ABC writers see only the cruel obstacles in the way of a wealth transfer:
Solar generation is being buffeted by financial headwinds that are killing investment
Who knew that the whole point of financial winds is to kill off dumb investments in the first place? Not the socialist ABC.
If the ABC weren’t an advertising agency for Big Gov dependents, the headline could have read:
Artificial solar bubble busts in Australia: green investors burnt
What big government giveth…
There goes another solar powered Boom and Bust. | Greenenergy markets / Wattclarity
Solar no longer ‘a licence to print money’
Investment has ” has fallen off a cliff.” And there is more of that coming: “Queensland and South Australia have been at the forefront of depressed solar prices, but Mr [Tristan] Edis argues News South Wales and Victoria will not be far behind.
By business reporter Stephen Letts, (Are they kidding? Business?)
Independent wholesale energy market consultant Allan O’Neil has waded through the 660 pages of the ‘Generator Statistical Digest (GSD) 2019’ and found one of the key themes was the struggle new solar farms were having “with the messy reality of the electricity market”.
Back then, NEM wholesale prices were averaging close to $100/MWh (megawatt/hour)…
And which poor suckers paid those bonanza prices …. oh wait….the same ones who pay for the ABC? Stephen Letts doesn’t ask. It’s all about corporate capitalistic projects…
…and the renewable generators’ other key source source of income, Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) were roughly similar — around $80-90 MWh per certificate — an indication of the paucity of renewable energy in the system at the time.
The profits looked so good, but they were all fake, from subsidies and forced payments. Solar panel investors were investing in big government whims, not in energy generation.
Almost all the research and info in this came from Allan O’Neill at WattClarity. In a nutshell, solar isn’t profitable even in Queesland because the lines are long, transmission loses are large, the electricity comes when customers don’t need it, and the government keeps insisting the solar farms pay for “grid stability” (FCAS) because the grid needs it, and solar doesn’t supply it.
As I said last year: Random Energy is the gift you don’t need
Wind and solar power are the intermittent freeloaders on the electricity grid. They are treated as if they’re generators, adding power to the grid, but instead they provide something the grid doesn’t need — power that can’t be guaranteed.
Random gigawatts has the illusion of looking useful, but it’s the gift of a spare holiday house you don’t know if you can use til the day before. It’s the spare fridge in the garage that overheats in hot weather, the extra turkey for thanksgiving that might not arrive til the day after. The bills, the storage, the clutter, the chaos.
POST-NOTE: It’s what they don’t tell you.
As usual, the lies by omission change the whole story. Stephen Letts writes about the cost of solar power:
Mr O’Neil said falling construction costs also helped spur the investment boom, with some projects then reportedly being economic at all-up revenues in the $60-80/MWh range.
… but he doesn’t mention that brown coal was not just economic, but profitable at $30/MWh.
POST NOTE #2: It’s a carbon tax by default
BrianThe $80-90 MWh price for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) had nothing to do with a paucity of renewable energy in the system. The price reflected the penalty for a power retailer who failed to buy sufficient certificates which was a non-tax deductible fine of $65 per MWh (indexed for inflation). The non-tax deductible provision meant that the cost to the retailer was around $87. Of course renewables generators set their price close to that. In order to temporarily bring retail prices down the regulator has authorised retailers to defer purchase of certificates for three years, at which time they had to procure them. Demand for certificates dropped and the non cost effective renewables industry, needing the subsidies represented by the certificates offered low cost deals to retailers. When the three year hiatus ends and retailers have to purchase outstanding certificates as well as the certificates for that year, prices will return to previous levels. The large and small scale certificate subsidies are nothing more or less than a price on carbon (dioxide) by stealth.
IMO intermitten, unreliable power of any sort should never have been allowed on the National Grid. And if something is good enough, it doesn’t need subsidies either.
642
I would add to that reliable power should not be restricted purely on the basis of how much CO2 it produces. The government must stop pushing the emission reduction scam. I would also add that renewable power sources should be taxed since they introduce instability into the grid.
670
Good point Peter, but in addition, I believe that a proper engineering analysis would show that Renewables have a higher CO2 production input than Coal Fired.
A cradle to grave analysis would leave renewables as the standout in terms of CO2 per kilowatt hour of useable electricity.
Renewables are neither cheap nor CO2 “friendly” and when it all collapses the cleanup is going to be a monster that’s left to governments to clean up.
Forget about them being environmentally friendly.
KK
650
KK, the wind generators and solar panels are very unfriendly to the environment, given the mining and refining processes of their exotic materials which will cost a motza to dispose of ‘cleanly’ when their use by dates are up, or way before then as has been the case in many instances this century so far.
None of this matters to the CCCCC – Congregationalists of the Church of Climate Change espousing their Catechism of Catastrophe over the use of reliable fossil fuels, that ironically keep the lights on while they preach the nonsense to all those whose common sense is nearing their wits end.
231
The govt needs to stop adding UN treaties to our laws…..and get out of the occult UN….
571
Correction: needs to stop getting around the Constitution, constitutional laws, using foreign treaties an the excuse and denying we the people our choice by referendum.
360
This has been a major problem for decades !
Who needs a constitution
When anything can be ‘sorted’ via some international treaty
And a compliant bunch of ‘wise wizards’ on the high court ?
261
The Constitution is only a nebulous framework upon which a government is formed, and provides certain limits and powers of said government The Constitution is not the whole Law and so a government can do almost anything it likes, such as create laws that on the face might contradict the Constitution but actually don’t because the latter is so nebulous. If we had the will a more clear and restrictive Constitution would be formed but alas such a will is lacking. Voters have the real power for stopping the rot but again the will is lacking.
90
Which would suggest it’s either not a real problem for voters, or the nature of the problem is being constantly masked, called something else, and distracted from.
Like for instance when the cost to a power bill of reliable traditional generators is constantly painted as being much inferior to ultra-expensive to acquire, operate and replace unreliables, that are the very opposite of low-pollution ‘free green energy’ – a known blatant lie that is constantly repeated as a fact because Kiribati is sinking and CO2 is an environmental poison that makes the ocean acidic and will cause a global extinction.
ABC are the chief repeaters of these shameless lies, designed to constantly mask and call it something else, to distract the voters from the nature of this naked global and national scam.
Federal Cabinet does nothing as concerted lies and deceit on-script are the stock in trade for politicians as well, so there’s nothing amiss there. The National lie-delivery and maintenance machinery is functioning perfectly, to counteract all facts that threaten the chosen false political narrative and path to economic ruin. Which is apparently a much preferable to just de-funding and eliminating ABC and the Universities pushing such shameless lies.
233
It’s not just that, it’s the have-nots paying for the haves. How many people who can’t afford solar, can’t install solar (whether they wanted to or not), or don’t even own a home are paying for the privilege of the few to have solar and benefit from the taxes of others?
It’s not a matter of envy. There are probably far more Australians who would like to enjoy the same benefits but are in no position to do so. If there was ever a case of the 1% looking after the 1%, this comes pretty close. What benefit could all Australians, especially the poor, gain were these taxpayer subsidies directed to more worthy causes?
351
I’ll put this here because this beggars belief:
Given nearly 40 years of tipping points and recently only 12 years left for civilisation, the climate taxing industry has reset the clock and we’re now at the beginning of climate change terror.
Do these people (both the pseudo-scientists and the media) not have even the slightest bit of shame?
510
They need more research funding.
sarc.
80
Those top academics fully deserve to be topped, i.e., sacked, not the other option!
120
11
10
…climate change terror.
Don’t give them naming ideas.
Climate Emergency(tm) is reaching its half life. The committees within conferences within NGOs within Greta will be looking for a new way to ‘Rise Awareness’ any time now. Don’t spoil their fun by offering up suggestions 😀
70
It was too attractive to the typical politician both corporate and governmental. It gave them unlimited access to huge and unaccounted slush funds to buy influence, power, and fair weather friends. They were also able to stuff their own pockets with the overflow and spillage. That it about gutted your economy was only a side benefit that supported the ultimate takeover of anything of value for pinnies on the dollar. Or whatever they were able to pretend was money.
As always, such Ponzi Schemes collapse when they run out of other peoples money. The guilty get off with their pockets filled with depreciated cash and the innocent have to pay the bills. The government gets to punish anyone who is left standing holding empty bags. Thereby starting the next cycle of the same old same old. It is as it always has been.
Is there a way out of this vicious circle? Yes but it takes a full acceptance of the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone ALWAYS has to pay. It is far better to pay what you owe up front while the cost is small than wait until someone else pays. When the bitter end comes, you pay with everything you have even if you didn’t get any of the free lunches.
Seems that most have to learn the lesson by having to start over again with nothing but hard physical labor. Isn’t fair? Reality isn’t fair, it simply is.
50
Everybody knows,
that’s the way
that it goes.
Don Quixote
knew it – ‘Some
of those detested
giants have arms
that reach two
leagues across
the land,’ ‘n whether
wind or solar,
24/7, is no matter,
”tis just a dream…
Everybody knows,
that’s the way
that it goes.
60
Just to be clear, although hourly marginal costs are declining, are overall costs to the consumer increasing? I suspect so, as the article alludes to ancillary services. Can anyone verify? Thanks. Second question, anyone think other parts of the world will learn anything from this experience?
90
Its ALL about the power bill. Its gone up 20% compounded for ten years. Mostly in the last three years. Government has noticed voters are angry. Not because they care. Its the tax revenues. They are now under threat from a lack of consumer spending.
Power
Water
Rates
Communications
The price keeps rising faster than our wages.
Non-essential spending goes blat.
Our political choice is a very bad LNP or terminal ALP. Just who can we vote for that understands business?
460
Insurance
60
In an uncertain, irrational world insurance is not cheap.
70
Precisely, because the probability of the events governed by mathematical calculation are now unquantifiable so the ‘actuarial’ outcome is intended to deter the punter from making a bet with the bookie who no longer wants the business.
40
The asserted level of weather event risk, and therefore the cost of insurance against such perceived higher risks, is being amped-up as much greater than the actual risk. Thus it’s a profit opportunity for insurers, as they can talk-up doom and the risk within an actually less-stormy world, and to pretend mere prosaic weather events are climate-change™, thus demand higher and higher prices for policies with time.
110
No.,.and they are happy to jump on the band wagon of from “climate change(tm)” too….
Watch prices go up due to imaginary “climate change(tm)” risks….
Its like fractional banking for insurance companies….money out of thin air…
120
Its called the Uniparty. There is no real choice. Both are full of candidates selected for you who implement agendas you didn’t vote for. Primary basis for selection for Political office is your ability to lie.
20
Victorians not making their own electricity will be paying more in 2020. Estimate is $50 average increase over the year. That was approved to cover higher network costs. The increase was approved last year before any fires in Victoria. I expect there will be substantial costs associated with power line repair and upgrade in fire damaged regions. That could mean significantly high prices as experienced after the 2009 fires.
200
Doesn’t seem like Canada is going to open it’s eyes anytime soon. Still passing laws and taxes that will result in a ruined economy.
180
Capitalism won’t just destroy itself comrade, it will take a concerted act of global and national vandalism.
100
……And people are still running around in climate hysterics…..its actually funny….
No mention of the real cause of fires, e.g. *lack of hazard reduction burning* mentioned, I notice…..
Aparently, “unprecedented” means “havent actually done research on past fires”
https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/dire-outlook-researchers-call-for-urgent-australian-climate-action-20200128-p53vfq.html
“Eighty leading researchers have called on Australia’s governments to “acknowledge the gravity of the threat posed by climate change” and cut greenhouse gases “to safeguard against catastrophe”.
“An open letter, signed by present and recent Australian Research Council laureates, said while many factors contributed to the bushfire crisis, “the role of exceptional heat and dryness cannot be ignored”.
“”Temperatures nearly everywhere on Earth have been rising for decades, a clear result of the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel use and other human activities,” it said.
“Bushfires have burnt through about 12 million hectares across Australia this season, or about 1.5 times the size of Tasmania. The unprecedented scale of the fires came as the country recorded its hottest and driest year in 2019, the Bureau of Meteorology said earlier this month.
…………
“The letter noted “the best part of another degree” was locked in, “even if very strong international action is taken to reduce [carbon] emissions”.
>>> Yep – so why bother then?
90
Look at some of the Departments these “scientists” come from is quite enlightening.
