roof to take panels.
Storage is what kills your efficiency and yes hot water is good, for storage, but solar hot water panels are far more efficient than electric.
Doug
20
Lithium batteries return 95% of the energy that goes into them. They are very efficient. Lithium storage batteries are rated at the 2 hour discharge rate and 5 hour charge rate. Instantaneous demand in any system rarely exceeds the 2 hour rate that their capacity is based on. By contrast lead/acid for storage are rated at the 100 hour rate. If they are pulled any harder than the 10 hour rate their efficiency drops below 70%; meaning 30% of the energy that goes into them is lost in high demand applications such as cooking.
In Melbourne it is more economic to use solar panels for electric heating than radiation heaters. There is significant expense in providing the high throughput gas booster heating that is needed. Providing there is roof space for solar panels it is possible to buy all the panels needed simply making up the difference in cost between a simple electric water heater and solar radiation heater. Also the quality of electrical energy produced by the solar panels does not change with ambient temperature and light conditions whereas radiation heaters are more affected by the ambient conditions. The efficiency of a radiation heater is not much better than a solar panel during winter when the hot water is needed the most. The PV panels require more area but the system cost is no more than a radiant system and it does not need gas boosting.
21
Rick
Does seem Li has come a long way since I opted for lead/acid but 95% efficiency is taking some believing. It would be easy, and normal, to lose 5% in the regulator.
My 2 solar hot water panels, now over 25 years old, have provided hot water in the summer reasonably well and with low maintenance. They can heat 300Lt water to useable shower in a day. The water here in the hills (New England, NSW) starts pretty cold so it needs at least 20 deg C so 20 x 300 is…a lot of electricity (PV panels). Winter the fuel stove heats the water, the house and provides “ambiance”. If it all goes bust I could heat it with the generator.
Elsewhere you quote voltaic panels at “USD400perkW”. A quick google revels, and I paid circa, $419 (Aus) for a 250 watt panel… and I still have to put it up. Here there can be cloud for weeks so you will need more than “a days” worth of storage installed, not cells quoted in the shop. Please start your maths with real numbers.
Just previewing this I am alarmed at how negative I have become. I appreciate that Rick might know “the business” pretty well but sometimes we don’t look at the real and the big picture. What does it cost Australia, and the world for that matter.
Doug
10
Thanks Rick,
Despite my overall scepticism about solar power I am interested in what you have done.
Going even partially off grid is a big and quite expensive experiment. In some ways it is an expression of Liberty to make your own power and not contribute to , or require public infrastructure.
I do hope that you update your experience from time to time, particularly about your batteries performance.
40
Doug
I purchased my off grid panels from this place. They deliver over Australia:
http://www.lowenergydevelopments.com.au/Solar-Panel-250W-Monoycrystalline
This is $1/W in Australia. The USD400/kW is the manufacturing cost in China in relation to the fairy tale about panels having an energy return on energy invested less then one. After the factory cost there is a profit margin, shipping to Australia, exchange rate and retail margin here. That takes the USD400/kW in China to the AUD1000/kW in my car. It costs me $200/kW to mount them using standard brackets and rails.
The 95% efficiency is the battery alone. You do not recover all the energy put into the battery mainly due to the difference between charge voltage and discharge voltage. The linked chart shows the comparison of a 200Ah lithium battery and a 400Ah lead/acid battery, both nominally 48V, subject to a load of 4kW for 2 hours and recharge at 80A: http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Battery_Cycle.pdf
The inverter losses are taken as 5% or 400Wh for the 8000Wh used. Note that to get the 8kWh out of the lithium battery and recharge it requires 8744Wh meaning the battery losses are 344Wh – less than 5%. For the lead/acid it takes 9736Wh meaning the battery loses are 1336Wh – more than 16%.
Note that the lead/acid battery is nominally twice the capacity so only being worked at half the C-rate but its losses are more than three times the lithium. Notice the large variation between discharge voltage and charge voltage with the lead acid. This loading cycle is intended to simulate an evening and morning peak followed by recovery through the day light.
Solar panels will produce some energy every day. The lowest I have seen in Melbourne is 20 minutes equivalent full sunshine over a day. There are no more than 10 days a year when it less than 1 hour. If you have solar panels that can provide your load with 1 hour of full sunshine and a lithium battery with a nominal capacity 30% above your daily usage I expect you will not have blackouts. You can also use different load controllers to have non-critical loads cutting out before critical loads.
The table on this link gives insolation for Tamworth. That location may have more reliable sunshine than further east. No data for Armidale:
http://aussiervproducts.com.au/solar-mapping
Tamworth averages 6 hours of sunshine, which is substantially better than the 5.1 hours given for Melbourne. My on grid system averages 3.5 hours of sunshine but the panels are not set at optimum angle and they are partially shaded by a large tree. My offgrid system only uses the full capacity of the panels a few days a year.
The most economic off-grid system requires a small generator but I have 300sq.m for roof panels and it is easy to have excess panels rather than handling liquid fuel. As an aside my mower uses lithium batteries to avoid storing and handling petrol:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Mower_Battery.jpg
These are 10Ah LiFePO4 cans. There are expensive with regard to capacity compared with the larger plastic encased cells.
If you are interested this link shows my 5kWh off-grid lithium battery:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/100_2366.JPG
Each of the 16 cells weigh 3.3kg and they require little space. I would need to go up to about 12 to 15kWh to go off grid completely. I would also buy a small generator to trickle charge the battery but with the aim of it never being used.
10
Thanks Rick for the “heads up” and usable info.
When I get a bit more time I’ll look closer.
Some of your comments brings me to a pet beef of mine; “The global warming hype has stolen/distorted the the real environment debate”.
Doug
10
I agree Doug.
The merits of renewables are often not considered without reference to global warming. Development of the technology has no doubt been faster due to hyping the CO2 story but direct solar was always going to happen. It makes sense to use remotely produced fusion energy from a near unlimited source that is 8 minutes old, delivered free directly to your rooftop in quantities well in excess of household need rather than digging up fossils that stored the energy produced by the same source eons ago; burning to produce steam; using the steam to turn a turbine that drives a generator to produce electricity that is transmitted over large towers for hundreds of kilometres to user centres where it is distributed to households, metered, billed and then paid for – an incredibly complex system replaced with a very simple one where individual users have total control.
Now that the solar industry is economically viable ongoing government support just makes it fat and lazy like many of the monopoly network providers in Australia that distributed power generation and storage will force to be competitive. There is no longer a monopoly on power generation. Batteries will provide competition for networks. Users now have a choice of paying a service fee with unbalanced tariffs or going off grid. As the technology develops the decision gets easier.
20
Rick
Seems we are pretty much on the same page.
There are however some limits. The power needs in high density cities and for industry are more efficiently met with coal/gas/nuclear. The area required to collect that much directly from the sun is massive.
If the “coal power industry” has gotten corrupt then it it mans fault, not the technology.
As an aside I would be on hydro if the “environmental people” hadn’t gotten in the way.
I also have sympathy for those here complaining about subsidizing your power bill. Our farmers association dodges the global warming issue as in some areas we have our snouts in the trough (think bio-fuel) so I have reduced my activities there as I respect my conscience. Some of the research generated in the name of the global warming threat was good and worthwhile but that doesn’t make it right.
Your statement that it is time for the solar industry to go it alone is worth a lot of green thumps.
Doug
00
FarmerDoug2,
I think you’re missing the point about the subsidies. In order for you to get a reduced electric bill the govt pays the difference to the provider. That money comes from increased electric bills to every body else.
You save money because others pay more.
How can you feel comfortable with that arrangement?
Abe
00
How I detest having to come in every time and reply to these rooftop solar fairy tales.
With them, it’s always ….. me, me me.
Let me say this right up. At no stage ….. EVER is this person reliant solely upon his rooftop panes, his inverters, his batteries, all of which we have paid for, you and me. This person is nowhere near reliant upon his rooftop panels. He would have a car, requiring fuel, and driving on roads controlled by and lit by the availability of 24/7/365 power. He has a job he goes to, also reliant upon those same power sources. He has a wife, probably also who works, and children who go to a comfortable school with heating and air. He shops, in Malls and supermarkets all powered 24/7/365, all consuming huge amounts of power. And on and on and on.
He’s not even reliant on his rooftop panels for his home power needs. There are some people who say that they generate total power from their panels enough to cover all their needs. The residential home consumes two thirds of its total power consumption after the panels stop generating. They claim that the excess generated during the day covers their out of hours consumption. That’s not their power any more as they have sold it for profit. They cannot now claim it back, as if the grid is their own private battery. If they make that excess, and then consume it back after hours from sources which can actually provide power out of hours, power that they need, then let them pay the same as for the FIT when they use it back after hours, and then see how many rooftop solar systems are sold.
ME me me. I’m bl00dy well sick of it.
This person then goes on to say the process for large scale power generation is useless when compared to user generation for rooftop panels.
Me me me.
Residential power consumption in Australia is only 28% of all power consumption. Lets’ actually pretend people can be compelled to install rooftop panels to meet their needs. The actual number of homes would be small after taking out those old houses which will expire before the life of the panels. Then there’s apartments and units, none which can supply their own individual needs. Then there’s rentals none of which will be covered with panels by owners when the only person getting the advantage is the occupant. Take out all of them, and you have around 10, maybe 12% of homes with panels.
Please totally and utterly disregard what he says here about the life of over 25 years. Please totally and utterly disregard all he says here about generating the same form the panels over their life. Please totally and utterly disregard what he says about battery life. Please totally and utterly disregard what he says about one day backup when the minimum standard is three and the recommendation is for five days. Please totally and utterly disregard where he says he will get 20 years out of his Lithium batteries.
Me me me.
For people like FarmerDoug2 who are in areas where grid power is unavailable for one reason or another, then yes, it probably is an option, but done correctly a huge cost, and an ongoing huge cost, so Doug, this is in no way aimed at you. I know you are sincerely enquiring, but please, take what he says with not just a grain of salt, but a whole salt pig full of salt.
Oh, and one last point, and I could go on here for literally ages, but his residential consumption is around 7.3MWH per year. The AVERAGE 5 story workplace has a consumption of around 200MWH per year, and requires power for 24/7/365, just to keep breathable air circulating throughout that building.
