JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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I recently made a Submission to the Queensland Renewable Energy Expert Panel, set up to investigate pathways to achieve a 50% Renewable Power target by 2030. Submissions close on June 10th, and the Panel will be holding public meetings, (by invitation only, provided you register intent) from now until the end of July.
Their website said that Submissions would be posted to their site, and when my Submission, or any of them for that fact, did not appear there, I politely asked them via email if they would be posted for the public to see them. The reply email said that any and all Submissions will be released for posting at their site in late August, early September ….. AFTER the Panel has released its initial report to the Government, with the final report scheduled to be presented in November. It seemed a little odd to me that Submissions would not be shown publicly until after the initial report is presented.
Following up, I then politely asked if I might be able to Post my own submission at my home site, and send it to some friends, and was informed that would be okay, as it was my own Submission.
The document was composed using Word, so rather than post the whole document, I converted it to pdf format. WordPress allows me to use our site’s individual Library as a holding area, so I just uploaded it to there, and all I need to do now is to send the link to that pdf document, easy peasy really.
That document is 15 pages long. Page 1 is some personal information as requested, and marked not to be published. Because the Submission was long, they asked for a Summary and that is Page 2. The actual Submission is the remaining 13 pages. It is long I know, and some readers may disagree with that.
By its very nature, it needs to be long to correctly explain it, and to build the case from the ground up in a logical manner. Being of a fairly technical electrical engineering nature, it also needs to be explained in a manner that can be more easily understood by anyone with no understanding of electrical power generation, and I hope I have succeeded on that front.
That 50% target that the public might think is achievable is problematic, if not impossible to achieve. Currently 73% of generated power comes from coal fired power, and adding in the other fossil fuelled sources, it’s 93%. To get that 50/50 target, that means a fossil fuelled power reduction of 43%, all of it from the coal fired sector, and that’s 27TWH, a huge amount, almost 50% of Queensland’s total power consumption. That equates to a (simplified) closure of 5 of the 8 coal fired plants, and to replace that with renewables capable of delivering that 27TWH. With a mix of wind and both versions of solar power, (PV and CSP) that equates to 67 renewable power plants.
See the anomaly there. Close down 5 plants and replace them with 67 power plants, all in barely 10 years. Good luck trying to do that.
It seems really odd that it would take so many, but in my Submission, I explain it completely. The cost is incidental, as it’s an engineering task which really cannot be done, and on top of the construction cost is the added cost of extending the grid across what is a huge State to do it all.
I have a short Post at my home site with some preliminary information at this link.
Australian Renewable Power – Queensland State Government Aims For 50 Percent By 2030
The actual Submission is at the following link. (15 page pdf document)
SUBMISSION FOR QUEENSLAND 50% RENEWABLE TARGET BY 2030
I urge you all to read it, and also, if you wish, to send the link to anyone you wish as well. It may take 30/40 minutes to read, but I hope it’s not too boring, and is relatively easy to understand. There are images of diagrams taken from the Issues Paper itself, and others I have used to support my argument.
I also welcome any feedback here in the Comments section as well.
Tony.
601
Tony, Thanks for taking the effort to influence an Australian controlling body. Every little bit helps.
240
What Reed said.
140
A very good effort Tony and it will be interesting how the panel will deal with it. It’s really a contest between fact and fiction, the latter has been ramping up these past few days on the ABC.
210
Too right.Their ABC runs in a parallel reality.So does the aspiration for a 50% renewable mix.
170
Tony I simply could not not read it (if this makes any sense) purely out of respect for your knowledge, effort and persistence in educating people in the importance of power generation vs their future.
I have followed you for years now and used your information in debates many times, as I will do today at a seminar by coincidence.
Your endeavours will not go unnoticed or be for not, for what my opinion is worth, regards Y. Stone.
180
Tony,
A number of excellent points for the Queensland government to consider. I think that the financial aspects of this have yet to penetrate the government.
Firstly, the Queensland government appears to be at its highest levels of gross government debt ever. Their 2015 Review of State Finances indicates (at Chart 2.19) that gross debt is over $40B. Chart 2.20 suggest that the government is insolvent – in that it has insufficient assets to cover its debts.
https://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/publications-resources/review-of-state-finances/review-of-state-finances.pdf
Secondly, the same document also clearly shows (at Chart 2.1) that growth in government expenditure has exceeded CPI and population growth significantly for the last 10 years.
In other words, the Queensland government is hardly in a position to campaign for something that is guaranteed to increase its levels of gross debt, almost certainly increase the level os state taxation that Queenslanders will have to pay, and will be guaranteed to increase the cost of electricity to all consumers on top of all that.
Your point about base load and industry is key to this economic argument. And their are parallels to the situation in South Australia, the UK and elsewhere around the world. As the cost of doing business in one location increase, industries will be forced to consider moving, simply to ensure profitability. The cost of energy is one of the major costs for extraction and manufacturing industries, but the cost to service industries that operate 24/7 – such as tourism in particular – will also increase. The consequent economic impact to Queensland could be significant.
200
Modern (=post Whitlam) journalists ask some silly questions. Back in the 1980s a female journalist asked former schoolteacher Ken Booth, treasurer from 1981-1988 in the NSW Wran and Unsworth governments, what I thought was a silly question: “What if the government goes bankrupt?”
Turned out it wasn’t a silly question after all. He replied: “It’s not possible for a government to go bankrupt”.
The 1988 election brought us the Greiner government which, though subject to a hostile upper house, saved us from that policy. But Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia all suffered severe recsessions including the loss of their State Banks as that policy was continued under ALP governments there. It seems the current Queensland government is still at it.
incidentally, the Unsworth government lost the 1988 election because they attempted to ban private ownership of firearms. They had no idea how many of their supporters were sporting shooters.
40
Tony,
Very good, very clear.
A minor query. I thought that the Gemasolar plant was NOMINALLY 50MW capacity. When it operates during the night it must run, as you point out, at a lower rate during the day.
I thought that when it did its celebrated 32 week run that it averaged just over 15MW output, with a peak (once) of 19 and a minimum of 13MW.
90
Graeme, (as you may already be aware)
With CSP, the longer time of heat diversion, the less the rated maximum output.
The best case scenario for heat diversion is 7.5 hours of heat diversion, still capable to make steam enough to drive the typical 50MW turbine/generator unit. Any more heat diversion than that, and the unit would never even begin to spin up to operational speed, and even then to start the units they need a natural gas fired turbine, also used to keep the unit running until the solar component can take over.
Be also aware that even though the plant says it has (X number of) hours of heat diversion, this is only for the Summer Months, as in Winter, they most probably would barely deliver for four hours around Midday.
The greater the heat diversion, the less actual heat to make the required steam to drive the unit in the first place, hence the need for derating the output capability.
The diagram at this link shows the (modelled) hoped for output from those 50MW units at the three Andasol Plants, and again, be aware that this is for mid Summer.
Incidentally, I did that article on all the Spanish CSP plants back in November of 2013, and at that time, there were 24 of them. Since then, Spain has constructed 10 more of them, for a total of 34 now, as shown at this link. Note here that they are all still in multiples of 50MW, and each blue link takes you to all the information about that plant, virtually all of them with Natural gas startup and run, and all of them with an average Capacity factor around 28%, which is most definitely NOT capable of delivering the absolute requirement of 24/7/365 referred to as Base Load.
That celebrated continuous run for Gemasolar was 36 days, and delivered total power that Bayswater delivered in, umm, six and a half HOURS.
Tony.
130
You only need to equate the yearly Capacity Factor (CF) for all these CSP plants to average hours supplied per day across the year to see how little power is actually delivered.
The CF for CSP is only 28%, and when that’s equated to hours in a day averaged across the whole year, that’s only six and three quarter hours, so that puts the 7.5 hours of heat diversion into some perspective.
If they can have 7.5 hours operation after that indicated Thermal energy collection Curve (that second top dark brown coloured curve at my first link above) starts dropping off dramatically at around 5PM in Summer, then a yearly average of less than 7 hours indicates that there is little if any heat diversion capability in the Cooler and Winter Months.
It’s of little use that the plant can deliver what is only small amounts of power for long times in Summer, and barely delivers anything of note at all in Winter.
That’s an engineering problem, related to the Science of daylight, that they can’t get around. That Insolation curve cannot be changed.
Tony.
50
Tony,
my memory was at fault and you are right. The 36 day run was in 2013, but I thought that they had done much better recently, but it turned out on checking that the article was enthusiastic but worded ambiguously.
TRY http://euanmearns.com/a-review-of-concentrated-solar-power-csp-in-spain/
which has some charts I think you may like.
There is reference to November’s output being one sixth of that in June – no wonder that so many shut down in winter. They are allowed to use gas for 15% of their output.
One query – where do they get these 20 & 30 MW generators? These are toys compared with most new power stations. Is someone making these as bijou pieces?
30
Tony you deserve a mountain of credit for spelling out the multitude pitfalls in a manner that should be understood by even those bogans who have no concept of the efforts necessary to make the energy come out of that socket in the wall continuously, at the correct voltage, at a solid frequency, and an optimal power factor. To read it is to understand it.
Don’t be surprised if the ‘panel’ are too lazy to read it and too ignorant to comprehend it.
Lying beneath this mountain of logic that you have presented is the annoying reality that all of the pain created economically and financially is driven by the insane notion that CO2 emissions are to be avoided, when the only prescient facts indicate that more CO2, and more again, is good for the human race.
What is it that drives this insane push toward “renewables”?
It is the perpetual outrage in the Greenies mind, spawned by the nagging fear that somewhere, some time, someone might be successful and make a PROFIT.
151
Thank you all.
You all have a much wider list of people than I do of who might be interested in something like this, so feel free to send it to whoever you want to, maybe even some politicians, eh!
Hmm! Red thumb. Must have a spelling error. I’ll have to check.
Tony.
200
Your URL is now in the hands of the Friends of Science in Alberta. They really are friends of science.
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Your idea of shutting down all of the coal fired power stations for a couple of weeks is one that would clobber reality in these numbskulls.
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
― Thomas Sowell
171
Tony
Thanks
You might get an idea of how the powers that be might treat it from the course of the current attempt to reintroduce the dark green ages of vegetation management in Qld.
