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Midweek Unthreaded
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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Turnbull is quietly destroying Australia more effectively than Rudd and Gillard combined. No wonder Shorten will romp in at the next election as long as Turnbull remains leader of the LNP.
210
YEssss. you did it man. Turnbull as the first word of comments. You must love the man.
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I did it deliberately for you. You are the one who loves him so much. Go on admit the truth.
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He cuts a dashing figure
33
Thanks for getting us off on the right foot, Peter. Some say coffee first, some say tea, some say hot water with lemon. But I say start the day with a good pointy boot aimed at the globalist appointees we should be ashamed to call our leaders.
And I think with the increasing frequency of advice not to mention Malcolm Turnbull we need to up our mentions. The carpetbaggers for whom green activists are a favourite vegetable know that if Malcolm stays they get what they want. And if he falls, they get more of what they want. It’s a good deal for them, but we need to cruel it.
Because, well, you know, a perfectly good civilization really is going to waste…
180
Thanks mosomoso. The elephant in the room is now stomping over Australians to death. The LNP is rapidly becoming worse than even the past Rudd and Gillard governments when we include the debt and immigration issues. I now think we might even be better off with the ALP. Amazing. I never will vote for the ALP who I consider are now evil but I can understand why they will romp in at the next election as long as TURNBULL (emphasis for Gee Aye) remains as the leader of the LNP. More and more people have had enough of the crap from him. It is now clear as day that Turnbull has to go. If he stays the whole LNP will go at the next election. I can see a bloodbath at the next federal election given the combination of so many issues all peaking at the the same time; agriculture, power, gas, petrol, food, water, immigration, super, banks, wages, multiculturalism, education, aged, etc..
130
Peter, did you say…
TURNBULL?
I was only just thinking that we need to talk much more about the globalist sell-outs and fake-tanned fops who are presiding over the ruin of our power supply and the waste of our greatest material resource.
Yes, I’m very pleased you mentioned…
TURNBULL.
It’s very important and sometimes one does forget.
80
Well given TURNBULL is the root cause of nearly all of our major problems it would be complete and utter insanity not to talk about him a lot. He has to go for the sake of the nation. After all when Rudd and Gillard were equally as incompetent when they were PM’s we did talk a lot about them here and elsewhere. The elephant in the room no longer can be ignored. Too much damage has already occurred and it can only get much worse if he stays.
120
Even the Greens despise him, he should cut his losses.
‘The awarding of $444m in taxpayers’ money by the prime minister to the small Great Barrier Reef Foundation without consultation “stinks” and the money should be handed back, the Greens have demanded.
‘The party leader, Richard Di Natale, joined Labor in demanding the return of the huge sum given to the private foundation – which had just six full-time staff – and called for the whole process to be put to tender.’
Guardian
100
Comment from someone else from link below.
If there is any truth in some sort of alleged secret deals with the “boys from Goldman Sachs” Turnbull is toast. Well actually he should be toast right now for a variety of reasons.
PM’s $444m for Great Barrier Reef Foundation a ‘developing scandal’: Shorten
80
Another perspective:
https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2018/08/05/channel-nines-karl-stefanovic-in-cash-for-comment-scandal-defending-malcom-turnbulls-444-million-fraud/
20
Also:
https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2018/07/28/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-personally-linked-to-a-second-multi-million-dollar-fraud-of-taxpayers-money/
10
Turnbull or Shorten, a choice between Scylla And Charybdis.
Come on Ginger Group, show some pluck! Come on Jo’s denizens,
write those letters!
80
I’m hoping the NEG will light the fuse and explode the Turnbull-lead LNP to bits and make room for a new leader with completely different policies on energy and other platforms.
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What we will see is the industry groups (Minerals Council, Business Council and others) supporting Turnbull’s green delusion until such time as their members say stop. That’s unlikely to happen in the near future as they are wedded to displaying how progressive they are. And many of their members have their snouts in the trough.
No. The best bet is to have the whole delusional strategy implemented in full. Then we can see it crash. Huge power bills. Unreliable supply. Industry pulling up stumps. People gnashing their teeth and wailing. Unemployment. The whole nine yards. Maybe then the idiots (useful and otherwise) will understand how they’ve been lied to.
Better to rebuild from a position of total destruction so that none of the subversives have a leg to stand on at a later date.
Bring it on, Atlas.
Shrug you lazy sod.
100
Whoops.
It’s a brand new day, here’s a new post…and I just realised I’ve only mentioned removing Malcolm Turnbull three or four times in the last twenty-four hours. Sorry about that.
Why do we need Malcolm, Josh and Julie gone so urgently? Because everything we work toward they work against. Because they are the goannas in the chook house.
Do we keep them as a compromise? They do keep the media’s (yellow) dogs from Coalition throats, right? Yes, but only at the cost of the Big One: our domestic energy source, our main peace option, our slight hope of slight independence, our prosperity trump…our coal.
Roll the dice. Yes, the luvvies will howl (we’re international pariahs!), Murdoch’s deep thinkers will wag the well-educated finger (how will this coal revival look to our international trading partners who buy so much of our
censored?). But ditching this clique of empty plutocrats will not cost the Coalition votes, just licks from those (yellow) dogs.The Coalition will still probably lose to a particularly cynical Labor. But “probably” is better than “certainly”. It is also very possible that a new Coalition leadership will go soft. But “very possible” is better than no chance at all.
