No matter which way we slice and dice it, China is The-CO2-Player that matters. India is forecast for a larger percentage-wise increase, but it’s starting from a small base. By 2030 even after doubling its output, it will still be barely a quarter of China’s total mega-ton production. The Congo and Indonesia are among countries forecast to ramp up production of CO2 massively, yet both of them are but a spec. The hard numbers show that if CO2 actually mattered, and the eco-greens really cared about it, they be talking about “The China Problem”.
Australia is irrelevant, except in some symbolic sacrificial way. The 28% massive reduction, at great cost, will amount to nothing globally (assuming it can even be achieved). Though Tasmania may win the global race for the fastest transition from first to third world. (North Korea here we come).
In the end, the real drivers of global CO2 may or may not be things like forest and peat fires, ocean currents, phytoplankton in any case. Won’t it be a great day when we figure exactly where all that CO2 is coming from and going to?
— Jo
COP21 Pledges for greenhouse gas emissions
Guest Post by Tom Quirk
189 countries submitted pledges to the COP21 meeting in Paris at the end of 2015. These have been sorted and summarised in a very useful website Carbon Brief[1]. The following analysis is based on the top 12 countries for greenhouse gas emissions. This covers 72% of the world total but ignores forest and peat fires. The pledges cover broadly defined greenhouse gas emissions. For instance Brazil has land use emissions that are estimated at 4 times the sum of their other contributions.
The total greenhouse gas emissions for 2012 were 10.85 Gt C in CO2-eqivalent while total CO2 emissions were estimated to be 9.68 Gt C in CO2. (Source Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center CDIAC[2])
The pledges have been standardized to be from 2012 to 2030 as countries have chosen various starting points to indicate their plans. The most important and most uncertain pledge is the target for China. The 75% increase indicated below is a “best estimate”.
Evil countries planning to give cheap electricity to their citizens are marked in red.
…
Global emissions are about China and some also-rans not worth mentioning.
For greenhouse gas emissions the pledges would see an increase from 7.83 Gt C to 9.59 Gt C for the 72% fraction analysed. This is a 23% increase. It is clear that China is both the major contributor to the increase and the source of the greatest uncertainty.
USA performance for CO2
For the USA the CDIAC record of CO2 emissions shows the conversion from using coal to natural gas in power stations has driven the decline in CO2 emissions. An example of an innovation by reduced cost not subsidy. The indicated targets for USA emissions are labelled intention with a 28% reduction of total emissions by 2025. The extension to 2030 gives a reduction of 25% from 2012 to 2030.
….
China performance for CO2
For China the CDIAC record shows the importance of coal use in power stations. This will drive emission increases.
(China — eating coal for breakfast, lunch and dinner says Jo.)
The key pledge is a 60% cut to the 2005 CO2 emission intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP).
The table below shows the relationship of GDP to CO2 emissions. The estimates used to calculate the 2030 emissions are based on 5% annual GDP growth and a pledged CO2 intensity of 0.96 CO2 in tonnes C-equiv per $10,000 of GDP.
|
Population 2012 (million) |
GDP per capita 2013 (World Bank) |
CO2 emissions per capita in tonnes C 2012 (CDIAC) |
CO2 Intensity: CO2 per GDP in tonnes C per $10,000 GDP |
|
|
USA |
317 |
$54,629 |
4.5 |
0.82 |
|
China |
1351 |
$14,520 |
1.9 |
1.31 |
Australian performance for greenhouse gas emissions
The Australian performance is reported by two agencies, first CDIAC giving CO2 and second greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalent C from the Federal Government Department of the Environment[3].
It is worth noting that the present annual increases in China’s annual emissions are equal to the annual emissions from Australia.
Australian emissions black total are mostly due to coal (red squares)
For Australia the use of black and brown coal provides the fuel for power generation. The plateau in energy emissions which is seen in both records may be due to increasing electricity prices limiting demand as well as the closing of mineral processing plants such as aluminium smelters. The decline in greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2006 appears to be due to changes in the land use contribution. Land contributions are not well measured and subject to accounting rule changes.
The present government has avoided a direct carbon tax that would impact commercial activity by introducing a Direct Action plan for plant and soil sequestration of CO2. Further the changes in land use accounting rules will help the Direct Action plan but the time needed for this plan to have an impact is uncertain. So the 31% reduction in emissions from 2012 to 2030 remains problematic.
[From Jo — Australian carbon emissions – the only reason they are the same now as 25 years ago is thanks to “land use changes” and we stopped some naughty Aluminium firms from making a product here that we all use. ]
Conclusion
A glaring omission in the COP21 meeting was consideration of forest and peat fires which may produce as much as half of all fossil fuels burned. (See also “Where have those fossil fuel emissions gone?“). [They forget phytoplankton too, says Jo.] The fires are treated as “acts of God” since He or She is not anthropogenic (an interesting philosophical question). Thus these emissions are no longer included in the inventory of contributions. However the annual forest and peat fires CO2 emissions are estimated to be equal to 50% of present total annual fossil fuel CO2 emissions[4].
Only one country, North Korea has decarbonised itself at great cost to its people. There, per capita emissions have dropped from 3 tonnes C in CO2 in 1997 to less than 1 tonne C in CO2. The best illustration of this is the NASA image of the Korean peninsula at night.
….
Night image of the Korean Peninsula in 2014 shows that North Korea is almost completely dark compared to neighboring South Korea and China (source NASA).
Finally the best summary for COP21 is to be found in the Bolivian submission where capitalism is “a system of death”, carbon markets are rejected and a call for a world carbon budget between countries, with 89% allocated to the developing world.
However what is clear from the pledges is that China and India will become the largest emitters of greenhouse gases with rises in the standard of living in both countries. Why should they curtail their growth?
So how can this COP21 “construct” work?
[4] David M. J. S. Bowman, Jennifer K. Balch, Paulo Artaxo, William J. Bond, Jean M. Carlson, Mark A. Cochrane, Carla M. D’Antonio, Ruth S. DeFries, John C. Doyle, Sandy P. Harrison, Fay H. Johnston, Jon E. Keeley, Meg A. Krawchuk, Christian A. Kull, J. Brad Marston, Max A. Moritz, I. Colin Prentice, Christopher I. Roos, Andrew C. Scott, Thomas W. Swetnam, Guido R. van der Werf, Stephen J. Pyne: Fire in the Earth System, Science, Vol 324 24 April 2009 481
Chinese have walked away from Coal Mining on the Liverpool plains, in NSW. Looking to invest in ‘cleaner’ sources of energy, says their press release. It would appear the Chinese are recognising the issue and have started to make different and better decisions. I think we can all agree that this is a good thing.
We can only encourage them, can’t we?
755
The press release may be quite right. In terms of CO2 emissions per unit of energy, the greatest intensity per capita is when coal is converted from coal to liquids. It is economic to do this when oil at above $60 a barrel, but produces 4-5 times the CO2 emissions of the oil straight from the ground. It also uses vast amounts of river water. Redirecting home produced coal to coal-fired power stations and importing cheap oil will indeed reduce emissions. The investment could be in extra trains for the coal, and pipelines for the imported oil. There would also be a bit more water to power the dams. The main coal to liquids area is Ningxia, up river of the massive Three Gorges Dam.
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The largest source of hydrocarbons is contained in the coal or tar sands structure. This can be separated using solvents rather than making syngas/methane from the coal then using a Fischer Tropsch process to make complex hydrocarbons.
Gippsland Valley lignite has a volatile content of 20% by raw weight. There is 395 Billion tons on land and 1,600 Billion tons under eastern Bass Strait. The return being achieved in a pilot is now about 1.1 BoE/raw ton.
The Chinese low ranked coal will have similar returns.
41
In the end whatever China does it has to be economic and competitive to sell goods to foreign markets and compete with other Asian manufacturers, because uneconomic choices made on the scale of China’s population, will become economically ruinous and impairing very fast.
In the end, no matter what you or I, or anyone else might want, the Chinese will be doing what works economically, and that’s extremely likely to involve a lot of coal burning for decades to come, with no end in sight. Same for India.
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Ross,
What makes you think that the press release is the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Are you as trusting when it comes to press releases by other mining companies, or government bodies? The Chinese government has already stated that it is not going to do anything special with regards to CO2 until 2030, or 2035.
Do you really, honestly think that backing out of the Liverpool plains really signals a massive, and fundamental change in the way the Chinese government operates vis a vis CO2?
If CO2 is of genuine concern, then using weasel-words like reduction of ‘carbon intensity’ and talking of ’emissions per capita’ are utterly and totally futile. If CO2 generated by humans is causing a warming trend, then the only thing that will make a difference is if humans decrease actual CO2 emissions, and this should mean going after the largest emitters of CO2 more so than anyone else, yet I have not seen any concerted effort by eco-warriors to put any pressure on China (or India) at all. Can you point me towards the most recent Greenpeace protests in China…?
Tell me, if CO2 reductions are so important, are so vital, why is it ok that China is left to make its own decisions, yet it’s perfectly acceptable that Australians are led to believe that every bit of non-renewable energy they use is the moral equivalent of clubbing baby fur seals to death? I agree that if I was to believe that human CO2 reductions would do anything to the climate, then every country should be able to do something, but all I see is a grossly disproportionate response against the wrong culprit, led by a scientifically illiterate mob (think Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth), used as pawns, and spurred on by financial institutions which stand to profit (and are profiting) immensely from the outcome.
As far as Australia goes; whilst Australian coal consumption fell by 5 per cent in 2013–14, Australian exports of coal continue to increase at a 10 year average of 4.3%, or 8.3% (just for 2013-2014). you can check those figures here if you think I’m making them up.
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“Australian exports of coal continue to increase at a 10 year average of 4.3%, or 8.3% (just for 2013-2014). “
And still Indonesia’s coal production edges further above ours.
I read that HUGE coal reserves have been found in Papua.. and the Chinese are eying those off with glee. !!
If Australia wants to remain a solid coal producer, with all the massive benefits that it brings to the country, they are going to have to streamline their approval procedures.
The first step would be to get rid of the climate agenda from all level of governments.
231
Ross if the press release said that it’s has to be correct, after all I’ve never known the press to not report all the story especially on environmental stories. /sarc.
211
roflmao… With all the rules Australia is putting on coal mining, I’m not surprise China would back out.. why waste their time and money.
So much cheaper to get it from Indonesia, who have now surpassed Australia as a coal producing country.
301
With poorer quality coal as I understand.
40
Yep, but the cost, and particularly the politics, are so much easier to cope with.
Indonesia is a country keen for progress.
Australia seems to be heading the other way.
111
I also heard that China is helping South Africa and Kenya build coal and gas fired power stations.
Africa is a fossil fuel region waiting to grow up enough to stop the internal strife and come into the real world.
ABSOLUTELY HUGE amounts of gas have been found, awaiting usage.
Turkey is also looking to greatly increase its energy, which will also come from coal.
So DON’T PANIC, Ross… there will still be PLENTY of atmospheric CO2 to feed the world. 🙂
151
People, people. I’m quite aware that the ‘real world’ requires energy , oil an steel. Let’s find ways to do it in a cleaner and more efficient way, that hopefully reduces the amount of CO2 into our atmosphere. Let.s also invest and.investigate better ways to use renewables. Yes, I know they may not competitive with, say coal, right now, but the Wright brothers Kitty Hawk probably looked pretty silly next to an ocean liner. Don’t give up. It doesn’t,t have to be all or nothing.
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Since the day the USA and China signed their “historic” climate agreement about 2 years ago ( the one where China doesn’t do anything significant until 2030) they have approved to be built or actually started building a new coal fired power every second day from the date of that agreement.( or the equivalent of every second day)
China is and will continue to make huge efforts to reduce air pollution , especially in place like Beijing but that is something completely different( in terms of objectives) to CO2 reduction.
