JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Nice little article from James D.
I particularly like this comment about Hansen and Keystone……
” Many NASA employees and former employees found his views an embarrassment.”
and this one about the climate models.
“He and his team argue that the 105 models currently used by the IPCC are seriously flawed because they don’t agree with each other and don’t agree with empirical data”
This is from the NASA guys that put Armstrong et. a; on the moon, real scientists and engineers.
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It is a good article. At first I thought is was the NASA GISS team disowning their former leader, as sometimes this team of climatologists are referred to as “NASA Scientists”.
These true NASA scientists & engineers are at http://therightclimatestuff.com/
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Thanks for the link, ‘MagicBeancounter’ – a breath of fresh air, and very encouraging news!
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‘This is from the NASA guys that put Armstrong et.’ from 1967, the dark ages, eh? When any present day wrist watch has more computing power than Apollo 11 had!
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“When any present day wrist watch has more computing power than Apollo 11 had!”
Yes, amazing, isn’t it.
Those guys really knew their stuff. !
Odd that NASA don’t seem to be able to do it now, though. đ
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The Griss:
you miss the point. NASA with limited computing power could put men on the moon.
Blackadder 4 needs more computing power than that just to tell the time.
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No he just needs a monkey to read it for him.
Parrot wouldn’t help, they are only right twice a day .. (which is considerably better probability than climate science predictions seem to be)
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Thank you Graeme No3. That cheered me up heaps.
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And NASA is struggling to get funding while the global warming extortion collaborators are rolling in it. Being dishonest, slandering, distorting data, lacking anything approaching morality or ethics, that pays well in O’Bama’s USA. Doing real science, pays little.
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And NASA has been turned into our Science Ambassador to the Muslim world by a man who wouldn’t know how to shine the shoes of any of those who sent men to the moon. He can’t even spell m-o-o-n without his teleprompter.
I don’t know how NASA got into the climate business â Goddard Institute for Space Studies is a far cry from climate studies â but it soon got perverted into one mans manic crusade to make himself a big man.
And look at Hansen now, pretty much marginalized like Gore and left to gnaw on the bones of his former fame. They’ll both certainly have their cult following, probably nearly forever. But no one cites them or relies on them as an authority anymore. The politicians have taken over.
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Doiron says: “I believe in computer models. My whole career was about using computer models to make life or death decisions. In 1963 I had to use them to calculate whether, when the lunar module landed on a 12 degree slope it would fall over or not – and design the landing gear accordingly. But if you can’t validate the models – and the IPCC can’t – then don’t use them to make critical decisions about the economy and the planet’s future.”
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I posted this on WUWT’s “The Right Stuff “thread
___________________
Those American NASA scientists and engineers of the 1950’s and 60’s did something that can never be replicated ever again.
They landed men on another planetary body, the Moon, for the first time ever in human history and then went on to do it another five times ,.
And brought those 18 astronauts, twelve of whom walked on the Moonâs surface home again to that cradle of mankind, the Earth.
The other moon shot that never made it, Apollo 13, was an incredible example of ingenuity and extraordinary engineering skill when it all went wrong in deep space and the engineers had nothing but their own knowledge and skill to finally bring those three Apollo astronauts home in what should have been by any accepted standards, a fatally stricken space vehicle.
When it went wrong they admitted it and fixed it or people died and those astronauts would have died in the full glare of the worldâs peoples.
Climate science with itâs totally unproven, unvalidated and unverified models and the claims that so many catastrophe advocating climate scientists have made of an imminent and impending human created disasters based on nothing more than the output of those unproven climate models is directly responsible for the implementation of highly restrictive energy policies that are aimed at making energy of every type grossly expensive and increasingly unaffordable in an all out effort to force the reduction in energy use to counter those unproven outcomes from those unproven, unvalidated and unverified climate models.
Those same climate modellers and climate advocacy scientists are therefore directly responsible for the totally avoidable deaths of not a possible two or three astronauts as were the NASA engineers but the real deaths of tens of thousands of the elderly and weak and poor due to the grossly increased cost of energy, a cost increase proposed and supported by the radical extremist advocates of climate science and the disgustingly selfish arrogant and callous green organisations.
It is called âheat or eatâ as the poor can no longer afford to do both.
In the UK where the cost of energy has been forced up by the polticals in accordance with the dictates of the climate catastrophe advocating scientists, in 2013 winter deaths rose by 29% over the level of deaths of the past winters.
In Germany some 600,000 to 800,000 citizens are being cut off from power each year as is also the case in the UK, because they can no longer afford the cost of energy.
Plus also the tens of thousands of avoidable deaths from the winter cold due again to the poor and elderly on very limited incomes no longer being able to afford that extraordinary development that has given mankind the Industrial Revolution and all the immense good that has entailed for mankind, cheap utterly reliable always available energy, the very foundation on which our civilisation is now based in itâs entirety.
Even in the Lucky Country, Australia, the social service organisations are finding large numbers of the lowest earning are being cut off from power as they also can no longer afford to âheat or eatâ thanks to the nefarious advocacy of the climate catastrophe scientists and the stupidity and moral turpitude of the Rudd and Gillard Labor and Green governments of the past.
Those NASA rocket and space scientists and engineers all those 50 years and two generations ago over a period of less than two decades using little more than slide rules, rudimentary computers and good old fashioned brains and intellect not only landed Man on the Moon but they brought their nation, the USA and the worldâs peoples together in that moment of time for the celebration for what is one of all of mankindâs truly extraordinary feats.
Fifty years and two generations later Climate scientists using the most powerful computers on Earth and light years ahead in sophistication compared to the NASA engineers computers let alone those slide rules canât even predict the most important climate affecting phenomena on Earth, the ENSO and itâs phase more than a couple of months ahead.
They, after 30 years and the destruction of a trillion dollars worth of treasure and wealth due entirely to the unfullfilled and plain inept predictions of so called Climate Science canât even provide an accurate figure by which increased or even decreased CO2 will affect and change global temperatures within a range of some 1.3C to 4.5 C or when this might happen if it ever does.
In those old NASA engineerâs terms that same level of science applied to the Apollo space craft would have put all the astronauts on the one way way trip to eternity and would have done so for every launch that was made.
Today climate science and climate scientists, totally unlike those old NASA scientists and engineers, over the last two decades as well as being totally responsible for those tens of thousands of completely avoidable deaths from energy deprivation, have deeply divided nations and peoples and societies and families.
They have no other currency except âfear: fear of future and fear of events to bethats they themselves created and then suposedly predicted by those climate scientists. and influence .
