CO2Science found a 1999 paper done in China that shows just how awful climate change is for cotton. It’s a major global crop for fibre and oil and when the researchers warmed daytime growing conditions from 27C to 34C the plants seemed pretty happy about it as they grew faster and bigger. But if CO2 levels doubled as well, in hot conditions plant growth was up 60%. (Panic now. It’s a international emergency).
…
Don’t change your cotton futures portfolio just yet. At the current rate of warming (0.13C/decade) it will take about 500 years for Earth to get seven degrees warmer.
As reported by the Chinese scientists, at the end of the experiment (105 days after sowing), elevated temperature enhanced dry matter by 43% under ambient CO2 conditions and by 60% under elevated CO2 conditions (see Figure 1, left panel). Dry matter was also enhanced by elevated CO2 (17% under ambient temperature conditions and 31% under elevated temperatures). The highest increase in dry matter content was noted in the elevated temperature and elevated CO2 treatment, suggesting to the authors that “[CO2] enrichment could enhance the effect of rising temperature on dry matter content.”
Reference
Jones, C.G. and Hartley, S.E. 1999. A protein competition model of phenolic allocation. Oikos 86: 27-44.
And what will you bet that someone comes along and says the experiment is all wrong, the 7 degrees of warming will happen next week, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
They always do and the good news gets buried under the bad. 🙁
143
Its not the temperature that makes the difference, its the pressure. A small increase in pressure will see a dramatic increase in growth due to more CO2 being taken up by plant leaves. More pressure will increase methane, O2 and glucose production and reduce respiration at night.
30
Unless of course youre the ABC, and dont care about facts…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-18/why-facts-arent-always-more-important-than-opinions/8449438
“To call something a fact is, presumably, to make a claim that it is true.
This isn’t a problem for many things, although defending such a claim can be harder than you think.
What we think are facts — that is, those things we think are true — can end up being wrong despite our most honest commitment to genuine inquiry.
For example, is red wine good or bad for you? And was there a dinosaur called the brontosaurus or not?
The Harvard researcher Samuel Arbesman points out these examples and others of how facts change in his book The Half Life of Facts.
It’s not only that facts can change that is a problem.
While we might be happy to consider it a fact that Earth is spherical, we would be wrong to do so because it’s actually a bit pear-shaped.”
Is it just me, or is this one of the finest examples of Orwellian Newspeak I’ve seen?
40
Hmm!
I wonder if lawyers will go for that.
Ohh! Okay then, you’re free to go.
(Notice that it’s the ABC covering their @r$e)
Tony.
31
The history of science consists of truths that have, in various ways, superseded the previous “truths”.
Reality is a framework within which our understanding grows and becomes more refined.
20
It is not facts that change, it is our perception and understanding of these facts that change.
10
There were lots of books written about the brontosaurus, and not just kids books. And then suddenly there was no brontosaurus.
Very Terry Pratchett-ish (The Last Continent).
10
I don’t see anything erroneous about the quote. It isn’t Orwellian, unlike “alternate news,” which most certainly is. Indeed, I tell people who try to convince me with “history” that by and large, I think it little better than fiction with footnotes. What we call “facts” range from things that are unlikely to ever be disputed – things we can consider “true” – to “facts” that are no more than “best” interpretations of evidence (lower level “facts), and the evidence itself can be equivocal. Any discussion of science and how scientists “know” things has to acknowledge that. The confusion of “truth,” a philosophical concept, with what science is really about is what leads to such stupidity as AGW, a busload of supposition that relies on a teaspoon of fact.
10
Well, bless my cotton socks…………
100
That cotton pickin CO2….jump down turn around pick a random proxy….
130
That’s cotton pickin’ news.
110
What about all the veg that is grown in greenhouses with extra CO2 added by the growers? I can’t see those people doing that unless it produced larger crops and enhanced their profit margins.
The problem is that the climate ‘scientists’ never look at the real world because doing so would shatter their world view.
221
Vegetables will become more acidic unless the growers reduce their pollution, in the near future a strawberry will taste like a nine volt battery.
74
Cool…so I could start my car with a deep cycle strawberry battery…..
130
“a strawberry will taste like a nine volt battery.”
I thought those were nine volt alkaline batteries! 🙂
60
Don’t forget Will, we are talking about homogenized science here.
32
Can you homogenize strawberries?
21
It’s called jam if poorly done by Climate Clowns; Correctly jelly!
12
The big question is does the extra CO2 cause warming? As far as I am aware it doesn’t. i.e. greenhouse gases don’t work in a greenhouse.
181
It is a big question but not because of your lack of awareness of CO2 in actual greenhouses. Kids test it themselves in schools
http://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/jesei/co2green/home.htm
In reality, actual greenhouses need actual humans to breath the air, and plants need oxygen, and soil function needs N and O and suitable pH (100% CO2 would kill! through acidifying soil moisture) etc. The percentage of CO2 that could be spiked into an actual greenhouse to support plant and animal life, without detrimental effects to the plants plus not cost more money than the value of increased production, is not enough to cause measurable temperature increase. You can google that one yourself.
310
Huh! Greenhouses typically have their atmospheres elevated to 1000ppm, or 2 1/2 times the 40ppm average in the outside atmosphere, so if a minor elevation above 400ppm can cause all manner of climatic disasters, including catastrophic temperatures in the real world, how come glasshouses can escape these same catastrophes?
I smell a rat here!
152
No, it is a global conspiracy not a rat.
yes 1000ppm is a useful amount. You need to remember a couple of things.
An agricultural greenhouse is not a hothouse, but let’s pretend that the temperature is not controlled (just moist CO2 deficient air and sunlight will raise a glasshouse to plant killing temperatures without a way to vent). A temperature change of a few degrees is significant to many things (this is not contentious btw, it is an observation), but to someone growing a cucumber in Melbourne a rise from 26 to 27C is hardly a disaster. If you are looking at higher temperatures without temperature control (like 40-50C) the heat reduced amount of space heat capacity of the air and the increased rate of heat loss means that the change due to the CO2 is negligible.
10
change this
into this
00
Thank you!
00
I think we both agree that extra CO2 doesn’t heat the greenhouse. Yes, without venting a greenhouse gets very hot, even in Melbourne esp. during summer. The greenhouses I had in mind are typically in the Low Countries and operating most of the year yet even at 1400 ppm. CO2 they have to pour in heat in colder weather. (Switching to LED lights saved electricity but they had to increase the heating).
But in the real world there is always venting. Even Fourier pointed this out in the 1820’s, that it would take “a portion of the air to crystallise without changing its optical properties” to form a greenhouse.
As for that “experiment” I think that any results are quite meaningless. Have the lamps been compared? The temperature devices calibrated? And why 100% CO2? Surely they should run it with 0.4% and 0.6% and see the “catastrophic rise” for themselves. And as for a 2℃ being catastrophic for plants, tell that to farmers who are keen on warmer weather. Also the people in Iceland who would like to be able to grow wheat again.
51
it is a kids demonstration – so 100% CO2 is to assist the demonstration. And of course it could be affected by all sorts of things as you say, and the teachers should take the opportunity to teach about errors in data. Many such experiments would indeed fail to show a difference, again a good lesson. They ask themselves, “does this mean the theory was wrong or our experiment flawed?”. In reality the typical results with a small and repeatable (swapping lamps for instance) effect will shown for a high percentage of classes that try it.
And your suggest of a testing with differences of a few ppm is brilliant (although impractical to set up in a bottle in a school lab) as it would show no difference. The students could then learn about the limitations of lab experiements as models for the real world (as is so often pointed out on this blog)
20
Gee Aye April 18, 2017 at 4:07 pm
“it is a kids demonstration – so 100% CO2 is to assist the demonstration.”
assist the
demonstrationdeliberate brainwashing of innocent children.“And of course it could be affected by all sorts of things as you say, and the teachers should take the opportunity to teach about errors in data. Many such experiments would indeed fail to show a difference, again a good lesson. They ask themselves, “does this mean the theory was wrong or our experiment flawed?”. In reality the typical results with a small and repeatable (swapping lamps for instance) effect will shown for a high percentage of classes that try it.
