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Liddell Coal Plant, NSW. Image: Webaware, Wikimedia
UPDATE: 6:30pm for a 6:45 start.
AGL has promised to close the Liddell Coal generators early. Why won’t they sell this generator? Perhaps they want to save the planet (Corporate Saints?!), or maybe is it better for business not to have another cheap coal plant competing with their profitable gas and subsidized-renewables generators in Australia? Perhaps they like to feast off million dollar power price spikes and forced subsidies from the Renewable Energy Target?
How screwed is our free market when the cheapest form of generation is so “worthless” corporates buy it to “throw it away”?
Archibald is a take-no-prisoners presenter. If you can get there, do!
Save Liddell and keep the Hunter Valley working (not to mention our national grid).
Thursday 22nd February, Singleton Diggers Club, cnr York and Church St Singleton, NSW.
The Science of Climate Power Prices The true story at Liddell The Lesson from the US What’s needed for the Hunter
Presented by David Archibald, Geologist, climate scientist and energy analyst.
Contact David.archibald AT westnet.com.au
Ph 0410 664 853
9.1 out of 10 based on 70 ratings […]
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7.3 out of 10 based on 15 ratings
Funny how the answer to everything always turns out to be a pet lefty cause?
TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE, EDUCATE GIRLS AND GIVE THEM BIRTH CONTROL
Robyn George Andrews has a paradigm shaker: if we could just keep girls in school, and give them contraception — droughts, floods and nasty storms will go away. I wonder if condoms are better than the pill for climate control?
Andrews seems to think that if we could somehow just sneak teachers with emergency girls schools into Rwanda et al, the atmosphere on the Third Rock will right itself and achieve the stable ideal weather that it never had. Too bad about the boys though. As it happens, in Rwanda, they’re slightly more likely to miss out on school than girls are (88% of boys, versus 90% of girls attend primary school). If we could just fix that gender bias…
Nevermind about Rule of Law, endemic crime and corruption, and a complete lack of infrastructure, if the girls had studied The Sociology of Myley Cyrus (at Skidmore) they’d be too busy tweeting about twerking to overpopulate the planet and generate hot spots and cold holes in the atmosphere.
But Andrews seems to have missed […]
Brought to you by the Theory That Can Never Be Wrong — what’s the opposite of hot? A hole!
Next time you are feeling cold you will know you are in a hole instead. Stop digging.
h/t Climate Depot
Snow-covered beaches? Chilly iguanas? They are part of a mysterious ‘hole’ in global warming
BY STUART LEAVENWORTH, February 15, 2018 05:00 AM
… “according to a scientific study published this month, the Southeast’s colder winter weather is part of an isolated trend, linked to a more wavy pattern in the jet stream that crosses North America. That dipping jet stream allows artic air to plunge into the Southeast. Scientists call this colder weather a “hole” in overall global warming, or a “warming hole.”
“What we are looking at is an anomaly,” said Jonathan M. Winter, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College and the principle investigator in the study. “The Southeast is the exception to the rule.”
Coming soon, new discoveries will show that the Little Ice Age was not cold, just part of an isolated trend that happened all over the world.
This particular modern hole is happening over SE USA. Obviously […]
Just another day at a suburban beach in Perth at sunset. See the hordes…
Clearly Perth has too many beaches.
The weekly wrap:
Renewables will have a minor place, As future power for the human race.
Renewables can’t make the Vic. grid blossom, Because of debris and a brushtailed possum.
Some eco-activists have necks of brass, To shut a pipeline and its flow of gas.
The I.P.C.C. leaks a warming scare, To fool the world that warmists really care.
A state grid that runs smoothly on the cheap, Will give its people much reward to reap.
