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December 11th, 2024 | Tags: Unthreaded | Category: Uncategorized |  Print This Post | | Comments (112)
By Jo Nova No wonder climate models can’t predict rainfall” Until now, isoprene’s ability to form new [cloud seeding] particles has been considered negligible.” Broad leaf tees emit up to 600 million metric tons of isoprene each year, but no one thought it mattered much. For obvious reasons it is made near the ground, and it’s quite reactive and doesn’t last long. During daylight it’s destroyed within hours. So the experts didn’t think the isoprene could help seed clouds in the upper atmosphere. But there is still quite a lot of isoprene left in a rainforest at night, and tropical storms suck it up “like a vacuum cleaner” and pump it up and spray it out some 8 to 15 kilometers above the trees. Then powerful winds can take these molecules thousands of kilometers away. When the sun rises, hydroxyl radicals start reacting with the isoprene again, but the reactions are quite different in the cold upper troposphere. And lightning may have left some nitrous oxides floating around too. This combination ends up making a lot of the seed particles that generate clouds in the tropics. It’s almost like the forests want to create more rain… To put some perspective on this, isoprene is the most abundant non-methane hydrocarbon emitted into the atmosphere. As Jasper Kirkby at CERN says — this is big: Isoprene represents a vast source of biogenic particles in both the present-day and pre-industrial atmospheres that is currently missing in atmospheric chemistry and climate models.” Until now, isoprene’s ability to form new particles has been considered negligible. But climate models have also been estimating aerosols in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and they didn’t realize trees made so much aerosol than they thought. This is so big, it may change the sacred “climate sensitivity” of the whole Earth: “This new source of biogenic particles in the upper troposphere may impact estimates of Earth’s climate sensitivity, since it implies that more aerosol particles were produced in the pristine pre-industrial atmosphere than previously thought,” adds Kirkby. “However, until our findings have been evaluated in global climate models, it’s not possible to quantify the effect.” Another possibility is that if forests of broadleaf trees turn out to be seriously helpful at seeding clouds, presumably that means the last few centuries of deforestation might have reduced cloud cover on Earth, which would have allowed much more sunlight in to heat the planet. If that’s true, it’s just one more climate forcing the modelers didn’t know about. It’s one more thing that warmed the planet which we blamed on carbon dioxide, but were wrong about. And it’s yet another feedback. More CO2 makes more forest grow, which may seed more clouds.
As usual, even though this study shows that climate models are missing yet another major factor, it’s always good news as they say: “The researchers, therefore, expect that their findings will contribute to improving climate models”. Hardly anyone says “The models were wrong, and the experts had no idea”. The Amazon rainforest as a cloud machine: How thunderstorms and plant transpiration produce condensation nucleiWho hasn’t enjoyed the aromatic scent in the air when walking through the woods on a summer’s day? Partly responsible for this typical smell are terpenes, a group of substances found in tree resins and essential oils. The primary and most abundant molecule is isoprene. Plants worldwide are estimated to release 500 to 600 million tons of isoprene into the surrounding atmosphere each year, accounting for about half the total emissions of gaseous organic compounds from plants. Thunderstorms act like vacuum cleaners… tropical thunderstorms … brew over the rainforest at night. They pull the isoprene up like a vacuum cleaner and transport it to an altitude of between 8 and 15 kilometers. As soon as the sun rises, hydroxyl radicals form, which react with the isoprene. But at the extremely low temperatures that prevail at these high altitudes, the rainforest molecules are transformed into compounds different from those near the ground. They bind with nitrogen oxides produced by lightning during the thunderstorm. Many of these molecules can then cluster to form aerosol particles of just a few nanometers. These particles, in turn, grow over time and then serve as condensation nuclei for water vapor—they thus play an important role in cloud formation in the tropics. People at CERN were involved in testing the reactions at minus 30°C and minus 50°C “High concentrations of aerosol