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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Did anyone else notice Syria is in the news?
Imagine putting seven 13-year-olds in a kitchen and tell them to bake a cake. Anticipation builds.
121
I’m forever thankful to whatever organised my birth that I was born to good folk in Australia. I should never really be ungrateful.
Some of us humans have stupid leaders we should be able to rid ourselves of, other fellow humans have very nasty leaders who won’t go away unless threatened with death.
330
Born to? You ARE good folk in Australia. You’re it, your parents. You weren’t just lingering around waiting for a turn and you get assigned.
30
I believe I won the lottery at birth for much the same reasons you feel thankful.
90
Being amongst the last of the “ten pound Poms” and arriving here in 1966, we thank our lucky stars that my company “exiled” me to this wondrous land to help start up the company here.
When my wife moans about our current abysmal government and says “where can we go to get away” I tell her there is nowhere in the world better, despite our travails. And its true.
130
Ah yes, if only we had a real leader like Starmer. We can but dream….
30
the old saying goes:
“Beware wishing for “strong leadership”.
You might just get it: Good and hard and often”.I
f you can not or will not take control of your own affairs, be prepared for someone else to take over the contract.
See: “Unilateral Gentleman’s Agreement.
40
I, too, won the lottery of life 40 years ago when Australia accepted me as a migrant!
That’s how I escaped a Socialist dictatorship.
Hope I can help stave it off here!
30
More a question of geography than people – stick Australia where Syria is and give it loads of oil wells, I don’t imagine a load of Australians making a better go of it….
21
I went to Syria a couple of times and met the now fleeing dictator at the Palace when he was a young child.
I didn’t like Damascus but did really like Aleppo and its giant fortress. To get from Damascus to Jordan in those days you had to negotiate with a taxi driver. I was a bit startled when on setting off the driver slapped a kalashnikov on the seat. “Bandits” he said cryptically.
The difference between Jordan and Syria couldn’t be more stark. On the Syrian side the guards were very slovenly. On the Jordan side the British trained guards were immaculate. I gave one an Agatha Christie book (she had written it in Aleppo) and the guard told me of the British Films that had just opened in Amman.
250
Nice old movie Paris Can Wait explains the gap between French and English way of thinking.
40
So what was the so different between two similar chunks of land and people: Syria and Palestine ?
French Empire divided her parcel into large Natives and smallish European-like .
British Empire did the same.
French killed few (10k?) rebellious Natives and left them alone, which did not help the Natives much. See the latest body count.
English resisted for a while and left without killing too many. No joy for remaining population but not that many dead.
Now, check what was the prevailing daily topic since the birth of UN. Thousands upon thousands of pages, life-long careers, millions of dollars wasted,.. on and on,.. and no end in sight.
80
Vladimir, I think you will find that the British Empire consisted of Scots, Irish and Welsh, as well as English! It always amazes me that so many people consistently conflate Britain with only England, and when talking about the British Isles call it “England”.
Scottish expat.
50
The British Empire consisted of more than Scots, Irish, Welsh, and English. Australians, as part of the BE, had a significant hand in securing Palestine for the Brits.
But, yes. People do interchange English and British.
30
Well, you know , its “over there” so it doesn’t really matter. The average aussie doesn’t really get that multiple cultures/histories/languages can play out on what to them is the size of a hankie.
10
I was born here but always refer to my “British” heritage, being English, Scot, Irish and a little Norge. I get gout so that could be Saxon DNA and have a Mediterranean complexion so that would be Roman.
When breeding animals it is called hybrid vigour but in doggie circles the term is not so complimentary.
40
Point taken, gents.
I knew, I knew it, it’s only hard to keep all them names ready…
00
Very odd how they walked in everywhere with hardly a shot fired, one can only assume some sort of agreement was in place with the military leaders, that it was time Assad was removed.
160
Assad was propped up by Russia and Iran. They are both busy elsewhere.
120
Reminds very much the fate of Ceaușescu couple – one day all power and glory, next day – two bodies, laid next to a fence, covered with a dirty blanket. Lesson not learned by all of them so called Rulers.
BTW – why did not all-mighty VV Putin help Sadat, really ? Couple of dozen war planes could have stopped them. No scruples there. Maybe he is not so successful in Ukraine ?
71
There must have been early discussions between the Syrian factions, possibly brokered by Ukrainian agent provocateurs.
The strategy was to topple the dictator while Russia and Iran were indisposed.
21
more likely the Turks. A real puzzle.
10
Not so simple Vlad- He could pour in some SAMs and SU27s and …. clear the skies of the daily Israeli air raids buy shooting down the Israeli air force?? He could stop the Yanks bombing the reinforcements coming in from Iraq by.. shooting down the F15s an B52s??
The CIA spent millions and millions of dollars bribing the Iraqi army commanders before the Yanks Desert Storm, to make sure the Iraqi army just ran away. Seems the same has happened here.
The West could do with a few rulers’ bodies under blankets these days, its a lesson they should be taught now and then.
73
It’s not that simple. This is Ryan McBeth’s take. I don’t feel any more enlightened, just more justified in my confusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOq5Lz7D4Fo
20
I am no supporter if Assad even tho a murderous thug he did keep his country relively stable. Unfortunately the reporting of the Rebels by the lame stream media seems to forget that they are an offshoot of Al qaeda/Isis. To me it looks like the people of Syria will be going from the frypan and into the fire.
If any one thinks this is for the better for the people of Syria, I believe they are very delusional.
I forsee more regional conflict and terorism on the horizon.
351
“If any one thinks this is for the better for the people of Syria, I believe they are very delusional.”
Same as Afghanistan I expect..
Anyway, America loses Ukraine, gains Syria, Russia gains Ukraine and loses Syria. Biden happily admits the Yanks were behind it all, they win the oil, Israel took over more of the Golan Heights, and the Sharia Law mob will eliminate any remaining ideas about Western freedom.
“The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria on Sunday. “The operation struck over 75 targets using multiple US Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s. Israeli forces have seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/russia-says-syria-s-assad-has-left-country-and-gave-orders-for-peaceful-power-handover-20241208-p5kwrz.html
40
‘Anyway, America loses Ukraine, gains Syria, Russia gains Ukraine and loses Syria.’
That is untrue, Donald said the US is getting out of Syria.
Russia keeps Crimea, but otherwise the old borders are restored and Ukraine joins NATO.
There is talk of Syria becoming a federation of states, so that everyone is satisfied and peace breaks out. Millions of Syrians will return home to rebuild.
22
Syria’s sudden uprising is a stark reminder of Obama’s failed foreign policy
The stunning events that have unfolded in Syria over the past week have culminated in the sudden end to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, more than a decade after he managed to hold on when civil war erupted.
Rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group rapidly worked through the country, seizing Aleppo, Hama, and Homs, before finally entering the capital Damascus on Sunday. Shortly thereafter, they declared that Assad had fled.
Before the Damascus developments, the United States had expressed a righteous indignation toward the renewed hostilities, but the country has stayed on the sidelines — issuing limp statements urging a democratic election for the future of the nation and the dismantling of its infamous chemical weapons facilities.
It would appear the U.S. government doesn’t have much of a stomach for involvement in Syria at this point, a distaste that is residual from the botched weapons distributions, influence networking, and empty threats attached to the legacy of President Barack Obama‘s administration, and his failure to get a proper handle on the situation in the first place.
Dipping a toe, but afraid to swim
The White House began calling for Assad to step down in 2011 following a string of demonstrations against his regime and harsh authoritarian crackdowns in response.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome
The United States now watches the violence and political upheaval taking place in Syria with exasperation and frustration.
Over a decade of passive involvement in one of the world’s most volatile civil wars has produced nothing to benefit the United States, Syrian civilians, or greater humanitarian interests.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and expert, told the Washington Examiner that the ultimate failure of Obama-era foreign policy in Syria was the lack of a clear mission.
“Everybody wanted to do something but didn’t know who to do it with — and really there were no good options do it with anyone,” Roggio told the Examiner. “Yet we still tried, didn’t try hard enough, and did just enough to fail and to look inept. What kind of legacy is that?”
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“The United States now watches the violence and political upheaval taking place in Syria with exasperation and frustration.”
Lol! What a lie!! They trained and financed Al Queada/ISIS, started the whole civil war in Syria to get rid of Assad and were only stopped when Russia stepped in to help. Finally they have managed it, so now we will see what it was for. The Yanks occupy it with a permanent force under a puppet ruler, just like Iraq, steal the oil and finally get their gas pipeline through to Europe to undercut Russia.
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“If any one thinks this is for the better for the people of Syria, I believe they are very delusional.”
Likewise, Saddam’s toppling doesn’t seem to have done much for the average Iraqi. Like so many Middle Eastern nations (I could group them by another means best left unsaid at this stage), despotic dictators get their comeuppance only to be replaced by a new despotic dictatorship.