And it is all for what?
The advocacy of those fear creating, climate catastrophe advocacy scientists is increasingly being seen as an outright lie, a lie that has no proof, no support, no direct evidence, only a correlation with the rise in CO2 and the increase in global temperatures over a 20 year period now almost matched by an equally long period where the supposed correlation has been completely broken.
The climate scientists and climate modellers have failed to provide a single verifiable prediction on the global climate let alone believable predictions for the future climate beyond those that the average witch doctor or shaman would be able to derive from some chickens entrails.
The legacy of climate scientists and climate science will one day be seen through the eyes of the future as the most corrupt and corrupting episodes against humanity that science has ever embarked on in all of human history.
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Hi ROM,
I don’t believe I’ve the privilege of reading a more inspiring and at the same same time more damning comment for a long time! Congratulations!!
I respectfully request your permission to re-use this when defending real science from warmist power-seekers.
Regards, Neville
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I am humbled by your request Neville so a sincere Thank You and if you wish to use the post please do so.
[ You will have to do some minor editing for my verbal cockups ]
At nearly 76 years old I guess I’m of a generation where science was revered and deservedly so.
On the day of the Moon landing I made my very small kids sit in front of that blurred farmhouse black and white TV to watch what will in future generations be recognised as one of mankind’s greatest feats of his entire history,
Those first steps on another cosmic body, steps that are indelibly imprinted on our history even though they are effectively ignored by today’s generations will be recognised by future generations as the great milestone in mankind’s journey through history.
It was the very first time we, mankind have left Earth, the womb and cradle of mankind to land on another cosmic body,
It might well be seen one day as the beginnings of mankind’s, our race’s journey to the great cosmic spaces and it’s stars.
That very first step onto the surface from the Moon Lander by Neil Armstrong can never be repeated.
It was THE FIRST STEP out of the cradle.
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Not to mention the media.
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It was incredible luck that Apollo 13’s failure happened after the lunar module had been extracted and docked with the command module and before they were in orbit around the moon. At any other point in the flight they would have been lost.
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A question for space buffs, on the DVD for the movie “Gravity” there’s a documentary about the apparent increasing problem of space debris multiplying via collisions in earths orbit, a NASA scientist Don Kessler has warned of this possible scenario back in 1978 and is known as the “Kessler Syndrome” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
But after a couple of references to increasing Climate Change from Kessler himself my BS meter took off, so if anyone knows if this is a genuine problem or maybe the next big bogus scare I’d like to hear peoples opinions.
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Objects would have to be at the same altitude, on crossing trajectories, at exactly the same time.
I don’t know how much junk is up there, but I would guess the probability of collisions would be pretty darn small.
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The probability of space junk collisions is “probably” a fraction greater than the chance that dumped dredge spoil at Abbott Point will effect the Great Barrier Reef.
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But the Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeef!!!
I hope they hurry up and dredge so that people can see it having precisely zero impact for themselves. I’m looking for apologies.
The EIS and related pages had pics from when Mackay was done. A larger tonnage. The plume covered about 3km. But the reef is 40km from Abbot666 Point. People are running pics of “dredging” destroying the reef on social meeja. Funny how you can see DUBAI in the background!
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Griss and torightmate obviously haven’t applied the Precautionary Principle to properly address the situation. Two or more pieces of junk could collide at any time and start to fall to earth, colliding with more junk during the re-entry and forming a massive, epoch-ending Man-Made meteorite. Quite clearly, the only option is for nations to hand all their money over to the UN that a solution be found. Thousands of Climate Scientists can be diverted onto this task, thereby escaping the imminent global unemployment that their present occupation faces. The grant and exotic conference venues supply would thus be assured into the foreseeable future.
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Kevin you are obviously employed writing grant applications.
I was thinking of a research grant to study the mating habits of asteroids – want to be in it? It could keep us both on the “junket circuit” for years.
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We should be able to tie in Man Made Epoch Ending Meteorites (MMEEM) with the natural variation implicit in Asteroid Increase. (AI). to request funding necessary to show that it is possible to discern the evil MMEEM signal from the environmentally sound natural variation of AI. WE should be able to make a case to investigate what are the likely outcomes of a fusion of a MMEEM with one or more AI’s. We need a computer model to do this research, which will have to be designed and built ab initio.
We will need a suitable base. I think any polynesian island with an airstrip and a water supply would do. We could adapt everything for solar power- who wants to work at night? In the interests of equal opportunities, the majority of our 30-strong team should be female doctorate students.
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Aitutaki in the Cook Islands would suit us down to the ground. Stunningly beautiful, good fishing and clear skies to aid in our research.
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Placing absorbent wadding made of multiple layers of global warming alarmists all over the outside of sateliites would shield them from the impacts and also might reduce the harm done by the global warming alarmists.
Win + win.
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Here’s a quick overview of Kessler’s theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGm5odlIh4 I noticed that he uses computer models to predict this potential space tragedy that will eventually result in a deadly 30.000kph debris destruction belt orbiting earth, my BS meter rises again but hey if it’s true what a great protection against meteor strikes and alien invaders. đ
Probably no satellites though so break out those ham radios.
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Mmmmm. Ham. But will you be able to get a good signal without tuna fish?
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Did you forget Red Underpants Conroy’s NBN? Surely he was going to cable everyone everywhere?
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He uses a lot of words, but they contain no information.
He’s apparently worked out the odds of a collision, but didn’t mention it.
Or the chance that the debris generated from one collision will hit another object.
It all sounds very familiar somehow. Could, would, might, if, if, if. But no statements of any values.
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There is quite a bit of debris and here is more info.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/howtojunk/
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The probability of collision is low, but the damage which might be caused is high.
There have been micro-meteor collisions in the past, mostly microscopic particles, its an ongoing problem. http://quest.nasa.gov/space/teachers/suited/9d2micro.html
And when your fragile, incredibly valuable satellite is damaged, it can result in a very expensive repair bill, or even writing off of the entire installation.
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Eric: Question: Most of the items in orbit are not really gigantic is size, so would not most of these items burn up in earths atmosphere before doing damage?
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Remembering orbiting is whizzing at high speed in a direction roughly tangential to Earths surface. When such an item collides with anything of a similar size whizzing in another direction (which may also be tangential to Earth), the result can by both of them whizzing off in new directions which are no longer tangential, with a roughly equal chance of that being towards Earth or away from Earth.
