Recent Posts
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In trying to be a small target, the Liberals accidentally disappeared
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Tuesday
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Monday
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The best thing about the Australian election was that Nigel Farage’s party won 30% in the UK
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Sunday
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Saturday — Election Day Australia
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Vote for freedom…
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Friday
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Bombshell: Sir Tony Blair says climate policies are unworkable, irrational, and everyone is afraid of being called a denier
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Thursday
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Blackout in Spain to cost 2-4 billion Euro, likely due to solar plants — blind and biased ABC says “cause is a mystery”
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Wednesday
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Days after Spain reaches 100% renewable, mass blackouts hit, due to mysterious “rare atmospheric phenomenon”
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Tuesday
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Help needed: Site under DDoS attack from hundreds of thousands of unique IPs this week — especially China and the USA
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Monday: Election Day Canada
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When the Labor Party talk about “The Science” the Opposition can easily outflank and outgun them with bigger, better science
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Saturday
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UK Gov spends £50 m to dim sun to create slightly less beach weather
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Friday
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The cocoa price crisis is a Big Government price fixing disaster, not a climate change one
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Thursday
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Blame the Vikings! Moss found in East Antarctica lived in warmer summers a thousand years ago.
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Wednesday
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Tuesday
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Monday
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Easter Sunday
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Saturday
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Good Friday
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In crash-test dummy land, we solve teenage girl climate anxiety with $500b in fantasy weather experiments…
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Thursday
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Nothing says “Safe and Effective” like destroying all the data from Australia’s giant abandoned vaccine study
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Wednesday
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Who owns the oceans? The UN wants to tax ships to reduce carbon emissions — a $40b windfall for unaccountable global bureaucrats
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Tuesday
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Monday
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Sunday
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Saturday
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Conservatives promise to axe the car tax that would have added $10k to petrol and diesel cars
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Friday
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The monster Green Tariffs we put on ourselves are worse than a foreign trade war
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Thursday
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Trump goes gangbusters on coal power and coal mining to supply AI energy demand
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Wednesday
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Instead of $8b in rebates, Labor could have built gas and coal plants and actually made cheap electricity
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Tuesday
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Labor wants the working class to help rich people buy batteries
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Monday
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Sunday
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We couldn’t kill the worlds corals if we wanted to: They already suffered for two thousand years and recovered
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Saturday
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The Climate Crisis was Christopher Columbus’s fault — “a mutant offspring of European Scientific racism”
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Now they tell us!
After building 341,000 wind turbines, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, now climate modelers reveal that winds will decrease in the Northern Hemisphere!
Warming temperatures caused by climate change are set to weaken wind energy in the northern hemisphere, a study shows, lessening the amount of wind power produced for wind farms.
However the southern hemisphere would see a boost in wind, which could potentially turn north-eastern Australia into an attractive investment for energy companies.
Rush, invest your money now. The theory called polar amplification has the success rate of a coin toss. Buy a wind farm in NE Australia!
Luckily wind speeds are not also influenced by cloud cover, jet streams, oceans currents, forest growth, atmospheric tides, solar factors, magnetic fields, ozone levels, cosmic rays, or butterflies. Otherwise this study might be inadequate, uninformed guesswork being used to inform investment decisions!
 Look out for Polar Amplifiers. Click to enlarge.
Key points:
- Atmosphere instability which creates wind changing in northern hemisphere
- North-east Australia could become an attractive investment for energy companies
- At present there is only one operational wind farm in Queensland
Theoretically the North Pole is warming, and getting closer to temperatures at the equator – which reduces any reason for wind to go anywhere. So the big question is: will the wind farms be able to change the climate before the wind stops?
The second question: how did ABC subed’s let that first “key point” pass and what happened to the commas?
Wind usually derives its energy from an instability in the atmosphere, and in the northern hemisphere a major source of that instability is the equator to pole temperature difference,” he said.
“We all know that the tropics are warmer than the arctic, but because the artic is warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the world — including the tropics and the latitudes — that temperature gradient is lessening.
“That is a well known phenomenon called polar amplification, or artic amplification.”
Yes, polar amplification, is called “polar” for a reason, and it’s wrong. The South Pole is a Pole too. (And Arctic has a c in it.)
But wait til you hear why winds are speeding up in the Southern Hemisphere:
It found in the southern hemisphere the difference between the average land and sea temperature was increasing, which would push greater wind production.
“As we know most of the southern hemisphere is dominated by ocean, relative to the northern hemisphere,” Professor Karnauskas said.
So in South America, the southern half of Africa and Australia, greenhouse gas warming was expected to increase the temperature over land faster than over the ocean. “The land-sea temperature difference in the southern hemisphere is actually increasing because the land is warming up so rapidly relative to the ocean,” he said.
“So the winds are able to derive greater energy from that temperature difference or instability.”
Call it cartoon science. Two dimensional and with reasoning by the Road Runner.
To be fair, the ABC didn’t ask a skeptical scientist for their opinion on the science but they did ask a climate scientist for his opinion on investments:
US could face drop in wind energy
For Australia, Professor Karnauskas said he expected there would be a boom in wind energy for the north-east of the country.
“This information may prove key in allocating resources and planning, for example where and when to build new farms and how to deal with differed maintenance with older wind farms,” he said.
“And helping to fine-tune the blend of renewables supporting the every growing regional energy consumption.
“It doesn’t mean that wind energy should take the place of any other part of the portfolio that’s in a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Professor Karnauskas’ study reported the central United States could face a 10 per cent drop in available wind energy by 2050.
And by the year 2100, that could be up to 40 per cent.
The idea that the Trump administration could use the report to push for a drop in wind energy investment was something Professor Karnauskas said he was nervous about.
“Wind power is and should remain considered as an important part of the portfolio of renewable investments as part of the broader strategy to reduce carbon emissions,” he said.