Why don’t we let Malcolm, Josh and Julie go off to Bohemian Grove or wherever globalists go at this time of year? They can whoop it up, burn Australia in effigy, warm up those old corporate slippers that never really got cold…and not be seen.
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Update:
“A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that the resorts could lose a quarter of their snow in 15 years, and half by 2050.”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/icons-under-threat-the-alps-20051118-ge19jo.html
7 August 2018: Avalanche warning issued after bumper snowfall in Victorian alps
“Mt Hotham yesterday announced that its snow season would be extended until October 7 after the resort’s June snow base depth exceeded measured totals since 1993.”
Perisher Ski Resort:
Whether you were seeking face shots or the freshly topped groomed runs, today was a day for the books! Missed out? More snow is coming, take a look …
https://www.perisher.com.au/reports-cams/reports/weather-forecast
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oops.
Missing link:
August 7 2018: Avalanche warning issued after bumper snowfall in Victorian alps
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/avalanche-warning-issued-after-bumper-snowfall-in-victorian-alps/news-story/fefb24fe20e8fd05088983e0b5c74b5a
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If I was the ski industry I’d want my money back.
What is it about more heat begets more evaporation, begets more precipitation begets more snow they don’t get. This happens everywhere on earth. That’s why the tropics are wet. Some “scientists” maybe they farmed the job out to Greenpeace or oxfarm.
Oops my mistake the Commonwealth government farmed the whole of the CSIRO out to Greenpeace years ago.
I might have to coin a new phrase… erth science, erth, because it’s obviously a different planet called erth they are doing science on.
92
The CSIRO forecast of less snow was based on more precipitation in the form of rain rather than snow due to temperature increasing. They also predicted much shorter snow seasons.
Sadly for most, the promised warming has not eventuated:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=085291&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=07
But conditions still good for snowfields as no different to 20 years ago.
82
The hope for people dismayed by the BOM seasonal forecast ATM is that IS the BOM seasonal forecast
30
And just announced on my local radio station that July was the hottest since 2007. Up here in the low part of the high country we are all freezing our proverbials off.
Every one complaining about the long cold winter.
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My unscientific assessment is that this winter, including July, I have worn my heavy RM Williams coat more times than I have in the last fifteen years in Sydney. Golf courses in Sydney in July were having dreadful frost problems with vehicular traffic banned on some courses until later in the day when the frosts had lifted.
But of course if it much hotter, that is why damaging frosts occur. Just ask any climate scientist who has swalled the kool-ade.
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— swallowed …
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Sambhar and William: fully agree.
Anecdotally this is the longest, coldest winter for a long time.
KK
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They refer to daily maximums. What about daily minimums?
I have been bike riding with a group every Monday morning at 8.30 am for the last 8 years since I retired.
This is the first year where I had to wear a offer vest with a hoodie and full thermal gloves.
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Clear skies = higher max, lower min. I’m sure the experts on heat retention and dispersion know all this…but they just can’t pass up a good high max. It’s a career thing these days.
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Point well made.
A bit of cloud may “trap” or delay “heat” on its way from ground to deep space.
KK
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After an exchange with a perennial Green in The Oz last night, have just realised what a problem the MWP is to them. To push their AGW meme, they have to say that now is the hottest the earth has ever been, and that any previous warming periods, even if they acknowledge they exist, were cooler than now. But there is clear historical evidence in Greenland of the Vikings farming there, something that cannot be done today. So the MWP at least HAS to have been warmer than now, and thus their whole support for “the warmest evahhhh” comes crashing down. Fun stuff. Graeme#4
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Graeme,
yes I saw that. I thought of suggesting that she ask her doctor to increase the dosage, but refrained as it would likely be censored.
But it is only a short step from the original delusion – the Temperature is rising, and CO2 is too so CO2 must cause warming. Hence CO2 is higher now than a thousand years ago therefore the temperature MUST be higher. Evidence not needed.
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I kinda wonder what motivates these folks. It is occasionally obvious that they have a “fact sheet” to work from as they trundling out the same old discredited statements, and folks keep knocking them down. They also try to introduce the FUD factor into discussions. They don’t introduce anything new or helpful into the discussions, and usually resort to personal attacks when the going becomes too tough. Whether they are part of GetUp or another green organisation is not known, but it does appears to be a roster task.
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The ABC made a funny attempt at whipping up hysteria about kangaroo culling last night. The item was about roos competing with liverstock during droughts and the need to relax culling rules/applications so farmers can respond.
Of course the usual suspects cam out against culling and to dress up their point the ABC reached all the way back into the 1970’s, to the movie Wake in Fright. They showed a few seconds of the fictional drunken , out of control, shooting party from the movie. I guess we are supposed to be convinced that this is indicative of kangaroo culling. They really are fools in that place.
It looked completely stupid after the face to face interviews with sane, rational farmers.
111
Turns out emitting a trace gas (CO2) is a truly lousy way of culling kangaroos …
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-06-15/kangaroo-cull-red-tape-relaxed-in-nsw-drought-affected-areas/9869750
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Obviously they haven’t read the rules attached to kangaroo harvesting and culling
30
It would appear to me that Germany has reached “Peak Stupid” – even if we haven’t.
Three key recent articles by Pierre Gosselin on Notrickszone have documented the fact.
Wind energy melt down
More wind energy meltdown
Solar industry meltdown
I think we still have a load of stupid to go through – but once Germany confronts the reality of serious job losses and backtracks and we find ourselves out in front and exposed ….
