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
Reliable vs Unreliable Electricity Generation
Fun Facts
Solar panels puke whenever the Sun sets
Wind Turbines might run for a few wind days before throwing in the towel when calm weather arrives.
{Note in Jan-Feb 2017 Germany exerience a 5 week period of continous very low wind which required brown coal, black coal, natural gas and nuclear energy to provide 95% of Germany’s elecricity needs – nuclear energy was phased out in April 2023}
Stanwell Power Station in Queensland was awarded the Guinness Book Record with the world record at 1,073 days {nearly 3 years} of continuous operation on Unit 4.
This was surpassed in 2021 by Canadian public entity Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington Nuclear Generating Station Unit 1, which ran for 1,106 days continuous.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/continuous-power-plant-operation/
171
Some Nukes shut down to refuel, others do partial re-fuels, so operations continue.
Here in Washington State, the Columbia Generating Station (CGS) shut down in 2015 after about 650 days continuous. Since then, I think they have gone the other route and only replace about 1/3 of the fuel on an every-2-year cycle.
When CGS powers down the time is in the spring during snow melt and Hydro easily picks up the load.
50
Junk Science from the CSIRO
Their Cost Gen Report has “Variable renewable with firming” as the cheapest form of electricity {as directed by the Minister for Power Chrissy Bowen}
However, current installed Grid Scale Batteries are there to provide grid stability and not back-up power.
If required to provide back-up power these batteries installed at great cost and fanfare would only meet 4 minutes of national demand.
Pumped Hydro can assist in meeting daily peak demand being drawn down to help meet the 7pm peak and then being recharged during off-peak periods, however if drawn down over a number of days it can take an extended period to fully recharge.
So why hasn’t the CSIRO provided details of how many days or weeks of back-up battery storage would be required to “firm” variable renewables during extended periods of cloudy weather {Monsoon season in northern Australia} or extended periods of low wind.
Has Australia experience 5 weeks of continuous widespread low wind like Germany in early 2017 {winter} when demand peaks and when solar contribution is vertually non existent?
In Ausralia demand peaks in summer when everyone turns on their air conditioners.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/energy-data-modelling/gencost
100
What did Germany do after the 5 week wind power failure in 2017?
Did it commit to build more nuclear power stations – No it shut existing nuclear power stations in April 2023.
Did it increase battery storage? – Yes battery storage has been increased to 9 minutes of average national demand (which is there for grid stability reasons).
The reality is that Germany will need to maintain a dual power system with a backup system that works in winter during period of low wind (dunkelflaute) – A natural gas only back-up system would rely on too much Russian sourced gas.
So it seems existing brown coal and black coal power stations will still be operational for decades to come in Germany!
50
“Dirty” Brown Coal to the Rescue!
BERLIN, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Germany’s cabinet on Wednesday approved putting on-reserve lignite-fired power plants back online from October until the end of March 2024, the economy ministry said, as a step to replace scarce natural gas this winter and avoid shortages.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a sudden drop in Russian gas imports to Germany, Berlin reactivated coal-fired power plants and extended their lifespans, with a total output of 1.9 gigawatt hours generated last winter.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-bringing-coal-fired-power-plants-back-online-this-winter-2023-10-04/
20
Paradoxical!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2022/10/28/the-iron-law-of-electricity-strikes-again-germany-re-opens-five-lignite-fired-power-plants
60
Has anybody totted up the cost of the Victorian blackout? How many businesses did it break?
I have a feeling that something big is about to happen, and it won’t be good.
JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon has declared : “Trump was kinda right!” Jamie Dimon would have known that in 2017. why didn’t he say it then?
Now we have talk of a federal election this year that’s just begun. This rings bells.
30 odd years ago the ALP called and won early elections in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia after the wheels had fallen off their economies but before the word got out.
Thus the economic destroyers got another full term in government. Don’t let that happen again!
200
Taking a 60+ year overview of Australia – societal, demographic, industrial etc – how can it be suggested seriously that voting Coalition improves anything? The downwards spiral seems hardly to have been impacted much by Fraser, Howard et al. Abbott tried and look what was done to him.