And your suggest of a testing with differences of a few ppm is brilliant (although impractical to set up in a bottle in a school lab) as it would show no difference. The students could then learn about the limitations of lab experiments as models for the real world (as is so often pointed out on this blog)”
Glad to see you offering your understanding\knowledge of what you personally have done. What would happen to most crops at the limit of human tolerance of atmospheric CO2 (8000 ppmv)?? 🙂
01
Increasing CO2 is of concern to the worriers.
‘When carbon dioxide levels in the air increase, crops in future will have a reduced nitrogen content, and therefore reduced protein levels. The study found this for both wheat and rice, the two most important crops globally. The study also reveals that the strength of the effect varies in different species of grassland, which may impact on the species composition of these ecosystems.’
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-06-carbon-dioxide-air-restrict-ability.html#jCp
00
just to be clear in case someone thought this was the case – the mechanism being claimed is not CO2 causing a lower atmospheric [N2]
01
The ‘dilutive effect, in which nitrogen absorption fails to keep pace with the increase in plants’ photosynthesis and growth.’
10
How is even a doubling of CO2 going to have any significant influence on the quantity of N2 ?
Unreal.
31
who said it was?
Metabolic changes and limits of enzyme function result from a change in one system (incorporation of CO2) to another amino-acid metabolism. The pathway is one that deals with Nitrogen not gaseous N2.
10
O.K.
I take your point.
The next issue then is just how do specific plant species proceed with the mechanism you describe with elevated CO2.
Humans, for sure, are capable of functioning in very high CO2 environments. I assume plants would too.
KK
01
different plants respond differently even with all conditions kept constant just owing to their different physiology. Differences can be just the settings of their physiology or they can differ by having completely different pathways and functionality.
Then you overlay real world variables that interact with the metabolic systems and their expressed functions like water availability, soil composition (trace elements, microbes etc), wind, things that eat them, pollinate for them – these things that can vary geographically and which vary temporally due to climate change (no matter what the cause) – and you have a very complicated situation. To say, as some do, “more CO2 is good because CO2 is plant food”, is ignorance at its highest.
12
sorry did not pull that together for you comment “I assume plants do too”. So yes, they can survive all sorts of variation but there is no simple way to predict the quality of that survival.
11
And.
” vary temporally due to climate change”
could also be expressed as
“climate variability” ?
Funny thing is that the most dangerous gas for humans is not CO2 but Oxygen.
KK
10
Oxygen has nothing on this list http://www.dehs.umn.edu/ressafety_rsp_pg.htm 🙂
yes… sloppy phrasing with climate change as I meant variability and change. Change can be distinguished from variability (seasonal and inter annual) in that an individual experiences variability but a species* experiences change.
* clonal individuals can be argued to be an exception
12
If you were to breathe pure oxygen at sea level for about 20 minutes you might get a surprise.
All of the CO2 in your bloodstream would be removed.
This is dangerous because we need a little bit of CO2 there to keep your neural system activated.
CO2 is a neural regulator and guides breathing.
If CO2 gets too low you will not have a “next breath”.
KK
00
you know you’ve written this about 10 times now?
11
KinkyKeith April 20, 2017 at 8:46 am
“CO2 is a neural regulator and guides breathing. If CO2 gets too low you will not have a “next breath”.”
400ppmv in 4000ppm out, 200ppm in 4000ppm out, 0ppm in 4000ppm out! A neural regulator. 20% O2 is enough! 🙂
10
Hi Will, you left out a zero for the CO2 content of expired air.
Inspiration about 400 ppm
Expiration about 40,000 ppm.
It’s a very good exchange rate and goes some way to explaining why people can survive in submarines where CO2 levels can be 8,000 ppm.
KK
00
An earlier post on CO2 in the bloodstream.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/#comment-1321691
00
Gee sez,
“you know you’ve written this about 10 times now?”
Yes I know because others keep implying and saying that CO2 is dangerous.
Whilst we need both O2 and CO2 most people on the street would probably say that oxygen is harmless.
If you are on top of mount Everest that may be the case but when skin diving and at ground level it”s best not to fool around with pure oxygen.
KK
00
KinkyKeith April 20, 2017 at 8:39 pm
“Hi Will, you left out a zero for the CO2 content of expired air.
Inspiration about 400 ppm Expiration about 40,000 ppm.”
Thank you! I guess I put the PI in the gazinta rather than on the gazonta, again! I do that lots. 🙂
10
Very bad experimental setup there Gee Aye. I am sure that you would be one of the first to recognize that, although strangely you do not comment on it.
30
Lucky you are not the one designing high school lab experiments. Besides, commenting on deficiencies of methods are part of high school science reports even to this day.
12
“commenting on deficiencies of methods are part of high school science reports”
Do you have an example of such a report that is easily available to parents and community interested? That whole community has the skill to much improve the way such is designed\conducted to improve learning\comprehension over that by your one designing high school lab experiments. 🙁
12
Abstract
Environmental change drives demographic and evolutionary processes that determine diversity within and among species. Tracking these processes during periods of change reveals mechanisms for the establishment of populations and provides predictive data on response to potential future impacts, including those caused by anthropogenic climate change. Here we show how a highly mobile marine species responded to the gain and loss of new breeding habitat. Southern elephant seal, Mirounga leonina, remains were found along the Victoria Land Coast (VLC) in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, 2,500 km from the nearest extant breeding site on Macquarie Island (MQ). This habitat was released after retreat of the grounded ice sheet in the Ross Sea Embayment 7,500–8,000 cal YBP, and is within the range of modern foraging excursions from the MQ colony. Using ancient mtDNA and coalescent models, we tracked the population dynamics of the now extinct VLC colony and the connectivity between this and extant breeding sites. We found a clear expansion signal in the VLC population ∼8,000 YBP, followed by directional migration away from VLC and the loss of diversity at ∼1,000 YBP, when sea ice is thought to have expanded. Our data suggest that VLC seals came initially from MQ and that some returned there once the VLC habitat was lost, ∼7,000 years later. We track the founder-extinction dynamics of a population from inception to extinction in the context of Holocene climate change and present evidence that an unexpectedly diverse, differentiated breeding population was founded from a distant source population soon after habitat became available.
Author Summary
In order to understand how biodiversity is generated and maintained over time, we need to understand the process by which populations form and diverge. Natural variation within species is typically partitioned among populations, which sometimes forms the basis for speciation events. One mechanism for the establishment of novel variation at the population level is through a response to emerging habitat. Here we use data from ancient DNA to show how elephant seal populations responded when new breeding habitat was gained and then lost over the course of approximately 7,000 years. We show that the seals quickly took advantage of newly available breeding habitat, far from the nearest extant breeding site, and that a highly diverse and genetically differentiated population was established over a matter of generations. The key factors were likely the abundant local food resource and extensive physical habitat that allowed rapid expansion after the initial founder event and a tendency for females to return to annual breeding sites in this species. Tracking the founder-extinction dynamics of historical populations provides insight into the likely implications of future environmental change. This is an important tool in our efforts to mitigate the impact of human-induced change.
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554
50
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/figure/image?size=large&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000554.g001
20
SO? Can we conclude that elephant seals are smarter than AGW alarmists.
91
That would be a given, I’d have thought….
100
Elephant seals certainly have good memories!
Which is more than can be said for climate warmist.
Their memories of past weather evens are fogged in ideology.
GeoffW
51
Can remember reading some study that showed indoor plants helped to absorb pollutants from the air. So will the cotton and other plants help to reduce pollution thanks to humans returning CO2 back toward ancient atmospheric levels? Also will farmers consider growing cotton in huge greenhouses while buying large quantities of CO2?
41
Just out of Trafalgar (Vic) on the Princes Hwy, there’s a huge tomato growing operation and everything is under cover, the biggest greenhouses I’ve ever seen. This is a year round operation and I understand that a lot of CO2 is used to promote growth, so farmers have been well aware of this for a long time.
110
The company is Flavorite Tomatoes.
http://flavoritetomatoes.com.au/about-us/
Dispelling the notion that CO2 will fry the planet, these guys are using extra CO2 to produce bumper crops of tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant and Lebanese cucumbers.
And all here in our idiotically run Andrews Labor Victoria.
10
Thanks for that. It makes a complete mockery of all the CO2 scare-mongering that goes on. I wonder if anyone has ever done an analysis of how much CO2 is used and is essential for enhancing today’s crops to feed an ever growing population?