particles have been observed high over the Amazon rainforest for the past twenty years, but their source has remained a puzzle until now,” says CLOUD spokesperson Jasper Kirkby. “Our latest study shows that the source is isoprene emitted by the rainforest and lofted in deep convective clouds to high altitudes, where it is oxidised to form highly condensable vapours. In addition, the team found that isoprene oxidation products drive rapid growth of particles to sizes at which they can seed clouds and influence the climate – a behaviour that persists in the presence of nitrogen oxides produced by lightning at upper-tropospheric concentrations. After continued growth and descent to lower altitudes, these particles may provide a globally important source for seeding shallow continental and marine clouds, which influence Earth’s radiative balance (the amount of incoming solar radiation compared to outgoing longwave radiation). This story reminds me of the big paper ten years ago Do forests create the wind that brings the rain? “Rather than assuming that forests grow where the rain falls, it would be more a case of rain falling where forests grow. “ Forests can create their own rain, –Ruairi REFERENCECurtius, J., Heinritzi, M., Beck, L.J. et al. Isoprene nitrates drive new particle formation in Amazon’s upper troposphere. Nature 636, 124–130 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08192-4 Shen, J., Russell, D.M., DeVivo, J. et al. New particle formation from isoprene under upper-tropospheric conditions. Nature 636, 115–123 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08196-0 Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash
December 10th, 2024 | Tags: Climate Models, Clouds, Forest, Rain, Rainforest | Category: Biology, Evidence, Flora, Global Warming, Microbiology | Print This Post | | Comments (98)December 10th, 2024 | Tags: Unthreaded | Category: Uncategorized | Print This Post | | Comments (66)
By Jo Nova The Australian electricity grid is not-fit-for-purpose. And failure is being normalized.Last Wednesday, during the near-miss of a blackout in Sydney, the AEMO spent $3,558,000 on “demand reduction” which means they paid productive industries to stop working to save the grid from a blackout. Translated: poor electricity users in New South Wales paid $3.5 million to businesses to do nothing, because the grid didn’t have enough energy, and the people in charge really didn’t want any embarrassing blackouts so close to an election. So renewables are wonderful, clean and cheap but your workers, assets and capital will sometimes need to sit around and do nothing so we can stop some storms in the 22nd century. In political spin, planned blackouts can also be called “Virtual Power Plants”“Demand Management” is a smarmy marketing word for a lot of little Blackouts. In the lexicon of a failing grid, all the bad-words get tortured into iced doughnuts — if your company has agreed to be ready to shut down at a moment’s notice on a warm day, that’s not being on “Standby to Close”, instead your business is a ““pre-activated” extra reserve.” In Renewable-World-Psychosis bad is good: your smelter used to make aluminum, but now you can sell “electricity use reduction” as well, and the AEMO (the grid manager in Australia) will call you a “Virtual Power Plant” too. Australian companies can now sell their own blackouts back to the grid. Neat eh? Indeed, you and I are probably thinking about this all wrong — like electricity is a net good, and a dead smelter is a waste of space. … AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman told an energy planning and regulation Senate committee hearing that the market operator spent $3,557,700 on reducing demand to increase emergency reserves in NSW on Wednesday November 27 as a supply shortage took shape. Mr Westerman indicated AEMO did not end up having to reduce Wednesday’s demand by as much as first expected. But, in anticipation of a greater shortfall than eventuated, AEMO had “pre-activated” extra reserves. Mr Westerman said the purchased electricity use reduction came from “virtual power plants”, which were an “aggregation of … smaller demand.” For what it’s worth, which is not much, the large aluminium smelter Tomago, was not forced to shut down, but it was “pre-activated” and ready to close. Apparently, even though the cool weather change came through, they shut down that afternoon anyway, or perhaps they just gave up. Who could blame them? Australians are not just paying companies to do nothing, they pay them to be ready to do nothing too. There’s a part payment for the pre-activated companies, even if they don’t have to switch off. It reflects the hassle of running an industrial outfit