-Ruairi
8.2 out of 10 based on 53 ratings
Here’s the long-awaited followup to Part 1: The history of the Climate Debate from 1850 -2008, where history is tragedy reënacted as comedy, adapted for irony and syndicated as sarcasm. By Brad Keyes from Climate Nuremberg (whose motto is Deride And Conquer). — Jo
Guest Post by Brad Keyes 2009 Documents liberated in the so-called Climategate leaks don’t show any impropriety on The Scientists’™ part whatsoever, which is why 19 independent inquiries are held to make sure.* Glaciergate happens Using nothing but schoolboy logic and denier logic, voodoo scientists identify a false prediction in IPCC AR4. Citing something called the scientific method, fundamentalist Feynmanites point out that if the IPCC’s prediction was wrong, its hypothesis must be wrong. Jubilation worldwide as the Intergovernmental Panel decides to hold onto its apocalyptic hypothesis anyway. After a lifetime questioning the claims of pea-thimbling ghost-realtors, evolution-denying WMD-existers, telekinetic psychopaths and telepathic psychokines, James Randi suddenly turns his back on everything Skepticism stands for by questioning The Science™. Skeptic authorities take the 87-year-old legend aside for a quiet chat about CAGW and, 24 hours later, Randi has freely accepted how silly he was to doubt something so rock-solid that no other Skeptic with a capital […]
To understand the real value of electricity, consider the price at which people will give it up. “Demand Response” is the nice euphemism for a voluntary blackout. At what point do people volunteer to go without? For most of the market, apparently, it’s more than $7500/MWh.
If I read this graph correctly, look how fast the prices rise, and how small the response is. For example, in South Australia there is only about 10MW available at less than $300/MWh? (From this AEMO report). For reference the total SA demand is around 1500MW. So 10MW is less than 1%.
(See below for the
Consider how few people are willing to turn the electricity off:
AEMO expects there to be approximately 50 MW of demand response in NSW when the price reaches $1,000/MWh.
The total size of the NSW state market is about 10,000MW. Retail electricity sells for $250 — $470MWh (and only $100/MWh in the US). Hence when the price hits two to four times the normal retail cost of electricity, only about 5% of the market say they will willingly stop using it. When the price hits $7500MWh another 2% will give it up. We can’t […]
Six months to go and why waste a perfectly good press opportunity?
Hold on to your hat: This draft is almost the same as every other draft ever was.
A draft United Nations climate science report contains dire news about the warming of the planet, suggesting it will likely cross the key marker of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of temperature rise in the 2040s, and that this will be exceedingly difficult to avoid.
Blah. Blah. Must act urgently. Blah. The two messages we will never hear is that we are doing enough or spending too much.
The leak is so predictable, and such a standard marketing tool, that the IPCC even has an excuse at-the-ready:
The document’s leak has become a standard affair for major United Nations climate science reports, because they are seen by so many reviewers.
This is supposed to be a transparent process to solve a global problem. How can that be “leaked?”
A slight change in flavour is that while we were always aiming for two arbitrary degrees of warming, now we are now also aiming for an arbitrary 1.5C as well. The lower target is unachievable, apparently, allowing […]
Great news (though how low is our bar, that it’s “great” that after seven long expensive years Tim Ball can speak freely?). As reported on WUWT: Tim Ball’s free-speech victory over Andrew Weaver – all charges dismissed!
Anthony Watts: I got word tonight from David Ball, son of Dr. Tim Ball via Facebook messenger:
This morning the judge dismissed all charges in the lawsuit brought against Tim by BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. It is a great victory for free speech.
Andrew Weaver launched the suit in 2011.
In 2014 Ezra Levant’s wrote: “Silencing Critics instead of debating them”
Weaver sued climatologist Dr. Tim Ball for, amongst other things, saying Weaver was “lacking a basic understanding of climate science,” according to a glowing New York Times article, cheering on his SLAPP suit.
Seriously? Suing someone, in a court of law, for saying you don’t understand global warming? This from a scholar, an academic, a teacher? And now a politician – an opposition politician, no less. Weaver is now a Green Party MLA in British Columbia, someone who hurls insults as part of his job description.
That’s not what true academics do. […]
“Valve Turners” in action. The Hi-vis vest will help a lot if that gas leaks.