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-committees/committees/AEC/inquiries/current-inquiries/11-VegetationMangt
The committee has been taking submissions in the field – which has a perception of window dressing.
As a guide for punting odds – check who is the flag waver around the top end for this piece of “government enthusiasm” IMO.
And don’t forget that both are under the auspices of the outfit that gave us the “highly successful” Qld Health payroll /s in case.
30
Thanks Tony, I have a long plane flight to Europe coming up on Wednesday. I’ll download it and save it to my iPad and read it at my leisure. Well done for taking the effort – it will be very interesting to see if they take any notice.
110
Tony, I am not an engineer, but your document makes perfect sense to me. You obviously know what you are talking about. Thanks for posting the info.
100
There are three key issues that are not covered in your submission.
A. You are suggesting that Queensland install a total capacity of 12.5GW of renewable in a network that has a peak demand of 7.3GW. That creates the silly situation that is being experienced in northern Chile and Germany where excess renewable energy has to be dumped to other locations at zero or negative price. It is not possible to get 50% renewable without having substantial energy storage or contracts with other States to take the excess production when it is available. By your analysis the system needs a storage power capacity of at least 5GW; lets say 20GWh at 0.25C peak charge rate. The question then arises where is the best location for the storage systems that minimises the transmission costs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-01/chile-has-so-much-solar-energy-it-s-giving-it-away-for-free
B. The lowest cost system with 50% renewable, that includes storage, will still require an excess of fossil fuel generation to provide recharging of storage capability in extended periods of low wind and low insolation. That means not all the retained fossil fuel capacity will be operating as base load generation. Some will be needed very intermittently such as some of the NG plants are now used.
C. Large scale renewable systems require substantial allocation of land. Selecting sites and acquiring sufficient land can be started early in the process. The alternative is to encourage households and businesses to continue to install solar as well as batteries. One million roofs with 20kW nameplate of panels and 20kWh of batteries would achieve the 50% renewable objective. Queensland already has 30% (over half million) of dwellings with solar panels but the large majority of systems are too small for excess production and most do not have storage. This option requires planning for local networks to handle the peak output and building code that requires best use of the solar resource and provision of space for battery storage. Those aspect will not change over time as panels gain efficiency and battery sizes reduce. The unsubsidised cost of the equipment would be around AUD40k per household or AUD40bn for the state but would be borne by households and larger scale energy financiers. There is no cost for land acquisition and associated problems with siting industrial scale generating plants. The cost of enhancing local networks would not be trivial. Network providers are already finding export capacity to be an issue with local networks for new estates where rooftop solar uptake is high and the mandated maximum is only 5kW. Price structures can be set to encourage the optimum orientation of panels and battery usage to get the best value from the installed systems. Prices would vary by month and time of day – maybe even by the hour as it does for the large generators.
10
Thanks Rick.
I understand that, but anything less than that Nameplate (when averaged out across the full year) will not deliver the required 27TWH for it to be a TRUE 50% Renewable supply.
You have large scale coal fired power supplying an EXACT amount of power that can be relied upon to always be there, or you have wind power that may be there or may not be there, and is unpredictable at best as to when it will be there.
A good example of this is South Australian wind power, which (having watched the wind power site for so many years now) supplies its best power between midnight and 5AM, when it’s not needed by South Australia, and is dumped into Victoria via either of its two Interconnectors. Okay for South Aus. and Victoia because the wind plants are fairly centralised to where the power is consumed, and Victoria is close by.
However, here in in Queensland, you might have a large scale wind plant North of Cairns working flat out, while no wind plants in the South of Queensland will be spinning, and that plant in North with a possible oversupply, has nowhere to ‘dump’ it to. The physical size and decentralisation of Queensland makes large scale wind (and commercial solar) on this proposed 50/50 split not feasible at all.
Storage Capacity on the GW scale is out of the question, as it does not exist, and will not exist in the near term and probably even mid term.
However, have anything less than that Nameplate, and it’s not a REAL 50/50 split.
Your Point C is taken, but what needs to be realised here is that the Panel itself is debating the point that rooftop solar should not be included as it is direct use, in other words, used by the Residences with the panels, and very little fed back to the grid which is of any use. Something on the scale you suggest would be an astronomical cost, and with battery life of 7 years at best, then that cost is even higher again
The cost for construction of those renewable plants is just the start point as the cost of the grid infrastructure to connect all of that to the existing grid would be a further huge cost as well.
Tony.
60
Right with you Tony. One wonders what it is going to take for Australian governments to see the sense in what you are saying. Are these so called expert panels who will be making the call, open minded enough to listen. Or have they already made up their minds! I just hope that they will be one day held accountable for their actions.
GeoffW
50
I see that QLD has one NEM-registered wind farm (on “Windy Hill”), so data from that should allow some estimation of what the wind capacity factor might be, I’ll have a look at the data next week, and will post the outcome here: https://climanrecon.wordpress.com/
Solar should work, but at enormous expense to those who don’t have it.
Doubtful that any fossil power stations can be retired, which is one of the fervent wishes of the green-afflicted, peak demand times likely to be low wind and quite dark. Please, no BS about batteries.
A strong economic argument against ever more “ambitious” renewable targets is that they destroy the market for electricity from proper power stations, starting an inevitable slide towards power outages at times of peak demand, when electricity is most needed.
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Solar and batteries would go well together. The trouble is the nation doesn’t have a spare trillion or two to afford it. So we all should forget it, at least for the foreseeable future.
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You are too modest. I did a brief calculation that to supply South Australia from lithium batteries for one day would take $A152 trillion.
That is for average current peak, not the summer peak and SA uses about 6.5% of Australia’s electricity.
80
Graeme No 3: on what depth of cyclic discharge are your calculations based? Are you calculating, based on a total charge discharge cycle?
20
Ted M:
I worked on 1900MW demand – a little high but that is the peak demand (or near to it) over 2 days recently. The demand curve actually shows a real duck’s back (drop in demand when the solar starts to deliver in the middle of the day). Peak demand in summer can run to 3300MW.
I assumed that lithium batteries would be used because, well they are perceived as magic at the moment. A 7.2 nominal Tesla Powerwall will give 6.4 kW deep draw but continuous use at that deep level shortens the life, so I used 3 kW drawdown for ease of calculation.
For the costing I took $10,000 per Powerwall (I know it is more to install one, but we are always told how cheap they will be Real Soon Now.
So 1900MW =633333 batteries to cover 1 hours supply. For 24 hours 15.2 million batteries, and from that you can see I STUFFED UP the calculation. It is $152 billion for SA and “only” $2.3 trillion for Australia.
I need to use stronger coffee for breakfast.
30
I read on another site a comment from the guy who has the first PowerWall installed that it stops discharging with 400Wh left so the actual max usable storage 6kWh (when new)
40
Thanks for clarification. Sounds like a reasonable assesment.
30
Oops sorry, the Windy Hill Wind Farm is regarded as “non-scheduled”, and its data are not available. If there is one close enough to QLD in Northern NSW I’ll look at that one, but a glance at the isobars in QLD suggests that wind is hopeless, though of course that won’t stop the zealots.
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” It may take 30/40 minutes to read”
Possibly the most instructive 30 minutes of my life, mind you, having followed your contributions here, not much was actually new information. But structured factually thus and delivered without a trace of emotion (and no mention of “climate change”), It is a TOUR DE FORCE of rational analysis delivering a supremely unwelcome message. Oh how I wish you were a Brit in the build up to our insane Climate Change Act of 2008. Not that it would have made any difference to the 97% vote enacting it. Politicians will reject your submission because it is beyond their attention span and, certainly, beyond their technical cognisance.
For anyone with half a brain your “load curves” tells you everything you need to know about the need for power and the “capacity factor” shows why “renewables” how cannot provide it. Germany has now reached the limit of renewable penetration that is sustainable. Denmark is now facing economic disaster for their naivety in pursuing 100% wind power. Here in the UK our grid is quietly commissioning banks of diesel generators and costly processes to pay high users to switch off.
However, your work is in the public domain. They cannot say that they did not know, or were misinformed.
This submission could go global and force more than just the
“Queensland Renewable Expert Panel” to confront the deceit that renewables can provide for the needs of modern society and remove a crucial prop of the Global Warming Narrative,
I take my hat off.
170
One request regarding QREEP: please lodge a response. You don’t have to be a Queensland or Australian resident to do so.
Given the prevailing fantasy regarding ruinable energy, it will not be possible to flatten this thing, but it is at least an opportunity to better inform those in the Queensland parliament who already know that this is bunk.
90
Here is a longer explanation regarding the technical issues with wind-power generation:
50
The link disappeared:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJtv7gkuh1s
90
That was the best hour I have spent on the tube. That guy is one smart engineer! Follow this video to the seminar videos and be in absolute shock in what “well meaning” bureaucrats are doing to the grid.
One thing not mentioned…..This is what Eddison tried to get up in the very early days of power generation. He tried to sell DC and local generators. The modern version makes me laugh…The Hippy Grid:)
60
Great link Steiner!
GeoffW
10
RSS for May is +0.525C… down 0.232C from April.
El Nino dropping rapidly
101
The rain here is also falling rapidly.. darn East Coast lows !!
Most of the really heavy stuff seems to be further north.
61
May 11, 2016 The first “significant” snowflakes of the 2016 season have fallen on mountains in New South Wales and Victoria, after temperatures dropped below zero.
Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/wild-weather/2016/05/11/14/23/first-snow-of-the-season-falls-on-new-south-wales-and-victorian-mountains#6cXJCiB4QG8kA0KO.99
Almost a month ago but still the hottest May evahhhhhhhhh!
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Wind Turbine Performance for May
The eastern Aust. turbines produced, on average, at 2060 MW or a capacity factor of 55% which is nearly twice that for the previous two months. This was due to series of frontal systems passing the southern coast.
The maximum production noted was 3,200 MW (out of 3669 MW) and there were extended periods of production around 3000 MW. At the lower end production was down to 250 M on two occasions. For the month there were a total of 59 hours when production was less than 750 MW.