with your hand on the power lever, and your brain in the state of uncertainty. And that’s the thing isn’t it — no company is going to be more productive “on standby” than it is running full tilt. It’s a stupid way to run a nation. Australia is on the road to becoming a “pre-activated nation”We’re a first world country ready to be the third world at a moment’s notice. Pretty soon the whole country will be paying itself to be on standby, or selling our own blackouts back to the grid, what then, eh? The Stone Age? Your air conditioner can be a Virtual Power Plant too Image by Эльвина Якубова from Pixabay John Rolfe in the Daily Telegraph found a Monash Uni professor who was cheerfully telling the world Australians will need to give up control of their air-conditioners so their AEMO masters can turn them down on hot days when they need them the most. Dr Dargaville is an expert in “large-scale energy system transition optimisation” — a thing that’s never happened once, anywhere in the world. So it’s like being a specialist in Yetis except with less credibility. There’s a possibility that a real Yeti exists, but we know for a fact, there aren’t any optimal large-scale renewables grids. There aren’t even any optimal small scale grids, just different scales of blackouts. Australians fuming over big change coming to air-con, house power controlDr Dargaville … said authorities would have to expand their options to deal with more frequent instances of surprisingly high demand and low supply. Options were likely to include the installation of “widgets” on aircons that allow third parties to engage “economy mode” to reduce power use in peak periods. When asked in a Newspoll: “Should authorities be allowed to take control of power usage in your household?”, naturally, 94% said “No”. But we know that when they are offered a $400 cashback for a “smart” but government-controlled air conditioner, they may buy the plan. It’s already happening in Queensland. It’s only supposed to be a few days a year, but last summer, the grid officials reached into their homes and turned off their air conditioners six times in two months. Dr Dargaville speaks for The Blob — You will own nothing (and be hot and bothered): …consumers should not be alarmed by such moves, he said. “There will be a period of adjustment but it will be become normalised,” Dr Dargaville told [The Daily Telegraph] Naturally, it’s not their fault — they blame climate change, and fossil fuels. The chutzpah here is astounding. If the energy system was less volatile you wouldn’t need to use it,” he added, but that was unrealistic given more extreme weather, reduced reliability of coal-fired power and more generation from variable sources such as wind and solar. Obviously if we didn’t actively sabotage coal plants, the energy system wouldn’t be volatile. Every part of this trend is a step in a dumb direction. We’re paying more for less in every single aspect. More people sit around being useless, or half useful, or distracted. More companies make fewer goods. And more government makes more government which is the worst thing of all… Those who control the energy, control the people. h/t David Maddison, Strop
December 7th, 2024 | Tags: AEMO, Big-Government, Blackouts, JoNova's Favourites | Category: Big-Government, Renewable | Print This Post | | Sorry about Thursday…
 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-03/bankers-to-start-including-counterfactuals-in-carbon-accounting By Jo Nova What other industry gets paid for what they could have done, but didn’t?The carbon market is the perfect scam-quasi-tax currency for our banker overlords. They were always trading reductions in an invisible gas, now they’re trading reductions from an imaginary increase that may never have occurred. Carbon credits were always atmospheric nullities that “might theoretically change the weather”. Now they’re even less real… It’s a nice gig if you can get it. This elastic game can expand to cover as much of the economy as feasible. The bankers payout is limited only by how much they can squeeze out of their political vassals. Homeowners will not get a “carbon credit” for turning a heater off that they might have left on, or for not-buying a second-hand Dodge Challenger Hellcat. This is a game only the uber rich money-changers can play. The Blob has effectively set up a secondary fiat currency in the world that has a Byzantine web of rules that they control but has no physical products for delivery. As Steve Milloy says — Coming soon: Unending bank climate fraudBankers Find Way to Claim Credit for Avoided EmissionsBankers will soon be able to claim credit for emissions they say their financing has helped avoid, as the world’s