The ABC didn’t interview wind farm critics either, but they found space to interview a wind farm activist:
Andrew Bray, from the advocacy group Australian Wind Alliance, said he doubted a predicted boost in available wind energy in Queensland would make much of a difference in the level of wind farm investment.
He said there was already enough wind to go around.
“There’s incredible wind resources all across Australia,” he said.
“We recently had some research done which estimated that we could power Australia’s entire energy needs 12 times over just with the wind resources in eastern Australia.
Twelve times over! All we need is infinite money, and unlimited free lithium and cobalt. A gift. A gift at half the price.
Let’s use the $1b ABC budget to buy up wind farms and let the ABC run off those profits. But cancel that damn RET first.
UPDATE: The researchers say there are three problems with GCM’s
Jo says “just three?”
The first… The resolution … is typically on the order of 1–2° or ~100 km.
The second … is that wind turbines integrate momentum from wind across the rotor disk, typically 40–120 m above the surface, whereas… wind information is available only at a height of 10 m and on standard pressure levels (for exmple, 1,000 mbar, 925 mbar, 850 mbar, and so on).
The third potential limitation of GCMs is the provision of monthly mean fields, whereas winds fluctuate at much higher frequencies…
Someone tell the researchers not to worry. The GCM’s other limitations include that they can’t predict the global temperature, historic long term temperatures, nor the regional, local, short term[1] [2] variations, they’re wrong about polar amplification [3], and can’t get the upper tropospheric pattern right either [4] [5]. Being comprehensive, they also fail on humidity[6], rainfall[7], drought[8] and they can’t do clouds[9]. See the references here.
9.3 out of 10 based on 85 ratings
Tips and other stuff….
7.9 out of 10 based on 33 ratings
Who cares about 50% more emissions?
 China is powered by 65% coal. A new study in China compares cars with internal combustion engines to electric cars. Qiao et al estimate that from cradle-to-gate electric cars use about 50% more energy and produce around 50% more emissions. (Thanks to Kenneth Richards at NoTricksZone.)
All Greens should hereby recycle their EV and buy a gas guzzler.
This is not even “lifetime costs” which include disposal.
These results will come as no surprise to people who remember the detailed study in Norway of 2012 which found that “…in regions where fossil fuels are the main sources of power, electric cars offer no benefits and may even cause more harm, the report said.”
In China, these electric cars are powered by 65% coal. Call them “coal-fired-cars”.
The largest single difference was with the battery.
Below, marvel at the results of the Chinese study. (ICE means Internal Combustion Engine. BEV means Battery Electric Vehicle.)
Not. Even. Close.
If you think CO2 matters, oil powered cars beat coal powered ones.
 ICE = Internal Combustion Engine: BEV = Battery Electric Vehicle. By every measure Electric cars use more energy and emit more CO2. Even if electric vehicles are powered by the wind, there are other costs. For the UK to power a national electric fleet they’d have to turn Scotland into a wind farm. (We need stationary batteries to supply the mobile batteries. Add up the losses.) In Australia there are estimates that each extra electric car could cost another $2000 per year in network and generation costs. (Let’s add that to the registration cost for an EV shall we?)
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9.5 out of 10 based on 76 ratings
Matt Ridley writes the letter Theresa May should send to the EU
For 40 years Britain has propped up the EU with nothing in return but complaints and insults.
The fifth biggest economy in the world can offer foreign aid to the failing EU but on the same terms as other needy states.
BRITAIN SHOULD GIVE THE EU £20 BILLION EXTRA AS AN ACT OF CHARITY
Dear Angela, Emmanuel and others (cc Donald, Jean-Claude, Michel),
I enclose a cheque for £40 billion as agreed. However, you will notice that it is post-dated March 30, 2019, and that it will bounce without a free-trade agreement between us, as I mentioned on the telephone. We are delighted to be in a position to be so unilaterally generous, and sorry that you find yourselves in such dire need of our help.
We cannot help feeling that a little more financial discipline on your part might have avoided the need for such a large sum.
For instance, we notice that all Eurocrats can draw generous final-salary pensions when they get to the end of their lucrative careers, throughout which they will have had handsome allowances and expenses and have paid specially low income tax at a flat rate. In Britain we regard this as regressive, or “unfair”, and are unhappy that hard-pressed British workers in, say, Sunderland should now be asked to guarantee the pensions of such wealthy people, when they have no such guarantee themselves.
Is manners to much to ask for?
We realise you cannot agree among yourselves whether to cut the budget or increase the national contributions once the second largest net contributor leaves the European Union, so you are desperate for us to help you out. That we have filled your coffers for 40 years in this way, always giving more than we received, might in some circles have elicited a measure of gratitude. However, we are surprised on looking back through the files to find no such letters of thanks, but rather quite a few reprimands, insults and aspersions.
Let’s call British support what it really is:
You will also notice that the cheque is drawn from our foreign aid budget (given the political chaos in Germany, Italy and Spain, this seems appropriate) and counts towards our 0.7 per cent of gross national income spend on aid. This means you will have to fill out forms certifying that the money was not wasted. These must be returned to the Department for International Development punctually, and failure to comply may result in fines. I am sure you will understand that this is necessary given that the money would otherwise have gone to help starving and sick people in Africa.
Read the whole fabulous letter with his digs at the BBC, at The Rational Optimist
Matt Ridley for PM, I say.
h/t mothcatcher
9.8 out of 10 based on 72 ratings
A Sunday Mail survey (paywalled) shows that despite SA having more “free, cheap and clean” renewable electricity than just about anywhere in the world, the number one biggest issue for most South Australians is … “electricity”. And despite all the renewable jobs created, the second most common concern is “jobs”. Going for the Paradox-Trifecta: most strangely of all, with elected leaders who are leading the largest energy transformation since civilization began, the third “biggest issue” facing South Australians is “political leadership”.
