Some poor sods will be paying extra to help Griffith Wind Farms cover the cost of shutting down for part of the COP26 Superhero Costume Party. If only that secret charge was listed on their electricity bill. Where is the transparency?
Big Lie Number 1: that the Glasgow COP26 event is powered by 100% renewables.
It’s hard to believe, but some people think the wind powered electrons can be tracked and relied upon.
There will be some accounting shell game where “100% of the annual supply” means they supply the whole years electricity in lumpy packets at times that no conference centre could run on. We know it’s wrong because lies don’t scale up. If the whole nation can’t be 100% renewable at the same time and in the same way, then the Conference centre isn’t 100% renewable either. It’s relying on coal and gas just like everyone else is.
The 100% renewable fakers are show-pony parasites on the system. They need the transmission lines, the back up, the inertia and the stable frequency but they Lord their 100% Renewable Badge knowing full well, that if everyone was “100% renewable” the system would collapse in a day.
… Dr Constable [of NetZeroWatch] claims that this is all “smoke and mirrors.”
He said: “Don’t be deceived by the smoke and mirrors, the reality is that like everyone else COP26 is running on grid electricity, where the bulk is conventional energy and security of supply is still guaranteed by nuclear, gas and even coal.
Coal keeps lights on at COP26 as low wind strikes again
Meanwhile, now that the celebrities have gone home the punters who flew from all over the world are locked out of rooms that are too small, and told to stay in their hotels and watch online.
“Other UN participants fumed: “Wait wait. The biggest negotiating room at #COP26 has space for 144 people. There are 197 Parties to the UNFCCC. Who thought that was going to work?” “
These people just cannot do maths.
h/t ClimateDepot
Thankfully COP26 delegates had proper coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (imported from Scandenavia) electricity for their taxpayer-funded party.
Plus plentiful supplies of Jet A fuel for their private jets.
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*Scandinavia.
20
Wind electricity is such a great business opportunity. You get paid 24/7 whether the wind blows, does not blow(?), or blows too much.
20
From what I read at the time, solar input to COP26 was also 0%. Possibly due to the latitude of 56 degrees and not much better in London, effectively 67 degrees in mid winter or even at midday only 23 degrees above the horizon. Plus the day lasts less than 7 hours.
So the sun is only up less than 30% of the day and at most at 23 degrees, assuming there is not a tree blocking it. Or a mountain. On a cloudless day in winter.
What is good about this charade is that it demonstrates the utter futility of real power generation from renewables when you need it.
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And how many of the 30,000 delegates arrived by the solar and wind power they insist is the future?
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I understand that the delegates brought with them a lot of hot air to release.
50
Obviously, if the point of all this is to save the planet, they should all have stayed at home and held the conference on line in the first place.
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Greed is the main driver. Only the gullible and the indoctrinated are trying to save the planet. Especially the Polar bears.
Some countries sent 500 delegates. There is an interactive map. PNG sent more people than Australia.
There are few standouts like the Democratic Republic of the Congo which sent 373. 308 from Kenya. 236 from Sudan. It’s a long list. It’s not just that President Xi did not attend. China sent no one.
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“There are few standouts like the Democratic Republic of the Congo which sent 373. 308 from Kenya. 236 from Sudan. ”
Poor buggers just went there for a feed.
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Nor that mob. While most of the African citizenry eat staple ( maize gruel etc) the succubus class go full nosh. Socialism means the rich can stand over the poor and tell them when and what to eat.
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To see how the old guard do it.
10
I know, of course, that greed drives all of this nonsense and that the planet does not need saving. It’s just that I am constantly surprised by the incapacity of the general population to realise that they have been had. Even when they see for themselves that the proponents of the scam are not walking the walk, they still cannot see through it. Idiots – it’s in plain view.
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They do see it, but short of taking up arms there is little they can do.
Every time they are given a chance to vote against it – They do, in a landslide.
But still the politicians change their tune as soon as they get in.
A lot of times it comes down to voting for the ‘least worst’
20
LOL what did these people expect?…they’re in Scotland among the Scottish !! the conference room was not big enough to hold all the delegates…everything is small, mean and miserable.
30
Absolutely, and as the largest lecture room only holds 144 due to Covid rules the vast majority are being told to stay in their hotel rooms (if they have one) and listen in by Zoom. May as well have stayed at home and saved the environment. What a disaster!
