South Australia, with 40% renewables, is lucky this has been a mild summer.*
Welcome to your load-shedding future:
Rolling blackouts ordered in Adelaide as city swelters
Widespread power blackouts were imposed across Adelaide and parts of South Australia with heatwave conditions forcing authorities to impose load shedding.
About 40,000 properties were without electricity supplies for about 30 minutes because of what SA Power Networks said was a direction by the Australian Energy Market Regulator. — The Australian
Premier Jay Weatherill blamed the AEMO for not ordering a gas power station to come online.
Electricity prices spiked to $13,440 MWh. Total demand was about 3,000MW. Things are expected to be the same tomorrow.
At 6pm tonight wind power was producing less than 100MW (about 7% of its rated capacity):
Look at the price spike and the forecast for tomorrow:
AEMO, Electricity Prices, Feb 8, 2016
Perhaps with better planning and more money they can reduce the need for planned blackouts — but why bother?I guess they’ll have those gas powered stations running tomorrow.
It has been smack on average at Adelaide Airport at 28.1C for January 2017.
*The Wind power graph was supplied in WA time, so I pushed the clock by 2.5 hours on the scale to make it “SA Time”.
BACKGROUND to the SA Electricity crisis (all the links).
People saw The South Australian black out coming. There were warnings that the dominance of renewables made it vulnerable. Then when it came, it all fell over in a few seconds — read the gruesome details of how fast a grid collapses: Three towers, six windfarms and 12 seconds to disaster. Ultimately the 40% renewable SA grid is crippled by complexity. The AEMO Report blames renewables: The SA Blackout was due to lack of “synchronous inertia”. The early estimates suggest the blackout costs South Australia at least $367m, plus their normal electricity is twice the price, and there are reserve shortfalls coming in January 2018 (pray for a cool summer). Welcome to the future of unreliable electricity: Rolling blackouts ordered in SA in 40C heat. And more bad luck for South Australia, yet another blackout, 300 powerlines down, 125,000 homes cut off. See all the posts on Renewable Energy and Electricity Grids.
SO – SA is now a developing country?
(So it seems to me.)
270
SA is a leading example for the rest of Australia. Keep reminding Australia of what awaits us.
240
Coming to Victoria in the not too distant future. !
201
Sad but true.
80
Maybe it’s true, we will start seeing climate refugees … from SA and VIC.
80
One day those windmills may end up as crucifixes and this will play endlessly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoaktW-Lu38.
20
Well don’t think you’re getting into the US!
00
I’m happy where I am. What we need is a country that will take all the warming worriers once the tide finally turns and they become the outcasts.
40
An Island someplace, cold, dark, and treeless where they might truly appreciate carbon
Send them a load of coal once and a while. See if they use it.
10
The spirit of Eddie Ward hovers across South Australia. Another day, another blackout. More experience of the worst government South Australia has ever known. And that includes the apparently defunct—definitely silent—Liberal Opposition. Do we not equate silence with consent? The moment one heard of the closure of the Port Augusta power station one knew that blackouts would follow: welcome to the third—not developing—world, a bankrupt and failed state, a de facto one-party state.
All of it flowing—unlike electricity—from the machinations of utterly obtuse government. Lysenko science provides no justification but the likes of Eddie Ward have only destruction in mind.
One can be generous and suggest some ideological program such as the historian Michael Walzer defined in The Revolution of the Saints : A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 27:
170
Give Turnbull half a chance & it’ll be National policy to ramp up the RET and enslave the country with a carbon tax/ETS or similar.
Just because he mentioned coal power does not mean he’s changed his mind & commitment to the Globalists. I hear he washed his mouth out after mentioning the “coal ” slur.
190
Amongst the stupidity, a ray of hope as SA runs up the white flag ( instead of the red one…)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/sa-power-what-is-load-shedding-and-why-is-it-happening/8254508
“What’s the solution?
South Australia needs more sources of power that can be dispatched on demand.
Local authorities are already investigating the possibility of an additional interconnector to NSW, Victoria or Queensland.
If they decide to proceed, the solution will take years and cost power users billions of dollars.
Other potential options include storage of renewable energy — through batteries, pumped hydro or other technology.
The SA Government is also seeking to stimulate a new market entrant, in all likelihood a gas generator, by offering a long-term contract to supply 75 per cent of its own power needs.”
ROFL!!!!!
50
I notice that the one solution available to them is not being considered.
60
They have the uranium for nuclear power. Also, the coal they were using previously to generate power is the much “cleaner” black variety. They now take power from here in Vic that is generated by dirtier brown coal. Madness!
00
It’s development cost is $40M per hr or one peaking power station every 10 hours.
The big question is how many people died caused by an outage?
70
..Ummm, shouldn’t that be “an UN-developing country” ?
40
A devolving state.
10
There must be a good word for the phenomenon but right now I can’t think of one. So I suppose this will have to do since I’m at a loss this morning — retrograde development. Bass ackward.
In any case, from what I’ve read right here on Jo Nova I wouldn’t call it developing in any sense of the word.
10
Just like California. 😉
10
Exactly like California. But don’t worry that you’ll miss out, the contagion is a completely equal opportunity operation. Not even the smallest corner of the world will be left untouched.
00
The solution is obvious to anyone with half a brain…install more wind turbines. It’s obvious even to Blind Freddy that there’s not enough of them. /sarc.
310
All hail glorious leaders marvellous wind power solution !!
150
The blades should be rotated to horizontal to catch the rising hot air.
180
Their plan is working. Anyone or any facility that needs power 24/7 will soon be driven out of existence. The remainder can be slowly squeezed out of existence until nothing is left of technological civilization. At which time they expect to be able to rule as a 9th century despot with absolute power over who lives, who dies, what they think, and what they do.
When the final collapse comes their plea will be “We didn’t mean this to happen.” Actually they did and deserve to be held accountable for all the poverty, despair, death and destruction their “noble plans” have achieved. If not now, when?
550
The road to hell is paved with
good intentionspoor inventions, this is one of the points I wish to get across to people in the public address being planned.230
The road to hell is paved? No. It’s just well greased to help you get to the other end faster. With good intentions you should get a cushy political appointment that will allow you to have no intentions at all, forever.
00
Its called Socialism, whereby those whose one talent is destruction, demolish those who can actually make something of themselves….
In the old days they’d call it evil….
210
OriginalSteve.
It is still called evil and Socialism always leads to economic decline, then tyranny. (Sometimes to anarchy then tyranny but the end result is always tyranny). And, in my opinion it is not an invisible or accidental slide to tyranny, it seems that it is always planned.
170
Insurance premiums for supermarkets or anyone with commercial food refrigeration will go through the roof.
190
They are the fossil fuel deniers;deniers of all that is good in modern Australia and all our achievements. They are hell bent on the destruction of our society as we know it today!
We cannot allow them to have their way. We must stop this stupidity.
GeoffW
240
In his excellent book “World Out of Time”, Larry Niven talks about water monopolies and how extremely stable they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_(Larry_Niven)
This could be replaced in this modern time with power monopolies, whereby every erg of power generated, and consumed, is controlled by the State.
South Australia is showing where the world is going with it’s insane fascination with power generation that doesn’t work. But it would be wrong to assume that the green blob doesn’t know this. Rather, it is being used to cut the amount of power available. Only State-supported industries will get enough power to operate. Others will get rolling blackouts, unaffordable power, or even an outright refusal to provide service.
South Australia has already forced car manufacturing out of Australia. Part of that was by rabid pricing of power. These rolling blackouts are also forcing aluminium smelting and uranium mining out.
30
Suggest check out (Aneroid Energy) the Fossil Power generation in South Australia over the matching period.
From the time wind started to drop off gas and diesel was rapidly ramped up until production was at close to 110% of installed capacity.
Unfortunately wind power had dropped by about 800 MW – about the same capacity as the Heywood inter-connector.
The closed Northern and Playford coal-fired power plants had a combined capacity of about 1,100 MW.
They needed to be replaced not closed.
There’s an acolyte of Climate Scientology defending his faith on The Australian website claiming that many countries have more than 40% power from renewable sources.
This is true but only Denmark has >40% from wind (and it often exports wind while it buys in coal and nuclear power from elsewhere).
He conveniently “forgot” the contribution of hydro power in many of the countries he named.
For the countries he named:
SPAIN – Wind 22%; Solar 5%; Hydro 18%
PORTUGAL – Wind 24%; Biomass 6%; Solar 1%; Hydro 30%
DENMARK – 42% Wind (Has the most expensive power costs in EU)
BRAZIL – Wind 4%; Hydro 70%
SWEDEN – Wind 3%; Hydro 49%
GERMANY – Wind 12%; Solar 6%; Biomass/gen 8%; Hydro 4% (2nd most expensive power in EU)
260
NZ electricity generation is mostly so-called “renewable” at 54% hydro, and 10% geothermal. Together with the non-renewables as in Gas (20%), and oil and coal (8-9%) there’s 93% of the total generation capacity.
Wind power is put at 7%, but from the number of almost windless days we get throughout the year, I have a feeling that’s more like “nameplate” or installed capacity with the reality of its contribution a mere tenth of that, if that.
We do all right. There are the inevitable stuff-ups—like the Auckland CBD having diesel generators strewn all over its footpaths back in 1998 when the three cables supplying the city centre failed, one after the other. Oops. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did.
50
One of the basic lessons men learn growing up (some of us eventually do, however poorly) is that the most expensive stuff of all is the free stuff. This little lesson usually expresses itself as a court ordered obligation to pay child support for the product of a one night stand for 20 years, though.
I think we are seeing the same thing with renewables, you know, free energy which ends up being the very most expensive of all. Renewables also have the extra added attraction of being unreliable as well. It’s a twofer. Cheers –
340
Please continue with the bold experiment. Many more remarkable successes await.
190
In fairness to Jay Weatherill, not that I want to be, he followed the Green BS and Labor policy and tried to get to 50% renewables. But that doesn’t make him the most stupid Premier in Australia (and with his current Treasurer not even the most stupid politician in SA) because Victoria has a Premier who having seen the mess caused in SA wants to do the same in his State.
Once again Victoria beats SA, if only in stupidity.
260
In fairness to Dopey Dan I have to say that if he were against our SA Treasurer then the result would be too hard to call, so a bet on the SA entry wouldn’t be that silly.
110
The answer is obvious: install sufficient phase change material, it can be water, in well-insulated, buried tanks in the garden. When the wind power is in excess, make it available by smart meter at zero cost to run a refrigerator to solidify the material. Then when the power goes off use a generator to pass by a series of pipes an oil-based heat transfer compound through the air conditioning system of the house.
That generator could be an old car engine. Then consider the next stage of the process: only accept input power from the Grid, when available. In time most domestic properties could be self-sufficient leaving the SA government to deal just with the larger businesses.
A variant could be farms which would install their own windmills and use cow and pig dung to provide methane for the cooker and static farm machinery. Thought about this 41 years ago with the then Chief Engineer of a multinational: we both agreed that the only time it would happen was when the CO2 scare was proven correct.
Sorry SA: you’ve been deceived.
164
I love the humour implied from what follows this statement
33
Curiously almost this approach is being installed in the Shetlands. There they rely on diesel generation, and will continue to do so because even in Shetland the wind isn’t reliale enough. The output from the local wind turbine will instead be directed into heating large tanks of water. This hot water will be used to heat homes, through a district pipes scheme in Lerwick but individual houses in the countryside will have large tanks installed to warm the house (and possibly other buildings). This will reduce the demand for electricity for heating.