Now look at just the Sydney skyline alone. There’s 12TWH per year, or 12,000,000MWH per year or 1.65 Million homes. All that you see on that Sydney skyline requires 24/7/365 power.
So then, this person then writes this:
Me me me.
I’m sick of it.
Tony.
32
Just-A-Guy
Like I said, I’m off grid and I don’t get any subsidies or FITs – nothing! and I sympathize with your complaining. Like I said “I respect my conscience”.
Tony – Agree
You commented “… done correctly a huge cost.” I abandoned hydro for that reason. Neighbors have very useful hydro plants that are in fact illegal. I have timber interests and am subject to inspections from DEC so thought I should do it right (as in legal). $10,000 before I even turn a sod.
Note that my solar only does light or short loads. The vast majority of my energy is gas, wood fuel, or generator. When this set of batteries goes “life ex”, probably about the same time as the generator, I will, again, look at ways of getting less generator hours.
Rick suggests they “go it alone”. I like that and I’ll stand by the green thumb I gave him. Put up all the panels they like but don’t expect you, me and Just-A-Guy to pay for it. FIT should be going rate less metering.
You said “totally disregard what he says about…”. I’ve been driving this set up, without Just-A Guys help, for 28 years….I know, . . but I guess there would be less experienced watchers.
Doug
00
FarmerDoug2: I have no objection to people living off the grid if they pay 100% of the cost and get no tax credits or subsidies. It’s certainly not for everyone. It’s also quite expensive and maintenance intensive. I object to people painting the whole “experience” as some kind of utopia that we are all missing. “Going it alone” is really a false assessment. You buy fuel for your generator and your car (unless you use a horse and wagon). You buy at supermarkets. You buy batteries. You buy solar panels. What you really do is buy stuff to make electricity. You are as dependent on your suppliers as everyone else is on the grid. You don’t refine your oil, you don’t drill for oil, you don’t make your own batteries. You are not independent, you are dependent on different sources than on-grid users. Please be honest when claiming “independence”.
00
Rick,
The rest of the users are paying for your profit with increased tariffs – thats why the tariffs increased, and to cover an even larger subsidy than first realized the energy providers tacked on daily supply charges that started at 90 cents a day 6 years ago and are now 1.26 a day.
We pay double now because we pay for 100% contract for alternative producers to supply energy and then we pay 90% for the coal/gas generated power that makes up the 90% shortfall that alternative energy actually does not provide.
And other than picking the hip pockets of those that can least afford it, for the life of me I can’t see the point in paying for a product that does not work as advertised and pay again for the product we use anyway.
Alternative producers are given grants by the taxpayer to manufacture and install then are subsidised by the taxpayer to give them profits they have not made.
Explain to me how that isn’t a rort.
81
James
You would need to look at the make up of the charges for your network provider and retailer. My network supplier, Ausnet, have big increases in costs due to power line maintenance and upgrades in the aftermath of Victorian bush fires. There are also legal costs and compensation associated with that. They have also had substantial increases related to smart meter installation. I actually paid for my own smart meter so I could get the two way metering and take advantage of the top FIT when my grid connected system was installed. Smart meters reduce the meter reading costs so should result in a cost reduction but that never happens in the power supply industry.
As far as rorting goes take a look at what salaries your network provider and retailer pay their senior executives. See if that sits well with your view of turning power off to those who can least afford it.
There is no doubt that rooftop solar has reduced grid demand and reduced the cost of power generated. Batteries can have a significant impact on network costs. In fact there are large battery systems being installed to peak load lop in some areas to defer the cost of upgrading networks.
One of the downsides with solar in new subdivisions is that the networks have to be designed on the basis of very large take up of rooftop systems making the exported power greater than the imported power. Again distributed storage in the form of off-grid systems diminishes that problem.
Most people have mobile phones these days and they are usually pay as you go. I can remember the days when only the privileged could afford a house phone and there was a substantial connection fee to get it installed and connected. I believe mobile phone technology provides a good model for what will happen with household power. There are already power suppliers getting into the act of selling electricity from rooftop system they instal on a pay as you go basis. For example this link discusses AGL’s strategy:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/agl-promotes-solar-energy-for-households/story-e6frg9df-1227124958454
“We need to supply energy cost-effectively from the grid and to give the consumer the opportunity to produce their own power on their roof,” he said.
“A lot of commentators think a large company like AGL is not going to embrace this technology but we have decided to.”
Imagine if they have central control of a few million batteries distributed throughout their network what they can do with load management.
I am expanding my options for energy supply. As a self-funded retiree inflation is one factor that concerns me. Electric power is something I cannot live without so I like the idea of having that cost (or income) under my total control.
I am one of the early adopters of solar and have been well rewarded for the significant investment I made a few years ago. To me it is compelling technology that I want to be involved with. For a little effort of my own I can have free electric power.
I can easily separate the global warming scare and the substantial costs going into R&D on renewable energy. I am happy to benefit from the development as I am to make use of mobile phones.
23
Judas Priest, do I really need to reply to all this load of (insert your own apt word here) when it’s so full of lies and fractions of the truth.
Rick, I’m paying you for all of this, you immoral sponger off your fellow man you.
If it’s so good, go completely off the grid. Support yourself with your belief structure. Write to your power provider and tell them that you think it’s immoral to be paid your exorbitant FIT until 2024, when, (as you so incorrectly assert) you are generating the power for one cent per KiloWattHour, and that they should just pay you that much for all the tiny power you return to the grid.
You are living off the backs of people who cannot afford to take advantage of what you so callously refer to as an economic decision. You people make my skin crawl when you gloat about taking advantage of us.
Sorry.
Tony.
102
Tony
Is/was your rental property negatively geared. If it is/was you are one of those inconsiderate “investors” driving up the prices of Australia’s housing stock.
Negative gearing is by far and away the biggest legal rort in Australia. It has made housing unaffordable for young Australians. More than half the housing loans are now going into negatively geared property “investments”.
Are you squeaky clean as far as legal rorts go. Should you be paying back all the tax write-offs you have made?
16
Rick,
please learn to read.
I’m the one who’s renting the home I live in.
I have never owned a rental property in all my life.
And hey, what legal rorts are you asserting I have taken in my life. I served my Country as a member of the RAAF for 25 years. I never made enough money to rort anybody for anything.
My wife and I have a part pension which adds to my even tinier Superannuation I receive for all those years of service.
I have never written anything off the tax I payed ever.
Embarrassed yet? I doubt it.
Tony.
51
OK you do not own the rental house you referred to –
You did not read what I wrote. I am not generating electricity for 1cent/kWh. That is the cost of power needed to recover the manufacturing cost of a solar panel over a 25 year life if installed in Melbourne. It would be less if installed in North Queensland. For my off-grid system the battery works out at 19cents/kWh stored and the solar panels 7cents/kWh generated on a 20 year life at 4% cost of funds. That leaves a good margin to the standard tariff. An even better margin to my generous FIT.
Energy costs in Queensland were $51.65/MWh in 99/00. They were $52,06/MWh in 14/15. Do you think that power prices into the grid would be static over a 15 year period if there was no competition from solar power:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/solar-sends-energy-prices-below-zero-in-middle-of-day-63767
Also solar is generated close to the point of use so there are no transmission losses and distribution losses are low.
02
Lots of facts and figures from both Rick and Tony but there’s another factor driving home solar uptake. Australain’s are generally a giving society, donating to charities, volunteering many hours of spare time to sporting and recreational groups, caring for animals, cleaning up the waterways, most Aussies have open wallets and plenty of spare time when they see it as going to the right cause, but when it comes to the power companies the attitude of the electricity buying public is pretty hostile. The average customer doesn’t want to pay one cent extra to a body that gifts it’s executive’s large wages and a often large bonus, the same executives that avoid all responsibility when things go wrong. So when the opportunity arises for Mr and Mrs general public to get a subsidised PV solar system that will reduce their electricity bill by 30 to 80% their going to grab it. Does Mr and Mrs General public understand the effect solar panels have on the power grid? Some may do, but lets be clear on this, the majority dont give a stuff, that’s the job of the overpaid executive to sort out.
20
Willard: You got it. As noted in my #46 comment, solar panels are sold based in the US on the vindictive nature of the buyer. “Stick it to the power company. The power company is evil.” Who cares the power company is the one that allowed your current standard of living, allows the manufacture of the solar panels, lights your hospitals, etc? Who cares you have no emergency rooms, grocery stores, and homeless shelters without the power company? Stick it to them. There’s nothing caring or kind or generous about using solar when it’s tied to the grid. It’s greed and vindictiveness that sells it. I am always disturbed by people who think they are sticking it to anything while lapping up all the benefits. To me, that’s selfish and uncaring. It’s myopic. Unfortunately, it describes most of the environment movement and much of consumer sales.
10
That’s about where we were after Hurricane Charley in 2004. I think we were out for 6 days and many in our area still didn’t have power when Frances came through. We got run over by 4 storms that year and one guy my wife worked with had solar supposedly installed to Code. Charley took them away rather quickly so they didn’t do him any good either.
50
Tony, my little piddling 3 Kw solar system produced 325 Kwh in February, (October was 490 Kwh) and I used 142 Kwh of grid electricity and 82 Kwh of solar. I try and use as much solar as possible using delays for the dish washer and washing machine and only use the A/C in the day and fans at night as necessary. It really only produces electricity from 10.30 am. to 5pm. due to the orientation of the panels. My question is what happens to the excess 243 Kwh, wouldn’t it be used by my neighbours who haven’t panels?
To have grid power you have fixed charges which are most of my power bill.
30
About a month ago we had a solar rep knock on our front door, after quickly cutting of his sales pitch and saying to him that without subsidies solar would never have got of the ground and that these subsidies were a major contributing factor to the large rise in power cost also that they would never return the power the manufacturing process took. Instead of defending solar he basically agreed, his comeback was he could save me money. I think he missed the point I was trying to make, saving myself money just punishes those less able and make me a parasite.
While all this was happening my wife and daughter were hiding in the hall trying not to laugh.
60
Rooftop solar hot water.
Great. We have it on our rental home, so here’s me thinking we would at least have hot water, well, warm anyway, as that’s really all it ever has been. It has never been as hot as mains powered hot water we have had in all our other homes.