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Good morning Jo,
Great work again.
There’s two things that are like the proverbial “Sunshine to Dracula” with these greens!…
No. 1. Just three small words (& we all know how much they like cute slogans/Blah Blah Blah)! Why is it no green in the last 20 years – yes that’s right, anywhere around the World – has ever been guilty of saying, much less fessing-up a COST=BENEFIT ANALYSIS!!! DUH!!! And,
No. 2. How long do we have to wait until we even have half the rated capacity of a solar or wind factory be able to provide battery back-up??
There’s an election coming up, probably before Easter, which means <6 months.
I know LNP & Nat's. aren't "Flavour du jur" at the moment amongst us sceptics.
And I know the "Nuclear Option" you've oft mentioned re labor-green-1 term "total coal destruction" has some appeal amongst many who will read this.
But please please think very carefully before you make Albo 'n' Adam our green-suicide pact leaders in short order.
There are many other options inc. the brilliant Malcolm Roberts, Liberal Dem's, & Advance Australia.
Warm regards, reformed warmist of Logan!
221
Wind turbines are extremely profitable business units for the Elites, at the expense of poor people. And even more so in Once Great Britain where they get paid not to produce, apart from prohibitive prices during the rare times they do produce.
210
Professor Sir David Mackay, (former chef scientific advisor of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change), said in 2016 that the concept of powering a developed country with Weather-Dependent Renewable energy was:
“an appalling delusion”. and also remarked:
“there’s so much delusion, it’s so dangerous for humanity that people allow themselves to have such delusions, that they are willing to not think carefully about the numbers, and the reality of the laws of physics and the reality of engineering….humanity does need to pay attention to arithmetic and the laws of physics.”
So lets pick that apart. Solar farms have an installed capacity of 12GW but only 1GW actual output, so they typically work effectively for 11.5% of the year. Solar provides no power at all at night of course, and the amounts reduce as light levels drop after the peak summer months.
Installed capacity is 16 GW for onshore wind, actual generation 3GW, with 24% efficiency. Off shore wind 9GW installed, output 3GW, so 35% efficiency . Conventional power generation provides up to 90% efficiency. Our Govt estimates we will need at least 120/160GW of power by 2040.
Year to date average contribution to our energy mix are as follows;
Solar 4% (min monthly input to grid 0.86% max 7.2%) Wind 18.79% (min 9.50% max 27.96%) Biomass 4.93%, Hydro 4.17%, Gas 40.81% (48.62 max%) Coal 1.71%, Nuclear 17.25%, Interconnectors 8.29% (max 14.61% mostly French nuclear) The French consistently threaten to turn these off unless we give them more fish.
There are not enough rare earths in the world to supply future demand for the manufacture of renewables, batteries, EV’s or to facilitate the manufacture of steel or replacement of gas using green hydrogen. To complicate matters, the vast majority of these scarce and environmentally and socially damaging rare earths are owned by the Chinese. Replacements for rare earths do not currently exist.
As Lomborg pointed out in his book ‘False Alarm,’ when we look back we seldom fixed big problems by telling people to live with less of everything they wanted. People don’t want to go backwards, they want to progress. He cites the example of whale oil for lighting, which was the fifth biggest industry in the United States for a century until the mid 1800’s when it was supplanted by a superior, cheaper, better smelling and longer lasting product, kerosene from petroleum. In other words people readily accepted change if a better alternative was available, but that isn’t renewables.
Lomborg is also scathing about the exaggerated role given to renewable energy, which he describes as a “fantasy.’ He is a not a climate sceptic and his book is exceptionally well referenced.
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At first the Green Blob said that Mackay’s book was out of date, which of course applies to pretty much all books about technology, but much less so for that physics-based book, but now it is totally ignored. There is surely a gap in the market for a constantly updated website/book, but who write/maintain it?
Covid introduced “exponential” growth to the public, and renewables marketing is based around such growth, but Covid and CO2 emissions will follow exponential decays, rapid at first, but with ever diminishing pace.
30
“Solar farms have an installed capacity of 12GW but only 1GW actual output, so they typically work effectively for 11.5% of the year. ”
If that was any other form of dispatchable power, they would be told to disconnect and come back when things are fixed and reliable.