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“Let’s find ways to do it in a cleaner and more efficient way, that hopefully reduces the amount of CO2 into our atmosphere.”
1. Modern coal is probably the CLEANEST and certainly the most efficient way of producing energy.
2.. Why would anyone in their right mind want to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Its only just above plant subsistence level now.
Sorry, but that is a very simple-mind suggestion, obviously from a gullible, ill-educated fool.
353
Why thank you, Andy. A big green thumb for you then. Mum will be pleased.
218
So, you agree with what I have stated. Thank you. 🙂
Your Mum will be pleased that you are starting to learn.
131
Of course I do Andy. Here’s ANOTHER big green thumbs up to show you how clever I think you are. Bless.
313
So…. nothing ?
Is that really your best response?
So sad !
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Ross. The fundamental thing wrong with your idiocy is that CO2 is a pollutant. It is not, it is a gas vital to all life on earth, including yours. The earth’s atmosphere has a current deficit in CO2. If human emissions help to alleviate this deficit it is a good happening. As for global temperature, CO2 has almost nothing to do with it. If you are one of those people who just has to worry about something, why don’t you worry about something which might really impact the world. For example, an asteroid collision, the Yellowstone volcano crater erupting, or global cooling on a catastrophic scale. All are overdue based on the real paleo geological history of the earth. Runaway warming from CO2 is simply a chimera.
240
WHY would ANYBODY (in their right mind) want to REDUCE the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere FFS?
You’ve got to get out more Ross.
See this CSIRO link to Deserts Greening – and all THANKS TO CO2!!
Cheers,
92
Again showing that CO2 is ONLY beneficial to the world’s environment. No harm at all.
Since warming is only an unproven hypothesis, we can’t claim the advantageous warming towards that of the Medieval warm period as part of the benefit of increased atmospheric CO2.
41
Very odd that someone with so little actual knowledge would bother trying to comment, with their only fall back position being “the consensus™”
Then I realised its probably be mid semester break at many universities, and there will be lots of failing 1st year Arts students not knowing what to do with themselves once their “supplies” run out.
42
Ross its a good thing that the world economic downturn has put off Chinese ambitions on the Liverpool Plains, especially for Barnaby in an election year.
The Chinese propaganda machine will happily turn this no brainer into a positive feel good thingy, but ultimately they remain the largest consumers of coal and oil on the planet. Xi is only paying lip service to the Western World.
‘According to data released by the China Electricity Council, the amount of power that China generated from fossil fuels in 2014 decreased by 0.7 per cent year on year, the first drop in recent memory. Meanwhile, power generation from non-fossil-fuel sources increased by 19 per cent.
‘Remarkably, nuclear energy played only a small role in this change. Electricity generated by strictly green sources — water, wind, and solar — increased by 20 per cent, with the most dramatic growth occurring in solar power generation, which rose a staggering 175 per cent.
‘Solar power also surpassed nuclear in terms of new energy produced, providing an extra 17,430 gigawatt-hours last year, compared to 14,700 gigawatt-hours from nuclear sources. And, for the third consecutive year, China generated more electricity from wind than from nuclear energy.
‘Given this, the argument that China will be dependent on nuclear power plants for non-carbon sources of electricity appears to have little merit.’
ABC
50
The ABC is a green political mouthpiece, shamelessly sprouting propaganda, here is the reality of the Middle Kingdom.
‘In China, now with 29 operating reactors on the mainland, the country is well into the next phase of its nuclear power programme. There were seven new grid connections to end of October in 2015. Over 20 more reactors are under construction, including the world’s first Westinghouse AP1000 units, and a demonstration high-temperature gas-cooled reactor plant.
‘Many more units are planned, including two largely indigenous designs – the Hualong One and CAP1400. China aims to more than double its nuclear capacity by 2020.’
World Nuclear Association
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Goodoh, Gordo. I am fully aware of this. This is what’s called the status quo. Let’s attempt to adapt and change. Let’s try and help China in this process rather than bow to their every wish. Mr Lomborg says humans will adapt over time. Let’s begin that process now, rather than kick it down the road. No one has to lose in this process. Get on board.
515
Irregular energy systems like wind and solar collapse as soon as subsidies are reduced.
Why would anyone get on board an already sinking ship ?
143
Because we learn and improve as we go, Andy. You know…science.
417
Yes, coal/gas fired power has advanced enormously.
Wind and solar… backwards, and not so much.
122
“You know…science.”
Thank you.
You seemingly missed out at high school.
62
And what of the hopeless economics of renewables? And their insane fleecing of the public purse? And their farce and pretensions of becoming base load supply capable and competitive? It’s a joke! Just how much comedy of error, ineptitude and ignorance can one koala bear, before its head and wallet both explode?
If you want an economy, you don’t back an energy supply loser, nor reward its endless failure, incompetence and incapacity to be quantitatively or economically honest, about what an energy supply technology can or can not do, or what it costs comparatively, per megawatt hour of supply.
As for the CO2 tracks temp hoodoo and scare campaigning, correlation is not causation – duh!
Look at the Eemian and Holocene warmings, the defrosting always began before CO2 began to rise! And the warming flattened out or declined again, before the CO2 stopped rising! i.e. the CO2 always overshot an ensuing cooling or meta stable period of several thousand years. And look at the recent 18 year hiatus, the CO2 rise did not track the ave global temp at all! oh dear! Indeed the CO2 frigged, sorry, I meant rigged, GCM models failed to track the temperature trend at all! All the models were wrong, ever the best case models were wildly wrong!
So CO2 rise, or fall, is not the driver of anything worth worrying much about.
Clearly the real drivers of weather cycles and climate warming are elsewhere.
Is there some point at which you AGW worriers might rethink the hook, line and sinker swallowing habit?
80
But there is no correlation. As CO2 emissions rose dramatically from 1945 the planet cooled until 1977. We had a slight warming between 1978 and 1998 while CO2 continued to rise. From 2000 we had a 300% increase in human CO2 emissions but at the same time we had “the pause”.
What is really interesting to note is that despite the 300% increase there was no spike in atmospheric CO2 levels, showing that the impact of our emissions cannot be measured against the natural rise in CO2 levels.
00
Yes Ross, science is a strong point. My Alva Mater is Georgia Tech.
00
Ross,
Renewables intrinsically have a low “density”of energy or “low grade”. They will by their nature have very high upfront cost and because they are large physically per unit energy produced maintenance will be an issue over the life of the plant.
51
What touchy feely nonsense.
81
What? Science? Strong point, Stan.
212
You mention science… yet produce NOTHING. !
Are you a trainee sociologist ?
103
No, Andy.
38
“Wind and solar, backwards, and not so much”
Chortle.
313
“No, Andy.”
So.. not even to trainee stage yet.
ZERO science, that is very obvious.
61
““Wind and solar, backwards, and not so much””
Wind can ONLY exist with massive subsidies, and still only produces a very minor amount of the world’s power… ALWAYS backed up by proper power supplies.
Solar is collapsing all around the world. Solar in Spain is a basket case. The big Ivanpah plant is producing way below projected, and requires large amounts of gas or oil to get it started each day. Almost certain to close down soon.. and lets not forget the massive environmental and avian life degradation because of both types of unreliables.
The Germany and UK energy systems are on the verge of collapse because of their over-reliance n the irregular inefficient subsidy sucking monstrosities called wind turbines. Recent SCIENCE is showing they can cause major health issues because of infrasound. Likely that a large proportion of those near downs will soon be required to shut down.
Sorry, but Wind and solar ARE in deep trouble.. the only thing keeping them going is massive government inaction and the huge amounts of money being sunk into them.
And when the current El Nino subsides, and the quite sun starts to kick in, people will realise just what a monumental FARCE the whole thing has been !!
171
‘Let’s attempt to adapt and change.’
…but, but CO2 doesn’t cause warming, its not a pollutant which needs an expensive remedy.
Global cooling is almost a certainty within a few years and we need to adapt to the geopolitical reality.
Lomborg is a lukewarmer.
102
Well, I’m sorry Gordo but the vast majority of the worlds scientists disagree with your observations on co2. They might be all wrong. You might be right. But, well, you know…
319
“vast majority of the worlds scientists”
Absolutely zero proof of that except some very dodgy surveys.
Is that the best you have ? Nothing… still.
132
Sorry Andy. That’s the current state of things. You can disagree until you turn blue, but man made global warming is still the accepted science.
Maybe that will change. But it hasn’t happened yet.
321
No, man made global warming is the accepted POLITICS..
Seems you really do lack understanding. !!!
173
Show us a petition of scientists with say even 1,000 signatures that backs AGW.
I can show you one with 30,000 plus, that REJECTS it.
Sorry Ross, but you have been SUCKED IN by the media and the politics.
162
Ross you are starting from behind, don’t treat me like an idjit.
Let’s talk science, what is your climate prediction for the decade ahead?
91
The vast majority of scientists didn’t agree with Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity either. Science is not done by consensus! Anyone who knows anything about science knows that. AGW/CC is not about science anyway. It’s about money, power and greed.
122
Ross,
your argument is plain dumb!
Science is NOT about agreeing with a theory, it’s about improving our understanding of nature through observed measurement.
It matters not one jot that the “vast majority of the worlds scientists” agree on anything as consensus does not prove fact.
As with most consensus enterprises ‘Big Consensus Science’ gives you what you have paid for — stupidity through unthinking agreement.
91
Ross: Here’s how the time-worn statement that ‘97% of scientists agree that mankind is responsible for global warming’ was derived.
In January 2009, Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman of the University of Illinois at Chicago published a research paper entitled ‘Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’. This can be accessed via the internet.
Comments in quotation marks are verbatim from the paper.
Survey questionnaires were sent to ‘10,257 Earth scientists’.
The paper explains that ‘This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey’.
These were:
1) ‘When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained generally constant?’
2) ‘Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?’
The survey was ‘designed to take less than 2mins to complete’ and was administered online.
Firstly, note that of the 10,257 to whom the questionnaire was sent, only 3,146 individuals bothered to complete and return the survey – i.e. just short of 31%.
‘Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists’ – as opposed to for example oceanographers and palaeontologists. That’s 157 individuals out of the 3,146.
Of these 157, 79 scientists had published more than 50% of their recent research papers on the subject, and so were deemed by the authors to be ‘the most specialised and knowledgeable respondents’.
In other words, of the total of 10,257 considered knowledgeable enough (by the authors of the paper, bear in mind) to have their opinion sought at the outset of the study, only 79 individuals were by now considered to the most knowledgeable.
Of these 79, 76 (96.2%) answered ‘risen’ to question 1, and – wait for it – 75 out of 77 (97.4%) answered ‘yes’ to question 2.
So there we are – job done – 97.4% of scientists agree that humans are warming the planet significantly – or do they?
Let’s see now: 75 out of the 10,257 polled. I make that 0.73%.
50
“Goodoh, Gordo. I am fully aware of this. This is what’s called the status quo. Let’s attempt to adapt and change. Let’s try and help China in this process rather than bow to their every wish”
Sigh.
Let’s keep all the poor and undeveloped peoples in the world that way – for without cheap and reliable energy to power their rise in “developed nation” status, they won’t get anywhere. We’ll give them sunlight and wind! Something they get for free anyways, but we’ll make sure it costs them more money to use this free source of energy, yes!
And I am sorry, but China barely listens to itself, much less a bunch of rich white nations telling it to stop trying to modernize. Why would it listen to touchy-feely college students with time on their hands either?