Nup!
Hot tap water died on Saturday afternoon following Friday’s big blow.
On the Tuesday following the big blow, the rental agency rang asking if we had any damage or if we needed any work done. We came through (relatively) unscathed, but had a problem with the flushing mechanism for the toilet. They had a plumber on the doorstep that same afternoon, not that he fixed it, just put in a request to replace the el cheapo spec built house system bought by the builder on the cheap at Bunnings. His eyes even rolled up into his head as soon as he saw the Cistern.
Bl00dy Gemini he said. Useless. We get a new one soon I hope.
Anyway, I quizzed him about the rooftop solar hot water, and he asked if we could see it from ground level, so I showed him.
Ah! Split system he says. No hot water for you then.
The old style systems with the tank on the roof with the panel would in fact still supply hot water throughout any power outage. Mains water pressure will drive water up to the tank. It’s heated by the panel and gravity feed will bring it down into your taps inside the home.
But here he said that people are now beginning to want the more aesthetically cleaner look of just the panel on the roof with the water tank out the back of the home. Looks better than having a big fat round tank on the roofline.
Split system. Costs a lot more also, with the insulated piping to and from the panel inside the ceiling.
Now that there’s the tank out the back of the home, (ahem!) it needs a umm, mains power operated pump to pump the water from the tank up to the panel, and gravity feeds it back to the tank.
Sooooo, no mains power, no hot water.
Also, being a normal tank it is now subject to the Australian Standard for hot water tanks and requires a normal, umm, mains powered element in the bottom of the tank to take up the heating at normal operation.
I quizzed him about cost savings.
The tank on the roof system saves around 70 to 75% of the hot water part of your electricity power bill.
A split system, well perhaps only 40 to maybe 50% of that hot water heating part of your electricity bill.
Either way, no mains power, no hot water, from a bl00dy solar hot water system no less.
What a joke!
Tony.
161
Stupid system. Very common. “Designed” by people with tunnel vision.
They’d only need a 20W (if that) PV solar panel mounted next to the collector for the hot water to circulate water through the split system, and use a DC pump instead of AC. It’s freaking obvious. I dread to think how much training is required to blind one of the obvious.
A lot of DIY systems don’t even employ a battery for “backup” power because when the sun doesn’t shine, you don’t have to circulate the water (in most of Australia). They just run a simple charge-pump circuit off the DC coming from the PV panel to kick the pump over from even low-sun conditions. The brighter the sun, the quicker it pumps. Of course more sophisticated controls can be driven off a few watts of PV as well but the simple system works remarkably well.
No external power required.
90
P.S. If you’ve got a spare, charged car battery and inverter, you can plug the AC powered controller into the interter and run the pump to heat the water in the storage tank.
30
I lived with a system that had a large roof panel hooked up to a tank that used gravity and hot water rising to cycle. The water supply was gravity feed from a tank up the hill that was fed from a Ram Pump on the creek at the bottom of the valley. On a sunny day I would get a hot shower but if it was overcast or raining it was luke warm to cold.
30
OK, I’m shameless enough to link into Posts at my home site.
The site owner was concerned about how I was during the Cyclone. He had no contact at all other than prior to the event when I mentioned that I would be missing after the Cyclone as we would undoubtedly be losing power. I did have phone contact with the outside World, via a dedicated landline, so I rang my sister in Canberra and she contacted the site owner via email and told him we were OK, but without power. She also emailed my two close friends in the U.S. one in St. Louis Missouri, and the other in Stockton California. They even set up a nice repartee with her over a couple of days.
When I did get power back, there were more important things to do than sit in front of the computer so I did not even turn it on until late on the Wednesday night, having spent virtually all day doing those other things, mainly loads of washing.
The owner of the site where I am now an Editor, as well as a contributor, asked if I would write as much as I possibly could about those days during and after the event.
It’s a personal account mainly, and there’s so much I have to write about, so I’m doing it in the form of a Series, with one Post a day until it’s done.
I have an Introductory Post as a Sticky at the top of our site, and in that Sticky Post are the links to each part in the Series.
The link to that post is as follows.
Cyclone Marcia – Rockhampton Queensland Australia
I would also like to mention that Joanne telephoned me after the Cyclone event, and that was indeed a very nice thing for her to do. We spoke for 15 to 20 minutes, and I would like to thank Joanne for her consideration on that front.
Tony.
190
Very interesting account Tony,
Being from the air force, you might take some wind speeds next time. A pitot tube and an airspeed indicator ( from an aeroplane) should do it. I expect that you are hoping that there won’t be a next time!
Do you have any information about why or how the BOM disappeared the data from Middle Percy Is and Samuel Hill?
Your observation that the wind was stronger at the leading edge of the eye would support Marcia being a Cat4 cyclone as it passed by Middle Percy.
31
Peter C,
I was speaking with Ken Stewart, and he mentioned that he was watching the Cyclone as it passed over us here, as he only lives five miles from me. He had also lost power, but had a wireless Internet connection and his battery operated laptop.
He told me that the eye of the Cyclone virtually disappeared very soon after passing over Rockhampton.
He also mentioned that the BOM only keeps its records for three days only, and that’s why he went into the Library here in town soon after the Cyclone to see if he could save some of those records.
I suppose they just keep records on a loop, and the longer the time, then the cost rises.
Tony.
50
I’m glad you came through alright Tony. Your accounts are very interesting…I’ll be looking out for your further ones.
20
I’m interested in what the readers of Joanne’s blog think about a hypothetical situation. Specifically, suppose you could build a system of narrow-walled levees so that all land currently above sea level but not currently covered by ice was under say 10 meters of sea water. Suppose further that the sea water that filled the levees doesn’t come from the oceans but rather came from outer space–maybe comets. Two questions:
(1) Would the amount of water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere increase/decrease/remain the same?
(2) Would the time-averaged/area-averaged Earth surface temperature increase/decrease/remain the same?
My gut-feeling answers are: (1) increase, and (2) decrease. (1) “Increase” because (a) there is more liquid water and (b) the surface area exposed to water is increased. (2) “Decrease” because evaporation lowers the temperature of the volume of water from which the evaporation is occurring.
If my gut feeling is correct, then conditions exist such that increasing the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gas and a cooler, not warmer, Earth surface temperature coexist.
Thoughts anyone.
10
Hi Reed,
In the words of the late John Daly, “We are still waiting for Greenhouse”.
In response to your hypothetical question I thought that I might take a look at some actual observations, taken this morning in Queensland, Australia. Unfortunately the offshore island stations don’t give humidity and dew points so I chose Hervey Bay (coastal) and Gayndah Airport ( inland). Winds were light or calm at both sites. And clear skies from the satellite view.
Hervey Bay
Time, T min, Dew point
05:30, 21.3, 19.9
Gayndah
03:30, 21.9, 20.7
The observations are surprisingly similar. So maybe the answer to your question is not a simple one. I was expecting the dew point at Hervey Bay to be much higher.
20
This post about data from the TAO buoys by Willis Eschenbach is relevant.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/18/tao-and-tao-again/
Willis uses the data from Pacific tropical ocean weather buoys called TAO buoys to demolish a paper by a Dr Ramananthan (Scripps Institute) that tropical water vapour will or does cause a “Super Green House Effect”. The TAO buoys show that atmopspheric humidity over the oceans decreases a with higher Sea Surface Temperatures. Also atmospheric convection and thunderstorms causes sea surface cooling.
The Willis paper also supports an earlier proposal of yours that even a steel greenhouse can be associated with cooler surface temperatures is it is connected to the surface by conducting or convection pathways (in this case the water cycle)
30
The newest in climate scares:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/02/24/388729958/gerbils-likely-pushed-plague-to-europe-in-middle-ages
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/02/25/new-study-claims-gerbils-not-rats-responsible-for-bringing-plague-to-europe/
from this latest PNAS version:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/02/20/1412887112
and an earlier version, which was apparently not scary enough and failed to have the appropriate “climate” in the title to scare people into thinking climate change will be spread by gerbils en masse if we don’t stop with the fossil fuel burning:
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/35/13110.full
It just gets more and more bizarre.
50
“thinking plague will be spread by gerbils.” My lousy typing here….
40
That Gerbil idea is stuffed. 🙁
60
Could perhaps be construed as the harbinger of gerbil worming???
30
One good laugh this morning! We survived our offsprings’ total of 18 gerbils at one time back in the ’80s. One was enormous and known as “Jaws” as he bit. He had been teased by various horrid little boys at our son’s boarding school…I loathed “Jaws” but actually cried when he finally died at more than double the usual lifespan as he was such a character…the others were really rather boring.
BTW…predictive text gave me “perils” when I typed in the”gerbils”!!! 🙂 Must have guessed what the latest hype is!
30
Ban gerbils!….
…..although at least once sector of society will vehemently protest.
30
In the recent JoNova article concerning the NYT Attack on Willie Soon’s Character, one of the comments, apparently posted by an AGW adherent, Timboss asks:
Timboss provides a link to an article on the realclimate.org website. That article in realclimate is replete with logical errors and data manipulation, as we’ve all come to expect from them. I replied to Timboss pointing out two of those errors. The first is an error in logic, the straw man logical fallacy. The second is a case of misrepresenting the data used to rebut Willie Soon. Please go back and review these comments to see how the propaganda works.
There are two reasons for posting this comment now. The first is to show how the data manipulation was achieved.
When attempting to plot two types of data on the same graph, a problem that often comes up is caused by the range of values being different for each of the data types.
The temperature data is represented by the anomaly, or divergence, of the average temperature from a predetermined mean. The IPCC calls this the station normal and they have set this normal by using the period from 1960 to 1990. That’s the 0(zero) on the graphs that we regularly see. The anomaly is marked on the Y-axis of these graphs in increments of 0.1° or 0.2° celsius.
Total Solar Irradiance, is measured in W/m2, (watts per meter squared). The range for these values is from approximately 1360 W/m2 to 1362 W/m2. But, the range of values in a temperature anomaly graph is about 1° celsius plus or minus. So the problem is how to get these two items on the same graph when one fluctuates about the zero mark and the other fluctuates about 1361 mark.
