|
|
Unthreaded Weekend
…
7 out of 10 based on 14 ratings
|
JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
|
Wow! First comment on an Unthreaded post …
…
No, I got nothing …
60
I’ll help,
There once was a Mann from Nantucket….
30
(I’ll have a go.)
There once was a Mann from Nantucket
Who went to Finland with a bucket.
He collected lake sediment all day
And X-rayed it in his own special way.
The data’s upside down, but f*ckit!
60
There once was a Mann from Nantucket’
Who took chainsaw to tree and did cut it,
Upon reading the rings’
Proclaimed all warmist things.
And prolapsed his proxy and stuffed it.
50
I learned one starting that way (man, not Mann) but I dare not repeat it. Better be careful here. Limericks tend to be over the top. 😉
20
So, the leaked Climate Commission Report is calling for a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
C’mon all you warmists. Tell us all how we are going to do this. Tell us how the country can function on only 10% of current emissions.
100
Get rid of 90% of the population, simple green reasoning.
40
At last, somebody’s getting with the plan. We’ve been banging on about this since we had that meeting in Rome, way back in the day, and at last the message has got through.
What does it take to make you people realise exactly what is needed? If you’ll just take up smoking again, heavy drinking and fast driving we can spare you all those renewable solutions you despise. Fair exchange, shirley?
10
Right, and now they should go over to China and India and tell them to stop building new coal fired stations, because EACH YEAR they more than replace our TOTAL CO2 output.
Someone really needs to give these nongs a really good clip around the ears. !
Old time discipline !!
30
Obviously they have not flown over India at night at 30,000 feet.
The country glows with electric light emissions.
Until you actually see the density of population as reflected by the street, industry and house lights you will not understand how India thinks.
And it is diametrically opposed to the CAGW mantra.
10
Let the warmists tell us how they are each going to make do on only 10% of their current energy usage. That would be a challenge to all those people who fly all over the world to congregate at climate change/AGW panic conferences, living in luxury hotels, eating richly, using computers, mobile ‘phones, limousines and lots of lighting that they would deny to the rest of us! I trust also that they will show their belief in the melting of the Arctic and the rising of the seas by selling their beachside mansions.
20
Exactly Annie. I’d like to see how these IPCC fraudsters would continue their lavish conferences using Flintstone technology.
30
All the governments have that “goal,” they all have the same target date.
The people know they won’t be around then, they know the goal is unachievable, and they do it to buy votes in the here and now
10
Just get rid of the climate commission. And I don’t mean 90%, I mean 100% of it.
20
It would make a great “reality” TV show. Get several households of energy-cutting maniacs and challenge them to live for a year on 10% of the average power consumption, applied to all the goods, services and food they consume that uses electricity to produce, cut back by 90%.
I dont have a TV but perhaps Id get one to watch that!
20
And remember, because they are only allowed 10% of their previous CO2 output, they cannot use fires for cooking, and No candles either. Both those energy devices put out way more CO2 per unit energy than a well maintained COAL FIRED power station.
30
Michael, Michael!!!… Yoo hoo! You can be a STAR!!!!!!
10
My opinion is that people will simply migrate to Third World countries (as I already have) where there is ample cheap power, cheap gasoline and freedom.
As much as I miss Australia, unless things change direction radically I cannot see myself returning.
10
I think India will be reluctant to allow mass immigration of Westerners into their land.
And I would totally agree with them.
10
I’m in South America…. 🙂
Do it while you can… didn’t you say you hate pommie land?
10
I hope that Joanne, the Moderators, and you people as the contributors here don’t mind if I leave three comments early on this Unthreaded Post from Joanne.
As most of you know, I’ve been watching large scale coal fired power, especially in the U.S. for more than five years now. Not ONE of those large scale plants (of 750MW Capacity or greater, especially those 2000MW+) has closed in that time. The only ones that have closed are those smaller ones, and only due to the fact that they have reached their life expectancy, and all of them(and more) have been replaced by Natural gas Fired plants.
I have been wanting to chase up as much information on those large scale plants to find out their ages.
I have an old site that I visit that lists coal fired plants by State in the U.S. but it has no information other than a listing of names, so all I could do was then copy down the names of those 154 plants, and then try and find information about each individual plant, and as you might envisage, that is a pretty monumental task.
So I’ve been attempting to try and find a site where that might make it easier.
Search engine wording is the key here, so I have accessed a number of search engines, different wordings, and then searching the indexes at those search engine pages of listings of sites, and visiting site after site after site.
I’m pretty persistent, so this has taken me a while, and it’s no good just looking at page one of listings and if it isn’t there, then go somewhere else. I just have to keep checking them.
Lo and behold, I have finally struck gold, well nearly. I finally found a good site that gives me almost 95% of what I’m looking for. It was down on page 10 of the listings.
It has not only the information I was looking for, but more in fact.
So, I’ll leave the link for you all to have a look at, if you wish, and indicate some points for navigation purposes.
Then, if you have any questions, and hey, that’s presumptious of me. You may not even care.
The link to the site is below.
There’s such a wealth of information there that you could spend a lot of time there, and without much in the way of explanation, it may even be pretty meaningless.
However, the main thing I would point out is at the top left, under the site title, listed in Current Categories.
Just hover your mouse over the top title there, Power Plants. Notice how a supplementary menu now shows, and you can then click on any one of TEN types of electrical power generation.
You can click on any one of those and a listing of those types of power plants will then open.
This shows all of the power plants of that type in the World. It lists the Plant name, the Capacity, what Country and what State.
Each plant is listed as a blue link.
When you click on that link a new window will open and you can then see all the details about that plant.
THIS is the comprehensive site I have been looking for for so long now.
Now, if you wish, you can leave comments following this one and (if any) I’ll attempt to answer them, but in the interim, while I am preparing the other 2 Comments, they will be about coal fired power, and then Concentrating Solar plants, which is referred to here as Solar Thermal, so if there are any questions about them, then wait for those comments to appear.
Once you see information like this, you’ll see why I am a little happier now that I’ve found this site.
Now, why I have even bothered to mention it here is that I know at least some of you will save the site into your favourites, and then follow it at your leisure, and you all already know how I pick up so much information from you readers here. With just so much information available here, I can’t see it all, so I know that others amongst you here will find things that I might miss, so the more eyes on it, the better that is for me.
Global Energy Observatory
Tony.
140
Thank you Tony, I’ve saved the site and will check it out.
Looks very useful.