I don’t expect ordinary Syrians will notice much of a change in their lives once the old evil regime is replaced by the new evil regime; maybe just the prisons and torture chambers will have different inmates.
Tony Abbott got it right the last time Syria blew up, when he said it was “baddies versus baddies”.
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Greetings from cold, soggy England!
180
Its been a gloriously sunny winters day here today, Annie. Yesterday was a tad windy it must be admitted.
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Not where we are Tony! Both Saturday and Sunday were rather unpleasant. We did have a few moments’ glimmer of a very watery sun…wow!
A rude shock after temperatures in the mid-20s (and more some days) at home and in Dubai.
We hope to see an old friend in Devon later this week.
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Spurs are 2 goals to one against Cheatski so all is good at the moment (for me). Hope it lasts.
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It didn’t.
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Pressure on our Ange. But 2 penalties! What were the players thinking.
00
NASA Rocket engine fireplace.
https://plus.nasa.gov/video/nasa-rocket-engine-fireplace/
This is what 8.8 Million lbs of thrust looks like.
20
But can you toast some marshmellows on it?
It looks like there is a lot of fuel going down the middle of the nozzles that isn’t adding much to the thrust. Is this the dump from the turbine pumps?
Imagine how many mores miles to the gallon they could get if they used electric motors instead of combustion engines. /s
110
Electric Motor in Space!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster
10
Great in a vacuum and where there is micro gravity, no so good for escaping the Earth’s pull.
Give me a stargate any day.
10
you go first and phone me if you get reconstructed properly on the other side
30
When Labour gained power in the UK, one of the first things they did was to cancel the bill that would ensure Universities allowed Free Speech. There was a huge fuss and it seems the Govt has climbed down
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/07/university-free-speech-law-set-to-be-brought-in-next-year/
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This is interesting Tonyb. I just wonder if the Blob gave it up because there are so many other ways to punish unbelievers at universities that they are not so afraid of it. (And without the right to sue for civil claims, what does this law bring?)
Genuinely curious.
30
UK Universities are reportedly now attended by more foreign students than locals. There’s also the alleged abuse of the system by “students” who can’t speak English and just pay others to do their work for them.
There’s no danger of “free speech” being any threat to the government when a lot of the students come from places where complaining about the government is somewhat of a crime, or is just not a cultural norm, or they can’t complain in English. The university staff, mostly being about as left leaning as chairman Mao are also not much of a threat to the Starmer regime.
40
In order to prevent catastrophic/alarming/dangerous climate change, a dairy group is to feed an additive to cows to stop them belching methane.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/07/the-re-engineering-of-the-cow/
The public has not been impressed.
180
What’s the average temperature in England? Scotland? Wales?
60
Yes I am a bit curious about that myself.
30
Never pay much attention to the temperature, just wear a tweed jacket and you’re dressed summer and winter.
80
I saw 6 deg this morning
10
Our closest BOM reporting station indicated 7 deg yesterday.
It’s summer here in WA !!!
10
Just dull and chilly atm in southern Hampshire! Despite wearing layers of warm clothes and my Puffa, I was frozen yesterday. Very different from the last time we were here when we had a proper brief summer in June and ate outside nearly every evening. We were in Cumbria and Gloucestershire that time.
10
There’s four (4) ‘businesses’ receiving free air-time here regarding their ‘work’ developing anti-methane medication (a most-potent GHG apparently) from injections to pills to tweaked grass seed.
The experiments are still 5 years away from production, and most PR announcements claim a 10-15% reduction of said ‘planet-heating pollution’. That’s it??? Sadly the govt of the day is throwing millions of our Pacific Peso at these ‘businesses’.
Can someone tell me how much of this most-potent gas, CH4, is in the air… I wrote down 0.00018 in my notebook a while back, but not sure if that’s PPM or per hundred (%). And of that minuscule amount, how much is Daisy’s fault?
Signed: Incredulous.
170
0.18 p.p.m. is close to atmospheric concentration.
Said to be (it isn’t) 85 times absorbing as CO2.
Originally MEASURED by John Tyndall in 1861 as 4.5 times absorbing as CO2.
Claimed to be 25 times in the first IPCC report.
Has steadily increased potency since by alarmists.
180
The IR absorption cross section of CH4 is quite small compared to CO2 so how can it be a more potent green house gas?
https://www.google.com/search?q=absorption+spectrum+of+green+hpuse+gases&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-au&client=safari#imgrc=MiKCZ9h9XxM2KM&imgdii=oJSWW8Hq-bIPlM
60
Wrong reference image. It was supposed to be this one.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=afbf823101d056b0&hl=en-au&q=radiation+transmitted+by+the+atmosphere&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0AAii1lAhsPaaai4wByEaaiLtkYffr8TjULxngy_3vywEQMNvo8XhV1CKP3OhjgMVep7vAYp3jvrECYarcYxxG0dOhvBFfUBMSdBQHK_Sw9hd3dQJ9vZ3DEKHUur527n-hveqkvvI9wLhipGdcag_w7vQqjhZbe_FSlPTb6EBk-pnA9FJTTbDpHerk9b0uqNP7teorvcNZgib0istqM_iwXjUOI5A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLhJyehZmKAxX5yzgGHSMCOtYQtKgLegQIGBAB&biw=390&bih=663&dpr=3#vhid=1h0y1Qwhs45aZM&vssid=mosaic
50
It’s funny how it’s ONLY domestic animals that manage to cause climate change. Apparently all those wild animals that ate grass in the past simply didn’t fart or burp. Hundreds of millions of very large herbivores roaming all the areas of the northern hemisphere just fitted in and cared for country, no nasties from them, then along came the domestic stuff and quick as a flash the planet was off to hell in a hand basket.
It’s also good to know that here in Oz the local wildlife, i.e. skippy, is a world leader in not producing green house gases.
260
This also brings us back to “what happens to all that vegetation that doesn’t get consumed by herbivores”. Oh wait, that’s right it decays to exactly the same green house gases that the cows produce, at the same rate per acre regardless. The scientists better develop a pasture vaccination or at the very least find a way to stop those blood pesky bacteria from “doing their thing”
230
I doubt that being a termite vaccinator will feature as a popular new green job either
100
You would think we invented cows, pigs, goats, chickens! Dogs, horses and many more including camels. They existed long before we domesticated them. Australia’s a funny place as we have nine of the ten deadliest snakes. And some of the fastest and slowest wildlife in the world. Kangaroos are completely adapted to the land of droughts and flooding rains, but fences are useless or they would be domesticated. But to argue that the planet and the animals on it are not in balance absurd. Swapping buffalo for cattle is just for convenience. The total methane and CO2 output is the same.
Australia now has a million camels, but no one really knows.
Plus we can only eat seeds, not trees. We cannot digest grass. So we eat the animals which can. And the milk. Though again we prefer cow milk to sheep and goats and camels and horses.
The vilification of domesticated animals is just part of the alignment of the Climate Catastrophists and the Animal Liberation people who think greyhounds would be just fine in the wild. And that sables, foxes and minks are nice happy domesticated creatures compatible with people and their chickens.
320
I believe that white ants are supposed to collectively emit about the same amount of methane as livestock. A bit harder to control though.
90
More from termites than cows. 20 million tonnes annually, while cows only contribute 1.3 to 1.5 million tonnes pa. (Termites fart a lot.)
https://farmdesire.com/do-termites-produce-more-methane-than-cows/
60
Termites are easy to control … just do regular fuel reduction burning to ensure there’s very little dead wood around the place. Also clear some of the trees, ensuring that sunlight reaches the ground in most places.
Also helps with bushfire reduction, for the same reason you discourage termites … they both feed on the same thing.
20
Indeed, funding may need to be provided for a PhD into white ant sphincter pinching to reduce methane levels. Perhaps if Bill Gates makes termites seem as appetising as beef we will eventually see climate action groups attack white ant methane producing mounds.
40
Perhaps if Bill Gates makes termites seem as appetising as beef.
Ask a numbat.
20
I refuse to bring native animals and their natural diet into the argument. Oh, sheesh- that’s been happening already throughout this thread. My bad…
10
Being downwind of whale flatulence is not something I wish to repeat ever!
50
I saw a map yesterday (which I can’t find now of course) which had India superimposed on USA.
And IIRC the cattle population of USA about 90 million as opposed to India about 300 million
And questioned if India’s didn’t count as they are sacred animals?
80
The digestive system of ruminants like cattle have some interesting chemistry going on. This is needed to digest cellulose, the “structural’ part of grass.
It is a fairly inefficient process..
See also terminal vegans; serious methane generators.
I understand that there is ammonia content in general flatulence.
There is probably a joke, somewhere in there. Let us all know if you find one.
30
A cow, a termite and a vegan walk into a bar.
The cow says to the bartender “I eat grass”. Pointing at the termite she continues “but l fart a lot less than this guy”.