Thanks to Eric Worrall, who describes South Australians as “the world’s renewable crash test dummies”.
 … SA has an election coming up in March, but at the moment voters there are caught in the bind between the reality of electricity shocks, and the belief that “renewables are cheap”. Will the local Libs (the opposition) have the spine to stand up and speak the truth and make this election about energy and climate, or will they pander #metoo, and lose the unloseable?
Will the Libs get the message here? Most South Australians like the sound of renewables, but when it comes to the crunch, and the issues they will vote on, electricity prices and jobs will rule. This is a bubble ripe for the popping. As for political leadership — sucking up to global bullies and namecalling parasites is not leadership. Speaking up against the dominant paradigm and against the fashionable memes is. Saying things that are unpopular but true is leadership.
As long as Liberals wait for the opinion polls to change (and produce even more obvious results than this) they are not leaders.
In agenda-setting results on a cornerstone issue for the March state election, more than 3500 respondents overwhelmingly ranked affordability and reliability as the most important components of electricity supply in the Sunday Mail Your Say, SA survey.
Forging a renewable energy industry was also popular among respondents, demonstrating support for solar, wind and batteries.
This indicates a clear public distinction between perceived hip-pocket and job creation benefits of renewable energy and the costs of curbing carbon emissions.
“Transforming our economy” is code for using power generators to control the climate. It was slightly more popular with the under 25s (31%) than older folk. By 65 years and older, only 20% were still under the delusion that the biggest issue facing SA is that the state government should force an energy transformation in order to get better global weather. That this number is any positive integer at all is a mark of how pathetic our national debate, media reporting and education system is.
Wait – The state leading the way on renewables is a backwards laughing stock?
Early results of the same survey showed that nearly 9 out 10 South Australians are aware of how silly their state looks:
“… other results are a serious wake-up call — an overwhelming 89 per cent feel that SA is perceived unfavourably by the rest of the nation, while 73 per cent expect life will be more difficult in the future.
The negative perception of SA as a “backward state” — or worse, a “laughing stock” — still haunts us, evidenced by the survey’s comments and almost any internet thread discussing our problems.
Apparently it’s hard to be a tax burden on the rest of the nation while trying to do a no-brainer obvious energy transformation which no where else in the world is leaping to do to the same extent or without seven interconnectors to coal and nukes.
There is incredible arrogance in thinking that that there is no good reason the rest of the world has “missed” the simplistic solution to energy.
9.1 out of 10 based on 96 ratings
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7.4 out of 10 based on 35 ratings
PMSML stands for Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, though there is nothing permanent about sea-level data — like all obedient climate change data, it’s subject to change fifty years later — and the adjustments are as large as the trends.
We’ve seen this pattern in so many places. Now Cliff Ollier and Albert Parker have shown it in the Indian Ocean looking at Aden in Yemen, and Mumbai in India (and other places, and other data). Kenneth Richard at No Tricks Zone goes through it at length. James Delingpole calls it TideGate. The New York Times says nothing (just like last time).
Parker and Ollier conclude that at Mumbai, apparently the sea levels were “perfectly stable over the 20th century”. At Aden, sea levels trends are rising at a pitifully small quarter of a millimeter a year during the twentieth century. (And that’s their upper estimate). The lower estimate is minus five hundreths of a millimeter a year. Looking at other sites as well they estimate a rise of …”about zero mm/year” in the last five decades. zero.
This, they say, agrees with other things like… coastal morphology, stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, archaeological remains, and historical documentation. (But not so much with climate models). Across the world there are scores of scientists all looking at everyone else’s adjusted data and saying to themselves “my raw data doesn’t look right”.
 Tide Gauge Hut in Aden | Photo IOC Gloss Suspicious adjustments?
Graph (a) below shows the segments of raw data from Mumbai tide gauges collected from 1878 – 2011. There is a breakpoint change in 1936 with a 677mm drop. But the red series ends in December, and the green series starts the following month in January. (We wish there was an overlap, but at least there is no gap). The red line trend goes slightly up, the green line goes slightly down. But add them together and thanks to the magic of unexplained modern adjustments, look at Graph (b)! The effect of CO2 is revealed!
Amazing what scientists can find these days. Especially ‘mazing how the ground under these gauges seems to be rising so that it hides the effects of climate change. A conspiracy, I tell you.
 Fig. 2 Mumbai tide gauge — Monthly average mean sea levels. a) raw data. (PSMSL 2017f). b) Revised local reference (RLR, adjusted) data. (PSMSL 2017g) Unlike the mainstream team Beenstock et al took the less conspiratorial approach and assumed that the land would be randomly subsiding and rising. Satellites confirmed that the placement of gauges was fairly random with respect to changing sea levels. Instead of trying to correct for that at each station individually, they just averaged the lot. Beenstock estimated the trend in sea levels across a thousand gauges was just over one millimeter a year.
In Mumbai the PMSML team convert a small negative trend to a significant positive one:
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8.8 out of 10 based on 92 ratings
“Air-conditioning” of The Great Barrier Reef begins soon
To calm a few panicking people, the Australian Government will pay for large fans to circulate water on a minuscule portion of the 2,300 kilometer long Great Barrier Reef. The reef creatures, which have been coping with higher temperatures and bleaching for two hundred million years, will hopefully avoid the moving parts. Marine life adapts to heatwaves by chucking out the symbionts that don’t thrive in higher temperatures and replacing them up new inhabitants that do. If the fans achieve anything, it may stop this natural process (called Symbiont Shuffling) thus possibly making small sections of the reef more vulnerable to future heatwaves and El Ninos. Who knows?
 Fans like this are used in the United States to circulate water. Mark this one up as a pagan symbolic idol that symbolizes our grandiose delusions of weather-control.
Eight huge reef mixer fans are planned for the Great Barrier Reef in far north Queensland, in a trial project that hopes to reduce the damage caused by coral bleaching events.