It may well work, as the initial trials show the local wind farm has a CF about 50% (it is quite windy in Shetland). It is also quite cold, with heating required 12 months of the year, as the climate there is roughly equivalent to that of Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island of NZ, or perhaps a bit further south towards Macquarrie island..
41
It is interesting that hot water is used for home heating in a number of European countries. It would only be viable because the alternatives would be more expensive or impractical in these near permanent frozen areas. I can picture small communities tapping into hot springs and running the hot water underground beneath the snow in insulated pipes.
30
Of course it works – at a price. But the tank would be huge. The Lerwick scheme heats water directly by burning waste; it does not store hot water for future use.
40
My off-grid system is sized for June in Melbourne. Hence I have huge excess capacity in summer. I set up a hot water drum with copper coil to use for hot water storage rather than leave the gas hot water running. With a well insulated 200 litre drum I got by till the end of March for 4 adults before it became uneconomic; whereby the gas saved was offset by grid sourced power cost to heat water. I have very good insulation on the drum. During January and February I saved $60. I spent about $200 setting up the drum and insulating it. In effect the water is storing the excess energy as low quality heat.
From this exercise I can advise it would need a very large capacity, well insulated storage, to get any real benefit from that form of water heat storage.
On the other hand, the viability of IGs depends on low cost energy storage.
21
The Shetland Islands are at 60˚N while Invercargill is at 46˚S – yet when those Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties roar up from Antarctica, hey, what’s a couple of degrees between friends. For a few years I lived half-an-hour even further south of Invers at the Bluff, a fishing town/port on a promontory sticking out into the Great Southern Ocean: to “walk like a Blufftafarian” meant you had a permanent lean-on as you struggled against the prevailing gale-force sou’wester…
http://cci-reanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#T2_anom
I heard on the radio something about a warm “spell” afflicting some folk over there on the West Island today: however, upon interwebbing a few temperature anomaly maps (above) there’s a predominant blue, colder-than-‘normal’ tinge to the western half, and top, of Australia and ALL of Aotearoa NZ. I guess that snow in Tasmania this weekend will cool things down even more – before it moves on to us here in the Shaky Isles next week. Ah yes, February, high summer…
00
40 degree heat can be a danger to people with vulnerable health but wait until unseasonable near zero temperatures set in, without heating that’s the real killer.
290
Meanwhile, in the Seattle region of the US Left coast many places have had no power for 3 days and some will not get it back until Friday Noon.
This is caused by Global Warming dumping some white stuff and liquid stuff and toppling trees, rocks, and mud — taking out houses, power poles, and electric lines in great abundance.
Got a refrigerator full of food — eat it.
Want heat — start calling friends or motels until you find one with heat.
Okay, sorry about SA’s self-inflicted problem.
250
“Okay, sorry about SA’s self-inflicted problem.”
Don’t be. You on the Left coast are heading for the same problems. Shutting down a perfectly good nuclear power plant because it has the word ‘nuclear’ in it’s name? Imbeciles.
20
This is great news. Now SA can apply to the UN as climate refugees and get funding. Maybe one of the world’s leading developed nations can help SA bring in technology for a stable electric energy supply.
360
🙂
40
Photos of broken transmission pylons from SA wind farms, so far as could be seen, showed that insufficient concrete was poured and that the metal frame construction was too light or too weak. If you follow this through, you come to questions of quality control and enforcement, excessive costs from (guessing here) cosy Union deals, cost cutting on steel selection, some level of corruption through feeding of mandated schemes to favour renewables, inappropriate assignment of decision making to bodies like Ausft Energy Market Regulator, one of a series of excess authorities.
Point is, it is so easy to use an indicator like failed pylons to infer management failure at many levels. It is hard to find good, simple, positive factors, just negative stuff dominates.
Inquiry is needed urgently. Inquiry into facts, with a ban on spin words.
P.S. Unfettered private enterprise from the start would have been a shoe in.
Geoff
210
You’re up earl;y Geoff!!
Probably gout their towers at Bunnings!!
Cheers,
Bill
31
Geoff I’m working on the assumption that the lattice towers are made from cheap (poor quality) Chinese steel, can you confirm this?
80
Would be interesting to know if the pylons were made from Chinese kits.
80
el gordo,
No. I am going only from engineering experience and the photographic appearance of failure in several places and times. No idea where the steel came from, do not need to assume any country of origin. It is enough that it failed, to warrant investigation.
100
The steel used was far superior in quality to the steel exhibited by the members of the SA Govt.
10
Good comment Geoff.
60
Yes that was my first impression too and it seems to be correct. Queensland with its cyclones never has any problems with the whole state going down due to power transmission line failures. They are fully self sufficient with power too. Perhaps South Australia should get a “shudder” nuclear power station capable of sterilising their Labor party followers who are not capable of pouring concrete as the are unionist supported businesses?
40
If Labor win the WA election there will be a 50% RET. Madness!
130
Especially if one looks at the AEMO site to see price forecasts for today. The States of NSW, QLD, VIC, and TAS are all in the neighbourhood of $110 to $120, while WA is $22.
That’s because the the Eastern grid permits transmission from one to the other so the prices are similar.
110
If One Nation gets the balance of power, they will demand that 7,000 MW of coal fired power be constructed. Pretty shocking that our power goes up because a power station closes in Victoria.
Being connected to the Eastern grid will also be reviewed.
40
Let’s be honest here. Who cares? The SA voters wanted a Labor government and they got it, warts and all. Clearly they don’t mind all this push for renewables and the associated mayhem it will cause. Otherwise they would be marching in the streets by now and demanding the state government change their policy. Now expand this federally where it looks likely we will have an ALP+Greens government in a couple or so years. If that happens we all better start buying diesel generators or other backup solutions for our power needs. I certainly will. I don’t really care who wins the next federal election. They are both bad anyway. All one can do is do their best under the circumstances. Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst with the most likely outcome being somewhere in between but no one knows to what extent and how devastating things will be in the years ahead. This also applies to our economy, society, etc.
260
Oh BTW I do seriously expect the worst eventually in decades to come if not sooner. History is proof of that.
80
Hi Peter
You got it there.
The people got what they voted for.
Here in Newcastle we got what we voted for: decades of labor and union “born to rule” indifference to maintaining and improving the city followed by a recent state upheaval which saw the other mob installed.
All we got out of that was a blatant land grab and planning “adjustments” to existing building projects which made those projects super profitable.
End result;
Citizens of Newcastle _ Zero
Lib Machine. _ 100
Just who or what Pauline Hanson and Corey Bernardino are I have little idea.
But they’re looking very attractive as an alternative to the main grabbers who have routinely exchanged places at the trough in past decades.
Is there a statesman in the house?
KK
100
“Is there a statesman in the house?”
Dial up Malcolm Roberts’ maiden speech & then if you can find it the Dellingpole interview & make your own mind up.
It is a long overdue step in the right direction.
100
Yes but at least we get to play “How many carriages on the train” while we wait at the Adamstown level crossing………
50
Dean I totally and completely avoid that spot.
10
I don’t talk about Labor governments these days. Because Labor always need Green votes in parliament, or else Green preferences during the election, they have adopted Green policies. In the ACT,these Green policies are written into the power-sharing agreement.
These days, you need to talk about the Green/Labor government, in recognition of which party has the balance of power. Not the one with most seats, the one that can walk away and deny Labor government.
20
Peter S @ #13
Not quite!
Former Labor Powerbroker “Graeme Richardson .” [ Mar 17 2014 ] as reported in the “Herald Sun”as a direct quote from “The Australian” opinion pages which I read.
========================
As quoted ;
Former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson is right – South Australia’s gerrymander is a disgrace. The Liberals’ failure to win a majority of seats on Saturday can only lead to contempt for the state’s “democracy”:
It is difficult to resist the whinges of the losers when the two-party-preferred vote is 53 per cent to 47 per cent and the party on the wrong end of that count gets more seats.
In 2010, the Liberals achieved 18 seats on a two-party-preferred vote of 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
On that occasion, three independents were elected, but even if you add those to the Liberals it still comes to only 21 seats out of 47.
The glib explanation that the Liberals have too many safe seats with big useless majorities just doesn’t cut it.
Something is seriously wrong with the South Australian electoral boundaries.
To win on Saturday, the Liberals needed in excess of 54 per cent.
I can wear 51 per cent or even 52 per cent.
But if you don’t win on 53 per cent or more the word gerrymander springs to mind.
——————————-
I believe the SA Labor is challenging the latest redistribution of electoral boundaries for the next SA election in 2018 in the Supreme Court.
30
There’s a state called Queensland and a lesson to be learned.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/high-energy-prices-blame-fossil-fuel-generators-not-renewables-84196/
07
That’s a good example of FAKE NEWS.
70
C’mon Jay!
Get out there and wake up those Unicorns & get them farting in the right direction!!!
100
The fun will REALLY start when VIC Premier Dopey Dan Andrews shuts down Hazelwood. Fortunately for him and SA this has been scheduled for April when it won’t be excessively cold or hot.
170
To be fair, it isn’t Danny boy shutting down Hazelwood but Engie, partly because of their management’s “green” culture but also partly because DanA raised the coal royalties by 300% reducing the plant’s financial viability
122
Was that sarcasm Analytic?
Doesn’t the state premier nominally control the burdens under which the power producer tries to function: or perhaps you are just being facetious and suggesting how the honourable premier might deflect criticism in the media?
The thing is that politicians in Vic and S.A. have gotten away with it; most of the poor voters are too busy dealing with the practicalities of blackouts to give any thought to trying to understand the big one; WHY?
KK
80
Nope.
The privatisation of our former SECV has removed the direct control that the state government had on generation and transmission operations. That’s why The Greens targetted their “Close Hazelwood” campaign against majority owner Engie rather than the state government.
10
Next summer will be great fun to watch both South Australia and Victoria enjoying blackouts of those lovely hot days they regularly have.
If I was the coal powered providers in NSW, I would schedule some maintenance for next summer, that would take production in NSW down to just above requirements.
Then watch SA and Vic scramble with power shortages, and say.. “NO, SORRY, none for sale.”
172
Yup
70
As I have said before, there was a very good reason civilised people abandoned windmills the first time around about 200 years ago when a reliable steam engine (Trevithick) was developed. It’s never a good idea to rely on the weather for industrial processes you want to run at a constant rate.
140
Absolutely spot-on. Wind power, in particular, is the most unreliable source imaginable.
We are witnessing a determined bid to reverse what had hitherto been a steady advance in human technology. Without reliable and abundant electricity, we would rapidly regress to the Middle Ages.
70
Yesterday I was challenged to name six policy’s of the lib/nats where they were trying to outgreen the greens .
As someone above has pointed out the SA Libs are very quiet even though this would be the perfect opportunity to come forward with some deserved criticism of the labor party and the failed wind farm experiment .
Not enough to criticise they need to have the guts to offer an alternative policy that addresses the failed experiment and fixes it once and for all .
Remove the subsidies , reopen , restart the coal fired plants to 95 % capacity get the rest from unreliables any shortfall in unreliables will easily be picked up by thermal if they’re running at 90% 95% capacity .
90
One of Finkel’s (I won’t call him Dr) ideas is to have billions of dollars more interconnectors with other states. What is this going to achieve if they have no spare baseload generators or none at all. If he thinks there must be whirling windmills somewhere to provide power, then that isn’t the case either since even over the entire Australian continent, the wind tends to blow or not blow all at the same time.