largest voluntary carbon accounting framework for the finance industry works on broadening standards. Under the approach, banks can assume a counterfactual scenario in which emissions remain elevated, and contrast that with the CO2 avoidance their loans or bonds enable, according to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials. Note the galactic size: PCAF’s proposed standards are part of a larger package of changes and additions that will result in at least 90% of assets under management globally being covered by the carbon accounting system. Why stop at 90%? When will it end? The idea came from the Monster Banker Cartel, so we know it will benefit the bankers: The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, the largest finance sector climate coalition, introduced the idea of a new metric last year to drive transition finance, calling it expected emissions reductions (EER). The basic principle is that finance firms compare the emissions associated with the entity or asset in a business-as-usual scenario with those achieved if that company implements a science-based transition plan, or if a polluting asset is eventually shut down. The so-called delta is the EER. Of course, companies drop inefficient products in favor of better ones all the time, but now, they’ll be able to say they’ve reduced the emissions they expected to have, and thus earn some carbon credits that they can sell to some other sucker, or use to offset their charter jet flights to Azerbaijan. This will work best for corporate behemoths who can afford to pay “climate lawyers” to fill in the forms, and “climate lobbyists” to bend all the rules to suit themselves. It’s another tool to make life harder for small businesses and customers but easier for the Big Guy. Note there is another monster banker cartel called PCAF — in this case with assets of $92 Trillion. PCAF was created by Dutch financial institutions during the 2015 Paris Climate summit to encourage banks and investors to play their part in delivering a transition to a low-carbon economy. Since then, the number of financial institutions committed to or already applying its accounting methods has climbed to more than 550, with combined financial assets of $92.5 trillion, according to PCAF’s website. It’s time for a monster round of Anti-Trust suits. Thanks to Tom Nelson and @JunkScience
By Jo Nova Going Green with DieselBack in February, South Australia was the Renewables Wonderland basking in the thrill of driving two diesel plants out of business. The remarkable transition had claimed two new fossil fuel scalps. But the farce of last week’s near blackout in Sydney must have scared the management in South Australia. Suddenly this week, the government announced it wants to change the rules and force those mothballed diesel plants back into action.
The Frankenstein economy fails (again)The government created a monster — an artificial market that favoured random energy and drove dependable power out of business. So, not surprisingly, now they have to do emergency market surgery and spend even more money, to force Engie to reopen these uneconomic plants. The fact that essential plants are “uneconomic” only shows what a Quasimodo market this is. If the rules favored the cheap reliable electricity (that customers want) instead of hobgoblin-electrons that change the future weather (maybe), no one would have to order Engie to restart the plants. They wouldn’t have gone out of business. Instead, a bunch of unreliable wind farms and fields of glass would never have been created. No one could afford to build them with their backup or their batteries or their 1,000 miles of wires. Excuses, excusesIt’s not that the South Australian government has only just realized summer has arrived (unexpectedly in December), apparently it’s because the interconnector they’re building to NSW is 12 months behind schedule. Which might make sense, except it was not scheduled to finish until mid 2026 in any case: Mr Koutsantonis has warned the forecast for the reliability of power supply in SA this summer – which shows a predicted shortfall of 200 megawatts — has been underestimated because the AEMO has not accounted for the delay in a new interconnector with New South Wales. It [EnergyConnect] was due to be completed by July 2026 but is currently about 12 months behind schedule. Somehow we’re supposed to believe the blackout risk is higher this summer because a high voltage line that dead-ends 900 km away should have reached a couple of hundred kilometers closer. Like that would help… In the next breath the Energy Minister admitted that this is really about what happened in Sydney last week: Mr Koutsantonis argued energy operators