Even if two orbiting satellites of the same size travelling at the same speed but in opposite directions collided head on and came to a complete halt, then gravity would take over and bring them straight back to Earth with a bump.
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Yonnistone, years ago (probably 25) I toured the U.S. Space Command center at Schriever AFB in Colorado. This facility monitors and controls numerous satellites and as part of that function tracking space debris. Even then 25 years ago space debris was a growing problem. Not so much for us earthlings but for the great potential to ruin expensive orbiting equipment. The debris is not always large material but down to nuts and bolts size stuff hurtling around at speeds fast enough to puncture pressurized craft and space suits like bullets. Even then there was discussion on how to go about cleaning the stuff up including orbiting spacecraft that might capture and retain it.
Some stuff eventually falls back to earth and most of that burns up. That said, I can imagine that there is much more of it today than 25 years ago.
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Yonni,
Yes it is a big problem and a lot of time, effort and money goes into monitoring where every little loose nut and bolt is, not only by NASA but by anyone else who puts anything in orbit.
It’s a very real possibility that “Gravity” could come true someday. Everything we put up there is lightweight and flimsy compared with structures on the surface because every last milligram you boost into orbit costs not only fuel but takes away from other possible payload. Being hit by something traveling just a one km/hr (relative speed) can ruin your whole day.
In his novel, Space Cadet, Heinlein wrote about a spaceship having the misfortune of a small meteorite entering their airlock while the outer door was open and going right on through the inner door, leaving them with no way to seal off the breach in time. All were found dead months (or years) later, by accident if I remember right. So the thought of flying debris being your undoing was around even in the 1950s.
The physics in Gravity were excellent but I doubt that a human body could withstand the slamming around that Sandra Bullock went through. Even so, it was a great sci fi cliff hanger and so well done that I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my money as I walked out of the theater.
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Thanks for all replies, I knew I’d get a good skeptical range of answers.
I agree from experience with firearms that anything small travelling at that speed is damaging and deadly it was just the idea of what the odds were of this debris actually hitting it’s mark and multiplying without burning up in our atmosphere or leaving our orbit.
It’s actually a sad state of affairs when a non scientist like myself questions the very integrity of a NASA scientist when so many great achievements have been made by the people at NASA over the years, only to be tainted by a few who have used their position to stray into a quasi scientific ideal/cult.
I do believe anyone has a right to question and test the scientific validity of any theory regardless of their background for as we know quite often good solutions can come from anywhere, even though warmists like to move these goalposts to suit their agenda I would like to see what would happen if a bank teller came up with a cure for cancer, would a warmist accept this scientific affront especially if they had the disease?, I think those goalposts would move very bloody fast.
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The problem of Man made space debris from rocket launched space experiments including a Chinese anti missile test test that placed thousands of particles and lumps of metal in earth orbit is becoming a very serious near Earth orbit problem for the manned International Space Station and for the numerous low Earth orbit satellites both scientific and commercial such as the communications and commercial earth surveillance satellites.
Not so long ago the International Space Station astronauts were instructed to retreat to a small section of the station that has been designed as a place of refuge in case of a significant space debris strike on the station.
The 2010 Chinese missile intercept test;
[quoted]
Aftermath;
Known orbit planes of Fengyun-1C debris one month after its disintegration by the Chinese ASAT (orbits exaggerated for visibility)
Several nations responded negatively to the test and highlighted the serious consequences of engaging in the militarisation of space. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao stated, “There’s no need to feel threatened about this” and argued that “China will not participate in any kind of arms race in outer space.”[16][17] Ironically, China had been long advocating to ban space weapons, which had been rejected by the United States under George W. Bush.[7]
Anti-satellite missile tests, especially ones involving kinetic kill vehicles as in this case, contribute to the formation of orbital space debris which can remain in orbit for many years and could interfere with future space activity (Kessler Syndrome).[6] The test is the largest recorded creation of space debris in history with at least 2,317 pieces of trackable size (golf ball size and larger) and an estimated 150,000 debris particles.[18][19]
[end]
From NASA , it’s view on the severe proliferation of space debris;
[quoted]
Space Debris and Human Spacecraft
September 27, 2013
Space debris is tracked as it orbits Earth.
More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or âspace junk,â are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.
The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.
Orbital Debris
[quoted]]
Orbital debris is any man-made object in orbit about the Earth which no longer serves a useful function. Such debris includes nonfunctional spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicle stages, mission-related debris and fragmentation debris.
There are more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. They travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. There are 500,000 pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger. There are many millions of pieces of debris that are so small they canât be tracked.
Even tiny paint flecks can damage a spacecraft when traveling at these velocities. In fact a number of space shuttle windows have been replaced because of damage caused by material that was analyzed and shown to be paint flecks.
âThe greatest risk to space missions comes from non-trackable debris,â said Nicholas Johnson, NASA chief scientist for orbital debris.
Tracking Debris
The Department of Defense maintains a highly accurate satellite catalog on objects in Earth orbit that are larger than a softball.
NASA and the DoD cooperate and share responsibilities for characterizing the satellite (including orbital debris) environment. DoDâs Space Surveillance Network tracks discrete objects as small as 2 inches (5 centimeters) in diameter in low Earth orbit and about 1 yard (1 meter) in geosynchronous orbit. Currently, about 15,000 officially cataloged objects are still in orbit. The total number of tracked objects exceeds 21,000. Using special ground-based sensors and inspections of returned satellite surfaces, NASA statistically determines the extent of the population for objects less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) in diameter.
Collision risks are divided into three categories depending upon size of threat. For objects 4 inches (10 centimeters) and larger, conjunction assessments and collision avoidance maneuvers are effective in countering objects which can be tracked by the Space Surveillance Network. Objects smaller than this usually are too small to track and too large to shield against. Debris shields can be effective in withstanding impacts of particles smaller than half an inch (1 centimeter).
&
Planning for and Reacting to Debris
&
Maneuvering Spacecraft to Avoid Orbital Debris
___________________________
The main proposed method of eliminating space debris and space junk is to use very powerful Earth based Laser systems to target the debris particles and shift the orbits of the particles so that they enter a decaying orbit and get burnt up in the atmosphere as they re-enter. There are dozens of such laser based proposals but this is one from Germany and which is associated with the European space program
DLR Developing Method to Detect Tiny Space Debris Using Lasers –
[quoted]
DLR and the Laser Station in Graz provide Europeâs first ever demonstration of laser location
DLR PR â Every year, the number of small items of debris in space rises by tens of thousands. This number is currently based on estimates, as it has not been possible to track space debris accurately. Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fĂźr Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) are developing an optical observation system with a powerful laser, the pulses from which can detect particles only a few centimetres in diameter and allow determination of their orbits. The concept was tested for the first time in January 2012, in collaboration with the Laser Station in the Austrian city of Graz. This is the first time that the orbits of spent launcher components have been measured using a laser in Europe. In the future, an even more powerful laser will be capable of deflecting these particles out of their orbits, causing them to incinerate as they re-enter Earthâs atmosphere.