A few selected
Ronald Rapee, Centre for Emotional Health, Macquarie University
Katherine Demuth, Centre for Language Sciences, Macquarie University
John Dryzek, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra
Justin Marshall, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland
Paul S.C. Tacon, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Queensland
Ann McGrath, Research Centre for Deep History, ANU
etc
Then there are the regular misbegottens
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies & School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland
Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
Matthew England, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
Terry Hughes, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University
Chris Turney, Chronos 14Carbon-Cycle Facility, UNSW Sydney (must have finally go back from the boat)
150
Just a crop of barnacles on the hull of the ship of state ….
50
But we can’t scrape them off.
20
y’know, in another year, it will be a decade since the Durbin 2011 Klimate Konference happened.
Some interesting propositions were made:
– an International Climate Court against Western Nations only to be created
– CO2 concentration to be cut to 210ppmv
– Western Greenhouse Gases to peak at once
– Western nations must cut emissions by more than 100%
– Western inventors patent rights in third world countries to be scrapped.
It’s probably just as well for the world that those proposals didn’t escape into the world. The Atmospheric concentration of CO2 fell to c. 190ppmv during the coldest part of the last glaciation c. 20,000 years ago. That’s just a little close to losing all life on this planet for anybody’s comfort …
It shows just how dangerous ignorant diplomatic personnel can be …
You may want to reconsider your ideas about the destruction of Civilization, WXcycles. It could be too easy when ignorance is bliss.
60
eh? Has your sense of humor gone into hibernation early Soph?
10
PE – There is a big difference between the prices quoted (which I think is median) and the actual price paid for the times when generation short (I think the cap is $14k/MWh). The S curve of the generation stack is very distorted. Many of the distributors buy on long term contracts, so would buy cheap, but then get hit for massive bills during grid emergencies. And no surprise, they would shy away from being supplied by an unreliable. FCAS is different charging.
And No – I don’t think anyone will learn from it.
50
I recently was taken on a tour of an anaerobic digester unit in the UK.
It used chicken and cattle manure, and a big acreage of maize, as feedstock to produce methane and hence electricity which was fed into the national grid.
When asked where the investment came from, he replied that it was all city money, and that they relied on the subsidy to make a return on their money, otherwise the whole scheme would not have been viable.
100
Scheme is an apt description
10
This business is a reflection on the appalling state of Australian government.
What were once “basic services” have been complexified and turned into new sources of plunder so that we now have Political Water and Political Electricity.
Governments stopped serving the people about forty years ago.
KK
330
And voters have stopped thinking about that time, which is why we are stuck in a spiral down to a crash and burn scenario. There’s only one sure way to get us out of that death spiral. Voters wake up and stop giving LNP or ALP major rule and support a third party that will force the government-to-be to drop supporting the global warming/emissions reductions scam. I doubt enough voters are that intelligent to figure it out in time.
230
Unfortunately most people can’t see through, around or behind the media wall of BS and believe what they hear.
The universities and media are choc full of freeloaders who will support any government which supports them.
Essentially they are votes bought with our tax dollars.
KK
KK
260
The irony is we have taxpayers money supporting the biggest propaganda machine here in Australia; the ABC. If the Libs really believed in free speech and wanted to be consistent they would either stop funding it or fund an alternative broadcaster promoting the other side of the arguments.
220
exhorting people to support an option that doesnt exist?
32
Speaking of appalling…the Left in action…..
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/tensions-between-labor-s-right-and-left-factions-at-boiling-point-20200128-p53vg0.html
“The internal dispute turned violent when 100 people, largely from government minister Adem Somyurek’s Moderate Labor faction, turned out to a branch meeting hosted by Mr Sidhu at his parents’ home in Tarneit.
“The meeting turned rowdy when Mr Sidhu told the group to leave. He was then allegedly assaulted by a young man.
“Mr Sidhu has been a controversial figure inside the party since he lost preselection for the state seat of Tarneit to Sarah Connelly, who was backed by Mr Somyurek, in 2017, and crossed from the Stephen Conroy-led Right faction to the Socialist left.
30
I have driven through Ballarat in the early mornings, recently. It was summer so not a huge demand for electricity at about 6am. No solar being generated either. A stiff breeze one morning so one of the two dozen or so generators was whizzing around. All the others were feathered. Brown coal in Victoria is producing more electricity than SA wind and Tasmanian hydro at the moment-wind, nothing. It can’t replace coal.
240
I drive past Wonthaggi in Victoristan often enough and there are several windmills on the foreshore. I think about nine out of ten times that I’ve been past, the horrid things are dead still.
The website advertising blurbs always go on about what these windmills are ‘capable’ of producing, but never what they actually produce. I suspect that a 2KVA Honda generator probably produces more reliable electricity in a year than these totem poles can produce.
290
😀
50
Same with the ones near Canberra. Its rare to see them all operating.
20
The Turkeys are coming home to roost.
The Renewables Industry was always going to be a dead end. The current legislation in favour of this intermittent, unreliable supply that requires 100% back-up, in effect doubling the capital cost per MW, that was never alluded to by its proponents, has stifled the investment that was truely necessary in Coal and Gas fires generation.
Those responsible for this disaster that is in effect a slow motion train wreck , need to be held accountable and exposed. The blame needs to be sheeted home to the Greens, and the ALP of the ALP/ Greens coalition put together by the Rudd/ Gillard Government, many of whose still haunt the corridors of Parliaments, both State and Federal.
320
And the Liberals haven’t been slow to get into the action.
MalEx444 and John H. are probably just the tip of the iceberg.
KK
90
The Turkeys haven’t come home just yet. They will when we start having major blackouts as a result of insufficient base load power. Then and only then will we see real voter backlash against the supporters of emissions reduction targets, in particular the ALP, Greens and LNP.
190
Union Super Funds are providing the dosh.
Since that’s little people’s money being donated to the Big End of Town, who cares,
but it might be the excuse the Feds need to gobble up that compulsory 9.5%,
just like Social Security does in the United Sates.
33
At least we can’t accuse the federal government of being inactive.
‘According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the fall in large scale wind and solar investment was the biggest in the world. It also came after the Coalition government repeatedly refused to lift its emissions reduction target, talked down the prospect of wind and solar, and was accused of sabotaging climate talks in Madrid by claiming credits for emissions reduction it had not achieved.’
Reneweconomy
50
That’s unpossible.
We have been told, by our betters – that Solar and Wind are cheaper than ALL other forms of power.
120
It’s true. It’s only the COAL and Oil Barons, and their COALition cronies who suppress it. The same people who held back the water powered car.
96
Really?
What’s that brown gas you seem to be blowing there, John?
21
It’s a joke, guys.
40
Is it true that there is 15,000 litres of Hydrogen trapped in 1 litre of Water?
44
Yep, all suppressed by BIG OIL
51
And a good one too.
As is Brown’s Gas.
30
– – winking smiley face – – Poe’s Law
20
“Sustainable Green Ponzi Schemes”
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/01/sustainable-green-ponzi-schemes/
50
“Peer-Reviewed Ignorance And Hearsay”
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/01/peer-reviewed-ignorance-and-hearsay/
30
Reneweconomy thinks the GSD is good to go.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-good-is-solar-farming-55866/
30
The Renew review of the GSD discusses four “headwinds” as if these factors were not easily foreseeable. I guess there was always firm belief that the RET would be increased to boost the LGC prices. Overall the revenue of the solar farms will be around half of what was projected; should be enough to cover operating costs but profitability is sick. It is little wonder that the investment in grid scale intermittents is drying up.
40
How do you tell the difference between normal & outrage at the ABC?
Is it permanent, cyclic or just hot flushes?
Imagine what it will be like when the AC goes off & the Chardi gets hot!
130
There is only one rational way to “fix” the electricity shortage problems we are bound to face shortly..
… and that is to build one high capacity HELE coal fired plant in each of Qld, NSW and Vic.
SA is a small % of the NEM, and has gas available, so should use that, gas was providing 75% of their power the other day, so not much of a step to provide the rest.
Unfortunately, we have Governments that are too scared to face the wrath of the ABC and the yelling and screaming class and do the right thing.
270
Some in the governments are scared of the ABC but there are also politicians who actually believe in the emission reduction nonsense, including some in the LNP. The only way to stop them being in control is to stop voting for them regardless of who they are. That would mean Morrison ought to lose his seat. It’s the only way for our type of democracy to win the war against the CAGW scam. Otherwise, we will have to learn our lesson the hard way.
100
I think we are going to lose the hard way.
People are too wedded to “end coal!”
They actually think you can just swap coal for renewables and get cheap reliable power.
170
That has been my understanding given the way things are going. Learning things the hard way is too often the only way.
40
The question is how quickly we will learn?
How much damage to our society/economy will people tolerate before they come around? Will they even come around? Or will they keep doubling down?
40
Well, if Unemployment is any guide, forever.
Unemployment figures haven’t been published for 25 years, but it’s
still not a topic of conversation.
23
Only time will tell as I don’t have a crystal ball. However, if we follow history the likely answer is we will learn too late.
20
The Federal Government announced late in 2019 that two new small gas fired power stations have approval from VicGov and QLDGov, and the finance will be under written by the Federal Government.
The IPCC and their profiteering support groups are very dissatisfied with the Morrison Government despite Australia being on track to meet Paris Agreement emissions targets, and having achieved the Kyoto emissions targets. It is clear to me that the Morrison Government is not cooperating, another example was the decision to stop funding IPCC “green funds” last year. There are other reasons including the end of RET and subsidies now scheduled.
40
Thank goodness that gas does not produce CO2 when it burns@#$%^&*(
30
SA energy sources over last 12months:
%53 gas
%43 wind
%4 solar
with no accounting for behind the meter solar I beleive.
also seems to turn a blind eye to the VIC connector , but at least gives a feel for SA sourced generation.
it appears the extra half a billion has the little 1-2GW demand ticking managing OK
source : the fuel mix option on NEM Dispatch
20
If you think, write and read BS often enough, you think it’s true.
So, my Dear Yarpos, remember to give your mouth a good rinse tonight because it has BS in it all day.
00
While AEMO provides immediate data on ex generator spot prices, network costs are calculated each year by the AER based on submissions by the monopoly network owners. For example, The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has approved the 2020 network tariffs for Victorian electricity distributors AusNet Services, CitiPower, Jemena, Powercor and United Energy. But it’s hard work trying to find out exactly what those charges are. Its summary page reports: The AER estimates the typical network tariff charge – which is only one part of a household bill alongside wholesale costs, retail margins and other elements – will increase the average bill in 2020 by:
AusNet Services (Residential $38.16, Small business $130.02)
CitiPower (Residential $26.14, Small business $115.00)
Jemena (Residential $37.26, Small business $200.89)
Powercor (Residential $46.00, Small business $99.28)
United Energy (Residential $53.04, Small business $212.27)
Increasing transmission charges in Victoria – representing up to 81 per cent of the price increase – have fed into these 2020 prices.
Some of the reasons for this are rising Victorian land taxes and more power travelling long distances from interstate, which increases costs, have contributed to the rise.
But the summary does not report what the total residential charges are. A government regulator making data hard to find, surely not.
The Citipower submission reports typical annual residential charges are distribution $291, transmission $84, metering $69, for a total of $446/year. And they report that contributes to a total annual bill of $1232, but that excludes 10% GST.
So it’s hard to see how solar is impacting on these costs.
40
“….. and more power travelling long distances from interstate, which increases costs,…”
odd isnt it? in any other industry when you have a fixed infrastructure but can push more billable units through it, that leads to reduced unit costs and more potential profit. Somehow with electricity when I send more energy down the lines that were underutlised yesterday, its more expensive.
00
Morning Jo,
Seems the ABC forgot to use it’s own Fact Check on the qualifications of the 80 experts used by Sherwood of UNSW in his open letter to the leaders of our political parties, but here’s his shorthand:
” The letter was coordinated by Professor Steven Sherwood, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, and includes top academics in fields including economics, healthcare, history and law, as well as many different scientific disciplines. ”
…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/urgent-need-for-deep-cuts-to-australias-greenhouse-gas/11907838
…
SMH is also running the story.
Cheers
Dave B
40
Economists are running the show and the push to renewables because it’s a great way to make vast amounts of money .
Unfortunately the engineers have had no say until recently.
20
The Engineering profession has kept its mouth shut and bank its salaries.
