JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
My, my, my, it’s a beautiful day!
61
It is, a bit windy here but I’ve been out putting evil fossil fuel derived plastic over my frost intolerant plants so that maybe they’ll survive the winter even of I don’t.
90
try hessian then
41
I use a fine plastic mesh, but it may not save them this winter, now that global cooling has begun.
40
Big question is, why do you have frost intolerant plants in a frost prone area 😉
70
ps. May I suggest you build a greenhouse, to keep them warm! 🙂
70
And do an occasional small, waste paper burn to keep the plants both warm and fed.
10
There are a whole range of plants and trees which do not tolerate frosts when young but do fine when larger. For example avocados, citrus, guavas.
I protected mine from frosts 4 weeks ago.
32
Green shade cloth Bob is a better option
Tp put around your frost intolerant plants.
Best if there is a slope to the frosty air falls away from them as well..
33
My uncle had a citrus orchard and used to turn the sprinklers on for a burst at night when frost was imminent. If it got cold enough for frost then the water froze on the fruit and protected it from the frost. Apparently frozen water was ok even though frost wasn’t.
Have no idea if that works on garden plants.
70
Yes, well known commercial growers ‘trick’.
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/spray-fruit-trees-water-before-freeze-57933.html
40
The moisture in the air from turning on the sprinklers in the citrus or avocado orchards,
Stops the air from cooling down at night as quickly, or as low as the dryer air.
So the trees are damaged much less.
42
Hi,hi beautiful Sunday
30
🙂
10
Well, near the top so let me call for the unconstitutional elements of our completely unnecessary lockdowns to end, to be replaced by other effective constitutional methods like test and quarantine of the sick (Taiwan style).
Let’s end the kick in the guts to 3 million private sector battlers … we certainly aren’t all in it together…
154
The border closures are prohibited under Section 92 of the constitution.
Years ago somebody challenged The Australian Wheat Board’s statutory monopoly in the Australian wheat trade. The court allowed the monopoly to continue with a 3-2 decision, because all states had agreed to that monopoly. Lionel Murphy was one of the majority judges.
On that basis the current closures would depend on agreement between at least two adjoining states. I don’t see that happening.
Governments should take note of today’s court decision that the Gillard government’s ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 was unlawful.
52
I don’t think it does, Ted.
This is what section 92 says:
“On the imposition of uniform duties of customs, trade, commerce, and intercourse among the States, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free.
But notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, goods imported before the imposition of uniform duties of customs into any State, or into any Colony which, whilst the goods remain therein, becomes a State, shall, on thence passing into another State within two years after the imposition of such duties, be liable to any duty chargeable on the importation of such goods into the Commonwealth, less any duty paid in respect of the goods on their importation.”
There are no uniform duties on “intercourse” (if that means travel between the States). Travel is free of duties.
It seems to me section 92 is about the imposition of duties etc. That means that travel between the States and Territories will be free of duties, ie charges and fees. It says nothing about border closures being prohibited for what ever reason, including health reasons.
The High Court has made no ruling on this. Thus the whole question is open to debate. however, as written the Constitution doesn’t seem to prevent the States from closing their borders.
30
I have been spending money selectively to kick start small business as much as possible…small business is the main employment engine in this country.
The big boys can fend for themselves easily enough….
120
Some people might look upon data collection and writing about it a singularly boring thing to do. Having now been doing that data collection for electrical power for more than four years it’s hours every day that you never get back.
However, virtually every day I find something that is interesting in all of it.
I’m doing the data now for wind generation, and these are exciting times for that. (well, someone might say that I guess) Why it might ….. ‘seem’ exciting for those wind supporters, that is because there is now quite a large total for wind power, so they might think that wind power is taking over. (something that is patently false in fact)
That Nameplate is now 7728MW, and to put that in some perspective, that’s THREE times the Nameplate of Bayswater. Huuuuge, eh! (/sarc)
However, as I have always said. it’s not the Nameplate but the generated power, and when it comes to that, the total power delivered by wind generation comes in at 17000GWH per year, and, umm, that is exactly the same as the generated power for Bayswater in the same year.
So, all of that wind power and only now have they equalled the power delivery from ….. ONE large scale coal fired power plant, from what is now 64 of those wind plants, at an enormous cost.
However, there is now something which is becoming more and more apparent.
The vast numbers of these (now 64 of them) Wind Plants are in the South Eastern part of South Australia, and in Central West Victoria, and while that is indeed quite a large area, there are a lot of them in that area, and more opening up.
You can tell now (and it’s fairly easy really) when wind generation will be high or low as those large High pressure weather systems move across the Country from West to East. The difference in the number of isobars indicates wind intensity, the more isobars, the higher the wind, the higher the power generation, and then when the centre of that High is over that area I mentioned above, and the centre of those Highs covers that pretty large area, then wind is way way down, as is power generation. It’s easy to predict as well, and if you go to that Aneroid site, and click on the graph for just wind generation, look immediately to the right of the graph, and you see the Synoptic Analysis, and you can watch as those Highs approach, and you know power generation will fall.
Okay, so, picture painted.
As the number of those wind plants in that area increases, it is now the case that they are all affected by those Highs, and they all lose power generation.
So, what is happening now, is that the power generation falls away markedly for all of them. NOW, there are more of them, so that fall in power can be quite substantial, and in fact that is now becoming more and more evident.
This might seem like a slow drop off in power, but it is in fact happening quite speedily.
