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Last December British Fish and Chips was going to become Squid and Chips thanks to Climate Change. This year, cod will become anchovies. Battered anchovie anyone? British Fish and chips have been dying for a decade. Now, apparently, fish are shrinking, thanks to falling oxygen levels in the seas: By 2050, the size of fish could shrink by 10 – 20 per cent, Dr William Cheung, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, forecast. Dr Cheung, who gave a keynote address at the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles at Exeter University this week, said some fish in the North Sea, including haddock, were already getting smaller. Some might say the shrinking Haddock might have more to do with over-fishing. He predicted the trend would continue with common species such as cod shrinking by up to a fifth within our lifetime. Get ready for “child’s portions” of fish and chips. No really, that’s the headline, not the punchline. Climate change will extinguish Life on Earth but if that doesn’t scare you, let me tell you about your shrinking food. Kiddie meals are coming! The marine ecologist said fish are shrinking because climate change is reducing the oxygen in the seas available for fish to breath. The marine ecologist went on to say that because oceans are warming, fish that swim around Portugal and Spain will call the UK home. Right now the ocean around the UK is 17C — at least three degrees colder than the water off Portugal. The ARGO buoys estimate the ocean is warming at 0.005°C per year (plus or minus 0.5° C, don’t laugh now.) So only 600 years to go at this rate, give or take 60,000 years. How much is oxygen actually declining? The rise in ocean temperature is reducing the oxygen in the waters for fish to breathe, while increasing fish’s need for oxygen simultaneously. Fish are more easily ‘short-of-breath’ as they grow bigger. As the temperature of the surface of the oceans increases, the water holds less oxygen for fish to breathe. This is exacerbated because, as the seas warm up, oxygen from the depths of the ocean does not mix with the surface water as readily. In addition, water does not circulate as swiftly, which means the deep ocean is not as well ventilated. I’d like to see some measurements on those falling oxygen levels before I stock up on frozen codfish. Dr Cheong seems to be mixing up atmospheric warming with ocean warming: In the last few decades the surface oceans have warmed up by less than a degree celcius. Dr Cheung, a former lead author in the Working Group II of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), projected that achieving the Paris Agreement of the 1.5 – 2.0 oC global warming targets will substantially reduce impacts. But if emissions are not reduced, there could be 3.5 – 4.0 oC warming, by the end of the century. Extrapolated fish are coming your way. “Oh My Cod” comes from Sophie Morris and The Sun. h/t Willie
Something very “seismic” has happened to our electricity prices.Paul McArdle of WattClarity goes through each state looking at quarterly trends and prices, and remarks that things are going “off the chart”. We had some electricity crises in Australia in the last 12 months, and 2016 was a significantly more expensive than all previous years bar the major drought year of 2007. But ominously, prices haven’t come down in what should be a “normal” quarter. In Tasmania there was a crisis last year when dams ran dry, and the undersea Bass cable broke. But this quarter, prices are only $3.20/MWh lower than the crisis levels of Q2 2016 despite water in dams and a working cable to Victoria. Something has gone seriously wrong with our electrical grid and market. In both Victoria and South Australia prices are higher on average than any previous April-June quarter in the 19 year history of the National Electricity Market. In Queensland and New South Wales, prices are at the “second highest”. McArdle goes to some length to explain that this is not “one factor”, which seems obvious and fair — Its the combination of the closure of Hazelwood and Port Augusta coal generators; the extremely high gas-prices; the lack of wind; the increase of intermittent renewables; and the way electricity generators game the market. But what McArdle doesn’t mention is that these factors are not independent. If there was more coal fired power there wouldn’t be such high gas prices, and if there weren’t intermittent, highly subsidized generators, there wouldn’t be as much room to “game” the market. If there is some ominous leap in electricity prices, we know from years of experience that a grid with a lower renewables input provides cheaper time-weighted average prices even though for some isolated, miraculous moments every day, using a cherry picked description, and ignoring costs of transmission lines and auxiliary services (like “stability”) we could say we are getting “free electricity”. A grid is a complicated animal, and people studying small separate parts of it can make accurate but totally contradictory statements. What matters is the total cost of electricity over all, after the wash, the games, the crises and the subsidies are played out. The high gas prices have other causes beyond coal and renewables, but there’s no question that Australia had a cheap backup, it could always use coal, which would mean the high gas prices wouldn’t have to hurt so much. The renewables subsidies are pushing the cheapest electricity source out of business. There is an Easy and Obvious way to let the market fix this problem that the government hath engendered, but there is no easy and obvious way to run a grid off wind and solar and no easy way to control our climate in 2100 using electrical power stations in 2017. Thanks to Paul