10
Another opportunity for that useful word again
“ultracrepidarian”
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ultracrepidarian
00
I see that the “Christmas Turkey” is adding to the list
00
Meanwhile the local paper (The Advertiser) in Adelaide is celebrating the approval for the interconnecter to NSW as bringing cheaper electricity and a renewable energy boom.
The level of understanding, it being basically a repeat of a press release, is such that I haven’t bothered writing (and not being a subscriber unlikely to be printed).
It will provide another route for excess wind electricity when the wind blows strongly. This is when electricity prices plunge as the wind farmers compete for those (subsidy) certificates. At the present the AEMO orders some wind farms to shut down, and the CF has dropped from 30% to 27%, so there is potential supply already available. There may not be the rush into wind The Advertiser claims.
Even if the transmission idea works, who will get the extra exports? Not the major users on the east coast of NSW they are too far away beyond the distance that the electricity can limp. And as for NSW providing power when the wind doesn’t blow, where will they get that as the State is a nett importer?
The “advantage” for the consumer is that the lowest costs will increase while others are unaffected – a price rise. To offset that maybe SA could export utterly useless politicians – we have an excess supply – and I am sure the rest of Australia is Pyne-ing for some.
120
Graeme I suspect that the other states have more than their share of bloody useless pollies.
They would love to palm off a few of them on us here in SA !
40
With a CF of 27% windfarms (backed up by OCGT) are producing more CO2 than CCGT’s. Why isn’t much more attention given to this by government? Gas should be on equal footing with wind farms. Government needs to scream about this to the media and keep on screaming until it sinks into the medias thick heads.
40
In 2019, SA was only able to export 11% of its wind power to other states.
10
Is that good or bad? what % was potentially available for export?
10
I often see claims in The Oz saying that SA regularly exports wind power, but in truth SA doesn’t export much wind power at all. In 2019, SA derived around 44% of it’s power from wind and 55% from gas.
00
The Tiser is woke.
Murdoch understands that anyone who wants serious reporting is going to read The Oz, so the Tiser is aimed at sports fans, social butterflies and latte drinkers.
It they say ‘renewable energy boom’ it really means ‘we copy/paste the media release’.
What is a bigger concern is that Marshall seems to believe in it.
10
https://www.carbonbrief.org/tropical-forests-losing-ability-to-absorb-co2-study-says
The headline only tells half the story. The article also says that temperate forests processing of CO2 has increased.
30
Any company relying on Govt subsidies for a living is trading on shaky ground , with WA and the Northern Territory now requiring strict rules around solar farms and their highly intermittent supply the penny has dropped as to how damaging and expensive it is to run an electricity grid that has unreliable supply .
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WA obtains more than 80% of its power from coal and gas; around 40% each.
10
In a nutshell, solar isn’t profitable even in Queensland because the lines are long, transmission losses are large, the electricity comes when customers don’t need it, and the government keeps insisting the solar farms pay for “grid stability” (FCAS) because the grid needs it, and solar doesn’t supply it.
Says it all. What’s odd is that there are numerous technical and engineering people to whom all of this would have been obvious before a spade was turned. Before the first blueprint, even. If you need a truck but are told you will be given a dinky toy you don’t scratch your head and wonder how you are going to lug cement with it. It’s a dinky toy!
We’re not Germany. We can’t lose the inefficiency in a tangle of interconnections. In other words, we’re not in a position even to fake it.
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Off topic, but i havent come across it anywhere else. US temps down 2.60 degrees since 2012. 2019 cooler than 1900! Mentioned in the small print as 34th warmest year! The presentation is pedestrian, but he makes his points. US data 6.30 in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CijE6QvQClI&t=1s
It adds a bit to the argument about the present global warming being world wide, unlike the Medieval Warming and mini Ice Age, which were only local.
40
The Medieval Warming was restricted just to Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Arctic, the sub-Arctic, the Antarctic, Oceania and Australia. Hardly got out of the gate.
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No evidence of it at Howland or Jarvis Islands, though. 😉
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Howland is a myth spread by the members of Hy-Brasil to annoy the traders from Frisland.
10
Has the /s tag been omitted? Sounds like you have listed all the continents.
10
And only one person appreciated my sarc reply.. 🙁
30
G#4, I appreciate you were being funny, but I have to pick a bone with this part:
There is no evidence of an MWP in Australia. It seems to have had a highly variable climate for so long that over the 200y range of the MWP it is difficult to assign any one consistent label to Australia. It wasn’t only cool, it wasn’t only warm, it wasn’t “dry”, it wasn’t “wet”, it was all of those things all mixed together.
This Google Maps overlay of worlwide MWP proxy studies was compiled by German Geologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Have a look at Australia.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zvwgQ0tAjx_k.keO5eR4ueHXE&usp=sharing_eid
Obviously the top end is wet in that time, but when wouldn’t it be, it is tropical. Remember that Barcelona is further from the equator than Melbourne, and London is still further, which gives you some idea of how far south in Australia you have to go before you get to a temperate zone that might show significant differences between an MWP and a not-MWP.
Hypothesis: You would expect a warmer world to be wetter, so an MWP in Australia south of the Bight should have a clear majority of both “warm” and “wet” reconstructions for 1000 AD to 1200 AD.
Method: Have look at the southeast tip surrounding Warnambool in the map, or from Kangaroo Island to Canberra more broadly.
Data: Four yellows(dry), two greens(wet), two reds(warm), and the two points nearest each other are for periods which overlap by 66% and yet show opposite results.
Analysis: It is totally unclear from the proxy data as to whether southeast Australia, even two locations less than 100km apart, were consistently wet or consistently dry. It is 4 vs 4, not a clear majority either way. Therefore assigning “warm” as a label for all of Australia between 1000 and 1200 AD is not empirically defensible.
Look at Tassie. Similar story. Two wets, two dries, and two warms. Maybe for Tassie you can say there was more of an MWP than not, but it is hardly unambiguous.
We keep treating the MWP like a hero, a character constructed as perfect for narrative benefit. But in climate reconstructions, as in drama, our real life characters are flawed and ambiguous. Dorothea Mackellar’s description of “drought and flooding rains” has been correct for a very long time.
20
Sorry that was to Mosomoso, not G#4.
00
Andrew, the increased wet up north 900-1400 AD (registered in peat etc) is evidence of MV effects in Oz. Not saying the MV was uniform in time, space or outcome or that it was to be cheered on. (So-California was not he place to be!)
Not even keen on the term “warming” when you consider that increased cloud cover can mean lower max. The Medieval Warming is a sloppy cover-all term that will have to do to describe a vast and varied shift. It just happened.
What makes me uneasy is the political nibbling away at the MW’s range. It’s for a reason, and we know that reason, right?
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Andrew, looking at the Google Map, there appears to be many sites (around 24) that papers claim show evidence of the MWP. Are you saying that all these papers are wrong?
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G#4.
What you allege there is absolutely nothing like what I actually said and does not match the map symbol key.
>> “sites (around 24) that papers claim show evidence of the MWP.”
No. There’s only 24 papers marked for the whole country. This is not a list of every paper that proves the MWP existed, it’s a list of proxy studies whether they support an MWP or not. Did you even read the key? You can’t just take one proxy, find a warm period, and then declare the MWP proven for all of Australia. The author of the web site did not code these as majority red and green. That’s his assessment, not mine. In total for the country it is still 50% for and against.
Would you like to have another go at making sense?
00
Easy mate, easy. I’m not trying to disparage you, just trying to understand what’s going on. I put forward my understanding of the situation and you pointed out to me where I’m wrong. I’m ok with that, but surely we can have a civil conversation on this site.
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I mentioned this in the Open Thread (link here) and while I won’t repeat it, there are some other things I can add.
The Nameplate for this solar plant at Coleambally is 180MW, and it is currently operating at a (yearly) Capacity Factor of (around) 18%, so that gives it an effective Nameplate of just 32MW.
THIRTY TWO MEGAWATTS
The plant cost (again around, because they quote the exact all up cost) %200 Million, and it is owned by Neoen, a French power company.
So here we have $200 Million for a 32MW power plant.
However, the single most important thing here is that effective Nameplate of just 32MW average.
Currently (at the best time of year for solar power, Mid Summer) the plant is restricted to a total of 105MW maximum generation, and it delivers that 105MW for around 8 hours a day.
So, for NSW, let’s look at returns and compare them. The average cost for wholesale power is around $50/MWH, so this solar plant, at that maximum of 105MW will be earning $5250 an hour, and across the full day of power generation, from the sale of its generated power will make around $50,000, taking into account that it starts generating at around 6AM, rises slowly to the maximum, and then late afternoon it falls away back to zero again by around 7PM, so that’s the whole day for this solar plant.
So, compare that to Bayswater, a four Unit coal fired power plant. Bayswater currently has one Unit off line, so the maximum it can deliver is around 1950MW, and it does that across most of the day. However the day for Bayswater is the full 24 hours. At it’s Maximum of 1950MW, and at the same $50/MWH, Bayswater, from the sale of its electricity will earn $97.500 per hour, and across the full 24 hour day (at its 24 hour average of 1780MW) will earn $2.14 Million.
$50,000 versus $2.14 Million, so Bayswater is higher by a factor of just under 43 times. (hourly rate $5250 versus $97500, a factor of almost 19 times higher) The (perceived) anomaly here is that Bayswater is operational for the full 24 hours compared to the solar plant’s 14 hours, and again, that is also anomalous because of the actual power generation profile, a half sine wave for solar, and a virtual straight line for Bayswater.
So, you can see here that the problem all stems back to the actual power being generated, an average of 32MW compared to 1780MW, of a three quarter Bayswater.
The solar plant, this one, or any solar plant for that fact will always struggle to make money because they generate so LITTLE power.
And here, almost incidentally, and never mentioned when it comes to price comparisons solar versus coal is something again totally dependent upon the amount of power being generated. (not Nameplate) At that original cost of $200 Million, and going on generated power delivered to the grid, to equal the power delivery of Bayswater, then you would need 60 of these solar plants, so a total outlay of $12 Billion.
So, no, solar power is not cheap at all, by any metric you can work out for it.
These are the REAL economics of solar versus coal fired power, economics that won’t ever be mentioned by the ‘Economics’ reporters from the ABC, and all media ….. because these REAL economics are based totally around the engineering capabilities, and unless you take into full account these engineering capabilities, then the economics you read about solar power (and wind power as well) in the media are only a part of the FULL story. So, see how the economics is contingent upon engineering, something that is totally missing from EVERY report you read.
Tony.
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And how will that Solar plant be performing 40-50 years down the road ?
Lets hope they have engineered the panels to cope with a hail storm like the one that hit Canberra last week !
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This is a point rarely mentioned. Thermal plants nearly bulletproof as long as they are not sited on an active fault line or under a volcano. Solar and wind are vulnerable to all kinds of natural phenomena or human error. Storms, lightning, hail, dust or ice and snow are all potential problems. Because they are many small units they are hard to miss and impossible to secure against vandalism or terrorist attacks. Fine if you cannot connect to a grid, in which case the risks may be acceptable. As part of a grid I cannot see the logic unless every unit is backed by several days of storage.
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People might need to read deeply in any figures onn what a solar panel can cope with.
On another blog there was a mention that some solar panels were tested with
1 inch balls weighing 1 pound and dropped from 20 feet (IIRC on that figure)
Now there are 7000 grains in a pound, so that is quite some musket ball.
Those with ballistic experience might check the figures
10
All generators require transmissions systems. The transmission system is the most unreliable part, in all cases.
11
No, in the case of wind and solar, THEY are by far the most unreliable part.
10
Well that can’t be right. My ABC told me solar delivers reliable power at $40/MW, and only slightly
more once storage is included
80
Got it!
🙂
10
John:
Since the proprietors of Snowy 2 expect to buy electricity and (losing 20-25%) make money by selling it for $40 per MWh more than they paid for it, I cannot work out the ABC arithmetic.
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NEOEN is a Palindrome, reading the same from left to right or right to left.
Perhaps it is also an acronym?
Never Efficiently Operating Ever Never, or something like that.
One must wonder at the stellar brilliance of the advertising agency.
Mind you, someone actually paid for that lot, and trademarked it as well.
40
🙂
00
So, $200 Million for 32 MW actual capacity is $6.25 Million/Mw
Every other form of generation costs between $3,000 to $6000 / Mw.