I have now noticed falls of between 500 and 800MW in as little as 15 Minutes, sometimes even in a shorter duration.
So, if this was a high wind situation (or even the failure of the towers or the plant itself) then that drop would be vertical, the immediate loss of power. This however is different, as it is a gradual loss of power as some towers go down, and some still stay spinning, later going down themselves.
What is also now becoming apparent also is that because the Nameplate is now so high (that 7728MW) then as the wind falls away across the whole area, then the swing between high power generation and low power are becoming larger in nature, and now I am seeing falls of up to 3000MW between high and low, and those drops are spread across two hours or so. (that’s the equivalent of SIX coal fired power Units)
See where I’m going now.
Remember all those times when a coal fired Unit went off line, whether it failed, or even just for scheduled maintenance mind you, those wind power supporters rushed to tell all and sundry just how unreliable those ancient coal fired plants really are, and how totally unreliable they are. As with coal fired power Units going off line, then that has to be made up by hydro and natural gas fired power, and it’s now the same for wind power when it alo drops by these similar amounts.
Well, right now, and forever into the future, the EXACT same thing is now happening with wind generation.
I’m now in the process of checking back for perhaps a year maybe, depends on how many times this has happened. That’s the advantage now of recording and keeping all this data. A task like this now becomes immeasurably simpler.
Incidentally, with this current time when we are having some days of high wind generation, it’s easy to see the Macarthur wind plant, that largest wind plant in the Country, generating its power on the graph, as it is way on the top of all other wind plants. Macarthur has a Nameplate of 420MW. It regularly now is reaching a peak of 380MW, and I cannot recall the last time I have seen it higher than that, so a wind plant now only seven years old, is only managing to reach 90% of it’s Nameplate, indicative now of all wind plants.
The overall Capacity Factor is still only 29%, and while some days and even weeks are higher, long term CF is still stuck at 29%.
Tony.
300
Tony, your CF is correct, there is even a formula that calculates the output from windmills that shows it is almost impossible to get better than that especially in a ‘distributed generating facility’ (wind farm).
Another thing, maybe we should be calling the coal fired units Biomass units. It may be old concentrated biomass but it is still biomass and cuts down on cutting down trees.
200
Love it!
CBU.
Concentrated Biomass Units.
Super clean biomass, well aged, no sleazy oils, and most importantly, highly concentrated.
The Ultimate Fuel; TUF.
KK
140
Forgot to add:
Crushes easily under minimum pressure to expose maximum surface area for optimal combustion.
Wow, where can we get this fuel.
Clean, dry, non oily, low energy preparation, proven isolation of combustion components, high calorific value:
Natures Gift.
KK
180
KK You forgot, byproduct “Plant Food”.
70
Excellent.
60
And “organic”
30
That’s the clincher.
We gotta have this!
20
Tony:
Similar thing in South Australia where the wind farms are being ‘constrained’ by lack of local industry (too many firms shut down or moved away) and the rush into rooftop solar panels (to avoid the world’s highest electricity). The State Govt. is pushing solar + batteries as a way of covering the late afternoon/early evening peak demand. This has a long payback time with a low feed-in tariff even using the day’s generation at peak rates time. This has caused bigger and bigger solar panel installations (meaning bigger sudden drops in generation when there is a cloud etc.) as those sucked in try to make the system pay.
The wind farms are suffering (Boo Hoo) as the increasing solar output cuts the amount of generation needed. Indeed, were it not for interconnector to Vic. they would have little or no market when the sun shines. That’s why they are so keen on an interconnector to NSW, to dump surplus electricity onto the vast industrial complexes in Hay and Booligal.
Right now their CFs have shrunk from just over 30% to 27%. That means a loss in earnings. Not a good investment for the future.
150
Despatchable?
In the UK wind is now down to 0.48GW, which is 1.59% of demamd.
Roll on the EVs.
100
All foreseeable to any descent engineer who carried out due diligence and a proper risk assessment
However with our political class and msm and ABC you get due dill I gents and a brisk assessment with the consumer suffering from a frisky outcome
100
Engineering never got a look in. No competent engineer would have done what we have done.
50
I started to watch Q&A last Monday hoping for a balanced discussion, but immediately noted that not one technical (or engineering) representative was there to give an “operational” overview of our power system.
What a pity. As Tony has shown us on many occasions, energy from wind is cyclical – up with the cold fronts moving through, and virtually gone when the following high pressure system squats over SE Australia. Managing the load balance for our grid must be a lot like an that of air traffic controllers.
There is an engineering (and therefore logical) solution – mandate that the owners of wind and solar collectives install their own grid scale battery backup or invest in their own gas plants to maintain a capacity factor similar to old man coal. It should not be up to the taxpayer to keep on bailing out these collectives.
50
Strewth Rowjay, one doesn’t watch qanda for the balance of expressed views, rather it is the weekly catechism class to ensure ABC viewers are word perfect in its groupthink.
30
Crikey Serp – I was hoping that the lack of live audience applause for the cause might bring some reality to the show, but alas…..
20
But Tony, the climate alarmists and believers in the future of “renewables” have different facts – a bit like the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984. On Q&A this week, the independent member for Waringah, Zali Stegall, stated: “We’ve had a report for 2019 – renewables has equalled coal in power generation”.
From AEMO data for 2020, average generation:
Coal 15.5 GW, wind 2.0 GW, solar 2.1 GW, gas 1.7 GW, hydro 1.6 GW. Total 22.9 GigaWatts.