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I have been looking fairly closely at a couple of medical papers lately. Pretty clear that climate science isn’t alone in the misapplication of statistics. I suspect that not all are motivated by greed or politics; some are just genuinely caught up in a culture where mining data for significance is “the done thing”.
I love the cargo cult metaphor for this, but have been musing on a different one.
I used to race motocross and there’s no question, the fastest riders get their bikes waay up in the air. Some newer riders, seeing this, figure that the best way for them to become fast riders is to maximise their jumps. What they’re missing is that those fast riders are (usually) trying very hard to minimise their jumps, it’s just they’re going so quickly and “ya canna change the laws of physics”. The beginners maximising their jumps are actually going slower as a result. You want the wheels on the ground and driving. You see the same sort of thing in rallying: fast drivers slide into corners, beginners slide out of them and on down the straights).
The best statistics, similarly (though with less adrenaline), tries to keep things on the ground too. You should always be doing your utmost to confirm the null hypothesis. Only when you fail at that do you conclude that there is a real effect. This is the exact opposite of the hunt for significance that we are cursed with today.
I’ll not go into details on the medical papers, but in outline: by fitting a linear model, they were able to ascribe a modest part of the variation to the drug in question. There was no explanation of the larger bulk of the variation. There were obviously other factors that should have been included, but by leaving them out, this left more for the drug to “account for”. We have significance. Peer reviewed and accepted.
I’m not asking for high-flyer statisticians, but could we have some mid-fielders who keep reasonably close to the ground and don’t go out of their way to make giant leaps? At least for medicine, climate science and anything else that’s claiming billions of taxpayer dollars. Please.
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The Guardian/Calla get triggered by Littleproud:
7 Aug: Guardian: ‘Big call’: minister refuses to link drought to climate change on Q&A
Agriculture minister David Littleproud tells ABC audience he doesn’t ‘give a rats’ whether climate change is man-made
by Calla Wahlquist
David Littleproud made the comment on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday, which was filmed in Lismore in the northern rivers region of New South Wales. His comment was booed by the audience…
Some regions of western NSW have experienced their driest 16 months on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, and Australia as a whole experienced its driest July since 2002…
Littleproud criticised state and territory governments for allegedly placing environmental concerns above the livelihood of farmers, alluding to the vexed issue of environmental water flows.
“Every time we go to build something [in water infrastructure], the states finds a reason not to and find some frog that wouldn’t like the temperature of the dam or a butterfly that may not like it,” he said. “You’ve got to make a decision about do you want an agricultural sector or do you want to have ‘kumbaya’ and live like that.”…
The opposition agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, said Littleproud sounded like his predecessor, former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.
“Don’t embrace Barnaby Joyce’s language, David,” Fitzgibbon said. “It does you no good.”…
Joyce’s electorate of New England is one of the areas worst affected by the drought. He criticised the ABC’s decision to host Q&A’s drought discussion in Lismore, a popular tree-change destination that is often characterised as being “green” but nonetheless lists agriculture as one of its key industries.
“Next week a sequel of #QandA on drought from another rural centre, Nimbin,” Joyce tweeted…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/07/david-littleproud-drought-climate-change-qanda
60
So you have the Prime Minister blaming the drought on Climate Change
You have the leader of the opposition demanding more action on Climate Change.
The Victoria premier wants double the renewables to reduce Climate Change.
The Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosia demands Turnbull “stares down the climate-crazies in his party”
All I can see are more laws, more taxes, more cash taken, more industries shutting, more grief for farmers and manufacturers, more blackouts.
For what gain. According to the Australian Chief Scientist and his department, none at all.
It is a fact free and science free ripoff.
Plus a pile of politicians with the ethics of a dog on a croquet lawn.
No longer just a denier of the big lie, count me as a “Climate Crazy”.
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Lily D’ambrosio…the first one to use that ridiculous mantra ‘downward pressure on prices’! Who is the real climate crazy? Or, who are the many real climate crazies?
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D’Ambrosio is becoming comedy gold. Climate crazies indeed.
Stop gas bagging and start delivering Lily.
30
Craig Kelly says backbenchers have not agreed to Neg, contradicting Turnbull
Let the fire-storm begin within the LNP. There is so much dead wood it will be a beauty.
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7 Aug: Guardian: Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted
by Simon Lewis
(Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and the Univesity of Leeds, and co-authored The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (Pelican) with Mark Maslin)
The future looks fiery and dangerous, according to new reports.
But political will and grassroots engagement can change this.
This is the summer when, for many, climate change got real. The future looks fiery and dangerous. Hot on the heels of Trump, fake news and the parlous state of the Brexit negotiations, despair is in the air…
As a research scientist in this field, I can give some ***nuance to the headlines…
The future is up to us if we act collectively and engage in politics. To quote Antonio Gramsci (Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician-Wikipedia): “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” …
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/07/climate-change-catastrophe-political-will-grassroots-engagement
Twitter: Simon Lewis
https://twitter.com/SimonLLewis?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
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“Simon is a plant ecologist by training with a central focus on the tropics and global environmental change including climate change. His primary interest is in how humans are changing the Earth as a system.”
He gained a PhD from the University of Cambridge studying in the Department of Plant Sciences.
He we have a botanist telling us that as a Scientist Climate Change Armageddon can be avoided if we are very good.
“Simon has been interviewed on the BBC’s Today program several times, and occasionally contributes science-policy commentary pieces to the Guardian newspaper and the journal Nature.” So an attention seeking BBC/Guardian/Nature activist.
Now we know the world is in safe hands when a plant scientist tells us we are all going to die unless we do what he says. God help us.