Not 1000 to 2000 times as much, as does the apparent cost of actual solar output.
https://marketrealist.com/2015/01/natural-gas-fired-power-plants-cheaper-build/
If one adds in the cost of connectors at $1M to $2M / kM depending on voltage and such, then add in the cost of substations, switchgear, frequency and voltage stabilization, etc, then Unreliables are laughable.
Only Genuinely Ignorant people would propose that Solar is economically viable. Or Wind for that matter.
There’s a reason nobody “invests” in Solar or Wind energy without massive subsidies: It isn’t economical.
So, let’s toss in that ubiquitous “boogeyman” of CAGW and “Environmental Costs” and see if they add up to some 200,000 % difference in costs, eh?
Or, in contrast, let’s add the costs of intermittency, frequency and voltage support, transmission subsidy, efficiency impact on thermal plant backup, decommissioning costs, replacement costs, etc, to the solar/wind cost/kw and see what the true cost of “free power” is. As well, add in the social costs of blackouts/brownouts to the populace and the loss of jobs and productivity when unreliable power is assessed for its impacts.
Critical thinking is a Skill, not an accident.
Emotional Voters are a reliable Asset, not an accident.
But. The economic impact of Emotional Voters is a predictable Catastrophe.
Life is Harder, if you’re stupid.
100
D
Tony,
We have to look at the whole picture..so as not to deceive ourselves
What you have shown is just the income from power sales and the Capital investment.
We have to consider the operational costs also.
For instance, i understand the cost of coal to fuel Bayswater is close to $50.0 /MWh ?
03
you understand wrong then Chad. How do you think a wholesale cost is calculated if it doesnt include the total cost of generation + margin?
50
I doubt any of us know exactly how a bidder sets their wholesale costs…
…but i do know it is not unususl for a producer to sell at a loss for a position in a market, knowing they can make a profit on the fringe prices when demand is high.
But, at least you agree there must be a fuel cost included in the wholesale cost.
The only question is ..how much is that cost ?
SEE BELOW..
01
Bayswater is built at the coal mine itself, and it uses its own coal, as is the case with almost every coal fired plant in the Country.
Tony.
120
Tony,
Even locally mined coal has a production cost ( and a Royalty payment) which cannot be ignored .
AGL may own the coal, but it still costs them the same to dig it out and get it to the “mine gate”
Currently the industry average is around $70-$100/Tonne (before transportation)
i understand a tonne of good black coal can produce 2.5 MWh of electricity in a plant such as Bayswater, so the “fuel cost” per MWh will be about $28 -$40.
24
?
10
Chad,
look at the image at this link, and this is the bid stack structure for the AEMO, and while this is simplified, it is indicative. The cost for each MWH is the right hand side vertical scale.
The bulk of the power is the grey colour along the bottom, and that has been bid at $35/MWH. My guess is that this would entail around 70% to 85% of total power demand at any one time. That $35/MWH covers everything, including the profit margin. Virtually all of that is coal fired power.
As more power is required (left hand vertical scale) then new power comes on line at the new price (right side vertical scale) and those calculations are made every five minutes, as new power is required or drops away.
At the end of the half hour, all prices are averaged and EVERY power supplier gets paid that average price for every MWH they have delivered to the grid. So, if a coal fired plant (grey colour) bids $30/MWH, it gets paid the higher average, not just what they have bid. As more power is required, the cheapest waiting to come on line bids get accepted first, and as power consumption decreases, it’s the last on first off principle which applies.
In the old days before RE, the system worked very well.
When RE started to come on stream, they (RE) KNEW that they would always be accepted no matter what, and they were getting both lots of certificates, then they just bid low, effectively gaming the system, because when you added on the money they were making from their certificates, then they could bid low to still make a profit, thus giving the impression that RE was cheaper than coal fired power.
None of this cost structure volatility existed prior to RE coming on line in the numbers it now has.
That price structure is what is backfiring on solar power now, because of the nature of the Load Curve as I explained above. It starts of virtually at nothing, and over a couple of hours it builds up to close to its maximum. So according to the bid structure, and the first acceptance, then they are accepted but not contributing any appreciable amounts of power, so it’s nothing for nothing, and my guess is that the AEMO is saying that because you are delivering nothing, then we’ll wait till you get to close to your maximum, and THEN start paying you, and because the system has effectively been gamed, than at or around Midday (supposedly peak power generation for solar) especially on weekends, then they are limited in the power they can deliver to the grid, so they are being restricted all round, and because of that, and the little they do generate, then there’s virtually no money now in solar power.
Tony.
120
The first thing that must be understood is wholesale electricity price is about 20% of the cost so we are not arguing over a large component.
The market bids every 5 minutes. The most expensive price is used across bids to supply demand. The price is averaged over 1/2 hour.
The market issues for coal fired stations is they cannot b switched off, they often have to bid below wind and solar to make sure they get dispatched. Solar and wind can be switched off on demand so they will not pay to generate, this is why you see wind generators doing nothing over the weekend.
In the past pumped hydro was used to soak up excess coal generation, this will obviously change to soaking up excess solar an wind.
40
Interesting perspective, its all about the money.
What about we go back to a time when customers only had to pay a flat rate, under the regime of coal fired power, this renewable energy is expensive virtue signalling.
40
What happens if the suppliers had to bid for, say, 4 hours at a time?
Penalties for not supplying.
30
Frednk…
We are not discussing “retail” prices, only the revenue earned by the generator operators, what their “margin” might be relative to the capital cost of generation facilities…coal and solar.
My point is that coal generation coats has a significant fuel component that can not be ignored when trying to estimate the operating margin.
31
Trouble with wind and solar is that when needed, you can’t guarantee they will “switch on”
And Coal power does ramp up and down,
All you are really doing is displaying your ignorance.
A common theme of all your posts.
21
Tony
Excellent points and should be read by all Australians.
I saw a German study which looked at wind plants and they generated around 24% of the time. But at nameplate only less than 2% of the time.
Coming from the chemical and food industry you have to work your assets to get money. Solar and wind are a joke and the claims of cheap power are a lie as you have shown, and investors are showing by their lack of interest.
By the way, do the maths on the other greenie favourite, pumped hydro. Again short times actually providing power hamstring profitability, and they have to buy the power first and have very large capital costs….They only work if we have astronomical power prices…
30
Good article in the daily telegraph business section today by Terry Mcann
He has long advocated about the stupidity of solar and wind power
He is a rational economist and can get to the heart of the matter
Although he admits that coal fired power stations with some gas for peak loads is the rational way to go, in the current climate hysteria, it may not be acheivable
His solution is base load nuclear to service Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane asap
Needs bipartisan support ( excluding the extreme greens)
Will be interesting to see how this plays out
100
He would be well aware of the Parliamentary Committee formed late in 2019 by the Morrison Government to review the Howard Government’s inquiry into nuclear energy, the recommendation was for small modular generating units dotted around the country.
A Committee member appeared on a Sky News programme and explained that modular was still the option that the Government was interested in.
30
Yes with the current hysteria coal is pretty much a no go. It’s pretty sad that we’re to squeamish to enjoy what we’ve been blessed with.
70
He’s daft that Terry with his nucular talk.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: stick with Australian coal for at least the next few hundred years.
10
the enemies within…in no special order
Dave Sharma
Tim Wilson
Andrew Bragg
Jason Falinski
Trent Zimmerman
Karen Andrews
Josh Fridenburg
David Littleproud
Holly Hughes
Fiona Martin
Anne Ruston
Katie Allen
All these Liberal cretins have professed their faith on print and/or on TV. I am sure there are others that haven’t been dumb enough to speak out. I could add our PM to this list because he refuses to stand up. Ironically, Karen Andrews is the only person on this list who also put her name on the letter to bring on the vote to remove Turnbull.
While these numbats remain, it will be an uphill battle for the realists to overcome the dogma. Somebody reckoned the best way would be to nuke the lot of them and start again with a new conservative party…that doesn’t want to be there. While this dogma remains, no one will believe they are the sole cause of all the increases in living costs and why the economy is tanking.
150
Does it dawn on you, you might be wrong and all the others right?
04
You, on the other hand have been proven wrong with your every post.
22
Spot on!
00
The $80-90 MWh price for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) had nothing to do with a paucity of renewable energy in the system. The price reflected the penalty for a power retailer who failed to buy sufficient certificates which was a non-tax deductible fine of $65 per MWh (indexed for inflation). The non-tax deductible provision meant that the cost to the retailer was around $87. Of course renewables generators set their price close to that. In order to temporarily bring retail prices down the regulator has authorised retailers to defer purchase of certificates for three years, at which time they had to procure them. Demand for certificates dropped and the non cost effective renewables industry, needing the subsidies represented by the certificates offered low cost deals to retailers. When the three year hiatus ends and retailers have to purchase outstanding certificates as well as the certificates for that year, prices will return to previous levels. The large and small scale certificate subsidies are nothing more or less than a price on carbon (dioxide) by stealth.
Thank you Brian. Posted as an update in the blog post above. – Jo
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ScoMo, 23 Oct 2018:
Brian, 29 January 2020:
Australian consumers, 1 Jan 2022: [Surprised Pikachu.jpg]
10
ABC promo-ing this “Big Ideas” program for today:
ABC’s Paul Barclay opens: After our devastating summer of bushfires, the heat is on for action on climate change.
voice of Jessie, average income earner, Melbourne, told focus group she recycles, etc. understands need to close coal power plants environmentally, but having alternatives in place first might have been the smarter thing.
***asks does RE generate enough power to make a difference?
***such a good question up front, but it never gets answered. first 46m is former Ipsos woman, who does programs for ABC – Rebecca Huntley. she quotes Jessie, but then doesn’t respond to the question.
from 46m is the pets’ carbon rubbish from Uni of Sydney.
AUDIO: 54m5s: 29 Jan: ABC Big Ideas: Paul Barclay: Community response to climate change and the carbon footprint of pets
Why is the community so divided over action on climate change?
And what are the environmental cost of meat-eating pets?
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/community-response-to-climate-change-and-the-carbon-footprint-o/11898420
Huntley mentions some research for WWF. see if you can find this oration by Huntley – worth a read for its extraordinary claims (for some reason, I can’t post the url):
MSSI Oration 2019 – Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute PDF
WWF commissioned myself and Emilio Ferrer of Sphere Consulting to look at attitudes to a transition to renewables specifically among Australians who didn’t vote Labor or Green in the last election but remain concerned about environmental issues…
(excerpts)
However, it was results from the Lowy Institute poll released a few months prior to the election that seemed to point towards the kind of escalating concern that might bring about a political shift, akin to what happened in the 2007 election of Labor under Kevin Rudd. That Lowy poll showed 59 per cent of Australians (up five points since the year before) agreed that ‘global warming is a serious and pressing problem’ about which ‘we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs’. A strong majority of Australians (84 per cent, up three points from the previous year’s survey) agreed that ‘the government should focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable’. Only 14 per cent believed ‘the government should focus on traditional energy sources such as coal and gas, even if this means the environment may suffer to some extent’…
In order to get to this deeper understanding I want to look at two pieces of research I haven’t had a chance to talk about publicly until now. The first is a quantitative analysis of the results of the last election commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund Australia (WWF). WWF commissioned myself and Emilio Ferrer of Sphere Consulting to look at attitudes to a transition to renewables specifically among Australians who didn’t vote Labor or Green in the last election but remain concerned about environmental issues. Understanding what happened in the election with a serious look at the data was an important pre-requisite to the qualitative phase of this research, especially given the plethora of ‘hot takes’ circulating about why Labor lost. I need to explain the exact methodology for this analysis, and it’s a little involved so stay with me on the detail, because that’s where the devil resides! It involved looking at what the last census data tells us about every electorate in Australia in terms of its demographics…
Wikipedia: Rebecca Huntley
She is an author and researcher with degrees in law, a first class degree in film studies and a PhD in Gender Studies. She has been a regular columnist for Business Weekly Review, a feature writer for Vogue and a radio presenter for ABC’s RN. She regularly features on radio and TV…
From 1997 to 2002, Huntley studied at the University of Sydney to obtain a PhD in Gender Studies, exploring the campaign for the women’s vote and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) campaign in the 1983 and 1993 federal elections…
Huntley worked briefly in legal publishing before she attended the University of Sydney to obtain her PhD. During this period, she worked with several federal politicians in the ALP, acting as an active member of the National Committee of EMILY’s List Australia and the ALP’s federal policy committee…
*** Huntley left the ALP in 2006, saying that she wished to be politically neutral in her research…
She was the director of The Mind & Mood Report at Ipsos Australia, a market research firm, from 2006 to 2015. She was at Ipsos until 2014…
She was a member of the UNSW Arts and Social Sciences Advisory Committee. In 2016 she was appointed as an adjunct senior lecturer at The School of Social Sciences at UNSW…
She has a regular spot on James Valentine’s show on ABC’s 702 called ‘Research or Rubbish’. Rebecca also presents The History Listen each week on Radio National.