If he thinks there can be grid or domestic battery storage, who is going to oay for it and who profits? It would be interesting to follow the money trail on that one.
150
Well it is simple really. SA will get top-up electricity from Vic. Once Hazelwood shuts Vic. will get electricity from NSW. NSW will in turn get the extra needed from Qld. Since Qld. is already importing from NSW they will have blackouts, so the Qld. State Labor will decide that more renewables are necessary and they will import expertise from SA. When that fails all the eastern States will accuse WA of hogging the available electricity and demand they send more to the East.
WA will then declare independence but since the eastern States will have no TV, internet or newspapers they won’t realise that WA has gone for some time. Newly elected PM Pauline Hanson will then reverse the policy.
310
Graeme no 3 , you have it .
70
Perversely, the biggest current customer for Hazelwood is NSW. The Greens argue that Victoria will source power from NSW when the reverse is the case.
It is all the massive carbon tax called the RET. Renewable Energy Tax (Target) and their LGCs, Large Grab Carbon certificates.
91
Tdef , I find that comment about NSW getting power from Hazelwood interesting, because I know where I live in Victoriastan it comes from NSW snowy hydro .
70
The total output of the Snowy is considered to be the equivalent of 5 million tons of coal and the power is supposed to go 2/3 to NSW and 1/3 to Victoria. That was in the agreement.
I have read that if the Snowy alone was used to power Victoria, we would lose all the water in a week, which would devastate the Murray valley for a year. Rather gas and hydro stations are used to top up power in peak times because they can wind up quickly on command, unlike solar and wind and coal.
For scale the Yallourn power station alone mines 18 million tons a years and that is around 20% of Victoria’s, so I would estimate 90million tons per year. The Snowy in comparison is about 5% of coal power in Victoria. Again lignite is half water and the estimate may be in terms of dry coal, but the idea is right.
Hydro can never replace coal and we do not have the water and we are not allowed build dams anyway. Wind can never replace coal. Solar does not work at night and wind power does not work on a scorching summer day in South Australia with no wind.
I remember one week in South Australia around when it was 100C every day, as hot or hotter at night and everyone in the suburb slept on the front lawn. There was a dead flat sea at Glenelg where all you saw was the slick of coconut oil on the water, not a ripple. The Spencer Gulf was like a mirror. This was pre airconditioning when our taxi driver turned up in speedos, which was reasonable at the time. Fifty years later, South Australia has managed a huge leap backwards. I blame the education system and the Greens and the sense of entitlement.
111
My point is that relying on wind to cool you in Adelaide is nonsense. Ask any South Australian except a politician.
91
St. Vincent’s Gulf, opposite Adelaide.
51
100C ??
Hell !!
20
As ROM points out, 100F. It was boiling but not literally.
I also remember Colorado in summer. 100F during the day and 104F at night.
Do we have to accept that airconditioning which came in the 1960 and made Queensland habitable will vanish now because of
1 The Ozone hole, which does not happen in the Northern Hemisphere but is blamed on airconditioning
2. CO2 which does not heat the planet but is blamed on airconditioning.
Do the Greens really just hate being cool?
61
I also remember winters in Colorado, where -40C and -40F occured simultaneously.
Both were deadly.
41
I alway use the 40 method for converting between ℉ and ℃ if doing so with mental maths.
Add 40 to the temperature
To go from ℃ to ℉ multiply by 9 and divide by 5. Then take 40 off that answer.
To go from ℉ to ℃ multiply by 5 and divide by 9. Then take 40 off that answer.
Easier than the old way they used to teach in school, but not as easy as a calculator..
10
My idea is that you could double, take off a tenth and add 32.
This is exact and fast.
So
40C => 72+32=104
37c => 66.6+32= 98.6
10=> 18+32 = 50
even
27.3 = 54.6-5.46+32=81.14
No approximation or calculator needed. Cheat on the subtraction by using one digit.
For super fast you can use 2* and 30. Perfect around 10C/50F
For the reverse direction, I cannot think of a cheat for 5/9ths.
11
Now I have been red handed for showing a fast way to multiply by nine and divide by five. To Illiterate we can add innumerate.
30
My father taught me the T + 40 …. -40 method Graeme describes. Most of the time I’ve memorized the multiples of 5C or 10C for common environmental temps, e.g. -20C == -4F, -10C = 14F, 20C == 68F, 25C == 77F, 30C = 86F. Then add in the residual, so 23C = 68 + 3*1.8 == 73.4F.
10
The ozone layer “hole” does not extend past Tasmania much. Its actually in essence artificial a** Hole from the Socialists which explains its existence. It has some connections with DuPont which was about to have its patent expire on FREON refigerant gas, and was a convenient excuse for a France based fear scam….
As Eisenhower said:its important to note this from President General Eisenhowers farewell speech:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military/ industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
Source : http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html It makes for interesting reading, unexpected by capitalists and as usual by someone of great intellect once leaving an organsation finally telling the truth, as it wont affect his job prospects.
62
As only 2% of people live below the tropic of Capricorn, the idea that people created the ozone hole in the South without one in the North is patently absurd. However ‘scientists’ tell us that it is man made. Baloney.
How many people live below Tasmania? Both of them.
52
G#3
You are giving me a migraine. Stop it.
It is like reading this wisdom “There is always doubt. No doubt about that.”
Geoff.
50
Finkel will propose battery backup for renewables, he doesn’t care about the costs, us suckers will pay, he just wants credit for supporting “clean” energy.
110
Robber I really don’t want to rehash my “Finkel finkel little star poem” again.
Finkel is the “Chief Aussie Scientist” – oh my god!!!
Flim Flam was “The Australian of the Year in 2007” – on my god!!!
It is a “Mad Mad World” we live in.
50
It’s interesting that Finkel is attacking Trump as a pre-emptive strike. He and all the climate alarmists are terrified of the truth coming out.
180
OOZING desperation 🙂
121
The curious thing is that as Australian industry shuts down and leaves permanently to places with cheap reliable power like the US there will a temporary moment in time when there might be enough power to go around as industry won’t be using any as there will be no industry.
80
I have been pointing this out for ages….’infrastructure downturn, manufacturing downturn, and the global economic transfer of wealth to the money printers with power to buy all the debt has resulted in a downward trend in emissions of all kinds except for those kinds of emissions that come from gun barrels and the like.
And yet there is no rejoicing in the global warming masses. It is as though they are blind to this economic collapse and the resultant diminishing of the said emissions of all kinds including CO2.
Perhaps they belong to a demographic that have been doing well out of the current economic collapse??
Energy Consumption Vs. Core Populations – Trending Down Together”
https://econimica.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/sunday-discussion-point-energy.html
40
South Australia’s power system joke could end up being of great value to the entire western world. As energy providers begin to realise why it is so bad, they will understand the way generation is currently priced in Australia, based on dispatchable generation, is incompatible with intermittent generation.
If there is ever to be a 100% renewable future for Australia, the dimensions of that system will be set by a few days in June.
I have looked at output from the grid scale solar generation in Broken Hill and Nyngan. Their respective capacity factors for the entire month of June were 18% and 14.5% respectively. I also have the full period output for each site for June so I will be able to tie that into the grid demand to determine the optimum battery size to match their fraction of NEM demand.
As a matter of interest the two solar facilities cost AUD440M. Assuming proportional split on capacity, the BH plant cost AUD150M. Its revenue from generation for 2016 was AUD7.2M. To actually be a useful source of generation rather than being disruptive it would need a similar amount spent on a battery/inverter. So the annual revenue of AUD7.2M from capital of AUD300M is a LOOOONG way from economic.
For those interested this is the generation data:
https://www.agl.com.au/-/media/AGL/About-AGL/Documents/How-We-Source-Energy/Solar-Environment/Broken-Hill-Solar-Plant/SolarMonthlyReportJan16ToDec16-BrokenHill-(002).pdf?la=en&hash=3DDE2A641F377FA5FE32E9F4A7E0FA5FA703EAA7
I do not know how they produce during the night time. There may be a missing minus sign or they may have some battery capacity for stability.
With 100% intermittent generation there will only be a few days in June that matter. Most of the time there will be a huge excess of energy. The fuel is free. The capital needed to exploit that fuel for reliable power supply is HUUUUGE. I am hopeful the SA power joke will get the attention it needs to appreciate the extent of the folly.
I have looked into Allan Finkel’s background. He is the ideal person to lead a review of Australia’s electric power supply if you want to de-industrialise the country. He is an electrical engineer with a career in instrumentation for neorosciences. The SA issues should be so obvious by now that there is a great deal of head scratching over why it could get so bad so quickly. Any precinct that as high penetration of IGs will be heading that way; particularly wind turbines because they are prone to full output to zero in a matter of seconds. The planning that went into the SA locations of turbines along the the line of wind fronts is mastery in design to demonstrate the worst possible siting.
170
That would help SA David , but most of their industry is either going or gone .
50
Of course there are solutions to the South Australian absurdity of moving their CO2 to Victoria, just like the absurdity of moving the whole country’s CO2 to China.
The SA government could buy Hazelwood. It cannot make a dollar under the RET. Then sell the electricity directly to Port Pirie, Whyalla, Olymic Dam, Alcoa, the Submarine Corporation and more. SA is then a CO2 free state. What a triumph for the Greens.
No electricity retailer involved, so no RET, no Large Generation Certificates. Sell direct. No obligation to rebate home solar that is dumped in the ground. Get rid of the middle man and leave all that poisonous toxin repulsive CO2 in Victoria. Serves them right with their football and their beer and their cheeses. Let them suffer the pollution.
Everyone wins and the French can walk away with their cash. Even Victoria would have a higher % of windmill power without doing anything.
Of course SA would then have to deal with the Victorian Unions, the ETU, the CFMEU and Daniel Andrews, but they are nominally on the same side.
111
The absurdity is in saying that CO2 affects climate.
130
TdeF,
Or we could build nuclear powered submarines, keep them tied up in dock, engines running to provide electricity to the SA grid straight through from Adelaide port.
This begs the question of why or whether we need submarines, apart from the political purpose of apparent job creation.
Like the RAAF Joint Strike Fighter. If ever you saw a huge spending blowout happening, this is another. And I mean huge. Literally taking food from the mouths of children of the poor and needy.
It is like crime.
Geoff
90
A great plan TdeF.
SA Gov. to buy Hazelwood’s safe, cheap, reliable power and sell direct in SA.
No RET. no LGC’s a win win for all concerned.
Brilliant.
40
Our treasurer is an idiot. That gas plant he wants running is shut down for maintenance, and the owner won’t pay the maintenance as they run it so infrequently and make so little from it (due to all the renewables).
That plant is very likely to never run again unless someone stumps up the fee to pay the maintenance bill.
BTW it’s also one of the most efficient gas plants in the country. Shows how well the arrangements in the national market work. Especially when renewables are stacked up to cherry pick when they want, effectively first rights to everything or bidding in extremely low prices so nobody else can make a quid.
Morons.
110
Well I stand corrected. Looks like that gas plant can run after all. Yesterday the market operator would not allow it to be turned on.
Which all makes me wonder why the market operator is allowing the different market players to turn on or not. Why can’t they turn on and bid power into the market if they want to?
50
I may be wrong but BOM is claiming record high temp for Birdsville 46 , according to the records they have had on more than one occasion had 49.5 .