50
Do not fret
Australia’s destiny is to be Hong Kong Mk!!
00
“how can it be suggested seriously that voting Coalition improves anything?”
I didn’t know it had been as there is nothing to indicate that it does
10
Adellad, you should recall that when Abbott was Prime Minister Al Gore was King by way of his proxy the Palmer United Party.
01
The wheels are falling off
https://principia-scientific.com/nz-government-forced-to-release-gross-mortality-data/
60
Bumped
“FWIW – A deeper look –
“Remarkably, a large covid vaccine safety study dropped last week finding some problems with the jabs, and got my immediate attention by breaking through into corporate media. Why cover this one? The study, stuffed with 35 authors, was titled, “COVID-19 vaccines and adverse events of special interest: A multinational Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) cohort study of 99 million vaccinated individuals.” The Hill’s article covering the study published two days ago under the headline, “Largest multicountry COVID study links vaccines to potential adverse effects.” ”
“Our first clue lies in the Hill article’s revealing final paragraph (which should have been the first):
Several of the researchers also reported having relationships or having previously received payments from biopharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, AbbVie, and GlaxoSmithKline.
Pharma researchers! It got even more interesting when the study itself disclosed it was funded by the CDC, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, and the Canadian Institutes of Health. It was a “public/private” joint effort between big pharma and the most jab-invested big government agencies in the world. But it still found problems. Could this be honest science, at long last? Or was it something else?
It was high-level gaslighting combined with a limited hangout.”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/vital-signs-wednesday-february-21?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
70
Funny that, Ian: heard a brief reference to that study on government funded radio news, stating any adverse reactions were minimal and rare, and people should get the latest updated ‘shot’ if they were ‘concerned’. Dis/mis/mal-information?
80
These were never “Vaccines” the definition of “Vaccine” was changed remember – it would be more coorect to call these “pseudo- experimental vaccines” or something similar.
It normally it take a decade to develop and properly test a genuine vaccine and not 6 months as the case of these “psedu-experimental vaccines” that were rushed to market in 6 months.
70
They’re gene therapies.
40
HB,
I expressed doubts about that jabs->deaths spreadsheet yesterday when Penguinite posted about it. The results fit with what we might expect, but have you managed to make sense of the spreadsheet itself?
00
It’s hard work still working on it
30
Climate change madness exposed in New Zealand
https://realitycheck.radio/barry-brill-obe-chairman-nz-climate-science-coalition-on-former-pm-arderns-absurd-abuse-of-power/
60
How is Kiwiland going after the Red Princess was given the a*se?
20
Bowing to Maories like they always do, same thing, doesn’t matter who is in charge.
11
The UK 2023 excess deaths that never were, it was just a result of using the ‘wrong’ methodology (yer, right, you must think we’re stupid).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13105563/UK-30-000-FEWER-excess-deaths-Covid-pandemic-statisticians.html
40
Typical ONS: fiddling and faffing about with the methodology to get the result most pleasing to their political masters.
In normal times, they just compare contiguous 5-year periods, but in recent times they’ve been skipping 2020 completely.
Now ANOTHER change: they’re including SOME MONTHS of 2020.
If they were accountants we’d call it “cooking the books”.
50
Which came first: the chicken or the egg?
The age sensitivity in the lethality of the coronavirus and the vaccine very likely account for the “trend” changes. Adjusting for the trend changes would tend to filter out lethality of both.
10
America’s most expensive home hits the market for staggering $295 MILLION.
It must have an invisible glass perimeter to hold back the rising seas, else it wouldn’t be worth a dollar!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13057339/americas-expensive-home-beachfront-sale.html
60
Mr GN, this property is probably just up the road from Trumpy’s (28 acre) Mar-a-Lago……..he just got in trouble for overstating it’s value didn’t he ???…pretty big fine $300+ Million USD……..no stitch up there………….sarc/
Now the value looks about right I reckon………..case dismissed.