The termite is a little miffed by the attention. He says “I eat wood and l have to admit I do fart more than her but it’s not my fault as it’s a result of my diet. Having said that, l fart less than him”, as he points at the vegan.
The termite says to the vegan “you do realise that our guts are specialised to digest cellulose and that your diet puts as much methane into the atmosphere as me and my bovine mate combined?”.
The vegan replies, with a smug look on his face “all your words are true but you failed to recognise the most important thing- the fact my sh*t doesn’t stink”.
30
Methane is such a nothing burger as GHG. It’s measured in parts per billion with a B.
160
Yes, they do that because it’s only 1.5ppm.
20
Bumped from for the record on “Friday thread” as that was the only one I was seeing till now –
FWIW – More questions
“NEXT SEASON OF CLARKSON’S FARM WRITING ITSELF: Calls to Boycott Dairy Products From Cows Given Anti-Methane Supplement Grow in UK.”
“Calls to Boycott Dairy Products From Cows Given Anti-Methane Supplement Grow in UK
Bonus: The FDA approved the use of the supplement Bovaer in lactating cows in May of 2024.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/12/calls-to-boycott-dairy-products-from-cows-given-anti-methane-supplement-grow-in-uk/
Via https://instapundit.com/688903/#disqus_thread
As I understand it – in USA and
“In Australia, as part of their commitment to wokeness and ESG, Coles suppliers use this drug in cattle. They call it a “supplement” but the (US) FDA call it a drug.
https://www.colesgroup.com.au/media-releases/?page=coles-boosts-sustainability-in-beef-production-with-expanded-use-of-supplement ”
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/12/monday-82/#comment-2816756”
Which looks like they have done an end run around the testing required of a “new drug”.
And, after the “Covid Revelations”, is likely to raise quite a storm.
And
“Poisoned Cows of Clown World”
“But Bovaer is toxic. It requires handling with protective gear and has been linked to cancer, deformities, and fertility issues. It can shrink testicles and cause sterility. The milder side effects include skin and eye irritation and breathing problems. According to tests in Japan, Bovaer’s active ingredient, 3-NOP, causes testicular shrinkage, reduced sperm count, and impaired sperm mobility. It also leads to tumours. In animal tests, it shrank the ovaries of cows too, though we still don’t know how it affects trans cows or rats.
Isn’t it reasonable to ask why anyone would want to put this in our milk? Well, the same people who oversaw a 20% increase in excess deaths after “saving” us from COVID are now deciding what’s safe to put in our food. It even has its very own BBC Verify article.”
https://countrysquire.co.uk/2024/12/06/the-poisoned-cows-of-clown-world/
191
It is a nitrate ester and some of us know what nitrate esters do
boom boom
10
Bovaer is toxic –
To quote a heathen heretic friend of mine:
Cheeses wept!
Is nothing sacred anymore?
20
“But Bovaer is toxic … It can shrink testicles and cause sterility.”
To paraphrase the old joke about software, for today’s anti-masculinity wokes, “That’s not a side effect – it’s a feature.”
60
And more vacine news
Top Scientist: ‘Every Single Vaccine’ Was Designed ‘to Kill’
https://slaynews.com/news/top-scientist-every-single-vaccine-designed-kill/
Calls Grow for Bill Gates’ Arrest After He Admits Using India as a ‘Kind of Laboratory’ to Test Vaccines
https://slaynews.com/news/calls-grow-bill-gates-arrest-admits-using-india-kind-laboratory-test-vaccines/
170
Thanks, that was interesting.
60
Don’t forget all those life saving anti biotics Philc.
Anti = against
Biosis = life
Strange choice of name for such useful concoctions.
70
The energy transition is hitting EU boat and ship engines. We have electric tugboats, methanol and ammonia powered engines. Also crankcase explosions. What fun!
See https://www.maritimepropulsion.com/
90
An intro to methanol as shipping fuel. Who knew?
https://www.wartsila.com/marine/decarbonisation/adopting-methanol-as-marine-fuel?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIitzn1q2ZigMVCzAIBR2_4ACGEAAYAyAAEgJ14_D_BwE
How have we escaped this particular green madness in America?
50
Fascinating range of technologies being developed – not sure how cost-effective they will be.
The gate-rudder looks interesting indeed – although it is on a sail-assisted vessel, so may not be as effective on a more traditional ship.
One concern about all these different fuels and technologies – manning.
Traditionally, UK sea-going Engineers had one of three sorts of ticket – Steam, Motor, or [the majority] Combined.
Now we have various fuels – methanol, hydrogen [and the German ship gets its hydrogen trucked in – what could possibly go wrong?], ammonia, LNG, as well as diesel; and sail-assisted, electric, etc. – with ABS actively considering nuclear [Hurrah!].
Familiarity with these systems is required for those serving on board [appropriate to their rank] – by the ISM Code.
That may be difficult to show – in the event of a crew member leaving for a better job [or following an accident].
Whilst it is assumed that appropriate risk assessments have been carried out, my fear would be six or nine months later, when the ‘trained’ guys are replaced, possibly hurriedly, by those who only get a hand-over in port . . .
Auto
20
SILENCE OF THE METEOROLOGISTS
Failure to issue wind drought warnings enabled the effort to go green with wind and solar power on the grid.
A meteorologist writing for the admirable Conservative Woman site in Britain explained that we have continuous wind data for 60 years from the North Sea oil rigs 110 miles east of Aberdeen.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-curious-tale-of-the-north-sea-winds/
During the six months October-March, for instance, 20 percent of the time wind speed is 7 knots (8 mph) or less. That is where they cut in and start to generate power
https://www.windfinder.com/windstatistics/forties_north_sea_platform
He writes that meteorologists can explain these protracted wind droughts in terms of anticyclones (high-pressure systems) often covering thousands of square miles, resulting in light winds or none at all.
So the meteorologists did know about low winds caused by high-pressure systems indeed they sometimes refer to blocking highs but for some reason they never conveyed this information to the general public or the people who decided to put subsidised and mandated wind power on the grid.
Hence the most expensive and damaging public policy blunder in peacetime history.
290
Yes I have written about widespread (synoptic scale) low to no wind due to long lasting high pressure systems for several years. Moreover at 8 mph you get almost no power. Full power requires sustained winds over 30 mph which seldom happens anywhere very often. This is why the capacity factor is below 50% often way below. The wind just is not there at strength. Output oscillates up and down the power curve.
180
Yes at the cut-in point there is no power until the wind builds up. Anton Lang did a study of the fluctuations which is reported in one of our briefing notes and Jo Nova points out from time to time that the very rapid fall in windpower can be as much as losing a generator in a coal station. The wind failure passes without notice but the coal failure could be headline news, especially at the moment when blackouts are looming.
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/wind-power/21-6-short-term-fluctuations-in-the-supply-of-wind-power
100
Rafe mentions this: (my bolding here)
Take this link (and this is right now at 10.45AM Australian Eastern Standard Time) and and scroll down a little to the wind generation graph. Now, click on MW at the top right of that graph, and you’ll see what wind generation is doing right now. At this time, wind is generating 758MW from a Nameplate of 13,460MW at a Capacity Factor of 5.6%.
Two things here.
Point One – look at the synoptic analysis chart to the right and a little up. See that High Pressure system with the number 1016 just above Tasmania. That large High Pressure system is hovering over the area where more than two thirds of Australia’s total Nameplate for wind generation is located, the South East of South Australia, and Central Western Victoria. ALL of those Industrial Wind Plants in that area are operating at a current Capacity Factor of 1.9%.
Point Two, and relating directly to what Rafe wrote above. Note from the high point at 8PM last night, wind was almost 3400MW, and has now fallen to around 800MW, in a little more than 12 hours under the passage of that High Pressure weather system. That’s a loss of wind generation of 2600MW. That’s not just the loss of ….. ONE generator.
That’s equivalent to the loss of ….. ALL FOUR UNITS at Bayswater coal fired power plant.
If all four Units at Bayswater went off line in that time, the headlines would be screaming out.
Tony.
200
Rafe Champion, #8
____”Hence the most expensive and damaging public policy blunder in peacetime history.”
____Seems more like a well executed plan to bury inconvenient data.
110
BoM mentions ‘blocking highs’.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/about/?bookmark=blockinghigh
12
BBC: “As the Arctic melts, a regime shift is taking place
[]
His recent study says polar bears will become extinct in the wild by 2100.”
On that basis, there aren’t any polar bears, they went extinct in the Eemian.
110
Quite right Mike and the Co2 Coalition Scientists tell us the Eemian was 8 c hotter than our Holocene and SLs then were 6 to 9 metres higher as well.
And SLs were at least 1.5 metres higher off the Aussie east coast for thousands of years during the early Holocene.
40
And still Australian MSM including “Our ABC” suppresses the news of a fatal explosion in The Hague over the weekend
120
Tom Nelson checks out their latest temps claims and as usual it’s just more BS and fra-d.