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But, he has a PhD!
He must know everything.
20
That power prices rise is not surprising,
With renewable set targets also rising.
They know their targets fail but warmists try,
To play world hunger games though millions die.
Renewables would suit some silly season,
When common sense is lost and so is reason.
Foxes could run chicken coops quite well,
And Greens could turn a grid to living hell.
70
Dont forget Greens leader Bob Brown, who has a bob both ways …
2011 … blames deadly floods on CO2:
“GREENS leader Bob Brown says the coal mining industry should foot the bill for the floods because it helped cause them.
The floods are Queensland’s worst for nearly 40 years, with more than 26,000 homes affected and at least 16 people killed.”
https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/coal-miners-to-blame-for-queensland-floods-says-australian-greens-leader-bob-brown/news-story/cbfe12042fa9c4149ea3c10524f57344
2009 … blames Australias 2009 deadly bushfires on CO2:
“The 11th chapter of the second working group of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, warned that fires in Australia were “virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency” because of steadily warming temperatures over the next several decades.
Research published in 2007 by the Australian government’s own Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization reported that by 2020, there could be up to 65% more “extreme” fire-danger days compared with 1990, and that by 2050, under the most severe warming scenarios, there could be a 300% increase in such days.
“[The fires] are a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority the need to tackle climate change,” Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown told the Sky News.”
Time: https://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1878220,00.html
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Hydrogen fuel breakthrough in Queensland could fire up massive new export market.
For the past decade, researchers have worked on producing ultra-high purity hydrogen using a unique membrane technology. The membrane breakthrough will allow hydrogen to be safely transported and used as a mass production energy source.
“Today is the very first time in the world that hydrogen cars have been fuelled with a fuel derived from ammonia — carbon-free fuel.”
30
Interesting idea, in one video its said the only emissions from the vehicle is water which happens to be the the greatest GHG driver of our climate, so add a bit of fertilizer or our strongest GHG, oh the humanity!
30
Robber
Ummm!
How did they get the ammonia?
I don’t recall hearing of an ammonia mine.
40
Hmmm!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production
“A typical modern ammonia-producing plant first converts natural gas (i.e., methane) or LPG (liquefied petroleum gases such as propane and butane) or petroleum naphtha into gaseous hydrogen. The method for producing hydrogen from hydrocarbons is known as steam reforming.[2] The hydrogen is then combined with nitrogen to produce ammonia via the Haber-Bosch process. ”
Starting to look like one of those circle things
20
The also trumpeted how they could use renewable sources to drive the process, so obviously they arent really interested in serious large scale production.
20
There was an article a few months ago that pointed out that the hydrogen molecule, being very small, easily escapes through most joints and sometimes straight through certain materials. So introducing hydrogen into a mobile environment where there will be lots of vibrating piping joints seems a recipe for disaster. I believe that Toyota have released small quantities of a hydrogen-fuelled car in the States, but I doubt that they could travel far, given the lack of refuelling outlets.
10
So more floods. More droughts. More bushfires. More frequently.
Maybe they will all turn up together and all problems will be solved?
52
Also more snow in some places. On balance though the world climate is pretty much normal. The only things that could seriously upset it are: super volcanoes, killer asteroids or nuclear war. Can’t tax any of these so they are safe from the grubby fingers of politicians like Shorten and Turnbull.
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I’m looking forward to skiing in summer during spring break and the monsoon fire season.
21
A look Into the future h/t Energy in Australia.
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Even HELE is an excuse to close down existing plants. From what I read HELE is 6% more efficient at higher boiler temperature, as are all Carnot engines. However it has an acronym and acronyms are all the rage for new technology. There is nothing wrong with Hazelwood which was running at over 95% of design capacity and in perfect shape when it was forced to close. It could be upgraded to HELE. This is all a game to shut down coal. Then gas. Then diesel. Then petrol. Meanwhile China is having a ball.
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You could replace HELE with coal. The point was that with Liddell gone prices would rocket and blackouts would be common.
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“and in perfect shape when it was forced to close.” Sorry to disagree but my eldest (engineer) son did a lot consulting work at Hazelwood in the last few years up to the plants closure.
From comments he made is was in far from “perfect shape”. Graham
30
Adding to that comment:
“which was running at over 95% of design capacity” The operators had nothing to lose and would have flogged the machinery to extract the very last electron from it to maximise returns before closure. It is a business so nothing wrong with that. Graham
20
7 Aug: Irish Times: Motorists may be taxed on distance driven rather than paying excise on fuel
Options for retaining overall tax take include fixed charge
by Fiach Kelly
Motorists may be taxed on the distance they drive rather than paying excise on fuel at petrol station pumps, under plans proposed by senior officials.
The Government is considering numerous schemes to ensure the overall tax take from motoring does not drop significantly as a result of moves to lower emission vehicles.
The Department of Finance has outlined a series of options on how to ensure the exchequer does not lose out, such as a fixed charge on the purchase of every car, no matter how low its emissions levels are.
Recent policy has been designed to encourage motorists to purchase lower emission vehicles, which are subject to lower vehicle registration taxes (VRT) and annual motor tax…
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has already indicated that carbon taxes will rise in the October budget, saying the State will have to “grasp the nettle” to reach its climate-change commitments.