When talking about using renewable energy to replace fossil fuel generation even though one would plan on a capacity factor of about 25%, what happens when there is very little wind? The choice is either black-outs or the use of back-up fossil fuel generation (diesel/gas turbines) which implies it is not possible to be fossil fuel free.
Looking at the AMENO site last Friday at 6 PM. total consumption of electricity was a little over 28,000 MW: 24,000 MW was thermal generation, hydro was 4000 MW, wind 400 MW and solar 00 MW. If you cut thermal generation by half to 12,000 MW (to allow for 50% renewables) there will be a deficit of 11,600 MW. To supply this wind is the only alternative since the sun has gone down. This means 11,600 x 4 or 46,400 MW capacity of wind turbines to produce the deficit. If the wind is blowing fine, but what happens when it doesn’t. Last Friday the wind turbines were only producing 400 MW which is a capacity factor of 11%, so one needs 105,454 MW of wind turbines. This scenario is not realistic as one is looking at 35,000 three MW turbines and somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 sq. km. of suitable land.
So the other choice is a dozen or so 1000 MW diesel of gas turbine stations as back-up defeating the original concept of eventual fossil fuel free generation.
80
The real problem is that no-one is going to build or even operate coal fired power stations on the basis of having to make way for win when it just happens to blow.
And nobody is going to build gas power stations on a “maybe we will take your electricity” basis.
Coal power stations are designed to operate constantly 24/7 at a pretty much stable output.
If there is a mandate to take wind when it blows, then , as in Germany, the stable power systems WILL shut down, leaving nothing to provide electricity when the wind doesn’t blow, unless you do the UK and Tassie thing and put in heaps of diesel generators.
91
And to top it off, China as well all know will continue to build more and more coal fired power stations. As it turns out Asia as a whole are building and planning to build hundreds as we speak. Is Australian the [snip] nation of the world?
[Sorry for the snip but 18C gets in the way of your choice of words.] AZ
71
AZ… how does the word “dopiest” come under 18c.. 😉
60
At least we aren’t burning books – not yet anyway.
30
And from the UK: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/04/england-not-windy-enough-admits-wind-industry-chief/
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That is worth reading; I’m glad you put the link in because it all fell off my screen when I planned to do the same. Thanks Bemused. I have to go elsewhere now so can’t follow up the thing about gas ‘subsidies’.
40
BTW at the start of this month, SA’s wind turbines were less than 20% capacity factor for 4 days straight, under 10% cf for about half of that period with 2 periods where the cf was under 5% for over 12 hours straight.
http://energy.anero.id.au/wind-energy/2016/june
30
But again, Victoria leads with 5 days straight, now, where our wind turbines have been less than 21% capacity factor.
30
That’s 183 MW from 3669 MW for 12 hours or so, the choice is back-up (fossil fueled) or black-out. But that is the reality of renewable energy. Going to King Is. one can see the diesels are running about 5 out of 7 days to keep the lights on. Why would it be any different in S. Aust. or Vic. if you were dependent on renewable energy? This something that the 70-80% of folk that follow the ABC mantra do not understand, until perhaps it starts to affect them.
30
Here’s a slightly different perspective on solar power in Chile, which has, apparently been so bountiful that the spot price for electricity reached zero in a few places, apparently being good for consumers, but funnily enough, not so good for the vendors (who’d ‘ave thunk it?)
The ‘Green dream’ of bountiful “free” electricity also requires the building of 3000km of transmission lines in 1 place, and another 753km in another, at the taxpayers expense, of course…
90
Do Chile have the answer to storage on their doorstep too.
But at a greater environmental cost than fracking for fossil fuel.
“In the parched hills of Chile’s northern region the damage caused by lithium mining is immediately clear. As you approach one of the country’s largest lithium mines the white landscape gives way to what appears to be an endless ploughed field. Huge mountains of discarded bright white salt rise out of the plain. The cracked brown earth of the site crumbles in your hands. There is no sign of animal life anywhere. The scarce water has all been poisoned by chemicals leaked from the mine.”
60
Good luck in getting traction with that one Matty.
40
How is the environmental cost of hydraulic fracture stimulation calculated…?
(I agree that people who think lithium batteries are the ‘environmentally friendly universal solution’ are not very well versed in facts)
30
And now for something completely different.
In true Monty Python style, we now have a paper clearly identifying that increasing CO2 levels results in cooling in Antarctica:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066749/full
The paper, titled “How increasing CO2 leads to an increased negative greenhouse effect in Antarctica”, appears to have difficulty explaining how the greenhouse effect, and of course, the physics that climate scientists say it relies on, magically reverse in Antarctica resulting in an increase in long wave radiation at the top of the atmosphere, exactly in the CO2 spectrum.
There are the throw away paragraphs, just before the conclusion (and here I paraphrase) that when all the short wave flux contribution is included, Antarctica will still warm at 1W/m2 with increased CO2, so global warming is still occurring.
However, the authors make that statement with no evidence, and subsequently citing two papers that showed that Antarctica was slightly cooling.
Ah well, last time I checked my physics, CO2 molecules didn’t come with a location tag. Wonder how climate scientists will explain this study away?
111
I’m envious that the US has a choice between Clinton/Sanders and Trump, but all we have is a choice between Shorten (= Sanders) and Turnbull (= Clinton). Sure there are others, but none that can roll Shorten/Turnbull.
110
Malcolm Turnbull was having a restless night. The election campaign was not going well and he was wondering where to get the right advice. He murmured “If only one of the old Liberal PM’s could tell me how”.
Suddenly there was a bright light at the foot of the bed and the ghostly figure of Sir Robert Menzies was looking at him.
“Prime Minister” said Turnbull “What can I do to bring prosperity to the Nation”
Sir Robert replied
“Make friends with overseas steel makers, like I did.” and disappeared.
Turnbull thought this over when suddenly there was a bright light and
John Howard appeared.
“Prime Minister” said Turnbull “What can I do to get people to trust me”
John Howard replied
“Always tell them the truth like I did.” and disappeared.
Turnbull thought this over when suddenly another bright light appeared.
“Prime Minister” said Turnbull “What can I do to get people to like me”
And Harold Holt replied
“Go for a swim, like I did.” and disappeared (again).
170
Wouldn’t it be nice if Turnbull lost his seat? His support in Wentworth has already dropped dramatically, so what would it require for him to tank completely?
150
Yes that would be almost perfect. Him losing his seat but the LNP still winning the election.
160
And guess who would step in to fill the gap? Ah, that would be karma.
140
Any need to wonder why that person was prepared to lose over $1.5 million in retirement benefits, plus indexation over future years, to remain in Parliament?
50
Julie Bishop. She is full of smiles. If Turnbull is outsted she thinks she would be their leader. Same with Tania. If Shorten looses she also thinks she would be their leader.
40
Nice, yes.
Also good, delightful, marvellous, amusing, wonderful and above all fabulous. And well deserved.
70
“Then there is hope. But hope is not a strategy”. E.M. Smith
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Bemused
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/turnbull_tumbles/
30
I saw that, but the numbers need to drop even more. I really hope that the people of Wentworth will now realise what sort of person Turnbull is and vote him out. I can’t see how any honourable person could support the likes of Turnbull, given being a politician or not.
70
Have they got an alternative that might be “suitable for the voters” in that electorate? Otherwise unlikely IMO.
30
Probably not and it’s a pity the ALA can’t field a candidate. If they could and that candidate had a reasonably respected/known name, I think Turnbull would be toast. This is another thing that Turnbull thinks is his given right own.
20
The Paris flood of 1876 by Alfred Sisley.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/92/ac/90/92ac90715e7abe2fa852f9cb4b9fcd69.jpg
50
I too, was considering buying a boat to get around town, but thankfully, there were still a couple of metres of leeway before things were going to get very wet.
This is the thing, despite what various media outlets are saying, Paris is not being “flooded” currently, the Seine has not broken its banks in the city itself, even though it has inundated some quais, and river-front walkways and the like (doesn’t take much). There are many other places outside of paris where people have died, and whole villages are, or were underwater, which, to me, is worthy of far more media attention than a river staying where it is supposed to.
Nonetheless, walking along the Seine yesterday (along with vast numbers of other curious people) to look at just how high the water was, well, it was impressive to see what was floating down the river, and to see just how fast the water was moving, and just how little clearance remained under a lot of the bridges which ordinarily seem a very long way from the water. 6m above ‘normal’ is an awful lot of extra water!
There are some images of the water level in Paris still available here:
http://www.meteo-paris.com
40
Ah yes, and I see that the French President has leapt into “more proof of climate change” meme. All with French flair and complete inattention to reality.
Paul Homewood has the reality
2016 peaked below 6.3m. In that raging global warming year 1910, 8.6m.
[Snip]
30
How about sacre bleu! 🙂
30
Summer snow in Siberia.
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/others/news/n0674-global-warming-snow-falls-in-siberia-to-mark-official-start-of-summer/
20
We seem to have an energy theme going this weekend.
Here is a report of a pumped hydro energy storage scheme in Britain.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/16/geeks_guide_electric_mountain/
There may be others but this is the first report I have read of an actual working scheme. The scheme recovers 76% of the energy used to pump the water uphill and has been operating since 1984.
50
Only in Blighty is the mains powerful enough to make a cupa in a half decent time.
The same kettle in US would for instance take about 5 times longer to boil , because the power being proportional to the square of voltage ( assuming resistance of the heating element to be constant).
So I guess they must use a lower resistance element in US, to get higher current.
Between UK & France though the ~10% lower voltage would make a kettle take ~20% longer to boil, which I guess us why kettles have never caught on in France, although they make some nice ones .
The EU was planning to limit the power of our kettles , to save the environment, though they’ve shelved that for now till after the referendum.
40
US mains are 20 amps, 120 Volts, 60Hz. so they have higher current.
France, the UK and AUSTRALIA are all 230V, 50 hz. so kettles shouldn’t take longer to boil in France.
Perhaps their preference for coffee, rather than a pot of tea?
30
I understand the 230 V , in Europe at least, is a typical European fudge (for the best of harmonising reasons) , while countries carry on doing as they have always done, meaning that voltages in UK still actually are higher.