This Gorilla science video checks USA data and only takes 6 minutes and the clueless lefty extremist donkey Bill Nye sets the globe on fire AGAIN.
https://tomn.substack.com/p/new-gorilla-science
40
What surprises me is that these GorillaScience (Tom Nelson) videos are being left up on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchGorillaScience/videos
Given the coverage and speed of social media, it appears Trump’s agenda is already impacting.
I noticed Trump was getting a lot of attention in Paris with his weekend visit. The man is a workaholic. I get up and think about mowing the lawn and washing the car. Trump is older but gets up and jets off to Paris to attend Church with the European heads of state.
Zelensky looked worried and Trump was not smiling in their encounter. He was more friendly with Macron:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgTqvTou93I
Trump holds a unique position in recent history of being a returning POTUS but not the incumbent. It is like he is the incumbent President doing presidential duties before the start of his second term. It would be galling for Biden if he a knew what was happening.
180
” it appears Trump’s agenda is already impacting.”
I’m sure!! All those large organisations likely to be in his sights for being Far Left and stupidly woke will hastily be switching sides and becoming Centre-Right supporters before January, just in case he remembers them!
By New Year Biden will have been scrubbed from the media and their history, and any embarrassing moments will be plastered over like Covid.. ‘Oh, it was a difficult period when we did our best, but hey..’!
60
FWIW – a “sermon on seed oils”
“Materially Improve Your Health ”
(HRV = heart rate variability)
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=252458
50
Seed oils = poison.
70
I wonder if it’s the Omega-6 that’s the problem?
DW* reported last week that the ideal ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3, in our diet, should be 5:1.
If it’s higher than that, there’s an inflammatory effect — yeah, so not good for a type of arthritis, other stuff too.
Sunflower oil is high in Omega-6. Lots of ‘snacks’ are cooked in that.
Elsewhere I saw that the ratio people consume these days is often 10:1, even 20:1. Is it linked to the disparagement of ‘animal fats’, and the promotion of ‘vegetable oils’ as a substitute?
Maybe RFK Jr will take up the baton. Do an ‘uncorrupted’ study.
*on Deutsche Welle’s health show. Can’t remember the name.
20
‘Anthropological research suggests that our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed omega-6 and omega-3 fats in a ratio of roughly 1:1.’
https://chriskresser.com/how-too-much-omega-6-and-not-enough-omega-3-is-making-us-sick/
20
I assume that omega 6 and omega 3 fats are ldl and hdl respectively.
The hdl dissolves and helps remove the bad one from our systems.
The book from many years ago explained the consequences of incorrect diet in this area: The Queen of Fats.
01
HDL and LDL are lipoproteins, they are not omega 3 or 6 which are fats or oils. Totally different.
30
Jo, are you saying that they aren’t cholesterol?
LDL and HDL are two types of cholesterol that differ in their function and how they affect your health:
LDL (low-density lipoprotein)
Also known as “bad” cholesterol, LDL is the main type of cholesterol in the body. High levels of LDL can lead to a buildup of cholesterol in your arteries, which can narrow blood vessels and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.
HDL (high-density lipoprotein)
Also known as “good” cholesterol, HDL absorbs cholesterol from the blood and carries it to the liver, which then removes it from the body. High levels of HDL can lower your risk of heart disease and stroke.
01
Jo is saying that omega 3 and omega 6 are not LDL or HDL cholesterol. Your stated assumption was that they were.
Jo is not saying that HDL and LDL are not cholesterol.
.
Omega 3 is a fatty acid that we can typically get from say fish oil. Omega 6 is a fatty acid that we can get from some vegetable oil.
We only associate them with HDL and LDL cholesterol in that our consumption of omega 3 and omega 6 can affect our production of LDL and HDL cholesterol.
30
Strop is correct. A lipoprotein is not cholesterol. They are totally different molecules. The role of the LDL and HDL lipoproteins is to carry cholesterol packaged up — in our blood. They are the wrapping.
Omega-3 is a fat molecule which has a double bond at position 3 (third carbon)
Omega-6 has a double bond that starts at the 6th Carbon.
Usually Omega3 has more double bonds, which means it’s more polyunsaturated and more fragile than a 6. Usually we find omega 3s in cold climates or cold fish because they don’t last long in the heat.
50
Thanks Strop.
My main, and obviously, very basic understanding is that HDL is associated with omega 3 and LDL is associated with omega 6.
The main point I was linking to with the book was that the Esquimaux lived well up in the north on a diet of fish and whale blubber.
It was only after they came further south and ate a western, low cholesterol diet that they got sick.
It was found that HDL was necessary to flush out the bad LDL.
My basic expertise in this area of biology is almost non existent but the main thing is that “cholesterol” has an interesting story to tell.
Now I understand why my mother gave us spoonful of flax seed oil once a year, ; it has HDL , or omega 3.
The Queen of Fats was a good read.
10
Just a point of clarification in case its relevant. Flax seed oil has omega 3, but doesn’t have HDL.
Omega 3 and 6 can assist the function of HDL and/or possibly increase it. Which is probably why some might imply that an oil like flax has HDL. But it’s just consequence/benefit of what our body might do with flax oil.
00
The book I referred to:
https://joannenova.com.au/2015/05/cholesterol-how-the-web-and-books-are-years-ahead-of-consensus-and-govt/#comment-1714903
A fantastic macro analysis of the “cholesterol ” thing.
10
It’s rather cold in Melbourne today for a country that’s supposedly in Climate Meltdown.
Currently 14C, 57F.
Especially noticeable as I just stepped off a plane from Thailand, not that it was particularly hot there either…
140
Pfft… 14 degrees, that’s a heatwave doncha know! It’s SNOWING on the hills around Queenstown as we speak:
https://www.queenstown.com/webcams
A total whiteout and -3C air temp at Remarkables, just started snowing on Coronet Peak with zero degrees of ‘heating’, and the road to Milford Sound is slowly turning white. Thankfully I’m up the other end of the islands where it’s as warm as Sydney on 23*C – or is that a coldwave for NSW?
110
Welcome back David,
How about a short summary of your walking tour holiday.
50
FWIW
More “Safe for use in food”
“FDA May Outlaw Food Dyes ‘Within Weeks'”
https://hotair.com/headlines/2024/12/08/fda-may-outlaw-food-dyes-within-weeks-n3797688
30
clearly Trump was about to make them mandatory
20
Their ABC and their CSIRO are telling us that Nuclear will be 1 to 2 times more expensive than their toxic W & S lunacy.
But Mc Kinsey says W & S would cost the world at least 274 trillion and ditto from Bloomberg’s quote and even their ABC and other Scientists tell us W & S would cost Aussies trillions of $.
So trillions of $ disasters and trashed every 15 to 20 years and millions of birds minced forever and thousands of klms destroyed for SFA change to climate or temp or extreme weather or droughts or floods or…..?
170
Perhaps we should call the ABC as Bird Deniers?
100
The new draft GenCost is already being heavily panned by commentators in The Australian today. It seems that the CSIRO is digging itself into an even bigger hole with its outrageous and wrong claims, totally at variance with the rest of the world. The CSIRO has moved a long way away from the very good scientific organisation of the past, into a political appendage of the Labor Party.
160
The number one comment in response (Rojen) – (most liked) to the CSIRO was pretty damming as well as very enlightening. What was said really needs to be shouted out loud from the rooftops. I hope they post here as I’d love for them to post their information here as well. Some of their points the CSIRO did or didn’t not consider or outright misled on:
1. CSIRO assume a nuclear plant life is 30 years
2. We can use home batteries to back up power lulls with solar/wind
3. Battery’s will only every be needed for a maximum of 48 hours.
4. Full grid connection cost for w/s not factored
5. Construction time for w/s – six months
6. Nuclear efficiency only 30% – realllyyyy?????
40
I don’t doubt the estimates of the CSIRO.
The problem is that it was not a condition of their estimates that it had to be a working power system not an intermittent one.
They haven’t even given an estimate of the hours per day the intermittent energy will be available.
That’s government work for you.
40
Today’s counter-intuitive phenomenon is the Mpemba effect.
10
Again Nick Cater checks out Finland’s new Nuclear plant and the cost would be about 9.8 billion Aussie dollars.
So 9.8 times 7 would be about 68.6 billion for the Coalitions plan and dirt cheap compared to TRILLIONs of $ for Labor, Greens, Teal’s toxic W & S disaster that lasts about a quarter of the time and destroys our environments forever.
This video is about 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbeKtcTfMbY&t=292s
131
I wonder how comparable that cost is to Australia. Do the Fins have a CFMEU inflating costs? Or stop/slow traffic controllers earning $200k pa on major projects?
150
Thought that was a new video – it’s dated May. Still very good though.