00
The Chinese have abandoned their Liverpool Plains mining concept because of the inability of happy-clappy Baird and his Govt to stand up to physically violent illegal actions from the greenies and the completely irrational fear of the farmers that a mine with a footprint nowhere near the aquifers (both vertically and horizontally) will spoil their water supply.. I’ve been there several times recently and observed it all first-hand.
The happy-clappys (LINO’s) are as big a disaster for NSW as was the ALP. And as wet Lord Waffle is for the country at large.
Shenhua has paid many hundreds of millions of dollars complying with the impossibly convoluted NSW planning processes. It doesn’t matter how straight and honest one attempts to be, the refusal of the NSW Govt to uphold their own laws (aka sovereign risk) eventually beats one into dust. The only certainty is that the Govt will do a slippy-dippy at every key point.
Adani in the Galilee Basin has a similar experience. They now have mining leases but Native Title is still in play. In my considerable experience with this Native Title business, the essential problem is that various indigenous grous all lay claim to the same ground and cannot agree amongst themselves – so the situation remains forever unresolved.
This next comment is for Ross and others who cannot grasp economics. From about 2003-2004 until 2014, for around a decade, the mining industry (in particular, the coal and iron ore segments) poured uncounted billions of dollars into this country. We accepted the challenge of the vast Chinese demand and organised supply in a timely and professional fashion. For a decade, the money poured in as it never had before. Now it’s all gone, p3ed against a wall. I look around and for the life of me, cannot see where it was spent. (Saved us from the GFC ? We are a net borrower, not a net lender, we were never iat risk to toxic debt in any degree. But Rudderless threw huge amounts of helicopter money at the great unwashed, which they promptly spent on overseas imports like Apple products). Having wasted that unbelievably huge opportunity, we are mow urged by the Ross’s to “get on board”
Get on board WHAT, Ross ? Do be specific here, old chappie. Wouldn’t want to waste another huge opportunity, would we ?
As Cassandra has said before, people deserve exactly what they get.
122
Get on board what? The future my good chappie? It’s going to be different, for sure, but if you get on board with a modicum of good will, you can help change it….for the better.
Thanks for the economics lesson, old chappie. A little obscure, though. We had a mining boom and now it’s over we are left with nothing, you say? What exactly was the lesson, Old bean?
Was it something to do with Howard’s middle class welfare? An international collapse of capitalism? Whatever. As you say, the Mining boom was the past. Australia was well served during the GFC. Now we’re about the future. Come on board, old chap.
322
China is doing as we all should;have a diverse supply of energy and as diverse an economy as possible. China can run with renewables better than most because it has an industrial relations regime unlike any in the west. They still have a “cando” attitude that the west has largely lost. They will clean up their pollution but I don’t see that they are sold on the CO2 concept. China is capitalizing on renewables by under cutting and borrowing technologies. In their revolution there is scope for trying these things, as we do in Australia with remote power supplies. Subsidies are always going to be disruptive in all manner of areas. Governments have to be very cautious of where to start and where go stop. What can we afford. What is to cost:benifit.
91
If Australia really wanted to reduce their CO2 output while maintaining some economic functionality, the very best thing would be to upgrade all our old power stations to the most modern standards.
121
Some nuclear would be great to broaden the knowledge base and diversify. It seems a shame to let that radiation energy dissipate when we have the ability to harness it safely.
30
You’re completely clueless, old chappie, an empty bean bag adding nothing but parasitism. I’m aware you don’t mind that.
WHAT specifically do we invest in now? Answering “the future” is empty rhetoric, old wobbly.
The point to the economic lesson is that even when you are supplied with countless billions of dollars, with no input or effort on your part, you just waste it. Mo one of substance will bother any more making the effort.
People deserve exactly what they get. Cassandra suggests you prepare for 3rd world status, deserved.
101
The carbon dioxide growth rate has been tracking with temperature since the inception of the mauna loa observatory data set over half a century ago. Should this continue, china won’t be adding anything to the growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere heading into the future. In light of this, your arrogant grandstanding seems rather foolish, so please knock it off…
211
‘The carbon dioxide growth rate has been tracking with temperature since the inception of the mauna loa observatory data set over half a century ago.’
Except over the 19 year hiatus and the attached massive model failure.
101
“The Fat One”, the carbon growth rate has also stalled over the 19 year hiatus at about 2 ppm per year. (do i have to put the word RATE in caps next time?)
00
straight from the depths of SkS.
sorry Fozzi, your playmates say you are WRONG
11
and another more up to date one.
00
If you look at that last graph, the rate of growth of emissions is STEEPEST since about 2002.
00
Andy, just occured to me that we’re talking about two different things. The ATMOSPHERIC growth rate is tracking with temps. Thus, the amount of human emissions have little bearing on what the growthrate is or will be in the future…
00
Here you go andy:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/mean:24/derivative/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1958/scale:0.204/offset:0.096
Note the vertical axis shows monthly values (so you have to multiply by 12). BTW, now that dr. spencer has closed up shop, i’m a “wattie”. Can’t imagine that my comments here would be very welcome at “skeptical science”…
00
“your arrogant grandstanding….. knock it off…”
yes master…. 😉 Get ****** !!
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Aw, come on andy, i said PLEASE!!!
10
“The carbon dioxide growth rate has been tracking with temperature since the inception of the mauna loa observatory data set over half a century ago.”
GOOD.. 🙂 More CO2 is needed, to go with the rise in temps out of the LIA.
Let’s hope like heck that CO2 doesn’t follow the temperature downwards over the next few decades.
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There’s a reasonable chance co2 would track temp downwards over time, should a long cooling trend come to pass, as the oceans reabsorb co2.
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Yes Robk, and that worries me.
CO2 is pretty low for feeding the planet at the moment.
A lowering of atmospheric CO2 would probably cause very major issues with world-wide food production.
81
Its not the CO2 we need worry about, humans are ingenious and would set up large nurseries and pump in carbon dioxide. Let’s not forget CO2 pellets.
In a cooling world there would be monsoon failure, which is why the Chinese are venturing into South America, Africa and Australia with agribusiness.
The aim is to keep the system running effectively under free enterprise principles, yet allowing the Yuan to become the dominant currency.
India is a major power and any monsoon failure these days only has a minor impact on the stock market.
In Europe we can go back to 1200 ad and witness the cool wet summers and cold winters leading to starvation, but these days the populous can wander at their leisure if they can afford the luxury.
50
The human induced CO2 will come in very handy keeping the planet green, but sadly unable to keep temperatures up.
Unless of course you are one of those who believe CO2 causes a little warming and expect the hiatus to continue into the foreseeable future.
Its not for me to criticize office colleagues, but you need to do a refresher course at Deltoid.
20
Deltiod… ahhhhgggg…. inhumane punishment !!!!
10
Robustness on a continual open thread, stu2 could do with some help.
10
“expect the hiatus to continue into the foreseeable future.”
No, I think it will be very interesting to see what happens as the La Nina and sleepy sun start to take effect !
I don’t think those in the upper northern hemisphere are going to be very happy, especially with their energy supplies in the deplorable state their political bending to the AGW agenda has left them.
20
The odds are on a fairly strong La Nina but may only bring temperatures back to where it was before El Nino.
La Nina episodes following directly on from El Nino events, since 1980
El Nino La Nina
1982-83 1984-85
1987-88 1988-89
1994-95 1995-96
1997-98 1998-99
2006-07 2007-08
2009-10 2010-11
Source: US National Weather Service Climate Prediction Centre
10
Fonzarelli: re. your comment that “The carbon dioxide growth rate has been tracking with temperature since the inception of the mauna loa observatory data set over half a century ago.”
During the pre-industrial era (pre 1750AD), CO2 was 280ppm. It’s now just over 400ppm – an increase of 43%, with no climatic disaster.
Yet we’re told that human CO2 emissions threaten the planet!
20
Yes, carbon500, even if human emissions did threaten the planet, there is nothing we can do about it. Since the growth rate tracks with temperature, more emissions do not mean a higher growth rate. Carbon reduction schemes are an excersize in futility…
10
CO2 does not track raw temperature, only the massively adjusted GISS/HadCrut temps, where the “adjustments” have an uncanny match to the rate of CO2 change.(funny about that)
Using the satellite data, there is no correlation between temperature and CO2.
Over the history of Earth, it is shown that CO2 follows temperature, NOT the other way around.
30
i certainly agree that temps drive co2 and not the other way around…
As for the satellite data, it actually looks very much like either of the hadley southern hemisphere land and sst data sets. (the hadley data, of course covers the entire length of MLO, which is why i like to use it) Both uah and rss are an even better fit with the mlo data than either hadley (s.h.) data set. The wild card being the last few years where uah has been adjusted to show a long term cooling trend (until february) and rss has been adjusted to show a warming trend. Who is right, uah or rss? Who knows…
00
Fonzarelli is quite correct. The growth rate of atmospheric C02 does not at all reflect human emussions. We had a 300% increase in our emissions since 2000, yet we see no spike at all in the growth rate. Just the same steady rise as always.
20
Sure the Chinese might be walking away from expensive coal mines in Australia, but they are walking right into other countries (Bolivia, oh the irony) to develop other aerial fertilising ventures:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2016/03/30/china-sinosteel-signs-contract-for-mill-at-bolivia-iron-ore-mine/
As an aside, here’s wondering if Evo Morales has any offshore dealings in Panama.
50
The Chinese walking away from coal in NSW is just one of a string of major development projects which will not be undertaken in Australia because one blithering idiot said “We are going to have a great big tax on mining in Australia.”
Goodbye investors.
10
May they follow the same path as SunEdison, which is one company that traded at over $91 a few years ago; has recently traded around 25-40c. So much for being in a global renewable energy company developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants. Expect China will fall for the same mistakes and lose big time.
20
Ross,
The Shenhua Watermark coal mine is going ahead. It has passed all the Federal and state environmental requirements and only needs final state approval to start mining. It will be very good for the district and provide many local jobs. I’m very familiar with the area and assure you the soils at the mine site are very ordinary red (not black)and a driller told me that they had drilled all over the site and not found water – it’s pretty dry there. Recent land use has included a goat farmer on the site who went broke. When production starts, come with me to the mine and we will toast with champagne and burn a coal bonfire. The only consequence of this mine will be good local employment, taxes and royalties for Australia and cheap electricity for the people of the world. Is that such a bad thing?
00
Ross,
The Shenhua Watermark coal mine is going ahead. It has passed all the Federal and state environmental requirements and only needs final state approval to start mining. It will be very good for the district and provide many local jobs. I’m very familiar with the area and assure you the soils at the mine site are very ordinary red (not black)and a driller told me that they had drilled all over the site and not found water – it’s pretty dry there. Recent land use has included a goat farmer on the site who went broke. When production starts, come with me to the mine and we will toast with champagne and burn a coal bonfire. The only consequence of this mine will be good local employment, taxes and royalties for Australia and cheap electricity for the people of the world. Is that such a bad thing?
00
This is a great article and well-explained. It puts the submitted country targets in some sort of context. China will increase emissions massively. Its forecast increase by 2030 could be greater than the combined proposed reductions in emissions by both USA and the EU. This should not be surprising. China has nearly double the population of the these two areas (1380m v 324+503m) and is growing fast.
Another aspect that Tom mentions is that total emissions in the USA are already falling. Looking at emissions per capita, (and another data set of total CO2 emissions), emissions have been falling in the USA since 1973 and in the EU since 1980. Therefore, much of the pledged emissions reductions will happen without any policy.
https://manicbeancounter.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/fig1a.jpg
In China, the pledge to stop emissions increasing by 2030 is just based on it reaching the stage of emissions development that the USA did over 40 years ago. No costly policies are required.