A report on environmental taxes from the Department of Finance outlines a number of longer-term proposals to ensure motoring still generates taxes for the State…
“In relation to replacing fuel excise duties the possibilities of shifting taxes to road usage should be considered in the context of the uptake of EVs [electric vehicles] or ‘super low’ emission vehicles,” the document says…
Although it does not go into further detail, the idea of charging for road usage based on distance travelled has been proposed at EU level and is already in place for trucks in a number of member states…
Overall, environmental taxes in Ireland are projected to yield €3.55 billion this year. Excise rates on petrol and diesel have remained unchanged since 2012, with 58.7 cent excise and a 4.6 carbon charge on a litre of petrol. The corresponding rates for diesel are 47.9 cent and 5.3 cent.
The Department of Finance tax strategy papers, which include the study of environment tax, says there is a “strong environmental rationale” for eliminating this gap.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/motorists-may-be-taxed-on-distance-driven-rather-than-paying-excise-on-fuel-1.3588114
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ABC really just wants the money given to their buddies:
8 Aug: ABC: Great Barrier Reef grant decision broke Government’s own rules, environmental lawyers say
by environment, science and technology reporter Michael Slezak
The Turnbull Government’s $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation contravened its own guidelines for the allocation of such funds, according to environmental lawyers and governance experts.
The record investment in the reef was given out as a grant (LINK) to fund projects to improve the health of the reef, without any competitive tender process.
But in a submission to the Senate inquiry examining the grant, lawyers from ***Environmental Justice Australia (EJA)(formerly Environment Defenders Office Victoria) argued it should have been characterised as a procurement (LINK) — meaning a tender process was required…
University of Tasmania corporate governance expert Dr Tom Baxter said the grant raised a number of concerns.
“Outsourcing $444 million of scarce public spending, without a tender process, for one private player to administer, should raise questions in any context,” Dr Baxter said.
“All the more so for the Great Barrier Reef, where multiple organisations have long track records, including of public administration, contract management and research.”
Dr Baxter, who previously worked as a legal officer for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, said it was strange the Government approached the foundation to establish the grant…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/reef-grant-decision-broke-governments-own-rules-senate-told/10083128
***Environmental Justice Australia: Who we are
We are donor-funded, supporter-driven, independent of government and reliant on the backing of the community.
EJA doesn’t disclose anything about their funding on their website, but here’s just a couple of easily-found “grants” or whatever:
17 Aug 2016: Victorian Govt Legal Aid: Latest grants from the Innovation and Transformation Fund
Funded projects
Environmental Justice Australia ($113,750) will conduct a community outreach project to provide disadvantaged and disengaged communities with support to be active within the legal system
9 Oct 2015: Victorian Premier: Grants Strengthen Community Legal Centres
Environmental Justice Australia $19,810
Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) – Our Team
READ TO THE END
Josh Meadows
Media & Communication
Josh gets Environmental Justice Australia in the media and looks after EJA’s media releases, eBulletins, Twitter, Facebook and the website.
Before he came to EJA, Josh was the Australian Conservation Foundation’s senior media adviser
https://www.envirojustice.org.au/who-we-are/our-team/
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huge story. been online for hours. NO FAKENEWSMSM covering it, as yet, and they probably will continue to ignore it. unbelievable:
8 Aug: The Hill: John Solomon: Opinion: How a senior DOJ official helped Dem researchers on Trump-Russia case
Hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails and memos provide the clearest evidence yet that a research firm, hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to find dirt on and defeat Donald Trump, worked early and often with the FBI, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official and the intelligence community during the 2016 presidential election and the early days of Trump’s presidency…READ ALL
http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/400810-opinion-how-a-senior-justice-official-helped-dems-on-trump-russia-case
7 Aug: ConservativeTreehouse: sundance: Suspicions Confirmed: Congress Gets Bruce Ohr Documents Showing “Back Door” Communication Network…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/08/07/suspicions-confirmed-congress-gets-bruce-ohr-documents-showing-back-door-communication-network/#more-152666
7 Aug: Daily Caller: Chuck Ross: Nunes: FBI Failed To Include ‘Exculpatory’ Evidence In Carter Page FISAs
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/07/nunes-fbi-carter-page-fisas/
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FakeNewsMSM tries to blame President Trump for the public’s mistrust of the media. what a joke. just more FakeNews on their part, because every one of them knows of this poll:
18 Apr 2016: NBC: Bad News: Just 6 Percent of People Say They Trust the Media
by Associated Press
Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents…
The poll shows that accuracy clearly is the most important component of trust…
Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct, according to the study…
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/bad-news-just-6-percent-people-say-they-trust-media-n557591
18 Apr 2016: HuffPo: Hardly Anyone Trusts The Media Anymore
People value accuracy, timeliness and clarity above all else.
By Nick Visser
Only 6 percent of people say they have a great deal of confidence in the press, about the same level of trust Americans have in Congress, according to a new survey released on Sunday.
The study mirrors past reports that found the public’s trust in mass media has reached historic lows, according to data gathered by the Media Insight Project, a partnership between The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute. The report found faith in the press was just slightly higher than the 4 percent of people who said they trusted Congress…
“Over the last two decades, research shows the public has grown increasingly skeptical of the news industry,” the report reads. “The study reaffirms that consumers do value broad concepts of trust like fairness, balance, accuracy, and completeness. At least two-thirds of Americans cite each of these four general principles as very important to them.”…
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/trust-in-media_us_57148543e4b06f35cb6fec58
18 Apr 2016: Business Insider: An alarmingly low number of Americans say they trust the media
by Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson, Associated Press
Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions…
The poll of 2,014 adults was conducted ***Feb. 18-March 21 with funding from the American Press Institute. It used a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points…
Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-poll-just-6-percent-of-people-say-they-trust-the-media-2016-4?IR=T
and for the record:
24 Apr: Variety: Trump Wages War on the Press, but Was Obama Much Better to Reporters? (Guest Column)
by Julie Mason
Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter James Risen wrote in The New York Times that if Trump wants to jail a whistle-blower or use the FBI to spy on journalists, he got the playbook from his predecessor.