20
Dear Pres Putin- Please send the personnel and all materials needed to build us 7 nuclear reactors. It would be best if you ran up a perimeter fence and did the whole thing inside. We are happy at your 1/10th the price quote at 10times the speed..
We will be busy on our endless Snowy 2 project.
Yours sincerely…
60
Ewan Mearns has looked at the cost of all (?) large-scale nuclear builds. Average cost was A$8bn.
30
and the benefits?
something to be said for having copious 24×7 power , as the Finns found out
10
The UAE seems to be doing ok with their US$30bn 5.6GW nuclear power plant. Now supplies 25% of their power at around A$0,26/kWh. And it will keep supplying this extra power reliably, 24/7, for a very long time. Seems to be a very worthwhile investment.
20
In this collection of random ideas for today,I would love to repeat that the vilification of CO2 and now Methane and even animals is based on the unproven idea that the 50% increase in CO2 since 1750 is man made. That has never been proven.
And the amount of cash spent on stopping the steady rise of CO2 is likely more than the entire GDP of North America. Without even proving we can.
So enjoy the picture of Atmospheric CO2 over the last 50 years and ask why we bother?
98% of all CO2 is dissolved in the ocean. So why wouldn’t we expect CO2 to go up slowly with increased ocean temperature?
An unproven conjecture. No actual problems in 37 years since the urgent problem was invented. And no sign we can control CO2. Or even contribute.
190
Spot on, how much have we spent in the last 30 years and how much has CO2 dropped.
90
Well we don’t influence it much, so nothing significant or even measurable really.
00
TdeF. Wouldn’t an increase in atm CO2 be expected as the LIA ended and oceans warmed? Keep warming oceans and CO2 keeps rising?
30
Yes. And the evidence is that on a gross geological scale, CO2 increases lag temperature changes.
My proposition is that CO2 changes follow temperature changes quite closely. And CO2 can vary 50% in 250 years and no one would notice. The only argument against that is with ice cores which show steady slowly varying CO2, but they would. It takes 300 years for snow to be compressed to glassy ice, meaning a lot of CO2 leakage. Looking at the ice cores, the time resolution is worse than 2,000 years, so you would not see small changes.
My view is that CO2 changes can happen quite quickly with slight ocean warming, itself due to current oscillations or solar intensity oscillations, but this does not show in the ice record.
I also believe that as 98% of all CO2 is in the ocean, ocean temperatures dictate CO2 and all our weather, not air temperatures. Our air temperature is just an effect.
The very idea that CO2 causes rapid heating and not that CO2 is an effect of heating is conjecture. The flat beer effect is far better known and more likely. Warm the ocean surface slightly and CO2 comes out. The question then is why CO2 in the upper layer increases slightly and does not deplete. That may be because more is in transit from the vast reservoir of CO2 below or that the increase in CO2 in the ocean surface is the reason CO2 goes up. This again may related to ocean currents.
My pet theory is that the ocean is stuffed with gas. We know this because our ancestors in the ocean breathed, as do they all today. So there’s a lot of gas, specifically oxygen in the ocean. Almost all CO2 as CO2 is 30x more soluble than O2. So the general idea that slight surface warming, due to current oscillations like El Nino or just solar intensity will release a bit more CO2. Otherwise the atmospheric CO2 is spectacularly constant from pole to pole within 1%, which looks very much like rapid equilibrium, regardless of human activity. The band over China, Europe and America has the same CO2 level as the South Pole.
And in the Northern Hemisphere where you can see the direct effects of summer and winter in slight CO2 oscillations which coincide with peaks in summer and troughs in winter. NASA says this is due to vegetation growth, but the reverse would be true, peaks in winter and troughs in summer. But NASA are not biologists.
60
Thanks TdeF,
That brings it all together rather nicely.
30
It is disgusting to know that our tax dollars are going to such awful causes as paying legal fees and damages for actions bought against the smug, smarmy, incompetent know-it-alls at their ABC.
This story is a few months old but I did not realise how bad it was until I viewed the 7 Spotlight replay last night. This SkyNews report provides a brief insight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y10DBhmZHOY
This disgusting organisation does not contribute to the Australian economy. It is a left wing propaganda machine doing a great deal of damage to the Australian economy. It is an unaccountable monstrosity that deserves to be disbanded.
220
The justification for a taxpayer funded and uncontrolled and uncontrollable media giant is zero in the 21st century. Sell it. It if is worthless, why should we keep paying? The idea that being independent meant the ABC/SBS was objective and unbiased is a long proven complete failure. Still it keeps growing, feeding an army of privileged North Shore residents.
131
RickWill, #19,
____That brief report by Chris Kenny says without saying, that our ABC was tasked to remove heat from our ADF brass.
____Tell me different.
81
It is an indictment on the ADF that Heston Russell had to muster his own legal defence.
Mark Willacxy is a germ on society spreading his mischief without sufficient humanity to apologise after being found out showing doctored tapes.
90
A couple of years ago Heston Russell was interviewed on The Project and was asked why he felt the need to “speak out” when some media were leveling accusations at his group.
He said that soldiers were being attacked in the media and on social media and “no one else from Defence was speaking out”.
It’s an even greater indictment on the ADF that he had to muster his and other soldier’s public defence.
.
I could choose to donate to his legal fund. The government forces me and you to donate to the legal fund against him.
90
Scientists Create Meat From Human Cells, But Claim It’s Not Cannibalism
Scientists have just pulled off an extraordinary feat by creating lab-grown meat from human cells. But before you jump to conclusions, here’s the twist: they’re insisting this is not cannibalism.
Scientists behind this innovation argue that the process is fundamentally no different from creating lab-grown meat from animal cells. In both cases, no conscious being is harmed, and the end product is a sustainable alternative to conventional meat.
https://themindunleashed.com/2024/12/scientists-create-meat-from-human-cells-but-claim-its-not-cannibalism.html
Another fine Soylent-white (tastes like chicken) product sold under the Dahmer Labs brand?
/sarc
100
“creating “lab-grown” meat from human cells.”
How would we know?? That’s just what they’d advertise it as, but if we counted the number of people dying and the lack of increasing graveyards, it would only be a clue!
“Australian Pork, made from 100% Australian ingredients” Well, maybe, or maybe all those vaxxed people dying suddenly!
10
Tony Cannon
1h
It is well worth everyone reading the full Gen Cost Report.These are some notes from my review of their report.
1. The levelised cost of electricity in CSIRO is based on “economic life” not operational life. CSIRO assume a nuclear plant life is 30 years – same as solar. This allows CSIRO to conveniently list the massive end of life, disposal and replacement costs as “exclusions” in their comparison.
2. They remarkably assume customer owned and paid for solar battery’s can be utilised to support virtual power plants VPPs. By 2050 these VPPs are assumed to be 30% of total grid power and fully paid for by the customer.
3. The battery cost in the CSIRO analysis assumes 48 hours only is needed. There are many times wind droughts will last longer than this battery cycle. Same with pumped hydro – Borumba is 2GW but for only 24 hours ! $19 billion.
4. Wind and solar and pumped hydro costs do not include full grid connection costs in analysis. 6. CSIRO cleverly incorporate weather variability by modelling backup for selected benign years 2011 to 2019 avoiding major drought or prolonged wet cloudy periods.
5. CSIRO assumed a construction time of 6 months for solar and wind.
6. CSIRO Assumed nuclear efficiency of only 33% where as solar and wind at 100%. Nuclear has a capacity factor of 90% whereas solar and wind 20-25%. Therefore you need to install 5x as much nameplate capacity for generate the equivalent of a nuclear plant.
7. See full list of costs exclusions in CSIRO report.
Half the costs have been left out of VRE system.
Environmental impacts
Technology degradation
End of life costs
Whole of life emissions
Integration costs get only marginally higher when integration rate goes from 60-90 VRE
For light reading, see Harvard business review dark side of solar power 18.6.21.
More lies from CSIRO.
220
I presume that your comments relate to the new draft report? The commentators in today’s The Australian have also pointed out the many errors in the latest GenCost.
90
Like the ABC/SBS, the CSIRO has long outlived its rationale for existence. Like the office of Chief Scientist, its only role is to justify Labor/Green government policy and attack conservative policy. When did the CSIRO question the man made CO2 fantasy? It’s an early retirement home for unemployable scientists.
181
And at the end of the day “GenCost” is is just that…. The cost of Generation,…
..it avoids all the additional costs that are necessary for an electricity transmisssion and distribution service.!
30
What is the biggest “cost” in coal generated electricity? I would bet that it is the royalties paid to the state. So, if the state owned the generators like in the days of the SEC, they could in fact reduce the royalties to zero. However, like the privatisation of Hazelwood in Victoria then increasing the royalty costs to a ridiculously high fee, purposely making the whole operation unviable. Only governments could come up with these absurd ideas to suck every tax dollar from every individual and then claim that “coal” is uneconomical.