Australia’s emissions per capita only seem to have peaked in 2010 (if they have peaked) and its population is still growing (2016 23.8m, 2010 22.2, 2000 18.9, 1990 16.8), so the pledge to reduce total emissions by 31% from 2012 to 2030 would require policy initiatives to reduce emissions per capita by a far greater amount. Australia’s policy proposals, in UNFCCC speak, have the greatest ambition.
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We are all making precisely the same mistake as the alarmists warmist and hard left eco-loons make and that is we expect that what we are presently seeing and experiencing, the current trends in just about everything if you will, will continue on indefinitely into the foreseeable and far future.
They won’t.
They can’t!
Somewhere out in ours and the world’s future is the “Great Disrupter”event.
It will be an event, a happening, a radical change, a immensely destructive event or just a subtle slow event that happens over a few months or a couple of years that will once again dramatically and perhaps traumatically change the course of our civilisation and perhaps even that of Life on Earth.
What it will be nobody knows or can know and even fewer will have guessed at.
But it will disrupt and change much on this planet, at least for humankind.
And the worries about those miniscule events of today such as the non visible anthropogenic climate change from increasing CO2 in that ever rolling Great wheel of History will seem crass and of no consequence compared to the traumatic changes that the advent of a Great Disrupter event will have on humankind.
So what brought this bit of amateur, laying awake bedtime philosophy on ?
I’ve been thinking about this for some time.
Now despite saying a great disrupter is utterly unpredictable in type, severity, componentary and timeliness I would not put my money on a terrorist nuclear holocaust or just about anything man has created as a Great Disrupter event.
As a farmer I have seen and lived through and gagged over the stench in a number of mouse plagues and locust plagues during my lifetime.
I have seen at least two square kilometres of my farm land riddled with mouse holes, a teeming stinking mouse megapolis with a teeming mouse population of maybe a few millions or tens of millions of mice.
As over half of mankind’s numbers now live in teeming cities of over 100,000 population each and up to 20 millions or more I am starting to see and equate mankind and his cities with that teeming mouse megapolis of my experience of a couple of decades ago and a few times in the years even before that.
A mutated disease, a natural or engineered or escaped mutated, genetically altered naturally or artificially changed virus let loose in the teeming masses of the worlds great megapolis’s and we have a potential Great Disrupter and potential destroyer of mankind’s present civilisation.
Ebola now almost stopped, came close.
Had it mutated to an airborne viral form and spread by air borne dispersion like a cold virus who knows what the end result would have been in cities where five, ten, twenty millions live side by side.
But Ebola remained a contact form of viral transfer so it could with great difficulty and risk to the medical staff, be controlled and isolated and limited in its range.
That is just a single example where mankind has scraped through by the skin of his teeth.
Next time we might not be so lucky.
We won’t even bother with asteroids. A large city destroying sized one of some tens of metres across impacts on our planet at least once a year.
We could handle a major city being wiped out but not something a few kilometres across impacting on our planet.
All that is pure guess work except the Great Disrupter is going to happen sometime, somewhere in mankind’s future.
And then Global warming and CO2 will be the least of our worries.
Climate change, serious Climate change of the non CO2 induced variety will be a given.
Personal survival might be the real worry.
And then we or whats left of us, will start all over again but this time with a vast greater store of knowledge to draw on.
And that mouse megapolis ?
They came and bred as plague mice do and created that mouse megapolis in about three months
They were gone in two weeks.
Living cannabilised, dragging their part eaten bodies over the ground for a few centimetres, stinking, rotting, riddled with disease and dying and dead.
Only the holes full of decomposing stinking bodies were left and then the holes slowly drifted closed.
Three years later I could very occasionally again see a mouse in that field whilst working the tractor at night.
CO2?
What CO2!?
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Rom: I too often experience the insights of insomnia, it goes with age. Your post bought to mind another with whom I find a strange empathy.
“I shall do such things, what they are yet I know not: but they shall be the terrors of the earth.”
King Lear Act2 scene 4
The point about “Black Swan” events is that, although one COULD imagine them, nobody ever does – thus the “great disrupter” remains unexpected. The last such was probably the “Spanish flu” of 1918, which had many clinical similarities to Ebola. This only killed 3 – 5 % of the global population (much like the “Black Death”).
Your “mouse plague” intrigued me since, under optimal conditions, one pair could become 200 in three months. This time scale indicates initial optimisation followed by systemic collapse of resources. It was probably due to climate change.
“And then Global warming and CO2 will be the least of our worries.” It is now – an entirely synthetic problem designed to engage the world and avoid facing the actual issues, they being far to difficult.
On the subject of this post – it is hard to read the heavily
conditional NDIC’s and believe that any of these parties believe the Global Warming Narrative for one instant. It is a game of thrones played to impenetrable rules which nobody understands, having no purpose than the game itself, no meaning discernable to anybody – but consequences to everybody.
Perhaps this is the “great disrupter”.
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Wow ROM,
That is apocalyptic.
Have you been reading from the work of Rev Thomas Malthus or the book of Revelaton?
A mouse plague must be an extraodinary phenomenon and a truly awful experience. I wonder what causes them? According to Malthus it is the propensity of all living things to grow beyond their food supply.
Hopefully the great disrupters will be a much more benign thing, such as the proliferation of small modular nuclear reactors that you linked to a few days back. They might bring plentiful, cheap and safe electric power to all countries on Earth and transform our lives again in a positive way.
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Peter C @ #3.2
.
From the first para of my above post;
The point is that the current situation and the trends and directions into the future that we draw conclusions about based only on the current situation, which we all do, will be disrupted and changed in ways and in times that are totally unpredictable as will be the impact of those changes and disruptions.
And here apart from the generalisations and in line with Jo’s headline posting, I am aiming specifically at the CO2 catastrophe meme which even us Skeptics shape a lot of our thinking around.
The great disrupters of civilisation do not need to be apocalyptic but can be and often have been highly beneficial to the advancement of civilisation down through the centuries.
They have also been devastating to many past civilisations and occasionally to life on this planet as the asteroid impact at Chicxulub some 66 million years ago testifies to;
So we can list a few of those known Great Disrupters to civilisation and even to life on Earth over the last few thousand years, not necessarily in order time wise.
So a short and out of order list but very far from a comphrehensive list of some Great Disrupter events of the last few thousand years, a span of time that covers many of mankind’s civilisations both past and present.
1 / Toba super volcano which may have come close to wiping the Homo sapiens species, thats us, from the face of the planet plus the enormous impact on the rest of the planet’s life forms.
2/ Iceland’s Laki super eruption which wiped out a good percentage of the European population plus other unknown numbers in the far flung Eurasian continent through famine.
3 / The invention and thousand year development of writing which completely changed the way mankind thought and acted as knowledge could be recorded and passed down to the following generations.
A major change to the way civilisations existed.
4 / The rise of Christianity 20 centuries ago which has shaped and still shapes much of the world’s legal, moral and humanity based moral and legal codes in nearly every nation on earth.
5 / Even the rise of Islam, another major disrupter of civilisation in around 900 AD was originally very crudely based by Mohammed on his understandings of the Jewish and Christian beliefs and values.
6 / The rise of the short lived Greek civilisation on which so much of our current civilisation is shaped around.
7 / The rise and then fall of the 1000 year long civilisation of the Roman Empire.
8 / The fall of that empire and the descent into the darkness of the European and central Eurasian civilisations.
9 / The plagues of the Black Deaths which destroyed a third of Europe’s population and probably the same for the central Asians and Chinese populations according to the chronicles.
There were unlike most believe, a number of such outbreaks of the Black Death over a century or longer.
That was one of the real Great Disrupters of civilisations as western civilisation was changed forever by the Black Death.
10/ Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press led to the universal distribution of knowledge and the access to that knowledge by even the least educated of the population with all the consequences that implies.
And it led to the destruction of much of the authority and power that had been wielded without mercy by the small educated elite over the rest of their societies.
11/ The invention of the steam engine and for the first time in all of mankind’s existence, access to cheap, always there, reliable and a regular source of energy upon which the whole of our present civilisation is totally based on and totally dependent on.
A energy based civilisation which will continue to be totally dependent on cheap, totally reliable, always there energy as far as we can see into the unknown future
12 / The invention of the Laser in the 1940’s upon which our entire Global communications systems and much of our industry and society are now totally dependent on to continue to be able to function.
There are many, many more such examples if you wish to list them.
And those disruptive events both traumatic and benign, are far more common, far closer in time to one another than most ever realise.
As another wild guess, the development of small fusion reactors with their unlimited energy production potential would wipe out much of the current political and scientific and green based establishments political, bureaucratic and social structures as they would no longer have any justification for their existence.
And thus humanity’s world would be changed dramatically once again and the old order of today disrupted and destroyed beyond redemption.
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ROM: I would add the transistor to your list for without it we probably wouldn’t be posting here on this blog.
40
ROM,
You may find The Nexial Institute website interesting.
It attempts to make connections between the many and varied endeavors of humankind, trying as it does to make sense of where we are, where we’re going, and possible futures.
Personally I find it is flawed in that it believes that —
1. Humans are rational and act rationally. They are not, people are taken-in by ad-men and worse, and observations of mass hysteria show that large numbers of apparently sane people can act very irrationally.
2. Science and its methods are factual, supremely accurate, and as such can reliably predict the future.
IMO science and the human understanding of it, is not totally factual and accurate — it only poorly describes nature with all the flawed methods and our current incomplete knowledge — building a poor simulacrum of the truth.
On judging the future, science is almost as poor as any other method known to man at predicting the future, the exception being resolving some elements of item 1. (above) just before the damage becomes totally intractable.
Where the site is good is noting the cyclic nature of human development over the millennia. Bottom of the page, Humanities — Research of history and prehistory for cyclic patterns… Patterns of 45 year and of 700 years cyclic rise and of fall of civilizations
You may also enjoy this site… ‘Cycles of Rise and Fall, Upsweeps and Collapses: Changes in the Scale of Settlements and Polities Since the Bronze Age’
00
“cheap and safe electric power to all countries on Earth ”
I have no problem with this idea, so long as atmospheric CO2 levels are not allowed to drop back to the perilously low pre-industrial plant subsistence level.
62
+1,000,000. I said something similar above.
21
above as for ROM.
21
was stupid fingers
20
Or maybe ROM, an infection from mouse to pet to human brain and reckless behavior. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121206203240.htm
There may be millions already infected, what if it mutates! 8(
30
One emerging threat for humans is obesity. People are literally feeding themselves to an early grave while imposing massive cost increase on their health care before they reach the grave.
It is possible to envisage overloaded health services collapsing under the ever expanding waistlines:
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/obesity-and-overweight
The resources to manage the heath costs of obesity are doubling about every 7 years in Australia so it is not too far away when able bodied people are occupied full time feeding and caring for the fat people. Situation is similar in the USA:
http://media.mercola.com/assets/images/obese.gif
Unlike the mice that starve to death humans have the propensity to over eat to their early death.
20
Surely the aim of all CO2 botherers is to reduce the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere? This concentration is the net result when all sources and sinks are accounted for. And funnily enough the atmosphere has not yet figured out how to distinguish between human induced and ‘natural’ sources and sinks. So it treats all CO2 molecules the same. So should we. Australia started fiddling its GHG accounts before Kyoto. Unfortunately for our future scientific reputation it still can’t get out of the habit. Direct Action is the clue should anyone want to go fishing ‘out back’.
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The bottom line of this, as any thinking individual can attest, is that what we do about CO2 emissions in Australia, the UK, or any country in the EU is totally irrelevant, as China and India are going to keep doing their own thing.