needed greater powers to bring back thermal generators “to address reliability risks arising during the peak demand periods expected from December 2024”. Speaking on 5AA radio on Monday, Mr Koutsantonis said: “given what happened in New South Wales last week, when they had one 40 degree day and they were nearly short on power, and told people to turn their air conditioners off and not turn dishwashers on, if we rely on an interconnector to New South Wales and it’s hot across the entire national electricity market, we’re in trouble”. The South Australian Energy Minister has just realized that even when the $2 billion dollar interconnector is finished, they don’t want to rely on our most populated state’s electricity grid, because it’s a debacle. Is this the moment when the fantasy of saviour interconnectors came undone?South Australia has walked the plank right out to 70% renewable energy, a feat only possible because of they are just 6% of a larger stable system. So far the baseload power in other states could keep the lights on in South Australia, and interstate homes and factories could soak up their excess solar and wind power. But every state can’t play the same game at the same time. South Australia was the Show Pony for renewable energy, but it was an illusion based on reliable energy hidden in other states. Now finally the Energy Minister of South Australia gets it: “Every state should have sufficient capacity to look after itself first and not rely on other jurisdictions,” he said. These two diesels plants are not large, but in South Australia every little bit of dependable energy matters. Engie, the French electricity giant owns the 75 megawatt (MW) Port Lincoln plant and the 63MW Snuggery plant that were closed in July this year. Apparently they were mothballed after the Federal government got puritanical about their “capacity investment scheme” they ruled out fossil fuel generators. (Reneweconomy) But we didn’t need “capacity investment schemes” before we had renewable subsidies, and if we had a free market in “capacity” the diesel generators could still have saved the day. At this point, we’re up to second and third order screwiness in this market. There are bandaids on the bandaids and no end in sight. h/t OldOzzie, Neville, David Cooyal in Oz
December 4th, 2024 | Tags: Blackouts, Renewable Energy, SA (South Australia) | Category: Big-Government, Global Warming | Print This Post | |
By Jo Nova Shh. The Renewable Crash Test Dummy Nation is at work.We’re still subsidizing new solar panels even as we figure out how to shut down the excess panels we already have.
It turns out those negative prices for electricity at midday are there for a reason. A firehose of electricity at lunchtime isn’t always a good thing. Negative prices are not a bargain, they’re the penalty a seller has to pay to get someone to take the toxic waste away, and the price signal was saying “Don’t Add More Solar”. The amazing thing is that an institution with fifteen years of grid management didn’t see this coming fifteen years ago. Does night follow day? Is there any industry that runs better for only four hours a day rather than for 24? The AEMO surely knew that without a Sea-of-Galilee type miracle in battery storage, the whole nation could not run on lunchtime generators. The AEMO also surely knew that our 50Hz stability comes from 500 ton turbines that spin 3,000 times a minute, and not from flat glass panels that make the wrong kind of electricity (the DC kind, not the AC). Yet here we are, 60 quarterly reports later, swamped with excess solar power to the point where we suddenly need to add remote switches to four million already-installed solar panels, so the guys in the the control rooms can stop them doing the one thing they are supposed to do at the time of day when they are best at doing it. The disaster days are now Spring — when the sun is shining but people don’t need their air conditioners on, which begs the question of whether we just need to issue emergency announcements to turn on the dishwashers, pool pumps and ovens to save the grid. You know, “Pyrolytic Ovens save the day, people”. In any case, wasn’t climate change going to turn spring into summer? Won’t this problem solve itself as spring disappears and long hot summers take over the calendar? No one seems to be saying that now… Solar is pushing out the “other” forms of generation that are keeping the grid stableAEMO said the ever growing output from solar was posing an increasing threat to the safety and security of the grid because it was pushing out all other forms of generation that were needed to help keep the system stable. But isn’t the whole point of solar exactly that? Aren’t we supposed