McArdle for crunching these numbers. Even the ABC is paying attention now, writing both “Power prices are ‘off the chart‘ and there’s no relief in sight” and “Victorian businesses struggling with power ‘train wreck’ as wholesale prices triple since 2015“. Go to his site for the gory details. If spot price outcomes through Q2 2016 were “truly remarkable” then price outcomes for Q2 2017 were off the chartPaul McArdle, Wattclarity In Victoria, we see , we see the average price for the Quarter break $100/MWh (up at $104.92/MWh) – a gut-wrenching level for the vast majority of energy users in what has traditionally been one of the more “boring” quarters. In Victoria, we see that average Q2 prices have never been higher, across all 19 years of NEM history. Saving (in this case) the worst for last, we then step over to South Australia where the time-weighted average price for the quarter reached a staggering $115.93/MWh, … it is clearly the highest Q2 average price South Australia has seen over the 19 year history of the NEM.  …. In the same vein as last year, the most important take-aways from this analysis should be:  … Historical average price not enough to start generatorsTwo years ago, the average Q2 wholesale price ranged between Victoria’s $31KWh and $45/KWh in South Australia. However the cost structure has shifted dramatically. “These days generators can’t, or don’t bid, at anything much under $50/MWh,” Mr McArdle said. See: Wattclarity for the rest. h/t David B. July 7th, 2017 | Tags: Electricity Cost, Electricity Grids | Category: Electricity, Energy, Global Warming, Renewable |  Print This Post | | The BOM got caught this week auto-adjusting cold extremes to be less cold. Lance Pidgeon of the unofficial BOM audit team noticed that the thermometer at Goulburn airport recorded – 10.4°C at 6.17am on Sunday morning, but the official BOM climate records said it was -10.0°C. (What’s the point of that decimal place?) Either way this was a new record for Goulburn in July. (The previous coldest ever July morning was -9.1°C. The oldest day in Goulburn was in August 1994 when it reached -10.9°C). Apparently this was an automated event where the thermometer recorded something beyond a set limit, and the value put into the official database was the artificial limit. Since colder temperatures have already been recorded in Goulburn, who thought it was a good idea to trim all future minus-ten-point-somethings as if they were automatically “spurious”? Yesterday, the BOM have acknowledged the error and at first deleted the -10.0 figure, replacing it with a blank space. Then today, after Jennifer Marohasy’s post, they’ve corrected it. You might think a half degree between friends is not that significant, but this opens a whole can of worms in so many ways — what are these “limits”, do they apply equally to the high side records, who set them, how long has this being going on, and where are they published? Are the limits on the high temperatures set this close to previously recorded temperatures? How many times have raw records been automatically truncated? This raises questions about what is “raw” data?Perhaps most importantly, Jennifer Marohasy, I and the whole BOM audit team had been told that the Climate Data Online (CDO) represented real raw temperatures. Now apparently it does not. Raw is not necessarily raw it seems, but pre-adjusted and possibly by unpublished, unknown methods? The CDO data is the only data that matters for long term climate studies. To a scientist, shouldn’t the real raw data be kind of sacred? Marohasy uses a simple plot of minimum temperatures recorded at Goulburn and a normal curve to show that the BOM choice of -10.0 would be expected to cut off normal real raw measurements.  …
Who knew that they had set up “limits” on thermometer readings to filter out the “spurious” extremes? This is yet another way to bias the long term so-called “raw” climate data. Thanks to a belief in Man-Made-Global-Warming, researchers might have a mindset that temperatures can only naturally break records on the high side, so they may have set asymmetrical high and low limits. There’s no way to know until the BOM provides the details. But if the if the top-end limit is set at 52C, while the bottom end limit is set at -10 — a temperature that have already been recorded in recent history — this would be, yet another, artificial bias. High end noise might be considered “real” while low end real data might be considered “spurious”. Where are these methods published, or is it another secret process? July 5th, 2017 | Tags: Adjustments to data, Australian temperatures, BOM | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | The wind fizzled out over the South East slab of Australia during June. Predictably, that meant the wind industry lost millions, and wholesale electricity prices went up. When the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) was asked where the wind had gone, Darren Ray, expert climatologist, said it was due to a high pressure system over the bight, which, he explained, was linked to “climate change”. Thus, as the world warms, wind farms will be progressively more useless in South Australia. Perhaps the BOM should have mentioned that before SA became dependent on wind farms? I don’t think he had thought this one through. Perhaps the BOM is hoping that the masochistic sacrifice of South Australia will stop global warming before global warming stops the wind farms? You might think that if the global climate models could see this coming they would have suggested that wind farms weren’t a good idea. Or maybe, since climate models predict every equal and opposite outcome in unison, the models are always right post hoc, but not so useful in projections? Climate models predict climate change causes