So coal provided 67.7% of total generation. And in Zali’s home state of NSW, coal provided 79.7% of generation.
But will the ABC fact check Zali?
90
Funnily enough, the Left through tactical rent-a-crowd riots have actually stupidly just given Trump his election victory.
All he has to do is point to the Communist raised fists at the riots and point out it’s all Left wing brain-dead agro that’s driving it. And I haven’t seen the Dems condemning it, which might mean….
Wouldn’t be surprised if one particular US billionaire is funding all the activity….
Also, if some mayor’s can be shown to cause police to stand down and not deal with rioters and looters, then they should go to jail with all thier little pals …..maybe they could have an antifa sing along in sing sing….
170
George Soros is behind Antifa, as part of his funding action to shut down alternative view free speech via orchestrated protest movements that adopt violent tactics. These anti-free-speech assaults include the 2017 May Day Riots across the US, the California University, Berkeley, the violent protests \in February to prevent Milo Yiannopoulos’ speaking at the University, and include the Anti-Trump Inauguration protest in Washington. in January 2017.
An groupcalled Rise-Up Org. that claimed responsibility for the May Day violence that erupted across the US on May 1st, 2017, is a left-wing organisation financed by Alliance for Global Justice, one of Soros’ top 150, seven figure grantees. It is also funded, indirectly by Tides Foundation, number 3 on Soros,’ Open Sosiety Foundation grantee list. Tides gave AfGJ $50, 000, according to the AfGJ 990 tax form.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/03/look-who-funds-the-group-behind-the-call-to-arms-at-milos-berkeley-event/
Many inter-connections, Rise-up is connected to Antifa, and Antifa is an alias of Refuse Fascism, which is sponsored by AFGJ which is funded by Tides Foundation which is also funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundation… Here arelinks that reveal the Rise Up Org. trail.:
https://medium.com/how-soros-came-to-own-or-fund-antifa-is-irrelevant-to-this-discussion
230
Thanks for that Beth, I like to know what’s behind the screen but I don’t go looking for it.
Good to have it laid out like that.
KK
70
The media, however, still refers to them as ‘protestors’ even when reporting on them shooting at police and national guard. I feel sorry for anyone who really believes that these well funded and planned riots are really spontaneous protests about “race”. Thanks to the wuhan flu, there are lots of unemployed useful idiots out there to do the grunt work and take the blame.
If I had $1 for every time the media compare these thugs to Hong Kong protestors (combined with all that filthy denier funding from “big oil”), I would never have to work again.
120
Yeah funny how one day they are terrorists, the next day “freedom fighters”…..
I am hoping once all this dies down, a proper Nuremberg Trial for the socialist Media thugs too…..
110
JM,
Remember so many past protests with chants of What do we want (desire)…. When do we want it?” “Now!”
Missing in May/June 2020 is WHAT the protestors want.
They mostly want to see Donald Trump gone. They know he will get more votes if they changed that while burning and stealing. The whole sad episode us one of fraud, with the fraudsters more bold because that can hide from cameras behind Covid masks. Geoff S
50
Yes I agree.
These riots across America will guarantee Trump’s victory in November.
Similar to what happened in 1968 when Nixon won against a riotous Democrat party.
Stupidity always betrays itself.
91
well that ended well
00
Communist fists – ‘Black Power’ isn’t it, chiefly associated with the Black Panthers, I guess the non-blacks doing it for ‘solidarity’ are clueless?
The ‘why all whites are racist and don’t know it and aren’t qualified to comment’ narrative coming from the BBC today is quite extraordinary.
I gave up posting on one of my favourite (Haymarket) sites as they would not accept a word of caution with regards ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter etc.
The quickly deleted ANTIFA message to take the riots into the white hoods and take what is theirs, says it all.
None of this is (or should be) about racism. A powerful drugged up man, probable criminal, was legitimately arrested, but inappropriately restrained by an officer with 18 complaints against him – is that normal for the job (aggrieved criminals put in complaints all the time, were they related to racial prejudice). We’ve been through all this before, blacks are not disproportionately killed by US police – it’s an activist lie. At the moment there is no proof this was a racial issue at all – just an interaction between a cop and a criminal that went wrong. On police documentaries in the UK we see 5 cops jump on a prisoner for ‘tensing up’ and hold him in pain and discomfort for 20 minutes, half an hour, whatever, until the van arrives – this is not risk free, but cops have to be able to control dangerous potentially violent people – you can’t not do that because someone is not white – but I doubt a knee to the neck is an approved technique.
Thomas Sowell should be mandatory in all schools, until people (mainly the supposed ‘victims’) start thinking differently, this issue is never going to end. Just a snippet.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/07/who-racist-thomas-sowell/
50
Link denied Try again…
https://medium.com/@Sard0n1ca/how-soros-came-to-own-or-fund-antifa-is-irrelevant-to-this-discussion-b53a5b9e3283
20
Only 0.2 sunspots measured for May 2020. Don’t sell your coat.
120
Channel 10 weather report stated Melbourne accumulated rainfall in 2020 to 1st June is the highest in 155 year old record. This chart certainly shows it is the best for a decade:
http://www.baywx.com.au/accumall.html
And the wettest YTD in this record:
http://www.baywx.com.au/WWW/accumall67.png
60
BoM is warming to the idea that floods are coming.
‘The Bureau’s ENSO Outlook is currently at INACTIVE. However, if recent cooling at both the surface and beneath the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean persists, and any more models suggest La Niña-like conditions in spring, the ENSO Outlook will shift to La Niña WATCH.’