10
Thank you very much. You are very dedicated to make it page 10 of Google listing!
10
Anytime you want to pen another ‘guest post’ Tony, just let me know.
10
When you look at long term temperature graphs they show CO2 levels follow temperature. They also show CO2 levels remain high during most of the ice age periods. It is claimed that nitrogen, oxygen and argon, some 99.9% of the atmosphere is transparent to all bands of electromagnetic radiation. Thus the sun can shine through the clear air and warm the rocks which warms the air by conduction. The warm air expands and rises, known as convection. Warm air rising and expanding is NOT cooling. The energy is simply redistributed higher up the air column. Day after day, the sun warms the rocks and a heat pulse is added to the air. Since the air cannot cool by radiation it will keep getting hotter. In fact the atmosphere would be so hot life would not have evolved. Luckily we have some CO2 in the atmosphere. This can radiate down to a temperature of 193K. The higher in the atmosphere the more chance the radiation can escape to space. Very effective and only cooling path to space.
Go ahead and reduce CO2 levels. This will solve the evolutionary path for humanity and give the orang-utans a chance.
70
Great comment Richard. Brilliant summary.
KK
10
Okay, so the information I was looking for concerned Coal Fired Power, especially the ages of those large U.S. plants, 154 of them.
I found the site and the more I looked, the happier I was.
So, the bulk of the work now lies in front of me, but I would point out a few things here when you link into this coal fired plant page of Worldwide listings.
Note the large number of plants listed for China, and there’s 85 or so of them, This is about half, probably less really for all Chinese listings, as that information coming out of China is not all that easy to come by, so, they have just listed (some) of the plants there, and even with accurate information, it would be difficult to keep up with the scale of plant construction there.
Just in general, note specifically other (non Chinese listings) all show plants of every size. Just scroll and look at the sizes. Not many really large ones there 750MW+. Now look at China in general. nearly all of them are those large scale plants.
Now, for the Chinese plants, just scroll down and select one of the real biggies 4000MW+ and click on that.
Just scroll down and look at the information there, and you’ll see why I am so happy. Note just how many 1000MW SINGLE generator units the Chinese are now running, all of them either super critical or ultra super critical. Now, not alongside each unit is the date it started operation. There’s my gold star right there. That’s what I wanted.
Here in the already developed World, we are running big single generator units at 660MW, and for almost 10 years now, the Chinese have been using these 1000MW monsters.
And they say we are developed.
Okay then, now scroll down to the listings for the United States. It goes on and on and on and on.
Let’s actually select one of the biggies there, in fact the very first listing, the Barry coal plant in Alabama. Click on the blue link and it will open in a new window.
Scroll down under the map, and then even further down to the heading Unit Information.
Note how while those large scale Chinese plants have 600MW+ and some 1000MW+, this large scale US plant has ten separate units, and now note the unit Capacity size and the ages of them. The largest unit is barely 788MW (one unit only) and the rest of them are only small units.
Now note the age of the units, two of them from 1954, almost 60 years old, and the others range in age with the most recent still 13 years old.
Therein lies the problem.
Too many of these large scale plants have a number of separate units, all of them aging.
Even so, because they are at large scale plants, they are not being closed down.
The only REAL new technology plants being constructed are in fact in China. They burn considerably (and how do I stress that word considerably) less coal, hence emitting less CO2.
China has newer and much larger generators, producing more power for delivery to grids, run more efficiently, have a much larger Capacity factor, and are being constructed at a rate that cannot even be kept up with.
I feel sure some of you will (without doubt in fact) visit the Australian plants, and again, note specifically the ages of those units.
Some of you may even pick up that they are in fact delivering less power. I can see green heads nodding, saying that see how the CO2 tax is working already.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
It’s because of the age of the units, now needing more, and more intensive maintenance.
This a lot of work for me, but now I have the information, it became easier by about 90%.
List Of Coal Plants – GEO
Tony.
40
Just how much more efficient are the new super critical plants than the older generators ?
I guess they don’t approach the efficiency of gas plants ? or do they ?
Is it cost effective to upgrade an older power station ?
The co2 faithful won’t have done any calculations for this as it would likely show that they could get a far greater co2 reduction by building new coal plants than by building windmills. That would piss them off. But then it isn’t really about co2 reduction, more about a mechanism to gain political power and control of the population.
20
Okay, now let’s look at the Green Wet Dream, the way of the future, the replacement for those Base Load supplying coal fired power plants, Concentrating Solar Power, or solar thermal power.
For so long now green followers with NO knowledge whatsoever have been touting this, and saying that we need look no further than Spain to see these plants going in by the number and doing the job in Spain.
I make no apologies at all for shredding any person who has the unmitigated gall to even suggest that if Spain can do it, then why can’t we.
So, let’s look at Spain then.
They have 23 of these type of plants, two of them Power towers, one Fresnel Mirrors, and the remainder utilisng the most common construction for these, the Parabolic Trough.
One plant has 15 hours of thermal storage, one has 9 hours of thermal storage, and six of them have 7.5 hours of thermal storage. Here, where you see thermal storage, then that of itself adds 30 to 50% to the front end construction costs.
Note also as you look at that site, there’s no big generators here, just piddly little things no larger than 20 to 50MW at best.
All up the total Capacity comes in at 1,781MW. The power delivered for consumption from all of them comes in at 4598GWH, a seemingly huge amount.
This gives the whole solar fleet for all 23 plants a Capacity Factor of 29.45%.
That yearly Capacity factor equates on average to a daily power delivery of around 7 hours and 4 minutes.
Did that register yet?
7 hours and 4 minutes.
Now you tell me if that sounds like 24/7/365 power.
There is the ONE much vaunted Gemasolar plat, which actually produced power in the amount of 17MW for one full 24 hour period. That plant is rated at 19.9MW and has a yearly Capacity Factor of 62% the highest of all plants, which still only equates to an average of just under 15 hours still nowhere near 24/7/365. and hey who cares …… 19.9MW. Virtually nothing.
Those remaining plants that do have thermal storage have an average Capacity Factor of only 36% which equates to just on 8 hours and 40 minutes, even WITH thermal storage.
The remaining plants, all without thermal storage have an average capacity factor of 22% which equates to 5 hours and 17 minutes. God, even Wind
That’s for all 23 plants.
They have a Nameplate Capacity of 1781MW which is almost the same size as three of the four units (90% of those three units) at the ONE coal fired plant I use as a reference, Bayswater.