In other words, India and China are going to keep giving the West the finger and laughing at us as we deliberately hobble our economies in a futile attempt to combat a non-problem.
So, the enormous, pain, cost and stupidity we all have to bear due to the whims of green obsessed politicians is totally and utterly pointless, but readers here already knew that, because it is all so bleeding obvious!
290
Good point. Let’s trash the joint!
219
That’s a daft comment Ross. Just because we don’t believe in the global warming sc@m doesn’t mean that we don’t care about the earth and what goes on around us. Don’t make silly assumptions.
For the record, I was doing what might be termed ‘green’ things like composting, tree planting, recycling long before it all became mainstream. I still do not believe our puny efforts have anything but distinctly local effects.
Ross, have you ever flown over the endless miles and miles and miles of snow and ice that you can see en route from LHR to Calgary?
151
That snow and ice were incredible and I saw it in late September…when the amounts are least.
111
Hi Annie.
Yes I was a bit flippant. Apologies.
My point is, just because China ( and India) are possibly not doing there best to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, that shouldn’t give us a free pass to do nothing, ‘because China isn’t’. We have to be better than that. Otherwise, why should China bother? Let’s lead.
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Ross writes this: (my bolding here)
Australia’s total annual emissions of CO2 are 409 Million Tonnes.
China increased their emissions last year by that amount, and now emit 10.6 BILLION Tonnes of CO2 each year, Australia’s total multiplied by 26.
Australia aims to lower its emissions by around 26% by 2025 or so. What we here in Australia will take ten years to do is cancelled out by China in 8 weeks.
We could, umm, lead, but China wouldn’t even notice.
Tony.
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We should follow China and update our coal fired technology to the latest equipment.
That would give us another 50+ years of good solid, regular electricity supply.
And why the heck would anyone with even the slightest knowledge of plant growth want to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. DUMB !!!
151
Well, Ross, generalisations are always dangerous.
I’m packing to travel so no time to comment further but I do not see the point of pauperising ourselves for a non-existent scare. Care with resources is one thing. Using our abilities to improve life for the billions is part of what I believe is our God-given gift of life, together with brains to reason and the resources of the earth to use, not abuse or misuse but USE.
80
Ross:
“We have to be better than that.” How? By adopting wind and sun as our sources of electricity when the results so far don’t support the view that they enable major reductions in CO2 emissions? Fossil fuels supply just over 85% of our electricity and wind 4.1 and solar PV 2%. Bioenergy 1.4% but as that results in CO2 emissions I think it foolish to count it, but I suppose you would. Hydro is now counted as renewable and that doubles the total. We haven’t built any dams for hydro in Australia for 30 years & I cannot see opposition going away, and most bioenergy has been in use for many years, so we’ve seen our retail electricity nearly double in return for a few percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
So it seems only wind and solar are available for any plans at present, and they are the 2 methods being used in Europe and elsewhere. What have been the results? Germany has rushed into renewables with the result that its emissions have stayed the same (actually risen slightly last year) and retail prices have soared. Denmark supposedly uses wind for 42% of its electricity, it doesn’t, and it has the highest retail price for electricity, even higher than Germany. Spain has ceased subsidising renewables (and its retail price has dropped 20%), as has Greece which is mining coal and looking for off-shore oil. Ireland built wind farms to export to the UK but spends more time (and money) buying it. Poland and the Czech Republic are trying to stop Germany ‘dumping’ electricity surpluses onto their grids and disrupting supply.
France and the Sweden are reducing their nuclear energy and replacing it with wind turbines. The necessary backup will be wood fired (Sweden) or gas fired (France), it is hard to see how that will reduce CO2. The Swiss aren’t doing anything because they use nuclear and hydro, and will make money from the changes buying cheap for pumped storage when there is plenty of wind and selling high when the wind drops. Much like Norway, except the latter doesn’t use pumped storage, just lets the flow bypass to the sea. Ireland built wind farms to sell to the British but now import a lot of electricity from there. Being somewhat isolated they have been able to measure the effect of higher wind generation and have found that the efficiency reduces as the amount goes up (17% wind give 9% reduction in CO2). The UK is in trouble and struggling to avoid blackouts as coal fired shuts down, and no one will build any gas fired cover.
All across Europe high prices have helped reduce emissions by forcing industry to go elsewhere, namely China who have been the great beneficiary. The Chinese have also benefitted by building turbine and PV solar factories. The Chinese Gov. has subsidised these factories by installing high numbers in areas not on the grid, thus getting kudos from the gullible westerners who now buy the cheaper products out of China. So the result is jobs and money to China and higher unemployment and higher retail electricity prices in Europe. What real reductions Europe has made in emissions have come from greater efficiency of use. Thus Denmark has some very efficient coal fired stations (91% ! ) which use the ‘waste heat’ to circulate hot water to houses in the vicinity as well as de-icing roads and sports fields. Improved insulation is another gain. CHP plants, big and small, also do the same, but it is hard to see this work in Australia where heating isn’t much in demand even in summer.
The best way to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia would be to go nuclear, but that is politically impossible. Large scale use of gas fired would reduce emissions drastically. The next best thing would be to up-grade our coal burners which could return about 25% reduction of the 32% generated by the electricity sector. As the Irish experiment shows renewables won’t result in much reduction of emissions for a continuous supply. I will leave you to fall into the trap of claiming that the answer is batteries, and it might be, except I don’t believe in the use of battery whips on horses or gullible humans.
80
“Let’s trash the joint!”
Yep.. let’s put wind Turbines and solar “farms (lol), everywhere… destroy the environment.
Destroy our industries through lack of regular power… mission nearly accomplished in the UK and EU.
Yep, the Green agenda is doing a great job of trashing the place.
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You really are always turned up to ’10’ ,aren’t you Andy. Dial it back, just a smidge. Here’s a green thumbs up from me, to you, as a sign of encouragement.
215
So again.. you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to counter my statements.
Well done.
71
Calm down, Andy. That’s because that’s all they are, statements, shouted loudly usually followed by an insult.
But if you insist.
You are wrong, Andy.
The vast majority of accepted science says you are wrong. Not me. Them.
I am not going to debate every silly point with you here, @ Jonova. If you think you’ve cracked it, I suggest you walk on down to the CSIRO and present your scientific facts to them. Don’t shout. This will put them off.
When they have read your ‘paper’ and accept your results, they will no doubt publish it internationally to great acclaim and huge relief to many major industries. Do that, and you’ll get even more green thumbs from me. Make sure they spell your name right.
317
Poor EMPTY Ross… Still nothing to offer… So, so sad. !!
And ultimately PATHETIC.
83
“The vast majority of accepted science ”
STILL you haven’t understood… its…
The vast majority of accepted POLITICS……
123
“I am not going to debate every silly point with you here”
Because you know you can’t…. obviously….
You have proven that.
Still relying on the totally Non-scientific, fabricated, consensus farce…
Seems to be all you have to offer.
82
Still shouting,Andy? Good on you, mate.
But here’s my point Andy. Unless something has changed in the last 20 minutes, the IPCC understands and accepts the science of man made global warming. Nothing has changed between your first and last post.
We all love a good rant, but clearly websites like these, and thoughts like yours,have made precisely NO difference to their thinking. Zero.
Shout and scream “POLITICS”…”CONSPIRACY” all you want, but clearly the people you need to convince, view you in the same light as the UFOs are out there” crowd.
You need a new approach. Perhaps Jonovas husbands’ upcoming paper on ‘Force X’ or whatever, will do it. Maybe that will crack the issue wide open.
I’m sceptical, but we’ll see, when it’s published, I guess.
Okay? Thanks for reading.
315
IPCC….. Oh dear… you do know what the “I” stands for, don’t you 🙂 DOH !!!
And yes we have all noted that you are constantly having empty meaningless rants.
Again, you have managed a post TOTALLY EMPTY of any real content. Well done. 🙂
72
‘…but clearly the people you need to convince, view you in the same light as the UFOs are out there” crowd.’
And according to Pew and the Guardian we don’t believe in evolution.
61
And because you obvious don’t know.
The IPCC is not a scientific body. It does no science.
It is a POLITICAL body whose sole purpose is to support the AGW agenda.
102
Ross
In case you miss my link to CSIRO at 1.6.1.4 re earth’s greening see here:
It’s from “our” CSIRO so it must be true!!
Cheers,
81
“Still shouting, Andy”
No, you are just an overly sensitive little petal.
Far-left green Arts student, I’m reckoning. cis-male
52
Ross,
Are you him?
🙂
10
Nah, tom0. the guy in the picture had a brain and ideas of his own, no matter how deranged.
Ross… just gullibly deranged.
30
Golly, you go out to dinner and come back to find everyone talking about you. What did Oscar Wilde say?
Thanks for your interest tom0mason, but no, that’s not me. That would be a drawing by M C Escher.
But spookily, you’re actually very close. I think you might be on to me, (gulp).
Big shout out to my new bestie Andy.
Keeping it real, bro. Respect.
12
Good toke was it hey Ross.
Go to bed and recover.
10
And no, I’m not interested in your pre-pubescent crush.
20
Ross: The IPCC has very little to do with science, real science that is. It is a political arm of the UNFCCC. If you would care to read The Delinquent Teenager… by Donna LaFramboise you will find out just how perverted the IPCC really is. The book is a little dry in places but well worth the read.
20
ANOTHER post aimed at me Andy? This is starting to fee like infatuation.
Are you flirting with me, Andy?
01
Hello Howie of Indiana. I haven’t read The Delinquent Teenager. I did read a review of Donna La Framboise book which described it as “…A collection of misrepresentations, falsehoods and lies”…. Seems, everyone has an opinion. I have read that she is a pretty good photographer, though. So it’s not all bad.
06
Keep drinking the kool aid Ross. There is no hope for you.
00
Ross believes reviews, huh. “I did read a review of Donna La Framboise book which described it as “…A collection of misrepresentations, falsehoods and lies”…”
Did the reviewer list any lies and the refutations to them?
Generally, if I see a simple “Liar liar pants on fire” critique I am curious about what the lies are and look for the list. If none found, I at least scan the book for the glaringly obvious falsehoods. So far, in my wanderings about the bookstores, libraries and interwebs, I have found that more critiques claiming “lies, lies and more lies” without samples are misleading than true.
Even so, I check the sources and dig for facts, even from those authors and suppliers of info that I trust. I never take the critic’s word it. This means that sometimes I pay for crap, nonsense and poor writing – but not that often.
00
With a profit driven society…Our governments have sold the citizens out for worthless paper.
It doesn’t matter who you vote in, they ALL sell us out.
Propaganda is what our governments are great for which they tell us what is good for the people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI3lckqaSk0
That has been happening for decades…
90
1. Everything about the uncertainty in measuring emissions from fuel consumption.
http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghgp/tools/Quantitative%20Uncertainty%20Guidance.pdf
Buried in the notes of the above document:
Note that the uncertainty of the global warming potential (GWP) for the six GHG Protocol gasses is assumed to be ± 35% for the 90% confidence interval (see Section 7.2).
2. It is still unexplained how fossil fuel consumption could spike during WWII and measured atmospheric CO2 flatlined at 311 ppm. This was discussed years ago on this blog and more recently here: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/proof_that_the_manmade_global_warming_theory_is_false.html
140
Ron; the referred “American Thinker” article is not supported by its own reference.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ghgases/Fig1A.ext.txt
The “war time” flatline was 1936 – 1951. The war time usage increase was about 10% of current emissions (36bb pa). More interesting is that the rate of increase has flatlined at 2ppm pa since 1980.