50
Jo,
Surprised at the slip showing, “up the kazoo” is not the usual ladylike Jo expression. BTW, what does it mean, apart from sounding rude? Geoff S
41
The kazoo is an American musical instrument that adds a “buzzing” timbral quality to a player’s voice when the player vocalizes or hums into it.
Nope, that’s not it. But, depending on your level of need for haemorrhoid cream your kazoo could produce a similar sound.
Kazoo Synomyms – Coight, bunghole, chocolate starfish, browneye, clacker, sphinx, or (block your ears) bum.
Colloquial: “road tested for safety’s sake up the kazoo” – thoroughly tested, excessively tested
60
I am now an old bloke when I was young I remember my father playing a kazoo. It was a normal comb for your hair with grease proof paper folded over it from the spine side and left loose on the teeth.
Put your mouth over the spine and blow you vary the note by surreptitious use of your fingers.
10
I posted this on the last unthreaded and thanks to Kalm Keith who replied. Has anyone else got a perspective, perhaps with a link to a science paper? I am trying to see how many years of hair shirt wearing are in prospect in order to get back to the ‘upper safe limits’ of 350ppm Thanks
—- ——
“Lets assume the world reaches a state of zero emissions in 2050 with a final figure of 450 ppm as emissions gradually taper off.
how many Years would it take for co2 to naturally decay from the atmosphere to reach 350ppm, James Hansen’s designated upper safe limit?
What theoretical temperature reduction would that reduction of 100 ppm result in, bearing in mind the logarithmic impact of co2”
20
Another little ice age ought to do it as the oceans cool and increase their uptake of carbon dioxide; whether the diminution would survive Mauna Loa’s homogenising data processing suite is moot.
60
tonyb:
The 350 p.p.m. figure is ficticious. We “reached” this in 1986-7 but it is based on the ice core CO2 figures, and Global Warming slowed down. Don’t get me wrong, I see no false or adjusted figures (unlike the supposed temperature figures) but I query why the figures were so low for ‘ice ages’ after “ice ages” over the last 800,000 years. It is accepted that a level of CO2 below 170 p.p.m. would make it impossible for plant life to survive, so surely any figure below 200 p.p.m. would see some loss of plant life which must mean a loss of animal life. There is no sign of that in the geological record – yes, there were extinctions but apparently only around 13,000 years ago in the lower Dryas (cooling period) when the CO2 level was higher.
There was the curious case at the start of the Holocene when the CO2 level (ice cores) rose above 260 p.p.m. and didn’t rise much thereafter despite ample evidence that the temperature was higher than at present. Also the Eemian (previous interglacial) with temperatures definitely higher than today (sea levels up to 6 metres higher, lions, giraffes, elephants, hippos in the Thames Valley) but the CO2 rose no higher than 285 p.p.m. So Henry’s Law seems to be an On-Off affair.
Then there are the plant stomata figures which show a higher CO2 level when the temperature was higher, but are discarded as “unreliable”.
All too often the Academic world is stuck in the belief that CO2 causes Global Warming but not in the (scientifically valid) idea that warming causes higher CO2. The current shutdown is most unwelcome in that a big reduction in man made CO2 emissions hasn’t resulted in a reduction in the rise in CO2 levels. I expect that these figures will be ADJUSTED shortly
50
“Don’t get me wrong, I see no false or adjusted figures “
Just carefully selected…
20
Graeme
What we believe is immaterial as it is the ruling elite and their green acolytes who are calling the shots. they will attempt to make the ‘climate emergency’ as urgent a problem as covid 19.
people will have to give up a lot of modern benefits to cut rates to zero emissions and it will be many more years to get back below 350ppm.
the public might think twice if it took say a century to reach the targets the scientists want. hence I am trying to find some official figures for the likely time for co2 at 450ppm to slim down by 100ppm
20
It can’t be made to happen.
20
Yes, to suppose so takes on board the deluded view that man’s engineering is of a scale to rival nature’s; our fiddling about on the earth’s crust is insignificant on the scale at which climate is created.
40
If you check those “reliable” figures in the Vostok graphs – supplied on this blog – you will see that the CO2 level starts to drop about 1900 years after the temperature starts dropping into the next ice age.
Of course we can count on a shorter time because man-made emissions will drop (as recently) and we will see the same effect (as recently) = zero. (If you agree that the contribution from our emissions is around 3% of the total carbon cycle, then the good news is that the drop should only take 1840 years.) This is slightly longer than the claim that the extra CO2 (from mankind) that this CO2 will still be around for 1,000 years. (I forget who said this, I think Flannery but probably it was just a repeating of another climate scare story by the twittering cult believers).
30
Hi Graeme,
not sure how to read that, unless we are looking to the end of the current interglacial.
If temperatures do start to fall into the next ice age there will be the delayed removal of CO2 from the air.
The time lapse does vary on the graphs, you’ve mentioned 1900 years, and at other spots it’s been about 800.
🙂 KK
30
KK:
Sorry, my mistake. I was working on the false claim that CO2 started to rise at the same time as the temperature, hence the time to drop to start after the interglacial would also lengthen.. Nonsense, but I have already pointed out that the Gullibles think that Henry’s Law can be turned off when convenient.
So, if we stop burning all fossil fuels (with the collapse in population and life style) we might get the CO2 level back down starting in 800 years. I can’t see a “back to the stone age” program being popular, nor easy to introduce – for a start all Climate Conferences would have to be cancelled.