“Currently, ALL Western European supplies are classified 230VAC. In reality there is no 230VAC supply unless you create one locally. 230VAC was a “standard” created during European “harmonisation” to give a single voltage standard across Western Europe, including UK and Irish Republic.
http://www.schneider-electric.co.uk/en/faqs/FA144717/
Although the ideal would have been to have a single voltage there were too many political, financial and technical obstacles to reduce UK voltage to European levels or to increase European voltage to UK levels, so a new standard was created to cover both. This was achieved by changing the tolerances of previously existing supply standards. UK voltage to 240VAC + 6% and – 10% and European to 220VAC +10% and -6% (thereby creating a manageable overlap) and we would call these two combined 230VAC, despite the fact that nobody was intentionally generating at 230VAC! “
50
It looks like it may have actually been the IEC to blame for that one while Australia may still be generating towards the upper end so we can still get a decent cuppa when over visiting the rellies.
http://electricalconnection.com.au/when-voltage-varies/
30
Graeme
Just checked our Sunbeam kettle
2100 – 2200 watts on 240 volts.
Made in China.
20
Kettles? Surely they are designed for the local voltage.
The significant thing is that if you double your voltage you can halve the weight of your wiring. I thought the US choice was to reduce electrocutions.
And 230v used to be 220v – 240v.
10
Traditional pumped storage capacity in UK from David MacKay’s excellent reference :- Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air , though plans are afoot to increase these as has already been mentioned.
40
Professor David J C MacKay tragically died of cancer earlier this year at the young age of 48. He did a lot to put nonsense around renewables and energy saving into perspective Obituary
30
That 12 second turnaround time is quite impressive!
40
That energy used to pump the water up hill is low cost off peak. Releasing it to make power at very high cost peak demand. Mechanical loss of 24% is pretty good. This is what ALL wind solarpv windfall generators should be connected to! Pumping water uphill, better than batteries, more efficient than stored heat and can be used PRECISELY when needed.
Take the north South pipeline in Victoria as the example needed to charge up such a system within 100km of a major watercourse. Build the pipeline to the desired ridge with the required head 2000ft. Build your power station works, tailstock and headstock dams….and adjoining wind farms. Once complete, use wind farm power to pump water from river in spring high flow conditions to charge the tailstock and low water level of headstock.
In operation, water is only pumped up hill when wind farm generates power. The charged system then is ready to provide the most profitable of “TV Load” power as required.
10
It’s enough to make Rube Goldberg giggle with delight!
I realise that in some instances it makes sense. It’s bee used at Niagara Falls for yonks.
It’s just rather silly the lengths to which folks will go because of a devout religious belief in the imaginary demons of CO2 and fossil fuels. Medieval witch hunts all over again.
20
Rod Stuart:
I always thought that Niagara was run-of-river type and maximum output was only achieved between 1am and 6 am when they “turn the Falls off” (on the Canadian side).
20
See the story about Robert Moses and the Lewiston Dam. Copied the idea from Sir Adam Beck across the border.
10
Like lots of these things, pumped storage to smooth the supply from renewables into something useful for grid supply sounds like a good idea until one looks at the required scale. Here is an attempt to calculate the scale of storage required. Basically it amounts to building a dam in almost any available site.
So the greenies, in order to promote their social engineering agenda by fixing a non existent problem are promoting:
Destroying the aesthetic values of huge areas of countryside by building industrial windmills all over it.
Slicing and dicing hundreds of thousands of birds and bats as collateral damage with no thought of the effects of this on natural and farming ecosystems. How about the effect on mouse plagues for example?
Then they want to take the little bit of remaining natural environment and flood it!
What a pointless disaster. Huge ecological damage, at best a dodgy power supply, and what of the CO2 balance, even if that were of any importance. Destruction of protected species becomes acceptable, construction of hydro dams suddenly becomes acceptable. Truly an inversion of reality.
50
Perhaps not reality but an inversion of positions long held and based on reasoning that at least had some rational basis.
10
Dinorwig was created to store nuclear energy during off peak so that it was available to load balance the evening peak. It is also a blackstart facility for the UK grid.
The site was selected due to the slate mines having already caused heavy environmental damage at the reservoir locations
10
‘The U.K. is as chilly as it was in parts of December, pushing the price of the nation’s main fuel for heating to the highest level in six months.’
Bloomberg
50
Paris, December, 2015, COP21 …
… the deal would limit global warming – which threatens humanity with rising seas and worsening droughts, floods and storms – to “well below 2 degrees Celsius, perhaps 1.5”.
~ ~ ~
President Francois Hollande said: “In Paris, there have been many revolutions over the centuries.
Today it is the most beautiful and the most peaceful revolution that has just been accomplished – a revolution for [Global Warming].”
>>Fast Forward … Paris Floods June, 2016:
“Now, there are some things that the French president, Francois Hollande, says he can handle.
But there are others that are out of his control: the
weatherclimate being one of them.”30
Can carbon munching tundra bugs offset,
The non existent global warming threat?
The Greens expect for youth that courts are able,
Through laws,to make a climate that is stable.
All those who feel a need should take more care,
To climb great mountains just because they’re there.
The Greens from David Archibald in Perth,
Could learn to save Australia first, then Earth.
The state spreads fear that warming is man-made,
To force a carbon tax through cap ‘n trade.
The Greens would leave forever in the ground,
Reserves of oil and gas wherever found.
The ‘warming’ that the warmists claim we face,
Would end if Trump can win the White House race.
70
Tourist Warning! Beware of 97% Global Warming grifters …
Coral bleaching tipped to be next attraction on Great Barrier Reef
Wait! What?
ABC blasted for using misleading picture of Great Barrier Reef after Greenpeace admitted it was fake
81
Travis T. & the Missing Heat – Global Warming Catastrophe
I am having an unusual experience.
Recently, in time for World Environment Day 2016, for fun on my i-Mapple, I recorded an original song about Global Warming, adapting lyrics from
a recent Clive James poem.
Yet, all my friends, many fellow musicians, who believe in Global Warming, refuse to listen to the song!
Without listening to a single note!
Yes, they know my singing. I point out that I used a auto-tune, and set it @97%. Much to my amusement.
Ignore the download stuff, The song is free. Production values are zero.
. . .
For TonyfromOz: you noted my ’73 Telecaster Custom.
Here is Keith Richards getting some satisfaction, using one as a club to fend off a stage invader!
50
Very Good. Thanks handjive. I hope your song gets some airtime.
30
Thanks Peter C.
The song was done more as a challenge to some friends who dared me to write a song.
I struggled until I saw Clive James’ poem. There is nothing about imaginary doomsdays that is interesting to write about.
Unless you mock them.
Now the same people won’t listen.
FWIW, here is some one who knew how to write a song: What happened to country singer Bobbie Gentry?
Now, there is a song and performance.
10
handjive,
I read of an interview she gave in the late 60’s and she said that people got the song all wrong. They looked at it from one perspective. She never let on about the ‘story’ but said that what she wanted to get across was the attitudes of the people sitting around the table. The ‘story’ affected one person, but to the others it was only incidental and not all that important.
Funny though, I picked up on something from the song only a Month or so back when I heard it on local radio here.
The line goes ….. “And brother said he recollected when he and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.”
It reminded me of the Bob Ferguson song recorded by Porter Wagoner, and here in Australia, a hit for Bobbie and Laurie (Bob Bright and Laurie Allen) The Carroll County Accident.
I chased up Carroll County, thinking it might be the same place, but there’s a heap of those Counties with that name in the U.S.
Great song, that Ode To Billie Joe, and the back story (or myriad of stories) added to the mystique behind it.
Tony.
10
Thanks handjive:
I was always under the impression that she had married a politician and becamed a Washington hostess.
Incidentally, I think the song Tallahatchie Bridge has roots in the blues. Must consult my (tame?) expert, the only ex-bikie to chat up Julie Bishop.
10
A solid, steady going guitar piece Handjive.
Some of my favourite Climate Guitar action at
M4GW.com/a>
10
This might be the thread to ask my silly questions- if I generate 240 volt power at 50 cycles per second to feed into the power grid, and my cycles are off-cycle with the cycles on the grid, does my fed-in power somehow magically conform to the stream it is feeding into, or does it contribute a reduced amount and partially offset some of the power already circulating in the grid?
Or would off-cycle additions be a voltage or power spike or depression depending on whether the offset occurs on the upslope or downslope of the cycle?
Also, if I am connected with a two or three phase feed, who decides which phase I will feed into? Is it random in the hope that enough small feed-ins will balance out, or is there some way of determining locally which phase has the most convenient supply/demand balance?
Do big installations feed into more than one phase? How do they match the cycles?
20
Answer to last question first.
In order to connect any generator to a three phase power system that generator must be first synchronised with the power system.
Not only must the rotating field be at precisely the same frequency, but in phase as well.
Connecting out of phase has catasptophic results. If it is a machine driven by a reciprocating engine, it is most often a broken crankshaft.
Once connected, that generator is undeniably tied to the power system. If it is smaller than the system, it will follow that system wherever the system parameters force it.
In so far as most residential applications are single phase, your little home generator will feed the phase identified in the distribution transformer that feeds your premises.
If your unit is attempting to feed energy into a large power system like the grid, it can only try to increase the voltage on the entire system. Unless your particular generator is a significant contributor to the system, it can’t affect the system’s voltage. But in trying to do so, it can add a few watts to the total energy supply.
Hope that helps.
30
Hi gnome, I replied but it accidentally ended up at #26 below. Guess I was out of phase!
Dean
30
Yep! What Rod said!
When thinking rooftop solar, think Macro Micro.
They like to say that rooftop solar is now one of the biggest power plants in, well, Queensland, any State, or the whole of Australia even.
Macro – Bayswater – 2640MW
Micro – Rooftop Solar – average size 2.5KW, or 0.000095% the size of Bayswater.
They add up every rooftop solar system in the State, or Country, and then say say it has a larger Nameplate than Bayswater, so it’s the biggest power plant.
Bayswater has all that huge power in one place delivering it to the grid. Rooftop Solar has it in tiny little units spread across the Country. Most of the generated power from those rooftop panels is being consumed by the homes with the panels themselves, and the amount fed back to the grid in its totality is so small as to be inconsequential.