That’s three quarters of ONE plant.
Those three units at Bayswater deliver 2.85 times the power from all those Spanish CS plants for consumption at Australian grids.
Now, to construct those 23 plants here in Australia would cost in the vicinity of, in today’s dollars, not already constructed Spanish equivalent cost, but in AUD, in the vicinity of $20 Billion +, and even that would be on the low side.
And you still have not replaced the ONE large scale coal fired power plant.
And then you still only get power for 7 hours a day.
When anyone tells you that Spain has the answer, then that’s an ill informed outright lie.
This is not opinion.
This is actual data.
List Of Solar Thermal Plants – GEO
Tony.
82
Tony,
Don’t want nitpick, but you can’t have a person making an “ill-informed, outright lie”.
From the perspective of the person making it, if a statement is “ill-informed”, then it may be wrong, but it is believed to be true. Conversely, if a statement is an “outright lie”, then it is known to be untrue, and cannot be “ill-informed”.
An ill-informed person can repeat an outright lie, but, by definition, must believe it to be true. A person lying knows what the truth is, and by definition, cannot be “ill-informed”, as regards to the truth of the statement.
53
Some people just cannt add up. All they can do is believe & repeat whatever unqualified utterances they have heard, that appeal to them.
Propagating a lie is not llying, unless its known to be a lie.
It is the originators of such lies that need to be dealt with.
The rest is about education. That too has been hijacked by the liars, but that is nothing new & the liars are losing, thanks to relentless pursuits & illumination of the facts as we see here.
Liars dissemble & move on while truth stands the test of time.
50
There is a level of misinformation so misinformed that it is an outright lie even if the giver pretends to think it is correct. It is the responsibility of the giver of information to do due diligence to validate the information. If he does not and still pretends it is correct, it is willful ignorance and there by not at all an innocent mistake!
Reality is real and can be known. “Is” and “Is Not” are clear categories and not subject to one’s state of mind. To hold that something depends upon what “is” is, is itself a willful attempt to deceive and misdirect.
20
I have to split hairs, Lionell.
For your statement to be acceptable, there has to a definition of, and a demarcation between, the “giver” of information, and the “receiver”. For instance:
Professor Tim Flannery states that the atmosphere is still heating, but the temperature isn’t going up, because the “missing heat” is being “transmitted” into the oceans. This contradicts the flow of heat energy as defined by the Water Cycle, so it is both incorrect, and known by Flannery to be incorrect. He is lying.
A reporter repeats Flannery’s statement verbatim in the Melbourne Age. The reporter is both a “giver” and “receiver” of the information. The reporter has a responsibility of “due diligence” (as defined by you) but does not exercise it. The reporter is guilty of either “willful ignorance” (as defined by you), or bowing to authority, or stupidity.
Some bogan who dropped out of school at 14 and has never heard of The Water Cycle, reads the report, notes that it is credited to “The Climate Commissioner”, and accepts and believes it. He is ignorant, but not willfully so. He has, in his opinion, exercised “due diligence” in noting the claim is attributable to The Climate Commissioner, so from the uneducated bogan’s point of view, it MUST be correct.
22
Let me split the hair a bit more. If the reporter simply reported what another person said and gave proper attribution, then the reporter will be telling the truth. The other person actually said what the reporter said he said. However, as is so often the case, the reporter either says the content of the statement is true or leaves the impression that it is true WITHOUT first validating the content of the statement, it is a willful out right lie! The reporter is not innocent in the matter.
TRUE == what is actually the case in reality. FALSE == what is not the case in reality. What a thing is, is totally independent of the pretense, evasion, intent, or whim of the person making the statement. Reality is real. It is knowable. Having full respect for those facts is to be objective. Being willfully sloppy on this point no excuse.
30
Lionell, I was initially moved to comment along these very lines and you are right of course. One of the benefits of a smartphone, with its minuscule user interface, is giving much time to reflect while entering a reply & in that time I mellowed.
Popular culture doesn’t subscribe to your values of caring about being right and being seen to know is more, well popular, not to mention appearing in line with popular thinking.
It’s these values , of questioning, qualifying and taking responsibility for what we put our name to, that education has to teach first.
Teaching people how to think we won’t need to then train them so much what to think.
Many of us have survived a state education without the benefit of training in the classics. Those who could afford to pay for it just got off to a better start.
I thank encounters with those I have found via sites like this for understanding how I was already thinking.
30
I don’t give a rotten fig for what popular culture thinks! My life depends upon my taking full responsibility for knowing what is and being able to validate that knowledge. Popular culture simply wants to be a demented hall of mirrors where each person reflects what the others are reflecting. They are depending upon someone else to know and take responsibility for that knowledge. They don’t bother to notice that there is nothing of substance behind the mirrors. It is an infinite summation of zeros adding up to zero.
20
Popularity is very, well popular. That is much of the problem.
Questioning can become popular too though.
Many accepted facts are but working assumptions, of the ones that aren’t outright lies anyway. Everything is up for review, with evidence.
30
Lionell,
Perhaps you should because popular culture is affecting your life more and more whether you want it to or not. In the future you may well need to deal with people to whom garbage is literally gold. And you’ll come off the worse if you can’t navigate through all the BS.
Sometimes you bend with the wind or you break. I would rather not break.
10
It is difficult to navigate all the BS without succumbing to it and we do need to discard all the BS now and again, just to preserve sanity.
20
To the extent that popular culture affects me, I deal with it. However, I do not accept what it offers as good just because it is popular. If I find it suits my taste and pupose, I will use it. If not, I don’t. I am the judge of those things for myself.
I will not prevent them from consuming their beloved popular culture. It is their free choice. I expect nothing less in return. However, I will shun them and/or fight them if they try force it on me.
20
I have a friend…Im sure he wont see this…who thinks that if someone says they intend to do something but for whatever reason cannot…they are “lying”. So if I say I’ll be over tomorrow but get run over by a bus tonight thn according to him I was lying. Not very imprssiv reasoning is it.
10
It was a lie only if the one who made the promise did not intend to keep it under any circumstances. Honest promises must always be understood as conditional promises. Roughly in the form: “I will do my best to keep my promise but sometimes stuff happens that makes it impossible or way more costly than it is worth to me at this time”.
The primary error was on the part of the person who expected the promise to have an iron clad no circumstances preventing it from happening guarantee. The secondary error was on the part of the one who made the promise should have known better than to make a promise under the circumstance. In particular because of the totally unrealistic expectations on the part of the recipient of the promise.