20
Why are you asking us to speculate on a scenario we do not believe is possible ?
CO2 ppm will not stop let alone start reducing , just because anthropogenic emmissions are reduced, even down to zero ( but that wont happen either )
You could ask an “ alarmist” ( try Greta,..she seems to know everything). , but why would you believe data from such ill informed sources.
40
Chad
What we believe is immaterial. Those with the power, the money and the quasi religious zeal to ‘do something,’ and who believe a scenario different to sceptics, are the ones we need to combat.
I doubt that the public would be eager to endure decades/centuries of the loss of the things that have raised us to our current levels, such as international travel, cars, bountiful food and goods from all over the world, heated or cooled homes etc etc.
However they are bei8ng beguiled into believing it is all possible and not told the sacrifices would be worse than the lockdown. So I am trying to find scientific papers-not our beliefs-that demonstrate the rate at which elevated levels of co2 will start to decay should the govt aim of zero carbon ever happen
20
Tony,
There is no science behind what you ask.
Man has no effect on Earth’s “temperature” or the weather; end of story.
Any “scientific” papers claiming to show human influence on world temperature are just junk.
Leave it alone.
KK
40
The only proof of the relationship between CO2 levels and atmospheric temperatures comes from graphs of the last half million years showing that CO2 levels are “pushed” around by global temperatures. There’s a deep freeze due in a couple of thousand years. Maybe it’s already started.
KK
40
The rediscovery of copper
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/w-o-o-d-28-may-2020/#comment-130186
“https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/copper-virus-kill-180974655/
“The first recorded use of copper as an infection-killing agent comes from Smith’s Papyrus, the oldest-known medical document in history. The information therein has been ascribed to an Egyptian doctor circa 1700 B.C. but is based on information that dates back as far as 3200 B.C. Egyptians designated the ankh symbol, representing eternal life, to denote copper in hieroglyphs.” “
60
“What Would We Do Without Peer Review?”
“Make that eight papers: I present to you the Mysterious Case of the Two Papers With Identical Results.In this thread, we will learn how identical results can obtained in both Gastric Cancer as well as in Lung Cancer.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/05/31/what-would-we-do-without-peer-review-10/
20
Watched Q&A last night to see how Matt Canavan held up. I’d give him a 3. Fitzgibbon was on to, so it wasn’t totally one sided. But I think you have to hit with facts. It’s useless saying they are building lots of coal fired plants around the world. You’ve got to give numbers. Say, China last month has OK’d 7 new coal fired plants that will pump out more power than Australia produces, total. I’m just lazy, but I reckon I can find the number of new plants world wide in about 5 minutes. Just say “there are ‘300’ plants now in construction world wide”. Give solid numbers. And I was wishing his research would give him the daily power generation numbers that pop up here, when someone else is spouting how renewables are heading for 75% of our needs. Just BOOM! Real facts, no waffle.
And I would love to have Zali Stegal asked, when is she starting the petition in her electorate, to install off-shore wind turbines off Sydney’s Northern beaches, and does she think it’s a great idea to pump thousands of tons of concrete onto the sea bed?
140
She probably signed up for this one
https://www.change.org/p/zali-steggall-wind-farms-for-warringah
20
When stuff gets political…
My daughter tonight has complained that a well know music streaming service gas disabled all other choices and instead only allowing “black lives matter” music to be played….my daughter is annoyed as as she says “it’s all b-grade rappers”….
Social media….not left wing by any chance?
I told her to turn it off…it’s blatant propaganda.
140
Turn it off! That is the ultimate rejection.
50
As the black sheep of the family, I say
‘Black sheep’s lives matter too!’
Bunch of Auckland urbanites closed off Quay St yesterday chanting anti-Trump slogans in front of the USA embassy. Apart from annoying numerous shopkeepers, they broke every rule in the ‘Level 2′ book by gathering in a crowd, spurred on by Jacinda fan-girls Siouxsie Wiles (pink-haired microbiologist) and choreographer Paris Goebbels… yep, their real names, look ’em up.
‘Divide and conquer’ is still alive and well, even with 20-20 hindsight: glad I’m nowhere near the place anymore. Besides, rap sucks, long live the Blues!
100
The bigotry of low expectations strikes again. Looking at a lot of mainstream media, it seems that if you happen to have skin of a certain colour then it is a free pass to do what you like.
Here in France, a well established music festival announced its solidarity with “black lives matter”, and the biggest response seems to have been “you cancelled this year’s festival, why haven’t you refunded our money yet…?” Priorities!
40
The COVID crisis is over. Not because the disease is over, rather people are sick of the lockdowns and the utter hypocrisy of our leaders and media.
The US riots have exposed the politics of our betters and their indifference and disdain for the average law abiding citizen. A betrayal of monumental proportions.
The virus will do what is does or die out like the Spanish flu in a couple of months. Nobody cares anymore.
102
You could be right Farmer Gez,
I have seen some signs that people do not care so much anymore.
However I hope that the Health Dept cares enough to continue testing and contact tracing.
100
So-called green renewables have devastating effect on biodiversity a and wilderness areas.
https://notrickszone.com/2020/06/01/renewable-energy-threatens-thousands-of-globally-important-biodiversity-areas-and-its-worsening/
Not so “green” energy, is it !!