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Tony, i know what you are getting at,…but you are giving them too much credit here.
Care to explain the maths ?
I make 1 GW from 12 installed only 8.3% !
50
Fractions of whole numbers have been levelled up and Down to end with approx average figures
10
Sir David before his unfortunate demise became a very strong advocate for nuclear power. He was emphatic that renewables would never get us there at all, it would be impossible.
His credentials here are impeccable. He wrote the bible of renewables “Sustainable Energy” and worked as a UK govt advisor in the area, and was a Professor of Physics.
But the Greens and Left don’t want to listen to such expert advice, preferring, as you say, “delusion” instead. Good luck getting anywhere until the deluded have no say in this mess.
80
Maybe the concept of a developed country is what they are getting at. I think that the only outcome of the green energy policies is to get rid of the developed country and the vast majority of the citizens with it. Plenty of other things the “international community”, as the ABC like to call them, seem to be tending to that effect.
10
Despite who irrational views, I give credit to Greta Thunberg for being enough of a believer in her false beliefs that she arrived by train rather than private jet like most of the rest of the delegates.
60
Potemkin traveling?
Mach Schau, Mach Schau!
10
Her every move and utterance are scripted and stage managed.
She is trapped by the stunts her handlers have pulled in the past. For example remember the atlantic crossing in the sailing boat? How could she now even get on a diesel powered cruise liner?
And I’d be doing a quick check to make sure the train was hauled by an electric locomotive. None of those diesel locomotives are kosher.
And just for completeness none of her accommodation would be permitted to have a diesel backup generator kick in.
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.
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Too little wind… too much wind; too cold… too hot: wretched preciouses are prima donna Goldilockseses.
Groanpiece* members will be squirming at the sight of Patrick Moore rubbing their noses in it… again. Fossil Fuels are dead: long live Fabulous Fuels!
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Meanwhile, here in the magical land of Oz.
The following is a quote from News.co this morning. Maybe this news source is completely computer generated, and of course we no longer need proof readers, so regardless of the cr*p spewed out take it as gospel!
Alice Springs has had its wettest day on RECORD, well since 2001, What they meant to print was Alice Springs had its wettest day in the last 20 years. Absolutely no where near a record rain event. After all the “Alice” is in the middle of the continent and the middle of a desert.
Now the Alice Springs airport is really wet , what with a 100metres, thats right, a 100 metres of rain falling over night. Flights might be delayed for an hour or two!
“ALICE SPRINGS IS BRACING ITSELF AFTER RECORDING ITS WETTEST NOVEMBER DAY ON RECORD SINCE 2001, FORCING THE USUALLY DRY TODD RIVER BURST ITS BANKS.
IT COMES AS A HUGE RAIN BAND SPREADS ACROSS AUSTRALIA WITH WILD CONDITIONS IN IN QUEENSLAND AND NEW SOUTH WALES.
ALICE SPRINGS RECORDED ALMOST DOUBLE ITS RECORD RAINFALL OVERNIGHT WITH OVER 100 METRES FALLING AT THE AIRPORT AND THE TODD RIVER HAVING ITS HIGHEST FLOWS IN 20 YEARS.”
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Did someone who can’t spell leave out a milli somewhere.
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And when you see the cloud bands across nearly all of Australia you realize what a cluster the country is heading for!
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
We must keep asking HOW and then HOW MUCH
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Typical! Lamestream media! Now they want to indoctrinate new youngsters and teach them how to lie to the public.
“Australia’s largest independent media organisation has launched a nationwide search for 10 reporters to learn the journalism trade…
Trainees will be given the chance to apply skills developed in multimedia storytelling..
Tailored, practical instruction in editorial tools and techniques
“We need creative people to write the next chapters,” Mr Melville said. “
So I hope they find better competence along with their storytelling abilities.
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First they blame droughts on “climate change” then they blame it for floods.
Anyway, isn’t rain in the desert a good thing?
Australia should have irrigated much of the desert in any case.
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I hope they removed the river bed people.
20
The flooding rain did that as is the norm in the Alice
20
If peeple would only get out and
about, visit desert and
mountain-sunburnt (or flooded)
plain, ‘stead of going around
glued to hand phone or ear phone
on Twitter – big brother?