20
LG I think those of us who engage here know all that already. Thats the point of my holding out my friend as a sad example.
10
MV,
And for that statement of truth you are rewarded with a red thumb. Some people don’t grasp even the most basic logic.
10
On the contrary,
It implies that the AGW trolls that hide in the swamp, KNOW they are lying,
or KNOW they are ill-informed..
but they still follow the meme anyway.
12
At MV,
“Don’t want [to] nitpick”
“I have to split hairs”
May I suggest you change shampoo brands 🙂
20
If these were 2 coal plants or nuclear plants, they would be producing money, not a perpetual sink for government money, they would create business from the available power, instead of killing jobs because of the tax revenue needed to support it, and they would have a life of 30+ years, instead of the maybe 10 they will get out of them especially the parabolic ones and I am not joking around
: (
10
Tony – does you cost figure include the installation costs of the natural gas unit that acts as a backup for these units?
10
janama,
that was something that actually surprised me as I checked each plant’s information, the number of these CS plants that use a Natural gas fired turbine to run the generator(s) up first thing, until the Solar function produces enough heat to make the steam to drive the steam turbine for that part of the process to take effect.
Tony.
10
I would like to make an observation here, and I’ll get to it a little further down.
This actually came as a shock to me. I’ll do the data check for a single plant here or there, but this is the first time I’ve seen all 23 of them in the one place.
As I wrote down the data and then did the Maths for each plant, it really did come as a shock.
You have the one Gemasolar, the one everybody talks about, you know how it can do 24/7/365, and yet still only averaging 15 hours a day for its power delivery on a year round basis, and again see how it suffers from thermal storage because it actually has 15 hours of storage and can still only average 15 hours of power, so that means even less than 15 hours in Winter, but as I have always said ….. 20MW, who cares!
Then you have 7 plants with Thermal Storage. (6 at 7.5 hours and one at 9 hours) The Capacity Factor ranged from 35% to 41% with an average of 36%, equating to 8 hours and 40 minutes ….. and see how the plant suffers from having 7.5 hours of storage, and can still only average 8.65 hours of power delivery.
That left me with 15 plants with no storage, all parabolic trough. The range of CF was from 21% to 26% averaging 22%, which equates to only five and a quarter hours.
So, the overall total CF came in at 29.45% or just on 7 hours a day.
As I started to write there, even Wind Power is the same as this.
Five or so years back, I read a theoretical paper, (stating then) that in five years they may be able to manage to drive a 250MW Generator, with a 500MW generator another three years on from that. Well, here we now are, five years on from when I read that paper, and the best they can manage is 50MW, maybe 120MW. Nowhere even close to 250MW, not even on the horizon, and 500MW generator an absolute dream.
Here’s the observation.
We are told at length how this method of generation is capable now of replacing coal fired power.
If this method of power generation was on that scale, then I can see that power entities would be crawling all over each other to get into this form of power generation, even without the huge damned subsidies they get.
That is just not happening. All you see are small boutique plants struggling to gain any financing even after almost half the up front cost for construction is subsidised.
MemoryVault, I take your point in 6.1, and then in 6.1.2.1 you make the very good point about ill informed reporting from people who have no idea of what power really is being produced, then the average person who reads that believes almost implicitly that they must be able to do what is claimed of them.
All this plainly proves that they can’t, and in fact, are actually worse than what I even thought they were.
I use Bayswater as an example, and at normal operation, that’s even with the maintenance down time throughout the year, then Bayswater delivers the same power as all these 23 CS plants in just 98 days.
This turned out to be a most surprising exercise, and it’s one I’m going to actually document because then I can have all the data and conclusions with the relevant reference material in the one place, so I won’t have to keep explaining it every time when people look at what I have said with incredulity and call me a liar.
Now I have the ammunition to shoot down all those outrageous claims.
Tony.
10
Hi Tony,
Just to set the record straight, now that all the nit-pickers seem to have worn themselves out.
As someone with significant experience in the power generation industry, I happen to be a big fan of your posts – the content anyway. The science and engineering you write about are known to me, but not to most readers, and I admire your efforts to pass it on to others. I also admire the effort you go to, to locate actual sources of information to back up your statements – this information is generally not known to me, so I am grateful for that, as well.
On the other hand, for the last thirty years I have been, above all else, a professional writer. A commercially successful, professional writer. As such, I observe that often the solid oak forest of your intended content gets lost in a mallee scrub of meandering. It was that issue which I was addressing in my original content.
I had, and have, no intention of getting involved in a slanging match with several of the regulars here – all of whom I also admire – on the cultural and and social differences between being “ill-informed” and “lying”. My comment was in direct response to your statement:
It just so happens my eldest son, from whom I was estranged for 40 years, from birth until recently, plus half a dozen of his arty inner-city friends, all happened to believe that the solar-thermal plant in Spain “was the answer”. They were all seriously “ill-informed”, but who could blame them? They had been fed a steady diet of this tripe from primary school, through high-school and university, and ever since, by the MSM. None of them had kind of science or maths background. They were wrong, but there was no guile in them. They earnestly believed what they believed. There was no “lie” to it.
.
It took less than an hour of friendly banter over some shared pizzas and stubbies, plus some rough sketches in a pad, plus much skeptical checking of my claims on laptops, to convince them all of the error of their ways. That afternoon went well, I recall.
Somehow I suspect it may have turned out differently if I had started by declaring “you are all ill-informed, outright liars”.
30
Tony,
What you’re talking about is a problem faced by anyone who started using a new technology decades before someone else. The early starters are stuck with old stuff they need to replace and probably haven’t provided for that replacement. Wait around 50 or 60 years — rhetorically speaking — and see what kind of shape the Chinese are in, if there is a recognizable China after the fall of civilization.
Green Wet Dreams aren’t the real problem we face. There’s never been any planning for the future with any power generation anywhere. Even without the green monster we face a very real danger of losing large parts of our generating capacity simply because it is likely to fail from age. And there is nothing waiting in the wings to take the stage when that happens. It won’t take green anything to collapse our energy hungry society if something isn’t done soon to replace old plants with new ones. And then there’s the decay of the distribution system. I can show you giant towers supporting probably million volt lines that are literally rusting away. There is no one doing anything about it. One of them will surely eventually collapse in a high wind, taking the grid down with it.