[ more ]
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Sorry; The NASA link to the space debris problem as quoted above; http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html#.UxzzLK5LaHs
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I commented in the previous thread, but this is a much better place for this to be posted:
Jo, do you have, or would you consider getting, a âtips and notesâ page?
Youâve been turning the light of skepticism upon pseudoscience for some time. Not just the abuses of the âpoliticalâ scientists and eco-loons, with their failed prophecies but all the group-thinkers, incompetents and frauds.
Hereâs an example of non-science that gets media attention. It nevertheless properly belongs with instances of perverted science rather than media bias.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/osu-study-links-barbie-dolls-to-girls-thinking-they-have/article_0629c076-a4bf-11e3-8c8b-0019bb2963f4.html
How sad that the researchers, reviewers, journal editors, media, and the general public are so profoundly ignorant of statistics that they think they can draw a statistically valid conclusion from querying a subset of 37 school girls.
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The Barbie Doll is the good looking and more intelligent one on the right.
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Thanks for the clarification TRM. For a moment there I wasn’t sure – looks as though my specs need cleaning again.
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A glowing example of statitistical significance and real life irrelevance, well almost, as the statistical significance will undoubtedly become the nubile centrefold of a future grant application.
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The Bolt Report today revealed the green movement.
The videos here.
The show came about via a prearranged meeting at Alan Jones’ birthday party, three years ago but would have to go to my desktop to confirm that.
Hehehehehe
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A piece to the puzzle.
Why would a miner put hard earned into deadpan investments like Network TEN and Fairfax??
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My flora/fauna-warming effect hypothesis is that there is about 3 trillion tonnes of organisms on or near the Earths surface. These all feed off of the energy created from solar radiation through photosynthesis. This light would have otherwise been reflected back into space or heated the surface and been emitted to space as LWIR. By becoming part of the food chain, this energy is trapped leading to gradual release and warming of the Earth through the metabolism of this chemical energy at the surface.
Stupid idea! So why then doesn’t the scepticism extend to CO2? Only a fraction of the 3 trillion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere, the portion in the upper atmosphere that is 60°C colder than the surface, makes the surface more than 7°C warmer than it otherwise would be because, wait for it, it is a warm black body emitter of radiation.
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even if it’s not all true, as yet anyway, how i wish ABC had to rely on subscriptions!
9 Mar: UK Telegraph: Edward Malnick: BBC report ‘proposes scrapping licence fee’
A BBC report being considered by the corporation’s executive board is said to have proposed replacing the licence fee with a subscription scheme
A 12-strong panel established by James Purnell, the corporationâs director of strategy and digital, is said to have made the recommendation to the BBCâs executive board. However, on Saturday night the BBC denied the claim.
The panel, which was formed last year to provide an outside assessment of the BBCâs future, said the licence fee should be retained until 2020, according to the Sunday Times.
The disclosure came after the Telegraph revealed that ministers have backed radical plans to decriminalise refusals to pay the fee…
However, on Saturday night the corporation denied that the review proposed replacing the licence fee with a subscription scheme.
“The report recommends that the BBC pursue an inflationary licence fee increase with greater commercial revenue,” a spokesman said. “No subscription model is recommended.”
The BBC had told The Sunday Times: âThis piece of work looked at how we would continue the BBCâs mission to inform, educate and entertain as we approach our centenary.
âWe are always keen to explore ways to serve licence fee payers better, and will continue to innovate.â …
Currently, anyone failing to pay the fee who watches live television at home faces a fine of up to ÂŁ1,000 and a criminal record.
Those who refuse to pay any fines they are given by a magistrates court ultimately face jail.
More than 100 backbench MPs from all the major political parties are now supporting a change in the law which would make non-payment of the annual ÂŁ145.50 charge a matter for the civil courts, rather than a criminal offence.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10685761/BBC-report-proposes-scrapping-licence-fee.html
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http://www.gizmag.com/go/1886/
I came across this blurb on a recent surf around the internet. I’ve never hear of ‘Solar Thermal Power Station’ technology before and was wondering if anyone here can enlighten me about whether or not this thing is real and / or direct me to some additional reading so that I can understand the technology in question. Is this technology something that is feasible or is this similar to those giant turbine windmills and solar cells, just another money grab for something totally useless. Appreciate your help.
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Tony from Oz has posted frequently on these units, I think on the last two weekend “unthreaded” threads. Recently on the new station opened in California where the instant roasting effect on avian life has attracted the attention of Colonel Saunders. The economics and performance make the windmills look like energy utopia. The promotional article claimed it could “light 40,000 homes” (I think that was the figure).I commented “only in daytime”!
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They’ve discovered how Tarmac works then. How long before we see a weather station positioned on this heat island ?
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Peter K. See Weekend unthreaded 22.2.14 from about 5pm for the discussion about the Spanish solar power plant. The California Plant does not include power storage for reasons that are clear from the Spanish experience.
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diogenese2: I couldn’t find 22.2.14 weekend unthreaded but did find 15.2.14 where Tony posted a couple of interesting posts. I’ve read quite a few of Tony’s post over the past few months and if my recollection is correct, Tony speaks of these solar power plants as generating steam (I think) to turn a turbine to generate electricity and he also spoke of them storing the energy in salt (I think)?
What I don’t understand and can’t make a connection with is this quote located here:
http://www.enviromission.com.au/EVM/content/home.html
“The sunâs radiation is used to heat a large body of air under an expansive collector zone, which is then forced by the laws of physics (hot air rises) to move as a hot wind through large turbines to generate electricity.”
Is this a different kind of solar unit? It doesn’t make steam and the heat is not stored in salt. I would assume that this type of unit would only operate when the sun shines because if it’s hot air driving turbines, eventually the hot air runs out (night-time) and the unit comes to a stop. I also read somewhere that these towers are built to about 1/2 a mile high!
This sounds just like another ‘white elephant’ project.
Thanks
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Google SOLAR UPLIFT TOWER and read the Wikipedia entry.
It tells you all you need to know – very impressive until you come to EFFICENCY and FINANCIAL FEASIBILTY.