To demonstrate this problem, here’s a graph of the Gistemp LOTI global mean and the PMOD composite TSI reconstruction from the Wood for Trees website. All of the detail is lost because of where the mean of each of the data sets is located. In order to alleviate this problem, one of the data sets has to be offset to coincide with the other. In this case the offset is applied to the TSI with an offset of minus 1365. It is critical here to observe that the only adjustment made to this graph is the offset and nothing else.
But, because of the range of the TSI being wider than the range in temperatures, the range of the TSI needs to scaled also. The graph of TSI scaled to 0.5 shows a very close fit up until around the year 2000.
Observations and Conclusion
First of all, a disclusure. I do not have access to the SORCE data reconstruction in such a way as to actually map it together with the GISTEMP data on a graph. I have no programs to plot the data and present it here. This is why I’ve used the only data available to me, i.e. the Wood for Trees data. The concepts applied to this limited available data can be applied to the the data used by Gavin at realclimate,org. By looking at Gavins graphs and taking into account what I’ve described here, it’s clear that the data in Gavins graphs was presented in such a way as to blur the correlations between the temperature data and the solar TSI data.
Although Gavins graph states that the TSI was scaled for maximum correlation to temperature, and that The SORCE TSI reconstruction is, “…a more modern and more credible reconstruction…”. We now see that this is clearly not the case. Were this to be true, we would continue see the close correlation in the late twentieth century between these two data sets.
The reason for the lack of correlation in the post 1995-2000 era can partially/mostly be attributed to the GISTEMP data set being constantly revised upward while the pre 1960-1975 data is constantly being revised downward. These revisions are now being investigated by Australian authorities and most likely by the US congress.
I mentioned at the beginning of this comment that there were two reasons for posting this reply now. The second reason is that Timboss’ comment went uncontested for more than three days giving the impression that no one could refute the realclimate article. It is imperative that all such claims be answered with rational responses and the logical errors and data manipulation cannot go unaddressed.
Abe
70
TonyfromOz,
Welcome back. Good to see you’re safe and sound.
I’ve read about Thorium based liquid cooled nuclear power. What’s your take on this technology and do you know what’s happening with the research being conducted in Australia?
Abe
50
Just a quick story for a Sunday.
I bought a book on how to make evil believable, for story writers. The Power of the Dark Side by Pamela Jaye Smith. I was reading randomly yesterday when I hit the chapter called “7 Groupthink Stinks”, and was struck by what it said, so similar, so familiar;
Groupthink drives one of the biggest industries on the planet – fashion, and its ancillaries diet and fitness. Political correctness is a bow to ethic groupthink. Many armed conflicts are symptoms of groupthink gone bad. Lines of lemmings jumping off Arctic cliffs and rows of soldiers marching in lockstep signify the downside of groupthink. Groupthink is so prevalent we even measure time and the progress of culture by it, using terms such as zeitgest (the spirit lf an age, when everybody thought such-and-such) or “The Age of Reason”, or “The Hippie Era.” Such monolithic backgrounds can provide looming opposition for your heroine’s individuality.
There are different kinds of groupthink.
1) Hive-herd-tribal instinct. It causes us to huddle in times or danger, to shun the “other,” and to cluster into strata, cliques, and castes. It is our animal nature.
2) Seeminly rational thinking. A group of individuals makes decisions contrary to their own needs, which supposedly fulfills the needs of the group, e.g. soldiers in combat giving their own lives for others, for principles, or beliefs.
3) Forced groupthink. An individual or small cluster of people impose their will on a much larger group through the use of force, fear, propaganda, desire, faith, or any combination thereof. Murderous military dictatorships and repressive religions fall into this category.
So there you have it. They are “evil”, as defined by a book on evil.
30
Here’s an interesting advertorial on the Eiffel tower – they’ve installed 2 wind turbines, 7m high, with a 3m span, which are 127m above the ground. They are supposedly capable of generating “10000 kWh/year”, or as the article says, enough to power the 1st floor shop – which is a pretty impressive amount of power given that said shop is a cafe selling a lot of hot/cold food/drinks as well as tourist trinkets. (unless i am mixing this up with the 2nd floor…)
No mention of how they power the ‘you’re really paying a lot for the view, not the food’ restaurant ‘Jules Verne’
This e-mag is ostensibly centred around the Velib network of bicycles for hire, which is absolutely brilliant, dirt cheap, and very convenient, despite being run by an advertising conglomerate. Sorry, the original is in French, but it is easy enough to translate…
As far as the upcoming meeting in Paris, they have this to say:
“…For monument Operating Company (SETE), this is a symbolic gesture that places the Eiffel Tower in the foreground on the issue of renewable energy while Paris will host end of the year the international conference Climate Change (COP 21). Little information of high ecological consequence: the Eiffel Tower annually consumes the equivalent of the electricity needs of a town of 3000 inhabitants. This year, electricity fed to the Eiffel Tower is 100% renewable. Nothing much to brighten the world a lady of 125 years!…”
30
I don’t really think it makes any difference whether they’re talking about the two shops or the leg kiosks, it’s very little power. IF the wind blew consistently during the hours of operation, nominally 9am to midnight, for 365 days in a year that’s about 27.4 kWhr per day available. If we include cleaning, stocking time and closing at 1am figure they need power 17 hours a day, ’cause they NEVER close a gift shop when its associated monument closes. They stay open to sell stuff to the folks just booted out. If they had all LED lighting and manual cash registers they might make it… but I doubt it. I’ve never been there but retail spaces need to keep a fairly high illumination level. Consider that they can only use an average of 1,600 Watts per hour… they can’t even run a small commercial coffee pot… even if they turn off the lights. Heck, a small consumer coffee pot and the lights would probably overload it and I’m being really generous to think they can run the lights. Forget running a decent kettle… anything over 7 Amperes won’t work. If they’ve designed to code that would be 5.6 Amps. Again, assuming that the wind was ALWAYS blowing at the optimal speed or higher.
It sounds like the usual math, science and engineering challenged “green” energy lies, propaganda and myth.
50
Sure, it’s obviously just for show… this I have no doubts about, just like le Jardin de l’Hôtel de Ville – 1600m2 of garden with chickens and rabbits…
Obviously there’s nothing inherently bad about any of it, but who knows what my Spanish speaking socialist lord mayor will come up with next…
20
Zero CO2 emissions “saved”. It’s mostly nuclear-powered.
I use about 5000 kWh/year in my house+home office. Tight-as.
Now 10,000 kWh a year for a store with customers buying hot food, drinks, … pull the other one. Maybe for one or two of the coffee machines.
Le Facts:
Let’s write out those numbers again.
7,800,000 kWh electricity consumption
0,705,000 kWh heating and airconditioning
————–
8,505,000 kWh Total consumed
0,010,000 kWh claimed “renewables”
The contribution of the renewables is “noise”; in the parts per thousand.
Ecological sanctity is granted via the magic of offsets.
The whirly-gigs are purely symbolic to signify prostration at the feet of Gaia.
10
Have a good laugh to start your morning.
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/03/brits-sick-of-bbc-pandering-to-terrorists/
Serious topic but wonderful,funny writing.
60
Autumn is here. What happened to Summer?
50
According to the IPCC It is hiding in the ocean.
There are no records proving this or any explanation as to how it got there without anyone noticing, but the theory is right in line with other global warming/climate disruption claims, so it must be right.
Rest assured that at some future time the stored summer will rise to the surface and cause unspecified disasters. Sell your beachfront property cheaply and head for the hills. Contact the Climate Council for a list of suitable buyers.
51
Finally, common sense on Marcia gets into the Townsville Bulletin. Hopefully this will spread.
http://tinyurl.com/ln6ekoa
There is expanded comment on the CTS web page:
https://www.jcu.edu.au/cts/
Maybe CTS Director Dr David Henderson’s comments will encourage some of the know-nothings at JCU to put a sock in it.
30
Bravo JCU.
That institution would be great with someone like Bob Carter involved.
10
jimbo in the comments at WUWTs Pachauri thread linked in the comments above posts this one:
26 Feb: India Times: Kunal Anand: Greenpeace India Admits It Didn’t Act On Employee Sexual Harassment Complaints
Greenpeace India said it will re-examine the sexual harassment allegations levelled by an employee against certain other employees. The NGO’s statement also mentioned that the allegations had not been “inadequately” dealt with. The matter came to head after screenshots of a Facebook conversation between former Greenpeace activists were posted on Twitter, mentioning alleged sexual harassment at the workplace and Greenpeace’s alleged inaction on harassment complaints…
(from the Greenpeace statement) “Greenpeace India is completely committed to equality at work and we have written to our former colleague saying we are very keen to fully and comprehensively address her complaint. She deserves both an apology and a meticulous examination of what happened.
“Greenpeace India has women in many of the senior positions in the organisation. We have a gender specialist on our complaints committee. But two years ago our processes failed. Our former colleague was right and we were wrong. We have to hold up our hands and admit that”
http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/greenpeace-india-admits-it-didnt-act-on-employee-sexual-harassment-complaints-230584.html
this story is dated 26 Feb & yet the only google news results to date are from:
only google news results, a WSJ blog, HuffPoIndia, AsiaOne and the IndiaTimes.
where are the ABC/Fairfax/Guardian women’s champions when u need them? hypocrites.
where’s the rest of the media as well?
40
the first ABC piece to appear online re the Fairfax/IPSOS poll, tho it has been mentioned on air this morning. those pieces will, hopefully, appear online soon:
29 mins ago: ABC: Liberal leadership: Andrew Robb warns disgruntled MPs to ‘pull their heads in’ as PM Tony Abbott receives poll boost
By Eliza Borrello and Jane Norman
Senior Cabinet minister Andrew Robb has warned internal critics of Tony Abbott to “pull their heads in”, after the Prime Minister received a poll boost.
A Fairfax Ipsos poll published this morning has the Coalition’s primary vote up four percentage points to 42, with Labor down four points to 36.
The result is outside the poll’s 2.6 per cent margin of error.
After preferences the Coalition now trails Labor by just two points, 49 to 51.
The numbers echo last week’s Newspoll.
Mr Robb said the poll showed voters did not want the Prime Minister dumped.
“These elusive unnamed colleagues have got a clear responsibility to the rest of the team and the country to pull their heads in,” he said…
“Every day you will see further and stronger evidence that this is a government which is focused on governing in the best interests of the whole people of our country,” he said.