The Five “Valve Turners” broke in and turned off valves on the Keystone Pipeline and four other cross-border pipelines — in Washington, Montana and Minnesota. They are in their fifties and sixties and brave enough to risk jail, but not apparently brave enough to read skeptical material that might show that the actions they think are noble are really misguided, illegal, narcissistic, risky stunts as well as being pointless and inconvenient to thousands.
Foster, who is 53, was charged with criminal trespass and criminal mischief, conspiracy to commit criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. At his bond hearing in Cavalier, N.D., he learned that he faced a maximum sentence of more than 26 years.
The NY Times gives them hero treatment. Scott of the Antarctic could not get a write up this nice:
What Foster didn’t expect was that once he’d broken through the chain-link fence, he would be briefly overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he was about to do. He faced away from the biting wind, and allowed himself to cry. He then put a gloved hand on the […]
Australia has a gold plated network, which is why our electricity is so expensive.
However we also have gold plated possums:
Distributor blames possums for third power outage
More than 20,000 homes in Melbourne’s southeast had another night without electricity on Sunday, the third major power outage for Victoria in three weeks.
An Ausnet spokeswoman confirmed 23,915 customers were left without power for about 90 minutes from 11.42pm in suburbs including Bayswater, Boronia, Ferntree Gully, Heathmont, Knoxfield, Scoresby and Wantirna. She said the power cut was the result of a fault at the Boronia substation, which could have been triggered by leaves or branches or other plant debris flying into overhead power lines, or animals, birds or possums on the line.
Incredibly bad luck.
Or not. They don’t really know why this blackout occurred yet.
Workers are still investigating the cause of the fault…
The Victorian government blames the privately owned retailers, and has ordered them to pay compensation. This is the funny asymmetry with electricity pricing – it costs less to generate it, than to not generate it. A 3 – 20 hour blackout might “earn” $80 in compensation.
8.9 out of 10 based […]
7.1 out of 10 based on 16 ratings
What energy transformation?
The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2018 is out. The hard heads at the US Dept of Energy crunched the numbers, assumed technology will improve, and modeled the outcomes. According to their best estimates (and even their “worst” estimates) thirty years from now, the main energy source for the US is natural gas and fossil fuels. Renewables grows from 5% to 14%, but coal, nukes, hydro stays about the same. When the Australian Greens say “we don’t want to be left behind”, the answer is “Exactly! So explore for gas! Use Nukes!”
The World’s largest economy will still be nearly 80% fossil fueled in 2050.
On the road, most people are still using gasoline cars, and here’s the kicker — electricity prices are still at about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. Weep all ye Australians, Brits, Germans and other who would be grateful if electricity only rose 10% a year, not 10% over 30 years.
How much does an interconnector cost from Townsville to Texas? 😉
h/t Paul Homewood who has quoted Mark Perry from AEI:
Despite all of the hype, hope, cheerleading, fuel standards, portfolio standards, and taxpayer subsidies for renewable energies like wind and […]
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8.1 out of 10 based on 30 ratings
The Green Blob is going to have to get rid of satellites. Real data is so inconvenient.
For years many people called scientists have assumed, like any smart 5 year old would, that islands are fixed blobs of rock and sand that just sit there and sink as oceans rise. Now satellite images show that three quarters of the islands in Tuvalu are growing rather than shrinking.
Total land area is up 2.9%. Total government funded scientists who predicted reality, down 97%.
…
Since our emissions helped create nearly a square kilometer of free real estate in Tuvalu, it seems only fair that they return any climate funds, and pay a royalty. 😉
The whole of Tuvalu is 26km2 and about 10,600 people live there. Total GDP is $32 million. It’s a cheap marketing tool. In May last year, despite Tuvalu being used as an advertising posterchild for climate change for years, it had not received funding from the Green Climate Fund. In August 2017 UNDP finally promised $38 million. That’s theoretically an extra income equivalent to 20% of their GDP for the next seven years. No wonder these islanders are keen to talk “climate change”.