I especially liked the Namibian project with its 1.5 kilometre high chimney and 37 square kilometre glasshouse “in which cash crops can be grown”.
Since the greenhouse would raise the air temperature 35 c ABOVE ambient I wonder what they would grow – chillies perhaps?
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Thanks diogenese2! After reading about the solar uplift tower I can see, like everything else, theory is great but putting something into practice at a decent price and only on the merits of the project (no public funding or guarantees), shoots the theoretical version down. Not commercially viable!
Thanks
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your welcome
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Apart from the solar uplift tower which is too inefficient to be viable (as you have already realised) there are 3 types.
The Solar Tower has a large number of flat mirrors reflecting sunlight onto a small target on top of a central tower. Molten salts are circulated through the target back to a holding tank. From there they are circulated through a heat exchanger to heat water/steam to about 560â and this drives a steam turbine. In theory if you make the holding tank big enough you can generate power for 24 hours (providing every day is sunny). In practice the cost of the tank +contents and the inevitable thickening of the molten salts as heat is extracted usually means that they shut down a few hours after sunset.
Also, this means that starting up at sunrise is delayed until the salts get hot enough. To speed this some plants draw power from the grid, while at least one spanish plant uses a small gas turbine to generate electricity and uses the exhaust to heat the salts.
The reflector types uses long parabolic troughs with mirror surfaces to concentrate sunlight on a pipe at the focal point. The circulating fluid is usually organic (instead of salts) so is limited to a lower temperature and lower efficiency. There is a version using the Fresnel approach with long flat thin mirrors which are set to different angles to do the same thing. This allows possible use of molten salts.
Lastly there is the parabolic mirror (like a reverse car head lamp) which concentrates the sunlight on a focus point target, usually a Stirling motor. They seem to be the most efficient but the cost of thousands of steerable mirrors means that they haven’t ever been commercialised.
The drawback with solar (and wind) technology is the low energy density of the heat. It requires a large area of reflecting surface to generate commercially viable amounts of electricity, so solar towers have a size limit because at larger collecting areas the heat losses become too big for any gain. With the trough types the heat losses as they get bigger make the output even more expensive.
20
I’ve waited to come in here, so sorry about that. I had to go and check, and a lot of sites are confusing to say the least.
First proposed in 2000, and publicly floated in 2001, with shares now trading at 8 cents each, so, if this is the utopian idea of solar power for the future, I would suppose some of you are wondering why now, 14 years later all we are seeing is artist’s impressions. Why aren’t they crawling out of the woodwork to build these things.
Sites proclaim that this 200MW plant will supply anything from 100,000 to 200,00 homes, and with CO2 savings ranging from 600 million tons to one million tons, and cars removed from the road equivalent to hundreds of thousands, and when was the last time you heard a solar plant opening up, and as a result, thousands of cars were removed from roads.
Unlike other CSP plants which use compounds which can be heated to molten to make steam to drive a turbine which then drives a generator, this plant is different and uses a principle similar to hydro power….. similar to.
The huge collectors cover an area of say five square Kilometres and the air under them heats up. They must be sealed so that hot air does not escape….. or, as they say, to ambient!
The hot air rises, so it is then funneled inwards and then up the tower.
Get this. The tower is ….. wait for it, TWICE the height of the Empire State building making this structure one of the tallest man made structures on Planet Earth. It is made of, umm, concrete.
It needs to be so tall to make a suitable uprush of air, and modelling shows this height to make around 30MPH.
Around the base of the tower are positioned 32 turbine/generator units, each of 6.25MW, totalling a Nameplate of 200MW.
The turbine is driven by the 30MPH uprush of hot air, utilising a Kaplan turbine similar to one form of turbine used in hydro, the other being a Francis Turbine. The Kaplan turbine is basically a large propellor like on a motor boat, only larger. The onrushing hot air drives this Kaplan turbine which then drives the smallish generator.
I dispute that this can provide 24/7/365 power, because of the heat in the ground after hours, maybe in mid Summer, but not year round.
There’s no mention anywhere of the CF, again strangled information using the 100,000 to 200,000 homes supplied, extrapolating the power generated from that, and hey, the plant is connected to the grid, not to these imaginary homes.
There’s also no mention of cost or projected life span, but I did see one comment that this plant is virtually build and forget, virtually zero maintenance (with 32 units – Huh!) and would feasibly last forever.
Please excuse my skepticism on this.
14 years and still only an artist’s impression.
Tony.
50
“14 years and still only an artistâs impression.”
Gee Tony, if we’re lucky in another 14 years maybe we’ll get an artist’s impression of the electricity that the plant will supply to the artist’s impression of the houses, with the artist’s impression of unemployed people standing around (because they don’t have any artist’s impressions of cars) looking up at the tower saying, “Oh WOW!”.
All of which were merely imagined to provide money for artists who do impressions.
00
It was on the news here in Mildura for a while because of the high electricity use during summer in an irrigation area. They planned to build a 1km high tower. I think that it was decided that it would be more economically feasible in Nigeria.
20
All of us glider pilots here in Vic and SA were busting our arses for that tower to be built as we reckoned it would have been one hell of a thermal generator coming out of the top of the tower.
Of course on some days with the right atmospheric conditions a very large cloud would likely have formed over the tower so cutting off the sunshine and heat that supposedly drove the whole thing.
Which would have degraded the performance down by another few tens of percentages but why tell the investor suckers and the government funders about that little problem.
Build it and on-sell it to some sucker super annuation fund and then walk, fast! was the likely motto.
20
Marijuana. Obviously, the developers have already invested several kilos of their own personal “grass” in thinking up this scheme, and will need to be reimbursed. Opium poppies are not outside the realm of possibilities associated with thie pipe dream.
00
If I remember, this has been around before. Does anyone know what its status is?
I remember a lot of complaints about the noise possibility from the thing.
20
Here’s how it works:
(harebrained scheme) + (grants) -> (white elephant) + (junkets) + (more grants)
20
UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Davey has a new way of dealing with skeptics. He tells them to shut it.
20
Ed is giving weight to the Duke of Wellington’s dicta. “Lord save us from the unintelligent and hard-working man.”
50
Big win for Chevron against militant greenies – Capitalism Groes a Pair:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/03/06/Chevrongate-capitalism-finally-grows-a-pair-in-the-war-on-Big-Green
40
Yep! Appeasement doesn’t work.
Good for Chevron! And double good for the judge who stayed honestly interested in what the real case was all about.