If only peeple would study
the past, see it’s been hotter
‘n colder ‘n wetter before –
history’s lo-o-ong view
gosh we’ve even got cycles-
but livin’ in the present
environment,as they do-
like a new born babe and
jest as unaware-
they won’t.
40
There is a reason windmills were replaced by coal fired energy 200 years ago.
200 years later and that reason hasn’t changed.
260
Maybe it is time for the humble horse to make a comeback. Or perhaps surplus humans can be put into harness.
80
Too much poolution
00
Treadmills redux?
00
Of the many Enlightenment values the Left are at war against, the desire for constant progress and not stagnation is one of them.
The forced consumption of expensive, unreliable energy, except for the Elites, returns us to times before the Industrial Revolution and before the Enlightenment.
There was a very good reason intermittent energy sources such as the wind, the waterwheel and animal.power were abandoned the first time, as soon as reliable, cheap power from steam engines was developed.
Coal became the favoured fuel over wood as in Europe, there were not enough forests left to cut down. Thanks to Drax in Once Great Britain they are now cutting down forests again and also returning to wind power. They have not yet degenerated to using animal power or waterwheels.
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We do have the Snowy Hydro Scheme. Kind of water wheel on steroids.
30
COP26 Tweeted this. Hilarious!
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And that on a day when solar wasn’t producing measurable amounts of electricity and wind was ‘delivering’ less than 5% of capacity.
100
I understand why some jet there for the optics but why all these people who never get on tele? Could it be the Big C Foot of junkets?
20
It’s a designated UN conference, so first and foremost, all UN country delegates get to go. Secondly, it’s a climate conference, so all government climate delegates get to go. Thirdly, it’s a political meeting, so politicians of all persuasions and their minders get to go. As most of these are government employees, costs are paid by the government.
30,000 delegates; 197 signatories; approximately 150 delegates per country. Bet we can name all of Australia’s attendees? Two chances of that!
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Not sure that I was questioning why they get to go. Its why would they. I’ve been to science conferences and its good to be face to face when proposing new ideas in a relaxed environment. All the i s and t s get crossed later, with correspondence being mostly written emails, when its well on its way to being robust.
10
I hope that paying intermittent electricity producers not to produce is not one of the crazy ideas Morrison brings back with him from COP26.
120
The Left are conditioning you to view your freedom as “selfish”.
140
Well they can try. They are already in the far queue.
50
It looks like Morrison is commiting Australia to build EV charging stations and hydrogen refueling stations.
1) A lot if those EV charging stations in remote areas will need to be diesel powered.
2) We will need lots of cheap and reliable coal power to provide the emormous power required by carbon (sic) sequestration and storage if hydrogen is produced via coal as is now under trial in Vicdanistan.
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How do these loonies plan to transport the “Hydrogen” to the back of the Black Stump, or for that matter, just around a small town? The stuff leaks through just about everything in gaseous form because of the tiny size of the molecule.
Well may NASA have used liquid Hydrogen in booster rockets. Have you ever taken note of a NASA budget? If you think liquid Hydrogen is dodgy, try liquid Oxygen. SPECTACULARLY corrosive and and equally spectacular fire-enhancer. And if the stuff is splashing about, it is incredibly COLD.
This is why traditionally, liquid-fueled rockets were delivered to the launch pad EMPTY and fueled at the last moment. watch a launch video and note the vapour-spewing hoses falling away just as the rocket starts to move.
Hydrogen-fueled cars are just part of a monstrous delusion.
Methane? barely acceptable in an emergency with a low-compression engine. Utterly useless in a modern engine because the flame front is too slow and the expansion ratio sucks. So, sewer gas is out. If you want “motion” you MUST convert another form of energt to kinetic energy.
Rainbows and unicorn farts seem to now be official science.
150
I agree that H storage and delivery is a nightmare but another way to produce H is to blow steam through an electric arc and produce a plasma of neutrons, protons and electrons. I use a Russian welder that does just this. At the end of the nozzle is a short pencil-lead width jet of 7000ºC plasma that turns steel to a molten pool almost instantly. The tool consumes about 50mls of water in quarter of an hour. It also consumes a lot of electricity to run the arc welder section (14 amps at 240 volts)
If you make a tungsten spark plug backed by a big capacitor discharge ignition unit, you can blow steam into an ICE’s air intake and halve the petrol used. Most ICEs can be retro-fitted with this gear and my guess is that power-station coal-dust blowers could like-wise have big arcs across them but the 2 inch steam/cooling piping would melt so the furnace would have to be redesigned for extreme temps, perhaps with a liquid CO2 primary cooling loop like the UK’s nuclear reactors. It would make the coal-fired units much more efficient if they ran at higher temps.