Scientists who have […]
With headlines like these, you might think that electric vehicles are competitive: China holds the keys to the electric car revolution –
“In the third quarter, global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) soared 63 percent”
–Business Insider
You might think your nation is way behind:
Australia debates value of electric vehicles while China pushes ahead
In 2017, 652,000 plug-in battery cars were sold in China, up 59 per cent, or almost half of worldwide sales.
–Sydney Morning Herald
But then there is this:
Tax incentives for electric vehicles were stopped in Hong Kong, and sales collapsed
Tesla car sales in Hong Kong fell from 2000 to just 300 cars in one year, a crushing indictment of their competitiveness and … No wait, it’s worse:
Data from Hong Kong´s Transport Department shows Tesla sales fell to just 32 between April and December 2017, a dramatic decline from the near 2,000 sales notched up over the same period of 2016.
The removal of tax incentives in Hong Kong almost doubled the price of some Tesla models.
In total, including non-Tesla models, just 99 electric cars were registered […]
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Complexity has a price
Royal Adelaide Hospital, dubbed the “third most expensive building in the world” is doing more to help with global climate control than any other first world hospital. But a few weeks ago some of the planet saving batteries leaked all over the floor.
The government has claimed it [Royal Adelaide Hospital] produces half the greenhouse gas emissions of other hospitals.
Shame about 80 litres of sulphuric acid spilled into a hospital room. Firefighters were called in, and one person had to be decontaminated.
Are battery acid burns covered on your health plan?
Four giant batteries installed inside the new $2.4 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital to help the facility meet the Weatherill government’s strict low-emission targets have ruptured without warning, spilling 80 litres of sulphuric acid.
The toxic accident in a power generator room inside the hospital, which opened in September after delays and legal disputes over building defects, saw one person exposed and decontaminated at the scene by firefighters.
The batteries won’t be replaced til people know what went wrong:
Central Adelaide Health Network chief executive Jenny Richter said replacement batteries had been ordered but would […]
Another variation of Climate-Panic was unleashed today on hapless tourism operators. The whole entire $40b tourism industry in Australia is at risk apparently. Here are three points the doom-mongers and our “journalists” didn’t think of:
People like hot weather holidays. “Climate change” (if it happens) would mean longer beach seasons, more greenery, and coral reefs could spread. Average temperatures vary by 14C across Australia. The average January maxes range from 22.5C to 36.5C. Some fans of the renewables industry want you to believe that a two degree rise will wipe the nation off the list of visitable places, as if Hobart at 24C will be unvisitable? Sure. (Please sell me your tourist resorts now.) In recent record breaking hot years, international tourist arrivals to Australia have grown 40%. See the devastating effect of the last super hot years on international tourism to Australia.
Australia got more tourists than ever in the hot El Nino years of 2015, 2016.
Amos Aikman in The Australian:
‘$40bn at risk’ as climate change threatens tourism
Australia’s $40 billion tourism industry is in danger, with visitors likely to face more bad weather, deadly jellyfish and damaged beaches due to climate change, […]
Australia’s oldest and most iconic site has changed dramatically, but major site changes are not even being recorded.
The way the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) treat this site says a lot about the unscientific, shoddy, biased standards it uses at sites everywhere. This was their headquarters. Experts walked past new walls, construction and highways, yet they didn’t record them? Beggars belief.
Just as Peter Ridd warns us that we can’t trust some marine and reef institutes, Bill Johnston is the whistle-blower warning us about the Bureau of Met. There is no law of science that says human institutes are infallible. When they run off the rails, how do we find out? Ridd issued a warning from the inside and ended up in the Federal Court. When people, like Bill write from the outside, the BoM waves the peer-review gatekeeper, and anonymous reviewers can easily shut that gate, and without any penalty.
The louvered thermometer house in front of the Observatory in 1864. (Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.)
Sydney Observatory is one of the longest running stations in the Southern Hemisphere, starting in 1859. It was Australia’s premier meteorology site and in the 1800’s it was known […]
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8.8 out of 10 based on 15 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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