faster and slower winds over AustraliaIn 2017, Darren Ray, BOM expert, said the decrease in winds was due to the widening of the tropical belt. But back in 2011, CSIRO predicted that climate change caused winds to increase over Australia for the exact same reason. Climate change ‘blowing in’ stronger winds, CSIRO finds WIND speeds in Australia have increased by about 14 per cent over the past two decades” “We think the overall increase is caused by the widening of the tropical belt, due to climate change,” he said. In 2011, CSIRO predicted that climate change would help wind farms: “The findings were significant for wind-farm developers as they meant increased productivity….” Although the CSIRO’s research on wind speeds is good news for wind-power development, supportive government policies will continue to provide the strongest incentive for the industry. There’s a lesson for investors there about climate models. Note that the “NEM” data is not just about South Australia. It means the whole damn National Electricity Market — including Victoria, NSW, Tasmania, and Qld. h/t to Stop These Things. The wind slowed dramatically this June:Where’s the wind gone? NEM-wide wind farm operation lowest in 5 yearsPaul McArdle, WattClarity “….we have to go back to April 2012 (just over 5 years ago) to see a lower aggregate production from wind. That’s truly astonishing. Considering that there have been many new wind farms commissioned in the 5 year period (like Hornsdale in July 2016 and Ararat in August 2016), it does beg two questions:  … South Australian customers get higher bills:Lack of wind blows out South Australia power costsGeoff Chambers, The Australian: “The drop in wind supply pushed average South Australian prices for the June quarter to $116 per MWh, up from $81 in the previous June quarter. The Wind industry companies are losing millions:Last week, New Zealand wind power company Tilt Energy, which owns the Snowtown 1 and Snowtown 2 wind farms in South Australia, issued a $10 million-$12m pre-tax profit downgrade because of the lack of wind. It followed a $9m-$12m downgrade for the same reason the previous week by Sydney-based Infigen Energy. “Production from Australian assets for June will represent the lowest month of production since the full commissioning of these assets in 2008 and 2014 respectively,” Tilt said… The BOM blame Climate Change:Darren Ray, a senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the low winds had been caused by a high pressure system over the Bight. … Global warming was making the high pressure systems more common. “There is a long-term trend linking it (high pressure systems in the Bight) to climate change,” Mr Ray said. “The tropics expand as the planet warms and that sees high pressure systems staying throughout the south longer than they used to.” Paul McArdle adds in a PS. There have been some of the lowest wind speeds recorded for many-a-year. He also notes that there may be other factors at work too, like technical problems with rotor bearings reducing output at one “farm” in NSW. Yes, well, but that is another problem isn’t it? Collecting low density wind energy requires massive infrastructure, subject to extreme conditions, and that will always be prone to problems. Last word to commenter “John” at The Australian who seems to be onto something: There seems to be a strong correlation between closing coal fired power stations and a fall in wind speeds. The evidence is clear. Anyone who doesn’t believe the correlation is a coal powered wind denialist. In order to avert this problem we need to subsidise the construction of coal fired power stations. The last, last word to Ruairi: In winter, high pressure brings chill, — Ruairi BACKGROUND INFO: See Aneroid for Wind Farm output data for June 2017, compared to June 2016, June 2015, and June 2014. The graph changes scale in 2017 when MW production makes it up to 2,200W only once briefly. In other years, wind farms produce closer to 3,000MW. h/t RobertR July 5th, 2017 | Tags: Predictions (that went wrong), Renewable Energy, SA (South Australia), Wind Power | Category: Energy, Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | “End-Coal” Global Coal Tracker does a magnificent job of showing how essential coal is around the world, and which countries are pathetically backwards in developing new coal plants. It’s probably not what the “CoalSwarm” team was hoping to achieve, but this map is a real asset to those of us who want to show how tiny Australia’s coal fired assets are compared to the rest of the world. The site itself is a fancy-pants high gloss major database and website that also shows how much money is in the “anti-coal” movement. Oh, that skeptics should have even 2% of these funds. Heffa Schücking, the director of Urgewald, which created the maps, calls it a “cycle of coal dependency”. Normal people call it “freedom and wealth”. Chinese companies build coal plants — NY Times These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, roughly a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries. Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent. “Even today, new countries are being brought into the cycle of coal dependency,” said Heffa Schücking, the director of Urgewald. Coal plants operating and planned for China and JapanThis map undersells the enormity of Chinese coal. Look at the number of turbines in some circles, 46, 56, 77, 167!  Operating or new coal fired plants in China and Japan (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for USA and CanadaThe largest number of turbines in one place is 28.  