to drive out the other sorts of generation because they cause storms and floods and they start wars, kill koalas, and makes babies premature. Are all these things OK now? Did we say “desperate”?The AEMO admits what many suspect they are already doing, rather brutally sending voltage spikes down the line to trip out the solar panels: And it warned that unless it had the power to reduce — or curtail — the amount of rooftop solar times, more drastic and damaging measures would need to be taken. These could include increasing the voltage levels in parts of the poles-and-wires network to “deliberately” trip or curtail small-scale solar in some areas. They’re hinting these voltage spikes might damage some delicate equipment. Would you like a big blackout or a small capital loss? An even more dramatic step would be to “shed” or dump parts of the poles-and-wires network feeding big amounts of excess solar into the grid. “If sufficient backstop capability is not available … the NEM may be operating insecure for extended periods,” the agency wrote in the report. The Bureaucrats that wrote this hope you don’t understand it: “(It may) therefore be operating outside of the risk tolerances specified in the National Electricity Rules, where the loss of a single transmission or generation element may lead to reliance on emergency control schemes to prevent system collapse. But there it is. They’re talking about “system collapse”. As it is, new solar panels already have to have the remote control switch built in in WA, SA, Victoria and parts of Queensland. Yesterday was the day when the AEMO announced we needed to do this in every state, and “by next year”. Just four weeks away… h/t
By Jo Nova Finally, a strike at the heart of the BlobTexas and 10 other US States have pressed the radioactive Antitrust legal button and filed against BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. The states claim the money managers bought up large stakes in coal companies and then colluded to promote ESG and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) goals that reduced coal output. The decreased supply of coal, in turn increased the cost of electricity to consumers. It was fundamentally anti-competitive behaviour. These three companies together have $26 Trillion dollars of assets under management. That’s only one trillion smaller than the entire US GDP. In this case, some of the collusion hidden in clear view. The three money managers said they were trying to save the world and to protect the people, and they joined groups like the GFANZ and Net Zero alliances like Climate Action 100+. But in the end, these three financial giants had collectively acquired close to 30% of most US Coal companies, and even though they claimed to have good intentions, the 11 State Attorney Generals argue that any extraneous claims of social benefits are irrelevant. These three companies have profited immensely while customers have been denied access to a free and open market, and have paid higher electricity bills. In a democracy, the people are supposed to decide the policies, not the Oligarchs. Look at the grip the three supermassive money managers had on the coal industry:
No wonder coal companies were so pathetic at standing up for themselves, and fighting back against the climate propaganda. They were captured by the Blob and held hostage to larger goals:
From the legal suit:The free market has been destroyed:
The three financial giants have violated the Clayton Act (Antitrust legislation)
They have made their goals public
But Defendants have not just acted alone and in isolation. In 2021, they went further. In that year, Defendants each publicly announced their commitment to use their shares to pressure the management of all the portfolio companies in which they held assets to align with netzero goals. Those goals included reducing carbon emissions from coal by over 50%. Rather than individually wield their shareholdings to reduce coal output, therefore, Defendants effectively formed a syndicate and agreed to use their collective holdings of publicly traded coal companies to induce industry-wide output reductions. And even though they have pulled out of these Net zero alliances, (or Monster Banker Clubs), that doesn’t change the fact that they did engage in anticompetitive behaviour and still continue to threaten the free market. Pretending to save the world while profiting from collusion is not OK
BlackRock has also deceived its own shareholdersLarry Fink the CEO of Blackrock, turned people’s pension funds into his own leftist activist machine. He told them he would maximize their gains, but instead he used their funds to promote his own profits and goals at their expense.