90
Once again the BOM is lying :
Supposedly the Autumn just finished for Australia was warmer than average. And more specifically here in South Australia, it was ‘average’. It’s been freeezzzing here since April and Winter arrive early in April. But BOM dares to push out crap like this :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-02/bom-autumn-data-shows-australia-a-bit-warmer-than-average/12311566
It just goes to show once again, how bloody awful & useless, the Bureau of Misinformation is at measuring temperatures with around half of it’s network of Weather stations not meeting it’s own siting guidelines.
I wonder if Ken Stewart has any comment on this nonsense.
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Hi TonyfromOZ and Mal,
Anton,
Another brilliant description, thank you.
You might mention to readers that a quick check of the monthly charts available at anero.id shows all those crashes of total wind generation to near zero in a very convenient form. From memory, Andrew provides the operational data all the way back to early 2014.
For example, for the month of, say, February 2020, just enter:
https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2020/february/
For February 2016: https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2016/february/
And for other years and months similarly.
Mal, you wrote:
“All foreseeable to any decent engineer who carried out due diligence and a proper risk assessment.”
Dunno whether I qualify as a decent engineer, but I wrote a scholarly paper exploring this very topic of the impact of the great big high pressure systems on wind generation on the Eastern Australian grid, looking at the then available wind generation data. I found as you describe Anton, and warned way back then, for the very reasons that you give, that increasing the installed capacity of wind generation would only lead to increasing instability impacting the grid’s operational security and reliability.
Those in charge seemingly took no notice, with the-oh-so-predictable result that we now see.
Utter madness.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
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A ‘bit’ warmer? How sciency!
Like 0.0016% ‘warmer’? Yeah nah.
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All is not well in the subsidy farming industry of renewables .
https://reneweconomy.com.au/lawyers-picnic-and-47m-at-play-as-sunraysia-solar-farm-faces-further-delays-93927/?fbclid=IwAR0_8t2hR3ZEE7o56bEoLrTa_Q6Bapt5hDy5-IXsOLJs1k_THqXc5MIbr9Y
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Fascinating. He’s the earnest and irrepressible B A Santamaria of Sporadic Power Generation our Giles Parkinson, almost a national treasure.
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And now for more climate clownery……
Maybe if the mount a bird shredder on the ship it might help?
https://www.climategate.nl/2020/06/polarstern-vast-in-noordpoolijs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=polarstern-vast-in-noordpoolijs
“German AWI research vessel gets stuck in the Arctic: “Two-year drift ice too thick”
“The climatologists at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) are involuntarily stuck in thick pack ice, while two sister ships are waiting in a fjord near Spitsbergen. Let’s see how long this is going to take.
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Meanwhile…in the real world….
Appears to be systemic scare mongering?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-01/coronavirus-queensland-nathan-turner-no-covid-blackwater-autopsy/12307546
“Queensland Health has confirmed further tests show 30-year-old Nathan Turner did not have coronavirus before he died last week.
“They had previously stated the man returned a positive test after his death, which prompted the setup of fever clinics and deployment of contact tracers to the central Queensland town of Blackwater.
“An autopsy report shows the Emerald man, who had underlying health issues, tested negative to COVID-19 and his cause of death is yet to be established.
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Alarmist queen Hayhoe takedown by Friends of Science
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2020/06/01/alarmist-queen-hayhoe-takedown-by-friends-of-science/
If Greta Thunberg is an alarmist princess then Katherine Hayhoe is the queen of climate alarmism, at least in the U.S. and Canada. She was the de facto spokesperson for the atrocious third National Climate Assessment. After that she started doing bogus “Here’s what is going to happen to you” climate studies for various states and cities. Making big bucks scaring people.
Last year Hayhoe delivered a doomsday forecast to the Province of Alberta, Canada, and here our story begins. Alberta is home to the Friends of Science Society (FOSS), one of Canada’s top skeptical organizations. FOSS has now produced a 77 page takedown report, shredding Hayhoe’s so-called study in detail. It is an elegant critical work, with implications far beyond Canada.
The topic is technical but it is written for policy makers. The plain English table of contents gives the flavor and shows the scope, with 37 succinct chapters. There are even chapters titled “What is “Climate Change”?” and “What is a Climate Model?” In the same vein Hayhoe’s report is arrogantly titled “Alberta’s Climate Future” so the FOSS takedown is “Facts versus Fortune Telling”.
There are lots of data issues, especially since the Hayhoe report uses truncated trends. The FOSS rebuttal does a lot of longer term analysis.
Another big issue is that the Hayhoe report is based on so-called “downscaling” of hot climate models. This means taking huge crude regional results and interpolating questionable local details. Hayhoe bills herself as an “atmospheric scientist” but her Ph.D. work was on downscaling, which is just computer science. It is fitting that she is now in a university Political Science department, as her work is certainly political.
What Hayhoe ignores is the fact that different global climate models give wildly different regional projections. I recall when the first U.S. National Climate Assessment came out; it used two major models, the Canadian and the British Hadley. For the North Central region one projected a 160% increase in rainfall, while the other gave a 60% decrease. Swamp or desert! Obviously this junk is no good for policy making.
Here is the Friends of Science condensed summary:
“This review shows how Hayhoe & Stoner misinform, how they did not use all available information, how they cultivate alarm regarding Black Swan events, while ignoring counter trends and evidence of cycles. Their report style demonstrates a false, absolute certainty, of knowledge, where due qualification of assumptions and other influences can alter results as reported. Facts and evidence, not fortune-telling, should guide public policy on climate and energy.”