When you see Darryl Hannah trotted out to support something, you know it’s not on the up-and-up. She’s got to be Hollywood’s lightest weight on nearly every subject, even good script material. O’Reilly interviewed her last year about climate change and not only did he not ask actually pertinent questions, I could have easily demolished her every answer to the questions he did ask.
Pretty girl though. And that’s about all the credit I can give her.
They call it Holleyweird for a reason.
30
Another piece of the jigsaw that goes to make up a picture of AGW!
Upsetting scenes from Australia’s drought
Emergency relief is on its way to drought-hit farmers in eastern Australia as many are forced to sell or slaughter their cattle.
However the drought is not only inflicting a financial toll – there’s a mounting psychological cost on communities where once fertile land has turned to dust.
Phil Mercer reports from Tamworth in New South Wales.
Read more
Cattle prices tumble amid eastern Australia’s drought
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26439750
111
Are you trying to imply that this drought is in any way different from all the other droughts Australia has had?
If so, it might be better if you weren’t coy about it, and said it right out.
Then, it’d be nice if you could document that difference, don’t you think?
If there really is some difference, and some reason to think it might be human-caused climate change, you might win some converts. Though I’m hard-pressed to see how you think this might be due to a changing climate when the satellite measurements show no warming trend in the Globe’s climate for the last 17 and a half years.
91
‘it might be better if you werenât coy about it, and said it right out’, I refer you to the current co2 levels.
08
Current CO2 levels? You gotta be kidding me. Leo is talking about lack of rainfall (known in the trade as a “drought”), all all you can do is try to change the subject by prattling on about CO2 levels, which have been going up with no impact on temperatures for the last 17 years.
Remember correlation does not prove causation, but lack of correlation sure disproves causation. What part of that do you not understand?
100
Pretty much all of it.
Have you noticed BA4’s comments have become a little more desperate recently?? That’s what happens when you run out of pre-prepared propaganda videos and try to wing it I suppose.
50
@Rereke Whakaaro
March 10, 2014 at 12:11 pm
‘by prattling on about CO2 levels, which have been going up with no impact on temperatures for the last 17 years.’ yes co2 levels which give us AGW and produces climate change.
AGU, Richard Alley and climate zombies!
âThis particular climate zombie is back in force againâŚI just showed you warming is continuing, the global warming has stopped, has a new burst of noiseâŚItâs just flabbergasting, what I just showed you the science, the system is warmingâŚthe atmosphere is warmingâŚthe Goddard Institute for Space…is it getting warmer yes, the confidence is highâŚbut notice how you can do thisâŚI am born in 1957, at the start of a cooling trend, I married in 1980 start of a cooling trendâŚwe moved to Penn state in 1988 at the start of a cooling trendâŚ1997 at the start of a cooling trendâŚthey named a glacier after me in 2002 at the start of a cooling trendâŚour daughter became a Penn staterâŚ2005 at the start of a cooling trend! So my whole life [as he reveals a graph that shows an ever increasing temperature]âŚnow recognise this, as long as the Earth is variable you can do this foreverâŚALL YOU DO IF THERE IS RAPID WARMING SHUT UP and then you can go back and claim GW has stoppedâŚuntil ad infinitumâŚwe are hearing this at the highest levelsâŚthis is a climate zombieâŚsomebody is keep waking these up! R Alley
As can be seen here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5sxBSa6Tck
01
Oh no, not that same old, “I had a significant life event, and it got colder” clip, again! Do you get a commission payment every time you quote it?
It is a conjuring trick, it is slight of hand, it is moving the cups to hide the pea.
He is cherry picking cooling events that happened before the period, I am referring to. That period is the last seventeen years, during which the previous warming has stalled, whilst the levels of atmospheric CO2 (from all sources) has continued to majestically rise.
Also, he is showing the cooling periods, and the warming periods, which average out to a slight warming, but he shows no significant corrolation with CO2 levels over the same period, and he certainly does not present any argument for causation in any way, shape or form. And without showing causation, his entire pontification is just smoke and mirrors.
Sure temperatures go up and down, for all sorts of reasons. CO2 levels go up and down for all sorts of reasons too. Are the definitively related? If so, how? Is there a direct causative relationship? If so, what is the mechanism?
How thick was the glacier they named after him?
30
‘âI had a significant life event, and it got colderâ’
where does he say this? Time code please, because I can’t find it!
‘cooling events that happened before the period’ I refer you to his quote:-
‘as long as the world is variable you can do this forever’
@02:08
00
Mein Gott sind Sie dumm.
I was paraphrasing what you typed in 10.1.1.1.2: “I am born in 1957, at the start of a cooling trend, I married in 1980 start of a cooling trend …”. Do you remember typing that?
Being born is a significant life event, no? Getting married is a significant life event, is it not?
And yes, you are quite right, “as long as the world is variable …” he can always cherry-pick the periods that reinforce whatever smoke and mirrors illusion he wants to project.
And that was the whole point of my comment. He is being economical with the truth, and you keep on falling for it.
And still we have no evidence of causation, and the CO2 keeps on going up, whilst temperatures remain static.
I am not going to give you the time code. I was quoting you, quoting him. I try to avoid watching propaganda, unless I must. It always leaves me with a feeling that my brain needs a good wash.
00
So you are putting quotation marks around a ‘paraphrase’ is that not an oxymoron? Well such is the world of anti-AGW bloggers!
00
And you are trying to divert this conversation away from the fact that your YouTube hero appears to be blatantly using psychological manipulation techniques to present his students with nonsense and non-science.
I don’t know about you, but I find it repulsive that people in authority will blithely stuff around inside other peoples heads, just because it is convenient for them to do so, at the time.
00
I understood your inference, “This drought is different from all the other droughts because of the current CO2 levels.”
You seem to have missed the fact that my question was about the drought.
Yes, CO2 levels are different from previous CO2 levels.
Also, the current State Premier is different from previous State Premiers.
Likewise, the current year number is different from previous year numbers.
Certainly the last two make absolutely no difference to the drought.
Your implication is that the first one does.
So how is the drought different?
Not the year, not the Premier, not the CO2 levels- how is the drought different, and how do you tie that difference to the different CO2 levels?
If the independent variable of your natural experiment is the level of CO2, then what do you consider to be the dependant variable?
If it is ‘drought’, then observe that we have had the same effect without the CO2 levels of today. (Or premier, or year number, or attitudes to gay liberation or whatever.)
Remember we’ve already had a ‘thousand year drought’ and we were ‘never going to see dams full again.’