Operating or new coal fired plants in USA and Canada (Click to Enlarge) Closed or cancelled coal fired power in the USA and Canada Closed or cancelled coal fired power in the USA and Canada (click to enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for Australia and New ZealandThe two in SA are in Whyalla (not Port Augusta). But the 18 in Victoria include Hazelwood’s turbines, so the map is not entirely up to date. Tell us again how shutting down coal stations in Australia will change storms, floods and cyclones in 2099? In NZ coal use this week has doubled as the hydro dams dry up. h/t Greg from NZ  Operating or new coal fired plants in Australia and New Zealand (Click to Enlarge) Closed or cancelled in Australia and New Zealand Closed or cancelled coal fired power in Australia and New Zealand (click to enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for Europe Operating or new coal fired plants in Europe (Click to Enlarge) A continent in decline — look at how many have closed or been cancelled in Europe — Ouch! Cancelled, shelved, or retired coal fired plants in Europe (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for Eastern Europe Operating or new coal fired plants in Eastern Europe (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for IndiaIndia plans to double coal mining by 2020. One ‘dot’ here has 100 turbines.  Operating or new coal fired plants in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for Russia and Eurasia Operating or new coal fired plants in Russia and Eurasia (Click to Enlarge)
Coal plants operating and planned for SE AsiaThe yellow dots mark the new announcements. The number of turbines is low, but growing fast. Obviously there is a lot going on in SE Asia. Indonesia has doubled its coal consumption since 2010.  Operating or new coal fired plants in SE Asia (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for AfricaThe saddest map of all. The total population of the whole of the 58 African countries is at 1.15 Billion people, and probably close to 600 Million people or even more have no access whatsoever to any electrical power. TonyfromOz shows how 22 African nations don’t even use as much electricity as the small town of Dubbo (pop. 40,000) in Australia.  Operating or new coal fired plants in Africa (Click to Enlarge) Coal plants operating and planned for Latin America Operating or new coal fired plants in Latin America (Click to Enlarge) h/t Pat and El Gordo, GWPF. Tricky maths in Australia. Should we save $800 million dollars and get stable cheap modern electric power or give that money to renewables giants to help them compete with our fifty year old coal fleet and get us 0.0001% better weather in 2100*? Hmm. What to do?! A new HELE Coal plant (also known as an Ultra Super Critical — USC– coal generator) would cost $2.2 billion. We currently pay $3b a year in renewables subsidies. A modern coal plant would make 1,000MW of electricity 24 hours a day (and stabilize the grid for free). Renewables subsidies get us free electricity at random moments which we may or may not need, they need expensive gas back up, and add enormous costs to stabilize the grid. If we get one modern hot coal plant we might catch up to countries like Indonesia, and Malaysia, though we’ll still be far behind India and Japan, which is building 45 USC plants. As of May 2017, China has at least 90 USC plants. The USA has one. What does an “advanced economy mean”?
The Minerals Council has a new report out with some Fun Facts and numbers screaming for attention:
 …. The Minerals Council of Australia produced detailed costings of electricity production. Ignore the CCS fantasy stats.
 …. … Like Australia, the USA coal fleet is old and cold: “Among the top 100 most efficient plants in the United States, the initial operating years range from 1967 to 2012. In China, the oldest plant on the top 100 list was commissioned in 2006, and the youngest was commissioned in 2015,” GreenTechMedia If we cared about emissions intensity, these figures look wildly impressive — is that an 85% reduction in emissions intensity?: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important and replacing the existing coal fleet with HELE technology would save 44.2 million tonnes of CO2 or over 25 per cent of National Electricity Market coal generation emissions. At an individual power station level, with the future adoption of CCS, emissions intensity of USC plants would fall from 0.773 to 0.106 tonnes CO2/MWh. — Minerals Council of Australia So that’s a 25% reduction in our CO2 emissions from coal if we converted all our coal plants to USC. The Greens, of course, will hate it. Keep reading → So having some solar waste panels lying around is not exactly like having a second-hand nuclear fuel rod in the basement, but there will be Gigatons-to-Go, the volume is spectacular, and we can’t eat cadmium for breakfast. There will literally be a mountain of toxic garbage — and only Europe, apparently, has a rule about solar manufacturers having to collect and figure out what to do with the solar waste. (And with a 25 year lifespan, how much, exactly, is even that worth? Just say “Solyndra“.) A new study from a group called Environmental Progress shows that solar panels make 300 times more volume of toxic waste per megajoule as nukes do. All estimates like these are based on assumptions and guesses, so perhaps it’s not that bad. The study might be exaggerated, and maybe solar panels are only 100 times larger in volume than nukes eh? Where’s the Green outcry.  … Study: Solar panels a looming toxic ‘crisis’Discarded solar panels, piling up around the world, are detrimental to the environment, according to a new study by Environmental Progress. And carcinogenic. And teratogenic. While environmentalist have warned for decades of the hazard of nuclear power, solar panels produce 300 times more toxic waste per unity of energy than nuclear power plants, warns Berkeley, California-based EP. Discarded solar panels not only contain lead, but chromium and cadmium – both of which are carcinogenic. The Study comes from Environmental Progress: Last November, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a stark warning: the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces every year will rise from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the nation has no plan for safely disposing of it. A recent report found that it would take 19 years for Toshiba Environmental Solutions to finish recycling all of the solar waste Japan produced by 2020. By 2034, the annual waste production will be 70 – 80 times larger than that of 2020. Environmental Progress investigated the problem to see how the problem compared to the much more high-profile issue of nuclear waste. We found:
If you wonder about the validity of the assumptions (fair enough) check out the Environmental Progress blog. There are some pretty aggressive critics, and some very informed replies (and more in that chain). Look for responses from Michael Shellenberger and Jemin Desai and Mark Nelson (the latter two are the authors). h/t Jim Simpson I’d like to thank South Australia for so selflessly showing the world how well renewables work. (And thank we West Australians for paying for it). To get ready for the shortfalls next summer, the SA government is said to be ordering in 220MW of diesel generation at an expected cost of $114m. The government has contracted privately owned South Australian electricity distribution company SA Power Networks to obtain and install 200 megawatts of back-up generation across the state before summer. But despite promising a “detailed costing” would be provided in last week’s state budget, Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis did not offer any such details. The opposition said the budget had allocated $114m for operational costs in 2017-18 from the $550m energy plan, “indicating the diesel generators are going to be very expensive”. This $106m sacrifice is expected to reduce global temperature by 0.000C, but will save the premier from being called a climate denier at dinner parties: “Eighteen months ago the Tasmanian government spent $64m in leasing, site establishment and operational costs for 220MW of diesel generation for three months when a combination of drought and repairs to the Basslink left it short of electricity,” energy spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said. “Rather than spend $8m a year to keep the (coal-fired) Northern Power Station operating, Jay Weatherill has chosen to spend up to $100m a year on diesel generation until the government turns on its promised new gas generator in two years’ time.” — The Australian, Michael Green. SA will be building a new gas generator in two years time to take advantage of obscenely high gas prices. It doesn’t have to be this way. June 30th, 2017 | Tags: Renewable Energy, SA (South Australia) | Category: Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | South Australia has the largest uranium deposit in the world, which it digs up to sell to other countries to make electricity. It also has lots of sun and wind and empty space. If any state can make solar and wind power work, surely it’s there. And renewables are working for SA, working to put it in top place for Global Electricity Bills. South Australia power prices to rise to highest in the world on Saturday, energy expert warnsSouth Australia will overtake Denmark as having the world’s most expensive electricity when the country’s major energy retailers jack up their prices this Saturday. AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy will all increase their electricity prices from July 1, adding hundreds of dollars to annual household bills. Residential customers will see an average rise of 18 per cent under AGL, 19.9 per cent from EnergyAustralia, 16.1 per cent with Origin Energy. Bruce Mountain, the head of a private energy consultancy firm, said the increases would see South Australia take the lead on world power prices — but for all the wrong reasons. “After taxes, the [typical] household in South Australia will be paying slightly more than the [typical] household in Denmark, which currently has the highest prices in the world,” Mr Mountain said. Naturally, though both Denmark, and SA have the highest percentage of “renewable” energy in the world, this has nothing to do with them also being number one and two for Global High Cost Electricity. It’s just really bad luck that there is no country anywhere in the world which has both wind and solar and cheap electricity. Michael McClaren, interviews Bruce Mountain, expert: From commenter Pat: “…he exonerates wind and solar early in the piece, but it’s enough to listen from 11 mins in where he says (paraphrasing) – “…renewables have nothing to do with electricity price rises. wind & solar now cheaper at an average cost than coal or gas. transformation in energy, old world vs new world (of renewables). Mountain finally admits he doesn’t know if the total cost of the new world is higher than the total cost of the old world, but simply saying wind & solar are driving up our costs is not right. AUDIO: 13mins29secs: 29 Jun: 2GB: Michael McClaren: Power prices highest in the world Bruce Mountain blames bad governance, which is also surely true, but alas, a confounding problem. Which state with a free market in electricity could also have a high uptake of wind and solar? Mountain thinks it’s worth mentioning that the marginal cost of wind and solar when they are producing is zero (as if the aim of an electricity grid was to provide random spikes of electricity “as the wind blows”. He doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning the 24 hours demand for spinning inertia to stabilize the grid, which coal