The Federal Government has announced it will contribute $2.2 million to the three-year pilot project, which will result in solar-powered rotators being placed at Moore Reef off the coast of Cairns.
Floating water fans:
The slow-moving ReefMix fans mounted on floating pontoons create water currents by gradually drawing cooler water from up to 30 metres below to the surface.
Comfortable corals
Anthropologists of the future can study this as a primitive turn of the century fantasy. Some old folks are missing out on air conditioning and heating because they can’t afford it, but a few lucky zooxantheallae will be spared from their natural fate.
The field trial is designed to protect a 1 square kilometre patch of reef from the worst effects of bleaching.
“This intervention will never save the whole of the Great Barrier Reef, but it will be important for some of our particularly valuable tourist sites, which of course are 64,000 jobs,” Ms Morris said.
The Great Barrier Reef covers 344,400 km2. Thie $2.2m cost may protect 0.0003% of the reef. The cost to “protect” the whole reef would be $757 billion dollars.
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8.7 out of 10 based on 83 ratings
I’ve had requests for an extra unthreaded. Sometimes the weekend is too far away…
7.9 out of 10 based on 35 ratings
 The shape of normal AC Electricity: 50Hz (230V) and 60Hz (110V) Nobody says much about FCAS in public — but it’s become a hot topic among Australia’s energy-nerds and electricity traders. It never used to be a big deal, because we got it at very low cost from huge turbines — from coal, hydro, and gas. Suddenly, it is costing a lot more. As I discovered below, in one month FCAS charges in South Australia rose from $25,000 to $26 million. Wow, just wow.
What is FCAS?
FCAS means”Frequency Control Ancillary Service”. With an AC (or alternating current) system, frequency is everything — the rapid push-pull rhythm that is the power. FCAS is a way of keeping the beat close to the heavenly 50Hz hum (or 60Hz in America and Korea). Network managers cry when things stray outside 49.85Hz or 50.15Hz. So controlling the frequency is a very necessary “other service” supplied by traditional generators, but not so much from intermittent renewables. Large spinning turbines “do” FCAS without a lot of effort. And the cost used to be a tiny fraction of the total electricity bill, but it is rapidly rising in Australia, thanks to the effect of the RET (Renewable Energy Target).
Academia and the ABC finally mention FCAS this week
Never heard of FCAS? When there is a problem with renewables, the legacy media and academics don’t want to mention it. But when renewables have any benefit, let the free advertising flow.
FCAS has been a growing problem for years as the level of renewables increased. Way back in 2011 the AEMO forecast that 20-fold price rises in FCAS were coming (see below) but all our academics at The Conversation and journalists at the ABC were silent year after year. Lo, this week, The Conversation and the ABC suddenly discover FCAS. Apparently it’s OK to mention it now, because the much loved giant battery of South Australia may have the antidote to the problem that was never said:
In addition, the incredible flexibility of the battery means that it is well suited to participate in the Frequency Control Ancillary Service market. The Frequency Control and Ancillary Service (FCAS) market is less known and understood than the energy market.
Having discussed FCAS in order to rave about The Battery, it was time for a green-academic to say something bad about coal. On cue:
The role of these markets is essentially twofold. First, they provide contingency reserves in case of a major disturbance, such as a large coal generation unit tripping off. The services provide a rapid response to a sudden fall (or rise) in grid frequency.
Those naughty coal turbines, just tripping out like that a couple of times a year (or decade) or so, what ever it is. Let’s not mention that wind and solar are tripping on an hourly basis.
The Conversation author is Dylan McConnell, researcher at the Australian German Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne.
His priorities:
“Size matters but role matters more”
As the Australian consumer would put it:
“Forget the role, and tell me the cost!“
The Convo-ABC doesn’t mention the cost. So I did some digging, and oh, what a surprise?
In 2011 FCAS costs in the National Electricity Market were predicted to rise 20-fold in a decade
The AEMO warned about the rising costs of FCAS in 2011. Back then they predicted charges for FCAS would rise from $10m – $200m by 2020 and the sole cause was “intermittent energy” and the RET. Even so, this is a small part of the total energy bill which is more like $12-$20 billion.
The following major findings relate to Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) in the NEM:
The Regulation requirement increases substantially in response to the LRET. The Regulation requirement increases from the present value of ±120 MW to around ±800 MW in 2019-20 in scenarios with the LRET. This increase is entirely driven by the projected increase in intermittent wind generation installed. In the absence of the LRET the Regulation requirement increases only slightly to ±200 MW due to demand growth.
Regulation costs increase substantially in scenarios featuring the LRET. In response to the increased Regulation requirement, ancillary service settlements increase from $10 million pa2 (for Regulation + Slow Contingency services) to around $200 million pa in scenarios with the LRET. As the Regulation requirement increases, more expensive FCAS bids must be utilised, increasing FCAS settlements. However, it is noted that if the FCAS market were to increase so substantially it is likely that many generators will change their FCAS bidding strategies in ways that are challenging to predict, so these results should be considered to have a high degree of uncertainty. The application of a carbon price would exacerbate this effect.
Regulation costs remain small compared with energy settlements. Despite forecast increases, Regulation and Slow Contingency service costs remain small in comparison to anticipated energy settlements of $12 – $20 billion pa ($50 – $80 /MWh) in 2019-20.
What does FCAS cost today? It only took 2 minutes of searching to find these projections from 2011. Shame the Melbourne University and ABC don’t seem to think cost is important to the people who may be paying their grants and salaries.
The Roaring price spikes of FCAS:
Usually the cost of FCAS in South Australia is about $840 per day across the whole state but in October 2015 it rose from $25,000 a month to $26 million!