61
The 49.5C is unhomegenised. The BoM recommends only using homogenised temperatures.
101
Homogenised or not: Its hot, Damned hot just ask Robin Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpktBGInl60
SA politicians are trying to screw the Australian economy ready for takeover by C*i*a
11
That’s because it’s a record high for a 9th of February. It’s all in the wrist.
00
As in, they’re a bunch of wankers.
00
No doubt whatsoever – that it was a record for 09/02/2017.
The hottest 09/02/2017 evvaaaaahhhhh – by a long shot.
00
At least it is sunny in SA, so what happened to the solar energy?
40
Solar panels are usually rated at 25C. The output drops off with temperature. The output temperature coefficient is typically -0.7%/C. If the ambient air is 40C, the panels will be up around 55C – maybe more with poor airflow. So they could be operating 30C above their rating. Hence output down around 20% in very good sunshine.
My system gives peak output on cool overcast days in summer just as the sky opens to the sun after a period of cloud cover.
90
8 Feb: Australian: Gary Johns: Solar and wind power lose their shine
It is exquisite that we are to place our energy future in renewables, the energy source most prone to the beast that we are trying to slay: climate change.
Non-renewables, by contrast, are least reliant on climate. Come hell or high water, coal, gas and oil can be pumped, refined and burned…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/gary-johns/solar-and-wind-power-lose-their-shine/news-story/f81bbf3177a74538db0b47b0fa57b680
poor Giles can’t stand any voice at theirABC not following his strict CAGW agenda:
8 Feb: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: ABC accuses Labor of being “slave” to high renewables target
There’s fake news, there are alternative facts, and then there is editorial bias. We expect to see that bias, particularly against climate policies and clean energy, from outlets such as the Murdoch media. But from the ABC?
Last year we took issue – on several occasions, here, here and here – with the ABC’s political editor Chris Uhlmann’s take on the South Australian blackout, and his rush to blame wind energy and lecture the world about the problems of grid stability.
Now it’s the turn of the new political correspondent for the flagship 7.30 Report, Andrew Probyn, a multi-award winning journalist who on Tuesday night accused the Labor Party of being a “slave” to its high renewable energy target…READ ON FOR GILES FAKE NEWS & ALTERNATIVE FACTS
http://reneweconomy.com.au/abc-accuses-labor-of-being-slave-to-high-renewables-target-21800/
as scaper commented above:
9 Feb: Australian: Andew Burrell: WA Labor to push for 50pc renewables target
Labor’s energy spokesman Bill Johnston told The Australian that the party’s policy, including a specific RET, would be announced before next month’s state election.
But a recording of a speech he gave to a conference in October shows he favoured the adoption of federal Labor’s policy of a 50 per cent target for Western Australia. “The Labor Party’s target is at least 50 per cent by 2030,” he told the conference in Perth.
“We don’t believe that that’s going to push up prices — we believe it can be done on a competitive basis.”…
Energy Minister Mike Nahan said yesterday that economic modelling estimated the additional cost of achieving a 50 per cent target by 2030 was $8.4 billion, given that coal remained the cheapest form of electricity generation.
“That’s an $8.4bn additional cost for electricity consumers in WA,” he said…
“The Liberal-National government is a huge supporter of renewable energy and remains committed to an appropriate mix of traditional and renewable energy sources to ensure stability and keep electricity prices as low as possible,” he said.
“We will not commit to an unmovable target like Labor has and put the supply of electricity to West Australians at risk like we saw in South Australia.
“I believe the ramifications for WA would be far worse than South Australia, as we are an isolated system and do not have an interstate connector like South Australia does.”…
The West Australian Greens said this week that the state could be powered 100 per cent by renewable energy by 2030 through a mix of solar, wind, solar thermal, biomass and battery storage, without raising the cost of power bills.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/wa-election/wa-labor-to-push-for-50pc-renewables-target/news-story/b973e674a101967c9abc432871fb7e1c
if it weren’t for CAGW misinfo/disinfo of ABC and the CAGW-invested (advertising) MSM, the public would NEVER consider voting for any party making such threats, with Labor and Greens merely being the worst of the bunch. in fact, if MSM were not into FakeNews, CAGW would have died a long time ago.
71
And then there was ABC radio this morning with the SA energy minister blaming the operator for not starting up Pelican Point, also Josh Frydenberg the federal minister saying that the government was not going politicise the issue . . .
What a load of buckpassing/spineless politicians we have here in Ausralian government! Afraid of the greens to call it like it is . . . GeoffW
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8 Feb Updated 15 mins ago: AFR: Ben Potter: Future grid has batteries, renewables and software – Finkel
By contrast coal fired power stations are facing the “law of diminishing returns” as power engineers work to increase their efficiency to new levels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions through the development of “supercritical” and “ultrasupercritical” coal fired power station technology, Dr Finkel said.
The Chief Scientist was asked after September’s statewide blackout in South Australia to lead a review of the National Electricity Market and how system security can be maintained with increasing shares of variable wind and solar power in the grid…
He told a town hall meeting in Melbourne – just as South Australia was beginning to suffer more blackouts in 40 degree heat – that batteries are becoming reasonable in price for energy storage at the household level but still about 25 times more expensive on a lifetime basis than pumped hydro storage for large scale grid deployment…
But Dr Finkel said the price is falling by about three-quarters every ten years, meaning that after a bit more than 20 years “grid scale batteries could be price competitive with pumped hydro so the potential is enormous”…
He said they had great potential because “the electronics and the software just gets ***smarter and smarter and smarter”…
http://www.afr.com/news/future-grid-has-batteries-renewables-and-software–finkel-20170208-gu8j12
have you apologised to the US President yet, Finkel?
61
The obvious thing to do is wait for 20 years when batteries are that cheap.
60
even tho it ends with plenty of Finkel-thinking, this is a bit of a breakthrough for DW:
8 Feb: Deutsche Welle: Tamsin Walker: What happens with German renewables in the dead of winter?
Germany has a reputation for being a renewable energy leader – but some believe that the nation’s long, still and dim winters threaten such green aspirations
The “dark doldrums” conjures images of the deep Middle Ages, when the only light to be had flickered from a tallow candle. In fact, this is the loose translation for the German word Dunkelflaute, which describes this time of year, when neither sun nor wind are to be found in great abundance.
And this is exactly the scenario some are suggesting could plunge the nation into, if not quite a reenactment of its medieval past, then at least lacking energy certainty.
An article published recently in the German daily “Die Welt” warned that the Dunkelflaute could be pushing Germany’s power supply to its limits.
Drawing on statistics from the Agora Energiewende (LINK) energy think tank and policy laboratory, the report said that on the days around January 24, 2017, as much as 90 percent of the country’s power was provided by coal, gas and nuclear.
And not by renewables – which does not, the article continued, bode well for national plans to transition to a clean, green energy future…
Stefan Kapferer, Managing Director, Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry: “Flexible, conventional power stations are essential if we are to stabilize the electricity network,” he said. “We have to be able to cover energy demand regardless of the weather.”…
http://www.dw.com/en/what-happens-with-german-renewables-in-the-dead-of-winter/a-37462540
51
Finkel is not the first Australian Chief Scientist to make himself to be a DILL in rfelation to climate. One of his female predecessors was just as dumb.
Why do PhDs make people dumb?
110
Correlisation is not causation.
30
Tooright mate, these people live with their heads in the clouds. Out of touch with reality and normal everyday life.
GeoffW
30
These are very prestigious, well paying, fully staffed political and not science appointments and generally by very left universities and Finkel by the very Green Malcolm Turnbull.
Whatever his thoughts on Global Warming, it was the most important topic for his predecessors and he would not get the job if not at the very least a luke warmist. Anyone who pretend Climate Change is a science issue and not a political issue is pulling your leg. Try and find a Labor or Greens voter who does not believe in Global Warming. Now try and find a conservative voter who does. That’s not science, that’s political science and nothing to do with qualifications.
Now try and find a public service scientist (and in Australia what else is there?) who is prepared to speak out. They only do that in retirement, as in the US.
30
‘Malcolm Turnbull on the South Australian debacle: “Most expensive, least reliable electricity in Australia”.
60
Wow. Even an A grade idiot like Turnbull understands that, or at least someone understood it on his behalf and instructed him what to say.
90
OK Malcolm! But just say why this is so!
And tell the people that renewables are not only unreliable but more to the point they are totally unnecessary.
GeoffW
70
‘…totally unnecessary.’
Malcolm doesn’t have the political nous to say that.
He is on short odds with the punters who are betting Talcum will stumble in 2017, which would leave a gap for Morrison to come through for a win.
40
What a HYPOCRITE this TURNCOAT TURNBULL is !!
Look at this……..
Malcolm Turnbull speech at the 2010 zero Carbon Australia launch(full length)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqZTh7HT180&html5=1
and this………
2010 Sydney Launch: Zero Carbon Australia: Stationary Energy Plan
Addresses by:
Malcolm Turnbull: Federal MP for Wentworth
Bob Carr: Former NSW Premier
Senator Scott Ludlam: Federal Senator WA
Matthew Wright: Executive Director Beyond Zero Emissions
Allan Jones MBE: Chief Development Officer, Energy & Climate Change, City of Sydney
MC: Quentin Dempster : Journalist and broadcaster
http://bze.org.au/2010-sydney-launch-zero-carbon-australia-stationary-energy-plan/
40
VIDEO: 2min39secs: 9 Feb: Sky News: AAP: SA blackout a ‘disgrace’: Bernardi
‘Now we’ve got an ideological agenda of green dreams, renewable energy, it’s been driven by government policy, subsidies to try and achieve nirvana and it’s failing us all.’
‘We now have a third world power supply in South Australia, businesses are buying generators because the government is failing them.’
‘The system does reward this sort of policy agenda and the government in South Australia has gone much further than it should. It’s looking at 50 per cent renewables, similar to Labor’s federal strategy.’
‘It’s based on foolish economics, foolish experimentation, foolish power generation politics but they’re doing it to appease the extreme left within their party and their base.’…
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/02/09/sa-blackout-a–disgrace—bernardi.html
u want more FOOLISH, Cory?
8 Feb: Phys.org: Linda B. Glaser: Renewable fuels alone can’t stop climate change
“That’s not only false, it’s a really dangerous way of thinking,” said Karen Pinkus, professor of Romance studies and comparative literature in the College of Arts and Sciences (Cornell Uni).
Her new book, “Fuel: A Speculative Dictionary,” works to undo the assumption that all we have to do is scale up renewable fuels on the free market “and then everything will be rainbows and unicorns,” she said. “Climate change is terrifyingly heterogeneous and complex, from the long timescales of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to the knots binding capitalism and fossil fuels; from inequality to massive global disruption. Now more than ever, the idea that conservation or virtuous consumerism of ‘good fuels’ can make a difference is simply delusional.”…
Her goal is to scramble our thinking about fuel – “not in order to demonize energy and not in order to create a new hierarchy in which certain renewables take over from fossil fuels,” she said, “but instead to open up potential ways of interacting with real and imaginary substances, by wrenching them out of narrative and placing them into an idiosyncratic dictionary to be applied by readers into new narratives.”
Entries in the book range from “air” to “Zyklon D,” from the “dilithium crystals” of “Star Trek” to “whale oil.” Pinkus draws from an eclectic range of sources for her explanations of the terms, from historical anecdotes like the Ford Fiesta “boozemobile,” literature like the “Odyssey” and films like “Oblivion.”…
Pinkus’ next book project grew out of “Fuel” and examines the subsurface, from which fossil fuels are extracted and into which waste is deposited, in philosophical and narrative terms; it is tentatively titled “Down There: The Subsurface in the Time of Climate Change.” As part of her research, she hopes to do field work with the Cornell Earth Source Heat.