“Those who say it cannot be done, are often interrupted by someone doing it” – old Chinese saying.
10
I understand that the plan is for cities and towns along major highways in between, and Federal Government recognition that EV is really not well suited for long distance country driving. PM Morrison also acknowledged this during the 2019 Federal Election.
.
Also the not mandatory target is 5 per cent of the national fleet changing to EV/Hybrids/Fuel Cell vehicles by around 2030. Of course three levels of government vehicle fleets and trade-in sales will be a major factor. As this way when the motor vehicle industry started late 1940s with General Motors Holden cars and throughout the following decades until the remaining manufacturers admitted to the Abbott Government that they had exit planning ordered by their foreign owners. Government fleet sales have always been a significant supply source of second-hand motor vehicles at more affordable prices than new vehicles.
The policy is titled Future Fuels and obviously based on imported oil and longer term fuel dependency supply factors and future shortages, and higher prices.
10
I read yesterday, someone from the climate council or some other body of freeloaders, criticising PM Morrison for promising to fund the development of carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) because CCS will only prolong the use of dirty coal. It seems they would prefer technology which involves mining even dirtier minerals in somewhere like Africa, shipping those dirty minerals to China using dirty fossil fuel powered transport to turn into technology that harnesses free wind and solar energy to produce electricity, shipping the technology from China to other parts of the world using dirty fossil fuel powered transport, installing the technology, then finding that the technology only produces electricity a fraction of the time, and the production time is unpredictable, at best.
And it’s not as if CCS technology is not available, it’s called photosynthesis, been available for millions of years.
210
Off topic but Australians need to know that this vile form of dictatorship is happening NOW! Be warned!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/australias-tyrannical-department-health-raids-anti-lockdown-doctors-clinic-seizes-patients-confidential-records/
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Why does this not surprise.
50
Yes, the Australian Government is now persecuting and prosecuting doctors and taking control over medical decisions entered into between patient and doctor.
It happens in all dictatorships.
E.g.
1) Banning certain safe antivirals and prosecuting doctors who dare prescribe them.
2) Police raiding doctors who issue covid vaccination medical exemptions.
160
The only math these people understand is addition and only when it is used in conjunction with Dollars they will acquire. All other math is irrelevant to them!
50
And of course, only with Other People’s Money.
40
So how’s their Hydrogen fantasy looking, when you actually add up the sums?
Andrew Bolt last night tried to understand the latest GLOBAL wish list from Twiggy Forrest and boy he doesn’t mess about.
He will have Hydrogen projects in Australia, like QLD and NSW etc, but he also has numerous projects in the Congo, Argentina, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon etc.
The cost of these projects adds up to about 200 billion $ so far and involves dam building on a massive scale.
Even the Chinese backed off the Congo fantasy and yet Twiggy BELIEVES Hydrogen can take over from Fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.
Hydrogen hasn’t worked on this scale anywhere in the world so far and it’s a very tricky gas to contain in cylinders or tanks or pipes etc.
Let’s hope that he knows more than other storage experts, but who knows what the future holds?
Here’s Bolt’s coverage last night from the Bolt Report. Mind boggling stuff to try and unravel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FStZDRsOiio
80
Liquid hydrogen is a nightmare to handle, more so in a less than optimally controlled situation like a motor vehicle and not NASA. It’s even a nightmare fuel for NASA and other space agencies to use. It was used where no expense was spared such as the Saturn V or Space Shuttle but even Space X uses liquid methane instead.
60
Toyota has had Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles for several years with supply limited and conditional, other vehicle manufacturers also have them, KIA for example;
https://www.toyota.com.au/mirai
The Hydrogen is contained in fibreglass lined tanks and refuelling from petrol bowser style outlets similar to LPG and CNG.
However, recently the major shareholder of the Whyalla Steelworks SA commented that Hydrogen was being developed for steelworks applications but acknowledged that long distance bulk transportation was very risky.
20
This is more crap and corruption.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to make commercially useful iron and steel without CARBON.