20
If you have 10 mins to spare, watch this John Stossel video on how much information is collected about you when online. After watching the video I changed over to Brave (a web browser). Over the past 24 hours, Brave claims to have blocked over 3,000 ads and trackers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgoLkpc0PSo
https://brave.com/
On the email front, I’m already using ProtonMail and Simple Login, which cuts down on spam and means that I can create online accounts without having to reveal my true email address:
https://proton.me/mail
https://simplelogin.io/
Next up, I have to look at having the 4G sim and GPS module removed from my car.
If only we had more politicians who would take a moment from obsessing over activist causes and from looking after themselves and their mates and instead look after our interests!
50
Will be interesting to see how you go with the car.
10
100,000 EVs Suddenly Turn To JUNK! China’s No.2 EV Company Goes Bankrupt! China’s EVs Have No Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEDZmrzII14&ab_channel=ChinaObserver
80
But unfortunately the REAL problem is still there, insecure and invalid security certificates. Both DM and I have mentioned this, but it is not a topic for the non technical.
Both Protonmail and Simplelogin are insecure too for the same reason.
By all means use a browser adblocker and telemetry blocker like O&O Shutup10++ which is free, but you’re far from safe from being watched…
00
I’ve never encountered a problem with certificates for protonmail and simplelogin. I’ve had just one problem with SimpleLogin — namely, that some websites won’t allow you to use mail aliases. The simple solution is to take your business elsewhere.
Given that everything conservatives say and do these days is potentially a crime, people need to give careful consideration to their choice of mail client, VPN and browser. For example, can a VPN provider domiciled in a certain country be bullied by the authorities of that country into allowing traffic to be monitored?
But I guess it’s all academic, because the growing authoritarianism of governments around the West means that they will silence us with their newest tranches of ‘hate speech’ and mis/dis/malinformation laws. Fortunately, we in Australia have ‘conservative’ political parties that are on the front foot, aggressively protecting our rights and interests … OH, WAIT! I must be thinking of somewhere else.
Note: everyone is concentrating on mis and dis, but malinformation laws could potentially be much more sinister. Read about it here:
https://guides.iona.edu/researchessentials/disinformation
10
You’re misunderstanding what I said.
A malicious root certificate can watch every last thing you do, regardless of its origin or “issuer”, and you won’t know it’s happening.
00
Brave stays one step ahead of YT with their ad blocking.
00
I recommend Brave and have been using it for a year or two, although sometimes some pages just don’t work on it. I also use Dissenter and Firefox.
20
A tip for Brave users that I stumbled upon by chance. Brave annoyingly refreshes a tab each time you switch to it from another tab. I gather it is a feature of the Chromium browser template that Brave, and others, use, so there is no on/off switch for it. But there is a workaround:
– open a browser page and then open the Settings menu from the drop-down list (triple bar on the top right of the window);
– scroll down the list on the left and open System;
– scroll down to Performance, where there are two settings;
– turn off the memory saver switch;
– click the Add button under the ‘Always keep these sites active’ heading;
– click on the ‘Add sites manually’ tab and type *.* in the text box and click the Add button.
It seems to solve the problem and nothing weird has happened since. 🤞
20
I’m still trying to get Brave back to what I was happy with before the last update
00
These posh eco-loons need to check their privilege
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/21/these-posh-eco-loons-need-to-check-their-privilege/
30
FWIW
“I don’t know if this is true or not – but if it is, it’s hilarious”
“Marketwatch is in a bit of a froth at the prospect of President Trump suddenly becoming much, much richer.”
More at
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/02/i-dont-know-if-this-is-true-or-not-but.html
00
No such thing as bad publicity
00
Over 240M in China Will Be Jobless, 800K People Flock to the Ministry of Finance, Wishing for Jobs
10
“Over 240M in China jobless”
Albanese will see this as an opportunity to increase the immigration rate from China
31
The Chinese middle class think Australia is the best country in the world to buy real estate, its the free enterprise model.
Revolution is coming to China and the CCP is set to crumble if they can’t get their act together.
21
Conspiracy theories and Occam’s Razor
00
Latest gene therapy for XBB.1.5 variant OKd for rollout 1 March, even though ‘93%’ of sufferers have JN.1 variant. Director of mis-named Health NZ said via RNZ:
“It’s recommended that you wait at least six months since your last Covid-19 infection.” [emphasis mine]
Artificial non-Intelligence spelling mistake or merely reinforcing this whole sham is a game of Russian Roulette?