Huntley has co-hosted a storytelling event at The Giant Dwarf in Sydney, called The Full Catastrophe with (ABC) broadcaster Sarah Macdonald…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Huntley
20
a friend tells me this was broadcast by ABC Radio National overnight. can’t see it in their schedule, but it may have been aired in last night’s Big Ideas’ slot.
Greta sound grab crops up early:
8 Nov 2019: CBC Ideas: Debate | Do baby boomers owe millennials an apology?
Bruce Cannon Gibney and Jennie Bristow are on opposite sides of the ‘Boomer-blaming’ debate.
Listen to the full episode53:59
(Gibney) argues that the boomer generation is unique in the way it has skewed policy towards its own interests at the expense of future generations. Gibney points to the forecast insolvency of many pension funds as evidence.
“There’s just no way around it,” said Gibney. “The money runs out when the boomers die.”…
Gibney also blames the boomer generation for failing to act on the science of carbon emissions and climate change while there was still plenty of time.
“We have to talk about the people who have been blocking progress on these issues for the past 30 years,” said Gibney. “And that has been the boomers.”
“I just don’t understand why economic and policy failures are targeted so narrowly at the door of the baby boomers,” Bristow told Gibney.
“The idea that nobody is responsible — that creates the true helplessness that Jennie professes to be worried about,” Gibney responded.
“If in fact we are in a terrible position, the climate’s going to crap, highways are terrible, school’s super expensive … if it’s the case that no-one’s at fault, then what does that say about the world?”
Guests in this episode:
Jennie Bristow is the author of Stop Mugging Grandma: The ‘Generation Wars’ and Why Boomer-Blaming Won’t Solve Anything. She’s a senior lecturer in sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University in the U.K.
Bruce Cannon Gibney is the author of A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America and The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System. He’s a venture capitalist and former lawyer.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/debate-do-baby-boomers-owe-millennials-an-apology-1.5351727
CBC is as crazy as ABC:
AUDIO: 22 Mar 2019: CBC Ideas: Animals under the law: What options are there for animals to ‘lawyer up’?
Under the eyes of the law, animals that live in our homes or on a farm are ‘property.’ But there’s a growing movement to grant some animals like chimpanzees, elephants and dolphins ‘non-human persons’ status. Harvard Law School doctoral candidate Jessica Eisen thinks the law could do even better than that.
“We know on some level that animals are not the same thing as a chair or a rock. But for most legal purposes that’s their status,” says Eisen, who is finishing her dissertation at Harvard University (and is already an assistant professor at the University of Alberta’s law school)…
“Just as a lot of human civil rights work of the last 200 years has been to move all human beings from the status of being a ‘thing’ to being a person, the non-human rights project has begun the process of moving as many non-human animals species as we can from the legal status of ‘thing’ to ‘person’,” says lawyer Steven Wise, founder and director of the Nonhuman Rights Project…
Since 2013, Wise and his team have represented four chimpanzees and four elephants in a bid to secure personhood status for the animals.
“These animals are treated as slaves,” says Wise. “A sentient being, especially a very sentient being, will suffer terribly and we do not think that they should suffer.”…ETC
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/animals-under-the-law-what-options-are-there-for-animals-to-lawyer-up-1.5067558
20
POST-NOTE:
As usual, the lies by omission change the whole story. Stephen Letts writes about the cost of solar power:
Mr O’Neil said falling construction costs also helped spur the investment boom, with some projects then reportedly being economic at all-up revenues in the $60-80/MWh range.
… but he doesn’t mention that brown coal was not just economic, but profitable at $30/MWh.
200
Some short time ago, the cost of actual power in AU went as high as $14,700 / MwH for several hours. Largely due to the cost impacts of unreliables.
That’s a far cry from $30/MWh.
Brown Coal looks pretty good in comparison.
Cannot people see these things in their billing statements?
GE is facing a terrible reckoning in capacity.
https://timera-energy.com/the-looming-german-capacity-crunch/
There is only so much stretch in the rubber band of grid scale energy balancing.
Guess wrongly, and the price is very steep.
90
Lance:
And a new brown coal power station would have CO2 emissions 33-37% lower than the existing plants.
110
PRECISELY!
The CO2 “savings” from a new modern high capacity coal powered fire station in each eastern state, would almost certainly yield a far greater cut in CO2 emissions than any amount of wind, solar, biomass etc could ever produce.
130
Send the memo to AGL :).
40
You don’t think they don’t already know, do you.
AGL are playing it for all they can get out of it. 😉
50
That’s an engineering reality.
10
Reference link for claims of power costs in AU
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/decentralized-renewable-power-interconnectors-pose-bigger-risk-coal-stations-more-reliable-in-a-crisis/
In 2 hrs, unreliables caused a $350 Million cost.
Even in a worst case scenario pf $6000/MW, those 2 hrs of costs would have built some 58,000 MW of reliable generation.
That is just 2 hours of stupid. Imagine what a Year of Stupid would have built, eh?
20
oops.
58 MW in 2 hrs. my error. Still and all, a lot.
10
“Cannot people see these things in their billing statements?”
If by people you mean consumers, no they cant. Nothing like that is vivible and the numbers pass through many sieves and layers of obfuscation
30
The current economics for coal depend on sunk costs ( you brought a clapped out generator from a state government). There is no economics to built new coal fired power stations ( which must be done,nothing lasts forever). New coal fired power stations will not be built no matter how much you stamp your feet.
25
Spot on!
Eventually, HELE coal-fired power stations or nuclear power plants will be built. Otherwise, you will be in the dark, without electricity and fresh water.
Wake up to yourself!
60
Pretty sure fred is permanently in the dark !!
01
Only reason HELE is stalled at the moment is because of carbon credits and other costs being unfairly and irrationally put onto coal fired generators, and the yelping and screaming of that anti-science, anti-CO2 lobby.
And who knows what some idiot Labor/Green government might do if elected.
The whole anti-CO2, anti-future agenda is stagnating Australia and many other parts of the world.
I’d ask you to wake-up too, but I suspect your mind is terminally non-functional.
21
The economics will arise, once the network starts going into regular blackout mode.
Remove all the anti-CO2 crap, and as peter says, HELE is the ONLY rational way forward.
Trouble is, the chattering and gibbering class, that you represent, only want to go backwards.
30
Obviously you have missed the fact that Coal fired plants ARE being built…..hundreds of them, in countries all over the world .
The fact that Australia has not built any, says more about our POLITICS and leadership, than about the economics of the technology
30
Philip Clark on ABC’s Nightlife clearly on the side of the “Prophets of Doom” as per Trump/Davos speech. Trump is named, alluded to, accused, etc at various times.
3h02m55s to 3h35m50s: Issue of the Day: What is the greatest threat to humanity?
Clark conflates bushfires with temperatures. extreme hot weather sweeping across the country, coming for almost everybody. bushfires/public debate on CAGW. coronavirus. Doomsday Clock. then goes on to quote at length every CAGW claim of hottest this and that:
AUDIO: 3h54m59s: 28 Jan: ABC Nightlife with Philip Clark
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/nightlife/11887858
3:08:25: second caller, Dave, is fun; reckons the biggest threat to humanity’s survival are the Prophets of Doom everywhere. we need to get away from this doom and gloom, the world is going to end tomorrow. Dave likes Star Trek because of it’s positive view of the future.
Clark reads 2 texts from listeners,
1) greatest threat is negativity.
2) biggest threat is Donald Trump.
followed by caller who says he agrees with a couple of things people have said about Trump (one text). can’t keep digging up resources, not sustainable. says financial collapse biggest threat.
3h32m56s: Clark says he’s depressed a little by a lot of young people saying they don’t know if it’s worth having children. that’s not a good thing. humans are resourceful people. CAGW is difficult problem; probably the most difficult problem the world faces, but the solutions are not beyond us. we know what they are; it’s just whether we want to do them.
final caller: bushfire smoke. climate action. population. third world has children because they need someone to look after them in old age. if the third world gets what we have, they will mess up the whole ecosystem even more.
Clark laughs: unless we find more sustainable ways to create wealth. maybe that’s an over-optimistic view.
30
Despite the fact that Watt Clarity’s McCardle bends over backwards to reassure his RE enthusiast readers that coal will shut down and wind/solar are solving their myriad problems …anyone reading the blog over the years from anything but a RE cult perspective…couldn’t help but think the NEM ….since Turnbull seized power…. called in the carpetbaggers and authorized Clinton’s preferred RE transition Czar Audrey Zibelman to conduct her ‘exciting experiment’ with the Australian people as the lab rats….readers of WattClarity and a lot of other serious analysts couldn’t help thinking that Australia is heading for existential chaos and insecurity that no nation can afford….especially a country with the geopolitical headwinds Australia faces.
Despite his obvious hopes for 100% RE over the years…Watt Clarity’s McCardle yesterday expressed his ‘concern that the semi-scheduled category [as it currently operates] is neither scalable, or sustainable.
He seems to suggest that the favored status for RE will need to become conditional on the generator’s record of delivery….and the way I see it …that should mean that cost of its expensive props are included in the price a solar or wind farm bids.
The messy reality has many shaky parts….not the least of it that most of Australia’s journalists lie 24/7 to the Australian people on the issue-have Australians thinking all they have to do is get rid of coal now so wind and solar can do their wondrous thing unfettered by the ‘old …decrepit demon coal’. AEMO/Zibelman have also fostered this view.
The reality is also that the intermittents investors’ security has been and always will be it seems to me…… the government siphon Turnbull’s ratification and subsequent carpetbaggers’ rush set up…to suck the hard-earned dosh of Australia’s poor and middle-income Australians…straight into the coffers of the uber-rich foreign carpetbaggers….even into the coffers of the Chinese Communist dictatorship….that and the security of the intermittents’ government-mandated favored status in the dispatch process…in a massive corruption of the market.
The latter security for RE may now be at risk as reality bites.
Even while the CAGW Cult crows and brags that RE is now cheaper than coal…they freak out at the slightest hint that their siphon’s future might look shaky…and were even yesterday flagging their next demand…via anti-A’a Far Left Australia Institute’s request for $460m from the next budget …just as a starter….to fund the siphon’s next fleecing phase.
The fact that baseload…mostly coal…is all that keeps the NEM operating…generating >90% of the NEM’s demand 24/7 year in year out …and from Watt Clarity’s deep-dive research…is more reliable by far than any of the ‘renewable’ technologies….seems to be totally irrelevant as far as most journalists…politicians and cultists ….and AEMO are concerned.
The taxpayer who’s being fleeced is meant to think or pretend to…that wind and solar are stand-alone generators powering everything they do with wondrous efficiency if only the demon coal would get out of the way….consumers expected to ignore the siphon from their earnings to the world’s rich…and the massively expensive props still to be built …and paid for by them…including the possibly 7x demand overbuild of intermittents and props suggested by Garnaut …to power his next boondoggle…a hydrogen export industry…the electrolysis of the water to be powered by intermittents….all this with huge problems associated with hydrogen still unsolved eg leaking leading to explosions potentially in carparks and shopping centres…and its embrittlement of metals.
Australia Institute believes they have Taylor either won over or cornered. He’s done for if that’s true.
Ultimately this is the sort of situation you’d expect to see operating behind the iron curtain of a totalitarian state….where government can do anything…lie and coerce…silence dissent…orchestrate and intimidate general media while populating the only powerful media orgs with their trusted footsoldiers to flog the government propaganda…where government ‘fixes’ everything by fiat and money-shifting …enabled by a government-administered sieve of available information.
We have a sort of hybrid of this where the government provides no coherent information to illuminate the future they’ve mapped out for Australians …but just lets the authorities rip…with the ‘transition’ to the future their foreign CEO has determined Australia must have…saying that resistance is futile…that our future will be …whether we like it or not…as the only once modern country crippled and ultimately rendered 3rd world …by a 100% weather-dependent intermittent electricity system.