Obama, who campaigned on a promise to protect government whistle-blowers, made greater use of the Espionage Act to prosecute leakers and menace journalists than all other presidents combined.
Obama’s Justice Department accessed the personal email of a Fox News reporter and surveilled the reporter’s parents and colleagues. They seized the home, work and mobile phone records of journalists at the Associated Press.
Risen, who fought the administration to protect his sources, got so deep in his own legal battle with Obama that he selected a reading list for prison before the government finally backed off.
White House officials subverted the press in a number of ways while touting themselves as the most transparent in history.
Obama routinely banned news photographers from official events. He went months between press conferences and used social media to circumvent reporters.
First lady Michelle Obama took policy trips overseas with no press on her airplane. The White House scrubbed public visitor logs of names it didn’t want in the news.
The Obama administration posted the worst record in history for fulfilling requests for public records under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a bleak episode of unintended irony, an open-government group gave Obama an award for transparency in an Oval Office ceremony closed to the press…
https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/trump-press-war-obama-administration-reporters-1202782264/
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7 Aug: Newsweek: Caribbean Islands Want Donald Trump to Address Climate Change Before They Disappear
By Cristina Maza
Leaders from Caribbean islands are urging President Donald Trump to take climate change seriously before they disappear due to extreme weather conditions, according to reports ***(LINK).
Hurricane season poses an existential threat to the islands as increased rainfall caused by climate change makes hurricanes stronger, experts say…
***the Newsweek link is to The Guardian/Oliver Milman!
7 Aug: Guardian: Caribbean states beg Trump to grasp climate change threat: ‘War has come to us’
As warming temperatures caused by climate change is strengthening hurricanes, leaders in the region plead with Trump to rejoin the Paris climate deal
by ***Oliver Milman
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/07/trump-climate-change-threat-caribbean-islands-warning
***Oliver Milman on foundation-funded, progressive left Democracy Now radio programme with Michael Mann:
6 Oct 2016: Democracy Now: Amid Media Blackout over Climate Change Links to Hurricane Matthew, Top Scientist Speaks Out
Guests: Oliver Milman & Michael Mann
OLIVER MILMAN: Sure, yeah, I would kind of concur with what you and Michael said on the coverage: It’s been—it’s been fairly—fairly abysmal, really, if you look at—if you look at the link between extreme weather and climate change. That just isn’t articulated regularly, especially by cable TV. News channels, I think, online and in print, there are certainly media that are kind of exploring that link and have done so quite eloquently. But certainly, if you tune into most TV channels, that is fairly absent…
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, so, you know, there’s been a decades-long campaign by fossil fuel interests and politicians who earn their pay, paid talking heads, front groups, all of which exist essentially for no other purpose than to confuse the public and policymakers about climate change, to convince the public and policymakers that the scientific—that there is no scientific consensus. The forces of denial, again, most of them funded or tied in some way to fossil fuel interests, understand that all they need to do is divide the public and confuse the public about this issue to prevent progress from taking place.
And I wanted to actually draw upon something that Oliver mentioned. Governor Rick Scott of Florida has received quite a bit of funding from the Koch brothers over the years. He is a climate change denier…
Now, we can change that. If people vote in November, vote climate, not just at the top of the ticket, but all the way down. The only way this is going to change is if we elect politicians who are willing to represent our interests rather than the special interests that have funded these campaigns in the past…
NEXT STORY:
Scientist Michael Mann (& Oliver Milman): Trump & Pence are a Climate Change Denial Dream Team
AMY GOODMAN: While 2016 is on pace to become the warmest year on record, climate change has been largely ignored at the presidential and vice-presidential debates so far.
MICHAEL MANN: Sure. It is unfortunate, as you folks have alluded to, that despite constituting perhaps the greatest challenge we face as a civilization—climate change—there has been no question about climate change thus far in the debates…
OLIVER MILMAN: Yeah, I mean, as Michael alluded to, this is really the defining issue of our age. In a rational world somewhere, the media and all politicians would be focusing on climate change as a top priority instead of seeing it as just some kind of niche kind of sideshow to what they should be talking about. I mean, as recently as 2008, you had two presidential candidates who accepted that climate change is real, and something needs to be done. Both accepted there needs to be kind of some kind of price on carbon—John McCain and Barack Obama. Since then, we’ve seen one side of politics, unfortunately, descend into climate denialism…
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. And, you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson, a great science communicator, I think, has put it very well. He says the wonderful thing about science is that it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe it; it’s still true. And so, while politicians like Donald Trump can say they don’t believe in climate change, they’re not entitled to their own facts. And the facts are in…
It’s a national security and conflict nightmare…
MICHAEL MANN: Well, you know, what are the countries where we have the most powerful and entrenched fossil fuel companies and corporations? The U.S., Australia. And that’s where we see the most rampant climate change denial. It’s not coincidental. Fossil fuel interests are doing exactly what tobacco interests did decades ago. They have manufactured a campaign of misinformation and disinformation to confuse the public and policymakers from acting…
And we need to make sure that they’re answerable for the disinformation campaign that they have run. They’ve set us back decades…
Again, in November, we may have an opportunity to try to get past that by electing leaders who will act on climate…
OLIVER MILMAN: Sure. So, you’ve got the biggest emitters in the world now have fully ratified the Paris deal, meaning they’ve committed to emissions cuts—so, U.S., China, India, so on, the U.K., European Union. In terms of the cuts, they need to be far more ambitious to get us to the—what the Paris accord sets out, which is a 2-degree Celsius limit on warming. And rapid transformation towards clean energy is required.