30
6 months between shots.
Sounds familiar, and we now know what that was really about, don’t we. 😎. “Children of men” meets “Contagion”.
COVID Vaccine mRNA Can ‘Spread Systemically’ To Placenta And Infants Of Women Vaccinated During Pregnancy
In a peer-reviewed pre-proof accepted for publication in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers presented two cases that demonstrate, for the first time, the ability of COVID-19 vaccines to penetrate the fetal-placental barrier and reach the inside of the uterus. Additionally, researchers detected spike protein in placental tissue, indicating the bioactivity of the mRNA in reaching the placenta.
Researchers vaccinated two pregnant women with mRNA vaccines shortly before delivery to determine whether the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines reached the placenta or fetus following maternal vaccination.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/covid-vaccine-mrna-can-spread-systemically-placenta-and-infants-women-vaccinated-during
Meanwhile in Japan, a NEW self-amplifying mRNA (sa-mRNA) COVID shot received the green light from Japan’s Ministry of Health.
This frightening new technology is an addition to the already unstable modified mRNA jab, but replicates to create more copies of the modified mRNA over longer periods of time, creating higher levels of spike protein.
Sit back and wait.
30
By now you should have worked out that wind energy is among the greatest frauds in the history of human civilisation. With only a bit of curiosity you would know by now that solar, has only a capacity factor about half that of wind and is waste of minerals and land even for sunny Australia.
If you are really cynical you would see that the EV rollout is just a scam to get you to buy a wind turbine backup battery when the grid blacks out.
Realising all that, you would also know that blowing up our coal stations was moronic and that Australia should have overturned our ban on the nuclear power industry decades ago and by now possibly had one on-line.
Similarly, you might have detected that the range and duration of EVs is all priced into the Net Zero scheme – and it’s no coincidence the policy focus is on micro or more commonly referred to as “fifteen minute cities”.
You probably realised years ago that recycling is a giant con and is just getting worse because due to higher energy prices minimal materials can be now recycled locally.
In fact, there isn’t a single facet of Net Zero that’s beneficial to humanity. As much as the 2035/2050 target is unachievable it is not even affordable. It’s just too expensive to upgrade the grid, street level energy infrastructure, housing or road networks.
Most people on this blog will have already cottoned on to all this. You’ve probably argued this on many other blogs etc and you’ve experienced the same thing I have. They’ll tell you some magic gizmo is just around the corner that will make their pet green project viable, or claim that it is functional based on their limited personal experience. They’ll have posted links to some experimental project at some university or government research organisation that will never be upscaled or see practical utilisation.
Cynically, you’ll predict that the green revolution will not create jobs because when did making energy more expensive ever create new jobs? From past disastrous schemes (Pink batts etc) you’ll know for sure that when government makes an industry a job creation scheme, it will collapse under the weight of its own inefficiency.
I wont need me to tell you that Net Zero is a transition to a mineral intensive energy system. It will require multi-factor increase over the current levels of minerals mining, and that extraction process is not remotely green and relies on mass abuse of human rights in some countries.
If you’ve worked all that out then you know there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to vote Labor, Greens,Teals or even LNP. They will do more to destroy the Australian economy and its infrastructure than the Japanese could ever have dreamed of during WW2
91
The news that EVs use so much more in refined metals than ICE has apparently resulted in higher prices for the metals. And given that copper is the preferred source of the material to create water piping, can we blame the preference for EVs for increasing the costs of housing construction?
40
Not so much.
Auspex Water Pipe
00
Google (Kinda) Apologizes After Woke AI Gemini Exposed As Anti-White Racist
Google’s Gemini AI program is being roasted for producing ‘diverse’ image results that show things like black Vikings and other historically inaccurate depictions.
Who knew there were so many black and Chinese female revolutionary soldiers?