I have also just discovered that Mauna Loa has only been the
“official” calibration laboratory since 1995.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
70
So! Given the short blue and long red lines on your nice chart there Jo, once we’ve all asked,
in a resigned, sad sounding voice, we should all go home and read a good book, take a nap or do something else easy and pleasant and much more beneficial to the world than to worry about CO2 — unless… …unless, just barely, unless someone reading this thread knows how to change what the UN and its acolytes everywhere are doing.
Anyone?
No? Well… …I thought so.
Why are we chasing our tail around and around like a kitten, unable to tell that the target always moves as fast as we do?
From the beginning the fly in the ointment is always that no matter what CO2 is actually doing because of China and India — or anyone else — you and I are going to pay the price for all the foolishness while those with the nerve to go ahead and do what they need to do will prosper. Why don’t we have that much nerve?
Forgive me William…
61
I am not in agreement with the main title. Over the past 10-15 years China has accounted for maybe half the net growth in global CO2 emissions. However, that contribution will shrink for the following reasons.
1. As mentioned in #2, China’s emissions will likely peak as they have done in USA and and the EU. Tom Quirke’s straight-line forecast of emissions growth to 2030 is on the high side.
2. China’s economic growth has stalled dramatically. This is the most likely cause of China ceasing imports of coal from NSW as mentioned by Ross #1. The press release is likely a PR exercise in making economic bad news seem like a positive policy initiative.
3. As China’s emissions growth slows, by 2020-2025 India will likely be increasing emissions be a greater amount than China.
4. The emissions policy was to obtain agreement to reduce global emissions. The “agreement” from the Paris talks recognized recognized that even if the policy proposals were fully implemented, in 2030 global emissions would still be increasing. This included China, where emissions would have peaked. The policy problem is to get global emissions reducing rapidly.
5. Post 2030 there are many other countries that will increase their emissions well into the future. Most immediately will be India, which could soon become the World’s most populace country and who is about 20 years behind China in emissions growth, and at a slightly slower rate. With slower growth rates than India are the Asian economies of Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Without a technological revolution, all will have much higher emissions levels in 50 years than currently. In 30 to 40 years, the continent of Africa will likely exceed the emissions of the USA today.
Current long-range forecasts claim that without emissions policies, developed nations will resume emissions growth after stalling for decades; that China’s emissions will continue growing for decades when they will stop before 2030; and that emissions growth in India and Africa will stall, when it will increase for decades to come. An extreme example I looked at is from Climate Interactive, a group Joe Romm uses for his policy claims.
70
In the end, the real drivers of global CO2 may or may not be things like forest and peat fires, ocean currents, phytoplankton in any case. Won’t it be a great day when we figure exactly where all that CO2 is coming from and going to?
No, it will be a great day when we figure out what level of CO2 is most beneficial to life on earth. Then we have something to work on.
110
“No, it will be a great day when we figure out what level of CO2 is most beneficial to life on earth.”
Significantly HIGHER than current, that’s for sure. !!
80
800 ppm
40
Yep, somewhere between 700-1000 ppm would be a good start.
That’s about what horticulturalists use in real greenhouses.
60
I was going to say 800ppm also. The optimum CO2 density.
40
So, we have a consensus, around 800ppm CO2, if achievable.
China, India, Germany, Japan, Turkey, Poland, heck even Kenya, are doing their bit.
Now its up to those other developing countries, and the once-developed countries like the USA and the UK, to throw off the green agenda shackles and start providing CO2 for the world’s food supplies.
30
By all the indications and evidence, anywhere beyond 100% more than current level is very beneficial to life.
Read any of the papers quoted here,or here, or here
80
I can’t understand these co2 emission numbers. Here are the OZ govt’s history for co2 emissions from 1990 and projections for the future for OZ, USA and China . The co2 emission tonnages are much higher than shown in this post.
http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/ac0b4568-a29b-4def-872e-f7fe96da73ea/files/emissions-information-sheet.pdf
The US govt EIA show present world TOTAL emissions are about 32 billion tonnes ( 2013) and they project this will be 45 bn tonnes by 2040. This roughly agrees with the OZ govt’s co2 emission tonnages above. Here’s the link.
http://www.eia.gov/pressroom/presentations/sieminski_08122013.pdf
30
I havent checked for sure but the post’s figures are tonnes of carbon (C), where as often the figures are quoted in tonnes of CO2 (equivalents), so the O2 could be the difference.
20
Which ever way you slice it, reciting the meme of CO2 emissions just gives the notion that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is somehow important. It is not, it never has been.
The UN-IPCC is just plain wrong. There is NO observed and quantified evidence that CO2 affects global climate — Period.
Indeed there is no measurable greenhouse effect as Professor Wood proved back at the beginning of the last century, an experiment that has been successfully repeated many times (see http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html ). Need personal evidence? Get some CO2 (from a CO2 extinguisher) and verify it for yourself just like I did — and note NO computer model is required. 🙂
The sooner that governments, and that means the voting public, see the light the better.
With that said any country’s CO2 emissions is immaterial as to what happens to that country’s climate, however it does indicate its level of development, thus shows how able the majority of that country’s population should successfully survive any other natural disaster, be it climate variability, earthquake, volcano, etc.
70
Thank you China, for the co2 rain!
2016 Outback Spirit regatta begins as Lake Poondulanna fills with water
The fifth regatta — an event held when the lakes hold water — marks the club’s 16th anniversary.
AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE WHEN COMPARED TO OUR PREVIOUS EVENTS (pdf)
Previous events have been held in early July.
In April camping conditions are much warmer with an average minimum of 15 and average maximum of 30.
Discomfort ruins a holiday so be prepared:
* Insects – flies and mosquitos – can be a real problem
* Face fly nets are essential
* A double bed insect net or netting sided gazebo would make life much more enjoyable
* A tarp for extra shade
* Lightweight full cover clothing for sun and insect protection, particularly in the evening
* Proper sun hat with tie, sunscreen essential
On the up side:
* You won’t come anywhere near freezing to death.
. . .
So, hot weather causes discomfort, freezing causes death.
Got it.
40
I see Dr Dennis Jensen is being dumped by the Federal Libs:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-04/denis-jensen-says-media-partly-to-blame-for-preselection-dumping/7295798
One less standing up to the incoming CO2 emissions
scamscheme Turnbull will undoubtedly launch if given half a chance.90
read all:
3 Apr: Toronto Sun: David Akin: Sensible talk from Trudeau’s point person on climate change
OTTAWA – Three cheers for federal climate change minister Catherine McKenna who, on Friday, in front of a progressive, left-leaning crowd here in Ottawa, refused to yield to the mob’s desire for unilateral drastic action on climate
She reminded these progressives, attendees at the annual Broadbent Institute conference, that unilateral federal action would be sure to spark a national unity crisis. Moreover, the wrong kinds of climate change policies could kill the industries the entire country depends on for its prosperity…READ ALL
http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/03/sensible-talk-from-trudeaus-point-person-on-climate-change
our MSM continues to give voice to CAGW-obsessives, including Greens, who think Australia can get by on 100% renewables!
4 Apr: RockhamptonMorningBulletin: Emma McBryde: Protestors rally against Adani mega-mine near Clermont
11.10am: ANGRY conservationists joined Australian Greens Senate candidate Andrew Bartlett outside Queensland Parliament this morning to protest the State Government’s approval of mining leases for Adani’s mega-mine and coal project.
Mr Bartlett said he was impressed that about 250 people rallied together for the “snap protest” after the government only made the announcement on Sunday…
“The Greens and many, many other people are going to be doing anything they can to stop the mine from going ahead,” he said.
“But we shouldn’t have to do that. (The mine) is so obviously, literally insane.”…
http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/adani-approval-promises-5000-plus-construction-job/2984611/
‘Traitor’: Premier blasted by protesters
Courier Mail – 1 hour ago
Huge Adani mine lease angers Australia reef advocates
BBC News – 53 minutes ago
30
this study was virtually ignored by the MSM – even tho the authors considered it a wake-up call for Govts to do more!
guess their research shows how pointless it all is:
23 Mar: ScienceDaily: Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail
Source:Texas A&M University
Summary:The goals set a few months ago in Paris to prevent further rising of worldwide temperatures are almost sure to fail and will never be achieved, according to a new study.
Glenn Jones (professor of marine sciences) and Kevin Warner (Ph.D. candidate in marine biology), have had their paper published in the international journal Energy Policy.
The Texas A&M researchers modelled the projected growth in global population and per capita energy consumption, as well as the size of known reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, and greenhouse gas emissions to determine just how difficult it will be to achieve the less-than-2 degree Celsius warming goal.
“It would require rates of change in our energy infrastructure and energy mix that have never happened in world history and that are extremely unlikely to be achieved,” explains Jones…
“Just considering wind power, we found that it would take an annual installation of 485,000 5-megawatt wind turbines by 2028. The equivalent of about 13,000 were installed in 2015. That’s a 37-fold increase in the annual installation rate in only 13 years to achieve just the wind power goal,” adds Jones.
Similar expansion rates are needed for other renewable energy sources…READ ON
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323152508.htm
usually this Mooney/WaPo piece would be easy to find online – but not in this case where I had to delve through pages of google results to find it:
15 Mar: WaPo: Chris Mooney: As temperatures soar, new doubts arise about holding warming to 2 degrees C
Take, for instance, a study, just released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week. In it, Richard Newell of Duke University and two colleagues use a “harmonization” methodology to reconcile and compare future energy outlooks issued by the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, ExxonMobil, BP, and others.
Synthesizing all of these outlooks, they find an expectation of major growth in demand for energy out to 2040. And while the forecasts suggest a rapid expansion of renewable energy is also afoot, it’s simply starting from too small of a percentage of total energy to catch up very quickly. Therefore, this paper finds that “Global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise under most projections…
Optimists could say that this is still all based on models and projections, and that those have been wrong before. And indeed, the Duke study duly notes that past energy outlooks have missed major phenomena that upended energy markets, such as the shale gas and shale oil boom…
A second new study, just out in Energy Policy by Glenn Jones and Kevin Warner of Texas A&M University at Galveston, raises further doubts. Using a modeling approach to take into account energy demand (expected to greatly increase), population growth (also set to boom), and greenhouse gas emissions between now and the end of the century, they find a giant energy hurdle for a world that, presumably, also wants to battle climate change…
And as if all of this is not enough, the so-called “carbon budget” of 1,000 additional gigatons of carbon dioxide, which has been used until now to determine how much humans can emit and still keep warming below 2 degrees C, may have been too generous, recent research has suggested. The budget, as of last year, could be as low as 590 – 1,240 gigatons of carbon dioxide, when current emissions are around 40 gigatons per year, a recent study in Nature Climate Change found…
But for now, while the future will clearly hold many more renewables — and while the Paris accord will surely prove to be an important milestone — what still seems to be missing is a fast and sweeping energy transition.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/15/temperatures-are-spiking-can-we-keep-global-warming-in-the-safe-range/
a mere 8 comments, dated from 16 to 18 March, when WaPo closed this page down 14 days after it was published (allegedly)!
COMMENT by dalyplanet: It is interesting that Mooney’s most sobering/realistic assessment article in some time, concerning CO2 emissions growth in the near future receives almost no comments.
what u can find more easily is minor media stuff such as:
1 Apr: McAlesterNewsCapital: John Austin: Texas researchers call climate change goals fanciful
30
Pat mentions this: (my bolding here)
I hope everyone realises the significance of that.
The average installation currently is between 2.5 and 3MW, so that number becomes around 810,000 a year. (at 3MW)
Lets actually pretend for a second that the turbine manufacturers actually CAN scale up production to make them in the first place, and that blade manufacturers can do the same.