There has simply been no good business sense in control of the major building blocks of an energy dependent world. I can tell you for certain that Southern California Edison doesn’t put away money or have a line of credit to use for capital equipment maintenance or replacement. All they do is go to the Public Utilities Commission and ask for a rate increase, putting their cost directly on the backs or the rate payer. No other business could operate that way and survive. And yes, I know that ultimately the customer must pay for it all. But what I’m talking about is a fantasy world that isn’t going to last much longer.
10
Don’t fret–Obama’s going to put stimulus money into things that will help the middle class, like roads, power systems, schools, etc. Oh….wait….that’s what he said in 2008 before giving all the money to his friends in losing projects. Never mind…….
30
Oh goody goody! Uncle Sam will at last usher us all into Everlasting Fat Dumb and Happy Land. I can hardly wait. He would surely have done it in his first term but for those nasty Republicans causing all the trouble they do.
I’m jumping up and down with joy.
Hey! Didn’t Hank Williams sing a song called, Rocking Chair Money? It looks like we’ve finally got that money. What a deal!
10
I watched the Dick Smith energy special the other evening. He was having a nice time flying around in his aerial toys and came to the conclusion we could continue to burn coal and oil if we weren’t worried about CO2, go nuke in a big way (at some increased cost – which I would dispute) or go 100% renewable (wind and solar) which would be very much more expensive. I don’t think many here would think the last would even work at any cost.
Anyone else watch this? Dick had it about right on our dysfunctional and bizarre aviation bureaucracy in this country but he seems to have gone off the track in few other ways.
50
On a totally different tack Mike, I decided to support Dick’s push to buy Australian and was a little dismayed that he put so much effort into it but had basically messed up.
It would seem that he viewed the Dick Smith label as the most important item and to have forgotten about taste and buyer appeal.
KK
20
I watched and it left me thinking I’d just been watching an advertisement for nuclear power plants . . . . .
00
One wonders if these volcanoes are having any effect on Arctic ice ….. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/02/hot-times-near-svalbard-volcanic-range-discovered/
20
Very interesting Otter, one more thing to add to the list of “well understood”. One of the posts at WUWT provided a link to this high res. bathymetry Map of the Arctic Ocean: http://geology.com/world/arctic-ocean-bathymetry-map.shtml
10
Has anyone here been interested in the Wild Rivers protection in the western Qld Channel Country?
The protections were a Labor act but now Newman’s Qld is ‘open for business’ there was talk for a couple of months about removing some or all of the restrictions against irrigation and mining. Of course this prospect got the greens hopping again.
http://www.wilderness.org.au/regions/queensland/tell-premier-newman-to-keep-channel-country-wild-river-protections-in-place
The plan announced on Thursday was that large scale irrigation and mining will still be prohibited, but oil and gas may go ahead under conditions still to be worked out.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-01/development-or-conservation-wild-rivers-repeal/4859960
I find this rather odd because “large scale” mining (ie open cut) and irrigation, despite their short term effects on wildlife being quite obvious, would have the shortest-lived impact on the area. Finish with the mining, fill up the hole, eventually the plants and animals return. But the great artesian basin is throughout this area and so drilling a gas well through it would contaminate this water supply with gas from below and possibly allow water to leak out of the aquifer. (For comparison, the proverbial water-on-fire symptoms have already occurred in the Darling Downs.) The documented leaks generated by fracking is enough to prove it is not an exact science and can only be done in areas where there are no significant aquifers. I’m all for gas extraction in general, but I’d say it’s the GAB that needs protecting here more than the floodplains and rivers.
It’s also a bit tricky to sow and harvest a field dotted with gas wells, so it is a farmer’s choice whether they sell out some of their food productive capacity in exchange for some gas profits (for as long as that lasts). You can argue the farmers shouldn’t do this but you can’t stop them from doing what they like with their own property.
Repealing the whole act is also quite an extreme move because only about 10% of the whole Cooper Basin is close enough to the watercourse to be declared a “high preservation area” or “special floodplain management area”. Gas extraction can already be granted in the other 90% of the Cooper Basin even under the current Wild Rivers act. It is simply not believable that all of these protections would have to be scrapped just to allow gas development. Perhaps the greens are right to suspect back room deals and a hidden agenda. It smells like open cut mining will be ruled out in word but not in law, then brought in later after there’s no Wild Rivers act to legally prevent it.
We climate skeptics like to say we’re supportive of genuine environmental issues such as combating real pollution. Contamination of aquifers seems to qualify. I just wonder what others here think of this type of issue.
21
Andrew.
I have also been very concerned about contamination of aquifers.
Locally here in Newcastle we had problems with a mining group wanting to drill for CSG adjacent to our Tomago Sand bed water supply.
We got rid of Labour in this state because of this sort of thing and now the Libs are at it.
There is no reasoning, no analysis of the issue, just media output designed to mollify the public perception enough to allow the project to “move forward”.
Sometimes I feel that the only solution for it all is to use a big hammer on any politician found to be on the take.
KK
11
KK.
Welcome back, but I prefer a club to a BIG hammer as it is only one swipe normally.
It is the fuel source that appears to be the problem.
Renewable energy seems to have embraced gas (CSG etc) as their saviour, while turning feral on coal and irrigation bores, dams and such like. As Andrew says above, the mining and irrigation are less environmentally risky in the terms of our aquifers. But then again gas extraction could have been granted anyway in any of the areas under the Wild River Act. In reality there has been no change in regard to CSG.
But then again it’s not about the environment – it’s about CO2 tax and money only. I have read more environmentally concerned reader comments here than any other blog, newspaper or website.
Makes one wonder who our real bosses are?
11
To date, no studies show that natural gas drilling contaminates water supplies. The “burning water” is completely natural and occurred long before gas drilling. I live in a state where fracking has gone on for decades. There were no complaints about well contamination until it became apparent that you could get a free well if you blamed gas companies for your well deterioration and they settle with cash. The fracking companies won’t do that because they realize they will become the source of funds for new wells for virtually anyone who wants one. Wyoming is currently doing a long-term study on well water, fracking, old dump sites (in other words, it sounds like real science) which will take at least 2 years to complete. It will hopefully answers some questions.
As for drilling through the aquifer causing contamination, for the hundredth time at least, ANY drilling of any kind, INCLUDING additional water wells, can contaminate well water. I can contaminate my well by pouring benzene in it and claim the frackers did it. Earthquakes can crack well casings (as in my case–caused a lot of problems with sand, etc but you can’t sue nature…..). Underground water is not contained in a huge plastic bottle safe from contaminants. To fracking in the cause, you could have to test well water EVERY time a well is drilled, water or gas, plus run a camera down all existing wells to look for cracks at least once a month, and test the water for chemicals monthly, at minimum. This is expensive and still, you may not be able to locate the source.