90
North Dakota gets cheap electricity from brown coal.
https://lignite.com/what-is-lignite/
USD prices of course but even when converted to AUD they still look attractive. Victoria has been busy forcing cheap brown coal power plants to close so there’s your biggest expense right there … political interference.
30
You would loose that bet !
Coal Royalties in NSW have just increased to 10.8% of the market value of coal consumed.
So even if coal was the main cost factor , only 10.8% of that cost would be Royalties.
00
FWIW
“Cynical Overtakes Sacred, as the West Bares its True Face”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/cynical-overtakes-sacred-as-the-west
10
Aurora spectalis
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_so5kn5E0kv1vqug0m.mp4
32
Unfortunately, the erecent improvements in video manipulation have made me very sceptical and jaded over any spectacular videos !
20
mmm true, I used to enjoy movies for exposure to spectacular location scenery. Now I look at it and shrug and think its probably just CGI.
20
As for methane, each cow outputs 100kg of methane a year from burps and manure. So do all such animals. So why is methane so low compared to CO2, even long before the industrial revolution?
The answer is that the level of CO2 has nothing to do with animals or internal combustion engines. It is the vapour pressure of the vast amount of CO2 dissolved in the oceans which cover the world. Warmer surface water, more CO2 in the air.
As in the graph of the previous comment, there is no sign of any human activity in CO2 such as the explosive growth of China. Or bushfires or volcanoes. It’s as if CO2 is a near constant from year to year, pole to pole with a very slight growth of 0.4% pa, far less than inflation over the last 50 years.
You would think it necessary to prove CO2 is man made before blowing up power stations. But not in this new world where the UN and China tell you what to think and where to send the money. Carbon Credits.
There is no science at all in man made CO2 driven RAPID Armageddon Global Warming or whatever. It’s all a lie. Methane too.
120
TdeF:
If you look at the Vostok graphs you will see at least 2 instances where CO2 levels have risen (after a period of heat) even to 400 p.p.m.
Either one assumes that prolonged warm causes CO2 emissions from the oceans OR that Neanderthals were joyriding around in petrol (or diesel) cars.
Of course the Green disciples will claim that the figures are faked (they would know from the latest temperature figures).
And re methane – I remember a claim that termites released more humans.
50
Termites. Fungi. It is interesting that coal/gas/oil was formed in a very short period in the carboniferous period. And built up because the biosphere in its infancy could not digest hydrocarbons, so they just accumulated. Then evolution created classes of insects and animals and fungi which could live on this rich source of stored solar energy. Termites are part of the insect class which could process cellulose. Thereafter dead trees were eaten and converted back to CO2 and H2O by a whole army of hungry living things. Including termites.
I expect that termites and fungi generate much more methane and CO2 than humans. All methane turns into CO2 within 20 years anyway, which means it cannot accumulate. It is part of the allegation that while fossil fuel produces CO2, the CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. Methane cannot. So this idea that it is 30x the greenhouse gas power of CO2 is irrelevant.
10
“pole to pole with a very slight growth of 0.4% pa, far less than inflation over the last 50 years.”
That should be the Climate Realists meme- “Don’t you wish inflation was only at the CO2 increase rate” or similar..
40
I’m sure this is about building up to 2024 being the hottest EEEVVVEERRR.
60
Apparently this spring was the hottest evvveeeerrr!!
Really? Where I was it was the mildest spring in my memory. And it was perfect for agriculture, ideal, couldn’t be improved. CRISIS!
110
What do you mean by “mild”?
When your world revolves around anomalies like the BoM, you observe “mild” as the hottest evah. Depending on where you live, some might say “humid” rather than mild. I think of the word “balmy” here in Melbourne.
My meaning of balmy is pleasantly warm days in mid 20s cooling to a pleasant overnight of say 16C. As an example I looked at the November max and mins for this year compared with 50 years ago. The maximum is up from average of 24C to 25C. The minimums are up from 10C to 15C. So, on average, the temperature is up a blistering 4C. Could very well be the warmest evah but I sense it as balmy.
Mainland Australia has its 10th wettest spring in the last 115 years so you would expect it to be balmy or maybe humid depending on where you live.
Lots of atmospheric water over the entire country:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-223.66,-25.13,392/loc=136.905,-24.840
Looks more like the Amazon every year.
The atmospheric moisture is not going away either. It has been trending up for the entire satellite era due to the NH requiring less of the heat that gets soaked up in the SH during the austral summer.
20
Don’t forget our “low intensity heat waves” you know the type, low 30’s for 2 consecutive days. All the warnings on local radio, stay hydrated, avoid out door activity, check on elderly neighbours, (still waiting) pregnant and nursing mothers should take extra precautions, etc etc etc.
50
They don’t mention Hunga Tonga and the extra 10% water vapour in the stratosphere.
‘The model calculated the monthly change in Earth’s energy balance caused by the eruption and showed that water vapor could increase the average global temperature by up to 0.035°C over the next 5 years. That’s a large anomaly for a single event, but it’s not outside the usual level of noise in the climate system, Jenkins said. But in the context of the Paris Agreement, it’s a big concern.’ (Eos)
31
FWIW
“Weird How That Works”
https://x.com/FoodProfessor/status/1865736634618331186
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2024/12/08/weird-how-that-works/
Like some other things we are fed
10
FWIW
“President Trump Full NBC Interview – Video and Transcript
December 8, 2024 | Sundance | 52 Comments”
https://youtu.be/b607aDHUu2I
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/12/08/president-trump-full-nbc-interview-video-and-transcript/
10
Green minded folk in Sydney have convinced themselves the weather is “CRAZY”. “So much rain!”.
20 years ago their guru told them it would never fill the damns again.
It’s amazing how the mind and the weather works. “The humidity!” Everything is fine, just relax and breath. This is Sydney, it’s summer, it gets humid.
110
For my entire life I have only ever heard people talk about how crazy the weather is. I my case I take the weather like I take my dinner, what ever is served up is fine by me. If I don’t like it, tomorrow is another day.
70
CSIRO according to The Australian newspaper has entered the nuclear verses wind-solar debate and apparently the new CSIRO claim is that in the long term the so called renewables are cheaper.
How could that be right?
In the long term replacements every 20-25 years compared to nuclear 7-80 years and in the US licensing 80 years with provision for 100 years?
Cheaper when a new second main electricity transmission grid is required only for wind-solar?
What about hundreds of locations needed for wind-solar and the land, access roads, feeder transmission lines to main grid, firming back up equipment?
As compared to replacing existing power stations with nuclear and connecting to the existing transmission grid network.
110
So we are one of the largest coal exporters, with Indonesia. We earned $127Billion and employed 48,000 people in the coal industry.
Much smaller we export only $800 million of uranium each year with 1/3 of known uranium reserves.
But extraordinarily, we are not allowed use either, by legislation and direct government order. So of course we have to import ALL the technology, which makes it expensive. Technically we are not more advanced that a century ago.
And we blow up existing working coal power stations. Why? Hazelwood was operating at 98% design efficiency when destroyed. Because it was ‘old’.
Here’s our actual energy supply.
Why the fantasy that we are saving even ourselves from Global Warming? The Saudi Arabia of coal, gas, uranium and Thorium is playing games and keeping it all in the ground.
A ‘renewables super power?” We could be a real energy superpower. Like Saudi Arabia. Not just hot air and sunshine.
But we are saving the planet! Except that’s utterly ridiculous. We can’t even defend ourselves.
90
As above the CSIRO is right. It is far cheaper to have an intermittent power system than a reliable one. For a few dollars less the nation can have imitation power stations made from cardboard.
As always it is the things left unsaid which tell the tale. You know it makes sense.
50
Another government snafu coming up there – a 300 foot cardboard fake windmill might turn out an expensive challenge
40
Latest submission from SMR Technology Australia
https://www.smrnuclear.com.au/_files/ugd/c733f6_9a9856391c094b0ea12beadc22254616.pdf
41
Bob Simpson, ex cricket Captain, has heavy dementia in a nursing home. No one visits him. He has two daughters who turn up once a year or so.
He’s a bit of a handful, gets aggressive, trotters around in a loaded nappy attended by tiny Nepalese who speak minimal English, when they can get to him if not too busy.
It takes a million dollars deposit to be put in a nursing home. We spend trillions or whatever on windmills on a theory of stopping a few hot days.
A wealthy country that forgets it’s elderly is morally broken, lacks respect.
212
My mother lived to 101 with her last 4 years in a nursing home. Til her dying day her mind was as sharp as a razor. She was well aware of the misery her fellow inmates (as she called them) were suffering.
And now my wife is suffering from dementia. She can’t dress herself but most days she still knows my name.
There are no good options for aged care. As with everything governments and government programs can only make things worse.
120
I understand, my mother suffered the same fate but did not make 100 years of age.
50
Dementia is terrible thing, you have my heartfelt sympathy.