In terms of undoing it, Donald Trump has promised to do—to exit the U.S. from the Paris deal. That won’t be actually possible for the next four years, because the U.S. is locked in because of its ratification. But regardless of that, the emissions cuts need to be far steeper if the world is going to avoid the kind of dangerous climate change we’re seeing examples of through Hurricane Matthew and others.
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/6/amid_media_blackout_over_climate_change
and they lost to Donald Trump.
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7 Aug: ClimateChangeNews: China restarts coal plant construction after two-year freeze
Satellite pictures show building work progressing as power demand picks up, but experts say there is still excess coal capacity
By Feng Hao
(This article was produced by China Dialogue)
Satellite imagery reveals that many coal-fired power projects that were halted by the Chinese government have quietly restarted.
Analysis by CoalSwarm estimates that 46.7 gigawatts of new and restarted coal-fired power construction is visible based on satellite imagery supplied by Planet Labs. The coal-fired power plants are either generating power or will soon be operational. If all the plants reach completion they would increase China’s coal-fired power capacity by 4%…
Li Fulong, head of the department of development and planning at the National Energy Administration, said at a press conference on July 30 that coal consumption in China increased about 3.1% in the first half of 2018 compared with the same period last year. The main driver of that was coal-fired power generation. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show a leap of 9.4% in electricity use across the same period…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/08/07/china-restarts-coal-plant-construction-two-year-freeze/
7 Aug: ClimateChangeNews: Unions tell Poland to push coal as UN climate host
A government-backed trade union conference in Katowice this week puts mining jobs on the agenda of climate change negotiations
By Megan Darby
Poland’s trade unions are mounting a defence of coal workers against the impacts of climate policies in a government-backed conference this week…
The event carries Polish president Andrej Duda’s stamp of approval…
An advance statement (LINK) signed by three workers’ associations calls for an analysis of the costs and jobs impact of climate policies, and a “dialogue” at UN level between politicians, investors, employers, scientists and trade unionists. Without naming coal, it invokes national sovereignty and fairness arguments to shift debate in the industry’s favour….
One proposal is to exempt the most efficient plants in each industry from carbon pricing. In the EU carbon market, coal power stations face higher costs than other generators because their emissions are substantially higher…
“All energy carriers should be treated equally especially in the field of scientific research aimed at improving the efficiency of their energy production. Each state for the sake of its safety and sovereignty should be able to produce energy from the fuels owned on its territory in order to ensure cheaper heat and electricity for its economy,” the statement says.
It adds: “The costs of the existing climate policy should primarily be borne by the consumers of goods and services containing a carbon footprint from richer countries and not by the producers from poorer countries.”…
***In defending those employees, the conference flirts with science denial, giving a platform to Princeton physicist William Happer. Happer has no record of climate research, describing the field as a “cult”, and rejects the scientific consensus to argue the build-up of carbon dioxide is good for the planet.
A spokesperson for OPZZ said Happer had been invited by co-organiser Solidarność, which did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/08/07/unions-tell-poland-push-coal-un-climate-host/
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To our US friends on this blog.
Fortunately you got rid of Obama, an avowed Leftist who tried to destroy America.
Australia currently has Malcolm Turnbull as our “leader”, and like Obama, is systematically destroying the country, the difference being that he pretends to be a conservative and leads our supposed conservative party, the Liberal Party which is a reference to classical liberalism (conservative) rather than the US definition of the term meaning left wing although thanks to Turnbull “liberal” now means the same in both countries.
81
He is doing what he planned to do as far back as high school days ….
http://www.stopturnbull.com
10
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/csiro-takes-the-wheel-on-cars-powered-by-aussie-made-hydrogen-20180807-p4zvy6.html
https://blog.csiro.au/insane-hydrogen-membrane-extracting-fuel-future/comment-page-4/#comments
Interesting news.
10
Its a good idea as a stand alone, but if they could prove carbon dioxide is a pollutant then it would be worth its weight in gold.
00
BTW this is up at WUWT
Aussie Agriculture Minister on Climate Change: “I don’t give a rat’s if it’s man-made or not … you shouldn’t feel afraid to turn on a heater or light at night.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/08/aussie-agriculture-minister-on-climate-change-i-dont-give-a-rats-if-its-man-made-or-not-you-shouldnt-feel-afraid-to-turn-a-heater-or-a-light-on-at-night/
30
He is a member of the ginger group.
00
Brian Caffyn and Oriste Vigorito, of Mafia run IVPC and UPC Renewables, are back at it again…
http://www.va.minambiente.it/File/Documento/233691
00
I made a submission to the Australian Senate in 2012 to a committee called “Recent trends in and preparedness for extreme weather events” that predicted that extensive areas of Eastern Australia would experience a prolonged drought around 2019. My prediction can be checked by looking at submission number 106 at:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Completed_inquiries/2010-13/extremeweather/submissions
10
Check out AGL Limited profit for the last financial year, AND that they intend to increase generating capacity at Bayswater NSW;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-09/agl-profit-almosts-trebles-on-higher-electricity–prices/10092796
10
EV Report
I stayed Tuesday night at a motel in Raymond Terrace just north of Newcastle and noticed six EV Tesla recharging stations but not being used at around 6.00 pm. The next morning there was one only Tesla EV with QLD plates being recharged.