It is always a good idea to have strict rules and some inspections on gas drilling, but one needs to realize the contamination of well water has many, many sources.
(As for working fields with gas drilling, it is difficult if not impossible. However, the wind energy people sell wind with the idea you can farm underneath. Until a safety issue or accident turns that into 300 feet out from the turbine, then another accident turns it to 500 feet, etc. Any land used for energy production pretty much loses all other uses.)
40
Lot of very good detail in that Sheri.
Appreciated.
KK
00
There’s more than a small difference between fraccing and coal seam gas.
Fraccing for oil and gas typically penetrates a layer of (e.g.) clay that prevented the gas and oil from percolating to the surface (and into an aquifer) above in the past. The depth before fraccing is in excess of 1000 metres; imposed by the need to penetrate an impermeable layer that helps to keep the oil and gas at a level where it can be collected by the drilled hole. Fraccing may not be viable without that (natural) layer.
Coal seam gas is extracted wherever coal seams go and are unviable for extraction by mining. Depths can be as little as 100 metres. Which makes it cheaper to do, but also increases the likelihood of gas escape into aquifers and ground water.
CSG produces mainly methane and CO2; proportions varying according to location whereas fraccing and conventional gas extraction yields heavier hydrocarbons.
20
My understanding is fracking is part of the method for liberating coal bed methane in the US. The EPA and others have done multiple studies on the process and have not found ground water contamination to be a problem. Undoubtedly, there are bad businesses who don’t follow safe practices and that could result in contamination. However, every business out there that works with chemicals of any kind poses the same risk via improper handling or disposing of said chemicals. Disposal and/or reuse of the water used in the fracking process seems to present more problems than the fracking itself.
Methane is found in water naturally, so one must be certain what the source of the methane was.
A well near my cabin had been used for cattle water for years. Now they no longer use it due to arsenic contamination. The contamination did not come from fracking or any other activity that anyone knows of. It’s just that sometimes bad things get into water wells. Again, we need to be very careful about what assumptions we make on the sources.
10
Although fracturing is used to release some of the methane in the coal seam, it’s different to the process of fraccing for gas and oil where there is no coal.
As I mentioned, the latter yields heavier hydrocarbons and is at greater depths than CSG extraction.
20
Yes, it’s different. Yes, people are terrified of any kind of extraction but they won’t shut off their lights and heat, so what do we do? I have agreed that regulation is needed. I have repeatedly explained how ANY process of extraction or of drilling new water wells or excavation of any kind can contaminate an aquifer. So I am left with “Don’t hurt the water and don’t shut off the lights” which is what we commonly call “impossible”. So there we sit.
10
The “contamination” can be entirely natural. Arsenic, methane, etc occur naturally. Increases in “contaminants” can happen due to natural changes; geological events that change subterranean streamflows; even natural dams over surface streams.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the ability to detect traces of substances has developed substantially since the 1970’s. Levels that were previously undetectable are frequently used by alarmists without a sense of proportion in order to “justify” urgent action. The previously undetected substances are the reason for alarm. They don’t slow down to think that the ability to detect substances is determined by the technology. Let alone stop to consider what amount of the substance presents an actual danger.
00
Agreed. Good point.
00
Hi Dave.
I couldn’t comment on the wild rivers act because I read about it so long ago and forgot the detail.
CSG drilling as Sheri says, could be quite OK and I don’t konw enough of it to be sure.
It’s just that I no longer trust Government and need 100% reassurance that it really is OK and that all government monitoring that should be carried out is actually done without political interference.
On that score I heard recently of a larger company poaching Government officials who were previously the monitors?
Dangerous stuff.
KK
10
I certainly understand distrusting the government. It is what they call a “working group” investigating fracking in Wyoming. It may include some government officials, but the emphasis is on science, rather than the shoddy, shoddy study the EPA did. Theirs didn’t even approach science. While I have not seen any evidence that fracking can damage ground water, I have no objections to a truly scientific study being done. We need to know the process is still working without harming anything. It just bothers me that people so seem to distrust the process when it’s been around for over 50 years. However, not trusting the government to be honest–that doesn’t bother me at all.
20
Adapting Old-Style Phone Wires for Superfast Internet
“New technology can blast gigabit-per-second data speeds across age-old twisted-pair copper telephone cables—at least at distances from a telephone pole to a house, says Alcatel-Lucent.”
20
It’s great isn’t it. Give the boffins half a chance and they’ll squeeze some more life out of the copper pair in ways the grubmint couldn’t imagine 4 years ago. Once again FTTN shows as a more cost effective way of rolling out broadband than FTTH.
That’s to say nothing of LTE wireless which NBNCo is already rolling out to the edges of the NBN to give people access to NBN bandwidth with less time and cost, albeit with a latency penalty of 55ms-75ms (which is small enough that even the action gamers shouldn’t be complaining). And streaming HD video while moving anywhere in the city? Try doing that with fibre-to-the-home!
But don’t tell that to the grubmint, they want to pick the winners in technology.
20
Grubmint or Grabmint?
00
People will tend to vote for the giverment.
10
Not just tend to. They actually want to. The offer of free stuff will seduce the young faster than a scantily dressed woman. End of story.
40
Running out of free stuff is going to put a real damper on that seduction in the future.
30
And hopefully before it’s too late to recover.
20
Which is all good and well until they run out of other peoples money and have to borrow for handouts…. wait….. oh.. 😉
00
You see, in the end, you don’t need to be a climate scientist to make your own mind up about them. After all the lies, deception and dishonesty, why would anyone believe a single word coming out of their mouth?
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/why-would-anyone-believe-a-single-word-coming-out-of-their-mouth/
Pointman
70
Nice article – thanks!
10
I hope you’ll forgive my saying it but many people don’t want to make up their own minds, preferring to be told what to think. It’s very comfortable when you don’t have to take the responsibility for making up your own mind. For some odd reason they never feel the ring being slipped through their noses until it’s too late and they’re tied to the government’s apron strings.
I wouldn’t mind it if they didn’t drag the rest of us along with them.
20
This week-end’s newspapers have a couple of very green- warmer articles, I think they were in the Australian.
One related to an anthropologist’s brilliant idea that the Aboriginals of 50,000 years ago in using fire had totally changed the plant environment as well as causing the extinction of animal species present at that time.