(re the writer of the article, according to Cornell: Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.)
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-renewable-fuels-climate.html
Phys.org publishes this?
31
When is the SA Marxist government going to get what it needs?
That is, the Sack!
60
Hot on the tail of the news from SA of 40k people with no power (and two earlier statewide power outages), this morning on ABC TV news who should pop up but Prof. Michael Mann. Apparently he is in Sydney. I nearly choked on my muesli. I listened to a short sycophantic (word of the moment) interview by Virginia Trioli. Dr Mann claims we are now on track for 5 deg C warming, no supporting evidence provided. As usual the ABC asked no questions of any substance.
60
The ABC interviewed Michael Mann!!
What an outstanding display of intelligencia that must have been.
He ranks with Gore and Flannery for speaking with a forked tongue.
40
listen from 2mins in, featuring Stuart Armitage, President, Queensland Farmers Federation & Dominic Nolan, CEO, Australian Sugar Milling Council:
AUDIO: 7mins07secs: 9 Feb: ABC Breakfast: Conflict over solar farms on prime land
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/conflict-over-solar-farms-on-prime-land/8254310
following url not working, excerpted from cached version:
8 Feb: Daily Democrat: Christine Souza: Route of power transmission line raises concerns (in California)
Farmers, agribusiness and other landowners say a proposed transmission line that would intersect a segment of Northern California to access renewables would disrupt homes, farms and businesses costing landowners…
Karen Norene Mills, California Farm Bureau Federation associate counsel & director of public utilities: “Particularly disheartening is the need to build infrastructure to reach out of state for renewable generation when there is an abundance in California…
“The proposed line is going to affect a building that we are in the process of constructing, plus future buildings that are planned. It’s right through the center of our business,” Mezger said…
Proposed by WAPA and SMUD, the project also includes construction of new substations that require up to 40 acres of land. Proponents say the purpose of the project is to enhance reliability of the electrical grid and increase SMUD’s ability to import renewable energy from the Pacific Northwest and other markets.
SMUD project advisor Lowell Rogers said, “We’re trying to access renewables so we have to go to where the renewables are and that requires transmission.”
When the project was announced in 2015, study areas under consideration for the lines were in Colusa and Sutter counties — resulting in an immediate response from farmers and property owners, including Colusa County rice grower George Tibbitts.
Tibbitts showed up in Woodland to discuss the project further and emphasize that the new routes that exclude wildlife refuges and instead go through farmland, would disrupt wildlife on his property…
“People are in awe of how much wildlife we have on our farm. I could make the case that our farm is just as valuable as a wildlife refuge.”…
Peter Bradford, who grows walnuts in Arbuckle, said he is worried about how the project will affect his property. He said the proposed alternative that runs through Colusa County would intersect his farm and farmhouse.
“I’ve observed what has been done in Colusa County by PG&E, who just cuts the trees down and I don’t want that. This is my livelihood,” Bradford said. “And if they try to settle with you on the value, they only want to pay a percentage of the true value, which is abusive.”…
11
8 Feb: 9News: AAP: Call for coal-fired power station in NQ
Former resources minister Ian Macfarlane has called on the federal government to help pay for a coal-fired power station to be built in north Queensland.
Mr Macfarlane, the chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council, wants the Turnbull government to use part of its $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to fund the building a power station near Townsville
Currently there is ***no coal-fired power station north of Rockhampton in central Queensland and Mr MacFarlane said the region needed a stable, base-load power source…
“If we’re going to use technologies and government grants for renewables then we should also use it for coal, which provides stable base load power.”
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/02/08/14/39/call-for-coal-fired-power-station-in-nq
11
One of the great political conundrums of today’s times is the blind acceptance, a lemming like frantic suicidal attempt by the political class and elites to end the cheap, reliable, always there energy systems that are the entire critical to success basis of our modern civilisation.
The national Labor Party under a two faced union Th-g Shorten, the Victorian labor Party under our ding-a-linging desperate despot Dan Andrews, the coal rich Queensland under the Labor Party’s Palace-chook. now the Western Australian Labor Party under who knows what plus of course, the really classic stuffing up everything politically possible, South Australian labor Party under an imbecilic Whirling Windmill Weatherill are all proclaiming that they will take Australia to a 50% renewable energy supply situation.
Nowhere it seems have these totally incompetent political idiots gone to the trouble of trying to ascertain just what that means in terms of costs and availability of a regular steady and affordable supply of power to the very consumers and voters they rely on to vote them into the power they so desperately aspire to at whatever cost to everybody else.
Nor have they ever, it seems, ever tried to ascertain the true economic costs to a nation of moving to a highly unreliable, unpredictable, high cost power supply situation for industry and commerce as well as the retail consumers.
They are all too busy getting their names in the history books as the Planet Savers than to give any thought or consideration to the lives and hopes and dreams of the very people and citizens they so deceitfully and lieingly claim to represent and who voted them into power to over see .
Even worse is the fact that so much of the economic and practical analysis aspects of renewable energy versus fossil fueled and nuclear power generation are all available in vast amounts at the touch of a few buttons on a keyboard.
In every case where the information / outright lies, does not originate in the bowels of the Renewable Energy’s Joseph Goebbel’s like propaganda departments, the analysis shows just how impractical and costly and society and economy destroying the politically forced imposition of the increasingly unwanted and increasingly regarded with loathing and contempt, renewable energy is on every aspect of our society and civilisation.
So lets look at a recent peer reviewed analysis of renewable energy on the economics of nations and states that move or are forced to move by ideological fanatics and activists to a mostly renewable energy system for their power supplies.
The abstract for this study can be found at this link;
“Energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic growth; An ethical dilemma”
————–
The public readable version of this highly recommended paper; Study suggests choice between green energy or economic growth
Some quotes;
[ More ]
————
We can take this a couple of steps further. [ I came across an excellent set of comparative graphs of the various Australian state’s economic performances over the last couple of decades when I found the above paper but have now sadly lost that set of charts in the internet jungle ]
The couple of following sets of charts and data tell the story and show quite clearly how Renewable Energy powered SA’s economy is collapsing compared to every other state with only renewable energy powered Tasmania’s economy worse if thats possible.
Five charts that tell SA’s economic truth
&
; Chart: NSW is powering Australian economic growth [ coal powered NSW? ]
50
Unfortunately, South Australia can also be seen as being one of the great energy success stories when viewed from the perspective of a desired destruction of western industry.
60
Once used to have the cheapest power in the country. Not any more.
20
FakeNewsMSM is heaping praise on Republicans (haha) simply because they want a “carbon tax”.
Reuters: Republican ELDERS urge Trump’s White House to adopt carbon tax
WaPo: SENIOR Republican STATESMEN propose replacing Obama’s climate policies with a carbon tax
so how did it go? Exxon an exemplar?
8 Feb: Bloomberg: PROMINENT Republicans Pitch Carbon-Tax Plan to Top Trump Aides
by Jennifer A Dlouhy and Margaret Talev
Former Secretary of State James Baker and other members of the new “Climate Leadership Council” pressed the case in a 45-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room that included President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior aide Kellyanne Conway…
“The signs were ***very encouraging,” Ted Halstead, who founded the council, said after the meeting. “Two weeks into this new administration, we have positioned our solution as the most promising climate solution — if they want to go there.”
Baker also met briefly with Vice President Mike Pence…
The Republican and business leaders lent their stature to an approach for addressing climate change that mirrors an idea already advanced by Exxon Mobil Corp…
(James) Baker himself conceded he remains “somewhat of a skeptic about the extent to which man is responsible for climate change,” but the “risks are too great to ignore.”…
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-08/prominent-republicans-begin-push-to-tax-carbon-cut-regulations
alternative facts:
8 Feb: Trump wants ‘environmentally friendly’ coal — spokesman
Robin Bravender, E&E News reporter (Reporter Hannah Hess contributed)
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters the president intends to come through on his campaign promises to boost the ailing U.S. coal industry, in part by slashing environmental regulations put in place by the Obama administration…
The question was asked via Skype by Josh Smith of WJHL, a television station in eastern Tennessee, during Spicer’s daily press briefing. The Trump White House is fielding occasional Skype questions from reporters outside Washington.
Spicer said U.S. EPA had imposed regulations “on existing coal plants that ensure that they couldn’t operate in an effective way to stay open.”…
Trump, Spicer added, “is working with industry to roll back a lot of that and do it in a way that’s environmentally friendly, and I think that you can do that utilizing the technology we have and harness the power of clean coal.”
Spicer was also asked about a White House meeting today with Republican senior statesmen who are making a case for climate action…
***Asked whether the meeting was significant, Spicer replied: “NO.”
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2017/02/08/stories/1060049765
21
..Be proud Australia..! You’re government is showing Trump what NOT to do to make America great again….So sorry your government thinks you are guinea pigs for there “testing” !!
50
their…arrrrg….
30
They now refer to it is as ….. ‘alternative facts’, and don’t you just love political double speak.
Both sides, especially Labor, are saying not to politicise this whole thing.
Read the two articles at the ABC website, and nowhere is it to be seen the, umm, don’t dare say it, alternative facts.
Those alternative facts are that (1) when South Australia was consuming its Peak Power last night at around 6PM, the total consumption was around 3000MW, and (2) that only 80MW of that was coming from Wind Power, so Wind was supplying only 2.7% of the power actually being required to keep the whole State operational.
Those facts are not made up. They are easily found and easily shown.
Yet, no one, not one media outlet, nor any Politician was actually game enough to mention this, or most probably to even bother to go and find out those REAL facts.
With the Victorian interconnector delivering at Capacity, then no amount of ‘other’ power sources would have helped, no matter how fast they can ramp up, and here you are talking almost instantaneous, and even with gas fired power, that just cannot be done. True, they can ramp up quickly, and today, they will probably be ready, because perish the (political) fallout if this were to happen again today.
And happen again today, well, how likely is that?
Well, Wind is currently delivering around 400MW, and if the typical SA weather comes into play, then it will fall again. Even at 400MW with a demand of 3000MW, that’s still only 13% of the actual requirement for the State.
Those wind power delivery charts are easily enough accessed, but the clueless media won’t even bother to go and find them, let alone actually publish them, and anyone who does point them out, well, they will just be classified as purveyors of ‘alternative facts’, the typical epithet.
They’re not alternative. They’re REAL. They show the truth of the matter, that when power is ACTUALLY required, then they cannot be relied upon to deliver. No one KNOWS for sure and certain when they will be running or not running, and when they are not running, as is being proved to be the case more often than not, then REAL power plants which CAN actually deliver must be used to cover the fundament of Wind power.
Anyone who says that is a
liarsorry, purveyor of ‘alternative facts’.Tony.
180
‘alternative facts’ ======= FAKE NEWS (LIES)……..
10
Where have all the red thumbs gone???
The dawning realisation that their zealotry has spawned folly maybe?
31
Back to bed.
No chance of that.
20
If you go to this site: http://grid.publicknowledge.com.au/WS/ and look at yesterday’s data from South Australia, it appears that there was a sharp drop in the power being provided over the interconnecter from Victoria at about 6.30pm. The drop was in the order of 250 MW and may have caused the AEMO to order the rolling blackouts. As a South Australian resident I like to keep my eye on the wind output and as Tony has noted it dropped from 900MW in the morning to under 100MW in the evening.