Mr Abbott survived a leadership spill motion 61 votes to 39 just over a fortnight ago but ***(LINK) pressure has been building for another tilt at removing him.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-02/poll-boost-for-abbott-focus-shift-economy/6272636
***links to ABC’s Chris Uhlmann/Sabra Lane’s “Tony Abbott’s leadership again under pressure as MPs say Malcolm Turnbull has numbers to win challenge”, which had ABC interrupting the PM while he was in Qld inspecting TC Marcia damage, and included the line “Liberals talk of little else and worry that there will be permanent brand damage if Mr Abbott stays.” all negative Abbott quotes are anonymous, with only supports quoted by name.
give it up, ABC.
40
Urban light diffusion.
One of the more wondrous things I noticed during the recent post Cyclone wait for electrical power to be reconnected was something I have missed seeing for so long now.
We spent a lot of time on the covered back porch with just the radio, at night just sitting around our outside table in the dark, and it’s so eerie without any lights around you at all, with just the occasional rig passing by on the nearby main thoroughfare through our suburb, it’s headlights lighting up the surrounding area for a few seconds as it fleetingly passes.
The advantage of having a low set brick home built to Cyclone Standard during a big blow like this is offset by the fact that they are quite literally ‘hot boxes’. The bricks keep the heat built up during the day, and there’s very little you can do to stimulate any airflow through them, not there there was any breeze across those five long nights.
It was absolutely black.
And then you look up.
Wow!
I hadn’t seen this since we lived at Wagga Wagga back in the late 80’s early 90’s.
You become so used to just seeing the largest of the star points in the night sky that you forget just how beautiful it really is to see when there is no surrounding light, and even living in a relatively dark suburb anyway, the lights of the nearby city, even if not visible mean that only those brightest stars are visible.
With no light however, you see The Milky Way as it really is, a thick white cloud (quite literally) across the night sky, extending from horizon to horizon.
Unless you have actually seen it, you’d find it hard to actually believe it.
I was immediately reminded of one of Isaac Asimov’s longer short stories, Nightfall, and for any of you who have not read it, try and find a copy, well, of all Asimov’s work really, as he is one of the best.
That sight of the Milky Way in all its glory is one which you need to show your children, and grandchildren. Until they have seen ALL of it, it’s a difficult thing to actually explain.
Incidentally, the closest of all those stars you can see in the night sky is Alpha Centauri, the farther of the two Pointers pointing at Crux, (The Southern Cross) It’s a Binary Star, well a triple actually, and it is only 4.37 Light years away. So, if we could in fact reach light speed, it would only take us 4.37 years to get there. However, with our current technology, and travel outside of the Earth’s Atmosphere capable at the phenomenal speed of 17,500MPH, we could actually get close to Alpha Centauri in, umm, 167,208 years. Easy eh!
Also for those wanting a starting point for Isaac Asimov, you could start with his original three novel Foundation series, which starts off with a main character who is a Professor of Mathematics, Hari Seldon.
Tony.
30
TonyfromOz,
I read The Foundation Trilogy back when I was eleven or twelve. I’d skip school and sit in the library all day reading. Did you know that he wrote more non-fiction works than fiction?
Issac Azimov bibliography by subject.
His ability to explain something in plain simple words was uncanny and I’ve yet to read anyone with that ability to date, although Richard Feynman comes close.
BTW, left you a comment above, have you seen it?
Abe
30
I was camped out in the bush with my dad once, we were building a farm house.
After supper dad pulled out what was left of a bag of Mullumbimby Madness he had purchased about 5 years previously.
We sat there and had a toke, then I looked up at the sky and honestly, it was truly in 3D, not just spots in the sky.
30
And didn’t all the Rocky kids have a ball playing with their friends in the streets, rather than slumped in front of TV’s or gaming on iPods.
20
just so u know what came out of the meeting in Nairobi Pachauri didn’t attend:
27 Feb: Carbon Brief: Roz Pidcock: Five decisions the IPCC made today about its future
This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made some interesting decisions about how to make its reports more useful, communicate them more effectively, and involve more scientists from developing countries.
It’s worth noting, this week’s meeting in Nairobi was not in response to Dr Pachauri stepping down as chairman after 13 years…
So what’s been decided?
Will we see shorter, more focused IPCC reports from now on?
The short answer is no. At least, not as a general rule…
IPCC secretary Dr. Renate Christ told a press conference this morning that while more frequent reports “might sound like a good idea, there are practical limitations to doing so”.
Each report has to go through a rigorous triple-review process by governments and experts…
Producing more reports would mean adding to the already large workloads of the scientists and reviewers involved, Christ explained. So the IPCC has come to a compromise.
The IPCC will continue to produce assessment reports every five to seven years, but it will make better use of ‘Special Reports’ to provide slimmer, more focused assessments, too…
But spacing the reports out too much may be bad news for generating interest. Dr Saffron O’Neil, an expert inpublic engagement with climate change at the University of Exeter, who is currently researching media coverage of thelatest IPCC report, tells Carbon Brief:
***”It’s important that the IPCC considers the timing of the Working Group reports carefully, as how and when they are released can impact the type – and amount – of news media coverage that they receive.”…
VIDEO: Full IPCC press conference. Nairobi, 27th February 2015 (watch from 9 minutes)
How could the Summary for Policymakers be more useful?
The IPCC reports collect together the wealth and breadth of scientific knowledge on climate change. But running to many thousands of pages, the full reports make very difficult reading for policymakers and the public…
***In response, the IPCC has said it will seek advice from communications professionals to help make the SPM “more readable”…
What else will the IPCC do to improve outreach?
The IPCC’s job shouldn’t end when the reports and SPMs are published, says today’s press release.
***More effort will go into communication activities, such as using “up to date digital technology for sharing and disseminating information”, Christ told journalists…
The IPCC certainly has the budget to do more on communications than it currently is…ETC
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/five-decisions-the-ipcc-made-today-about-its-future/
no amount of massaging the message (or massaging the data) will convince the public, IPCC.
30
Hi Jo,
any chance of you-know-what happening soonish rather than latish? Real-world events are rapidly threatening it with obsolescence but I really don’t think I’ll have time to integrate them 🙁
Take care,
Brad
20
Re #18
“Producing more reports would mean adding to the already large workloads of the scientists and reviewers involved, Christ explained.”
That’s a pretty convenient last name for an IPCC hack!
The science is settled. Christ said so.
40
Latest news from
D. R. Feldman, W. D. Collins, P. J. Gero, M. S. Torn, E. J. Mlawer, T. R. Shippert. Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010. Nature, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/nature14240
“The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from the Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now. The research is reported Wednesday, Feb. 25, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature.
The results agree with theoretical predictions of the greenhouse effect due to human activity. The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today’s climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2.”
“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,”
110
“We see, for the first time in the field,……..
61
quote reversal in progress.
20
SF,
“The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today’s climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2.”
If the models are on track then why don’t any observations match any modeled predictions and why don’t any models ever predict a future cooling period?
I’m also still waiting for an answer to my last question about the affects of solar radiation, you seem to lack anything other than proforma responses to your own predetermined questions.
51
The Hothouse Limerick
There was an old man named Arrhenius
Whose physics were rather erroneous
He recycled rays
In peculiar ways
And created a “heat” most spontaneous!
Timothy Casey, 2010
~ ~ ~
Experiment on the Cause of Real Greenhouses’ Effect – Repeatability of Prof. Robert W. Wood’s experiment
41
Wow, I worked with Tim Casey a long time ago. The world seems to be quite small….
00
Isn’t it exciting that these results agree with theoretical predictions relating to the greenhouse effect.
We now just have to work out why the myriad of climate models are so pathetic.
21
Jo
re: Climate Change. Can I draw you and your reader’s attention to the following blog by a revered astrophysisist.
One article talks about the Earth’s Orbit and its affect on climate change.
In this document I discuss how well-known variations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun result in variations in the solar flux received (at different latitudes and at different times of year) which might be expected to cause changes in the climate in accord with what is actually being observed now, independent of any major contribution from anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
20
Excuse my ignorance but why is my post the only one displaying “[Held in moderation for Jo to see] Fly”
Peter
[It was held to make it easier for Jo to find. Once it was released, that note should have been erased. Sorry about that. Take it as complementary though you received special attention.] ED
00
ohh my first post and its famous:)
Actually the special attention should be to the author of the original blog. Worth a read..
[I did read it and besides the information by the author, I especially liked reading where Glen Tamblyn has his hat handed to himself by the author in the comments.] ED
20
Food for thot
As to not conflate a debate with a name, like ‘denier’, a description is needed of a person who ‘believes in Global Warming’.
Therefore, I put forward this non-offensive name/acronym:
BIGWO- Believer in Global Warming Only.
A BIGWO doesn’t believe in the chance of an ice age ever happening again.
They (a BIGWO) believes in warming only.
The “Anthropocene Age of Humans” is what they (BIGWOs) propose to call it.
As such, they (who like to call names) can call me a non-BIGWO.
I can live with that.
30
Anyone looking for a break, a weekend with these guys in Arnhem Land having fun, or even a part in the series ‘Black As’ by my friend and film-maker David Batty, who produced the very funny “Bush Mechanics” series. Other rewards are available depending on the size of donation.
30
Hi all,
I have a couple of questions related to the recent wind energy auction held by the ACT government.
When a generator quotes a ‘feed-in’ tariff is this the price they receive per MWh upon entry to the grid? Do allowances for transmission losses need to be applied? Any ideas as to how much power would be lost between Bendigo, Ballarat, Port Augusta and Canberra?
Cheers!
10
I am truly lost for words for so many reasons:
4 religious leaders explain why the coal industry is immoral
Courtesy of ‘our ABC’
50
I couldn’t read all of it; I felt so angry and lost for words also.
10
It’s sabotage of our way of life and any chance of developing countries attaining a similar standard of living. I think it’s rampant evil and disown any spiel from church leaders who would dare to assert that they speak for me or are acting on my behalf. They are not true shepherds of the sheep.
10
It’s sad unless you realize that religion is not really always there to help mankind. There are a lot of people exploiting religion just like they do science. These people despise humanity and care nothing for anything but themselves. They are selfish and immoral. The Koch brothers are angels by comparison.