The obvious Green-ness of the University Academic was appalling.
One comment was on the Climate (a must to mention in any scientific discourse).
The comment was that the climate 120,000 years ago was essentially the same as now and the only major variant was the arrival of Man to the continent about 50,000 years back.
Logic therefore dictates Man as the only thing that could cause mass animal and plant extinction through the medium of Aboriginal fire practices.
The thing overlooked by this “Academic” and his mates was that there was unfortunately a 90,000 year long ice age between the starting period he describes and now.
I felt really disheartened when I read this crap. When is it going to stop?
Our Universities have become little more than comfy hideouts for Green Politicians with academic pretensions.
KK
60
Heh. Don’t get me started on Aboriginals Kinky. I doubt that they had any influence on the fire requirements of our native species because lightning is older than mankind itself, or were completely to blame for extinction of early, large species of wombat and kangaroo since deep ice ages have a habit of killing lots of things.
But one thing I can’t stand about greenies and “indigenous” sympathisers is they parrot that abo’s “maintained” the land by burning it regularly.
Wot complete and utter rubbish. They’d light up the scrub at one end while their friends on the other side clubbed the escaping food. Then they’d scavenge whatever ready-cooked KFC didn’t survive the inferno and moved on to pillage another spot.
Apparently they’ve been here some 40 – 50,000 years and crossed over from New Guinea to Cape York when Torres Strait wasn’t covered in ocean. But that’s their only claim to fame really.
In all that time, they’ve never farmed a thing. Their technological prowess got them no further than the Humpy and their Arts Grants must have been seriously lacking.
They’re getting even more racist than usual because one story I read last week the guy was miffed at being called an Aboriginal. They’re as native to this country as someone from Indonesia.
Don’t get me wrong, we second-hand Poms shipped here 200 years ago were the original boat people. Our race from all over Europe isn’t as noble as we’d like to think either. But from where I stand, it’s no wonder when the Dutch discovered this continent they probably saw something familiar standing on the shore, turned tail and ran?
Just calling it as I see it. Flame away guys..
62
There has been scientific comment on the first inhabitants of Australia and what I hear would not make the current Aboriginal Politicians too happy.
Apparently the first group about 40,000 years ago were biologically dissimilar to the current Aboriginals who arrived 20,000 years later.
Using the logic of the Academics in the newspaper article, it might be inferred that the current Aboriginals also caused the extinction of their forerunners?
There are many wonderful Aboriginals but like all groups their “leaders” are not as noble as they could be.
Ordinary Aboriginals, like their white brothers can only work with what info they are given.
If someone says their ancestors have been there 50,000 years who is to know the truth?
It may be time that collectively we hold people in high places, appointed as our representatives, to much higher standards of accuracy in their speech and behaviour.
KK
30
Flame away might be an appropriate invitation Olaf.
Obviously the food aspect of burning was a factor, as you mention, but there is also the one that most interests me and that is Access.
Without small fires to keep undergrowth down it would have been difficult to move easily from place to place, and the Aborigines did like to roam around over quite long distances.
The other benefit is that grasses were encouraged in the open areas. This just what I have read but it sounds logical enough.
There is a great bushland area in Newcastle which is near the coast and stretches over several miles.
I have been exploring it for the past 60 years but have found most of it now covered by waist high scrub that is ideal for scrub turkeys (great) but also for rabbits/ hares (which is not so great).
I have not much respect for the high profile indigenous industry, there are a lot a good people out there, and Noel Pearson seems to put out good vibes in terms of speaking for what his “people” need.
KK
40
Definitely a good point, thanks for mentioning. At least that idea works on the Eastern coastline, but not so much in the outback.
From what my late mother told me in the 70’s, the East coast soils were deposited more recently and are more fertile than the ancient lands out West. Rainfall patterns also play a huge role. Definitely needs a thorough non-biased study 🙂
20
Science has shown it was the later mob about 20,000 years ago that set fire to the land.
[lake mungo study] They changed our forests from coniferous to the fire hardy trees we now have. It would seem they also put paid in short order to the original inhabitants.
Reading the journals of the original explorers shows that much of the country was open forest with few trees and almost no wild life. The inhabitants were few and far between and in a very poor state.
The left idea of the noble savage is a very distorted view of reality.
20
is that bit in square brackets a link? Is it a pretend link like your pretend post?
03
gawd I shouldn’t have read your post first. Guys, why not spend the time reading the science. It would save you the need to waste time writing nonsense.
03
Gee Whiz, I think you’re comment is nonsense
KK
00
KK,
Who can be certain what the practice was 50,000 years ago? Let’s see, Methuselah only lived 900 years and that’s the oldest claim I’ve ever seen. Is there a living Aboriginal 50,000 years old to tell what he was doing then? Probably not.
These science types, especially anthropologists, tend to make big sweeping assertions based on some pretty thin evidence. The intervening ice age didn’t bother him. Why should any actual fact bother him? He can get his pat on the back and that’s what counts.
Reminds me of climate science…damn the facts, full speed ahead. But then the two fields of study seem to be melding into one these days.
30
Hi Roy
I’d go one further and say that unfortunately ALL fields of science have rivers of climate science running into them; it obviously pays to keep advertising.
KK
10
It’s even worse than that, KK. The company I work for is now touting its green credentials, including reduced “carbon footprint”. But I know the CEO well enough to know he thinks global warming is a fraud because he and I have had discussions about it and I know what he’s said.
So why would he do that? Glad you asked…and the answer is simple. When the customer is looking for green vendors and you want to sell your product, you become green.
20
I’m starting to feel that life is just a mirage.
What’s real?
KK
00
Interview with James Delingpole about the warmists being both funded and used by Big Oil.
The Junk Science Behind Global Warming with James Delingpole [Youtube]
Delingpole doesn’t begin speaking until 4:00.
I’ll save you all some time, here’s some of juiciest bits.
6:50 – Dana Nuccitelli (Dana1981 at Skeptical Science) works for a oil and mining exploration company called TetraTech.
13:22 – “A lot of people within capitalism have given up on free markets.”
16:10 + 22:00 – The organiser of the 10:10 “No Pressure” exploding-schoolkids video, Franny Armstrong, asks if all their mitigation attempts are ignored, as a final option, whether the warmists should stockpile cyanide to kill their children and themselves to reduce world population to help prevent global warming.
24:15 – “I think it is a eugenics death cult.”