10
Its all very well to say CO2 makes food grow more abundantly, but you know in your heart its on the road to extinction.
http://www.johnenglander.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CO2%20550my%20Extinction%20Chart%20from%20Ward.jpg
31
Predicated on CO2 causing warming so the Ice Age in the Ordovician doesn’t fit in.
Also, in the fine AGW tradition of cherry picking, it leaves off the KPg extinction when there was a certain amount of dying off among dinosaurs, and extinction for ammonites, belemnites and marine reptiles.
71
At the KPg boundary Gaia strung;ed to right the ship after a large comet strike, followed by widespread volcanism and a sea level drop of 100 metres. In this environment some creatures became extinct.
00
Well, talk the Greenies into banning comets. We could station them on Mars with Stop signs (they’d be right at home on another Planet).
Incidentally the Deccan traps were erupting before the comet strike but the major outburst coincided. Did the comet initiate that huge flow? Equally the Late Permian extinction seems to have coincided with the Siberian traps outflow. And a geologist friend told me that there are the remains of an ancient outflow in northern Australia, stretching from W.A. across the NT to Qld.
20
The Deccan trap was reignited, but took an inordinate amount of time to come on line.
http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/04/30/did-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-trigger-largest-lava-flows-on-earth/
10
el gordo:
There are other time theories. The best that I can find is that there were 3 major events lasting a long time. The first started before the asteroid hit, the second around about the same time and by far the biggest and a third smaller one.
There is evidence from across the Indian ocean and up into the M.E. that plankton was being affected well before the impact.
I am not sure what they mean by the mismatch of the antipode positions; India was not in its present position then but well south. And I point out that CO2 would not (on its own) haveacidified the oceans, if indeed they were acidified. Sulphur oxides are far stronger acids when dissolved, and a shortage of plankton would have a cascading effect on the marine food chain. The ammonites all disappeared but the deep sea Nautiloids survived.
The comment that the Deccan traps being the largest ever known is questionable and depends on estimates of the undersea volume. The Siberian traps at least rival it. Incidentally the estimate for volume for the Deccan traps is 520,000 times that of Mt. St. Helens. You wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that.
10
Thanks for all that, I’ve learnt a lot in a couple of days.
00
Yes and coal, oil and gas has changed human life expectancy and well being since the start of the Industrial Rev. See Dr Rosling’s 200 countries since 1810 and his TED talk trying to dispel our ignorance.
A baby born today in the west has an average life expectancy of 90, but in 1810 it was less than 40 and in 1900 about 50. Life expectancy before the Ind Rev was even lower according to Lomborg’s research. So humans from pre history to 1800 definitely had a life expectancy of less than 40.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Just 5 minutes of your time.
Even if you just watch the first 5 minutes of his next video you’ll understand more about human health and well being than most people on the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg&t=327s
90
‘Yes and coal, oil and gas has changed human life expectancy ….’
There is certainly more abundance in this modern climate optimum, but it may also relate to global warming, which appears to happen periodically.
10
Thomas Gale Moore believes warmer weather brings about technical innovation and associated population spike.
https://web.stanford.edu/~moore/HistoryEcon.html
10
In the bizarre, post ad-hoc world of 97% global warming science, more carbon (sic) causes …
“Increased carbon dioxide levels could cause a global drop in nutrients in rice, wheat and soy, a new study has found.”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/05/08/3999646.htm
. . .
Therefore, the cotton should be of a lower grade?
50
For the very early inhabitants of the U.S.states of Washington and Idaho, the females lived to about age 26, the males into their 30s.
Research shows that often they did not have enough to eat. Other times they had plenty.
They did not have the knowledge and tools to make the best of the environment.This was 9,000-10,000 years ago.
70
Sorry, I meant this as related to Neville’s #7.
40
On the radio this morning, a greenie was bemoaning the fact that coal mine screate aprticle pollution and affect peoples health….I guess no coal, no power, no hospitals….That would be worse….
Where do they find these people? Getting sick of it….
151
Its too early…..
Should read “…that coal mines create particle pollution..”
60
Diesel engines don’t help air quality all that much, even when in new cars, or inner-city 4WDs never driven on dirt by people who vote for the Greens.
I recall hearing an interview of some eager young anti-uranium mining people, who were genuinely shocked to find that radiation levels in former uranium mines were above average. They really seemed to think that this was solely due to human activity.
(You know, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that carbon levels in coal mines are higher than background…)
91
I recall seeing a Rangie being driven by a wealthy young thing, seeing foot deep water across a suburban road, do a U turn and scoot off…..
30
As the world cools greenhouses will need to be built in which a majority of the world’s crops will need to be grown. These could be built around coal power stations and the exhaust from these could be pumped directly into the greenhouses to provide CO2 and heat.
172
I viewed with interest an ABC Landline segment on Australian food crop farmers who are purchasing very large area structures and moveable roofing to cover crops to protect them from weather conditions, particularly high value crops. The construction materials and design is imported from Canada.
From comments made by farmers they are concerned about the future growing conditions and related impacts on their businesses.
Obviously not all people are fooled by man-made global warming climate change fraud.
111
There was a repeat, last Sunday, of the item in March which you can view, here.
Greeniness, thankfully, is not all doom and gloom. This is a very inspiring development.
20
Carbon sequestration at it’s finest.
70
Dave Maddison:
So long as they aren’t designed by the Public Service. My memory has faded a bit but I still retain a bit about the try in England to grow tomatoes using the hot water from the coal fired power station for heating. Gradually the scheme became a money pit, or possibly a tower. Yes, they built a tall tower to get the plants close to the heat. Then they grew the plants in trays which travelled vertically (on conveyors) to get enough light (and air movement). Then they added extra lights because the plants needed it. I don’t know if they injected extra CO2 but I assume so. I forget how much the poor crop cost but the whole project was cancelled after a loss of millions.
North of Adelaide there are large covered farms growing crops, with hydroponics to save water. They got flooded out last year.
Further north they are even more ambitious (or have more money that you and me).
http://reneweconomy.com.au/world-first-solar-tower-powered-tomato-farm-opens-port-augusta-41643/
90
I can’t work out why the UK tomato growing project was cancelled???
30
Are you kidding or being sarcastic? The cost of each tomato produced was measured in ounces of gold. It was cheaper to fly tomatoes in from Israel etc. let alone rely on Italy and southern France.
The project was about the time that the production of greenhouse tomatoes in the Channel Islands stopped as well. Certainly it wasn’t the powerhouse ones that put them out of business.
00
Nice thinking Dave, also the cooling water ponds around the stations would double up for irrigation.
GeoffW
20
Now just wait a cotton pickin minute…………
20
It’s like that medieval warming they talk about, with lots more crops, products and people.
But before we build any cathedrals (or modern equivalents such as glass towers with the Goldman Sachs name on top) let’s just remember that after the 13th century came the 14th.
90
The transition from the MWP to the LIA would have been tumultuous in Europe, sea level rise came in the form of large sea floods and cyclonic winds in the 13th century.
As you know the Transition is coming, so it shouldn’t be too hard to weave a contemporary SF story based on historical precedence.
50
Gaia is using humans to increase C02 to save the plants.
80
My first time post here, so apologies if I mess it up.
The corporate website for the owners of the Port Augusta tomato farm is here:
http://www.sundropfarms.com/
It’s worth persisting on the home page to see the drone flyover view of the complex.
In the background is Port Augusta and the top of Spencer Gulf.
More particularly, top left hand side, see the Northern Power station and its 2 older companions.
These are currently being decommissioned.
My irony meter got close to full scale when I saw this:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/this-is-the-future-of-farming/news-story/99fd0a207d8b6aa0768c32fd61b3d00e
“But in another hi-tech innovation, carbon dioxide levels are elevated in the glasshouses to boost crop production by about 30 per cent.”
Wonderful CO2 resource not far away, sadly no longer.
101
The main investors in Sundrop Farms is the American low ethics vulture investment corporation of KKR.
From wiki;
They have probably set up this tomato growing outfit, collected a very large amount of tax payers moola as subsidies from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, amounts not listed in the above article, and will divest the whole thing, ie; palm it off at some huge profit and scoot before it all falls over as nearly all of these industrially programmed type agricultural schemes have done for the last half a century.