From Queensland, 1,100 Km from Sydney from memory so about 200 Km to Sydney from Raymond Terrace. Therefore 900 Km from Brisbane to Raymond Terrace and therefore after leaving Brisbane fully charged the Tesla EV driver needed to recharge twice more to reach Sydney including overnight motel expenses.
I will stick to my ICEV.
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#reefgate
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/reefgate-extinct-disclosures-and-the-karl-metric/
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A word I am heartily sick of “certainty “. Triggered by a brexit item tonight.
People expect certainty in markets, policy, and life in general.
Jeeeeez people! get over yourselves!!! life is uncertain, thats the way it is. Same stupid process that leads people to think they can control the climate.
20
AGL knows far more about power generation than we do. According to Paul Murray they have just made $1.2 bill.
00
I’ve always thought of AGL being Vic based but are they they the ones who are causing a perpetual short generation in NSW, currently 2 GW?
Enron were outlaws in the US, AGL are doing the same thing here legally.
10
Very much a Sydney company. Had flashbacks when their adverts started appearing in VIC, after we escaped Sydney in the 80s
00
On 18 July, I sent the following email to AMEO seeking an explanation. I can’t seem to be able to post the screenshots so you will have to take my word for it:
Below are 2 screenshots of the wind generation in South Australia for Tuesday 17 July and Wednesday 18 July 2018.
These 2 days have been big days for wind generation not only in South Australia but in NSW and Victoria as well.
What has struck me about the data below is that when wind generation in SA reaches about 70% of its nameplate capacity, it appears that generation is capped at that level. This is clear in the first screenshot from about 7pm on Monday evening until about 9 am Tuesday morning. After that time it then drops beLow that 70% level and does not exceed it again.
The second screenshot shows generation again from 3pm Tuesday to 9pm Tuesday not exceeding that 70% level for any length of time. The wind then drops below the 70% generation level until about 8am today when it again ramps up the the 70% level at which it stops. The screenshot shows it at that 70% level at midday today.
Is there some policy in place where wind energy generation in South Australia is not allowed to exceed 70% of nameplate capacity and when it begins to exceed this level, wind generators are shut down?
If this is the case, what is the reason for doing so?
—————–
Today, after sending them a reminder, I received the response below:
Apologies for the delayed response – we have a system for responding to web queries that doesn’t seem to have forwarded on my response.
Thanks for your enquiry.
You’re right in observing that under certain circumstances, the cumulative generation from wind farms in South Australia is constrained.
This occurs because AEMO (the operator of the power system) needs to maintain sufficient fault levels in the power system. Fault levels in the power system (also known as system strength) are provided by synchronous generators such as gas-fired generation, hydro and coal-fired generation. Sufficient amounts of fault level are needed to keep voltages within acceptable operating limits. As such, AEMO is sometimes required to limit the amount of wind generation, particularly on windy days, so that there are synchronous generators online providing fault levels.
This document published by AEMO provides more detail on the circumstances in which it will constrain the amount of generation coming from wind farms – https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Security_and_Reliability/Congestion-Information/2018/Transfer-Limit-Advice—South-Australian-System-Strength.pdf
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get back to me via email or phone. And apologies again for the delay in replying to your questions.
Kind regards,
——————-
The link provided in the second last paragraph is illuminating with regard to the Tesla Battery at Hornsdale. See para 1.3 on page 6 of the link. They conclude that the 30mw (non-system security component) of the battery has no positive or negative effect on South Australian system strength.
Another great waste of money!!
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Voltage is continuously adjusted by auto-tapping transformers. It is the frequency that is constantly monitored and which MUST be controlled. It cannot be controlled by windmills, that would be like herding cats.
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On the AEMO website, under NEM Dispatch Overview, you will regularly see notes on the RHS saying Market Invention. It doesn’t provide much information, but it often says: AEMO issued a direction to a participant in the South Australia region. Months later they publish a report on each intervention. I’ve looked at some of them, and several times it is an instruction to a SA gas generator to keep operating to maintain system stability. That often means more exports to Vic, forcing cutbacks in Vic generation. I’ve not seen a direction to curtail wind, but you are right that the evidence seems clear that they do.
00
Yes..
SA rarely allows wind generation to exceed 1300 MW , even though they have at least 1700+MW of installed capacity…even on the windiest of days.
You can frequently see the NEM generation chart “flatline” wind generation at that 1300MW level.
What AMEO are admitting is that they can not risk relying on total wind/solar supply and must keep a backup on line to stabilise the grid and ready to ramp up incase of fluctuations in wind.
It interesting to hear afficially that the Big Battery is if little use to grid performance. !
00
The 30 MW of the SA certainly makes money, but unfortunately not for consumers, by charging when prices are low and supplying the grid only when prices are high.
00
The wind generators were given first priority to supply power to the grid. This policy seriously affected the viability of coal fired generators. When the Tesla battery was installed this policy obviously changed. The Hornsdale wind farm was able to charge the battery and not direct the necessary power to the grid.
This has allowed the Tesla battery to take serious advantage of the wild fluctuations in power prices ( up to $14000/mwh) when there are shortages when the wind doesn’t blow.
The battery makes a mozza from the instability caused by the intermittancy of its power source.
What an absolute crock!!
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