40
Obviously we need to know which came first – AEMO’s order as Demand had exceeded what could be supplied by Wind, Gas/Diesel and Heywood OR (for some reason) Heywood had a glitch.
It appears that SA has asked for 800 MW and had got it.
Happy to wait for AEMO’s report but I’m leaning towards the former – an effort to manage the situation and avoid a total crash as SA experienced in Sep 2016.
30
i’m not listening to either of these…
but what does this mean? love how reporter is “winter” and jay has “ill weather” in his name:
AUDIO: 4mins45secs: 9 Feb: ABC The World Today: South Australia to go it alone on energy after blackout
Caroline Winter reported this story
The South Australian government says it’s lost faith in the national electricity market and has been abandoned by the Commonwealth when it comes to energy.
Premier Jay Weatherill says the government is going it alone and is well advanced in plans to intervene in the power market in a bid to avoid more load shedding…
Featured:
Craig Fromm, Manager Hahndorf Old Mill Hotel
Tom Koutsantonis, SA Energy Minister
Josh Frydenberg, Federal Energy Minister
Jay Weatherill, SA Premier
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4616946.htm
AUDIO: 17min 16sec: 8 Feb: ABC Drive with Richard Glover: The battle over climate change just go hotter
Penn State’s Professor Mann speaks with Richard Glover about ‘a new dark age of climate change politics’ under the Trump administration.
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/sydney/programs/drive/professor-michael-mann/8252976
doesn’t look too awesome, & not much feedback:
14 hrs ago: Michael E. Mann FB: PIC: Awesome crowd tonight at my talk “The #MadhouseEffect: Climate Change Denial in the Age of Trump” Sydney Environment Institute University of Sydney!
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/photos/a.221233134599563.54502.221222081267335/1318774338178765/?type=3
41
The last thing South Australians need is more Labor interference with the electricity supply. And what can they do anyway? Cut the interconnectors from Victoria?
This is just Weatherill trying to deflect the blame for his stupid Government’s decisions.
60
Well done Mikey Mann.
Just five comments after a post now 20 hours old on the “greatest moral challenge of our time”.
And one of the five comments noted:
Honestly . . what a laff.
40
8 Feb: Herald Scotland: David Ross: Business rates set to cripple small green generators
Operators of many small scale green energy projects such as hydro or solar schemes, fear they won’t be able to survive proposed business rates increases of up to 650 per cent.
They claim that while Scottish ministers rightly criticised the UK Government for cutting subsidies to renewable energy developments, they are effectively now doing the same, by overseeing rates increases of up to 50 per cent of turnover when support has been removed.
The Scottish Government stresses that business valuations are undertaken by independent assessors. But the point at issue is that a relief scheme introduced by the Edinburgh administration to assist green generators ended in 2015 and has not been a replaced.
According to Alba Energy, a collective of independent hydro operators in Scotland, an average hydro scheme such as the 500kW Buckny Hydro in Perthshire has seen its draft valuation rise from £32,000 to £93,000, a sum that represents 29 per cent of its overall turnover.
The worst hit schemes have seen increases up to seven times their original value, with rateable valuations of up to 50 per cent of turnover.
The 1.9MW Ederline scheme on the banks of Loch Awe in Argyll had a previous valuation of £98,000, now revised upwards to £405,000.
Martin Foster, Chairman of Alba Energy, said:“We are not seeking special treatment. We want to know why we have been singled out for special punishment. Hydro is the original renewable energy source: the cleanest, most efficient, least obtrusive and longest-lasting. Yet the Scottish Government has facilitated a rates regime that will cripple the independent hydro industry it once claimed to support, while leaving the big energy companies unaffected.” …
Hannah Smith, Policy Manager at Scottish Renewables, said: “ “It is unrealistic to expect a company of any size to absorb increases of this scale overnight, particularly in the context of the likely Feed-in Tariff closure in 2019, which has already made it harder to justify investment in new projects…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15078638.Business_rates_set_to_cripple_small_green_generators/
8 Feb: CreamerEngineeringNews: IDC hopes to salvage wind-tower plant, but warns liquidation can’t be ruled out
by Terence Creamer
TThe Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is hoping to salvage the domestic manufacturing capability established to produce wind-tower sections in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) that was set up in response to government’s demand for higher levels of local content in the renewable-energy sector. However, it has also indicated that liquidation of DCD Wind Towers cannot be ruled out…
More than 30 projects selected as preferred bids during the most recent bid windows of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) have been affected by the impasse, with Eskom arguing that it requires guidance from government before signing new PPAs, owing to its assertion that electricity supply will exceed demand for the coming five years. In the wind sector, the projects collectively represent about 480 towers…
Els tells Engineering News Online that a decision about the future of the business will have to be made in the coming weeks, with a trade sale preferred but also that liquidation or a mothballed operation were also under consideration…
There is also a risk that the renewables capacity that has been developed in South Africa since 2011 could be “destroyed”…
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/idc-hopes-to-salvage-wind-tower-plant-but-warns-that-liquidation-cant-be-ruled-out-2017-02-08
01
***Fairfax gives Finkel’s false allegations against Trump another go; kind of fitting given the rest of the article:
8 Feb: SMH: Peter Hannam: Michael Mann, climate scientist in the crosshairs, says fake news must be fought
Climate change has long been the target of so-called fake news and its researchers can offer lessons for the wider society in how to handle deliberate misinformation, a leading US scientist said.
Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University who has been attacked by climate change deniers for developing in 1998 the so-called hockey stick graph revealing sharply higher global temperatures after 1900, said the spread of social media made it harder to tackle falsehoods before they gained traction…
***VIDEO: Chief scientist goes off at Trump
Science is under attack, says Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel, who has likened Donald Trump to Stalin. Video courtesy: ANU …
“It’s not new to us but it’s nonetheless alarming,” Professor Mann said. “We’re seeing the same opposition to facts and logic and objective discourse, and we’re seeing that challenged in our entire body politic.”
Dr Mann cited the weekend attack on climate science, a Daily Mail UK article claiming to have uncovered a whistleblower inside the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as one example. The person questioned the validity of the agency’s 2015 finding there had been no pause in global warming in the 1990s onwards, a result that other scientists have recently confirmed.
“This time you’ve seen a very rapid and concerted pushback against the disinformation and misinformation,” said Professor Mann, who is on an Australian speaking tour including with the Sydney Environment Institute…
“What’s different is the total antipathy towards both science and the environment that we see in the incoming administration,” he said. “It takes courage to stand up when you have the biggest bully of them all with the pulpit of the White House. threatening scientists with findings he doesn’t like.”…
Professor Mann, a pugnacious 51-year-old who has fronted numerous congressional hearings and faced death threats, said there was little point trying to break through “the politically partisan filter” in which about one-quarter to one-third of Americans screened out the reality and threat of human-triggered global warming.
“No amount of facts or evidence is going to change their views because fundamentally it comes from a place of ideology,” he said…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/michael-mann-climate-scientist-in-the-crosshairs-says-fake-news-must-be-fought-20170206-gu688g.html
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“It takes courage to stand up when you have the biggest bully of them all with the pulpit of the White House. threatening scientists with findings he doesn’t like”
Why wasn’t that true when Obama was President?
51
As even the Liberal opposition in Victoria agrees to ban gas exploration, it has to be realised that
Gas generators suffer the same RET load as coal. There is no distinction in the RET between gas, natural gas, brown coal, black coal, petrol, diesel. They are all ‘fossil fuels’ and so ‘ineligible’. So there is currently no point exploring anyway.
According to the RET (Renewables Energy Tax/Target), all have to pay, up to twice what they can get for their energy just for the right to sell.
It’s ok for SA to rely on Victoria, but when Hazelwood closes, they will have nowhere to go because Victoria will start having widespread blackouts too, especially in hot weather and cold. I guess we have to wait for Melbourne Airport to close and the pollies find they cannot go on holidays. Hazelwood may be calculating they will have to be paid much more for their electricity as there is simply no alternative. It would be nice if politicians could be the ones who suffered most, which was the original idea of the gold rail pass.
51
I guess that’s why our very insecure Green Prime Minister wants an emissions intensity tax, but has to cope with the fact that his own party does not want a carbon tax, the Greens do not want any fossil fuels and the RET is aleady killing the country anyway and would have to be repealed. Better to do nothing and just let everything close down and blame everyone else. Otherwise he would be criticised by his ABC. Meanwhile he is gloating over the final passing of Abbotts law to control the building unions. Even as PM he is simply living in Abbott’s shadow, much like Marc Anthony. A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
51
Tdef , I keep arguing that both major parties are trying to out green the greens !
Both of them state and federal have given in to the lucrative inner city vote and a vocal minority of watermelons .
50
Yes, at one end the rusted on Labor voters and at the other, the deluded conservatives. This is Malcolm Turnbull’s view of politics. As the Greens get up to 25% of the middle, whichever party out Greens the Greens will win.
However Malcolm wanted to wipe out Labor and the National party whom he hates even more than he hates the Liberals. His Green preference swap with Di Natalie fell through at the last minute and Di Natalie would have been Deputy PM, except for Daniel Andrews running riot in Victoria. Turnbull showed he could not outwit a used tea bag and nearly lost the lot including his $1.75Million. (Does he have an IOU?)
Now he is the lamest of lame ducks, barely able to get his building act through parliament, the very one he used to justify the double dissolution. With his one seat majority and the help of Derryn Hinch, Abbott’s Act might just squeak through but Malcolm is doomed. You can tell he is finished when the ABC attack and start pushing Julie Bishop.
30
NSW Caringbah Company has to sue Ausgrid for nine blackouts in one year
http://magresources.f2.com.au/lsu/
00
This is what the 100% renewable solution looks like to meet the June 2016 NEM consumption. If it can meet June energy then it easily meets other periods.
The optimum solution depends on the relative pricing of solar arrays and batteries. For this case I have an installed solar cost pruned to $2000/kW (BH was $2830/kW) and batteries with inverter can be installed for $500/kWh.
The total consumption for June 2016 was 16.5TWh.
The optimum combination to produce that energy for plant located around Broken Hill is solar arrays totalling 238500MW and battery storage totalling 727544MWh. Such a system could be installed for AUD841bn using the cost data I have noted. Roughly 50% of Australia’s annual GDP. Most days the battery cycles around 50% so would be expected to give good cycle life using LiFePO4 cells.
If the solar arrays were set up around Alice Springs or regions across to Birdsville (not on flood plains!!) then the array size would reduce by about 30%:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/sunshine-hours/index.jsp?period=jun#maps
So siting is an important consideration in the economics. It would make sense to locate the storage near major load centres and use UHVDC links between solar plants and load centres.
There would be some income potential from exporting excess power to the northern hemisphere during the austral summer.
03
This diagram shows the June energy flows for a 100% Solar IG/Storage system:
https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgWhZT3VyVmc6zV_2
Note these are 30 minute billing periods so the load curve is the squiggly blue line at the bottom of the chart. It shows around 10GWh. Actual morning and evening peak demand are around 25GW.
It is apparent how a few days in a series of poor insolation eats into the 700GWh of stored energy. The storage capacity is equivalent to 1.3 days of the monthly output of 16.5TWh.
The Solar IGs show peak period energy just over 100GWh. Actually panel rating is 238.5GW. Roughly 10 times the peak demand.