Mrs H is in her 11th year since diagnosis with AZ. I hope your ordeal doesn’t last that long, and I say that in nicest way.
Ask Jo for my email if you need a chat.
40
Thanks H.
00
LOL
I don’t know why that made me crack up so much.
30
I’m sure that the CIS experts are correct that a number of Nuclear plants could be built a lot cheaper than one single plant and Canadians or South Koreans etc would be happy to provide a quote.
Just a quick check we can do about W & S, divide 274 trillion by 100 = 2.74 trillion at least for Aussie changeover. Aussies are 1% of global co2 emissions.
And repeat again every 15 to 20 years, forever.
Quick check for 7 Nuclear plants would be under 70 billion $ and would last until 2100.
So 7 Nuclear plants are less than one tenth of a trillion $ and toxic W & S are a complete super expensive joke.
And the clincher is we retain our eastern Aussie environments and Nuclear is always available 24/7/365.
Of course Solar is only 15% CF and Wind about 30% CF availability and Gas or Coal or Nuclear must be built to cover the 85% for solar and the 70% for wind power deficits forever.
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OR…. Just rebuild the coal generation capacity using USC+ technology that we know will last 50+ years and is cheaper than either of those options.
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Gosh Chad, just think of the terrible CC crisis we’ll cause if we don’t reduce our 1% of emissions by 2050. SARC.
BTW Willis is still updating his “where’s the emergency” article, but alas no emergency can be found.
Big surprise NOT.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
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United Arab Emirates Barakah Nuclear Power Station has 4 generator units with combined installed capacity of 5,600 MW.
It took 13 years to build by a firm of contractors from South Korea and the cost was about A$70 billion.
The last of the 4 units was commissioned only a couple of years ago.
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“Russia is already building a new unit at Egypt’s Dabaa NPP at a reported cost of $30bn, and will consist of four power units with a combined capacity of 4800 MW. Russia’s nuclear exports are booming as it signs dozens of deals around the world and the far growing power-hungry African nations have been especially receptive, as Rosatom usually offers extremely attractive financing terms, but projects also come with 60-year operating, maintenance and fuel-supply contracts.”
Half the price of the South Koreans… Invite them down, politics be dammed! Russians build it, run it, maintain it and supply fuel, all we do is buy the electricity. Otherwise Burkina Faso will have electricity and we won’t!
https://www.intellinews.com/burkina-faso-the-latest-african-country-to-enter-nuclear-power-plant-construction-talks-with-russia-337408/
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Not sure if this has been posted already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b607aDHUu2I
Trump meets the press in a broad ranging interview discussing his promises and what he is doing already
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You have to like a politician who has a clear purpose and doesn’t need the job.
Albanese is crying Islamophobia when it is terrorphobia. It wouldn’t matter if it was the IRA. We are importing terrorists and need to call it out.
We and the Islamic community do not want to be another Middle East. And the Middle East conflict is all about oil and dictatorships.
Israel is the only democratic country and not a dictatorship or family owned, except Turkey where Erdogan acts like it is one, betraying the secular ideals of tough idealist Ata Turk. (Mustaffa Gamel) Arabs in Israel (about 20%) generally are full citizens and vote.
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A good review of the three transmission links under construction. Cost likely to blow out to $16bn for just there three projects:
EnergyConnect
Humelink
Copperrstring
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/energy-bill-fears-grow-as-transmission-costs-blow-out-20240916-p5katm
Article is not paywalled.
The last Snowy 2 estimate of $12bn is now more than a year old. My bet is that it will double. The estimated completion is still 2028 compared with my 2049 with good luck. This project is now past 7 years in the making and what is to show for it apart from a lot of lost forest.
None of the transmission lines make sense with nuclear power generators. Snowy 2 could still be an asset.
CSIRO is still making stuff up about the “low” cost of “renewables”.
As usual – Who thinks retail electricity prices are going to come down any day soon?
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I don’t know about the others but Copperstring is long overdue and has nothing to do with ruinables. It is needed to get reliable base load [we all love that] from the coast to The Isa and beyond.
It looks as if I am not entirely right. There is the need for the HV line to Mt Isa but there is an addition I was unaware of.
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That’s $5bn now. What will it cost next year? How much power does Mt Isa need? Surely it would be much cheaper to drop in a local SMR. And if that’s meant to be a REZ, then a local SMR would definitely be cheaper.
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Don’t you want Mt Isa to enjoy all the benefits that Broken Hill has enjoyed?
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You must live in the city or you couldn’t just say a very productive half of Qld doesn’t deserve to live in the 20th century.
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I’m not sure how my comment could be construed as not supporting Mt Isa, or any country town. All I was saying was that where long transmission lines are proposed, surely a better approach, from both a cost and reliability viewpoint, would be to locate the energy source locally. Remember that part of Broken Hill’s problems was the failure of transmission towers, and as long transmission lines use more towers, surely they can be more impacted by tower loss.
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In the long term transmission lines are like roads, there is no way to avoid them.
But if you want distributed generation extend the gas pipes from the territory and Alice and install OC gas turbines. That is already being done in NT.
Long term transmission lines are cheaper.
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This is what could be done. Gas supports other industry.
https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/map/connection-between-eastern-gas-markets-and-gas-suppliers
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One of the questions I have re “Snowy 2” is how do they start the very large pumps needed to pump the drain water back up hill.
Given that these pumps will only operate when the electricity is cheaper than what the system generates, I can’t see a quick start up, you know like, electricity is cheap start the pump. electricity is dear stop the pump, being that easy. Anyone who has had any experience moving water knows that it takes time and a gentle build up to run the system without blowing things up. Likewise a system under high pressure, specially when there is a head of water on the delivery side, cannot simply be turned off.
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Why dont you ask the operators of Tumit Pumped hydro, or any of tthe many thousands of similar systems operating around the world ?
Its not rocket science.!…just lots of power .
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Military Push for Net Zero Combat Vehicles Faces Backlash From Top Brass
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/08/military-push-for-net-zero-combat-vehicles-faces-backlash-from-top-brass/
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The old line
“The Stupid, it burns” (while holding your head)
seems very applicable here
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Dramatic 1°C Plunge Recorded in Recent Antarctica Summer Temperatures
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/08/dramatic-1c-plunge-recorded-in-recent-antarctica-summer-temperatures/
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IPA’s Energy expert Dr Stephen Wilson also reports that RUINOUS toxic W & S will be 5 to 6 times more expensive than Nuclear.
This report was written on July 2024 and also includes the use of toxic batteries that will never fill in the huge gaps left by wind draughts , clouds, nights etc. A wind deficit of 70% and a solar deficit of 85% will be impossible to cover.
Of cause the big bonus is we don’t have to destroy thousands of klms of our environments as well. How many TRILLIONs of $ is that worth to our bottom line?
IOW it would be impossible to calculate how many trillions of $ this Labor, Greens, Teals BS and fra-d will cost for future generations.
https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/research-papers/the-ruinous-cost-of-free-energy-why-an-electricity-system-built-on-renewable-is-the-most-expensive-of-all-options
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It’s all hot air and mirrors. There is no ‘investment’ in wind and solar. It is all cash going to China for eternally replaceables. Here’s what we have achieved in 20 years.
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Welp… that was a disastrous experiment, what shall we blow money on next? 40years of the world’s greatest push for renewables and they can manage 10% of the energy needs. Except all the easy stuff has been done, and from now on it is less return per dollar poured in!!
Surely anyone can see The Great Transition to Renewables is just not going to happen!
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And as the ‘renewables’ were around in 1982, 30% is just hydro built in the 1950s, not wind and solar. So we have achieved even less.
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Wow! A “Nu-Start” program guaranteed every 20 years!
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Maybe time for us to pull the latest CSIRO Gen Cost Report (2024/2025) apart. The latest Report is still using unrealistic assumptions and methodology.
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Read the latest SMR Technologies submission I posted above
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Excellent paper. Good answers to many of the questions raised. Needs a wider circulation.
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It would be fun to see these picked apart at a Senate hearing, and even funnier to watch the CSIRO try and make it make sense.
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I believe that the head of the CSIRO has already been questioned by two hearings. From what I saw on the short videos, he just sidesteps the issues raised and keeps repeating the CSIRO mantra, as if there is nothing wrong with GenCost.
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Thorium salt reactor (MSR s ) development is marching on..with India well advanced..
https://youtu.be/jSFo_92cJ-U?si=KQ6_OZ0E6He5oHu-
And China making moves big time also
https://youtu.be/t4EJQPWjFj8?si=L9LjaO9jwQnk4W_R
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And hasn’t Australia some of the latest Thorium deposits in the world?
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The video details how most countries in the world EACH have sufficient Thorium to provide energy for thousands of years…..Australia included.
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I just had to slide back to my favourite subject, see the link below…
To save whatever left of education system we must shut some Universities down.