Bayswater is near Muswellbrook in NSW. Bayswater feeds the whole NSW grid.
An average 2.5KW rooftop system in the same town, Muswellbrook, and feeding its excess generated power back to the grid would be hard pressed to supply anything beyond the traffic lights at the Highway Junction.
Just adding them together does not make it the largest anything.
In Queensland, the total Nameplate for rooftop solar is 11% of the whole State’s Nameplate. It actually generates only 4% of the total power for Queensland. Most of that power is consumed by the homes themselves, and the amount fed back to the grid would be around 0.5% (at the most) of Queensland’s total generated power.
Tony.
60
You can’t feed power back into the grid unless it is synchronised in frequency and phase angle as Rod Stuart points out above. That’s why wind turbines are all connected to the grid and have control computers to make sure this happens. (Asynchronous DC is ocassionally fed to a central control point but that doesn’t change anything).
Typically they have to draw current to start e.g. for the yaw motor to turn the (maybe) 60 ton nacelle into the wind, and the blade motors to change the blade angles to the optimum.
In the case that the phase angle isn’t right then you would wind up with a lot of very large electric fans CONSUMING electricity from the grid.
It is one of the reasons why 100% renewables would fail.
20
I don’t “believe” in solar energy as a replacement for coal or nuclear but I experiment with electronics. I have a little solar “power station” I made with a 40W solar panel, a charge controller, and a car battery. It is connected to about a 3W LED. Yesterday I noticed the charge controller had shut down the load (LED) because here in the Melbourne winter the 40W panel cannot produce enought power to keep the battery charged and the 3W LED lit 24/7. I found the same thing with a radio I was running on solar from a 10W panel and a 7Ah battery.
Not only is solar good for only a small number of hours of a day, it is really only good in the summer.
With so much of our grid relying on this feeble energy source, what could possibly go wrong?
111
The destruction of capitalism by wrecking businesses and economies?
30
Here in the US a small rooftop PV array with one 12V 100Ah lead acid battery $US 400 on an ‘outhouse’ labeled ‘ladies’ in the middle of some “National Forest” can continually power an inside ‘bug catcher’, inside LED, when door opened or locked, outdoor larger LED upon detected motion. The deer get used to it, the bear hate that damn thing, (can’t eat it, does not smell like girly bear piss)!The US department of agriculture, forest service seem like the only part of the US government that employes intelligent folk! No technology developed so far has that thing manufacturing ‘john paper’ from nearby trees! Just wait! 🙂
50
Yesterday, my “3kW” PV generated 1.37 kWh with a 340W peak.
1.9% CF
Luckily, there are a couple of wires connecting my house (eventually) to some brown coal generators.
40
TonyfromOz – will have to read your submission later today, but thanks for taking the effort to do one.
3 Jun: UK Independent: Ian Johnston: Government could ditch pledge to shut all coal-fired power stations by 2025
Exclusive: The Independent reveals ministers considering allowing coal-fired power stations to continue to operate despite pledge
However, The Independent can reveal the Government is considering allowing coal-fired power stations to continue to operate providing they can reduce their emissions using fledgling carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology…
The source spoke to The Independent after the Government was contacted about the recently published minutes of a meeting between coal industry representatives and energy minister Andrea Leadsom.
According to the minutes, Ms Leadsom “encouraged” the coal companies to take part in the consultation process to help retrospectively define what Ms Rudd had actually meant in her speech.
Despite the energy secretary speaking about phasing out “coal”, four out of the 15 times she used the word she referred to “unabated” coal…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coal-power-stations-close-2025-fossil-fuels-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-a7061456.html
3 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Kirby: Europe’s renewables investment hits 10-year low
The reputation of Europe as a renewable energy leader has taken a serious knock as its investment dropped by 21% last year while global figures reached record levels
But the REN21 study says Europe’s reputation as a leader in the field is now in jeopardy as its investment in clean energy fell by 21% last year to $48.8 bn − its lowest total since 2006.
Overall, investment in developed countries fell by 8% last year to $130 bn, with Europe registering the most significant decrease as investment dropped by $13.2 bn between 2014 and 2015…
But it shows that the pace of investment in renewable energy in Europe has been slowing down since 2011, dropping by about $74 bn over four years…
Last year, the British trade association RenewableUK, which describes itself as the voice of wind and marine energy, threatened to take legal action after the UK government announced subsidy cuts to the industry…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/03/europes-renewables-investment-hits-10-year-low/
40
pat:
The scent of easy money is getting fainter in the EU.
No subsidies = no renewables.
20
3 Jun: Bloomberg: Brian K. Sullivan: Why This Hurricane Season Is So Important to Scientists
Some scientists say cooling may mean fewer storms for decades
Others reject the idea that the ocean is cooling at all
After decades of warmth, there’s evidence that the ocean is cooling, a change that could mean fewer of the hurricanes that wreak havoc on coastal communities and their economies.
Part of a cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the chill probably will even overshadow the fading El Nino in the Pacific that should have made the 2016 hurricane season one of the more active in recent years.
“It is a very important pattern,” said Gerry Bell, a hurricane climate specialist with the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland…
The thing is, not everyone believes the AMO affects hurricanes that way.
“There are competing hypotheses” for what has been happening in the Atlantic for the past 20 years, said James Done, a research scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado…
Another explanation for the drop in hurricane activity in the 1970s and 80s, as well as the dip in Atlantic sea surface temperatures, is air pollution, said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Emanuel said he believes the hurricane forecasters have it wrong. He defines the AMO as roughly an 11-year pattern, which he said is in line with the way oceanographers see it, and not the longer cycle Bell and others use it to explain changes in hurricane activity…
Without the reflective aerosols, the sun could beat down on the Atlantic, warming it and thereby touching off an increase in hurricanes, which thrive in hot water.
“So we think the hurricane drought was man-made,” Emanuel said…
Determining who is right will take more study and probably a longer record, Done said…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/atlantic-becomes-test-tube-for-competing-hurricane-theories
2 Jun: Scientific American: Gayathri Vaidyanathan: U.S. Congress Aims to Cut Climate Science
Proposed cuts to NOAA and NASA target climate change research in particular
Congress is considering spending bills that would significantly cut funding for key climate change research by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2017.
Among the losers: the oldest carbon dioxide observatories on the planet, the ability to track fossil fuel emissions in the United States and a program to study ocean acidification…
The spending bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee last week allocates $128 million for NOAA’s climate research, a 20 percent cut from the previous year. The bill allocates $1.7 billion for NASA’s earth science division, a 12 percent cut from 2016…
ClimateWire analyzed the House spending bill and NASA and NOAA’s original budget requests to identify programs that might suffer, and ones that will receive ***love***, in 2017…READ ON
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-congress-aims-to-cut-climate-science/?WT.mc_id=SA_FB_ENGYSUS_NEWS
40
I was reading “The Skeptics Handbook” the other day and noted that low cloud cooled and high cloud warmed. When I was working in in eastern Mindanoa (Philippines) the weather is the usual clear morning, a build-up of cumulo nimbus clouds in the afternoon and thunderstorms until the mid evening, then clear again.
However, about Christmas the weather pattern changes and there are easterly winds bringing low cloud in which can last for several days. There is a dramatic temperature drop and a jumper becomes necessary.
60
Jo does say that in the Skeptic’s Handbook. I don’t know where the information originally came from. From my observations I would say that high clouds likely have a net cooling effect.
20
Peter C June 5, 2016 at 12:59 pm
“Jo does say that in the Skeptic’s Handbook. I don’t know where the information originally came from. From my observations I would say that high clouds likely have a net cooling effect.”
High altitude cloud formations are likely airborne water condensate, perhaps ice, that has no latent heat left to maintain temperature with some outward EMR exitance. Such may be highly reflective at shorter insolation wavelengths. Lower cloud formations MUST be pouring in vast amounts of sensible heat from latent heat conversion just to maintain that cloud structure, I think!
Why OH why can we not admit that no one KNOWS anything of this atmosphere!
Only after such frank admission of ignorance, can anyone even attempt to learn of this atmosphere! 13 dimensions are not enough! 28 dimensions may possibly give a clue of Earth’s atmosphere!
All the best! -will-
11
wrap up of the Clean Energy Ministerial in San Francisco – just a few vague promises:
3 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: As OPEC seals fragile peace, world ramps up clean energy goals
Contrasting fortunes in the world’s energy markets were exposed this week at two ministerial-level meetings, one in Vienna, the other in San Francisco…
Australia, France, Sweden and South Africa are among those supporting a “lighting challenge” to install 10 billion LEDs. Phillips Lighting alone plans to sell 2 billion LEDs by 2021.
So far they’ve made it to 109,852,587. If the goal is realised, it will be like taking 684 coal power plants offline, say organisers…
Microsoft founder Bill Gates also reaffirmed his support for the “Breakthrough Energy Coalition”, a group of billionaires including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who say they will incubate promising green start-ups.
“Some of the coalition’s members will participate in a private investment fund we are creating. Others will do it on their own,” said Gates on his blog…
It may take 15-20 years to develop efficient, affordable and reliable carbon-free energy, said Gates…
“We’re talking about changing the energy industry writ large,” said billionaire climate campaigner and investor Tom Steyer, speaking on the sidelines of the meeting.
“The thing that will stand in our way is incumbent players with great money and great power who are determined to change nothing.”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/03/as-opec-seals-fragile-peace-world-ramps-up-clean-energy-goals/
the billionaires for “values”. lol:
3 Jun: Fortune: Katie Fehrenbacher: Why Billionaire Environmentalist Tom Steyer Is Funding Anti-Trump Ads
Energy ministers, global policy-makers, clean energy executives, and green investors met in San Francisco on Thursday to discuss how the world can help fix the changing climate, following the historic agreements made in Paris in December…
If Trump is elected, he could make the environmental work by the energy leaders meeting in San Francisco more difficult to realize…
But one deep-pocketed investor is, and through his Super PAC, the NextGen Climate Action Committee, has been funding anti-Trump ads…
Steyer was at the event on Thursday, called the 7th annual Clean Energy Ministerial, to promote some of the research that his group, the Risky Business Project—created with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson—plans to work on this year. The group will investigate the opportunities and risks that businesses could face by adapting to a changing climate…
FORTUNE: You could be one of the largest contributors from Super PACs to the election. So the climate change debate, through the election this year, has one of the largest funding sources possible–is that fair to say?