What is FCAS? by Tennant Reed, on AiGroup (Australian Industry Group)
Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) is a market through which electricity generators are paid to slightly raise or lower their output in order to keep the electricity system within its operating frequency of 50 Hertz +/- 0.1 Hz. The frequency drops when generation reduces or the load increases, and vice versa. It is usually a very cheap service: SA requires about 35 megawatts of FCAS, which is usually purchased from interstate suppliers for $1 per megawatt per hour (or $840 per day across the whole state).
In October 2015 the SA FCAS market price repeatedly spiked to the cap price of $13,000 per megawatt per hour while the interconnector was largely down for upgrade work and FCAS had to be procured within SA. The three local providers (AGL, Origin and Engie) bid extremely high prices to supply FCAS. Once prices exceed a high price threshold for 7 hours, AEMO is able to impose a lower cap of $300 per MW per hour for one week. Prices spiked, were capped, and spiked again repeatedly through October. The total cost of this episode, split across energy users and generators, was around $26 million – rather than the $25,000 FCAS would ordinarily have cost.
Time to pay attention to FCAS methinks! It may only be a small part of final electricity bills, but it is changing more than most other components. Something is going on…
Comments by Rod Stuart and here, may help other readers get up to speed. Commenter Robin Pittwood recommends Kiwithinker for posts about grid stability.
H/t Robert and Peter, Rod Stuart, Robber.
Image: Wikimedia Commons by Pieter Kuiper
9.1 out of 10 based on 84 ratings
Climate change causes … more crops.
Climate change threatens our food supply, our grain harvests. It causes wars, droughts, sometimes floods, shorter growing seasons. And we all know Climate change is here. We can see it out the window. Plus 2017 is one of the three hottest years ever.
Somehow all these bad events happened at once and added up to the world’s largest cereal crop ever.
 … It’s doom gloom and fume all the way down:
How a warming world is threatening supplies — The Guardian
Climate Change May Reduce Some U.S. Grain Harvests by Half –– Bloomberg
 …
“World wheat inventories are currently pegged at an all-time high despite a downward revision since October. Global stocks of rice and coarse grains are also set to reach record levels. The increase in wheat and rice stocks largely reflects an anticipated accumulation of inventories in China, whereas for coarse grains, the expansion reflects higher end-of-season maize stocks in South America and the United States.”
— FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief
If you care about the poor and starving, drive your car, then sell it and buy a bigger car, drive across your nearest continent. Then do it all again.
Before the world shifts to nuclear power (which it surely will) get that plant fertilizer out of the ground.
8.8 out of 10 based on 100 ratings
The world is watching one volcano in Bali, but it’s sobering to think there may be hundreds of others going off, and almost certainly ones we don’t even know about. The article Is the Bali volcano making us warmer or cooler? by William F Jasper, reminded me of Ian Plimers words about there being squillions of undersea volcanoes so I found the 2007 paper, by Hillier, that tried to count them. Trying being the appropriate word. Volcanoes are biggish things, but when they are under one or two kilometers of water they are hard to hear, hard to see, and, by crikey, we know more about the moon than the bottom of the Marinara, and it’s only 11km “away”.
People are constantly discovering new volcanoes, like a 3,000m one off Indonesia that no one realized was there til 2010. It turns out the second largest volcano in the solar system is apparently not on Io, but 1,000 miles east of Japan. It’s the size of the British Isles, but who knew? A few months ago a team found 91 new volcanoes under Antarctica. (This is getting serious, someone should talk to the Minister for Lava!)
 … Not only can we not predict when volcanoes will erupt, we don’t even know how many there are
The scope of our ignorance on the sea floor is really something. There are 1,500 active volcanoes on land, but on the sea floor we are still discovering them all the time. at least 39,000 of them rise one kilometer off the sea floor, but there are suspicions there might be up to 3 million, holey moley. The Hilliers paper estimates that 24,000 submarine volcanoes were not yet discovered in 2007. Wikimedia is trying to list them. Good luck.
Does hot magma leaking into the oceans that we havent measured and don’t know about, change the currents, the temperature, and eventually our weather? If it’s a bit hotter at one end of a trench than the other, does the water flow alter? Has the big ball of magma got anything at all to do with ENSO/AMO long term trends? Your guess is better than a Global Climate Model.
So here is the closest thing we have to kind of being “A Map”.
 …Hilliers 2007
9 out of 10 based on 107 ratings
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned an “unprecedented” amount of rain is expected to fall in Victoria over a three-day period.
Asked to rate the storms out of 10, senior forecaster Mr Williams said: “I’ll take the punt and say it’s a 10 for Victoria.”
He said the most recent rain in a short period of time in Melbourne was 100-200 millimetres (in 2005 and 2011) and on both occasions: “it paralysed transport routes in the city.”
Get out your sandbags!
Events were cancelled, and the Premier of Victoria told people not to “have a big night on the town” in preparation.
The city was told to bunker down for an “absolutely massive” rainfall event over the weekend …
“Half the inhabitants of Melbourne have never ever seen anything like this,” the Bureau of Meteorology’s senior forecaster Scott Williams said on Thursday.
“It is an event that poses a threat to life.”
Not so much a flood of rain, but there was a flood of text messages:
About 7.4 million text messages were sent out to Victorians on Friday telling them to look out for flooding and stay safe.
The rain that fell (that’s millimeters, not inches):
 Melbourne, Rainfall, Dec 3, 2017, Bureau of Meteorology. (51 mm = 2 inches) There was potential for “more than 50mm per hour”, 300mm from Wangarratta to Hotham Heights, and Bendigo and Ballarat will likely see 150 – 200mm.
Up to 3000 buildings across Victoria were damaged by the storm, with around 6000 people left homeless.
This was Kooyong Tennis Courts, deep inside Melbourne.
There were some places that recorded rain over 100mm in 24 hours (red dots).