Please actually justify your implied claims with somewhat better logic than “An unusually cold Winter is upon us again. We must sacrifice another virgin.”
And don’t leave us to guess what you’re trying to imply- that way you’ll have a better chance of seeing the flaws in your logic before you make them public.
Seriously, you can persuade me- but not with hand waving assertion and non-sequiter. What difference do you see in this drought as a consequence of the CO2 levels?
40
‘and how do you tie that difference to the different CO2 levels?’ I refer to the link above.
01
Hasn’t it gone quiet?
It does that, when BA4 can’t find a pre-packaged YouTube clip he can refer you to.
30
Rareke
Common you guys – be nice to BA4th! He’s got to live in that brain for the rest of his life!
What a horrible thought.
Cheers,
Speedy
10
“Heâs got to live in that brain for the rest of his life’
Well there’s plenty of wide open, uninhabited space.
Plenty of space to grow tumbleweeds.
00
Gosh, that is terrible! And now there are TWO tropical cyclones soaking the North East.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/
This AGW jigsaw has a lot of missing bits.
51
‘This AGW jigsaw has a lot of missing bits’ possibly, but perhaps not so many, as 1000s of scientist around the world work on the answers. Which will show the way forward.
014
Your religious faith is endearing BA.
90
‘Your religious faith is endearing BA.’
No! Faith in science, which you should have considering you qualifications!
00
I think the word you are looking for is “annoying”……as in a fly blown ass to a sheep.
10
“as 1000s of scientist around the world work on the answers”
Buy as most of the AGW hucksters are looking in the wrong direction….
ie..excuses why they have failed so miserably so far…..
..as a game of hide and seek,, they aren’t even getting warm.
50
“1000s of scientist around the world work on the answers…..” which may not be the ones you’re hoping for, BA. The rift in AR5 between what the pollies and ideologues wish for and what the scientific body is prepared to commit to was scarcely papered over. The cracks are there for all to see and may just get bigger.
10
Do you get to pick which answers you like too?
Or perhaps select the answers that were correct after the fact (thereby proving that they were all correct).
00
I wonder how BA4 can be so concerned about droughts when there is a danger of flooding?
I reckon that he has two (or perhaps three) jigsaws mixed up together. No wonder he has trouble getting the bits to fit.
60
Those 8 piece kindy puzzles are proving to be a real pita for you, hey BA4.
But keep trying. In kindy there is no such thing as a fail, so feel safe.
31
You ignorant monumental twit.
Perhaps you should do a little historical drought study of Australia.
You trolls are really getting worse and worse.. your IQ actually seems to be dropping. (will be in single figures soon)
How do you manage to function in normal society ?
51
I think Griss that you are suggesting that his shoe size is on a par with his IQ.
Or to para-phase the former NZ prime minister, one “Piggy” Muldoon.
When a troll leaves Jo’s site to commiserate with his/her fellow trolls on some rabidly alarmist site ie, Skeptical Science, it raises the average IQ’s of both sites.
21
Has he got really small feet?
11
You obviously are not Australian..
or have never left your grandma’s basement in your whole pitiful life.
32
‘You obviously are not Australian.. ‘ thank god, not that he exists!:-)
00
Yet you are so lonely wherever you are, that you have to visit here, on an Australian forum, for company.
You poor pathetic little thing.
I would pity you if you were worth the bother.
00
blackadderthe4th,
I’m sure it’s terrible. I’m also sure it’s not unprecedented and I’m equally sure it won’t be the last time either.
If you can provide help to those who need it then please do so. But this amounts to asking us to feel sorry for those affected. And that doesn’t help anyone.
61
BD4, I know how much you prefer youtube than textbooks so here is an example of jigsaw logic.
31
A drought in Australia? Whatever next!
Next you’ll be telling me the shocking news that bears really do sh*t in the woods!
51
I’m not sure if this is workable or rational. Maybe Tony from Oz can tell.
“A Boston-area startup founded by MIT researchers is working to turn this new concept into a commercially viable product, liquid-metal batteries that will store power for less than $500 a kilowatt-hour. Thatâs less than a third the cost of some current battery technologies.”
I couldn’t determine how long it will last or what the capacity is. Perhaps it’s just grant farming.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/mit-s-liquid-metal-stores-solar-power-until-after-sundown.html
Dave t
20
NOTE the claim âIf we can get liquid-metal batteries down to $500 a kilowatt-hourâ – this translates as âsend money nowâ.
I cannot see how starting with wind energy at $100 per MWh (best price) and adding expensive battery backup will ever compete with 24 hour 7 day coal fired at $40 per MWh.
I also donât like the idea of trailers of 25 tonnes of molten metal moving around the countryside. Under the wrong circumstances would make a very big bang.
20
A good laugh to start the new week
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/green-energy-is-blossoming-in-europe/
Also click on the link to the site SG got this from ,for more images.
20
As the Crowded House song goes… “It’s only natural..”
32
Well its certainly irrational on the figures given. The cost of “stored grid supply” is given as $1500 per KWH. The average US home uses 903 Kwh per month. Supply from storage would therefore cost $1,350,000 ! Who, apart from Al Gore, can pay this. Perhaps they mean Mwh? Or perhaps it is capital cost per capacity? Does the author know what he is talking about, or perhaps I have spent too much time with Rawnsley Estate this evening.
40
Jo – you might consider giving this some coverage?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/09/congratulations-to-wuwt-contributor-paul-homewood-for-getting-press-in-east-anglia/#more-104757
It’s not often that such a good article makes it into local newspapers (or even the nationals, come to think of it).
40
I’m fascinated by the new research on nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors. If all goes well, it will spell the end of batteries as we know them. Dare I say it would make solar and wind powered sources viable. It would also finally make electric cars more practical than other form of transportation. One advantage is they can be charged up almost instantly yet can behave like a normal battery on discharge. Still not able to compete directly with the latest battery technologies but in a few years they might be a goer.
20
Trouble is that we have wasted so much on unreliable, unusable crap, that there is precious little left for any development that might be worthwhile.
We still need to produce most of our electricity from reliable sources for the foreseeable future,
and we still need to beef up the atmospheric CO2 to a state where plants no longer need to struggle. ie 700 ppm at least.
The biosphere is just waking up, a pity if the green agenda should put it back to sleep again from lack of CO2
40
I agree a lot of time, money and talent has been wasted on the Greens agenda. The problem too is it appears it will continue for some time. I suspect the reason is their agenda appears attractive to the agenda of those in power who are desperate to grab even more money from us to pay for their drunken and wasteful spending habits. It’s a viscous circle that can only end in disaster for all of us. Meanwhile great inventions like the nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors will probably go unnoticed or used for all the wrong reasons.