and gas provide “for free”). He argues that the zero cost nature of wind and solar depresses the wholesale price of electricity, and then people play a lot of games with electricity pricing (which I’m sure is true). He doesn’t say that in the old electricity market, there were less games, because it was a lot less complicated, and it didn’t need so much “governance” and “regulation”. Ignoring the extra grid costs, transmission lines, and the devastating effect the intermittency and instability of wind and solar power Mountain claims a lot of wind and solar has a cheaper average cost than coal or gas. Yet even he has to concede that he “doesn’t know if the total cost of the new world is higher than the cost of the old world”. Given that grid scale electricity is so difficult to estimate costs for surely the only marker that counts is the actual consumer price (plus taxpayer subsidies). If solar and wind are so cheap where is the key observation — the wealthy state running on wind and solar that attracts new businesses because of its cheap electricity? h/t David B, pat UPDATE: There’s more here on electricity price comparisons around the world. June 29th, 2017 | Tags: Electricity Cost, SA (South Australia) | Category: Electricity, Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | How often do you clean your solar panels? Spare a thought for the poor sods in the Middle East, India and China, where migratory dust coats solar panels and hangs around in the air, blocking incoming sunlight. Researchers in India who cleaned their panels every few weeks and discovered that they got a 50% jump in efficiency each time. If the cleanings happened every two months, the total losses were 25 to 35 percent. The article very much blames human pollution for half the capacity loss, but in the detail, the press release admits that 92% of the dust on each panel was natural. Apparently human made particles are smaller and stickier which makes the 8% human-emitted-dust equivalent to the 92% of other dust. Either way, real pollution and natural dust will slow the clean-green-energy future in India and China until we get auto-cleaning panels or roof slaves. Unfortunately, cleaning panels also risks damaging them, so the price of solar power really needs to include the cost of windscreen-wipers/slaves, electricity losses, damage to panels, and damage to the panel cleaners too. But solar panels will definitely power all the other parts of the world that are near enough to the equator and not in the path of flying dust, pollution, or under too many clouds, and especially those with electricity demand that peaks at 12 noon daily, which no modern country does. — Jo Keep reading → June 28th, 2017 | Tags: China, India, Solar Energy (PV) | Category: Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | A business processing 15% of Australia’s low grade plastics survived for 37 years with coal fired power in SA, and for one year without: South Australia’s sky-high electricity prices have forced an Adelaide plastics recycling business to shut its doors, costing 35 workers their jobs, its managing director says. Plastics Granulating Services (PGS), based in Kilburn in Adelaide’s inner-north, said it had seen its monthly power bills increase from $80,000 to $180,000 over the past 18 months. Managing director Stephen Scherer said the high cost of power had crippled his business of 38 years and plans for expansion, and had led to his company being placed in liquidation. “I hate to think of how many hours I’ve wasted on the AEMO website with tools to monitor spot pricing, to assess the implications of power, the trends of power and the future costs of power. The SA Government is still in denial: SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter said it was disappointing the facility was shutting down, but he said the pain of high electricity prices was being felt across the country. Mr Hunter said help was available through the State Government’s energy efficiency programs. “Green Industries and Zero Waste have quite a bit of expertise in this area [and] they’ve worked with other companies and other industry sectors,” he said. “If that help is not required then that’s up to him, but that’s the offer I can make.” “Having high power prices … is a reality,” he said. “That’s why the Government has introduced its state plan for energy in South Australia. Commenter Bulldust: “It’s a shame most Greens supporters don’t get irony. You want renewable energy or recycling? Pick one… h/t Bulldust, OriginalSteve, David Maddison June 27th, 2017 | Tags: Recycling, SA (South Australia) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Don’t miss this if you can get there :- ) (And don’t forget to sign that Petition to get Australia out of the Paris Agreement too).  … U.S.-based CFACT, along with its Australian partners, is hosting a showing of its new groundbreaking documentary, Climate Hustle, and you’re invited! Following each event, join film director CFACT Executive Director, Craig Rucker and film host and publisher of ClimateDepot.com Marc Morano, for a question and answer session. Get the behind the scenes scoop on both the film and the US’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. This could be the antidote to the Al Gore effect. As Tim Blair says “Get out of Melbourne while you still can — the notorious serial chiller is coming. Let’s see if Al can break Melbourne’s 2015 July chill record.” We are pleased to be working with the following organizations: July 12- Melbourne, Australia July 15- Brisbane, Australia July 18- Sydney, Australia Information about Climate Hustle. | Information about CFACT. FILM DESCRIPTION: Are emissions from our cars, factories, and farms causing catastrophic climate change? Is there a genuine scientific consensus? Or is man-made “global warming” an overheated environmental myth being used to push for drastic government control and a radical “Green” energy agenda? This film, hosted by award-winning journalist Marc Morano of CFACT’s ClimateDepot.com, features interviews and comments from no fewer than 30 renowned and well-regarded scientists and experts. These include a number of individuals who were former global warming believers or came from the political Left but were compelled to speak out after reexamining the evidence or watching the debate about global warming degenerate into absurd political demagoguery. These are people like: Dr. Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania; Former Greenpeace co-founder and ecologist Patrick Moore; UN IPCC lead author and economist Dr. Richard Tol of the Netherlands; and the late Dr. Bob Carter of James Cook University. Viewers of Climate Hustle will get an informative and entertaining look at the media hype stoking the climate fires, along with the science refuting the outlandish claims of activists and alarmists who want to blame every strange weather event – and bizarre societal evil – on man-made global warming. _________ Reviews are stellar! Weather Channel founder John Coleman: “We climate change skeptics have long needed a film to counter An Inconvenient Truth. This may be it. I was honored to be asked to record the introduction of the movie for its May 2nd debut at 400 theaters, so I was provided a preview of the entire film. It is not made for scientists and political activists. It is designed to reach the general public including teenagers. It is my hope that in the years to come it will be shown just before or after Al Gore’s sci-fi epic in every school. I the meantime I will buy tickets and attend the showing at the nearest theater to my new home in Las Vegas. I hope it draws a crowd and holds and pleases the audience.” Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That: “The film’s strength is it’s wickedly effective use of slapstick humor, and making use of the words and deeds of alarmists to make you laugh at them. Climate Hustle is a brilliant use of their own ammunition against them… Monday May 2nd will be an historic night, since there’s never been a skeptic film like this before. So if you haven’t already, invite a friend who thinks the world is going to hell in a hand-basket due to climate change to sit back and take in the reality with some popcorn. Get a large bucket, you’ll need it.” “While the former VP Gore lectured us on what will happen in a warming world, Morano uses his genial personality and effective talking points to underscore the debate was never over. The perfect antidote to An Inconvenient Truth’s hectoring host, Morano not only challenges the viewer with pesky facts, but he also engages us with historical precedents….The effervescent narrator gently guides you through a millennia of scientific misdeeds, consensus science, and green zealotry. Morano talks to over a dozen climatologists, a bevy of scientists, meteorologists, a couple of Nobel winners, all the while interspersing archival footage that will shock and infuriate you. It’s the end of the world, and kittens will probably die too. Here’s another round of Global Panic.Horror part I: you will get stuck at airport-worldEarlier this week, nearly 50 flights out of Phoenix were cancelled. At 120 degrees, the temperature forecast exceeded the airline’s 118 degrees maximum operating temperature. It’s difficult not to connect the delays to climate change…. It’s difficult not to blame climate change, after a generation of brainwashing. So Phoenix got to 48.9C which made it nearly as hot as Marble Bar, Australia, last year (when it was 49C). After 80 years of deadly global warming both towns were nearly as hot as Marble Bar was in 1922. As the world continues to warm, such plane delays will become more common, says Camilo Mora, an associate geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And that’s just the beginning. And imagine what associate professors of geology might forecast on flight patterns circa 2080? You’ll never know if you read Fortune, where anyone can forecast climate bad-news, but prize-winning atmospheric scientists remain invisible if they stick to things they know, like the failure rate of climate models. Horror part II: You will spend all summer locked indoors and You Might DieAccording to a study co-authored by Mora, if carbon emissions aren’t reduced, by 2100 New York City will experience about 50 days per year of heat and humidity conditions that has resulted in death (up from about two days now). Meanwhile, in cities such as Orlando and Houston, this threshold will be crossed for the entire summer, making it unsafe to go outside for extended periods of time. “We’ll become prisoners of our houses,” says Mora. Mora is doing what he was paid to do. Apparently his role is to take predictions from broken climate models, extrapolate that failure for decades, and turn that bad news into a press release. What almost no one is paid to do is check the assumptions on failing GCM’s or find natural causes of climate change. Thus proving that evolution works in science funding, grants support research that supports more grants. Horror part III: Power failures will kill youUnlike the other predictions, this one may actually happen, but the deadly force is renewable subsidies: Power outages, like the one that swept through Northeast and the Midwest in 2003 — leaving 50 million people without electricity—will no longer be an inconvenience, but a national emergency. Horror Part IV: Roads and train tracks will melt and buckle under the heat.Like chocolate, asphalt can grow mushy under the blazing sun. As the temperatures becomes more extreme in the