Friday:
 December 1st, 2017 Saturday:
 Saturday, Dec 2nd (to 9am Dec 3) Thoughts are with people in Euroa, where there is an actual flood, especially at the Caravan Park.
The BoM defends itself:
He said the storm was generally as expected and it was a “bonus” that the worst of it missed Melbourne.
“The way that it’s panned out has been similar to what we were predicting.
“It was certainly the kind of event worth preparing for,” Dr Tupper told reporters on Saturday.
“So if we had our time again, we would put out (warnings) with similar language to that.
Twitterati were not impressed:
So is Melbourne still standing or was it yet another beat up by the media? #melbournestorm
I hope #melbournestorm doesnt get any stronger. I just forged across this and almost drowned. 
— Rupert Denton (@rupertdenton) December 1, 2017
Shocking scenes in Melbourne as desperate people line up for essential supplies #melbournestorm
— Darren Levin (@darren_levin) November 30, 2017
#melbournestorm WE WILL REBUILD!!!
— Wyngle Bells
Rory @WittaTwitta
Be EXTRA careful if you go shopping in #Melbourne city today…
Corey Ander @_corey_ander
FOR SALE: Newly constructed ARK. In good condition, got it ready for the floods but no longer required. Animals not included. #MelbourneStorm
— Corey Ander (@_corey_ander) December 3, 2017
PS: There is heavy rain and snow in Tasmania. Welcome to another summer of global warming.
h/t Pat, Andrew V, David B, betheserf, and many more. :- )
8.9 out of 10 based on 107 ratings
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7.5 out of 10 based on 37 ratings
The new SA rescue plan is more diesel than battery
 Diesel’s prototype engine circa 1892. A big fuss was made today over the world record battery, but the diesel generators put on a hire-purchase plan three days ago are more than twice the power:
The world’s biggest lithium ion battery has been launched in South Australia, with Premier Jay Weatherill declaring it an example of SA “leading the world”.
The first diesel generator was patented in 1892. Go, Go, SA.
A battery bandaid arrived barely in the nick of time:
That reliability was tested before the battery’s official launch when it began dispatching around 59 megawatts into the state’s electricity network on Thursday afternoon as the state hit temperatures above 30C.
How fragile is this system?
The facility has the capacity to power 30,000 homes for up to an hour in the event of a severe blackout but is more likely to be called into action to even out electricity supplies at less critical times.
There are 673,540 households in South Australia and the Big Battery can supply 4% of them for an hour with electricity, or all of the state for a bit over two minutes.
As Commenter Robber says:
SA peak demand of about 2000 MW, so the world’s biggest battery can supply only 1.25% of the second smallest state in Australia, or 0.1% of the AEMO grid peak requirement. [And that’s only for four hours].
Widespread thunderstorms swept across the state overnight, with lightning strikes damaging some powerlines, including in the Jamestown area.
Northern Areas Council mayor Denis Clark said a number of nearby farmers were left blacked out. “They were wondering if the Premier would supply some long extension cords so they could tap into the battery to get some power,” he said.
Bev Lovell, who lives near the windfarm and battery site, said a number of recent blackouts had left her angry and frustrated. “I look out our bathroom window and I look at wind turbines,” she said. — ABC NEWS
Nevermind:
The Premier said no type of power generator could prevent the sorts of blackouts caused by lightning damage to power lines and other infrastructure. “We had 250,000 lightning strikes — an extraordinary number,” he said. “It’s amazing we don’t have more lines down and we don’t have more people out of power.”
SA taxpayers will pay up to $50 million in subsidies to Tesla and Neoen over the next 10 years. In return, the State Government will have access to 70 per cent of the energy stored within the battery.
Three days ago SA signed a deal to get 276 MW of diesels
The opposition are calling it a scandal:
JUDICIAL inquiry will be held into the State Government’s “scandalous” process to purchase 276MW of gas-diesel turbines if the Opposition wins next year’s election. — The Advertiser
In August the diesels were going to cost about $110m.
The Weatherill government had in August confirmed it would spend $111.5 million as part of a $550m go-it-alone energy plan on leasing generators to ensure the lights stay on before voters go to the polls. — The Australian
Today the cost is “commercial in confidence”:
Premier Jay Weatherill won’t reveal the price of leasing or purchasing the turbines, but says it’s included in the Government’s $550 million energy plan.
So they cost more than $111m but less than $500m?
The diesels were installed in 58 days, and can be powered up in 8 minutes:
The battery and its clean and green halo is in stark contrast with the bank of diesel-powered fast-start generators which have also just been constructed. They are located at two different sites in Adelaide, built in a rapid 58 days by United States firm APR Energy. Those generators deliver a combined 276MW and were connected to the broader electricity grid on November 13. They are powered by diesel fuel, but will only be switched on in a power shortfall emergency to quickly step into the breach if demand exceeds supply. They can be at full speed within just 8 minutes, from a standing start.
APR Energy executive chairman John Campion won’t comment on the final cost of the nine turbines… — Australian Fin Review
The batteries may last long enough to get the diesels up and running. (Depending on the size of the shortfall).
As I said —there was a cheaper option:
Not long back, Port Augusta had a thirty-one year old coal plant generating 520MW. The Premier could have spent $30 million to keep it going. Though coal resources are running very low in SA, so coal would have to be shipped in. It’s still cheaper than the hire-purchase-diesel-battery-wind-solar solution.
h/t Pat (PS: Pat, the second card arrived today, Thank you!)
INFO
The SA Energy Plan
Hornsdale Power Reserve is 100MW / 129MWh
9.1 out of 10 based on 67 ratings
 Grenfell Tower It takes a lot of effort to set up a situation so dangerous under the guise of “helping the poor and the polar bears”.
By Gerard Tubb, Sky News Correspondent and Nick Stylianou, Sky News Producer
The UK Dept of Energy and Climate Change wanted help to get insulation onto buildings to save the world in 2011, so it asked the people who sell insulation. Somehow the plastics industry found the energy to turn up and help the government write rules that would increase their sales.