Nearly all of these schemes are programmed by economists and run by young PhD graduates who attempt to run the whole scheme as an industrially programmed agricultural production unit.
Rare indeed is it that an older practising farmer or a cabal of older experienced farmers with a whole range of experience in the industry ever given any power or say in these schemes.
So vital clues that tell a experienced grower that trouble is brewing or has arrived is not noticed or is ignored sometimes deliberately so until a point of no return is reached as it will upset the programmed growing and delivery schedules.
And the whole scheme then just falls over taking vast amounts of investors / suckers money with it.
The scheme’s original promoters will be long gone along with as much of the proceeds they can lay their grubby glue like fingers on before they shoot through.
A long ago acquaintance of mine got into hydroponic lettuce growing .
I think he did quite well for a couple of years until he got a virus type disease into his hydroponic system, one that he couldn’t eliminate and the whole thing sort of caved in financially.
In a hydroponic system once such viruses and diseases get established at all in the array of pipes and troughs and pumps and water supplies and fertiliser and chemical systems and expensive sheds then the whole thing becomes just another job lot of pipes and pumps and troughs and etc.
A situation that is far more likely to be found in a corporate type structure set up to run a hydroponic farm where nobody really has that much interest in it except as a source of weekly wages and income.
—————-
The effects of the surrounds on specialised agricultural production is often much, much more subtle than most of even farmers are prepared to recognise.
There is a story of a very famous and quite exotic specialised and very expensive European cheese which had been produced for centuries in the same loft in a large farm house.
Somewhere the owners or perhaps new owners decided to industrialise the production of this exotic and specialised cheese.
So a new very hygienic, fully environmentally controlled, thoroughly health safe factory was set up at vast expense and great care to produce this exotic cheese using all the old formulas and methods to ensure that all the attributes of the cheese and its production were still totally comparable with that very expensive original farm loft cured cheese .
No matter what they did or how they tweaked the production systems, the cheese produced in the new factory was at best just a run of the mill cheese with few or none of the exotic characteristics of the original.
Financial failure was imminent when somebody who knew a thing or two about producing farm loft cheeses pried some tiles off the roof of the old farm house loft where the cheeses had been cured for centuries past and set those tiles up in the cheese curing section of the new factory.
Success!
Those roof tiles from the farm house loft just above where the cheeses were cured for their year or more carried on their undersides the specialised fungi and bacteria that were essential to the production of that evolved and exotic cheese.
30
ROM:
Similarly the Belgian Lambic beers; Most modern beers are fermented by carefully cultivated strains of brewer’s yeasts; Lambic’s fermentation, however, is produced by exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria. The beer then undergoes a long aging period ranging from three to six months to two or three years for mature. It is this unusual process which gives the beer its distinctive flavour: dry, vinous, and cidery, with a slightly sour aftertaste.
When a brewery making these beers had to build a new roof they did so over the top of the existing one to keep the product the same.
00
Thanks to JoNova and a few other brave souls, including those who released Climategate emails in Nov 2009, eighty-two years (1935-2017) of misleading “science” may end soon and the public be restored to sanity (contact with reality):
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/us-empire-when-will-they-stop-saying-unintended-consequences/#comment-221415
51
Mankind needs Water, Food and Shelter to survive.
“Water” he must have for in even a warm weather let alone hot weather or in a hot climate he may not survive for more than 24 hours without water
“Shelter” being as simple as essential to survival warm coverings in a cold climate or a roughly built shading shelter from the Sun in hot climates.
“Food”he can go without for 20 days or so.
A couple of the jailed IRA killers who protested their internment in 1981 made it as long as 28 to 30 days before dying of their self imposed starvation despite medical support.
Over the last five decades we have regularly been castigated by globally prominent “experts” who wouldn’t have known a food grain plant even if it hit them between the eyes that the world was going to run out of food with a consequent mass starvation of hundreds of millions and human catastrophe on a scale never known in history.
[ Their intellectual comprehension and academic background knowledge base didn’t extend far enough back apparently to know about the Black Death Plagues of medieval Europe and Asia that might have killed up to a quarter to a third of humanity in less than a century. ]
So from the last half a century we have a selected quotes below from a “sample” of the predictions of the end of humanity as we know it due to a range of terrible predicted catastrophes still to be seen despite the firm dates given for the catastrophes by the assorted “experts” and “scientists” in which World Food shortages figured very prominently.
———————
From; ENVIRONMENTALISM
Seven Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions
My next post below;
51
“From the UN’s “Food and Agricultural Organisation” [ FAO ] the 2016 Food Outlook Report;
Quoted;
Highlights;
____________________
In short, the world has food running out of its ears with some quite serious potential storage problems appearing due to the storages still being filled with last season’s production, storages that are now needed for the new season’s crop grains and other products.
China in fact, reputedly now has enough food grains in storage to carry their 1.35 billions through an entire year without any supplementary supplies being needed.
————–
My next post below;
21
In about 1933 or 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression , my Grandfather received the magnificent sum of Two shillings and Sixpence for each bushel of wheat he sold.
Two shillings and sixpence or 30 pennies [ pence ] equates to 25 cents in the dollar currency;
A Bushel is a volume measurement of 1.24 cubic feet [ 35.1 litres ] .
At 60 lbs / bushel there are about 36 bushels of wheat in a tonne of wheat..
So my grandfather received around Four Pounds Ten shillings ie; $9 / tonne for his wheat in 1933 / 34. which was regarded as a truly ruinous price for decades following for mankind’s main food grain, Wheat.
Using the RBA’s pre decimal inflation calculator we can enter Four pounds and Ten shillings in 1933 and we then see that 1933 wheat price per tonne is in long term inflationary terms now worth in 2016 some $440 per tonne of wheat.
Wheat today here in Australia is currently trading for around $200 / tonne with any signs of any minor defects in the grain meaning a down grading in price to around $180 / tonne.
Today’s prices received by farmers after a year of work, blood sweat and often tears to grow the crop are less than half in real value compared to those ruinous Depression era prices for mankind’s main food grain.
Farmers are their own worst enemies in that they have become so good at producing food right across the world that nobody at least in the western world, now considers paying a living price to farmers for the food they produce for the 96% or more of the population who no longer produce any food at all to feed themselves or their families but buy it all in.
60
If you want to see something that has really gone backwards in today’s money terms, have a look at base metals.
20
A shame that, after all that industrious research, you spoil it all by comparing the price of wheat produced by hand using horses and petrol powered stationary engines with the price of broadacre wheat today.
You wouldn’t compare the cost of a trench dug by a team of men with trenching forks to the cost of a trench dug by a backhoe, so why pretend productivity hasn’t risen in the wheat industry?
00
In 1974/5 a world grain shortage developed.
My mentor in agricultural politics was a then a senior member of what was the then very highly respected and agriculturally powerful world wide respected Australian Wheat Board.
He told me that the world shortages of food grains in 1974 were the worst times he had ever experienced as a member of the AWB.
The AWB quite literally had an ambassador from a major grain buying nation on his knees in the AWB board room begging for wheat to fed his nation and people.
Wheat in 1974/5 reached $150 / tonne, up to $170 / tonne in a few cases to the grower after freight and storage charges and government levies had all been deducted.
That $ 150 / tonne equates today after adjusting for inflation to $1181 / tonne of wheat.
In around the mid 1930’s the various State Arbitration Commissions, there was no national commission in those days, set the minimum wage at about Three pounds Ten shillings later reduced as the Depression took hold to under Three Pounds.
So a tonne of wheat in that Great Depression era was at its lowest point still worth around a week’s minimum wages as set by the Arbitration Commissions.
Today the minimum wage is $672.70 for a 38 hour week
Today it takes 3 tonnes of wheat to equal one weeks minimum wage.
It now takes around 6 tonnes of wheat at todays prices to equal the Australian weekly wage of $1163 / week before tax.
The fact that farmers have survived in this sort of financially hostile environment surely means that their productivity per man and per acre has demonstrably increased tremendously over the last 80 years
All the productivity gains per farmer and per acre are not worth a damn if it doesn’t rain in the Australian context or there is too much rain in the European context or the cold comes in early in the new central Asian grain areas or there is a frost at the critical flowering time of a couple of days or some other disease, insect, storm damage and etc and etc comes in a critical time and destroys or severely damages the crop leading to very large financial losses for the farmer.