120
This song seems to fit:
“When The Wheels Are Coming Off” by Lee Ann Womack
We started down this road together
It was paved with hope and dreams of forever
We’ve been coasting for a while
And you act like nothing’s wrong
But even I can tell when the wheels are comin’ off
30
“You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel”.
lol
20
If only there was an energy policy, if only.
114
Ahh yes, the non-stop denial that Australia has transformed it’s grid to the point of mass failure, blackouts, billion dollar price spikes, 253 Volt overloads, more renewables added per capita than anywhere in the world all in the hope of cooling the global climate by 0.00 degrees C.
240
Price down a bit, volume up from previous high (2016). Newcastle’s gift to the world: better quality coal, thermal and coking…https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/6568665/newcastle-coal-exports-hit-record-volumes-in-2019/
If only we could use it freely for ourselves, do for Australia what we do for Asia. Now that would be a “policy”.
Of course, the massive consumption of Australian coal in China, Japan, Korea, India, Taiwan etc, namely, by the people who make all your stuff, is proof we need to ban it here. Clearly it breaks the three basic rules of Big Green: must cost, must waste and must not work. And we might add a fourth rule: must increase consumption of imported diesel as a fast fix when the white elephants fail.
90
mosomoso,
you might say prices are down a bit.
Can you portrait that for me on anyone’s power bill?
10
Nope. We’re like a man perishing from thirst by a clear running stream, waiting for someone to sell him tap-water in a fancy bottle.
10
toorightmate,
I took his comment and link to mean the price of coal to other countries was “down a bit”, and since this has nothing to do with power bills in AU, the compensatory thing is that miners have jobs. That’s good. Yes?
20
I’m in agreement. For example, if we had a policy that all generation had to compete without subsidies, pay for externalised costs (like grid connections) you would have a landscape where investment in Coal would be a no brainer. What I can not understand is why, after 7 years federally, and 9 years in NSW, there is no such guidance.
Sans that you get the mess we have now.
I would also hold back enough of the high quality coal (low sulphur etc) for our use, instead of shipping it all out, leaving us with the second rate stuff.
20
It would be almost as if this mess is what is desired.
10
“It would be almost as if this mess is what is desired.”
Yep, all part of the anti-CO2, anti-future greenie agenda.
Tell you what.. why don’t you write to your Greens comrades and explain to them that new COAL-FIRED power station should go ahead, without the restraint of extra cost due to carbon credits etc etc.
Tell them to get rid of the RET and all other anti-CO2 legislation.
Do you think they would listen !?
20
“I would also hold back enough of the high quality coal”
PLENTY more where that came from 🙂
10
“253 Volt overload”.
I think you mean the LV voltage has risen to 253 volts in some places in the distribution network. It won’t go higher because this is about the voltage the inverters cut out at.
Tell me are you still blaming the SA blackout on roaming wind turbines ( I assume that is the story for the transmission towers being on their side).
There are no billion dollar prices spikes even when the thermal power station fail. The nonsense you publish is to be seen to be believed.
32
“this is about the voltage the inverters cut out at”.
LOL.. now wouldn’t that just be dandy. I hope its in your neighborhood.
20
frednk:
My inverter for solar PV is set to cut out at 258V (info from supplier). It cut out one day and when it restarted I could access the built in log which said that their had been a spike of 277.3V.
Locals here have been complaining about drop-outs by their solar for some time (I could set the spike to the last 2 weeks as before that my neighbour moaned about a spike of 270V).
20
Well tell your mates in the greenie-agenda/ABC/local councils/AGW scam to stop their yelling and snarling whenever coal fired power is mentioned.
That’s the only “sensible” electricity policy, a new high capacity HELE coal powered station in each eastern state.
I’m sure you would agree that this the correct policy, right ? 😉
70
posted on an earlier thread that John McEnroe, responding to fawning praise/P.R. for pledging $1,000 to the bushfire relief fund for each set won by Kyrgios (without ever mentioning Kyrgios is a member of the Laver Cup World team he captains) said:
“climate change….do something about it”
today he’s in his element because it is the first hottish day on court this year (30C in Melbourne it says online) and McEnroe can’t stop mentioning it. remaining matches will be played at night, so McEnroe only has one match to push the warming propaganda. wondered if there was anything documented about his CAGW advocacy. found this:
22 Jan: Eurosport: ‘I’m proud of you!’ McEnroe praises emotional Kyrgios – and makes stunning donation pledge
‘I’m proud of you!’ McEnroe praises emotional Kyrgios – and makes stunning donation pledge
By Carrie Dunn
McEnroe – who has been Kyrgios’s Laver Cup captain in recent years – had earlier told the 24-year-old: “The way you led the way for the bushfire relief…well done, man. Absolutely outstanding effort. I know a lot of people share the same view. I’m proud of you.”
***McEnroe had already put his views about climate change and tennis’s responsibility to think about its contribution on record ***in a heartfelt episode of The Commissioner…
***this is, apparently, McEnroe’s heartfelt view on climate change! but I can’t open the video. wish someone could transfer it to youtube:
VIDEO: 20 Jan: Eurosport: The Commissioner of Tennis: John McEnroe: ‘It’s for the Earth’ – Commissioner McEnroe’s emotional song for Australia
The self-appointed Commissioner of Tennis John McEnroe returns for the first Grand Slam of the year, and he begins with a heartfelt plea…
https://video.eurosport.com/tennis/australian-open/2020/it-s-for-the-earth-commissioner-mcenroes-emotional-song-for-australia_vid1282653/video.shtml
btw Channel 9 – why not take McEnroe off air? he’s offended a lot of Autralians this tournament. lol.
40
For some reason I never used to mind McEnroe back in his bad boy days. Didn’t approve, but for some reason he didn’t bother me. (Mind you, I can even like Mundine jr, so the problem might be me.)
But this pious, canting, PC McEnroe is just sickening, especially combined with the old bully-boy personality.
Margaret Court was a left-hander forced to achieve with her wrong hand what no other player has ever achieved. I don’t know if she made the likes of McEnroe look small back when they played..but she does now.
You’re a little man, John. Depart, squirt.
40
starts with Chris Dickman sound grab from Breakfast earlier in January. Fran has no questions about the methodology or reliability of the billion-plus claim.
7m55s in: Woinarski.
AUDIO: 17m36s: 29 Jan: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Experts highlight disastrous effect of bushfires on biodiversity
The Federal Government is poised to announce a preliminary list of threatened species to be prioritised for conservation in the wake of the bushfire crisis.
With fires still burning, scientists warn it’s too early to know the exact toll, but it’s estimated more than a billion native animals have been killed and many species pushed to the brink.
Guests:
Sara Tilling, co-founder, Cobargo Wildlife Sanctuary
Sam Mitchell, owner, Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park
Professor John Woinarski, Research Institute of Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/experts-highlight-disastrous-effect-of-bushfires-on-biodiversity/11909070
Fran’s first question. unprecedented? Marty yes. 5m45s onwards includes:
Fran: is PM right? is hazard reduction the most urgent priority? what about climate change?
Marty (nervous chuckle): I’m not here to contradict the Prime Minister.
Fran: I’m not asking you to, actually, just wondering what you think…LISTEN ON AS FRAN PRETTY MUCH GETS WHAT SHE WANTS
AUDIO: 10m16s: 29 Jan: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Exhausted NSW fire crews brace for yet another nightmare weekend
Guest: Marty Webster, public liaison officer, Far South Coast Rural Fire Service
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/exhausted-nsw-fire-crews-brace-for-yet-another-nightmare-weekend/11909122
10
How many native animals die in a normal year?
10
How dare you !
Now that’s a question that would bring a few – ahhh – errrr – ummm – can you repeat that question .
00
lengthy, read all:
29 Jan: Bloomberg Opinion: Money Stuff: Fake Solar Generators Generated Fake Tax Breaks
Also latency arbitrage, asbestos and CLO connoisseurship.
By Matt Levine
(Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance. He was an editor of Dealbreaker, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit)
Solar Ponzi
We have talked about it before, but I really cannot resist the ***elegance and financial-engineering purity of the DC Solar Ponzi scheme, whose masterminds were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors last Friday. (They pleaded guilty and settled with the SEC.) The SEC summarizes…READ ALL
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-28/fake-solar-generators-generated-fake-tax-breaks
10
28 Jan: NthBayBusinessJournal: AP: Couple behind billion-dollar DC Solar ponzi scheme forfeits stake in Napa winery in plea deal
North Bay Business Journal contributed to this report
PHOTO GALLERY: Slide 1 of 3
File – In this Oct. 23, 2019, file photo, McGregor Scott, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, looks over a 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 displayed in Sacramento, Calif., that was among the vehicles seized by the federal government to be auctioned off. The cars belonged to owners of a San Francisco Bay Area solar energy company that have pleaded guilty for participating in what federal prosecutors called a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $1 billion. Jeff and Paulette Carpoff entered pleas Friday, Jan. 24, 2020, involving the scam that could result in up to 30 years in prison for him, and up to 15 years in prison for her…
Prosecutors alleged that the company engaged in $2.5 billion in investment transactions between 2011 and 2018, costing investors $1 billion. Among the investors was Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which lost some $340 million…
https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/northbay/napacounty/10642804-181/dc-solar-ponzi
40
So much for Warren Buffett genius Stock Picker.
12
28 Jan: NationalCatholicReporter: Laudato Si’ five years on: a continued call for courage
by ***Tomás Insua
(Tomás Insua is Executive Director of the Global Catholic Climate Movement)
PIC: Pope Francis greets 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with ***Tomás Insua by her side, during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 17, 2019. (CNS/Reuters/Yara Nardi)
Five years ago, the world was stunned by its first reading of Laudato Si’. Here was a document of unimaginable beauty. Here was a sense of life, a palpable hope for the healing of creation…
One outcome of Laudato Si’ was the creation of Global Catholic Climate Movement, an organization that I co-founded with a global group of allies. In the five years since our founding, we’ve helped over 150 Catholic institutions divest from fossil fuels (becoming the single largest source of participation in the divestment movement), trained and certified nearly 1,500 Laudato Si’ Animators to lead action in their communities, supported our 900 member organizations in hosting thousands of local events, and so much more…
As one example, Catholic Climate Covenant has developed a Catholic Energies program, which provides financing and expertise for Catholic institutions to get renewable energy or increase their energy efficiency. The program has begun the construction of Washington D.C.’s largest solar array, built for the Archdiocese of Washington…
As we look ahead to the next five years, the demand to take urgent action will only grow.
***At this moment, fires consume Australia, where over one billion animals have died. Some time in the coming years, climate chaos makes it extremely likely that a storm will devastate communities in the Philippines, that a drought will bring hunger and migration to sub-Saharan Africa, and that malaria will creep to ever-warmer land.
We must accelerate our progress to meet the challenges of the years ahead…
https://www.ncronline.org/news/earthbeat/laudato-si-five-years-continued-call-courage
40
I have asked several times but might have missed the response.
Has this crazy calculation ever been done?
And they are built using minerals that are in finite supply.
So they are as renewable in the same way coal and oil are….(guilty of language torture)
20
There are also the disposal problems (cost, pollution, etc.) which also have been flagged before. At the end of the day though the real focus should always be the CAGW scam has continued for so long for two obvious reasons; more money and more power for the elite. It appears voters are still happy with the game to continue. It might change though once they wake up and stop voting for the appeasers (LNP), socialist parasites (ALP) or extreme anarchists (Greens).
10
Yep. Wind is the cleanest and cheapest energy.
Decommissioning cost per turbine:
“recent experience suggests the cost is more realistically something like $400,000-$500,000”
https://stopthesethings.com/2020/01/25/rusting-monuments-to-stupidity-staggering-cost-of-cleaning-up-the-wind-industrys-giant-mess/
Blade disposal volume in landfill:
“According to the data from Hochschule Bremerhaven & Ahlstrom-Munksjo, the wind industry will generate 50,000 tons of blade waste in 2020, but that will quadruple to 225,000 tons by 2034.”
https://stopthesethings.com/2020/01/26/toxic-shock-millions-of-wind-turbine-blades-leave-poisoned-landfill-legacy-for-generations-to-come/
Does anyone know if decommissioning costs are built into Australian wind and solar contracts, and if so how much is allowed per turbine/panel?
30
Important!
10
In the next decade or so they’ll be having to replace the earlier turbines…each of them embedded in a massive concrete pad…will they dig them all up or will they run out of farmland space to build the next generation of turbines plus pads?