The Grenfell tower, where 71 people died, ended up being coated in Celotex — a flammable plastic. Celotex staff were on that committee, and bragged on their website how they were “working inside government”. It’s another example of a vested interest leaping onto the Carbonista-bandwagon. No conspiracy needed.
Follow the money:
A few years later Celotex revealed that the rules the plastics industry helps to write are key to company profits. Trade magazine Urethanes Technology International reported in 2015 that Warren had told them regulatory change was the “greatest driver” of plastic insulation sales. Without new regulations he was reported as saying: “You cannot give insulation away and the public are not really interested.”
Add in the “Green” meme:
Niall Rowan from the Passive Fire Protection Association told us: “Due to the green agenda we’ve had a push to insulate buildings and the easiest and cheapest way to insulate was using these combustible materials…”
Not the smartest plan:
Throughout all the changes to the energy-saving Part L of the building regulations -… the Government has relied on fire safety advice from a group which also makes money from the plastics industry.
We can hardly blame the plastics industry for taking a gift opportunity, but some people knew the situation was dangerous, yet this deadly threat lasted for years. Normally Social Justice Warriors would rail against the capitalists putting the poor at risk, but they were asleep at the wheel when sloppy green-regulations came through. But the others, the whistleblowers, competitors and scientists didn’t speak up. They were afraid…
What do we do about legal bullying?
…some went further; claiming that elements of the plastics industry were not only helping to write the rules that require more insulation to be fitted to buildings, but were also trying to silence people who questioned whether plastic insulation was safe.
The plastics industry over-reaction should have been the giveaway that things were wrong:
Time after time we were told the plastic insulation industry was highly litigious, that speaking out about its fire safety was impossible, and that while the story should be told, no-one would go on camera. Eventually we found a former government scientist who agreed to talk, on condition of anonymity, about the pressures he faced. He said threats to sue him had made him unwell.
Competitors were silenced, insurance companies with an interest in preventing fires had youtubes removed, and peer reviewed papers were withdrawn:
Rockwool sent out videos in 2007 showing how their product doesn’t burn and how plastic insulation does. They were sued for trademark violation and malicious falsehood. Despite the falsehood claim being thrown out the legal action tied up Rockwool for years and cost them millions of pounds.
Look how easy this was?
…six European plastic industry lobby groups complained in a letter to the respected publishers of a peer-reviewed paper on the dangers of toxic smoke from burning plastic insulation written by chemistry and fire safety expert Professor Anna Stec at the University of Central Lancashire. “We request that the article is withdrawn,” it said. “The consequences […] are enormous and could well lead to significant consequential losses.”
So who wrote the laws that attack free speech and give jobs to lawyers — bound to be lawyers.
Free speech saves lives. Time to change the complex ambiguous laws that allow for the endless trial-by-deep-wallets.
Read it all at Skynews: Grenfell — Britain’s fire safety crisis
Photo: Natalie Oxford
h/t Thanks to GWPF
9.1 out of 10 based on 68 ratings
 … After lasting for thousands of years through wild swings of temperature, scientists could never have guessed that the Great Barrier Reef has evolved to cope with climate change.
The reef spans 2,300km and has spawning events so large that they can be viewed from space, but who knew that some parts of the reef appear to be safer and more resilient, and would repopulate the rest of the reef? (Apparently, not most of the scientists who have been selling the message of doom). Instead it made sense that 100% of the reef was at the same risk from predatory starfish and hot months, and that any day now, the reef might be polished off for good.
Perhaps some scientists had an idea, but when newspaper headlines declared the reef was on the brink of extinction, or doomed, where were they? (Possibly in hiding — afterall, Peter Ridd is one of the only ones to speak out, and he’s now fighting to save his job).
Crikey! It restores how much?
From the abstract:
The great replenishment potential of these ‘robust source reefs’, which may supply 47% of the ecosystem in a single dispersal event, emerges from the interaction between oceanographic conditions and geographic location…
Righto. This 3% of the reef matters. So lets not build coal mines on thes
e parts, yeah?
Hope for Great Barrier Reef
[Telegraph] A new study has revealed a collection of 100 individual reefs spread throughout the 2,000 mile-long marine ecosystem that not only withstand warming seas and attacking starfish but also protect others.
… a collection of reefs lying in cooler areas able to supply their larvae – fertilised eggs – to other reefs via ocean currents.
“The presence of these well-connected reefs on the Great Barrier Reef means that the whole system of coral reefs possesses a level of resilience that may help it bounce back from disturbances, as the recovery of the damaged locations is supported by the influx of coral larvae from the non-exposed reefs,” said Dr Karlo Hock, who led the research.
 (A) Robust sources are the reefs that possess high replenishment potential while also having low risk of bleaching and COTS outbreaks. (B) When robust sources are superimposed on estimates of acute thermal stress, the region of lower stress in the southern GBR is clearly visible. Most robust sources are located in a region where cooler oceanic water of the SCJ, and to a lesser extent the NCJ, of the South Equatorial Current flushes the GBR reef matrix. COTS, crown-of-thorns starfish; GBR, Great Barrier Reef; NCJ, North Caledonian Jet; SCJ, South Caledonian Jet. Scientists discover “heart”
If properly protected, these cool-water reefs could supply larvae to nearly half (45 per cent) of the entire ecosystem in a single year, it said. “Finding these 100 reefs is a little like revealing the cardiovascular system of the Great Barrier Reef,” said the study’s lead author Peter Mumby, professor at the University of Queensland.
But don’t stop panicking:
Similarly, the Queensland University academics said the 100 healthy reefs cannot be solely relied upon to mitigate the damage caused by climate change.
“These findings by no means suggest that the Great Barrier Reef corals are safe and in great condition, and there are no reasons for concern,” said Dr Hock.