[ Four days of 40 degree heat just when our very good crop of lentils was flowering in 2008 cost us almost a million dollars in losses ]
Nobody comes along and offer us compensation when something like that heat period occurs and we lose a lot of our year’s income but we still have to pay the full costs of our inputs, input costs that in the Australian context are larger than nearly every other nation due to our high Australian wage structure and government imposts.
But we still have to accept the world prices whatever they might be as unlike many other developed nations there are no subsidies given to Australian farmers as compensation for our high costs and the effects of government imposts and rules and regulations.
Just hope like hell that there will never be a world grain shortage for if there is then you will really see and feel what it is like to have to really begin to a pay for your food.
And the famers will smile and say, well you had it so good for so long and so cheap price wise for your food, now it is our turn to reap the benefits of shortages and high prices.
30
???
17 Apr: Guardian: Dana Nuccitelli: Humans on the verge of causing Earth’s fastest climate change in 50m years
Humans are changing Earth’s climate at an alarmingly fast rate
A new study published in Nature Communications (LINK) looks at changes in solar activity and carbon dioxide levels over the past 420 million years…
The study relates to a scientific conundrum known as the “faint young sun paradox” – that early in Earth’s history, solar output was 30% less intense than it is today, and yet the planet was warm enough to have a liquid ocean. A stronger greenhouse effect due to higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere may be one explanation…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/apr/17/humans-on-the-verge-of-causing-earths-fastest-climate-change-in-50m-years
5 Apr: TheConversation: We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years, says new study
by Gavin Foster, Professor of Isotope Geochemistry, University of Southampton, Dana Royer, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University & Dan Lunt, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol
Disclosure Statement:
Gavin Foster receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Dan Lunt receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Dana Royer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
Looking through geological history we generally found that as the sun became stronger through time, atmospheric CO₂ gradually decreased, so both changes cancelled each other out on average.
But what about in the future? We found no past time period when the drivers of climate, or climate forcing, was as high as it will be in the future if we burn all the readily available fossil fuel. Nothing like it has been recorded in the rock record for at least 420m years.
A central pillar of geological science is the uniformitarian principle: that “the present is the key to the past”. If we carry on burning fossil fuels as we are at present, by 2250 this old adage is sadly no longer likely to be true. It is doubtful that this high-CO₂ future will have a counterpart, even in the vastness of the geological record.
http://theconversation.com/we-are-heading-for-the-warmest-climate-in-half-a-billion-years-says-new-study-73648
01
pat:
“If we carry on burning fossil fuels as we are at present, by 2250” – how? These are the people who claimed time and time again that the oil was going to run out soon.
By the way I was doodling on the back of an envelope and a simple calculation showed that on the basic assumptions of the AGW mob* the Greenhouse effect of CO2 can’t be more than 2.6% of the overall effect. Indded if you allow for half the rise occurring with minimal rise in CO2 (in 1920-1940) the effect is down nearer 1%. I must buy a new pair of boots so I can quake in them.
* 33℃ greenhouse effect, 30% caused by CO2 and a 0.85℃ rise in temperature.
20
The end is nigh!
Tomorrow it will be one day nearer.
Where’s my grant?
10
The Australian Government Department of Environment and Energy is undertaking a review of Australia’s climate change policies.
They have prepared a discussion paper and are seeking written submissions by Friday May 5.
The introduction to the paper “Review of climate change policies – Discussion Paper” states that “The Australian Government is committed to addressing climate change while at the same time ensuring we maintain energy security and affordability”.
However at no stage does the paper address energy security and affordability. It reports that the Australian government has set a target of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. This target amounts to a halving of per capita emissions and a two thirds reduction in emissions intensity of economic activity. It is among the strongest targets of major economies on that basis.
What will that policy do to Australia’s international competitiveness?
Are there particular concerns or opportunities with respect to jobs, investment, trade competitiveness, households and regional Australia that should be considered when reducing emissions in the electricity sector?
Are there particular concerns or opportunities with respect to jobs, investment, trade competitiveness and regional Australia that should be considered for households, SMEs and the built environment?
What are the opportunities and challenges of reducing emissions from the resource, manufacturing and waste sectors? Are there any implications for policy?
Are there particular concerns or opportunities with respect to jobs, investment, trade competitiveness, households and regional Australia associated with policies to reduce emissions in the land and agriculture sectors?
Prepare your submission per their guidelines and submit to [email protected]
My initial conclusions:
1. The glaring omission from all the Australian government’s climate change policies is that there is no business case presented. There are costs associated with all the current policies to both government and consumers, but no benefits are assessed.
2. Current government renewable energy targets are reducing electricity network reliability and increasing costs to consumers and industry, damaging Australia’s international competitiveness.
3. Wholesale electricity prices in Victoria averaged $46/MWhr in 2016, up from $28/MWhr in 2005. However in 2017 those prices have increased to $80/MWhr in the first quarter, and $108.75/MWhr (that’s 10.9 cents/KWhr) in the first half of April following the closure of Hazelwood power station. Policy assessment: Fail.
4. Retail electricity prices are further impacted by “renewable energy certificates” granted to wind/solar/hydro generators currently valued at $82/MWhr over and above the wholesale market price. Policy assessment: Fail.
Welcome suggestions.
40
I conclude that the government’s climate change policies are not working because humans cannot change the climate.
12
That is a pretty profound statement. Has anybody thought to tell the Government?
00
Robber – You might find some material you can use in the following link and sources contained therein:https://www.dropbox.com/personal?preview=NET+%27CARBON%27+EMISSIONS+IN+AUSTRALIA.pdf . The simple fact is that we fiddled Australia’s GHG accounts in the submissions we took to Kyoto before the initial Protocol was agreed upon. Mind you most of the fiddles were based on the ignorance of the bureaucrats and technical advisers who accompanied Senator Hill to Kyoto as part of Australia’s negotiating team. And once they tell a porky it is extremely difficult for bureaucrats & pollies to recant. They would rather put our country through the wringer than admit they they were wrong in the first instance.
00
Australian electricity consumption by State:
Qld 6890 MW, 1.4 MW/thousand population
NSW 8490 MW, 1.1 MW/’000
Vic 5250 MW, 0.9 MW/’000
SA 1520 MW, 0.9 MW/’000
Tas 1200 MW, 2.3 MW/’000
Seems Victoria is no longer the manufacturing State.
Aluminium smelters are large consumers of electricity, and all must be under pressure due to escalating prices.
Boyne Island Qld 560,000 tonnes pa
Tomago NSW 530,000 tonnes
Portland Vic 358,000 tonnes (already the recipient of $1.1 billion to keep it viable for next four years)
Bell Bay Tas 180,000 tonnes.
10
Aluminium smelters need cheap electricity, without that there is no point in having them.
It’s where you dump surplus night time production if you have baseload production. We no longer have spare baseload to dump.
The only reason we have them at all is due to government subsidies to keep them going besides not having any free market competitive advantage.
41
So, having checked the time when this happened, That was 5PM, just prior to the evening peak, and that’s a total of 23,350MW, and now at 6.30PM, it’s 24,700MW.
At the same time, wind power across those same five States came in at 800MW, so wind was supplying 3.4% of that power.
43 wind plants at an enormous cost, supplying around the same power as the one 750MW unit at Kogan Creek in Queensland, the largest single unit in Australia.
I betya Kogan Creek cost less than those 43 wind plants, eh!
Tony.
52
Graeme No.3 –
fossil fuels are “all burnt out”; moving to gas instead??!!
poor will buy electric cars? a most peculiar article:
17 Apr: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Why the market for fossil fuels is all burnt out
‘I usually put a £5 bet on the oil price – and I’m collecting,” smiles Prof Dieter Helm.