STEYER: When I think about this whole effort that we’ve been doing over the last three and a half years, elections are just a form for us to try to engage citizens in a conversation about values…READ ALL
http://fortune.com/2016/06/03/tom-steyer-anti-trump-ads-environment/
20
gnome,
The grid is known as an infinite bus. There is nothing you can do to change its frequency. Thus where you sit in the cycle determines whether you will be supplying power to the grid or taking power from the grid.
Think of it like surfing. You can ride the wave’s forward edge and have it push you to the shore (and back out again) or you can follow just behind it and push it to the shore,and back out again.
This phenomenon is accomplished by varying the generator throttle. Increasing the throttle will cause the generator to want to speed up. On the infinite bus, it can’t, of course, so what happens is it gets all antsy, so to speak, and feeds more power to the grid. Lowering the throttle has the opposite effect. At some point the grid will start pushing the generator and power will be flowing out of the grid, and it will be operating as a motor.
The procedure of paralleling generators is meant to avoid having your very own fireworks show, and having to call the fire department and replacing your generator after putting out the fire, rebuilding your building and changing your drawers, not necessarily in that order. Think of it this way. If cycles are opposing, then a 480VAC phase will have an instantaneous peak to peak voltage difference of 2*480*sqrt(2), or about 1.3 kV. Loads are not meant to handle this overvoltage, so the instantaneous currents through the generator windings will be disastrously high. If there is a circuit breaker, as there should be, the damage may be limited, but that depends on how quickly it responds.
As to which phase you are contributing to, if you have a three phase generator, then the answer is all three. If single phase, neutral in the middle, then the phase has already been selected for you and hard wired to your building. Other parts of your neighborhood may be on one or both of the other three phases to keep things balanced out. There may be some more sophisticated phase conversions, but if that is the case, it will have all been done for you.
I hope this helps. Dean Bruckner, P.E. (Electrical Engineer), State of Virginia in the U.S.
50
In Australia and I assume everywhere the position of the conductors on the utility power poles for the different phases are crossed over at some regular interval. I believe this is done to ensure the inductance for each phase is kept the same for all phases.
20
David
They used to do this with two wire party telephone lines to minimise cross talk.
We had a run of two single phone lines each side of a three chain lane for maybe five km and there was plenty with that setup.
20
Thanx Dean. You may well be the only contributor who actually read my question.
20
I read and understood your question gnome. I was just adding an additional factoid to the discussion about phases.
10
You’re welcome. Some parts of your questions were also answered above, but no doubt you saw those. Cheers!
10
Until it starts to get colder: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-05/warming-temperatures-spark-winemakers-move-to-tasmania/7371262.
Has the BOM approved those data sets, or perhaps ‘homogenised’ them?
41
And what I neglected to mention here is that if temperatures have increased by 8-9C, how come the vines are still thriving?
30
Spot on, ‘bemused’.
Also, why does the learned Professor think the weather/climate should remain so constant as to exactly match on a daily basis, year on year on decade?
Daylight length is about the only thing I’ve ever noticed that remains relatively regular – used for predicting when bees will commence pollinating particular crops, for example – it doesn’t seem to matter whether the crops flower earlier or later than ‘normal’, the bees will usually hit those blossoms on a particular day, year after year, even though an ‘early’ flowering may have been in full inflorescence for weeks prior.
00
Has any one else noticed that Youtube seems to be skeptical of Climate Change.
Each time I look at a few videos I seem to get offered selections of Piers Corbyn, Ivar Giaever, and Ayn Rand amongst the jet engines and plane crash stuff that I sometime watch.
21
Peter,
I don’t know if you’re naive about Google or whether you were being sarcastically funny.
Google owns YouTube.
Youtube creates a bubble of confirmation bias around you by only suggesting things similar to your current interests. They use a combination of cookies, browser local storage, and your computer’s IP address to remember which individual web browser is browsing their sites. They can learn your interests from your past viewing on YT, combined with your web browsing behaviour as detected by Google analytics and DoubleClick.Net advertising. They are doing this with everyone else too, and when you have enough in common with other people, Google will suggest things other similar people have watched with the assumption you will like whatever those other people liked.
What you are seeing as “suggested” is mainly a reflection of what you have clicked on.
None of the above is secret. https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/
Two of their engineers published a comment in IEEE Spectrum in 2014 saying current renewable technology could not be cheaper than fossil fuels nor make much difference to CO2 emissions. http://joannenova.com.au/2014/11/google-engineers-give-up-on-renewables-fixing-the-climate-but-they-still-miss-the-point/
I still do not think that was enough to turn the corporate behemoth around on energy. Google itself is onboard with the whole save-the-planet meme. It is doubtful that they are skewing their video promotions in any direction other than The Consensus and paid-for advertising.
30
Naive!
00
Peter C:
To upset them every so often google YouTube for something weird. I used to have a list on my computer before it failed and would have to dig through my backups.
e.g. for music search for
Sir Reginald’s Marvellous Organ
The aztecs good morning Britain
Rimsky Korsakov (or some other classical composer) etc.
Anything that is widely separated so they can’t zero in on your actual searches.
Another lurk is to check house prices in, say, Coober Pedy, Broome and Mt. Isa.
They spend weeks trying to advertise something that you want. Just ignore them.
Of course it requires a warped sense of humour like mine.
10
Tasmania’ Electricity Dilemma
Over the past day or we have seen both Minister Groom and Hydro CEO Mr. Davy explaining this subject. With the backdrop of a nearly empty Lake Gordon Mr. Davy looked somewhat forlorn I must say.
As a result of a failure of the Bass St. cable in mid December Tasmania’s energy crisis changed to critical and dam storages went from 23% in Dec. to as low as 11.6% in April. Emergency measures were adopted including re-starting the Tamar Valley station, some curtailment of industrial power and the installation of diesel generators.
The current nameplate capacities of the various generators are
Hydro stations………2260 MW
Wind farms…………..306 MW
Tamar Valley…………205 MW
Temp. Diesels………..200 MW
Total………………..2917 MW
With the onset of Winter domestic consumption will increase somewhat.
Is there enough capacity for future demand, or is there need for more generation?
More Hydro
There is some possibility of a dam on the Arthur River and there are studies going back to the mid 1930’s.
Stage 2 of Gordon scheme of 180 MW did not proceed due to the Hawke govt, but the water and damsite is till there.
The only other two rivers with some potential are the Picton River and the New River with their headwaters in the high rainfall areas of SW Tas.
However, all these catchments are in “World heritage Areas” as is most of S. Tasmania.
More Gas turbine Stations
A distinct a possibility, really one either buys the gas from Gippsland and uses a gas turbine, or just imports the electricity from Gippsland if available.
More Wind Farms
The two existing windfarms are located on the NW and NE corners of the island and could be expanded. They are subject to the vagaries of the wind and can produce reasonable amounts of power if last month is typical of winter. With hydro generators these can be started and stopped quickly to take advantage of above normal wind energy.
Macquarie Harbour Tidal Station
This worth some study for a river flow station since there is a large flow of water going in and out of the harbour each 6 hours. The flow is so strong that sometimes the fishing boats go backwards and have to wait for slack water. The port of Strahan is only used by fishing and tourist boats since the Mt. Lyell mine stopped smelting. The entrance is 400m. wide and and a barrage and breakwaters could be constructed. It’s probably less pie in the sky than some of the current renewable projects.
More solar
There is no large scale solar in Tasmania only rooftop solar PV, and production is low due to its latitude.
Infrastructure, roads and transmission lines, exists close to most of these so some of cost has already been spent.
It is going to take several years for the Hydro to build-up its reserves once BassLink is restored. The two main storages, Lake Gordon and the Great Lake, are close to being empty so the only strategy seems to be use Yallourn off peak electricity, the diesels, the Tamar valley station and the river stations as much as possible and let the big storages refill to at least 75% before thinking of selling another megawatt northwards. Whether there is enough capacity in the longterm requires some serious study.
40
Note that demand fluctuates from a low of 900 MW at 3 AM on Christmas Day, and about 1300 MW on a winter’s morning.
One would think that 3000 MW of generation would fit the bill, but not if there is no wind and it hasn’t rained for a few weeks and the reservoirs are dry.
Hydro is subject to the same drawbacks as other “renewables”. The capital cost is enormous and the reliability and to a greater extent security are not there.
An option you avoided is in my opinion the most logical. That is a coal fired power station in the Fingal valley. One of similar capacity to the Bass Link.
I realise the capital cost blows out when the capacity is small. 400 to 500 MW is small relative to most such facilities which are more like 2,000 MW.
TonyfromOz will have a better handle on that than I. I think the capital cost generally runs about $3,000 per MW; in the same order of magnitude as a second HVDC marine cable.
Too bad they blew so much away on 13th century technology at Woolnorth and Musselroe. Otherwise the State might then be able to afford it.
By the way did you notice that in Savva’s book she maintains that Abbott had to promise Hunt the environment portfolio, but Hunt insisted that in order to get his vote climate change could not be considered ‘crap’? See Tony Thomas’ latest on Quadrant.
PS 200 MW of leased diesel. Sure about that? That’s just the 1 MW recips.
10
I had the Fingal coal station in my draft but missed it: it makes sense as the coal is there as well as water. Would you put a station there or transport the coal to another site? I think they have 100 MW of diesel operating now, but they were going to add more.
They seem to be dancing around the reason for their predicament, lower than normal Spring inflows seems to be in vogue, but if you look at the BOM rainfall maps the west coast catchments received normal rainfall, and that is where the dams are, bar the Great Lake. They are getting some good rainfall at the moment and the Mersey Forth dams should spill again.
I would have thought that with the experience of the mid sixties and low rainfall, management would have been more prudent rather than running the dams down to a quarter of their capacity at the beginning of Summer. Not much point in having a Sir Humphrey inquiry as the folk know the story.