Let’s actually pretend that the planning for that many wind plants is actually completed, because it takes six to seven years (minimum) before thought bubble turns to delivered power, so in fact most of those plants need to be in planning RIGHT NOW, today, not between now and then.
Okay then, we’ve pretended that everything is in place, and all they need to do is to construct them.
Because it is so important, they’ll be working seven days a week flat out for the next 12 years, and surely they’ll only work normal hours in daylight, say ten hours a day.
That’s one completed tower, from bare earth to spinning blades and delivering its power ….. every, now wait for it, coming soon, nearly there now, every ….. SIXTEEN SECONDS.
Hmm, good luck with that.
Isn’t it funny when maths comes into contact with a thought bubble.
Tony.
61
And then to replace them at that rate as they age, say 15 to 20yrs time.
40
“say 15 to 20yrs time.”
wow.. a wishful thinking !!! 😉
20
The wind farm near here is 11 year old and all the towers were repainted last year. Before that, I could see the rust on them from nearly 2ks away. Spoke to the boss last week and he had just laid off all the operators and liney’s redundant from (not sure I should name the company). I know him well, he told me they were all very upset, but, were all being re-hired by the Chinese company taking over..
10
Naah, look! Even though it’s true and the maths is correct, I suppose I was being a little silly here saying that they would have to do each one in 16 seconds.
Everyone knows that they will have 20 construction crews working in 20 separate Counties, all doing it at the same time.
So, let’s see, from bare dirt, make the hole, pour the concrete foundations with the support bolts. Connect up the concrete tower sections for the 120 Metre tall tower, get the crane to lift the nacelle, and do all the work to connect that, then with the crane, mount the three 55 metre blades, do all the wiring etcetera. Connect it to the grid, do the testing etc.
So, 20 separate construction gangs in 20 separate countries, (400 crews in all) all working flat out ten hours a day, 365 days a year for twelve years.
So now, they only need to finish all that (one tower) every 100 Minutes. One hour and 40 Minutes.
Hmm! Good luck with that too.
Naah, 40 crews in 40 countries, that sounds better. 7 Hours.
One a day.
Hmm! good luck with that too.
Sooooo, naah, forget it Tony.
Tony.
50
Tony,
Humans are resourceful, think of the pyramids. The point is after all that you still don’t have much of a power supply, the cost is outrageous and by the time you finish you need to start again.
So, no it ain’t going to work even if it was done with religious fervour.
30
The beauty of coal fired power.
Many power stations are still functioning well after 50 years.
I doubt any wind turbine will last much past 20 years, and average well below that.
They are “renewable” only in the sense that they need renewing every decade or so.
61
P.S. The best wind sites, cost wise, have pretty well been exploited, so there’s a diminishing return there too.
40
Heard a good one today Tony. Someone at the SMH comment section claimed Australia’s base load requirements could easily be satisfied by just the Snowy Mountain Scheme. Thought that might give you a chuckle.
When trying to find a source for base load requirements I cam across a lot of propaganda, including the ABC, claiming that base load is a “myth”, and that renewables can easily accommodate modern power requirements… ahhh, to be as learned and understand those ivory tower thought bubbles unencumbered by the shackles of mathematics.
61
Bulldust,
Snowy Hydro cannot, will not, and has never provided a 24/7/365 power capability.
Pretend that the Snowy Hydro power actually can be transmitted across the whole length and breadth of Australia, instead of just the local Victoria/NSW/ACT grid coverage.
The Snowy has a maximum, Nameplate of 3700MW.
The absolute minimum requirement for Australia, (well, East of the WA border anyway) is 18,000MW, and that amount is always being consumed, for 24 hours of every day.
Base Load myth, eh!
Then just tell them to shut down the coal fired plants, and see what happens then.
I’ve actually heard people say that all Base Load really is ….. is household hot water systems, and that can be covered by rooftop solar hot water systems.
Sometimes all you can do is turn away, and just not engage. People just don’t want to know.
Tony.
60
The whole baseload myth is a commercial artifact from outmoded centralised generation. Distributed generation and battery storage (mainly household mini power stations) via smart micro-grids will take care of all electrical requirements in the future.
I’ve been reading all about it at RenewEconomy and CleanTechnica.
61
roflmao !!! 🙂
Well played sir !
41
I have a remote area power supply with 3kWsolar and 3kW wind, a 20′ container with 80kWh battery storage, and two diesel gensets for auto backup. When I do shearing the Genset is turned on. Batteries are a long way from being base load in a large grid. They maywell serve as a buffer or dampener to stabilize the grid or even round off a peak or trough. Again you can look at the energy density of batteries compared to carbon or nuclear fuels and it soon becomes obvious you’d be swimming in batteries. I accept there are advances likely to be had with nano tech but that’s true for most fields of tech endeavour.
70
I take it Analitik meant that sarcastically.
20
Really? Ya think so !!! 😉
20
The sad thing is, I didn’t have to make up any of those statements – I just lifted them from articles and comments from those sites.
The power of their belief in renewable ideology over mathematical reasoning and logic has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Then again, the same folk tend to be CAGW adherents so blind faith in nonsensical, unprovable notions is to be expected
50
People just don’t want to know
As Cassandra has noted a few times. People get exactly what they deserve.
The Renaissance is now successfully rolled back, hypothetical consensus rules, empiricism is “inappropriate”, approved superstitions are deemed and 3rd world status will save the planet.
50
Yes Tony,
we must use as much reliable ‘fossil’ fuel powered generators as possible to make these windmills (and solar panels), so that everyone can enjoy unreliable electricity.
How many windmills and solar panels does it take to make one windmill or solar panel?
Yes it all really make sense, saving the world from birds and bats so that future generations can live short brutal lives.
20
Great comment from stevenwhite over on SG’s
“I’m just wondering what they think is gonna happen when this natural heating cycle is over?”
61
No fair! Models only! No using of data!
51
co2 as a mechanism for raising global temp = BS
climate clowns that propagate this hysteria should be rounded up and given anti psychotic medication .
the ABC would be a good place to start !
71
Another one down.
I wonder how long before GOOD ENGLISH STEEL, that built the world…..
is a thing of the past ! 🙁
oh, and 40,000 job (15,000 direct and 25,000 linked) go down the gurgler. !
81
And of course ZERO CO2 reduction, just transferred to China and India.
So sad….
SO UTTERLY STUPID !!
61
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
10
New York Times criticises CSIRO climate science cuts as ‘deplorable misunderstanding’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-04/australia-turning-its-back-on-climate-science-nyt-editorial/7222830
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/opinion/australia-turns-its-back-on-climate-science.html
Sorry, I missed the commercially viable solutions that were being developed by the CSIRO Climate Science division. Can someone please point them out for me?
91
“Can someone please point them out for me?”
Ummm… I have nothing for that one…
…. better ask Ross. 😉
62
Ross has already got you with a red thumb Andy. (I note he’s been giving quite few out as he’s the only “true believer” on this page at the moment).
I negated his though with a green one for you from moi. 🙂
LAUGHABLE!! He can “red thumb” but CAN’T offer any rebuttals to any of our sensible posts and comments – typical “true believer”!!
Cheers,
72
“Ross has already got you with a red thumb”
Oh no… my life as I know it, is over.. I cannot take it anymore..
…the red thumbers have worn me down to a frazzle !! 🙂
52
AndyG55 @ #20.1.1.1
AndyG55, I can lend you my “Lurch” with his palsied red thumb if I can get it to come to heel.
And if you really get stuck for red thumbs Lurch can bring along his mixed brew partner, Lurchallotta who although somewhat less mentally endowed than Lurch, which is quite a statement if it were possible, can contribute another rather palsied red thumb to your cause as well.
But please remember, they are only on loan as sometimes I don’t even get a green thumb and have to rely on Lurch with Lurchalotta as backup to ensure that at least —something—anything— has apparently used its glass eye to take a look at my post.
40
“I can lend you my “Lurch””
darn.. I read that as, “I can lend you my “Lunch””.. and really wasn’t sure you would want it back afterwards.
What did you have for lunch.. what did I miss out on.?
I had garlic focaccia with ham and seeded mustard.
20
Wait there…. am I allowed to eat ham under the new anti-CO2/methane regime?
31
Solutions for Climate Change in Australia. What Climate Change? Where? Surely an urgent problem which needed billions of dollars to fix would at least be obvious?
Sure, some areas have less water than at other times, some are a bit hotter or colder than they have been in the past, but overall Australia seems quite the same as I remember. The CSIRO advises that Climate Change is about permanent changes and to be careful not to include natural variation or the weather. So what part of our many climates in our huge continent has changed permanently in a dramatic way and needs urgent solutions which involve what?
Imagine if we had 350 scientists working on something useful, an obviously real problem which currently affects Australia and Australians. Climate Change is not a problem of which any member of the public is aware. Where is this Climate Change? Name a country, a region, somewhere where the climate has changed. How does increased CO2 change climates dramatically and always adversely when it cannot even change the temperature in twenty years?
You do not need any science to say nothing has changed in a lifetime, except a ten year drought at the end of the 20th century which was not as bad as the drought at the end of the 19th century. This is a land of droughts and flooding rains after all.
The small blip of +0.8C was so 1980s, not before or since. What does it have to do with CO2 again? How can CO2 change climates when it cannot even change the temperature?
Why should we even care how much CO2 China outputs if it cannot change the temperature? So far they have utterly failed to do so.
90
“Solutions for Climate Change in Australia.”
Here are the Australian temperature via UAH this century…..
Trend is NEGATIVE 0.006C/year…. ie.. dead flat !!!
62
And the change in CO2? A 10% increase world wide. No evidence of CO2 as a significant Green House Gas. No ‘hot spot’ indicating water assistance. So which Climates have changed? Where exactly?
Why is Australia donating $1Bn to Climate Change remedies overseas? Then what exactly do people do when they get the $1Bn in Climate Change assistance? Is this random?
How can we give $14Million to Fiji to recover from the cyclone Winston devastation but $1,000Million to people we do not know? Julie Bishop flew in for selfies and photo opps. At the same time Fiji purchased $19Million in Russian arms. How is our foreign policy going then? Has the Climate Changed in Fiji?
60
” At the same time Fiji purchased $19Million in Russian arms”
WOW, Russian arms must be very expensive..
How many people was that?
30
Someone has to foot the bill. Clearly the Fijians are getting toey and should stand on their own but being on their last legs militarily, they need help.
There was a time when you could just say guns, but modern weapons are much more than that, so armaments covers it. Or you could just give alms.
10
The USAian readers of the NYT are clueless, pretty much, about what a CSIRO is, much less what it does. So the statement
“To do this at the expense of research and monitoring — undermining the search for commercially viable solutions that CSIRO proposes to join —”
means that the staff cuts of Valuable Scientists has just hastened our trek up the side of the volcano and all that is left is to throw ourselves in.
Weasel wording, too – search that CSIRO proposes to join? There is no such beast, and while there may be a proposal to join, I fear it is along the lines of “Yeah, I’ll go if you go”
00
someone whose blog is as active & informative as jo’s is never asked to participate on “their ABC”, while the likes of Millie is welcomed:
4 Apr: ABC The World Today: Adani’s Qld Gov approval sparks protest
This morning 120 protesters gathered on the steps of old Parliament House in Brisbane.