It’s not difficult to imagine his tally of modest wagers adding up. The highly regarded Oxford University economics professor is a long-time industry observer. Today, he is in central London after taking meetings with major oil executives. He is also a familiar face in Whitehall and Brussels, where he advises – both formally and informally – on the trends reshaping the global energy markets…
If Helm is to be believed the oil market downturn is only getting started. The latest collapse is the harbinger of a global energy revolution which could spell the end-game for fossil fuels…
***BP and Royal Dutch Shell are slowly shifting from oil to gas and making even more tentative steps in the direction of low-carbon energy…
The global oil market has managed to cling on to a fragile recovery with prices now skittering between $50 and $55 a barrel, but Helm argues that the economic drive to keep producing even as the industry shifts to a low carbon future means prices may continue to fall – ***forever…
Helm: “As prices come down you’d expect producers to supply less – that’s normal economics. On the contrary, in oil as output falls the production goes up. Why? Because the marginal cost of production in the Middle East is around $10 and the marginal cost in Russia is $20. So even at $50 you’re making a profit”…
The two major demand centres for oil are petrochemicals and transport fuel. The theory previously held in the corridors of major oil company headquarters is that increasing affluence in Asia means that soon more and more families will own two cars.
But slowly, the oil companies are beginning to come around to Helm’s view that ***the burgeoning market for electric vehicles may have been underestimated and could radically change the outlook for oil demand
In its latest annual report on future energy trends BP admitted that it is bracing itself for a revolution in electric car use that could halve the demand of drivers for oil.
In previous years the oil major has downplayed the potential of electric cars in dampening demand but has now almost doubled the number of electric vehicles it expects on the world’s roads in 2035 from 57 million in last year’s report to 100 million.
In addition to the soaring popularity of low-cost electric taxis and falling costs of electric battery storage, more people in emerging economies are expected to become car-owners for the first time, and ***will be buying electric or high efficiency vehicles.
“Everyone is repeatedly surprised at how fast electric cars are coming forward, but the political pressure to adopt this technology is increasing all the time. And it’s not due to concerns over climate change – it’s city air pollution,” Helm says…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/17/market-fossil-fuels-burnt/
21
That’s just weird. I’ve never before heard of anyone being surprised at how fast electric cars are coming forward.
That’s not even a lie that’s being repeated often enough to become believed.
10
Just as people don’t understand that you need thousands of windmills to replace one proper power station (and even then, the power varies randomly) they also think electric cars are direct replacements for gasoline cars.
Chemical fuels have about one thousand times the energy density of batteries. Electric cars are not equivalent to gasoline cars and will only ever be suitable in niche applications like glorified shopping trolleys or taxpayer-subsidised toys for rich people (Tesla).
62
Nice outline.
10
According to wikipedia petrol has a specific energy of 46.4 MJ/kg and the panasonic 18650B (as used in Teslas etc) is 0.875 MJ/kg. The figures for energy density are 34.2 MJ/L and 2.63 MY/L for petrol and the elon battery respectively. These figures fall well short of 1000, but are still pretty bad. I won’t be trading my 45 litre petrol tank for a 700kg battery pack anytime soon!
30
Ok, fair enough. The source I used was wrong, but as you noted the general point remains.
20
“45 litre petrol tank for a 700kg battery pack anytime soon!”
Your petrol tank masses 35kg full and 1kg empty (avg 16kg)!! how much mass can either vehicle haul around compared to that 700kg battery pack, that is now at 70% energy density after 10 recharges? How often do you replace your petrol tank? DM is very close to expectations.
11
pat:
The Telegraph has a history of rather weird articles on green energy, going back through a series of writers. Geoffry Lean was always good for a giggle, then Little Emily and so on. At least this one doesn’t say that the oil will run out soon (it has supposedly been running out “real soon”) since 1862.
As for the claim that electric cars will replace conventional ones, causing less oil to be sold, that belongs to the story starting with Chicken Little. They only sell where the government subsidises them (or the maker as Tesla). Where will the electricity to charge these cars come from? It certainly won’t come from solar or wind, and the Greens are against any reliable source. Still, it won’t be long before the Greens find that people are no longer listening to them.
20
Never forget Louise Gray either!
00
What, after all that psychiatric counselling, you tell me not to forget Louise …
00
“What, after all that psychiatric counselling, you tell me not to forget Louise …”
What is wrong with learning how meat is processed? 🙂
00
I just found something of interest. A renewable oils breakthrough.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-rural-news/renewable-oils-breakthrough
Still in the early stage but looks promising…especially for the future of Northern Australia.
10
To make useful amounts of biofuels requires vast amounts of land which will come at the expense of food crops which already happens. It’s best to use oil out the ground. There is plenty for the time being.
31
Did you actually listen to the podcast? If so, what about the increase in the yield of ‘food oils’?
No fan of cotton. HEMP FOR VICTORY!
00
Yes I did listen to it. Good luck with growing transport fuels instead of pumping them out of the ground and not sacrificing growing food in order to grow fuel.
51
To suggest that “sacrificing” growing food for fuel is somehow creating a food shortage is up there with CO2 is causing global warming!
Cotton is not the only crop that is increasing yields.
You can look at these two links to get a picture on global production.
http://www.igc.int/downloads/gmrsummary/gmrsumme.pdf
http://ageconsearch.tind.io//bitstream/242089/2/sugar%202016R.pdf
My interest is opening up the north to food production and diversification should not be ruled out. If there is a free market demand, there should not be a problem unless ideology gets in the way.
It seems to occur on both sides of the global warming debate.
Sad really.
01
I never denied that crop yields are increasing. Regardless of that, staggering amounts of land would be required to grow all required transport fuels. Why would you even bother trying to grow then when, for the foreseeable future, they can be delivered cheaply out of the ground?
41
ABC radio news headlines this morning: Saudi Arabia plans to invest $50 billion to develop almost 10 gigawatts of wind and solar energy by 2023, in a move away from fossil fuels. it wasn’t being carried on other media, but it had done the rounds in Jan and in Feb:
Saudi to launch $30-50 billion renewable energy program soon
Reuters Jan 16
Saudis Kick Off $50 Billion Renewable Energy Plan to Cut Oil Use
Bloomberg 20 Feb
there is an update today in Bloomberg/Reuters/AFP, but theirABC didn’t report:
nuclear is in the mix;
Saudis won’t be doing the investing themselves;
Saudis will use more gas domestically, so they can EXPORT more oil to get a better price;
and this will help boost Aramco’s valuation prior to the “proposed” sell-off of 5% of the company.
hmmm. not quite the feelgood renewables story ABC was reporting:
18 Apr: Bloomberg: Saudis Target 30 Solar, Wind Projects in $50 Billion Pledge
by Wael Mahdi and Vivian Nereim
The world’s biggest exporter of crude oil will produce 10 percent of its power from renewables by 2023, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Monday at a conference in Riyadh. It also plans to generate an unspecified amount of electricity from nuclear plants…
The country is currently seeking bids to build 700 megawatts of wind and solar power capacity in a first round of tenders…
***Saudi Arabia plans to develop almost 10 gigawatts of renewables by 2023, requiring investment of up to $50 billion, Al-Falih said in January…
Saudi Arabian Oil Co., which generates 6 gigawatts of electricity per year, is interested in participating in the second round of bidding for renewable projects, Abdulaziz Al-Judaimi, senior vice president, said at the conference. Generating capacity will increase to 10 gigawatts next year, he said…
Investors picked to build the renewables plants in Saudi Arabia will own and operate the facilities for between 20 (solar) and 25 years (wind), he said. They will be able to renew their operating licenses or sell the plants after that, and the government will not own the renewable projects, he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/saudis-seek-30-solar-wind-projects-in-50-billion-pledge
17 Apr: Reuters: Saudi Arabia pushes ahead with renewable drive to diversify energy mix
By Rania El Gamal, Reem Shamseddine and Katie Paul
Saudi Arabia is targeting 9.5 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy by 2023. The renewables initiative involves investment estimated between $30 billion and $50 billion…
“So the percentage of renewable energy by 2023 (will be) 10 percent of total installed capacity in the kingdom.”…
France’s EDF Energies Nouvelles, Japanese companies Marubeni Corp and Mitsui & Co and Saudi Acwa Power are among the firms which have qualified to bid for the 300 MW solar PV project in Sakaka, the al-Jouf Province in the north of the kingdom.
Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), GE, Marubeni Corporation, Mitsui & Co., JGC Corp, SNC Lavalin Arabia and Iberdrola Renovables Energia are among those qualified to bid for the 400 MW wind farm project in Midyan in the northwest…
***The kingdom has a long-term goal of increasing the use of gas for domestic power generation, thus reducing oil burning at home and freeing up more crude for export.