20
It’s generally more efficient to transport the electricity than it is to transport the fuel.
That is why the coal fired stations are generally located on a coal mine.
There are three 35 MW dual fuel gas turbines leased and commissioned in the North, in addition to the numerous 1 MW reciprocating machines located at several places.
Unfortunately common sense flies out the window when a value is related to a figment of the imagination, such as “green energy” or “clean energy”. In the world of crony capitalism, there is no need for logic and reason. Propaganda reigns supreme.
30
For something different
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/06/bills-wife-115.html
and the link.
Looks like “watch this space”
10
The ideal solution to Tasmania’s electricity shortage is to use a Russian floating nuclear power plant. It can produce 70 MW of electical power, 300 MW of heat and 240,000 cubic meters of desalinated water per day.
The desal water could be used to refill the dams…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station
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CLIMATE HUSTLE
Fellow bloggers – Climate Hustle – the film produced by a the CFACT group in the US to combat the misinformation on global warming aka climate change, especially Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”, is about to be promoted overseas, including here in Australia.
It was recently released in the US in about 400 cinemas across the country to, allegedly, rave revues from those that attended and some sections of the media. The usual crowd were not impressed of course, but there has been little comment from the warmist camp as, I suspect, it contains too many truths to even think about criticising it publicly.
Anyway, they are looking for organisations or people in this country who would be interested in promoting the film, showing it to social groups or arranging more widespread distribution.
I have already pointed them in the direction of the IPA, but if you are interested you can contact Adam Houser at [email protected].
For those who have not seen the trailers they can be found here.
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La Nina should see a drop in temperature, but at this stage there is nothing to indicate a crash.
http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_2005.png
30
Check the photo
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/06/the-three-stooges-not-what-australia-needs-at-the-next-election-thanks-to-reader-td-for-the-photo.html#comments
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Jo
FYI
I haven’t seen this one in the “OMG sea level rises” so FYI
”
Plainzdrifter replied to comment from foobert | June 5, 2016 1:54 AM | Reply
foobert: Re: Rising seas.
In 2008, I visited Sydney, New South wales, Australia. Bare Island sits near La Perouse, a park and natural attraction since the days when Botany Bay was filled with British sailing ships.
Atop Bare Island sits a British Fort. The Island is solid rock, the Fort was built in the late 1880’s but was made obsolete by 1902. There’s a interesting set of circumstances that surrounded government corruption during the construction. (See story.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare_Island_(New_South_Wales)
On the northern edge of the island, an opening was cut in the stone to accommodate small rowboats that were unloaded from nearby ships. The passengers could simply tie the boats and step out from the boat onto the stone and up to the fort. During the tour, I asked the guide, a park warden, if indeed the seas were rising, why it was that the level of the water hadn’t changed from the 1880’s when the makeshift dock was carved in the stone. He didn’t know the answer. (Most likely, because there weren’t any rising seas.) If you enter ”Bare Island, NSW” on google earth, the opening in the stone is beside the boardwalk where it meets the island. Hard to see, but it’s there. ”
A comment at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/06/reader-tips-3507.html#comments
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Same story at Port Arthur, they are arguing whether the bench mark cut is mean sea level or high tide level, still the ruins of the Penitentiary are still high and dry after 160 odd years.
31
As far as I know, only Dr John Hunter maintains that the Port Arthur bench mark was cut at high tide mark
http://acecrc.org.au/people/dr-john-hunter/
The idea is of course quite ludicrous. Mean sea level is hard enough to establish but the high tide mark is impossible to define. The proposition is an affront to the memory of Captain James Ross RN who proposed the creation of the mark and also Thomas Lempriere who carefully collated the tide records in the area and supervised the striking of the mark.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/828275/posts
I note that Dr John Hunter’s special interest site “What wrong with Still Looking for Greenhouse” in which he tries to attack the writings of John Daly has now disappeared from the web. Also his profile on the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Research Cooperative Centre web site has been considerably reduced and his picture has been removed.
He seems to have been a colleague of the recently sacked Dr John Church (CSIRO).
He still lists this paper in which he collaborated with Stephan Lewandowsky!
Lewandowsky, S,, Risbey, J.S., Smithson, M., Newell, B.R. and Hunter, J., 2014. Scientific uncertainty and climate change: Part I. Uncertainty and unabated emissions, Climatic Change, DOI:10.1007/s10584-014-1082-7.
Dr John Hunter was featured discussing the tide mark on an ABC program Catalyst:”Taking Australia Temperature” by Dr Jonica Newby which I think was a low point in scientific discussion on the ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3633447.htm
20
The East Coast Low pounding eastern Australia will become less common in winter because of AGW and not as intense.
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journals/using-large-scale-diagnostic-quantities-to-investigate-change-in-east-o3YhqTnOMU
In a cooling world we can expect them to continue happening in winter and becoming more intense.
20
I do apologize for diverting everyone’s attention from the more exciting topics being discussed today. But here is one of the most valuable things, health wise, that is apparently embedded in the massive foot high stack of legislation that invented Obamacare out of thin air, probably the air in an unsanitary public restroom somewhere judging by the odor.
It seems that Americans are so unhealthy from all the calories in beer that regulations in Obamacare could put the smaller local breweries out of business. And those smaller breweries are the backbone of the brewing industry in this country today. And what beer drinker will look to see what the calories/bottle are anyway. No one I know.
I would have died laughing if I didn’t know they were serious about this kind of nanny busybody governance. Putting their calorie content on the foreheads of our members of the House and Senate would do us more good. That way we could tell the lightweight thinkers from the heavy… …if there are any of the heavyweight kind anymore. And if they really are serious why not just make beer illegal and be done with it?
Maybe it’s a good thing they are serious. My wife and family would miss me if I died, even if I died laughing — I hope. Ebenezer Scrooge looks like the Salvation Army combined with the Red Cross compared with the U.S. Government. God bless their tiny little intellects in DC. They need it. But look out you sorry excuses for legilators, Donald is coming. Or so he says.
You can’t invent this stuff, so where do they get it? The world is crumbling all around us but our beer may soon be removed from our refrigerators by the long arm of government. Go figure. 🙁
20
They will no doubt blame all this meddling on climate change.
20
Really it’s the same problem be it Washington D.C. or the ACT, the bureaucrats must know better than normal folk.
10
Or Brussels…at least, the bureaucrats think they know better than anyone else. Huh! The 1diocy that stems from bureaucracy is past belief; it’s to do with fear, control and taxes.
00
Roy
They might want to read this before acting
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/prediction-venezuela-to-have-a-coup-in-3-weeks/
10
The situation is much the same all around the world, with stable competent government looking like an endangered species.
The thought of overthrowing the government here fills me with dread. I think the resulting riots and all that goes with them would tear the country apart, such is the attitude right now. We don’t do that in the United States of America — never. And we are already torn apart far more than is good for us.
As everyone must know by now, it will be Trump vs. Hillary in November and already the fight is dirtier than I’ve ever seen, with tempers boiling over if what I’ve seen is any indicator. Cool heads are going to be a premium commodity. And there is already a new move afoot to upset Trump at the Republican convention and get someone else nominated — Scott Walker has already been suggested. If this could have been done by convincing Trump voters that he’s not going to be a good president and they then voted differently I would approve of it. But this way it’s just another smoke filled backroom political maneuver that will risk all sorts of protest and the associated trouble if they can pull it off.
I don’t have a clue about what the days leading up to November will look like but it can’t be good. I think the end result will be President Clinton.
00
Roy
If you begin to understand the minds of such individuals as Bill Ayers, George Soros, Saul Alinsky, to name a few, allows one to comprehend the behaviour of one BHO and the Clintons. This article in “thinker” ties as much of it together as anything of this length can. Throw in the published works of Diana West and Jeff Nyquist and the drama behind the scenes, the major players, the plot, and the direction in which Western Civilisation is headed become far too clear.
00
Jo
FYI
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/05/cnbc-breaks-with-the-climate-disaster-narrative-of-msm/
10
Let us hope the cooler, critical thinking heads prevail. It’s encouraging to see some common sense analysis being done and broadcast, even if it’s only on CNBC.
00
And for anyone considering getting into carbon farming
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/05/impacts-of-climate-change-policy-in-the-real-world/
10
Another FYI
“Top Scientists: CO2-Induced Warming Is “Weak” To Non-Existent For Greenland, Antarctica!”
http://notrickszone.com/2016/06/03/top-scientists-co2-induced-warming-is-weak-to-non-existent-for-greenland-antarctica/#sthash.sOCBDINN.RqrCReQI.dpbs
00
‘The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals support for other parties and independents has jumped three points to 15 per cent in the past fortnight to be at the highest level for this group during a formal election campaign in the 31-year history of Newspoll.’
Phil Hudson / Oz
00
‘The Greens want to regulate the electricity system to ensure a “fair price” is paid for solar-generated electricity and ensure a “legal right” to connect to the grid by forcing energy companies to prove they cannot connect a consumer.
‘The Greens’ clean energy policy would put $192m for solar into schools, establish a solar ombudsman who would enforce a “right to solar” for renters and force energy companies to write-down pole and wire assets.’
Gabrielle Chan (Guardian)
00
Interesting… …a right to solar? It gets better with each passing day.
And what does “…write down pole and wire assets,” actually mean? I’ll take a guess and say it means eventually pulling thousands of miles of power lines out of the ground and scrapping the copper.
This whole thing looks like a suicide mandate for reliable electricity.
00
GREG HUNT & THE LIBERALS “SECRET” ETS……………………
Checkout this article about this dodgy deal!!
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/27/election-2016-greg-hunt-coalition-emissions-trading-scheme
[SNIP]
[Alan Kohlers article on the secret ETS]
Unsurprisingly, the “conservatives” in both the Liberal and National parties were extremely displeased by these claims, or the fact that the allegedly “secret” ETS embedded in their policy started getting wider airplay – in a question on the ABC’s Q&A, for example, and in stories in the Australian Financial Review.
Hunt wrote a carefully parsed letter to the Australian and distributed a chart rebutting some of the claims made. It was a case study in obfuscation.