Theoretically one could make PURE iron using Hydrogen reduction, BUT pure iron is almost useless except as decoration.
It is the CONTROLLED levels of carbon in “”Pig Iron ad VITALLY in STEELS that give them the physical and mechanical properties desired.
The size and shape of the ALLOYS of iron and Carbon determine the USE of a steel.
I am NOT an Engineering Materials lecturer, nor do I want to become one. I just use the stuff to advantage by UNDERSTANDING the products and the processes.
The sociopaths are relying on the cold hard fact that the bulk of the peasantry is UTTERLY ignorant of the nature of the VERY THINGS that enable their continued existence.
furthermore, there is a nasty problem that can occur with steels, especially after industrial electro-plating: HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT. This is EXACTLY what the term suggests.
This rock-show WILL NOT END WELL.
110
Interesting US news today that a company, Bradken that I understand is an Australian company previously called Bradford Kendall who manufacture Esco mining equipment such as dragline buckets and ground engaging tools and they have various other businesses, and according to US Navy allegations the US business has been supply defective steel meaning not meeting the standard required for shipbuilding. And supplying defective steel for many years.
Therefore the question must be why the shipbuilder has not tested samples before now.
Hydrogen embrittlement, chemical composition not to specification, hardness not to standard ordered?
10
The one thing they made a point of, and get this;
The maker had not supplied data on some aspect of testing the metal at some ridiculous temperature below 0°C.
Maybe there’s some reason for this but it escapes me. The only place that would have temperatures that low is way up in the atmosphere near space.
00
News Release
https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/auburn-woman-charged-with-defrauding-u-s-government-over-steel-produced-for-navy/
00
Substandard steel in nuclear subs, that won’t end well.
00
BTW I think I was a little optimistic about Twiggy’s Hydrogen projects and the full cost could be as high as 500 billion $.
Watch the video and that number is mentioned . Truly eye watering stuff and THEN somehow you have to start to make a profit.
40
I wonder if his hydrogen projects will be harvesting taxpayer subsidies? That’s the only explanation why you would want to do something like that.
70
The Minister made it clear a few days ago that Federal funding for R&D projects was limited, entrepreneurs will not be financed endlessly and their applications will be carefully and selectively considered.
20
Twiggy has lost the plot, completely.
He needs to take a step back and have a good think about this.
111
It’s woke syndrome coupled to fanatical political advisors.
20
Sigh… Fantasy I know, but just imagine if the power line maintenance union. Changed the switches so the conference was ONLY powered by renewables. And blocked any attempt to reconnect to the fossil fuel grid.
50
How long would have it taken for the army to be called in?
10
Oh, Good Lord! Let’s laud the renewables!
10
Seems a bit harsh, Annie. I read it in the verb sense of “lording it over us”, which seems to fit the flavour well enough (though “push” might have been a better choice).
10
Here Mark Mills lists all of the problems replacing fossil fuels with so called GREEN ENERGY. So called Green Energy like TOXIC S&W that has to be buried in LANDFILL every 20 years FOREVER.
A list of INCONVENIENT REALITIES from 1 to 41. What a joke.
https://economics21.org/inconvenient-realities-new-energy-economy
“Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand”
“1. Hydrocarbons supply over 80% of world energy: If all that were in the form of oil, the barrels would line up from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and that entire line would grow by the height of the Washington Monument every week.
2. The small two percentage-point decline in the hydrocarbon share of world energy use entailed over $2 trillion in cumulative global spending on alternatives over that period; solar and wind today supply less than 2% of the global energy.
3. When the world’s four billion poor people increase energy use to just one-third of Europe’s per capita level, global demand rises by an amount equal to twice America’s total consumption.
4. A 100x growth in the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace 5% of global oil demand.
5. Renewable energy would have to expand 90-fold to replace global hydrocarbons in two decades. It took a half-century for global petroleum production to expand “only” 10-fold.
6. Replacing U.S. hydrocarbon-based electric generation over the next 30 years would require a construction program building out the grid at a rate 14-fold greater than any time in history.
7. Eliminating hydrocarbons to make U.S. electricity (impossible soon, infeasible for decades) would leave untouched 70% of U.S. hydrocarbons use—America uses 16% of world energy.
8. Efficiency increases energy demand by making products & services cheaper: since 1990, global energy efficiency improved 33%, the economy grew 80% and global energy use is up 40%.