Apparently, 1820’s Scotland was full of sub-Saharan Africans.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/googles-gemini-ai-blasted-eliminating-white-people-image-searches
“A.I.” – LOL. Oh please. You want to see REAL AGI AI???😉
On a sidenote, Disney has released a teaser for the next season of The Simpsons:
https://imgbox.com/goLL3Cez
/Thursday sarcasm
20
Red Cross official says the only way to get blood “that is not vaccinated” is to donate for yourselves or from an unvaccinated family member.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1760385335043785208
“One way or another. I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya”
https://youtu.be/valVixMpzQY?si=yVrrMRwheywPWRhl
10
Thought for the day.
Hindus have been waiting for Kalki for 3,700 years.
Buddhists have been waiting for Maitreya for 2,600 years.
The Jews have been waiting for the Messiah for 2500 years.
Christians have been waiting for Jesus for 2000 years.
Sunnah waits for Prophet Issa for 1400 years.
Muslims have been waiting for a messiah from the line of Muhammad for 1300 years.
Shiites have been waiting for Imam Mahdi for 1080 years.
Druze have been waiting for Hamza ibn Ali for 1000 years.
Most religions adopt the idea of a “savior” and state that the world will remain filled with evil until this savior comes and fills it with goodness and righteousness.
Maybe our problem on this planet is that people expect someone else to come solve their problems instead of doing it themselves.
I’m just waiting for AGI. 😎
50
Americans have been waiting for the return of The Donald for three years
50
There has been talk that Jesus was an alien, so it could fairly assumed that he never left.
00
A sinister agenda down on the farm
FARMING in England is facing a crisis as thousands of farmers have accepted government payments of up to £100,000 to leave their land. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) say that their ‘Lump Sum Exit Scheme’, launched in 2022 by Boris Johnson, aims to ‘support farmers in England who wish to leave the industry’.
It has been successful. Last month Defra told me they had received ‘just over 2,200 eligible applications’. Approved farmers who want to throw in the towel have until May 31 of this year to transfer their land, but there is no rule that says it must remain as farmland.
They suggest drastic measures. By 2029 (five years from now), they aim to reduce beef and lamb consumption by 50 per cent. By 2030, they recommend that fertilisers are phased out, by 2050 all beef and lamb production should end and energy used to cook and transport food should be reduced by 60 per cent.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-sinister-agenda-down-on-the-farm/
Mmmmmmm….bugs, climate lockdowns and happiness…
30
Made lamb Thai curry tonight with rice & yoghurt, mmm… doing my bit to keep carbon and methane circulating… with the help of a dram of Scotch of course 😃
20
This worked out well in Sri Lanka!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEH40FbVOlE&ab_channel=9NewsAustralia
40
Fertiliser phased out by 2030. LOL. Year 12 students make these rules. Brits have gone mad.
00
You’ve seen the current mess that our current politicians have created…
https://www.rt.com/news/592689-eu-us-trump-nukes/
Now imagine if they actually had access to nuclear weapons?
The metaphor of:
Giving a bunch of monkeys live grenades to play with seems quite real.
Since global warming seems real to them, imagine changing the weather with Nuclear Weapons could quite possibly be one of these solutions.
10
ACDC”
Australian Centre for Disease Control?|
?
Full blast on THEIR ABCess.
Fauci Follies, anyone?
10
“Science Feedback (a “fact-checker organization”) have generated disinformation about CERES-Science”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/21/science-feedback-a-fact-checker-organization-have-generated-disinformation-about-ceres-science/
10
“Out Of Transmission Revisited”
“The “energy transition” depends on massive expansions of our high-voltage transmission grid. But capacity additions are falling, and per-mile costs and utility product costs are soaring.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/21/out-of-transmission-revisited/
10
FWIW
“The rise and fall of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – Leo Kearse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsv_D46zBas ”
Via
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2024/02/22/february-22-2023-reader-tips-2/#comment-1866151
10
MAJOR cell service OUTAGE in at least several major cities (across multiple US carriers); 911 reportedly also affected
https://twitter.com/The_Nomad_News/status/1760622885495029939
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cell-service-outages-reported-across-us
A massive cyberattack?
10
On ‘mathiness’ and its persuasive effects:
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/mathiness-instills-confidence
Could just be another fake study, or does it explain quite alot?
00