20
My son, age 15, performed a science experiment at home. It was to measure the speed of light by melting Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate in a microwave.
I am intrigued but baffled.
It will not be possible to review the experiment’s results. He ate them.
40
This is a well known scientific fact, leaving chocolate around my wife or any other woman will see it disappear at the speed of light. 🙂
50
What he demonstrated is that chocolate can vanish with the speed of light!
Annie (middle name “Chocoholic”).
10
How to tell what the climate will do…..
“The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the earth’s surface.” The Washington Post: 2 Nov 1922.
“There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth’s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3.9℃) This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter. We have no data on Seattle.” D. P. Moynihan 1969
1970 An ice age by 2000
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” Dr. Paul Ehrlich, 1970
“By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.
“[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers.” Michael Oppenheimer, published in “Dead Heat,” St. Martin’s Press, 1990
1976 Global warming will cause a World War by 2000
1989 Rising sea levels will wipe entire nations off the map by 2000 Noel Brown UN
1990 We have 5-10 years to save the rainforests
1999 The Himalayan glaciers will be gone in 10 years
2000 Snow will soon be a thing of the past.
“Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event. … Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” David Viner, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, 20 March 2000
The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. “It was a bit of a first,” a spokesperson said. The Independent 20 Mar 2000,
“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012. Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth’s remaining resources. The Canadian, 8 Jan 2007
The report said global emissions must peak by 2015 for the world to have any chance of limiting the expected temperature rise to 2C, which would still leave billions of people short of water by 2050. The warning came in a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published yesterday in Bangkok. www.theguardian.com, 5 May 2007
2008 The Arctic will be ice-free by 2013
The planet has just five years to avoid disastrous global warming, says the Federal Government’s chief scientist. Prof Penny Sackett yesterday urged all Australians to reduce their carbon footprint. Australians – among the world’s biggest producers of carbon dioxide – were “better placed than others to do something about it”, she said.
The professor said even if all the world stopped producing carbon dioxide immediately, temperature increases of 1.3C were unavoidable. If the earth’s temperature rose 2C, she warned, there would be risks that were “difficult and dangerous”. Herald Sun, Dec. 2009
2007 Global warming will cause fewer hurricanes
2012 Global warming will cause more hurricanes
2014 The Science is settled
30
keep in mind there are about a dozen movies based on Michael Crichton’s books, but NOT his expose of the CAGW scam, “State of Fear”. why not?
on the other hand, good billionaires Jeff Skoll & Pierre Omidyar have provided the funding for an exciting new documentary “Merchants of Doubt” featuring the “charismatic” Naomi Oreskes & James Hansen.
fortunately for them, the truly charismatic Marc Morano is also featured (tho smearing him is the purpose).
btw Skoll funded another great documentary:
TED Talk: Film producer Jeff Skoll (An Inconvenient Truth) talks about his film company, Participant Productions, and the people who’ve inspired him to do good.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_skoll_makes_movies_that_make_change?language=en
1 Mar: Newsweek: Greg Evans: Exposing the Doubt-Mongers Trying to Convince You Climate Change Isn’t Real
In Merchants of Doubt, their 2010 book that vivisects bad science and industrial cynicism, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway decried the uneven battle for the popular imagination fought, on one side, by scientists ill-equipped for high-volume cable-TV tussles and, on the other, by the “well-financed contrarians” bent on dismantling whatever lab results, peer-reviewed theories and settled science might lead to even the most benign corporate regulations.
The authors unraveled the deny-and-obfuscate tactics concocted in the 1950s by Mad Men and Big Tobacco to cloud understanding of what even the proto-mainstream media was beginning to grasp…
Joining the fray is filmmaker Robert Kenner, whose surprisingly rollicking screen adaptation of Merchants of Doubt opens March 6 in New York and Los Angeles…
***He (Kenner) was prepared, he said, for more of the anti-science vitriol documented in his film. “It’s pretty amazing, this anger out there.… I’m going to be attacked. I just hope it only takes the form of written words.”…
Newsweek’s Greg Evans: When I read Merchants of Doubt, I didn’t think, Wow, great cinematic potential. What did you see there?…
KENNER: I didn’t think it was a movie, but it led me into an arena….
KENNER: I really get offended when people on the left say, “Oh, these people (CAGW SCEPTICS) are so stupid.” They’re not stupid… Marc Morano [climate change skeptic and frequent Fox News interviewee] said, “Our job is simple. All we have to do is stop action.” I think he’s very funny, he’s very smart. And I wish he was backing other things…
NEWSWEEK’S GREG EVANS: What are the differences between the left’s use of science and the right’s use of science?
KENNER: There is some bad science all around…But I think because regulation has fallen into disfavor, [science skepticism] has become much more of a calling card for certain corporations and certain conservative or libertarian forces at the moment. But there are incredibly good, smart people who merely have different economic ideas than I might have, and different solutions. They’re ready to recognize the problem of climate change and want to debate the solutions. That’s where the debate should be today…
NEWSWEEK’S GREG EVANS: So you’re optimistic that we’re moving from a debate over the existence of climate change and toward a debate over solutions?
KENNER: There is no debate about the existence! The media has been partially responsible for implying there’s a debate on climate change. There are great debates to be had on solutions…
NEWSWEEK’S GREG EVANS: How did you make a film about global warming entertaining?
KENNER: First of all, I don’t think it is about global warming. I think it’s about people who create doubt. Their next big payday just happens to be climate change…
NEWSWEEK’S GREG EVANS: What do you want people to come away with?
KENNER: And I would hope that newspapers stop presenting deniers as scientific experts. I think the news networks should be embarrassed to do that…What images will we be looking at years from now, wondering, What were we thinking?
Senator Jim Inhofe saying, “Look, it’s snowing—global warming is not happening.” These guys are not going to look great to their grandchildren.
http://www.newsweek.com/exposing-doubt-mongers-trying-convince-you-climate-change-isnt-real-310372
45 COMMENTS:
COMMENT BY GREG LADEN: I think we are seeing the last of this, frankly. Mainstream media is now starting to call what they formerly referred to as “skeptics” what they really are, denialists. Major fossil fuel companies and the institutions that represent them are even getting on board, recognizing that climate change is for real and important. In Canada, recently, a lawsuit against an anti-climate science denialist was won by one of the victimized scientists. With Willie Soon Gate we are now seeing, every day, more and more evidence of crappy research sold as “deliverables” to Big Fossil and in some cases testimony before Congress as well.
COMMENT BY JACK WOLF: These deniers are nuts. Their security clearances should be looked at.
00
a couple more on “Merchants of Doubt”.
THE TIMING OF THE WITCHHUNT ON CAGW SCEPTICS ALMOST SEEMS TO TIE IN WITH THE MARCH RELEASE OF THIS DOCU:
17 Feb: Scientific American: Michael Shermer: What Can Be Done about Pseudoskepticism?
Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we know nothing
(Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine. His new book, The Moral Arc, is out now, Henry Holt, 2015. HENRY HOLT AND SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ARE AFFILIATES. This article was originally published with the title “Forging Doubt.”)
Consider “Citizens for Fire Safety,” a front group created and financed in part by chemical and tobacco companies to address the problem of home fires started by cigarettes. Kenner found it while making his 2014 film Merchants of Doubt, based on the 2010 book of the same title by historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. (I appear in an interview in the film.) …
Climate change is the latest arena for pseudoskepticism, and the front group du jour is ClimateDepot.com, financed in part by Chevron and Exxon and headed by a colorful character named Marc Morano, who told Kenner: “I’m not a scientist, but I do play one on TV occasionally … hell, more than occasionally.” Morano’s motto to challenge climate science, about which he admits he has no scientific training, is “keep it short, keep it simple, keep it funny.” That includes ridiculing climate scientists such as James E. Hansen of Columbia University. “You can’t be afraid of the absolute hand-to-hand combat metaphorically. And you’ve got to name names, and you’ve got to go after individuals,” he says, adding with a wry smile, “I think that’s what I enjoy the most.”..
Manufacturing doubt is not difficult, because in science all conclusions are provisional, and skepticism is intrinsic to the process. But as Oreskes notes, “Just because we don’t know everything, that doesn’t mean we know nothing.” We know a lot, in fact, and it is what we know that some people don’t want us to know that is at the heart of the problem. What can we do about this pseudoskepticism?…ETC
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-can-be-done-about-pseudoskepticism/
26 Feb: Wired: Brendan Klinkenberg: New Doc Exposes the ‘Experts’ Peddling Misinformation About Global Warming
(Klinkenberg’s LinkedIn: Correspondence Intern: Obama for America)
His (Kenner’s) latest, March’s Merchants of Doubt, pillories the “scientific experts” maintaining that cigarettes don’t cause cancer or that global warming is a myth. It’s an urgent cry for people to confront scientific misinformation, and it finds Kenner at the peak of his abilities…
This film at times feels like activist journalism. It seems tough to turn that into a compelling movie…
KENNER: Merchants was a really hard film because it’s ultimately about being deceived. We’re seeing a small group of people that has been very successful in stopping us from believing that cigarettes cause cancer, successful at getting people to put poisonous chemicals in couches. This small group was out to stop inconvenient science—science that got in the way of selling a product. Now they’ve latched onto energy and climate…
Q. So are journalists still being “fair,” in some sense, when they talk to these people or their proxies?
Kenner: In terms of the science, are you going to go find people that say the world is flat? I don’t think it’s your obligation to cover that the world is flat. There is no question. When there’s no question, you don’t go find the other side…
Q. And you wanted to get to the real science in Merchants?
Kenner: No, it’s about the deception. How we’re being deceived into thinking there are two sides…
People ask, “Are you preaching to the choir?” I say, “No, but we’re preaching to the congregation…
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/merchants-of-doubt/
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finally, two from last november. LA Times & Guardian were ahead of the pack!
Nov 2014: LA Times: Kenneth Turan: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ shows how public opinion is manipulated
(Kenneth Turan is a Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.)
Don’t underestimate Robert Kenner’s “Merchants of Doubt.” It may sound like a standard-issue advocacy documentary concerned, as so many are, with the perils of global warming, but it’s a lot more than that.