Maybe, for a compromise allow entry there only for non-Australians, just as moneymaking enterprise – which already they are today.
I am forever grateful to RMIT where I learnt a lot, semester after semester, of brand new technologies as they were coming into industry.
That was far back, half-century ago.., since then who new system produced: “environmental scientists” and “ethical business managers” ?
How the world best institutions define Science degree today? For instance – somebody had to have a degree, probably even a PhD to calculate the following number
” course will be devoted to situating Indigenous peoples, of which there are 476,000,000 globally”
https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP25/class/AIIS/3500
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So… more than half the world’s population are in a new country? Is a Norseman in Sweden one of those indigenies? A Geordie in Newcastle? Do we count the descendants of the Vikings as natives yet? Those coming from the Saxons in the UK?
I can see why we need to make Universities completely private institutions that get no money from Govt at all, and let those degrees that people can pay for flourish. Your employer can pay for your university if it is worth enough to him, because trying to get everyone a tertiary education sure hasn’t helped the world so far..
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Dumbing down degrees and keeping young adults at school longer just hides unemployment and precludes the teaching of essential trade skills. They you have a society without carpenters, nurses, plumbers, butchers, electricians, brickies, farmers and a thousand other professions. So hide them in the public service to vote Labor anyway. The pushing of people to stay at school and out of a job until their early twenties and longer has crippled Australia. And killed great career paths for young people. The TAFEs are empty of the skills necessary for an independent Australia. Worse, fifty years after Gough Whitlam, there is no one to teach the courses. We can’t all be lawyers.
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” So hide them in the public service to vote Labor anyway.”
That one TdeF! All they’ve done since the 70s is use the Govt bureaucracy to soak up the unemployed as we lost manufacturing jobs to firstly automation, then to overseas.
We were promised unlimited leisure with automation, work only three days a week.. blah blah blah ..and we have gone from my father working while Mum bought up the four kids to where both partners work and struggle to bring up one child!
How did the dream turn into a nightmare?
Why are immigration rates so high when under-employment is rife? Is the mandating of automatic gearboxes in trucks a clue as to who are the dirt-cheap but incompetent drivers in trucks these days?
Did those getting elected on ‘welfare for the struggling’ realise their promises would reach up into the middle-class, subsidising people on $60K a year to make sure the Left is always voted in?
“The TAFEs are empty of the skills necessary for an independent Australia. ” ..and pretty well empty of students to learn! We should have more students at TAFE than university, but instead get PhDs in some obscure Woke subject making coffees..
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I attended an RMIT graduation. 200 PhD’s at once. The dissertation subjects inluded one study on the ‘distribution by truck of Halal meats in Australia’.
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Another company looking to recycle Lithium ion batteries. Successful? who knows…
It’s interesting that they say they have an option to buy the tech from the University of Adelaide for a pittance rather than license it. No wonder all the good ideas disappear overseas… and probably some bad ones.
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/business/2024/12/09/sa-micro-cap-iondrive-moves-into-a-higher-gear
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well if it need cheap reliable power to implement, it aint happening in Oz and especially not in SA.
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I find it mildly amusing that the left can say ‘we can’t afford nuclear’, what have these numpties ever found that they (we) couldn’t afford.
NBN=Billions.
NDIS= 40billion.
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closing the gap = 40 billion + every year
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If you want to understand this issue of the cost of nuclear, there is only one thing you need to know: Electricity is cheaper in France than in Germany.
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Bureaucrat KPI:
https://www.profstonge.com/p/every-bureaucrat-destroys-158-jobs
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FWIW
“Dead Calm: Denmark Receives Zero Bids in Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Auction”
https://gcaptain.com/dead-calm-denmark-receives-zero-bids-in-largest-ever-offshore-wind-auction/?subscriber=true&goal=0_f50174ef03-5b378f7f91-170307950
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Gas wells being built in Taree Qld: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wieambilla+Rd,+Queensland,+Australia/@-26.9826863,150.4175215,25175m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x6bbc31ee4dc8ec29:0xf071aa3d703535f7!8m2!3d-27.0081508!4d150.4759121!16s%2Fg%2F11cjg90g9h?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D – saw a post from someone who lives there being driven mad by 24 hour construction noise
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https://notthebee.com/article/bidens-epa-just-made-the-first-ever-climate-change-related-arrest “Smuggling Greenhouse Gas”
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https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/vaccine-hesitancy-and-safety-concerns?publication_id=791657&post_id=151677707&isFreemail=true&r=ylkfi&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The thing about vaccines is, when you start, you can’t stop. Despite all the vitriol about the dangers of unvaccinated children, it is actually more that the recently vaccinated children are a danger to the unvaccinated. Polio now runs about 4-5 time the cases of vaccine induced polio to ‘wild’ per year – the vaccine-induced is not generally directly in the children receiving the vaccine, but the unvaccinated children encountering the recently vaccinated. The unvaccinated Amish that make a control group don’t typically encounter unvaccinated children closely, so are not necessarily showing that it is a good idea to not vaccinate your child in a typical highly vaccinated population.
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https://drmelissamccann.substack.com/p/interlocutory-hearing-my-thoughts
During the day we sat through and heard many times over how unarguable it is to expect that the respondents could owe a duty of care to act for the public good in the performance of their duties.
There was also an argument that no case could succeed against these lead decision makers as other people were also involved in various capacities to guide the decision making.
There was strenuous criticism of the length of our claim, and quite a show of repeatedly heaving a large folder containing the claim in printed form from one side to the other to demonstrate how embarrassing and unwieldy the claim is. Perhaps no-one within the AGS is familiar with Ctrl-F and the option of navigating and reading a claim in electronic form rather than paper.
There was also the accusation the claim is scandalous and therefore should be struck out.
Her Honour suggested it would take more than a year to understand the claim if one’s time was devoted entirely to that, and nothing else. Our KC suggested it could be read and understood in a week.
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FWIW – more covid story
Dr Malone
“Was DoD the Managing Agency for Operation Warp Speed?”
https://www.malone.news/p/was-dod-the-managing-agency-for-operation
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Peter Hotez of NIH/will not debate science with other scientists on Joe Rogan fame …
has predicted (probably with a model) …
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/12/05/jab-pushing-doc-predicts-plague-of-new-viruses-set-to-be-unleashed-as-trump-takes-office-1507474/#bpr-insider-comments
BLM is back planning to take to the streets if Daniel Penny is acquitted in NYC.
(Funny, they were so compliant during Biden.)
Deja vu all over again.
The Blob is not gonna take Trump 47 lying down.
They’ve just retreated to Hell to regroup.
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Someone took the trouble to describe how a Govt of randomly-picked people would work… The Greeks didn’t vote in a democracy, it was sortition, the random selection of citizens drawn by lot, that formed their Govt.
“The three branches of governance would remain and the process of proposing, enacting, and ruling on legislation would continue.
The executive would be replaced with a body formed of citizens who would be randomly selected by sortition from the whole population and would serve on a temporary or perhaps issue by issue basis. We could call this …“voluntary-executive”.
The legislature would be a larger body—selected and serving in the same way—who would then deliberate on and enact legislation proposed by the executive…let’s use “the Volegis.”
The biggest procedural difference in a voluntary democracy, other than the selection process, would be the abolition of bench trials. All justice would be dispensed by jurors in jury led trials and judges would be replaced by conveners whose only role would be to facilitate proceedings.
The most important difference would be that all juries would be sovereign. Juries and only juries would represent the supreme rule of law in the whole jurisdiction and their only concern would be to ensure justice was served. We shall call these …the Volcourts.”
…and no more politicians!
https://iaindavis.substack.com/p/voluntary-democracy-part-1
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Right Idea, wrong implementation. Whenever you have committees, you will have conflict and horse trading – which may be contrary to the truth of an action.
Instead we need a hierarchy – all human collective actions are best done by hierarchies – see military or business structures.
So instead of power at each level to do things we have a hierarchy of prerogatives.
At the national level all prerogatives are originated and then delegated to geographical areas, from state to county. Prerogatives are limited to the provision of goods and services. Each level has an administrator appointed by sortition for a limited term to run and oversee the execution of the prerogatives for that area. Each higher area can override the prerogative decisions of a lower area if required.
No area will have prerogatives relating to the determination of guilt or the formation of laws. Each area will have the prerogative to detect crime and apprehend criminals – only upon application to a court seeking a warrant for action.
Criminals will be judged by a three man jury on a case by case basis – no previous decisions will be binding. The jury selected by sortition from the citizens.
Neither the administration nor the juries may legislate or in any way cause laws to be enacted.
LAWs are to be UNIVERSAL and relatively simple (i.e. You shall not murder, you shall not steal etc). LAWs can only be enacted or repealed by vote of 80% of the citizens.
Any breach of prerogative by administration or attempt to enact legislation by either administration or juries will be treated as a treasonable offence.
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