He insisted the safeguards mechanism “is not a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme” (at the moment – with the baselines set at “historic highs” and with companies able to ask for them to be set even higher if needs be, this is true, because it will be almost impossible for any company to exceed its baseline or be forced to buy pollution permits, which of course also means the policy achieves almost nothing).
[sNIP]
Hunt has given the conservatives in his party the impression that he ruled out reducing the baselines and setting up his own ETS, and there are many in both the Liberal and National parties who insist any type of ETS will happen over their political corpses.
But Hunt is pointing out to others that his carefully chosen words actually left the question open.
The Coalition is deferring until after the election its internal reckoning between entrenched climate change sceptics and those pushing for something like a workable climate policy, the final answer as to whether Turnbull will indeed continue to lead a party not committed to acting on climate change.
[Angry, thanks for the pointer. Please do not paste whole articles in the thread. COPYRIGHT! – Jo]
00
Another Ian –
am hoping jo will begin a new thread on the CNBC/Kelly piece.
more here:
24 May: CambridgeUniversityPress: Cambridge professor says much of the effort to combat global warming is actually making it worse
As part of an open discussion on the critical issue of energy, sustainability and climate change,MRS Energy & Sustainability–A Review Journal (MRS E&S) has published a paper in which Cambridge engineering professor M.J. Kelly argues that it is time to review the current efforts to reduce carbon emissions, some of which “represent total madness.” This paper is one of a series of articles in MRS E&S that, with varying opinions, address this controversial topic.
In his peer-reviewed article, Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability (LINK), Kelly considers the lessons from global decarbonization projects, and concludes that all combined actions to reduce carbon emissions so far will not achieve a serious reduction. In some cases, these efforts will actually make matters worse.
Central to his thesis, which is supported by examples, is that rapid decarbonization will simply not be possible without a significant reduction in standards of living….
For a counter viewpoint to this article, see Energy and sustainability, from the point of view of environmental physics (LINK), by Micha Tomkiewicz…
http://www.cambridge.org/au/about-us/news/cambridge-professor-says-much-effort-combat-global-warming-actually-making-it-worse/
btw CNBC has this as well:
2 Jun: CNBC: Matthew J. Belvedere: Jack Welch says Obama’s ‘wacky’ climate-change agenda hurts the US economy
Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, said Thursday the Obama administration’s heavy focus on combating climate change is “radical behavior” that’s holding back the economy…
The result, he said: “You get an economy that won’t move. You get ozone regs that are wacky.” …
Welch said he’s not a climate-change denier, just pointing out the “cost of doing it; it’s got to be more balanced.”…
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/02/jack-welch-says-obamas-wacky-climate-change-agenda-hurts-the-us-economy.html
00
2 Jun: NY Post: Kyle Smith: Liberal climate-change doc ‘Time To Choose’ is full of ridiculous claims
The climate-change documentary “Time To Choose” makes the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow” look like a model of judiciousness and restraint.
Charles Ferguson’s alarmist manifesto, narrated by Oscar Isaac, makes sci-fi claims such as “Over 600 million people’s homes will be destroyed if the world’s coastlines are flooded.”…
Ferguson’s film is manic-depressive, though; he alternates doomsaying with equally nonsensical visions of a decarbonized planet. Soon, he says, we won’t need oil to power our cars (wanna bet?). At his most morally reprehensible, he looks at deforestation (to grow soybeans to feed pigs to feed China) and blames it all on billionaires, when in fact what he supports is for hundreds of millions of Asians to be kept around starvation levels of caloric intake to placate the faddish neuroses of limousine liberals.
http://nypost.com/2016/06/02/liberal-climate-change-doc-time-to-choose-is-full-of-ridiculous-claims/
“limousine liberals” see it differently!
2 Jun: NYT: Stephen Holden: Review: ‘Time to Choose’ Extols Renewable Energy to Combat Global Warming
Charles Ferguson’s latest documentary, “Time to Choose,” is a sobering polemic about global warming that balances familiar predictions of planetary doom with a survey of innovations in renewable energy technology that hold out some hope for the future. Unless the carbon-based energy sources on which we have relied are replaced with solar and wind power (the movie doesn’t address nuclear energy), we are ruined…
In the language of Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, who works closely with Gov. Jerry Brown of California, one of the film’s heroes: “First people deny that they’re part of the problem. Then they deny there’s a solution. Then they tell you that if there is a solution, it’s too expensive.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/movies/review-time-to-choose-extols-renewable-energy-to-combat-global-warming.html?_r=0
WaPo: Michae O’Sullivan: Time to Choose’ makes an eloquent case for acting to save the planet now
As California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) puts it, our whole way of life “has to be sensitive to the requirements of nature,” necessitating an “integrated effort” that doesn’t just address one isolated problem but that recognizes the interconnectivity of diet, pollution, energy, agriculture, technology and urban planning…
Variety: Ferguson’s biggest news flash — and he provides a truckload of evidence for it — is that renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which have been mocked for years as well-meaning but minor hippie-dippy solutions, have become a ruthlessly competitive economic alternative. They are now cheaper than fossil fuels, and the film makes a potent case that the reason we aren’t using more of them is that big oil simply doesn’t want it that way.
10
too funny not to post:
2 Jun: Inverse: Yasmin Tayag: How Filmmaker Charles Ferguson Enlisted Oscar Isaac to Help Stop an Apocalypse
‘Time to Choose’ is a serious movie and a seriously good movie (and it’s narrated by Apocalypse from X-Men).
(Yasmin Tayag is a writer and former biologist living in New York City. A Toronto girl at heart, her writing also appears in The Last Magazine and SciArt in America, and you might recognize her as a former host of Scientific American’s YouTube series Instant Egghead)
INVERSE: Your film suggests that developing nations that don’t have electricity now might sidestep coal and gas dependence altogether and adopt solar energy right off the bat. Is it feasible to believe these practices will be adopted on a wide scale?
FERGUSON: Yes! I’m very optimistic about that… It will be an enormous step forward for, say, Bangladesh and Africa to be able to use that kind of solar power. It’s coming extremely quickly. At the current growth rate of that industry, in another 5 years, certainly within 10 years, everybody in Africa and everybody in South Asia will have electricity for the first time in their lives. And that’s an astonishing thing…
INVERSE: What measures have you incorporated into your own life?
FERGUSON: I already didn’t eat very much meat, but now I don’t eat meat at all. I got myself an electric car; I must confess that I spent the money on a bourgeois electric car because I like fast cars. It’s a Tesla Roadster. My wife has a different car; the other one is a very boring, useful hybrid.
INVERSE: I’m guessing a Prius?
FERGUSON: Yep…
https://www.inverse.com/article/16440-how-filmmaker-charles-ferguson-enlisted-oscar-isaac-to-help-stop-an-apocalypse
00
Yup, try running your “bourgeois electric car” on the power from a few solar panels on the roof our your (probably) equally bourgeois house!
00
Tallbloke is running a critique on the Republican schmozzle, I pulled out this quote.
‘Trump’s rise isn’t just explained by the failure of the GOP to get its house in order, conduct responsible politics, or find a single qualified candidate to run for the office. Trump’s rise follows directly from backlash to two words: political correctness.
‘These two words are two of Trump’s favorites, and not arbitrarily. It is almost impossible to find a Trump supporter who doesn’t back him explicitly because of his unflinching, dismissive, even hostile stance against political correctness. “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Vote Trump!” could be a campaign bumper sticker. Should that not be convincing enough, cinching the case was the recent race-to-the-bottom sparring match between Trump and former GOP hopeful Ted Cruz, over which of them is to be deplored for being “more PC” than the other.’
10
el gordo –
just got a laugh from this Obama-the-saviour piece by the politically-conflicted Wolpe – so suited to writing for ABC:
7 Jun: ABC The Drum: Bruce Wolpe: Clinton’s ace in the hole in the battle against Trump
(Bruce Wolpe was on the Democratic staff in Congress in president Barack Obama’s first term. He is a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He is chief of staff to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard)
Never mind the doubters, Hillary Clinton has two weapons to attack Donald Trump with. 1) Barack Obama. 2) Her ability to surgically dissect his lack of foreign policy credentials. Bruce Wolpe writes.
For Obama, if Trump is the result of eight years of him being president, and being the first African American to become president; and to have been the president who saved the country from Depression; saved the auto industry; established national access to health insurance; reduced and recast the quagmire in the Middle East; ended the cold war with Cuba; brought marriage equality to the country; aggressively acted against carbon pollution and global warming: if the successor to Obama’s legacy is Trump, then that is a massive failure and repudiation of Obama…
Obama is not going to stand by and let that happen…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-06/wolpe-clinton's-ace-in-the-hole-in-the-battle-against-trump/7480078
u have to laugh.
Wolpe works for Gillard now? yes indeed…in New York i noted in a Daily Tele column:
LinkedIn: Bruce Wolpe, Senior Advisor at Hon Julia Gillard, MP Sydney, Australia
Chief of Staff Hon Julia Gillard, MP
October 2014 – Present
Chief of Staff Hon Julia Gillard MP
2013 – Present
Senior Advisor Office of the Prime Minister
2012 – 2013
Director Corporate Affairs Fairfax Media
1999 – 2009
more on Wolpe:
2009(?) ABC Q&A profile: Bruce Wolpe
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2514440.htm
00
I’ve trying to reconcile 2 different Greenland temperature sets.
The first is an Argon/Nitrogen isotope reconstruction as shown in the first link.
http://s19.postimg.org/slmehn8hf/argon_greenland.png
The second is the last 1000 or so years of the GISP series.
I managed to match up the dates and temperatures, but the graphs don’t match very closely at all.
The 1940 or so peak stands out clearly, but the year 2000 temperature is clearly less than the MWP.
The little uptick at the end of GISP looks like its in the wrong time position, as does the MWP peak.
I’ve seen other, of what I think was ice core data, that puts the MWP peak well before 1000AD
All too difficult until after a bottle of wine. !!
http://s19.postimg.org/xyb8vrwdv/argon_vs_gisp_2.jpg
00
Here is the one with the MWP peak much earlier
http://s19.postimg.org/vv0to3wkz/greenland_temps1.png
The grey area is the argon isotope data.. weird !!
Anyone seen these ones anywhere?
00