There’s absolute radio silence on all the pollution problems looming from both the turbines and the solar farms…all the toxic metals to dispose of ..much of it not economic to recycle…and the cycle of disposal having to be repeated and accommodated every 15 years or so.
You have to wonder how much cadmium…lead… antimony etc may have leached from the solar panels shattered by hail in Canberra.
LW journalists couldn’t care less about carcinogens from solar panels…bird kill from turbines…GHGases NF3 and SF6 from manufacture of panels and turbines thousands of times the potency of CO2…they don’t give a damn about all the CO2 emitted in the constant ongoing manufacture of both solar panels and turbines…increasing exponentially from now on as it must…couldn’t care about regular over-voltage in solar homes…fire danger in homes from Li-ion batteries…they never defend Australia by pointing out the rancid hypocrisy of the massive burning of biomass in UK and Europe…its copious CO2 emissions uncounted…they WANT Australia to be roadkill for their global hoax.
If you were to rely on Australia’s journalists you would think Australia was powered >90% by RE now instead of >90% by the reviled baseload …mostly the demon coal.You’d think RE was massively successful and reliable..only held back by decrepit coal.
Australians have been turned into mushrooms mired in MSM-propagated horse manure.
10
Truth @ 12:30 wrote:
“In the next decade or so they’ll be having to replace the earlier turbines…each of them embedded in a massive concrete pad…will they dig them all up or will they run out of farmland space to build the next generation of turbines plus pads? ”
This seems to me not to consider simple replacement with new equipment:
At the top of a tower you see a nacelle, the covering of “all of the generating components in a wind turbine, including the generator, gearbox, drive train, and brake assembly. [Wiki…]
Much like the starter in an automobile, when the starter needs replaced, that’s what you fix. You don’t need to buy new tires or tyres.
00
If renewable energy was in use to build the stuff, what would it matter?
23
You poor naive little petal.
Renewable energy cannot be used to build ANYTHING.
Manufacturing requires 24/7 solid stable electricity.
Wind and Solar do not apply !!
32
[…] Maybe there is some justice in the world after all. Solar no longer a licence to steal money. […]
00
and elsewhere?
28 Jan: AP: Harvard professor charged with hiding China ties, payments
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER; Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report
BOSTON — A Harvard University professor was charged Tuesday with lying about his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program and concealing payments he received from the Chinese government for research.
Charles Lieber, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology, is accused of hiding his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a program designed to lure people with knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property to China…
He remained in federal custody after a brief court appearance Tuesday, pending a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday…
Authorities also announced charges against a researcher at Boston University, who is accused of lying about her ties to the Chinese military. Yanqing Ye, who prosecutors say is a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army, did work on behalf of the military while studying at the university, such as conducting research and sending documents and information to China, officials said…
Under Lieber’s Thousand Talents program contract, prosecutors say, he was paid $50,000 a month by the Wuhan University of Technology in China and living expenses up to $158,000. He was also awarded more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at the Chinese university, prosecutors said.
In exchange, prosecutors say, Lieber agreed to publish articles, organize international conferences and apply for patents on behalf of the Chinese university, among other things.
Lieber has been placed on administrative leave, Harvard officials said…
Last month, a medical student from China was also charged in Boston with trying to smuggle vials of research specimens in a sock in his suitcase bound for China. Zaosong Zheng, who was in the U.S. on a visa sponsored by Harvard, is accused of stealing the materials from a lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center…
Zheng was held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk. His attorney, Inga Bernstein, said in an email Tuesday that they are “looking forward to a jury trial so our client can be found not guilty.”
“All of them were either directly or indirectly working for the Chinese government at our country’s expense,” Bonavolonta said of Lieber and the others…
The Associated Press, relying on hundreds of pages of documents obtained through public records requests, reported last year that the FBI had been reaching out to colleges and universities across the countries to warn them of the threat of economic espionage on their campuses.
https://apnews.com/90af50ee87d5679d51177210f763e153
30
the Sierra Club & the rest of the CAGW mob clearly know nothing about fine cuisine. have they never talked to a good chef?
24 Jan: KQED: Environmentalists to California Restaurants: Drop Lawsuit Over Berkeley Gas Ban
By Ariana Remmel
Environmental organizations are urging the board members of a major lobbying group for California restaurants to reconsider their support for a lawsuit against Berkeley over the city’s ban on natural gas in new buildings.
Organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council released a letter they sent Tuesday to the restaurants of the California Restaurant Association’s board members.
“By carrying out this lawsuit, CRA is positioning themselves in alliance with oil and gas industry executives, and not on the side of the majority of Californians who support solutions to the climate crisis,” the letter said.
The restaurant association filed the lawsuit in November. It claims that a city ordinance allowing only electric appliances and temperature controls in new buildings is unlawful and will have a negative effect on restaurants. The suit argues that restaurants would not be able to properly prepare food or heat their buildings without access to natural gas. The association also questioned Berkeley’s rush toward a fully electric future amid increasing and irregular power outages across the state…
In an emailed statement, Jot Condie, president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, said that while his organization supports California’s climate goals, declining to sue over the Berkeley ordinance would amount to “malpractice.” He added that the ordinance harms restaurants because chefs rely on open flames to heat woks, sear meat and char vegetables. The association says they can’t achieve the same effects with electric stoves.
“It’s like taking paint away from a painter and asking them to create a masterpiece,” said Robert W. Phillips, a professional chef and chairman of the Chef De Cuisine Association of California in the press release that announced the lawsuit…
https://www.kqed.org/science/1956081/environmentalists-to-california-restaurants-drop-lawsuit-over-berkeley-gas-ban
40
” have they never talked to a good chef?”
Most likely no.
Probably snarled at plenty of waiters/waitresses though
00
Armageddon is nigh , only the fairies at the bottom of the garden will save us.
Left wing politics and hugely supportive media promote the fairies as our saviour .
Voters think the fairies are real , that is what they have been told .
Nobody can deny fairies are trying to save us .
21
28 Jan: REVE: Germany onshore wind energy growth slowed sharply in 2019
Wind power is one of the most important drivers of Germany’s transition to renewable energy and a related target for green energy to reach 65% of electricity production by 2030 will be missed at the current rate of turbine growth, engineering group VDMA and wind energy association BWE said.
“The industry estimates that, given that power demand is growing, an expansion (of onshore wind) by 5,000 MW per year is essential in order to reach the 65% target by 2030,” they said in a joint statement.
Their data showed operators installed only 1,078 megawatts (MW) of new onshore capacity in 2019.
This was 55% less than in 2018 and the lowest annual increase since the start of the renewable feed-in law of 2000 (EEG), which guaranteed wind turbines support payments…
There are plenty of challenges. Local citizens often hold up construction of new wind turbines near residential areas; there is much red tape at state level; and operators are uncertain about future profitability.
Some 4,000 MW of existing turbines will fall out of 20-year fixed EEG payments by the end of 2020, the two groups noted, while new capacity stands to make more modest rewards after a competitive auction system was introduced in 2017…
https://www.evwind.es/2020/01/28/germany-onshore-wind-energy-growth-slowed-sharply-in-2019/73276
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The Very Low Frequency pulsing of wind turbines entrains the human neurosystem and causes serious health and well-being issues.
But , of course, they are expendable when the larger cause is considered.
Germany and China getting rich.
Almost forgot: and saving the Planet.
KK
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Keith , an interesting report on German protest against wind turbines at Notrickszone:
https://notrickszone.com/2020/01/28/german-wind-projects-hit-intense-citizens-protests-dividing-once-harmonious-communities/#comments
-“In the region of Odenwald/Rothenberg, a planned additional wind farm of 13 turbines, each 250 meters tall, on the ridge between Rothenberg and Beerfelden was met with fierce protest from 300 demonstrators, reports regional online site Fact.de here.
According to Fact.de, “It was a strong appearance of the young Rothenberg citizens’ initiative proNatur, with support from many parts of the Odenwald.
What’s really impressive: the proNatur citizens protest group had been founded just 6 days earlier!
Irmgard Neuer, spokeswoman of the citizens’ initiative said: “A good 300 people of all age groups had gathered at the gymnasium in Rothenberg with banners, drums, whistles and warning vests to loudly oppose the planned additional wind farm of enormous dimensions in the region.””-
-“One of the protest mobilizers, leader Vera Krug of Siedelsbrunn, admonished her fellow protesters “not to let up and to inform all fellow citizens about the negative effects of the industrialization of nature”.
“No destruction of nature ever has a positive effect on the climate”, Vera Krug stated.
Local citizens fear that the quality of life in the area would be severely damaged by the installation of 13 huge wind turbines “without any real benefit for the climate”.”-
Straws in the wind?
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Thanks, good to see common sense, self preservation, starting to appear.
Wind turbines are hell for locals. Heart/lung problems on top of chronic nausea/seasickness.
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It’s the stomping of the elephants.
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On your mind. !
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29 Jan: Transcript: Prime Minister of Australia:
National Press Club, ACT
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/address-national-press-club
Speers has settled in:
29 Jan: ABC Analysis: Scott Morrison knows where his political weaknesses lie — but he won’t give any ground
By Insiders host David Speers
Updated about an hour ago
He wants the states to carry out more hazard reduction burning, lift their game on fire-resistant building materials and defer powers to the Commonwealth to deploy Defence resources during an emergency.
Most of this, which falls into the category of climate “adaptation and resilience”, will require cooperation and concessions from the states. There is no certainty they will be of a mind to give Scott Morrison all he wants…
A convenient equation
The Prime Minister insists these practical steps (tackling the symptoms) are just as important as tackling emissions (the cause) when it comes to climate change. This is a convenient equation, given the great political difficulty he faces when it comes to emissions.
The Government is not about to increase Australia’s emissions reduction target. That is clear.
But it clearly understands the need to come up with a more credible path to show how it will “meet and beat” the target. Now, the Prime Minister flagged a potential new approach.
He revealed new “bilateral agreements on energy and emissions reductions with each state and territory” will soon be unveiled, starting with NSW.
While the details are yet to emerge, bilateral agreements with the states that focus on “keeping energy prices affordable, improving the reliability of the electricity grid and driving down emissions” sounds an awful lot like an ad-hoc version of the National Energy Guarantee.
There’s no chance the NEG will be miraculously revived, but this could perhaps be a mechanism to give industry the certainty it craves and at least get federal and state governments working more closely together to fix the nation’s energy policy mess.
Voters see through the spin…
The Prime Minister’s speech will do little to silence his critics over the sports rorts affair or climate change, but it does reveal how he intends to tackle these vulnerabilities ahead of Parliament returning next week.
Scott Morrison knows where his weaknesses lie and wants to fix them. But he won’t give any ground.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/scott-morrison-knows-his-weaknesses-but-wont-give-ground/11909328
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pat:
Interesting. Morrison will claim he wants lower electricity bills with lower emissions, the States (esp. Qld & Vic & SA for what that is worth) will oppose him in order to bring in more “renewables”. Morrison can then claim that his nebulous plan would have done so but for the opposition of the State Premiers.
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Graeme No.3 –
nonetheless, a pity no-one has the guts to pull Australia out of Paris. it really isn’t in our interest, given our plentiful supply of fossil fuels. why continue in something that only benefits EU and China?
novel length; lots of waffling, but hardly a ringing endorsement for veganism:
28 Jan: BBC Future: How a vegan diet could affect your intelligence
The Vegan Factor
The vegan diet is low in – or, in some cases, entirely devoid of – several important brain nutrients. Could these shortcomings be affecting vegans’ abilities to think?
by Zaria Gorvett
“I think there are some real repercussions to the fact that plant-based diets are taking off,” says Taylor Wallace, a food scientist and CEO of the nutrition consulting firm Think Healthy Group. “It’s not that plant-based is inherently bad, but I don’t think we’re educating people enough on, you know, the nutrients that are mostly derived from animal products.”
One of the most well-known challenges for vegans is getting enough vitamin B12, which is only found in animal products like eggs and meat…
To see how crucial B12 is for the brain, take what happens when we don’t get enough of it. In children, the consequences of B12 deficiency can be life-altering…
Other common deficiencies among vegans include D3, omega-3, selenium, folate and iodine…READ ON
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet-could-affect-your-intelligence
on the other hand, this is spooky in its advocacy. probably deserves about 5mins at most:
AUDIO: 27m32s: 27 Jan: BBC The Conversation (Women’s Voices): Vegan Campaigners
Is veganism more than just a food fad or diet trend? Research suggests the majority of vegans are female – why?