Although the station capacity factor for June could be as high as 18.5%, the optimum utilisation averages only 10% because having excess of panels reduces the cost of storage capacity.
I do not think many people have an understanding of the economics of IGs. Encouraging more of this madness will destroy the national grid in Australia. I am prepared to go off grid if the grid supply in Victoria gets to the same deplorable situation that SA is experiencing. It will cost SA a huge amount to get themselves out of this mess. It would be a good time to be selling petrol and diesel generators in SA. Maybe battery packs as well.
The tipping point occurs when the IGs have installed capacity equivalent to 100% of demand. The whole supply can disappear in a matter of seconds. State wide blackouts are now ensured. Adding more IG capacity without storage is professionally negligent.
40
the official narrative regarding John Bates/NOAA story has now been set by Seth Borenstein et al, & the meme is Bates was not talking about data manipulation. this narrative has spread throughout MSM & CAGW websites:
***note the use of ***MORE and ***MOST:
7 Feb: AP: Major global warming study again questioned, again defended
By SETH BORENSTEIN and MICHAEL BIESECKER
What is being touted as a scientific scandal is ***MORE about DATA HANDLING than what rising temperatures show, according to phone and email interviews with more than two dozen experts on the issue, including the former government scientist, whose blogging Saturday reignited a debate…
Bates said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press that he was ***MOST concerned about the way data was handled, documented and stored, raising issues of transparency and availability. He said Karl didn’t follow the more than 20 crucial data storage and handling steps that Bates created for NOAA. He said it looked like the June 2015 study was pushed out to influence the December 2015 climate treaty negotiations in Paris…
(PAT – HMMM!)
However Bates, who acknowledges that Earth is warming from man-made carbon dioxide emissions, said in the interview that there was “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious.”
“It’s really a story of not disclosing what you did,” Bates said in the interview. “It’s not trumped up data in any way shape or form.”…
(PAT – WHO ARE THEY, WHERE ARE THEIR QUOTES?)
The Associated Press interviewed more than two dozen experts by phone or email. Most agreed with Karl or didn’t take a side but said it didn’t matter because global warming continues regardless of this latest kerfuffle. Two supported Bates, saying there were serious scientific integrity concerns…
As far as the study being rushed, the journal says its records show otherwise. Science’s new editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg said it usually takes 109 days between a paper’s submission and its publication. The Karl study was received by the journal on Dec. 23, 2014 and published 185 days later, on June 26, 2015.
“The paper was not rushed in any way,” McNutt said. “It had an exceptional number of reviewers, many more than average because we knew it was on a controversial topic. It had a lot of data analysis.”…
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3fc5d49a349344f1967aadc4950e1a91/major-global-warming-study-again-questioned-again-defended4
7 Feb: WUWT: Anthony Watts: More on the Bombshell David Rose Article: Instability in the Global Historical Climate Network
PAUL MATTHEWS writes at the website CliScep:
(Paul Matthews is Associate Professor & Reader in Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Nottingham University)
The purpose of this post is to confirm one detail of Bates’s complaint. The Mail article says that “The land temperature dataset used by the study was afflicted by devastating bugs in its software that rendered its findings ‘unstable’.” and later on in the article, “Moreover, the GHCN software was afflicted by serious bugs. They caused it to become so ‘unstable’ that every time the raw temperature readings were run through the computer, it gave different results.”
Bates is quite correct about this. I first noticed the instability of the GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network) adjustment algorithm in 2012. Paul Homewood at his blog has been querying the adjustments for many years, particularly in Iceland, see here, here, here and here for example. Often, these adjustments cool the past to make warming appear greater than it is in the raw data…READ ON
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/07/more-on-the-bombshell-david-rose-article-instability-in-the-global-historical-climate-network/
11
responses from Dr. Bates & Judith Curry:
6 Feb: JudithCurry: Response to critiques: Climate scientists versus climate data
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/06/response-to-critiques-climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
VIDEO: Tony Heller, first 51mins: 7 Feb: Senate Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee
Public Hearing: SB 5501, SB 5542; Work Session: Briefing on Climate Science Data.
http://www.tvw.org/watch/?eventID=2017021106
worth noting:
6 Feb: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: “House Committee To ‘Push Ahead’ With Investigation Into Alleged Climate Data Manipulation At NOAA”
The committee aide said they had heard from ***other NOAA whistleblowers as well, but would not bring that evidence forward until given permission by sources.
Smith expects NOAA will turn over the subpoenaed documents…
11
7 Feb: WUWT: Even more on the David Rose bombshell article: How NOAA Software Spins the AGW Game
Guest essay by Rud Istvan
The disclosures by Dr. Bates concerning Karl’s ‘Pausebuster’ NOAA NCEI paper have created quite the climate kerfuffle, with Rep. Smith even renewing his NOAA email subpoena demands. Yet the Karl paper actually is fairly innocuous by comparison to other NOAA shenanigans. It barely removed the pause, and still shows the CMIP5 models running hot by comparison. Its importance was mainly political talking point pause-busting in the run up to Paris.
Here is an example of something more egregious but less noticed. It is excerpted from much longer essay When Data Isn’t in ebook Blowing Smoke. It is not global, concerning only the continental United States (CONUS). But it is eye opening and irrefutable…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/07/even-more-on-the-david-rose-bombshell-article-how-noaa-software-spins-the-agw-game/
01
8 Feb: SolarPowerPortalUK: Liam Stoker: Public Accounts Committee laments government LCF (Levy Control Framework) mismanagement
Lamenting a lack of “transparency, rigour and accountability”, the PAC found that a series of failings at government level caused spending within the LCF to spiral and that its response was not quick or coherent enough to limit the overspend without damaging investor confidence…
Principal to these failures was what the PAC termed a “culture of optimism bias” within the now defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The committee said the department did not consider that its projections or market research capabilities and failed to regularly consult on spending, contributing to a lack of transparency over spending.
The PAC pointed in particular to how projected LCF expenditure soared by £2 billion in the space of four months in 2015. Nearly one-third of this spend – some £600 million – was attributed to the use of 18 month-old load factor projections for offshore wind turbines when estimating their electricity generation…
Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said: “The government has failed to meet its commitment to report annually on the impact these policies are having on bills. Current arrangements just aren’t good enough.
“At the same time, the government expects the cost of levies to continue to bust the budget – meaning customers will pay more than expected.
“This is a result of poor forecasting and further evidence of excessive optimism in the implementation of energy policy…
http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/public_accounts_committee_laments_government_lcf_mismanagement
8 Feb: UK Parliament: Commons Select Committee: Government must show energy schemes are good value for customers
LINKS:
Read the report summary
Read the report conclusions and recommendations
Read the full report: Consumer-funded energy policies
The Framework sets yearly caps on the forecast costs of the Renewables Obligation, Feed in Tariffs, and Contracts for Difference—schemes funded through levies on energy companies and ultimately paid for by consumers via energy bills.
The Committee concludes the Framework has “suffered from a lack of transparency, rigour and accountability” and forecasting of its costs has been poor…
Background
Our electricity system is undergoing a radical transformation in response to two challenges: the need to maintain a secure energy supply and the need to reduce carbon emissions.
These challenges arise because demand for electricity is expected to increase over the next two decades while many of the UK’s existing coal and nuclear power stations will shut…
We reported earlier this year that the Department’s forecast of demand for Green Deal loans had been “so wildly optimistic it gave a completely misleading picture of the scheme’s prospects to Parliament and other stakeholders”…ETC
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news-parliament-2015/energy-policy-levy-control-framework-report-published-16-17/
01
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=023034&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
The annual mean max temps show an interesting trend.
North of the western end, where the weather station is, are suburbs built from farming land, swamps and reed beds, starting in the late 50s and mostly complete by late 70s. Flooding was also reduced. The greenry that once cooled some of the hot northerlies was removed and must have made a significant difference to the temperatures.
There also appears to be a step up around 2000 possibly due to AWS replacing the old equipment. This means that the mean this year was probably a degree lower than what the average would have been if nothing had changed.
10
The SA Energy & Resources Minister/Treasurer, Tom Koutsantonis, has asked an interesting question – why was the second gas turbine at the Pelican Point plant not used as it could have doubled the output from that station (Torres A1 was also offline but that was due to maintenance). Giles at RenewEconomy is furious!! Still, a 220 MW margin is pretty thin margin to rely on.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-08/sa-heatwave-forces-rolling-blackouts-angering-government/8252512
BTW, SA wind output is dropping off as the afternoon progresses and the temperature is rising above 40 degrees C in Adelaide – sounds familiar…
Victoria’s wind output is also dropping off now that the cool front has passed through
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/february/9
10
Quoted from Jo’s “The Australia” headline piece;
Reality! From the “The Advertiser” a few minutes ago;
SA power crisis: Will there be more blackouts?
The Blame Game is in full swing as can be read on the Advertiser site but Weatherill can’t dodge the fact that when the wind isn’t blowing then his pride and maybe not so positive “Joy” anymore in his truly crazy fixation with his occasionally power generating wind turbines invariably and frequently places SA’s essential power supplies at serious risk of failing despite the two interconnectors with Victoria, whatever the weather, the politics and grid control practicality circumstances at any given time.
40
PS; Temperature at our official Horsham Airfield BOM station site cracked 44.2 C at 15.30EDT today.
Top Wind was WNW @ 44 KPH gusting to a max of 67 KPH.
A very bad day.
10
The renew economy website shows SA using only gas same as during load shed. Can anyone confirm SA is getting brown coal power from Vic?
10
Check the flows for V-S-MNSP1 (MurrayLink) and V-SA (Heywood) http://nemweb.com.au/Reports/Current/DispatchIS_Reports/
Of course all the power flow through the interconnectors could be from wind farms with the nasty brown coal power exclusively used in Victoria
10
Can’t open files on my “smart” phone will look later cheers for the link. The renew website appears to lump gas and coal together
00
Actually, you can to the AEMO electricity data dashboard and select the tabular option (top right icon next to the information one) and the Net Import MW column is available
http://aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard
The NEM-Web widget sponsored by RenewEconomy only shows local generation and since the shutdown of Northern last May, there are no operating coal plants in SA anymore 🙁
00
And this view shows the generation breakups in a table below the graph
http://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
00
Crakar24,
Get a smarter ‘phone.
00
Get a smarter operator more like it lol
10
Oh, and it appears SA is on the verge of a wholesale price spike for electricity again based on the existing bids
http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard
30
I know guy who knows a guy who lives in the USA, he pays $28 dollars a month for power!!!!!!
20
At my home in Newtown, PA, I only pay 9c/kwh.
27c/kwh in Hervey Bay.
10
Yep it just spiked then to $13,160
00
Renew Economy are experts are not telling the complete story with a focus on the bits which fit the mantra.
Internal fossil fuel power supplies in SA total some 3,200 MW – mostly gas plus some small scale diesel generation.
On 8 Feb 2017, immediately prior to the blackout which effected 90,000 (this was earlier reported as 40,000 homes), South Australia was relying upon coal-fired power via the interconnectors to Victoria.
Heywood was supplying about 600 MW and Murray Link was supplying about 150 MW.
If power grids were smart enough to differentiate between electrons then Renew Economy could spin the story that these links to Victoria were selectively only transferring hydro, wind or solar from Victoria (sarc).
Earlier Heywood had spiked at up to 650 MW.
Murray Link had increased from a steady 100 MW up to 150 MW (I assume at the request of AEMO) prior to the load sharing event.