29:57 – Cat cameo. (The Internet loves cats.)
32:25 – James lets the cat in from outside. (Only the most important news highlighted here.)
35:50 – end of interview.
01
Don’t tempt me. It would be only too easy to start wishing they would.
10
It just occurred to me that there’s a very real pathology behind that attitude. I don’t know what the psychologists would call it but I call it irrational fear coupled with irrational guilt. How can people live that way? What kind of mental horror does it take to ask if it’s a good idea to commit suicide en mass if you can’t get people to do things to assuage your own fear and guilt?
Don’t these people realize that every civilization has been built on the ash heaps left by its predecessor? Life is too short to live in constant fear for the future. Plagues have come and gone and the human race is still here. Life, especially humans, is very tough to kill off. The Tyrannosaurus Rex and all his cousins came and went but life is still here. I truly can’t imagine being in so much fear of the future that I would contemplate killing myself.
Someone get these people to a good head doctor before they start acting out their plan.
30
They don’t mean it. They’re only trying to scare the rest of the sheep. But a few of the sheep will take it seriously and end up doing it. Collateral damage in the Green mindgame.
10
I’m afraid there are few “head doctors” who can actually address this. People love fear and loathing–how do you think we got Obama twice? People have always found any apocalypse fascinating, even if they were involved in it. Sorry, but people just aren’t that independent and optimistic. Look back through history–dictators, cities that flourished only to rise to apathy after achieving affluence. It’s just how people are. Think about it. How many people do you know who, if you plan for retirement, go on a cruise or something enjoyable, sit around and warn you that you’re in for letdown now. The happy will never last. Maybe people just fear losing happiness so they don’t go there. Better to have never tried being happy. I often was told that it did no good to plan for your future because you could never anticipate all the variables. If I got out of debt, something bad would happen and there I’d be, back in debt again. Why bother?
How many would actually follow through on killing themselves over this, it’s hard to say. The warmists may just be being dramatic and have no intention of actually doing any such thing. The bigger the angst over something, the higher the chance people will buy into it, so perhaps they are topping out the angst meter on this one.
10
Sheri and Joe,
I remember Jonestown and the more recent flying saucer cult. All were willing to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid for the sake of their foolish belief. They were led by men with messianic zeal and compelling personalities. These current groups are not any different from the Jonestown and flying saucer Kool-Aid drinkers, not a bit different. They all think they have the secret the rest of us miss and are afraid for the future of the planet. Once hooked on that, it’s all over except for the trouble they’ll cause.
So yes, I think a lot of them might think suicide was a way to advance their cause. And frankly I think some of them need to be locked up in prison for a long time as do the real perpetrators of this fraud. The rest need to get help if they can. But none of them deserve death.
10
I know that small groups have followed their leader to the death (though some do not think that Jone’s followers all knew what was happening). I guess I figure the AGW cult is so large that only a very small percentage would die for their cause. It’s really not different from suicide or kamikaze bombers. Some people are always willing to die for a cause and there’s nothing we can do about it. If these people are that terrified, yes, they will kill themselves. Hopefully, it’s small number. I still don’t know that any of them can “get help”. The “deprogramming” of cult members was marginal at best. The entire personalities of these people are invested in the believe. You have to rebuild from the ground up.
They don’t deserve death, but they have the right to choose it if they are adults. Killing their children is just plain homicide and inexcusable.
00
Actually I’m quite sure they really don’t have that right. They may make that choice and if they carry it out in a way or place that prevents stopping them then they can get away with it. But no, they don’t have any such right. Life is given to us to make the best out of ourselves that we can, to enjoy it as fully as we can manage, not to end it of our own choosing for any reason.
I’ve been through some bad times. But I always faced them and I always made a plan to get my life back. There is no cause or problem that justifies destroying yourself.
00
Okay. I can see your point somewhat. I’m not sure where the line lies. Do we allow people to drink, smoke, have promiscuous sex? All of these can kill you, just slower than actual suicide. I agree that killing one’s self is rarely, if ever, justified. What about dying for a cause? What about wars? It’s not just black and white (which usually I’m the one getting that “lecture”!). The AGW people consider this dying for a cause and to save others (assuming they are sincere). Jones followers died for a religion. Yes, these are self-imposed deaths and that makes them very different from others killing them. It’s still dying for a cause in their minds. It’s just really complicated and one would hope they are merely being dramatic. (I personally am against suicide in all cases.)
00
Sheri,
To accept the risk of death for some cause worth fighting for is another matter. When we send men to the battlefield it’s not to die but to fight, prevail and live to fight again. We train and equip them to have the best chance of doing exactly that. And we want them home safe and sound when it’s all over. We know some will die. But that’s not the outcome we want. When you start a shooting war you have to be certain that what you’re fighting for is worth the risk. But the objective isn’t to die for the cause.
Smoking and other behaviors you mention may be foolish but they aren’t an intentional step to kill yourself.
Some have accepted certain death in order to save someone else, win a battle or gain whatever was in the balance. But again, the intent was not to die but to accomplish something worthwhile that could not be achieved any other way.
Franny and her bunch are contemplating murder on a grand scale, never mind their own suicide. It’s shoddy thinking of the worst kind.
00
The ecoloon/rent-a-mob lot are at it again, protesting against economic common sense and once again demonstrating their faith in the cause of bad science – see below.
As the global warming/climate change/whatever cause becomes increasingly unravelled and more boring to the general public, a new cause is needed for loonie activists. And that cause is fracking – economic salvation for the UK and Europe lies in fracking, a proven safe technology in widespread use in North America. However, the pointless people love a pointless cause and fracking is it, at least for the moment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10219701/High-Street-store-Lush-is-main-financial-backer-of-Frack-Off.html
And let’s not forget the company most against fracking in Europe – step forward Russia’s Gazprom, well known for its benign business practices.
20
Balcombe is just down the road from Brighton, that hotbed of idle green ecolyte supporters ( with the only Green MP in England). What were the franking oil company thinking ?
40
I still haven’t found out from the last unthreaded what peopl think of Water World?
Who, like me, were did not succumb to “The Glammer”.
00
It would be even better to ask them how they would cope using only 10% of what I use. Not being a globe-trotting green activist I don’t use very much.
10
Election Called for Sept 7. The thread to discuss that.
Cheers, where is MV?
00
Wayne, I don’t normally do this but I’m going to give him a red thumb, and to really irritate him/her I’ve included a gratuitous grammar/spelling error.
KK
10