Kim Chakanetsa talks to two women who promote a vegan diet about the challenges they face getting their message across – and the anger they encounter from those who see it as a criticism of their own choices.
***Selene Nelson is a British American freelance journalist, activist and author of Yes Ve-gan! In 2018 she offered an article to a supermarket chain magazine on vegan cookery and the editor responded including a joke suggestion for a series on “killing vegans one by one”. When his email was included in an article about hostile attitudes to vegans it caused such a furore he resigned.
***Itua Iyoha set up Eat Right Naija after transitioning to a vegan diet herself. She wants to share what she’s learned with others in Nigeria and support them to make the change. She says she faces questions about whether she can’t afford meat, is seriously ill or whether she’ll ever find a man to marry her.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csynkj
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***Selene Nelson’s Twitter page shows she’s lucky to get a single reply; hardly a thought leader, yet she managed this:
23 Jan 2020: Daily Mail: Waitrose food magazine editor who lost his job for joking about ‘killing vegans’ reveals he’s tried plant-based diet for a week – with the help of the journalist who exposed him
•William Sitwell resigned from Waitrose magazine after ‘killing vegan’ comments
•Former Etonian appears to have changed his views and went vegan for a week
•He berated a lot of vegan food, but said that he felt lighter at the end of the week
•Intends to cut back and be more conscious when he does eat meat
By Bridie Pearson-jones
But 15 months on, the former Etonian – who is now a food critic and Masterchef judge – appears to have softened his views by avoiding all meat and animal by-products for a week under Selene’s mentorship.
Writing about his experience for the Telegraph, he vowed at the end of the week that he would cut back on meat and dairy intake, and be more conscious about the animal products he does eat, including making sure they’re locally-sourced…
The pair have become friends since William’s controversial emails and worked together on the food writer’s week of veganism…
Mr Sitwell – full name William Ronald Sacheverell Sitwell – is a great-nephew of avant garde poet Dame Edith Sitwell.
He was once married to aristocrat Laura McCorquodale, a kinswoman of famous romantic author Dame Barbara Cartland.
Last year he tied the knot to his second wife, Emily Lopes, daughter of the late Devonshire race-horse breeder the 3rd Lord Roborough.
The Sitwell family has held a baronetcy for more than 200 years and has owned the country house of Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire for even longer.
Emily’s cousin, Harry, is married to Laura Parker Bowles, daughter of the Duchess of Cornwall.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-7915833/Waitrose-food-magazine-editor-lost-job-vegan-remarks-goes-vegan-week.html
***Itua Iyoha, Associate at McKinsey & Company
Apr 2019 – Present
Al-Riyadh Governorate, Saudi Arabia
Business Analyst. McKinsey & Company
Sep 2014 – Aug 2017
Education:
Said Business School, University of Oxford
Master of Business Administration – MBA
2017-2018
https://ng.linkedin.com/in/itua-iyoha
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Boy your a sad lot, unable to grasp a simple concept, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can put it like this, you can’t see through colored glass because of a small amount of doping. The atmosphere becomes less transparent to heat radiation for a similar reason.
The problem for you lot is pointing out errors in models, drawing temperature graph that end in 2010 when it is 2020 and the other nonsense used to try and discredit scientists is not going to change the facts. It is getting warmer, and it is a complex system changing in complex ways.
Global banks are aware of the dangers
For decades, sceptics have disputed the science of climate change. Now they want to ignore the economics.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/why-finance-is-fleeing-fossil-fuels/11903928
Morrison knows a pivot has to occur, today’s speech :-
To guide Australia’s future technology investments, the Government will next month release for consultation a new technology roadmap charting the way forward in areas such as:
Hydrogen,
Solar and batteries,
Transmission and networks,
Large-scale energy storage, and
Carbon capture and storage.
So our climate action agenda is a practical one, it goes beyond targets and summits and it’s driven by technology, not taxation.
As an aside network solar has issues at the moment because the changes needed to the transmission system are well behind where they should be. It has little to with what was written, which is so wrong it is best ignored. The comments are entertaining.
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Fred dear, your proposals for solving the New York horse manure problem are well organized. Do we really need a roadmap? Don’t even think nuclear. Don’t think.
Regarding solar, the rich man has his ice in the summer and the poor man gets his in the winter.
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CARBON DIOXIDE IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE ON EARTH
Earth’s climate has been changing for at least four billion years in cycles large and small. Few in the climate debate understand those changes and their causes. Many are fixated on carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor constituent of the atmosphere, but one absolutely necessary for life as we know it. (In the process of photosynthesis, terrestrial plants, and phytoplankton, kelp, and algal plankton in the oceans use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen.) Perhaps this fixation derives from ulterior political motives for controlling the global economy. For others, the true believers, perhaps this fixation derives from ignorance.
Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore has written an excellent summary of the history of carbon dioxide on Earth titled, “The Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions On the Survival of Life on Earth.” In this 24-page paper, Moore notes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. Currently, atmospheric CO2 stands at about 400 ppm which is about one-third the level for optimum plant growth.
Phanerozoic temp CO2 moore
Here is the executive summary of Moore’s paper:
This study looks at the positive environmental effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a topic which has been well established in the scientific literature but which is far too often ignored in the current discussions about climate change policy. All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere. As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth.
This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation. It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments. The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees. Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.
Moore presents a concise history of CO2 beginning in the Cambrian Period 540 million years ago when CO2 was about 7,000 ppm. He follows that with a discussion of how carbon is distributed today between the atmosphere, oceans, plant life, and rocks.
In his concluding remarks, Moore briefly discusses the politics of CO2 and notes: ” Lost in all these machinations is the indisputable fact that the most important thing about CO2 is that it is essential for all life on Earth and that before humans began to burn fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was heading in a very dangerous direction for a very long time.”
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/carbon-dioxide-is-necessary-for-life-on-earth/
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Gees you are a sad , brain-hosed fool.
You know NOTHING except what you are fed by the non-scientists, and don’t want to learn.
Please produce empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes warming.
This is the very basis of the whole AGW scam
And it there is no empirical evidence for it at all.
Warming by atmospheric CO2 has NEVER been observed or measured anywhere on the planet, because even if it did exists, it would be immediately countered by the over-riding thermal gradient.
I know the basic physics is way beyond you, but at least try, rather than being a dumb parrot.
Do your own thinking, if you are capable.
Don’t just regurgitate the same old anti-science mantra.
The warming since the LIA has been total natural, and highly beneficial to all life on Earth, particularly with the increase in atmospheric CO2
There has been no warming over Australia this century.
And there has been no warming over the last 40 year except at El Ninos, so the warming has NOT been caused by human CO2
You are such a sad, scientifically illiterate twerp, fred
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ps. Using the ABC as a citation.. You have GOT to be joking !!
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“Hydrogen” Storage, cost of production, (uses electricity), safety
“Solar and batteries” capacity is impossible to achieve, highly dangerous, child mining, batteries are not generation. Cost of solar+ batteries is very high.
“Transmission and networks,” Only needed from the new HELE power stations they will have to build sooner or later.. probably later once blackouts become a regular occurrence and the people wake up to reality. You won;’t be one of those that wake up.
“Large-scale energy storage” Do the maths on storage for say Sydney, what a joke.. and its not generation anyway.
“Carbon capture and storage” What a waste of much needed atmospheric CO2. ! And it will not make any difference whatsoever to anything except cost.
NOTHING Australia does will have even the slightest effect on atmospheric CO2, PERIOD. !
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28 Jan: Guardian: Extinction Rebellion: charges against five protesters dismissed
Judge says ‘abject failure’ by CPS left case lacking key prosecution witness as police officer goes on holiday
by Damian Carrington
Before the hearing on Tuesday, the former government chief scientist Sir David King had backed Extinction Rebellion over the climate emergency. “What we are talking about is the most important issue humanity has ever had to face up to,” he said, speaking outside the court. “And when I say humanity I mean all of us. We’re all in this boat together.”
“No government, including ours, is doing enough today,” King said. “So what we need is much more action and we need it with a public voice. That’s what Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion have done. They’ve put it back on the front pages.” (OF THE FAKENEWSMSM)…
King had written a witness statement that could have been admitted as evidence in the case. In it, he said: “It is hard to see how the global temperature rise is to be limited, on average, to 1.5C in the very narrow timeframe still available unless it becomes a matter of real urgency within the spheres of national and global politics.”…
Valentine, a mathematics student at the University of Sussex, said: “The terrifying immediacy of our situation is hard to grasp but needs to be communicated, which is why I take action with Extinction Rebellion. I didn’t want to be arrested, it wasn’t fun, I would have much rather have been at home. But the devastation of our planet isn’t going to wait for me or any of us.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/extinction-rebellion-charges-against-five-protesters-dismissed
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madness:
VIDEO: 3m38s: 29 Jan: BBC: Snotsicles and snowdrifts: Extreme climate science
“Snotsicle” – distinctly unattractive masses of frozen snot – are just some of the challenges of doing science in a place as extreme as the Antarctic.
Scientists fear the Thwaites Glacier could be beginning a process of catastrophic collapse.
There is more than three metres of potential sea level rise in the ice of West Antarctica, enough to swamp many of the great cities of the world and drive hundreds of millions of people from their homes.
The BBC’s chief environment correspondent, Justin Rowlatt travelled with a team of scientists who are part of a $50m (£38m) joint US-UK project.
But, as he discovered, doing science in one of the most extreme environments on Earth is not easy.
Filming by Jemma Cox
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-51280676/snotsicles-and-snowdrifts-extreme-climate-science
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lengthy, read all – attacks Paul Homewood too:
28 Jan: Engineering&Technology: UK climate change sceptics group is stronger than ever
By ***Ben Heubl
An E&T investigation reveals that a prominent British climate change sceptics group is taking advantage of a favourable political environment while strengthening its ties to international supporters and surviving an examination by the Charities Commission. Keen to engage in online climate change debate, the GWPF growing its influence in the engineering and technology sector too.
Who could have imagined that climate change scepticism would see such a moment of revival – especially in the UK, with new net-zero legislation in place and youth pressure mounting? The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) did. Patiently it waited for years for this moment. It seems there has never been a better time to insert its unscientific views into UK politics and the engineering sector. Last year’s annual lecture by the group was all about engineering. Its speaker argued that the UK’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 was beset by superficial thinking that ignores engineering reality…READ ON
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/01/top-uk-climate-change-sceptics-group-is-stronger-than-ever/
presumably writer above is this guy:
Data Journalism Award Winners: ***Ben Heubl, Data Journalist, Freelance, United Kingdom
Data Journalist with an in-depth knowledge of business/economics/finance, China/Asia, and statistics.Specializes in data-driven and investigative reporting, prediction models, news graphics, statistical analysis of structured and unstructured data and research.Previous data journalism work for major global newsrooms includes the Financial Times, Nikkei Asian Review and the Economist.Alumnus of the news journalism program at the London School of Journalism.
https://datajournalismawards.org/members/ben/
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29 Jan: ABC America: National arugula shortage due to wet, cold growing conditions
Farms in Florida and the Southwest are seeing lower yields
by Kelly McCarthy
The shortfall is due to the “unexpectedly cold and wet winter weather facing growers throughout the Southwest,” according to the New Food Economy (LINK).
Those harsh conditions “paved the way for the spread of a fungal disease called downy mildew,” which has made it difficult to produce healthy crops, the article further explained.
The shortage has already been felt by shoppers, purveyors and and diners across the country.
In New York, the fast casual Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava posted signs Monday saying there was no arugula available for their mixed greens or grain bowls…READ ON
https://abcnews.go.com/US/national-arugula-shortage-due-wet-cold-growing-conditions/story?id=68588141
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The only way to ‘run’ a ‘solar power economy’ is to let the market decide. That way it will occupy its natural position. Solar is best off grid – that part is extremely obvious. So cater for it off grid – solar lighting and low amperage power, solar water heaters, solar cookers (where are they?)… and no subsidies. Treat it like any other technology – if the consumer likes the product they will buy it and hence pay for it.
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Provided your supplier isn’t DC Solar (specialising in off-grid). Those guilty pleas in California (about ‘sales’ of non-existing units) mean that the proprietors may be unavailable for some years.
00