9. Efficiency increases energy demand: Since 1995, aviation fuel use/passenger-mile is down 70%, air traffic rose more than 10-fold, and global aviation fuel use rose over 50%.
10. Efficiency increases energy demand: since 1995, energy used per byte is down about 10,000-fold, but global data traffic rose about a million-fold; global electricity used for computing soared.
11. Since 1995, total world energy use rose by 50%, an amount equal to adding two entire United States’ worth of demand.
12. For security and reliability, an average of two months of national demand for hydrocarbons are in storage at any time. Today, barely two hours of national electricity demand can be stored in all utility-scale batteries plus all batteries in one million electric cars in America.
13. Batteries produced annually by the Tesla Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory) can store three minutes worth of annual U.S. electric demand.
14. To make enough batteries to store two-day’s worth of U.S. electricity demand would require 1,000 years of production by the Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory).
15. Every $1 billion in aircraft produced leads to some $5 billion in aviation fuel consumed over two decades to operate them. Global spending on new jets is more than $50 billion a year—and rising.
16. Every $1 billion spent on datacenters leads to $7 billion in electricity consumed over two decades. Global spending on datacenters is more than $100 billion a year—and rising.
Realities About Energy Economics
17. Over a 30-year period, $1 million worth of utility-scale solar or wind produces 40 million and 55 million kWh respectively: $1 million worth of shale well produces enough natural gas to generate 300 million kWh over 30 years.
18. It costs about the same to build one shale well or two wind turbines: the latter, combined, produces 0.7 barrels of oil (equivalent energy) per hour, the shale rig averages 10 barrels of oil per hour.
19. It costs less than $0.50 to store a barrel of oil, or its equivalent in natural gas, but it costs $200 to store the equivalent energy of a barrel of oil in batteries.
20. Cost models for wind and solar assume, respectively, 41% and 29% capacity factors (i.e., how often they produce electricity). Real-world data reveal as much as 10 percentage points less for both. That translates into $3 million less energy produced than assumed over a 20-year life of a 2-MW $3 million wind turbine.
21. In order to compensate for episodic wind/solar output, U.S. utilities are using oil- and gas-burning reciprocating engines (big cruise-ship-like diesels); three times as many have been added to the grid since 2000 as in the 50 years prior to that.
22. Wind-farm capacity factors have improving at about 0.7% per year; this small gain comes mainly from reducing the number of turbines per acre leading to 50% increase in average land used to produce a wind-kilowatt-hour.
23. Over 90% of America’s electricity, and 99% of the power used in transportation, comes from sources that can easily supply energy to the economy any time the market demands it.
24. Wind and solar machines produce energy an average of 25%–30% of the time, and only when nature permits. Conventional power plants can operate nearly continuously and are available when needed.
25. The shale revolution collapsed the prices of natural gas & coal, the two fuels that produce 70% of U.S. electricity. But electric rates haven’t gone down, rising instead 20% since 2008. Direct and indirect subsidies for solar and wind consumed those savings.
Energy Physics… Inconvenient Realities
26. Politicians and pundits like to invoke “moonshot” language. But transforming the energy economy is not like putting a few people on the moon a few times. It is like putting all of humanity on the moon—permanently.
27. The common cliché: an energy tech disruption will echo the digital tech disruption. But information-producing machines and energy-producing machines involve profoundly different physics; the cliché is sillier than comparing apples to bowling balls.
28. If solar power scaled like computer-tech, a single postage-stamp-size solar array would power the Empire State Building. That only happens in comic books.
29. If batteries scaled like digital tech, a battery the size of a book, costing three cents, could power a jetliner to Asia. That only happens in comic books.
30. If combustion engines scaled like computers, a car engine would shrink to the size of an ant and produce a thousand-fold more horsepower; actual ant-sized engines produce 100,000 times less power.
31. No digital-like 10x gains exist for solar tech. Physics limit for solar cells (the Shockley-Queisser limit) is a max conversion of about 33% of photons into electrons; commercial cells today are at 26%.
32. No digital-like 10x gains exist for wind tech. Physics limit for wind turbines (the Betz limit) is a max capture of 60% of energy in moving air; commercial turbines achieve 45%.