Here are some more specific and telling FOSS findings:
“Hayhoe & Stoner’s “Alberta’s Climate Future” report fails in a number of ways. The report ignores climate cycles and instead forecasts continuing linear temperature increases based on global climate models, even when local trends may be quite different. The report only addresses trends from 1950, ignoring much warmer conditions in the past in the Province.”
“More concerning, “Alberta’s Climate Future” is based on the use of unreasonably unlikely scenarios, such as Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5. This computer simulation is a very extreme projection of the future where the world goes back to using more than five times the coal than is used today. Most mainstream scientists believe the RCP8.5 scenario to be a critically flawed benchmark for forecasting future climate.”
“Hayhoe & Stoner make bold and unverified statements such as: “extreme high and low temperatures are projected to increase exponentially” without justification. The report creates alarm with discredited references to natural “Black Swan” events, ascribing human caused climate change as the driver of floods and fires.”
There is a great deal more criticism, which is worth looking at. FOSS really does a job on Queen Hayhoe’s so-called research.
The Friends of Science takedown is a model for critical analysis of alarmist pseudoscientific hype. The deeply flawed Hayhoe report is not unusual. On the contrary it is typical of climate alarmism — computer based, on selected data, presenting speculative scary conclusions as facts.
Please share this.
David
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Aussie Federal Senator Defends Call to Leave the Paris Agreement
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/01/aussie-federal-senator-defends-call-to-leave-the-paris-agreement/
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Excellent comment by Erny72
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then after that, THE EXILED INFORMANT FROM WUHAN LAB https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-exiled-informant-from-wuhan-lab.html
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Brazil new cases/current cases 5% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/
India 78/898= 8.7% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/
Mexico 315/1325= 24% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/mexico/
Russia 9/225= 4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia/
South Africa 17/146= ~11.6% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa
Nigeria 416/6740= 6% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/nigeria
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big pharma versus reality
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-battle-in-health-on-this-planet.html
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A good article on the proven efficacy of HCQ + Zn + Azithromycin in treating Covid19 patients:
“Yale Epidemiologist: Hydroxychloroquine Should Be ‘Widely Available And Promoted Immediately’ As Standard Treatment”
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/yale-epidemiologist-hydroxychloroquine-should-be-widely-available-and-promoted-immediately
“Every patient I’ve prescribed it to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free,” said Los Angeles doctor Dr. Anthony Cardillo, adding “So clinically I am seeing a resolution.”
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You just knew someone was going to make this claim:
George Floyd Protests Are Linked to Climate Change
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/02/claim-george-floyd-protests-are-linked-to-climate-change/
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Also this:
A desperate Press Release from “Climate Power 2020”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/06/02/a-desperate-press-release-from-climate-power-2020/
20
Yep…the “oppressed” leftist antifa thugs affected by climate change….not…
20
Talk about your Mickey Mouse energy sources.
Duke Power operates a 48,000 panel solar farm near Disney world in Orlando.
The panels are, of course, arranged in the shape of a Mickey head, clearly visible from the air.
Orlando growth is stressing the grid, however, so there is now a project where Disney puts panels on nearby
homes to power the grid, thus relieving them of the need to build a new plant;
All taxpayer subsidized of course. Australians will recognize this scheme at once; decommission coal and nuclear in
favor of “free” solar. At least we have peak generation at peak usage times, and no winter heating load to speak of,
if there is a latitude in the US where this makes any sense it is Florida. And strangely, if Disney is involved, that’s likely to improve the
engineering; between imagineering and ride safety they do have a cadre of competent folks.
BUt it is still the case that swapping dispatch power out for rooftop solar is a Mickey Mouse solution.
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Poor refugees are welcome in the land of Oz.
‘The UK has asked Australia to consider sharing the load and accept Hong Kongers in the event of a mass exodus over Chinese suppression.’ SMH
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Wouldn’t it be great if the thrust of this article came true. The jailing of Soros, and confiscation of all assets.
https://richardsonpost.com/howellwoltz/17461/soros-yearns-so-america-burns/
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Does anyone out there know if there is a minimum (or any) baseload requirement for a power grid to maintain frequency stability? Would love to know more about it.
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I don’t have references to hand but TonyfromOz is the person to ask on this blog and there are others too. I mainly read, but don’t record, on a basic tablet! He is a contributor to PaPundits as well.
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Thanks for the tip Annie – TonyfromOz was the one who brought my attention to the chaos that wind collectives were causing to our grid. It led me to examining the claims of our ACT Govt about being 100% renewable, and then realised that they were basing their claim on NAMEPLATE capacity. They also claim to have the Hornsdale SA wind complex as their primary supplier – must be a lot of power coming to the ACT across that interconnector (/sarc).
Anyhow, I was looking through the AEMO Energy Dynamics Report Q1 2020 and noticed on p.27, in particular Figure 34 where there was a “separation event” between the SA and Vic interconnector between 31 Jan and 17 Feb this year, where wind was “curtailed” and gas baseload generation encouraged to maintain grid stability.
Hence my question – is there a need for a consistent baseload generation % to maintain grid stability?
20
Rowjay: The simple answer is “yes”. The full answer is a bit more complicated.
AC power systems deliver Real, Reactive, and Total, power, at a specific frequency and voltage.
Thermal power plants can deliver all 3 components.
Solar/wind plants in general, cannot. The solar/wind plants synchronize at the frequency provided by the thermal plants and within the voltage limits of the overall system. In other words, the thermal plants follow the load and the solar/wind plants follow the thermal plants. If the voltage begins to drop, the current increases and the frequency decreases if the total load exceeds the torque capacity of the thermal plants. If the frequency drops, the current increases and causes the voltage to drop. Wind and solar plants can’t help with either frequency or voltage stability.