This could help increase Aramco’s valuation as it generates ***more revenue from exports than selling oil at lower domestic prices – Saudi Arabia is the world’s fifth-biggest oil consumer despite being only the 20th biggest economy…
http://www.reuters.com/article/saudi-renewable-idUSL8N1HP10B
00
Notice that they still speak in Nameplate (here referred to as Installed Capacity, same thing)
So that 10% of Nameplate comes in at around 3.3% of actual power generated, if that, and a snap at only $30 to $50 Billion.
So, in actuality around 3.2GW, the same as for one and a half HELE USC coal fired power plants, and they wouldn’t cost anywhere near that amount of money.
Don’t you love the way that facts (refer to the earlier comment at 1.1.1) like this don’t count as fake news, and yet, you can bet London to a brick on that if it was the other side not fact checking their information, they’d be screaming fake news before the ink was even dry.
Tony.
81
Tony, my experience out there building city infrastructure is that they use gas turbine generators backed by very large diesel generators, after all they have enough oil and gas to burn.
10
so many academic, so much nonsense:
17 Apr: WaPo: Chris Mooney: For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river
A team of scientists on Monday documented what they’re describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change…
The researchers dubbed the reorganization an act of “rapid river piracy,” saying that such events had often occurred in the Earth’s geologic past, but never before, to their knowledge, as a sudden present-day event. They also called it “geologically instantaneous.”…
The study was published in Nature Geoscience. Shugar conducted the study with researchers from six Canadian and U.S. universities…
The researchers found only a ***minuscule probability that the retreat of Kaskawulsh glacier — which retracted by nearly half a mile from 1956 to 2007 — could have occurred in what they called a ***“constant climate.”
***They therefore inferred that the events in question could be attributed to human-caused climate change…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/17/for-the-first-time-on-record-human-caused-climate-change-has-rerouted-an-entire-river/?utm_term=.e3125974c758
17 Apr: Nature: River piracy and drainage basin reorganization led by climate-driven glacier retreat
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2932.html
01
Gosh, rivers have never altered their course before? Like climate, they constantly change.
00
17 Apr: Bloomberg: China Gas Output Rises to Record as Coal Production Rebounds
Natural gas output rises to 13.6 billion cubic meters in March
Coal production advances 12.6% to 9.67 million tons a day
The nation’s economy accelerated for a second-straight quarter as investment picked up and factory output accelerated in March. China’s power output last month increased 7.2 percent from a year ago, the fastest pace since October, Monday’s today showed…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/china-coal-production-rises-as-government-avoids-output-limits
unpleasant creep McKibben has woken up to Justin:
17 Apr: Guardian: Bill McKibben: Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet
Donald Trump is a creep and unpleasant to look at, but at least he’s not a stunning hypocrite when it comes to climate change
Look all you want, in fact – he sure is cute, the planet’s only sovereign leader who appears to have recently quit a boy band. And he’s mastered so beautifully the politics of inclusion…
Last month, speaking at a Houston petroleum industry gathering, he got a standing ovation from the oilmen for saying: “No country would find 173bn barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”…
Canada’s got company in this scam. Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull is supposed to be more sensitive than his predecessor, a Trump-like blowhard…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/17/stop-swooning-justin-trudeau-man-disaster-planet
01
aka Sunray
Thank you Jo, how embarrassment, for them.
20
17 Apr: CompetitiveEnterpriseInstitute: Saving Coal: Most Foolish Reason to Support Paris Agreement
by Marlo Lewis, Jr.
A gaggle of coal-industry interests is aggressively lobbying the Trump administration to stay in the Paris Agreement, which they claim President Trump could modify to safeguard and even subsidize their industry. This post examines their rationales, but the big picture should be already be clear. No concessions negotiated by the President can secure the future of U.S. energy producers as well as exiting from an Agreement designed to bankrupt them…
Indeed, Trump should withdraw from Paris by withdrawing from the parent treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). That would get us out of the Paris pressure box within one year instead of four. Better still, withdrawing from the UNFCCC would require “two thirds of the Senators present” to approve the Paris Agreement before a future progressive president could rejoin it.
There is virtually no chance of that happening, which is why Obama pretended the Paris Agreement, despite being “the most ambitious climate change agreement in history,” is not a treaty…READ ALL
https://cei.org/blog/saving%C2%A0coal-most-foolish-reason-support-paris-agreement
17 Apr: RT: Arctic Shamrock: Russian MoD offers interactive 360° tour (LINK) of unique military base (PHOTOS)
The 14,000 sq. m complex features the world’s northern-most permanent building located on the 80th parallel in below freezing temperatures all year around.
Its unique layout allows the soldiers to move around the base from one building to another without going outside to face winter temperatures which sometimes drop below -50 degrees Celsius…
Russia is beefing up its Arctic military infrastructure as part of a recently updated naval doctrine, which proclaims the region as a top priority due to its ***mineral riches and strategic importance…
https://www.rt.com/viral/384986-russian-arctic-military-base-tour/
01
Hazelwood was clagged. It needed a boatload of work to keep it going.
Some drama about a river stealing the water of another river from a glacier in Alaska. CC did it -alleged.
Bloomberg has graphs which “prove” nothing else but CO2 is guilty.
Vanadium Oxide Batteries – Will they save SA?
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Just watched a story on TV where they explained how Gillard and swan sold oz down the river by giving all our gas away to foreigners and now oz gas is cheaper this buy in Japan than it is here…….batteries won’t save rocky we are f&%$#@ed.
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It would be actually cheaper to go to Japan with an empty LNG tanker, transfer the LNG from a tanker that had just arrived from Australia, bring it back to Australia and sell it rather than buying it directly in Australia.
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Hate to say this but we deserve the mess. The public initially overwhelmingly voted for Rudd the fraud. It was obvious to me the first interview I saw on TV before he even was the opposition leader that he was a fraud. I still shake my head wondering why so many were fooled. We Australians must be one of the dumbest people in the world. Now we got another fraud – Turnbull. Clearly we are dumb. The obvious thing to do when both major parties are bad is to vote for neither. Otherwise, just shut up and bend over.
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Off topic;
Comprehensive Analysis Crushes 100% Renewable Energy Fantasy
Burden of proof; A comprehensive review of the feasibility of %100 renewable -electricity systems;
More >> ———–
B.P. Heard
B.W.Brook
T.M.L. Wigley
C.J.A. Bradshaw
University of Adelaide;
University of Tasmania;
National center for Atmospheric research . Boulder, Colorado
Flinders University; Adelaide
———
OUCH!!
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???unlikely lobbying force? pull the other one, Bloomberg.
also note how Dlouhy mentions coal and oil, but not GAS, to describe that force:
18 Apr: Bloomberg: Jennifer A Dlouhy: Exxon, Shell Join Ivanka Trump to Defend Paris Climate Pact
As President Donald Trump contemplates whether to make good on his campaign promise to yank the United States out of the Paris climate accord, an ???unlikely lobbying force is hoping to talk him out of it: oil and coal producers…
Cheniere Energy, which exports liquefied natural gas, became the latest company to weigh in for the pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a letter Monday solicited by White House energy adviser G. David Banks…
Exxon Mobil Corp., previously led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc also have endorsed the pact…
Gas producers and exporters are highlighting the value of the agreement, which could help prod a worldwide move toward that fossil fuel…
And some independent oil companies — those without significant gas production that could benefit from greater international demand — have quietly opposed the pact…
The International Renewable Energy Agency predicted that investments in renewable power and efficiency designed to help meet Paris targets will boost the world economy by $19 trillion…
A key argument is that the U.S. can stay in the agreement without satisfying its pledge or maintaining regulations designed to help achieve the target, said one administration official…
Conservatives alarmed by the corporate advocacy are stepping up their opposition, arguing that the potential international political benefits the U.S. may gain on the world stage by staying in the deal are outmatched by the political fallout Trump would experience at home.
“This is a campaign promise — a specific promise the president made repeatedly,” said Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist. “He’s not just going to be able to walk away from it.”…
Any diplomatic blowback from international allies would be short-lived, argues Chris Horner, a senior legal fellow with the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.