Professor Peter Mumby, who also worked on the paper, said “Saving the Great Barrier Reef is possible but requires serious mitigation of climate change and continued investments in local protection.”
With any good news story, it’s obligatory to remind everyone that we always need more concern and more money.
Keep reading →
9.5 out of 10 based on 48 ratings
Higher electricity costs mean more people turn off their heaters
There’s a big freeze coming to Britain with minus 12C temperatures possible in the next three weeks.
Last year in winter in England there was a remarkable 40% rise in winter deaths
David Archibald emails that last year was a mild winter for Brits, but the death toll rose from the normal 25,000 excess to 34,000 people. Remembering that it’s moderate cold that kills far more people than extreme temperatures. The UK government advises rooms be heated to at least 18C. (I’ve been in a Canberra house where the temperature fell to 11C indoors, and that was in May.) Despite all the newspaper headlines about outside temperatures, the big killer is indoors.
 The big killer is indoor temperature and moderately cold, not extremes. Campaigners demand urgent cuts to power bill after number of winter deaths among the elderly rise by 40%
Pensioner groups are demanding urgent measures to cut the cost of heat and light after official figures revealed a surge in deaths last winter. There were some 34,300 so-called ‘excess’ deaths during the cold months, according to new figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The figure equates to 11 pensioners dying every hour and represents a rise of 39.5 per cent – 9,720 – on the year before.
The excess deaths largely came from English regions. Statistics in Wales were stable. It’s partly due to the strain of flu virus, but colder room temperatures are a known risk factor.
Research suggests that further increases in dual-fuel tariffs in the past year means people are increasingly worried about putting the heating on.
National Pensioners Convention (NPC) general secretary Jan Short says governments have been ignoring the excess winter deaths and the cost of heating:
“‘Almost one in three older people live in homes with inadequate heating or insulation making their homes more difficult to heat or keep warm.
Research by the price comparison website, Energyhelpine, claims that UK families are now paying the highest energy prices in history – 33per cent higher than six years ago.
Age UK’s Charity Director, Caroline Abrahams, claims that 250,000 older people have died from the cold over the last 10 years – and 2.5milllion over the past 60 years.
Influenza virus transmission is higher at colder temperatures and with lower humidity.
From Lancet, cold ambient temperatures increase both cardiovascular deaths and infectious deaths. Colder temperatures cause blood to thicken, blood pressure to rise and sinflammatory responses:
The biological processes that underlie cold-related mortality mainly have cardio vascular and respiratory effects. Exposure to cold has been associated with cardiovascular stress by affecting factors such as blood pressure and plasma fibrinogen, vasoconstriction and blood viscosity, and inflammatory responses. Similarly, cold induces bronchoconstriction and suppresses mucociliary defences and other immunological reactions, resulting in local inflammation and increased risk of respiratory infections. These physiological responses can persist for longer than those attributed to heat, and seem to produce mortality risks that follow a smooth, close-to-linear response, with most of the attributable risk occurring in moderately cold days.
h/t Pat too
REFERENCE
Antonio Gasparrini et al. (2015) Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0. Full PDF.
8.9 out of 10 based on 50 ratings
Thanks to The Guardian for drawing a link we would never have noticed:
Why climate change is creating a new generation of child brides
As global warming exacerbates drought and floods, farmers’ incomes plunge – and girls as young as 13 are given away to stave off poverty
If only these girls had perfect weather, they wouldn’t have to be married so young. For a million years of human history, everyone had enough food, there were no wars, no battles, and young women could live at home under they were 25 and had finished up at the Neolithic Academy of Weaving.
Then other people wanted fridges, air conditioners and toasters. Now every time you boil the kettle, a 13 year old girl has to get married in Malawi.
Ferrgoodnesssake — the plight of these poor children won’t be fixed by a carbon tax or a windmill.
h/t Pat
8.9 out of 10 based on 55 ratings
Oh. My. Lord. Keep the car in the garage.
 … Climate Change Could Increase Volcano Eruptions
Dr Graeme Swindles, from the School of Geography at Leeds, said: “Climate change caused by humans is creating rapid ice melt in volcanically active regions. In Iceland, this has put us on a path to more frequent volcanic eruptions.”
The study examined Icelandic volcanic ash preserved in peat deposits and lake sediments and identified a period of significantly reduced volcanic activity between 5,500 and 4,500 years ago. This period came after a major decrease in global temperature, which caused glacier growth in Iceland.
The findings, published today in the journal Geology, found there was a time lag of roughly 600 years between the climate event and a noticeable decrease in the number of volcanic eruptions. The study suggests that perhaps a similar time lag can be expected following the more recent shift to warmer temperatures.
Read more at University of Leeds
It’s amazing what you can achieve when you take a simple correlation and run with it.
Look out, we may set off a deadly volcano spiral feedback: cars leading to more volcanoes, which put out more CO2, causing more warming, which causes more volcanoes.
For the past couple of months the crater lake temperature has also held steady at about 37°C , which is at the upper end of its scale.
Fine weather allowed GeoNet to make airborne gas measurements and these recorded high levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide emissions from the crater lake (Te Wai Ā-Moe).
“The CO2 emission rate on 23 November was 2290 tonnes/day, one of the largest values recorded in recent years.
Can someone figure out how many cars will have to stay off the road in NZ today to make up for the volcano?
UPDATE: Thanks to Neil – New Zealand has to get 458,000 cars from the roads tomorrow to offset the crater lake emissions. The total NZ car fleet is 5,021,994 cars. So that’s nearly 10%.
This one volcano is undoing quite a few years of vehicle efficiency gains, and it’s not even very active.
Douglas links to a cartoon take: “Let’s tax that Volcano”.
h/t ClimateDepot, Greg in NZ
8.8 out of 10 based on 67 ratings
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