Millie Anthony from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition is among them…
MILLIE ANTHONY: The mining of coal and burning of coal is exacerbating dangerous global warming and we know that the Galilee Basin is a carbon bomb waiting to go off, we cannot afford to have this coal mine go ahead or it will further exacerbate the existing effects happening on the reef and make it so much worse for our future and for the climate…
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4436703.htm
experience the total nothingness of Millie’s website:
Australian Youth Climate Coalition: Millie Anthony coordinates the Switched on Schools program in NSW and mentors the state branch. She came to the AYCC after campaigning positions at UNICEF and advocacy roles for an organisation which advocates on behalf of Pacific Islanders, particularly in low-lying island states, who are being severely impacted by climate change.
http://www.aycc.org.au/millie_anthony
click on “News” for stuff like:
“For the Love of Coffee and Leonardo DiCaprio – Luke is going without his beloved coffee in April, why? Because Leo.”
& a report on Millie & her gang in Paris for COP21.
trip to Paris funded by? the sponsors? perhaps.
AYCC Sponsors: Future Super, Aussie Renewables, Purves Environmental Fund
Purves Environmental Fund – Who we are
The Purves Environmental Fund was established in August 2004 by Robert Purves AM, who is committed to making an impact for a better environment.
Robert is a businessman and an environmentalist. He is currently the President of WWF Australia and is a former board member of WWF International (the world’s largest science based conservation organisation).
Robert is also a founding member of The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a Director of Earth Hour Global, a Director of Climate Council of Australia, a Patron of the Lizard Island Research Station and a Governor of Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
Mark Scott, how do u explain a know-nothing Millie getting time on a flagship ABC news program while someone as knowledgeable as jo is totally ignored?
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IEA – Future Global energy consumption
The IEA predicts the world energy consumption will increase by approx 53% by the year 2040.
The world energy consumption was approx 104 TWh in 2012 with an inplace capacity of 155 TWh. ( getting accurate values for 2015 has proven difficult ).
Note: Quantities can be expressed in TWh or Mtoe or in exaJoules. Mtoe into TWh (1 Mtoe = 11.63 TWh)
It has also been quoted that as of June 2015, Solar achieved 1% of total global electricty consumption.
This is probably an accurate figure considering all the previous State subsidies and investment and the fact that Europe is still sleeping economically, America is still coasting, Latin America is in recession and China and India are in a pause of sorts. ( 5.9% – 7% )
If the increase predicted by the IEA is correct it is difficult to see how ? with such large numbers involved how Wind or Solar energy production can “replace” current modes of generation and at the same time provide for the anticipated increase in demand.
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Ian Wilson reckons the moon triggers El Nino.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/evidence-that-strong-el-nino-events-are_13.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BziGPUGjhIE
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Tom0mason reckons that lunar events trigger many ‘climate change™’, ‘climate science©’ irrationalities.
He is also convinced the moon triggers mass hysteria causing the widespread belief that an El Nino is somehow connected to AGW (aka ‘climate change™’.)
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reluctantly, i suggest you read it all:
4 Apr: SMH: No ‘science for science sake’: emails show CSIRO plans to cut climate research
by Adam Morton, Peter Hannam
Australia’s national science organisation planned to stop “doing science for science sake” and would no longer do “public good” work unless it was linked to jobs and economic growth, according to internal emails between CSIRO senior managers.
The emails contradict claims that the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has remained committed to research that does not bring in revenue, and illustrate the scale of the restructure planned under new chief executive Larry Marshall…
The emails confirm the century-old organisation was particularly focused on – in the words used in an exchange between managers in CSIRO’s oceans and atmosphere division – “eliminating all capability” of its climate change research programs…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/no-science-for-science-sake-emails-show-csiro-plans-to-cut-climate-research-20160403-gnxezq.html
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Jo – you wrote: “The hard numbers show that if CO2 actually mattered, and the eco-greens really cared about it, they be talking about “The China Problem”.”
An excellent point. Last year the Climate Home website published an article entitled, “China: climate change hero or villain?” It’s conclusion:
There was just one comment (from me). I concluded:
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Robin Guenier
From “The hard numbers show that if CO2 actually mattered, and the eco-greens really cared about it, they be talking about “The China Problem”.
That is the point — CO2 levels in the atmosphere do not matter, it is not a problem.
CO2 levels and the control of them is just politics not science.
P.S. Are you to try and disprove Professor Woods’ experiment, or is that too scientific for you?
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The real problem with China is that nearly all developed countries are transferring their manufacturing to there and to India.
Almost certainly INCREASING CO2 emissions in the process.
Every step taken by developed countries to combat the NON-PROBLEM of CO2 has had the opposite effect to what was intended.
Its really quite BIZARRE !!
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Well, tomomason, for once you’ve nearly got it right (see comments here). If they really believed all their bluster about saving the world, Western governments would, as I said, “be facing up to China and insisting on urgent emission reduction”. But they’re not. And that’s most interesting.
As I’ve already told you, I’m not a scientist and have nothing useful to contribute to the debate about whether or not mankind’s CO2 emissions are in fact a problem.
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It’s interesting that China reversed the logic. As the West has openly admitted generating the ‘historic’ CO2 levels and that CO2 has heated the planet, they want reparations for historic damage and the right to at least catch up in emissions. In this way the open and long standing admission of guilt by the West, with or without science support, is used to claim victim status and that is all you need to get compensation and avoid guilt for your actions. Neat. The victim defence. Chess players reversing the onus.
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TdeF
I cannot understand why all energy production is not considered.
Why only electricity generation.
The billions of the world’s poorest do generate CO2 output from “dirty” fires using any available rubbish that will burn.
Carbon accounting is another political joke.
Kk
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Robin Guenier
“I’m not a scientist and have nothing useful to contribute to the debate about whether or not mankind’s CO2 emissions are in fact a problem.”
Try reading this link HERE.
For believers in CO2 as a greenhouse gas, the theory of CO2’s deleterious effects in the atmosphere is the cornerstone of the pseudo-science of man-made global warming/climate change story.
So to reproduce Professor Woods’ experiment is a practical way to rebuff the believers. Performing the task as per the original link (http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html) does not take scientific acumen. You don’t have to be a scientist, it requires someone who has the some free time and a little money, is practical, able to reason, and can use elementary test equipment and tabulate results reliably.
To be honest it’s no more difficult than any basic DIY task. The ‘test equipment’ does not have to be anything exotic – whatever fits your pocket. The results only have to satisfy you not NASA.
Why bother? Because it practically gives you an idea of the range of warming (or as I found the lack of warming) CO2 does, and then to realize how many $£€billion this theory is costing us all.
So I strongly urge everyone to do it. Not to show-off or brag, not to publish but for your own satisfaction. A satisfaction you can have when some dumbass believer tries to argue against you.
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Voir:
http://huemaurice5.blogspot.fr/2014/11/pollution-et-pollution.html
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C’est très bon mais mon français est très rouillé…
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OT: Death by a thousand cuts as Tata announces it’s latest closures to UK steel industry, to unions laments & latté leftie hand wringing at a situation entirely of their own making.
The Spectator captures it
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The Spectator article clearly defines the situation but to be politically correct still accepts the myth of CO2 induced Global Warming.
While overseas on several occasions in recent times it has been almost impossible to escape the constant CNN and N type media bombardment from “news” services.
Public opinion is at the mercy of this crazy mind control system.
Kk
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I’ve often wondered how exactly the CO2 emissions per country are measured/calculated/estimated.
Or, putting my cynic’s hat on, perhaps guessed?
I’ve never seen an article about it. Does anyone have any information on the subject?
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Carbon500 – See my comment at #4. We all know the game and green zealots and the federal carbon bureaucracy play it far better than most sceptics.
Australia was in a terrible pickle prior to Kyoto as no one wanted to lose their lifestyle (by drastically cutting fossil fuel use) yet clearly there was an expectation that something needed to be done about the GHG “problem”. This was when the green zealots, aided and abetted by a select group of ANU academics and the federal bureaucracy had the brainwave to ban land clearing to slow Australia’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Our maths was so good that the Kyoto negotiators even allowed Australia to “reduce” our emissions by increasing them to 108% of 1990 levels by the end of the first ‘Commitment Period’! There was only one flaw (which was buried very deep so no mug would find ‘the king with no clothes on’). This was that by embracing a ban on tree clearing we should also have counted sinks that were known to exist in the vast area of forests and woodlands remaining intact on the continent. To get around this difficulty we simply pretended the sinks did not exist. [Who was going to check our field data anyway?].
Time marched on. Then the media swallowed the bait and the general populace was told to panic as world atmospheric CO2 concentrations would soon reach 400 ppm. Conferences and gabfests followed in quick succession. But some good scientists were still gnawing at unanswered questions.
In 2015 a publication detailed a large enhanced carbon sink which was detected over Australia in GOSAT records from the end of 2010 to early 2012. See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065161/abstract . It amounted to c.0.77±0.10 Pg C yr -1 or c.2800 Mt CO2-e (equivalent) yr-1. This contrasts with Australia’s reported NGGI emissions for 2011 of c.552 Mt CO2-e; LESS THAN one-fifth of the land sink that was mostly excluded from that inventory year’s calculations.
The vast CO2 sink observed in 2011 has been attributed to the La Niña rainfall pattern experienced then, together with CO2 fertilisation impacts on vegetation and perhaps reduced fire incidence, inter alia. This has led some to caution that Australia would not necessarily be a sink in years of below average rainfall (such as El Niño years). This may be true, although a 12 month (September 2014 – August 2015) visualization of CO2 concentrations in the air above the Australian continent is highly indicative that the continent remained a net sink, even as the very strong 2015 El Niño was developing (See: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?12072 ).
Several authors have further suggested this anomalous sink in 2010-2012 was mainly the response by dryland vegetation (grasses?) to the higher rainfall. It was therefore implied that sinks developed in La Niña years would quickly dissipate with the return of more ‘normal’ seasonal conditions and wildfires. However this belies Australia’s extensive areas of woody vegetation in the arid zone and elsewhere. In 2001 native vegetation covered 6.7 M km2 of the continent, with c.64% dominated by woody plants. While perennial drought resistant spinifex accounted for 74% (1.7 M km2) of remaining native grasslands.
A rising trend in woody biomass carbon has also been reported in our northern savannas for the 20 year period 1993-2012; including years of well above and well below average rainfall (See: http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~jasone/publications/liuetal2015.pdf ). Observations were obtained from satellite borne passive microwave sensors. The result is net of any concurrent loss in biomass due to tree clearing, woody plant deaths and fires occurring during the monitored period. Validation is provided by many published ground based and aerial photo interpretation studies (e.g. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51987227 ).
With this background, Carbon500, you can now Google ‘National Greenhouse Gas Inventory”. That should provide you many hours of browsing as you try to unravel what Australia actually includes in its GHG inventory each year. But hopefully you now understand that it is only a ‘partial accounting’ and it carefully fails to detail all sources, and especially all sinks that ultimately determine Australia’s real contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Personally I have no doubt that, as a result of our ‘small’ population and huge vegetated land mass, we are on average a net sink. But don’t expect the zealots, academics and politicians wedded to the ‘Carbon Industry’ to agree with me!
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Bill Burrows: Thank you very much for this highly detailed post. It contains just the sort of information I’m after, and it’s clearly going to take me a while to read and absorb its contents and the references you’ve given me. I look forward to browsing it all later today, and I very much appreciate the trouble you’ve gone to.
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Well,the world population keeps expanding. Ergo the matter is not a simple one, even if you believe CO2 increases and temperature rises over the next thousand years will be hell and damnation.
The matter will be population expansion with fuel and food, or what people do best, fight to the death for survival. One develops over a thousand years, the other will develop over the next century. Take you pick at where science should be concentrating itself, especially as CO2 control/reduction (if it all terrifies you) goes hand in hand with increased food production through both increased CO2 and increased temperatures.
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Interesting piece from http://antigreen.blogspot.com/ aka Greenie Watch
So CO2 flat-lines and it’s still reconned to be getting warmer, hummm…
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