33. No digital-like 10x gains exist for batteries: maximum theoretical energy in a pound of oil is 1,500% greater than max theoretical energy in the best pound of battery chemicals.
34. About 60 pounds of batteries are needed to store the energy equivalent of one pound of hydrocarbons.
35. At least 100 pounds of materials are mined, moved and processed for every pound of battery fabricated.
36. Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).
37. Carrying the energy equivalent of the aviation fuel used by an aircraft flying to Asia would require $60 million worth of Tesla-type batteries weighing five times more than that aircraft.
38. It takes the energy-equivalent of 100 barrels of oil to fabricate a quantity of batteries that can store the energy equivalent of a single barrel of oil.
39. A battery-centric grid and car world means mining gigatons more of the earth to access lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earths, cobalt, etc.—and using millions of tons of oil and coal both in mining and to fabricate metals and concrete.
40. China dominates global battery production with its grid 70% coal-fueled: EVs using Chinese batteries will create more carbon-dioxide than saved by replacing oil-burning engines.
41. One would no more use helicopters for regular trans-Atlantic travel—doable with elaborately expensive logistics—than employ a nuclear reactor to power a train or photovoltaic systems to power a nation.”
Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a McCormick School of Engineering Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University, and author of Work in the Age of Robots, published by Encounter Books.
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Great post Neville, it would democratic if we were able to present our arguments at the glasgow cop26. But we know that democracy has nothing to do with the issue . . .
GeoffW
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Neville – in point 19 I think you missed off a k from the $200 to store a barrel of oil in batteries. See point 36. However, I’d bet that cost goes up as all the raw materials have a supply problem.
Maybe another problem in stating the dollar cost of electricity required to do something, because it’s noticeable that the more renewable power on a grid the more that electricity costs per kWh. Thus the current number of dollars per 100km in an EV versus an ICE-based vehicle will change too.
I’d expect that any engineer would look at these figures and just say “it can’t be done”. Most of the people I talk to however believe that the changeover to renewable energy is not only possible but will be cheaper, since after all the wind blows and the sun shines whether or not you harvest the energy – it’s free. Then again, in real terms the fossil fuels are free, too – you just have to dig them up….
Though this is great list, I doubt that it will affect the faithful.
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2010: The Creator of the 1.5C Climate Target has Admitted That the “Simple Number” Was Invented for the Benefit of Politicians
” … words spoken in 2010 by the so-called father of 2°C, an earlier IPCC target, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber:
https://dailysceptic.org/2021/11/10/the-creator-of-the-1-5c-climate-target-has-admitted-that-the-simple-number-was-invented-for-the-benefit-of-politicians/
Check your wallet, you’ve just been green diddled.
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2010: UN IPCC Official Admits ‘We Redistribute World’s Wealth By Climate Policy’
“(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community.
But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.
Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this.
One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.
This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-admits-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate
Check that wallet again.
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Brain dead parasites
But they have thepolitical and financial power to stuff the world
Scott Morrison and the whole liberal party are complete and utter turn coats
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The French do power some of their trains with nuclear reactors, the trains just do not have the reactors on board. I think that is what Mark Mills meant.
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We often hear the call to ‘follow the science’ when told that we are going to fry/drown/be blown away ‘in the future’.
What is never mentioned by the pro-CAGW catastrophists is ‘follow the math/engineering’ required to produce the renewables they propose we use.
Should all politicians be tested for dyscalculia?
Dyscalculia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pronunciation
/ˌdɪskælˈkjuːliə/
Specialty Psychiatry
Duration Lifetime
Dyscalculia (/ˌdɪskælˈkjuːliə/)[1][2][3][4] is a disability resulting in difficulty learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, performing mathematical calculations and learning facts in mathematics.
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The one good thing about COP26 is that it tends to reveal both the evil people and the stupid people although it’s not always obvious which is which…
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The evil ones have multi-million dollar executive jets, the stupid ones are followers in the congregation.
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I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.
Many attendees were most likely both evil and stupid.
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What strange ways and means some cultures choose to commit suicide.
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More blackouts in NSW over the last 5 years than there has been over the previous 50 years according to my father.
I do not know about the latter but I can confirm the former: about 5 in the last 12/12.
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SPPI blog Technology is the Answer to Climate Change
By Staff | April 14, 2009
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries-essays/commentaries/technology-answer
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