It’s not just that “Merchants of Doubt” is loaded with jazzy visuals and even starts with a performance by close-up magician Jamy Ian Swiss filmed at the Magic Castle.
This enthralling film, based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, is as fascinating as it is horrifying. It gives a peek behind the curtain of how public opinion is formed in this country, how spin doctors and media manipulators — often the same folks working across a whole range of issues — get people to ignore science at their own peril…
Some of the most effective moments in “Merchants of Doubt” involve people who were once climate change disbelievers and have come to believe that the threat is real. People like Bob Inglis, the staunchly conservative former North Carolina congressman, and Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society and founder of Skeptic magazine.
A disbeliever for decades because of what he felt were exaggerated claims, Shermer changed his mind because “you have to follow the science. Data trumps politics.” This essential documentary will make you wish more people felt that way.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81965758/
Nov 2014: Guardian: Stephen Leahy: Merchants of Doubt film exposes slick US industry behind climate denial
(from his website: Stephen Leahy, Winner of the 2012 United Nations Global Prize for Climate Change and Environment Coverage)
Robert Kenner’s forthcoming documentary lifts the lid on the ‘professional deceivers’ manipulating US debate on climate change
Who remembers that climate change was a top priority early in George W Bush’s first term as US president? Merchants of Doubt, a new documentary film released in US cinemas this week, reminds us that in June 2001 Bush and the Republican party were 100% committed to curbing carbon emissions causing global warming…
With the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center occupying attention, Americans For Prosperity, a powerful, fossil-fuel lobby group founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, launched a decade-long, multi-pronged campaign to sow doubt about the reality of climate change…
The deception has worked well. Few Americans know 97% of scientists agree climate change is caused by human activity and is happening now…
(HARD TO TELL IF THE FOLLOWING IS FROM KENNOR OR FROM “Peter Sparber, one the tobacco industry’s most successful deceivers”, AS THE GUARDIAN HAS HIM DESCRIBED)
Nearly all of those well-paid climate misinformers have no science background and often clear ties to industry lobby groups and yet are treated as expert commentators on climate science by media.
It’s not just Fox News. Serious news outlets like CNN and the New York Times are complicit by ***featuring misinformers in news articles and on discussion panels, he said…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/20/merchants-of-doubt-film-exposes-slick-us-industry-behind-climate-denial
***IF ONLY.
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Always the Tobacco comparison, which is really a big fat lie, but repeated often enough…
A much better comparison for the Walarmist business model is Big Pharma.
This is how it works:
Step 1: Identify a disease. Invent one if you like.
Step 2: Hype the disease to a gullible public.
Step 3: Make billions selling a cure.
shire-maker-of-binge-eating-drug-vyvanse-first-marketed-the-disease
the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder
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KenW,
You mean like Dan Kahan’s cultural ideation?
The priesthood of the AGW cult must really be up the proverbial creek if they need to hire a lawyer to explain why retional people aren’t buying their failed belief system. 🙂
Abe
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KenW –
Step 2 – Get the MSM to hype the alleged disease & the alleged cure to the public.
how’s this? first we had:
25 Feb: SMH: Michael Lallo: Q&A ‘truth-o-meter’, and how Twitter is changing Australian TV
Of course, Q&A is the archetypal Twitter show. It’s no surprise producers intend to use the platform in other, fresh ways this year to make their show even more interactive.
But the social media behemoth has big plans for Australia. It wants local viewers using Twitter across all genres, from reality shows and live events to sport and drama…
Fairfax Media sat down with the company’s global TV creative chief, Fred Graver, and Twitter Australia’s head of TV partnerships, Tony Broderick, to find out what’s in store for local viewers…
***Graver has high praise for Q&A, which he sees as a model for international news panel shows.
Still, having visited the set recently, he suggests a couple of tweaks.
“I said to the producers, ‘I wish there was somebody on the panel who was watching the tweets come in. They could say, ‘Excuse me, but Twitter thinks you’re full of it!’ Or they could say, ‘Does everybody here understand that [a lot of tweeters] just said this person should be the next prime minister of Australia?’ (a reference to Turnbull naturally)
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/qa-truthometer-and-how-twitter-is-changing-australian-tv-20150226-13ossv.html
tonight News Ltd finds space for a story of TWEETS at tonight’s Q&A on ABC, emphasising a nobody who called PM Abbott a “tit”.
NOTE: online dictionary: If you call someone a tit, you are insulting them and saying that they are stupid.
2 Mar: News Ltd: Q&A’s Miriam Margolyes calls Tony Abbott a tit and says ‘Put up the taxes!’
(attributed to news.com.au)
HARRY Potter star and naturalised Australian, Miriam Margolyes has much to say on the economy and anti-Semitism, but when pressed to describe Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in one word, she didn’t hold back.
Appearing on Q&A, she responded with: “I think he is a tit.”…
TWEETS, TWEETS, TWEETS, INCLUDING
The rest of our panel discusses a one word description of Tony Abbott #QandA http://t.co/Pt9Uv0hI3a
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) March 2, 2015
Margolyes didn’t mince words – as is her trademark style – as she appeared alongside Josh Frydenberg, Assistant Treasurer; Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer; Trisha Jha, Centre for Independent Studies; and Jamila Rizvi, Editor-in-chief of Mamamia.
PHOTO CAPTION: Miriam Margolyes is always an entertaining Q&A panellist Source: News Corp Australia
Ms Margolyes said she thought Senator Brandis was a good bloke, “despite being in the wrong party”. But calls his treatment of Gillian Triggs wrong.
“I think he should apologise to Gillian Triggs. It was a bad mistake,” she said…
TWEETS, TWEETS, TWEETS
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/qas-miriam-margolyes-calls-tony-abbott-a-tit-and-says-put-up-the-taxes/story-e6frfmyi-1227245419571?from=google_rss&google_editors_picks=true
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Super-funded New Daily jumps on the bandwagon:
3 Mar: New Daily: Kaitlin Thals: ‘Tony Abbott’s a tit’: Margolyes
TWEET: Matt Roberts @MattRobertsHQ
Thanks @MiriamMargolyes, I shall now call him “One Term Titty” #QandA #auspol
TWEET: Mira Mira Onthewall @MiraWroblewski
ABC Fact check:Triggs correct-children spent longer terms in detention under LNP http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-23/triggs-detention/6083476 … #qanda #IStandWithGillian Triggs
TWEET:tracey withhope:
@JoshFrydenberg
#OneWordForTony
Decent
Audience laughs
#QandA
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/03/03/qa/#./?&_suid=142529572665705058434564653214
REMINDER: In a controversial move, affiliates of the Industry Super Funds network (AustralianSuper, Cbus and Industry Super Holdings) have spent a combined A$3 million of member funds on an online news website, The New Daily…
Content for The New Daily will be provided by the ABC and AAP…But the main controversial aspect is the funding by the industry superannuation funds…From one blog comment:
“Being a member of AustralianSuper, I want to know why my super contributions are being spent on this.”(Not my super!, The conversation, Nov 2013)
Fairfax’s Ben Guthrie is the Managing Editor.
July 2014: “New Daily taps investors for $3m, less than six months after launch” –
“In February, it attracted a further $1 million each from health fund Hesta, timber fund First Super, and LUCRF Super, with an option to invest a further $3 million down the track.
But some of the site’s foundation investors did not take part in the capital raising, and their ownership has been diluted…Fairfax Media understands some super funds are unhappy with the lack of personal finance content and original content, and its readership levels…Its directors are industry funds stalwart Garry Weaven, AustralianSuper director Alison Terry, Media Super chairman Gerard Noonan and former Fairfax executive Glenn Thompson.” (SMH)
“New Daily” is as politically biased as ABC, so members of these Super Funds who object to their funds financially or otherwise supporting this obscure online website have a right to complain, if they so wish.
totally predictible Fairfax would jump on board:
3 Mar: SMH: Neil McMahon: Tony Abbott? ‘I think he’s a tit’, Miriam Margolyes tells Q&A
It took until the very end of Monday night’s Q&A for the panel to get to the crux of recent national debate. Tony Abbott: Yes or No?
“I think he’s a tit,” was the five-word summation from Miriam Margolyes, the call-a-spade-a-spade actress whose response to the audience question was the shortest, but by far the most memorable, of those offered by the panel as host Tony Jones passed the matter around for consideration…
Prime ministerial colleague and supporter Josh Frydenberg, who wisely noted that “I’m in a minority here”, waxed lyrical about his boss’ decency and qualities as a father, husband and upstanding member of his local community. This drew the retort from Mamamia editor-in-chief Jamila Rizvi that if this was all he had to offer, the PM should go back to his local electorate and hand over to someone a little more inspiring. Labor’s Andrew Leigh passed up the chance to offer his one-word summation, losing the plot in a rambling, partisan reply that Jones was forced to curtail; ***Trisha Jha of the Centre for Independent Studies tag-teamed with Margolyes, declaring: “The tit is a lovely bird.”…
For Q&A viewers that means wait until next week – and perhaps the most exhilarating part of Monday night’s program was the announcement of what lies in store. It’s a Q&A first – an all-woman panel, including the host – with Jones surrendering his chair to Annabel Crabb and a panel including Germaine Greer and Julie Bishop. As Crabb noted on Twitter after the line-up was revealed: “Odds of that getting out of control? Unbackable I’d say. Come along.”
MERCIFULLY, ONLY A SINGLE TWEET, ANNABEL’S.
It promises to be the program of the year…
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/tony-abbott-i-think-hes-a-tit-miriam-margolyes-tells-qa-20150303-13t6ji.html
(***note: panelist Trisha Jha has written for ABC’s The Drum between 2011 & 2014)
what a bunch of twits!
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Just for fun…
Horror of horrors: Money begets money. Or to put it a different way: Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
The part people miss is that success at anything you do tends to increase your value to others, hence your net worth into the bargain, no matter what that net worth is.
All that money is a terrible responsibility in a way and Bill is looking a little old and careworn in that picture. But in spite of things he should have been slapped down for doing, he built that better mousetrap just when the world was ready for it. The combination of DOS and later Windows, along with IBM’s open hardware architecture was unbeatable. I’ve done projects that took advantage of that open architecture, could not have been done without it in fact. So I know how powerful it was and still is.