50
According to the blind ABC the aemo has just instructed pelican point to fire up, I am glad the market cap is low at $14,000/mw
20
Pelican Point has been operating today supplying 160 MW up to 5AM and about 220 MW up to 2:30 PM.
Output was waining over the day due to the high ambient temperature (about 5% reduction).
From 2:30 PM it’s been cranked up to >260 MW.
Since noon today wind generator output has fallen from 550 MW (35% of installed) to 270 MW (17%).
Wind output instantaneously peaked at ~600 MW at about 6:30 AM.
10
Yes but the second turbine has come online now (started up around 5pm)
00
Scott Morrison for PM.
“The South Australian Labor government is switching off jobs and switching off lights and switching off air conditioners and forcing Australian families to boil in the dark as a result of their dark ages policies,” Morrison declared in question time on Thursday.’
Guardian
40
two equally obnoxious people:
VIDEO: 2mins01secs: Twitter: ABC News Breakfast Michael Mann with Virginia Trioli: “It’s hard to have meaningful debate when we can’t come to the table” US scientist @MichaelEMann on climate politics in Trump era
caption: Scientist warns of “new dark age” of climate politics under Trump
REPLY: aussie media is all assumptions about foreign news.
https://twitter.com/BreakfastNews/status/829464283859673088
images of windmills turning…spruiking renewables, as usual.
21
And another typical Perth
wintersummer day, where the mid-night temperature was the high so far (17.6C):http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60901/IDW60901.94608.shtml
Climate change … it’s happenin!
01
Newp… tried at 4pm and only got up to 17.3C. So Midnight was the high for the day. Amazing what a bit of rain and cloud cover does eh?
11
Bulldust,
It is hot in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne at the moment, so the planet is definitely about to have its hottest year evvvaaaaaahhhhhhhh – again.
Never mind about Russia, Europe and North America being as cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss.
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Some religious programme on ABC stacked full of belivers came to the conclusion the load shed was aemo fault but the underlying problem was climate change because it caused the hot day in the first place therefore we need to double down on renewables and struggle through.
It never occurred to them other states that experience hot days that have not embraced the new religion don’t have blackouts
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Finkel’s views on batteries.
https://www.pressreader.com/
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Sorry, should be
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwifvL3fw4LSAhVJo5QKHaC6ClcQFggKMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pressreader.com%2Faustralia%2Fcosmos%2F20160616%2F282480003048116&usg=AFQjCNFovTUENXWf_buFiSw8y1REEekk-g&sig2=N_FPGeOgKeCfipi2iiSTGA
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read all:
9 Feb: news.com.au: Charis Chang/AAP: Why South Australia’s blackouts are a problem for us all
The Australian Energy Market Operator has already issued a notice warning of tightening supply/demand in NSW over the coming days, and this could see load shedding happen there as well, with temperatures expected to rise to 40 degrees over the next few days…
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis: “The problem that is occurring here is coming to a city near you on the eastern sea board soon,” he warned…
“Labor incompetence has subjected the people of South Australia to Third World conditions,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in Parliament today.
Mr Turnbull has previously talked up the role of clean coal in Australia’s energy future and Treasurer Scott Morrison even wielded a lump of coal during Question Time today, gleefully declaring: “this is coal — don’t be afraid, don’t be scared”.
The treasurer said it was coal that had ensured Australia had enjoyed an energy competitive advantage for more than 100 years, delivering prosperity to businesses and ensuring industry had been able to remain competitive in a global market…
Residents have been furious over the blackout due to “load shedding”, which plunged 90,000 properties into darkness on Wednesday night…
AEMO said it had requested more electricity from other states but did not receive “sufficient bids” to maintain the supply/demand balance in South Australia…
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/why-south-australias-blackouts-are-a-problem-for-us-all/news-story/bc3bbc8be17d80844bc05ab7f5760d56
OH NO…IT’S REAL COAL, NOT FAKE COAL…HUFFPO FACT-CHECKED IT:
9 Feb: HuffPo: Josh Butler: Scott Morrison Brought A Lump Of Coal And Waved It Around In Parliament
Then his colleagues passed it around like a football
Then, inexplicably, treasurer Scott Morrison took centre stage and pulled out a lump of coal. No, not a fake prop, a piece of plastic or foam painted black. A literal lump of coal…
“This is coal — don’t be afraid, don’t be scared,” Morrison roared, while his side laughed and the Speaker of the House chastised him for breaking the established parliament rule against using props.
“It’s coal, it was dug up by men and women who work and live in the electorates of those who sit opposite.”
The lump, the size of a brick, was then passed behind to deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who seemed delighted. Joyce passed it along to energy minister Josh Frydenberg. It was then passed around the Coalition benches like a football, with a few other members on the backbenches getting to hold the coal in their hands.
***We spoke to Morrison’s office, who confirmed the coal was legit.
“Yes it is real. It came from a Hunter Valley (NSW) mine,” Morrison’s spokesperson said.
It sent the parliament, and observers, wild…
TWEETS, incl ABC
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/02/08/scott-morrison-brought-a-lump-of-coal-and-waved-it-around-in-par/
PoliticsNow: Australian politics live rolling coverage
The Australian-4 hours ago
Apologise over lump of coal
Activist group 350.org Australia has called on Scott Morrison to apologise for bringing a lump of coal into the chamber out of respect for the “millions of people who have lost their lives to coal pollution” and fossil-fuel-driven climate change.
350.org campaign director Charlie Wood said that Mr Morrison’s actions show “deep disregard” for the impact of Australia’s “obsession” with coal, arguing it was wrecking peoples’ health and destroying the Great Barrier Reef.
“The Treasurer’s infatuation with coal obviously stems from the flood of cash that the industry donates to his party,” he said.
“It is no surprise that our Government is so hell-bent on supporting Adani’s mega coal mine in Queensland even when millions of people here and overseas have taken action to oppose this carbon bomb. There is no safe climate future if the Adani mine goes ahead.”
Trump ***dangerously unhinged: Greens
Greens MP Adam Bandt said that Mr Trump appeared to be “dangerously unhinged” and engaged in a “sycophantic relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin” as well as being surrounded by “far-right ideologues who seem hell-bent on war, particularly in our region.”
But Mr Turnbull hit back, saying he could imagine “no step that would put Australia’s national security more at risk than adopting the policies of the Greens”. ..
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/turnbull-looks-to-maintain-momentum/news-story/6add9ced2370a04597ba5eb1d0478abd
***WE KNOW WHO IS DANGEROUSLY UNHINGED, ADAM BANDT. TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR, ALONGSIDE LABOR, 350.ORG, ABC, HUFFPO, FAIRFAX, ETC.
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for all the deranged anti-Trumpers in Australia:
7 Feb: Breitbart: Rahm Emanuel Tells Dems to ‘Take a Chill Pill’: ‘It Ain’t Gonna Happen in 2018’
by Pam Key
Monday in California at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, former Obama White House chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Democrats needed to “take a chill pill” and prepare for a long-term build up of the party…
Emanuel said, “2016, now Democrats are in the lowest level since ***1928 in the House of Representatives and the lowest level since ***1925 in the state houses. Not really good.” adding,
***”It is hard to image it getting lower.”…
He added, “It took us a long time to get this low. It ain’t gonna happen in 2018. Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul. And if you think it’s going to be a quick turn around like that, it’s not.”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/02/07/rahm-emanuel-tells-dems-to-take-a-chill-pill-it-aint-gonna-happen-in-2018/
7 Feb: ChicagoTribune: Rahm Emanuel: Too many Dems care more about being right than winning
by Kim Janssen
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has warned Democrats they need to “take a chill pill” and realize that they are not going to take back national power anytime soon.
“Take a chill pill, man….
“Winning’s everything,” he said. “If you don’t win, you can’t make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party to accept that principle. Sometimes, you’ve just got to win, OK? Our party likes to be right, even if they lose.”…
“If you lose, you can write the book about what happened — great, that’s really exciting!” he said, sarcastically…
7 Feb: Breitbart: Virgil: The Left Whips Up a Climate of Violence — the Prime Target Is Donald Trump
Is there a media-driven “climate of violence”? You bet there is, and it’s being whipped up by the left and the Main Stream Media, here and around the world. And it has a clear purpose: The ultimate goal is the destruction of the Trump presidency—and, for at least some, seemingly, the goal is the assassination of President Trump himself…
Yes, today, the left talks a lot about “peace,” “coexistence,” and all that. And yet, as Virgil wrote in January, when it comes to Trump, one tool of the left, the MSM, gets notably militant; it becomes hormonally eager to reach for violent imagery.
So it’s in this context that we must evaluate extreme anti-Trump media items, such as the semi-suggestion of Rosa Brooks, a former high official in the Obama administration, that what’s needed is a military coup d’etat against the Trump White House. We can note that Brooks published this piece in a well-known MSM outlet, Foreign Policy, on January 30, and it’s still there. Nobody in the MSM, at least, seems to have a problem with it…
***6,869-PLUS COMMENTS AT TIME OF POSTING
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/02/07/virgil-the-left-whips-up-a-climate-of-violence-the-prime-target-is-donald-trump/
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” Premier Jay Weatherill blamed the AEMO for not ordering a gas power station to come online. ”
Is that a market failure or a failure of leadership ?
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Actually the only interesting part of this blackout in the total abscence of extreme weather is who Tom Koutsantonis will blame for this disaster. Victoria? The energy market? The interconnector? Distributors or the private capitalist operators? Never ever at any stage admit that his extreme policies are utterly destroying the state, something obvious to everyone in South Australia and noted around the world. Even the Prime Minister agrees. It is an extraordinary lesson in denial of responsibility.
He blamed BHP for relying on SA power instead of building their own power stations as they do in third world countries. On the front page of the Australian this morning, even the Defence department is so spooked by this comment they are planning a $20Million diesel plant so they can build submarines. Not happening. Not happening. Someone else’s fault. Fingers in ears.
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Someone made a good point on 2GB yesterday:- Aren’t wind & solar the power sources that are the most vulnerable to climate ?
While CSIRO drew a blank on studies into climate vulnerability of these favoured power sources for the future that so much is being invested in.
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If these renewables are vulnerable to climate change shouldn’t underperforming windmills & solarplants from across the planet be allowed into SA as climate refugees ?
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A lighter look at the global warming catastrophe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4
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OK I’m from the US so maybe I’m not tuned in to what is happening in Australia. But can that figure $13,440 MWh really be right. That translates to $13.44 /kwh. That’s nearly 100 times what we pay here. So my last electric bill was $100, but at your rate it would be $10,000. No one could afford that!
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The AUD13,440/MWh only applies to one demand/supply period of 30 minute duration. It could apply over a number of periods though. The average of all periods in 2016 was AUD57/MWh.
These are wholesale prices. Typical retail prices in Australia are 30c/kWh (AUD300/MWh). The supply chain is long and there are a lot of people being paid big bucks to deliver profits as most of the generation and supply assets are now privately owned.
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$13,440 is the correct figure but look on the bright side, we are saving the planet.
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Can I help you save the planet? I have some power to sell you at that price.
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At 6:15am on Saturday 28th January South Australia was generating 11 Mw of Wind Power. Good luck making coffee and toast with that.
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South Australian Tourist Commission announces a new promotion.
Come to South Australia a third world country where you can drink the water
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Wattclarity has an analysis of why the reserve gas turbine wasn’t fired up in time to prevent load shedding.
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