The States that may save us all are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Other countries should be following suit, and looking hard at their own competition laws. We may not have antitrust laws, but most of the West have some kind of competition laws against cartels who misuse their market power. Related: The dark bubble: There’s a reason everything seems to be going off the rails simultaneously
Photo of BlackRock Office: Jim.henderson November 30th, 2024 | Tags: Bankers, BlackRock, ESG | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | by Jo Nova Australia is too poor to use air-conditioning and dishwashers on a warm dayWelcome to Bananaustralia. The Premier of NSW issued death threats about electricity bills to get attention: “If you use electricity this afternoon, you’re going to get killed in terms of how much you pay, the amount of money (to run appliances) this afternoon will be through the roof,” he said. The NSW Minister, Penny Sharpe told eight million people to avoid using the dishwashers and pool pumps between 3 and 8pm, close the doors and blinds, and turn the air conditioner up to a higher temperature. “Stay hydrated and avoid going outside in the hotter parts of the day where possible” she said, like she was talking to four year olds. All around New South Wales and in Canberra people spent the day wandering around turning off lights and appliances, and rearranging their plans. Public servants were asked to pull the blinds and turn off appliances at work. The four water utilities, the dams, and water management, were also asked to help. And the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) condition was instigated, which means some businesses were paid to stop using as much electricity. Presumably, Tomago smelter had to go on an electron-diet — since it uses 10% of the entire state’s electricity. But who needs aluminium right? So most of the state tried to do something useful in the dim light, so they could pay the rest of the state to do nothing. But it’s OK, because you could do whatever you wanted up until 3pm: Energy should be used as normal prior to 3pm when rooftop solar panels are powering much of the state. During the peak from 3pm to 8pm, every small step to reduce demand makes a difference. You can take your productivity and stir-fry it. The human brain is the most complex known thing in the universe, and this week millions of those biological powerhouses were distracted from whatever they do best by the complexity of living in a world of Green witchcraft trying to make the weather perfect next century. The productivity loss might have been modest this time, but the long term trend is a slow motion trainwreck. The more weather dependent generators we have, the more time we waste thinking about electricity. Should we cook dinner for 10pm? The kids will be hungry. Killer electricity prices came anyway — $17,500 a MWh for a whole hourAll the effort stopped the blackouts, but they didn’t stop the bank raid. Wholesale electricity prices hit the price cap Tuesday and Wednesday. Despite all the solar power Australians are swimming in, the bonfire started at 2.30pm and lasted a full sizzling hour. Even though many prices in the wholesale market are hedged, that square wave on an 11 gigawatt grid is a $200 million dollar price signal. The people writing those futures contracts for next year got the message they will have to raise their forward contracts. The price spikes we see today turn up in our electricity bills sometime down the track. Say what? You were surprised by 38 degrees in Sydney in November?Summer came early, say all the people looking for something to blame. On Wednesday the temperature reached 38°C at Sydney airport. Barely five years ago in 2019 there were nine days that November above 30°C. Thirty percent of the whole month was above 30. It hit 40°C at Sydney airport on November in 2006. There were six days that month over 30C. Somehow, with barely any renewables and no batteries at all, the lights stayed on thanks to coal power. Paul McArdle noted at the time that during the 40°C heat, the whole national grid used 29GW of electricity but there was 6GW of surplus power in reserve and ready to go. When electricity was cheap, and no one had to hide behind the blinds or cook dinner after 9pm, the coal fired grid had a 21% reserve plant margin. If renewables fail we should do more renewables:Experts divided on state’s energy woes following blackout fearsBy Alex Dimitriadi and Robert White, The Australian Mr Bowen blamed volatility in the electricity grid on coal-fired power stations, saying on Thursday that they were its “biggest threat”, spruiking a second-term Labor government’s plan to prioritise renewables and underpinned by gas. “The least reliable part of our energy grid is coal-fired power,” he said. “There hasn’t been a day in the last 18 months when we haven’t had a breakdown in a coal-fired power station. Someone needs to tell our Minister of Energy that there hasn’t been a day in the last 18 months when solar didn’t fail. There was not a single day we could make the wind blow at 6pm on command like we do every day for gas. There was not a single day when retail electricity prices were cheap. “What the Australian Energy Market Operator told me was that batteries were essential for getting NSW through yesterday.” What the AEMO should have shown you was this graph done by one man (why can’t the AEMO draw graphs as useful as Andrew Miskelly?). Where are the batteries? Not visible. What kept the lights on: black coal, brown coal, and when solar failed as the clouds came over, natural gas arrived to save the day.