By contrast, he said, remaining in the deal would ensure a constant cycle of international criticism because countries have committed to a new round of carbon-cutting commitments every five years. “The Paris agreement pressure machine will trigger blowback every time the president, Congress or future administrations deviate from Obama’s emission-reduction promises, hesitate to subsidize green-energy ventures abroad” or fail to adopt more stringent targets, Horner said.
Critics of the deal also warn that the U.S. commitment could extend from Paris to the courtroom, seized by environmentalists as evidence the EPA is bound to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Paris opponents plan a deep analysis on those potential legal risks to bolster their case against staying…
Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: “The coal companies and oil and gas companies that are flirting with the Paris agreement don’t understand the existential threat that they’re buying into.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/exxon-and-shell-join-ivanka-trump-to-defend-paris-climate-accord
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17 Apr: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: Corporate America’s Support Of The Paris Climate Agreement Is Exactly Why Trump Should Oppose It, Say Former Transition Officials
Axios reported (LINK) the “consensus in corporate America is the broadest it’s been in a decade” since 2007 when companies joined together to push cap-and-trade through Congress…
“Big corporations and Wall Street did not elect President Trump and are out of touch with the economic realities that face people who work in resource and energy-intensive industries,” said Myron Ebell, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s director of energy and climate policy who headed Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)…
***Multi-national corporations, like Exxon, want to avoid diplomatic blowback and no doubt see it as a boon to their natural gas holdings.
“Companies with big natural gas portfolios will gain with climate policies that accelerate a shift already underway to replace coal with natural gas,” Axios reported…
“The administration should pay attention to the voters in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” Ebell told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Likewise, Tom Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, say corporations want to turn Paris into an agreement they can profit from.
“A number of large companies are calling on President Trump to remain in the agreement because they stand to make a lot of money, stamp out their smaller competitors, and negotiate for their own special handouts,” Pyle, who headed the Energy Department transition team for Trump, told TheDCNF.
“That may be a winning strategy for the executives at Exxon and other companies, but not for the U.S. economy as a whole,” Pyle said…
“There’s a misconception that the Trump administration can simply renegotiate the Paris agreement to give the U.S. a ‘better deal,’” Pyle said.
“That’s simply not the case, as the deal only leaves the door open for more stringent commitments, not less stringent,” Pyle said. “If the Trump administration truly wants to strengthen our economy and deliver a better deal to American families and businesses, it would follow through on its promise and pull out of the agreement altogether.”…
http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/17/corporate-americas-support-of-the-paris-climate-agreement-is-exactly-why-trump-should-oppose-it-say-former-transition-officials/
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article is behind a paywall:
(from Carbon Brief) Weather and climate: in the eye of the storm
In an article for the Financial Times magazine, former Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo describes the work of predicting British weather using the same supercomputers that allow us to say with confidence that humans have been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. She notes that the risks of serious flooding and coastal inundation “are growing with climate change” and looks ahead to 2018, when the Met Office will produce a new assessment of what the UK’s weather might be like in the coming decades.
looking for Slingo elsewhere online, came across the following:
11 Apr: Bristol Uni Press Release: Dame Julia Slingo announced as new Chair of Cabot Institute External Board
Yesterday (April 10), the University of Bristol said a fond farewell to the outgoing Chair of the Cabot Institute External Advisory Board (CIEAB), Sir John Beddington, and warmly welcomed Dame Julia Slingo to the role.
Sir John Beddington is perhaps best known for his work in the field of population biology and for his time in the role of Government Chief Scientific Adviser (2008-2013)…
Dame Julia Slingo is best known for her tenure as Chief Scientist of the Met Office, where she was noted for breaking down the differences between climate and weather sciences and dealing with multiple meteorological challenges including the highly disruptive Icelandic volcanic ash clouds…
As the new CIEAB Chair, Dame Julia will be responsible for advising and supporting the institute, and fostering its vibrant network and strong presence in the field of environmental change. As part of this, she will also be mentoring several exceptional early-career researchers…
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2017/april/dame-julia-slingo-.html
also a member of The Cabot Institute:
31 Mar: Bristol Uni: Bristol Psychology Professor appointed Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
An academic from the University of Bristol School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute is among 47 leading social scientists who have been conferred as Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences.
The award for Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, was announced today, 31 March, and will be made formally at a ceremony in June…
Professor Lewandowsky is an eminent social scientist and an expert on the application of computational modelling to social science questions…
These interests have come together in Professor Lewandowsky’s cross-disciplinary work on the public understanding of climate change…
His standing has already been recognised with awards that include a recent Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award, and his appointment as a Fellow to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He also holds editorial roles within the American Psychological Association and the Psychonomics Society and leads a highly popular summer school in computational modelling that has trained more than 100 junior social scientists since 2010…
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2017/march/lewandowsky-facss.html
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links to the ad and petition:
18 Apr: Washington Examiner: John Siciliano: Conservative group prods Trump to withdraw from Paris climate deal
The conservative free-market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute started an online campaign Tuesday to urge President Trump to keep his campaign promise and withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement…
Ebell reiterated the message of an online ad campaign that the group will be airing, urging President Trump not to listen to “Washington’s Swamp, but rather keep his campaign promise to get the United States out of the Paris climate treaty and send it to the Senate for vote.”
The ad will be used to gain signatures for an online petition (LINK) that will be sent to Trump, urging him to withdraw from the Paris agreement…
The structure of the Paris agreement made it nonbinding, meaning that U.S. participation was not technically a treaty and therefore not subject to Senate approval. A vote by Congress is required for any international treaty.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/conservative-group-prods-trump-to-withdraw-from-paris-climate-deal/article/2620502
what a load of absolute …. from Sachs:
18 Apr: CNN: Jeffrey Sachs: How Trump could make US a climate pariah over Paris pact
(Jeffrey Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University)
If Trump goes with Pruitt instead of Tillerson, he will immediately create a worldwide consensus on climate action: to fight the American recklessness that Pruitt epitomizes…
In 2017, Trump can’t pull the same stunt as Bush in 2001. Under the Paris agreement, every country in the world is ???OBLIGATED to act. Barack Obama, to his great credit, took great care to ensure that the US and China would agree (TO WHAT JEFFREY?) in Paris…
Moreover, there are two other matters of supreme significance. Back in 2001, Bush could still feign doubt about climate science.
The scientific consensus already existed then, but it was not as clear to world leaders and the public as it is today. Today, we are at the stage in “The Wizard of O” after Toto has already pulled back the curtain on the wizard.
We now see clearly that climate-denying politicians do the bidding of companies like Continental Resources (the head of the Oklahoma oil company has backed Pruitt), the Koch Brothers or other fossil fuel interests.
And if the science weren’t sufficient, we have the record-breaking temperatures of recent years to make the case…
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/17/opinions/trump-paris-climate-agreement-sachs/
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***this first excerpted para has the only mention of the SA blackouts; problems with renewables are not mentioned in the entire, lengthy article; and the “irony” in the final excerpt is not what you might expect.
silly me, when I saw this headline, I thought finally overseas MSM is being forced to warn their readers of the dangers of intermittent energy! NOT AT ALL…IN FACT, IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE:
17 Apr: Bloomberg: How Not to Transform a Power Grid: Lessons From Australia
By Murray Griffin
***But to widespread dismay the briefly opened window for political collaboration appears to have closed again due to divisions in the Turnbull government, skyrocketing power prices, blackouts in South Australia—global mining company BHP Billiton said a statewide blackout in South Australia last September cost it more than $92.3 million in lost production at its Olympic Dam uranium and metals mine and processing facility—blackout fears elsewhere, and several state governments going it alone on renewable energy policy…
“The challenge is much greater than people first thought to transform this type of grid,” Australian Energy Council’s Warren told Bloomberg BNA.
If and when a carbon price is reintroduced in some form, it will need augmentation with other measures, such as managed phaseout of coal-fired power plants, the Climate Institute says…
***The irony is that energy should be the least of Australia’s worries…
https://www.bna.com/not-transform-power-n57982086783/
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Being a C3 plant, cotton, like most of our food crops, will also use less water under elevated atmospheric CO2 and/or temperatures. It is a win-win for agriculture and the world.
Hmmm, I think I might just go and burn some more fossil fuels on my Ducati…just doing my bit to help feed a hungry world.
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[…] Weather. Warmth and CO2 are good for plant growth! Jo Nova and the cotton crop. […]
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