summers, highways will “start to melt,” says Mora. Do people in the US not know that asphalt and bitumen go soft in the high 40s? Did we need a study to see that? Fortune subscribers like to hear that other people are more stupid than they are?The Global Smugness is strong with Laura Entis and Assoc Prof Mona: Unfortunately, as a species, “we suffer from short-term memory,” he says. When, earlier this week, a heat wave hit the Southwestern states, climate change was in the news. But “next week, when the heat wave is gone, everyone will be talking about something else.” Instead of putting your head in the sand, Mora urges action, even if it’s minor: “consume less,” he says. Try to drive less, turn down your thermostat, or reduce your meat intake. Why would people pay to be told they have memory loss, are short term, probably mentally deficient, selfish sods with their heads in the sand? Surely this patronizing preachy dictat is not written to convince the unwashed masses. So who wants to buy this — could it be the patsies who think that eating Tofu, catching a bus, and staying cold at home will help to improve the weather for their children’s children? Could be. People who hold those improbable notions might enjoy hearing how stupid everyone else is. This is self-congratulation as form of subscription driver. I predict that Fortune subscriptions will be trending lower… June 27th, 2017 | Tags: Satire & Parody, Science (funding of) | Category: Big-Government, Global Warming | Print This Post | | Al Gore’s new move is to wrap the global warming religion in with a bucket-list of “moral movements”, evidently targeting the naive souls who seek an Instant Life’s Mission, and / or approval from sorority girls: Al Gore: battle against climate change is like fight against slaveryThe fight against global warming is one of humanity’s great moral movements, alongside the abolition of slavery, the defeat of apartheid, votes for women and gay rights, according to the former US vice-president and climate campaigner, Al Gore. He forgets to add the defeat of Hitler and eradication of small pox. Though he gets points for finding a way to quote Martin Luther King Jnr: “No lie can live forever”. Gore piles on the “industrial revolution” — apparently confusing actual working steam engines that move twenty thousand tons with solar cars whose weight is measured in kilograms and whose load bearing capacity is not even mentioned: The battle to halt climate change can be won, he said, because the green revolution delivering clean energy is both bigger than the industrial revolution and happening faster than the digital revolution. But he mixes up the exponential theoretical prospects of renewables with the exponential rising price of electricity. He appears to be launching a new advertising theme for the climate change movement now that “the science” meme is wearing out: “The climate movement should be seen in the context of the great moral causes that have transformed and improved the outlook for humanity,” he told the Ashden green energy awards ceremony. Prophet Gore speaks to disciples: “When the central issue was thus framed in stark relief because of who we are as human beings, the outcome became foreordained,” Gore said. And Thus and Verily did the people come forth to hold back tides, stop storms and generally felt Very Self Important, fulfilled, and full of Global Smugness. h/t Climate Depot Let’s get Australia out of the pointless Paris Agreement which will cost trillions, hurt the poor, send Australian manufacturing overseas, kill birds, bats, whales, raise electricity prices, and not change global temperatures by any measurable amount. This is a very well reasoned petition written by someone very familiar with the details of IPCC proceedings. It is an official petition, and alas, needs to be limited to Australian signatories. Jo _______________________________________________________________ An electronic petition for the House of Representatives requesting Australia pull out of the Paris Agreement. EN0264
To the Hon. Speaker of the House of Representatives and Members of the House of Representatives
Certain citizens of Australia
(a) The damage and impairment to the Australian economy and the financial pain inflicted on our citizens and residents caused by inflated energy costs will be very significant and are very likely to be increased in future.
(b) Australian greenhouse gas emissions are insignificant and have no measurable influence on global average temperature, meaning that Australia’s involvement is merely a political gesture.
(c) The ratification of the Agreement seems to have ignored the following statements of IPCC’s Fifth Climate Assessment Report (5AR) of 2013:
(i) atmospheric carbon dioxide increased over the 15 years prior to the report,
(ii) there was no statistical certainty that average global temperature increased over that time and
(iii) 111 of 114 climate model runs predicted greater warming over that period than the temperature observations indicate. These statements undermine the notion of significant manmade warming and undermine the credibility of claims based on the output of climate models.
(d) The ratification appears to have ignored the detail of the Agreement, specifically “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. The Agreement gives no indication of when “pre-industrial” refers to, no indication of how global average temperatures at that time were determined or of how the current average global temperature will be calculated for the purposes of the Agreement.
Australia to follow the lead of the USA and immediately withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
NB: Closing date for signatures is Wednesday, 19 July 2017
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