I get really mad when having money is even indirectly painted as something wrong with the world. It’s what you do with that money that makes or breaks you. And in truth Bill hasn’t done all that well with some of his.
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And hey, I just had a mad idea. Gates has a high enough net worth to be able to counter George Soros and the UN — or go a long way in that direction. I wonder if we could get him to put his money where it will do the world some real good.
Nah! Too much to ask for.
Nice dream though. 🙁
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Google say they have developed an algorithm for ranking the ‘trustworthiness’ of an web page, but they have no plans to release it at this stage.
Given ‘Googlegate’, you can only begin to wonder what sort of weird and warped criteria they would use for ranking ‘truthfulness’ on ‘global warming’.
To diverge a little, this once again demonstrates how absurd climate modelling is. If the people who write the algorithm insert their own bias into it (and how can they not!) it is absolutely worthless from the very beginning.
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at least it wont affect a search for “time cube”
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I made a statement earlier that all comments that are posted here that are logically flawed in some way should not be left unchallenged but that they should be responded to rationally.
In keeping with that, Dan Kahan of Yale University, recently made two such comments in the thread called, “Study shows skeptics know more about climate science than believers.”
I basically pointed out to him that if all people apprehend climate science based on socio-political pre-dispositions, then, he too, must be affected by the same bias. That being the case, there’s no reason to seriously entertain his conclusions.
I also told him that were he to claim that he was not affected by this bias, that too would invalidate his conclusions because then there should be others, like him, that are not affected by this bias.
For any one who’s interested, please go there to see my full respose.
Abe
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Barry –
u bring up a very important story about CAGW-biased Google. pity the Daily Mail concentrates their story on Barack Obama’s Nationality & Entertainment Gossip websites:
28 Feb: New Scientist: Hal Hodson: Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links
THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness.
Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page.
***”A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy,” says the team (arxiv.org/abs/1502.03519v1). The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score.
The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings…
There are already lots of apps that try to help internet users unearth the truth…
LazyTruth developer Matt Stempeck, now the director of civic media at Microsoft New York, wants to develop software that exports the knowledge found in fact-checking services such as Snopes, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org…
***This article appeared in print under the headline “Nothing but the truth”.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530102.600-google-wants-to-rank-websites-based-on-facts-not-links.html#.VPMUznysX-v
from an earlier New Scientist story: Knowledge Vault has pulled in 1.6 billion facts to date. Of these, 271 million are rated as **”confident facts”**, to which Google’s model ascribes a more than 90 per cent chance of being true. It does this by cross-referencing new facts with what **it already knows**…It might even be possible to use a knowledge base as detailed and broad as Google’s to start making **accurate predictions** about the future based on analysis and forward projection of the past, says Suchanek. (Aug 2014, Google’s fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank)
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So far as I can tell, they already do this to a large degree. If you try and research global warming there is an inordinate amount of warmist ideas that come up. You have to retype the search criteria over and over in different ways to find anything skeptical. Same for historical data. I end up using four different search engines to try and get around thier biases.
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Which ones do you use Sheri? I take it none of them are Crome. 🙂
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I do use Google some, Bing, DuckDuckGo and info.com. I only use Chrome when a program or site is not compatible with Safari. I’ve also use Yahoo (generally a complete waste) and dog pile. None are very cooperative for yielding useful results. If I didn’t live 18 miles from the library, I’d look through books. I still prefer paper over digital. I really enjoy looking through library books!
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Our City Library has access to a lot of research material on line, so we can get to it over the web (for a small annual fee). But like you, I much prefer to feel and smell the paper.
We use Clusty as a civilized front end to Reuters, dogpile, Gigablast, Mamma, and Ixquick. All have their strengths and weaknesses. We also use Wolfram Alpha to search the scientific literature.
My copy of Wolfram, is set to give me a random science/math fact, every time I access it.
As I opened it, just now, it gave me the formula for a Cartesian equation: (x^2 + y^2 -1)^3 = x^2y^2. If you plot that, it draws a heart. I bet they send that to all the boys.
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Sheri,
In this case it’s not a bias in google. There are other factors involved here so maybe I’ll just point one out just to get an idea of what’s going on.
Try out this google search:
similar:www.joannenova.com.au
You’ll get a listing of all the websites which the google indexing algorithms have identified as skeptic related. First thing to note is that the number of results at the top of the page is not an accurate number. This is true of all google search results. If you go to the bottom of the page and click on the last page number, you’ll get the actual amount of items in the list.
What this tells us is that given the relatively small number of skepic sources of information as compared to the coverage given by the MSM world-wide, it’s clear that the warmist meme-machine simply swamps out the skeptics by sheer numbers.
That’s not to say that these sites are the only skeptic sites on the web. These are just the ones that a computer algorithm detected. But the point remains valid. There’s just too many of them for the skeptics to get an even showing in the search results.
But let’s look on the bright side. Most polls show an even split between warmists and skeptics in the general population so all is not lost.
Abe
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I see, it bases all new ideas against established dogma, and rejects it on the basis that 99% of vested interests agree.
I wonder what would have happened if you Googled Edward Jenner, and his ideas on vaccination, back in the day? Because in his day, he flew in the face of the established dogma.
I also wonder what Google of the time, would have listed, as the first person to fly – but it wasn’t the Wright brothers, not by several centuries. They claimed the first powered flight, and wrightly (sic) so. But the Chinese and the Arabs were flying in gliders and kites centuries before. In fact the Wright brothers used a Chinese kite as the basis for their design.
This is why we don’t use Google, people. It is already highly biased in its search results, and it seems to base that bias on where you are located. Fine if you are searching for a local butcher, but not exactly useful if you want to search internationally for all butchers that sell goat meat.
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Rereke Whakaaro,
It seems that way because that’s the way it’s designed. About three years ago I volunteered at the google webmaster forum. The forum was set up to help webmasters solve many common and not so common problems. And, yes, they only have volunteers manning this forum because they claim that it would be unfair for google themseles to help some webmasters out, the ones that come in asking questions, and not others,the ones who don’t.
Anyway, they have a seperate index for each country or region and depending on the geographical location of your IP address, google will serve up local listings based on local usage stastics.
Each one of these local indexes has a different URL. They used to have a way for anyone to actually look stuff up on these different URLs but I’ve tried to do this recently and no longer can. I keep telling myself maybe I’ll spend some time trying to figure out a new workaround but keep putting it off.
Abe
10
Thanks for that background.
Google must hate us. We tend to operate through a network of proxies, and use a range of search engines, precisely because we don’t want folks like Google figuring out what we are doing.
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3 Mar: PIC: SunshineCoastDaily: Clive says Jeff the Dinosaur destroyed by “electrical fault”
by Natasha Christian and Kathy Sundstrom
ALL that remains of Jeff, Clive Palmer’s dinosaur, is a metal frame and the tip of his tale which appears untouched.
There is an acrid smell of burnt plastic which permeates the air around the Palmer Coolum Resort, where Jeff once proudly stood.
Police were investigating at the site when the Daily visited at 7.30am this morning.
But the feeling amongst resort staff was Jeff had spontaneously ignited around 1am to some electrical fault.
By the time fire crews got the scene, there was little left to save…
The ‘death’ of the 30ft dinosaur is now being investigated by police…
It was initially believed the fire was an arson attempt however a police spokesman has confirmed the fire was non-suspicious…
***COMMENT by Paulas: Destroyed by global warming?
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/clives-dinosaur-jeff-destroyed-fire-overnight/2561567/
***am sure this was meant in fun. more amusing comments at the link.
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Perhaps it was attacked by a dodo?
20
Maybe he was a drummer for Spinal tap?
00
what’s your religion, bloke?
http://blog.sfgate.com/djsaunders/2015/02/24/top-climate-scientist-says-global-warming-is-his-religion/
climate culprit (co2) caught, ha ha
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Berkeley-experts-study-strengthens-human-link-6101054.php
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You probably already saw this:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/02/global-warming-worsened-syria-drought-study
It’s beyond parody
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Rod McLaughlin –
meant to post the top stories on New Scientist’s “Climate Change” page & ask how their “stories” would be rated by Google’s “Truth-O-Meter” (a la Q&A’s “Truth-O-Meter” aka Twit-O-Meter).
New Scientist- Climate Change:
Droughts in Syria and California linked to climate change
The two regions have recently suffered their worst droughts on record. And Syria’s may have helped to trigger its civil war…
Climate change sceptic’s work called into question
Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon failed to disclose funding from the fossil fuel industry, says Greenpeace, as journals get ready to re-examine his work
Climate report 2014: Your guide to the big questions
Your warming world: Explore our interactive map
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Shameless Provocation
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/climate-change-key-in-syrian-conflict–and-it-will-trigger-more-war-in-future-10081163.html
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The purveyors of this just disgust me.
00
‘…the maxima at the same sites is now about half a degree warmer in the new millennia…’
Slight Latin plural confusion!
10
There are lots of examples of Latin and Greek plural being misused these days but I won’t bore you with a list of them unless you’d like me to. Those languages aren’t commonly taught any more…we were taught one or other or both “in my day” so don’t make those errors in our usage.
00
plurals…darned predictive text caught me out yet again.
00
For all who WANT to believe:
“A cancer cure big pharma is terrified you’ll learn”
“Eat this and never have to diet again.”
“Survival supplies are flying off the shelf.”
“It’s time to stick it to the old power company. Solar is taking over and is a real threat to the power conglomerate. BUY NOW.”
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Did anyone see this cartoon comparing climate skeptics to creationists, anti-vaccination nuts and ISIS?
http://rodmclaughlin.com/you-can-t-make-it-up-lxvii—-climate-change-deniers–are-compared-to-isis
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I just figure if you’re reduced to conspiracy ideology, you’ve shown you are NOT a scientist. Also, it’s interesting how many global warming believers are also conspiracy believers. I checked that out one time for a blog article. While the cartoons are frustrating, the reality is people who believe things on the basis of a cartoon are not really bright enough to understand anything other than daytime TV. They, sadly, are lost. Best to work on those who can learn and ignore the rest.
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In regards to Rick and his solar worship:
Solar WILL win, of course, because they believe. The proper response here (and those of you in places other than the US may have to Google one term)
“I am certain that at the time, there were many who said a few more millions of dollars and a bit more time, and the Edsel will be THE car of the future.”
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