Seems people at the AEMO were sweating bullets this week, because they are rushing to sign new reserve contracts. Energy operator expected to seal long-term reserves in bid to prevent more blackout warningsThe Australian Energy Market Operator is expected to imminently agree to new reserve contracts that once agreed will allow the agency extra capacity ahead of a critical summer period. The contracts, which could be signed within days, come as authorities brace for a summer when demand for electricity will spike, and the industry remains anxious after a precarious day in NSW on Wednesday when the grid struggled to meet demand. — Colin Packham, The Australian Why didn’t they see this coming? By Jo Nova  … Just to be clear, yet again, the 29th United Nations Conference of Parties was a smashing success, 70,000 people got a free trip to Azerbaijan, millions of dollars were siphoned from taxpayers, nobody was asked any hard questions, and everyone gets to schmooze it all again next year. In a big win, nothing at all was achieved in solving “The CrisisTM” which means The Gravy Train rides again. Last year the UN was excited because of the “historic” move to use the phrase “transition away from fossil fuels” for the absolute, first time ever in a global document. It marked the “beginning of the end of fossil fuels” according to the UN. But one year later, and the phrase was quietly dropped. Nevermind. This time, Saudi Arabia and the petrostate allies were able to nix that promise — possibly because the world still needs their oil. Where were the honest headlines: “UN backslides from key historic transition away from fossil fuels?” The new $300 billion “goal” replaces the last $100 billion target, which achieved almost nothing, and wasn’t reached, except with accounting games, like relabeling foreign aid and rebadging loans. Seven years after the last target was set, Kiribati had received nothing except a half a million dollars to help them write a new application. The $300 billion goal is just a Grifter Target to aim for in ten years. It’s part of the Psy-Op to gaslight the citizens of the rich world to keep paying billions to unaccountable foreign committees. The WEF puts the best spin possible on the pork, and it isn’t that big: A broad target of $1.3 trillion in annual funds by 2035 was adopted, yet only $300 billion annually was designated for grants and low-interest loans . The deal has tripled finance to developing countries up from the previous goal of $100 billion annually. The deal has done nothing of the sort. “Has tripled” makes it sound like a done-deal, but the only thing that tripled was the language. It’s just another acronym of a distant promise: … crucially agreeing on how much money developing countries will get to tackle and prepare for climate change in what is known as the ‘New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance’ or simply ‘NCQG’. Tony Thomas found the event has become a kind of “Hunger Games” — where businesses in the host nation charge extortionate fees to soak the rich world taxpayers, while third world delegates can’t even afford a meal. The UN was sponsoring some delegates for $291 USD a day, but almost all that was going on accommodation. The top hotel in Azerbaijan was charging $12,000 a night, while delegates from Africa were living off sample cheese crackers and free coffee. A “dinner date” was part of the menu… The Famished Freeloaders of BakuTony Thomas, Quadrant Nation’s reporter, Leon Lidigu, cited many accounts from famished Third World delegates, including “Isabella” our Brazilian food seductress. She told him, “I’ve been low-key surviving off lunch and dinner date invites from my male global north friends who can afford it here. To be honest, it feels like they are ‘living’ around here while we merely exist.” Calorie-scrounging was so common that one COP smarty created a WhatsApp group listing all events involving coffee urns and free biscuits and cheese. “The document has spread like wildfire,” said Isabella to Lidigu. …a delegate from Tanzania told Nation he had been obliged to skip a session, Making Climate Finance Work for Climate Action in Agriculture and Food Security, “because I have to go to a local market that I am told is quite far, to see if I can get affordable food to eat. The cost of food at COP is just too much for me.” Baku’s hunger games put a new perspective on COP’s hordes. Kenya, for instance, had 288 delegates, Uganda 412 and Tanzania 353. Few, I’d say none, paid their own way: [4] it was all sponsored by First World grants, delegates’ own long-suffering national treasuries, or diverted from charities’ funds meant to conquer poverty.[5] How many grants does it take to send 288 Kenyans to Azerbeijan, and why did the climate need a planeful of people from Uganda and Tanzania? Most of the money in “climate change” is not spent changing the climate, it just rains cash in the Believer Tent.
November 28th, 2024 | Tags: UNFCCC, United Nations (UN) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | |
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