The short story is that a grid must have enough thermal plant capacity to meet the maximum system load at any time of the day or night. Thermal plants are what stabilize and control the stability of the system grid. Solar and wind cannot be relied upon to deliver power when needed.
A grid can collapse in a matter of seconds to minutes. The maximum time window to stabilize a failing grid is about 15 minutes. Either you have enough thermal plant capacity to make up the shortfall, or you don’t. If you don’t have that capacity, the grid goes black. Restarting the grid takes some 4 to 6 times the total generation capacity at the time of failure in order to restart the grid.
To account for maintenance and random failures in a grid, it is prudent to have 125% of the maximum grid load as dispatchable thermal generation. That is without even considering wind/solar generation.
Once the unreliable wind/solar generation exceeds about 25% of grid load, the grid becomes increasingly unstable.
Theoretically, in a perfect world, a grid might tolerate about 40% wind/solar generation. But you still need 140% of peak load capacity to back it up if things go wrong with the wind/solar.
Once a grid passes about 40% unreliable/non-dispatchable generation, the grid reliability trends to zero.
You can have as much solar and wind as you want, so long as an equal amount of thermal generation backs it up.
Just remember that the national economy and millions of lives are held in the balance of this exercise. Serious business it is.
Grid voltage and frequency are of paramount importance in maintaining reliability. If you can’t maintain both, you risk brownouts or blackouts or a grid collapse. Societies tend to collapse in less than a week when the grid fails.
A grid needs 125% of the maximum expected grid load in dispatchable generation or the reliability decreases.
Roll those dice any way that is comfortable.
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Thanks Lance for educating us in the technical reality of our grid situation. Its a pity that this sort of technical assessment is not common knowledge, and never mentioned in the press. Thanks again
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See why sound engineering principles are what makes this blog of Joanne’s a reliable source for good (and correct) information.
Those people who indeed have that correct information will more often than not require those 19 lines that Lance wrote to explain what is a complex situation, and more.
When addressing those questions, your average green supporter would say ….. It’s all about the vibe.
After those five words, their minds tend to wander a bit.
Tony.
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What is needed for grid stability is synchronous inertia to keep the system frequency stable when there are variations in demand (and now with renewables, generation). Traditionally, this has been provided by the physical rotating mass of dispatchable AC generators (effectively, massive, multi-pole versions of the alternators in cars) which resists change in the system frequency as they absorb or output power to cover the demand variation.
Lance’s 25% margin is a good rule of thumb for stability and the contribution of renewables is negligible so if renewables form 40% of the grid capacity, you still need 125% of grid capacity of dispatchable AC generators online making for 165% of capacity online – the dispatchable generators may only be operating at 48% of their capacity if the renewables are outputting full rating but they still need to be online for the synchronous inertia to be present to keep the grid stable and also to be able to ramp up output if the demand change is an increase (or other generators go offline).
There are wind turbines that can provide short term synthetic inertia to help stabilize grids but these are only for very short term events as the turbine speed slows greatly to deliver the excess power from the steady state output for the conditions (in the case of a demand spike/generation shortfall) before it has exhausted its limited mechanical inertia and then there is an output lag period while the turbine spins back up to normal speed. So even synthetic inertia providers (and this includes batteries) can only buy more time for the dispatchable generators to ramp up output rather than being a replacement for dispatchable generators.
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Thanks Analitik – am I correct to assume that a nuclear baseload plant would provide the needed inertia?
20
Yes.
But read up on the UK experience with the shenanigans around Hinkley Point.
Why you’d want to build an installation which will give thirty years of use before a decommissioning process which could take decades to centuries to complete when we’ve coal enough to last for centuries beggars belief.
Let’s repeal the RET to start the ball rolling and watch our carpetbaggers and sinecure holders depart for frontiers new after which we defund the climate troika (BOM, CSIRO, ABC) and then look at the plethora of energy authorities which flourished as the RET ramped up.
And make a start on the necessary elimination of all decarbonization policies and programs which inspire the RET travesty.
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You know, something like you see at this image, and this is a GE 4 Pole Gigatop, GE’s solution for half-speed nuclear steam turbines, and the worlds largest generator, 1755MW.
This ONE single generator will generate as much power in one year as the largest wind plant in Australia (Macarthur Wind Nameplate 420MW) will generate in, umm, 14 years, or just 15% less than one year’s power delivery from EVERY wind plant in Australia with a Nameplate 4.4 times that of this one generator.
Keep in mind that we are told that with no future for non renewable power, then, as complete and utter stranded assets that these types of non renewable plants are predicted to be, you sort of wonder why these large companies that make all these turbines and generators even bother to still keep shelling out billions to make these things eh! Or that Engineers still design them in the first place.
We will NEVER see something like this in Australia.
Tony.
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Plus with proper maintenance, it will produce rated output for at least 60 years unlike renewables which steadily degrade as soon as they become operational (or even before) and which cannot be economically refurbished.
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Warm blobs have a lot to answer for.
‘Professor Humlum also points out that new data on rising ocean temperatures raise interesting questions about the source of the heat.
“We can detect a great deal of heat rising from the bottom of the oceans. This obviously cannot be anything to do with human activity. So although people say the oceans are warming, in reality there is still much to learn.”
GWPF
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