30
I think I’ve lost count of the numbers of new experimental battery and capacitator technologies that are going to be the answer to all our energy problems.
With capacitors you have a very serious problem in that in some circumstances all that energy stored in the capacitor can be released almost instantaneously. And THAT can spell a lot of very serious consequences for anybody or anything within the vicinity.
Even LI batteries can be a serious hazard with their high energy concentrations.
Just ask a couple of airlines that own Dream Liners or Boeing Aircraft about that.
Thomas Edison was given a lot of money by a few wealthy investors to find a new battery technology. After some months or a year or so they came back to Edison and demanded a progress report.
When he told them that he hadn’t found a new viable battery technology they were very upset as they had apparently done their dough and so made a number of accusations about his research capabilities .
His reply;
âI have not failed. Iâve just found 10,000 ways that wonât workâŚâ
40
the daily CAGW study:
10 Mar: SMH: The endless summer? We have some bad news as surf fades away
by Damien Murphy, Amanda Hoh
Latest findings by the Bureau of Meteorology predict big surf will increasingly become a thing of the past. Andrew Dowdy, lead author of a study for the bureau’s Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, said fewer large waves were projected for eastern Australia because storms were not going to be as hostile…
”It was a new method that provided a really good indication of the risk of large waves occurring,” Dr Dowdy said. ”We used climate models that could represent those conditions ⌠that [showed] us how that might change in the future. They proved more consistent than previous studies, as well as allowing the influence of greenhouse gases to be clearly shown.
”It all comes down to how much greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere. We had one scenario where greenhouse gases continue to rise towards the end of the century, and another where greenhouse gas emissions stabilised. For a higher emission scenario, we can expect a 40 per cent reduction in storm events. If emissions were stabilised, we can expect 25 per cent fewer storms in the region.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-endless-summer-we-have-some-bad-news-as-surf-fades-away-20140309-34fhx.html
10 Mar: BusinessInsider: Chris Pash: Sorry Surfies, Climate Change Means Fewer Gnarly Waves On East Coast Australia
The modelling is detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Dr Andrew Dowdy of the bureauâs Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research and colleagues used data from 1992 to 2010 to analyse storm days…
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/sorry-surfies-climate-change-means-fewer-gnarly-waves-on-east-coast-australia-2014-3
00
Why skeptics are important.
“After all, if sceptics hadnât made such an issue of the lack of warming, perhaps England would not have been moved to find a way to wrong-foot them.
Maybe climate science needs climate sceptics, and climate researchers, like England, should welcome their criticisms.
Once it became obvious that the heat was missing, England decided to go find it.
Sceptics, far from distorting the scientific debate, had in fact, driven scientific discovery, whether or not they had been right about any aspect of climate science.
Had Matt Englandâs ire been unbridled by such vulgar preoccupations as free speech, democracy, and academic independence â the sort of thing he and Ward seem hostile to â science may not have made the discovery he now claims as his own (if it is indeed a discovery).”
This important debate is from Judith Curry’s climate etc.
10
to add to the list: CAGW wipes out BODACIOUS TUBES:
9 Mar: New Scientist: Michael Slezak: Bummer. Climate change will shrink gnarly Aussie waves
Bodacious tubes on Australia’s east coast are being wiped out by global warming…
Andrew Dowdy and his colleagues from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne ran 18 climate models forwards and backwards from the present day to try to spot how the changing climate might influence big waves…
Where there might have been waves taller than 6 metres on 36 days a year in the 1950s, now it happens on only about 34 days a year…
The results can’t be generalised to other parts of the world, though, Hemer says. The weather conditions that drive waves in this region may not be the same elsewhere so these studies need to be repeated for each location.
Journal reference: Nature Climate Change: DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2142
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25189-bummer-climate-change-will-shrink-gnarly-aussie-waves.html
10
Another one to add to the list….http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
10
but of course ,with more hurricanes, you are going to get bigger waves as well.
You mention it…… climate change does it..
……….even if that something is nothing, like the last 17 years.
Climate non-change ! đ
21
“…so these studies need to be repeated for each location.”
So send us more grant money now!
20
The absurd, it hurts.
Remember, this is based on a computer model:
“Where there might have been waves taller than 6 metres on 36 days a year in the 1950s, now it happens on only about 34 days a year⌔
Their saying their model is numerical reality. But then, so what. Surely +-2 days a year is within any given random distribution.
My head hurts trying to fathom some Bureau of Meteorology empoyees taking this to the media, in all seriousness.
11
They have taken far worse to the press, and you can bet even worse will come,
especially if the temperatures do start to fall, as many real scientists think they might.
12
I was mulling this over while sipping a coffee in the cool of the morning.
They should have anounced:
Simulated waves may reduce in size in Climate simulations as CO2 increases. Sim surfers, sim fishermen and sim yatchsmen are adviced to seek a more stable system platform, perhaps Xbox.
00
the importance of “story-telling”:
9 Mar: Holmes Report: Americans Believe Humans Causing Climate Change, Doubt Corporate Claims
More than half (60 percent) of Americans believe that climate change is a result of human action such as deforestation and burning of fossil fuels, among other factors, according to the fifth annual Sense & Sustainability Study from Gibbs & Soell, the business communications firm with expertise in sustainability consulting.
Thirty percent of US adults are skeptical while 10 percent are unsure as to the impact of human activity on significant changes in temperature or precipitation over an extended period of time. Natural weather disasters are cited by more than half (57 percent) of Americans as highly influencing their opinions on climate change…
***âThe results speak to the importance of making big issues like climate change more personal and relatable,â says Ron Loch, senior vice president and managing director, sustainability consulting, Gibbs & Soell. âEven for those people not affected by an extreme weather event, news of hurricanes, droughts and blizzards evoke fear, concern and empathy. Thatâs why storytelling is so important when discussing issues of sustainability and social responsibility. It makes the larger problem more relevant and helps gain the kind of attention that can lead to understanding and meaningful action.â
http://www.holmesreport.com/expertknowledge-info/14673/Americans-Believe-Humans-Causing-Climate-Change-Doubt-Corporate-Claims.aspx
00
“Thatâs why storytelling is so important ”
And why the Arts/Lit, but scientifically illiterate, students are becoming more involved..
all that fantasy and fiction is right up their alley.
30
Well, they do for BA4
40
The rest of us prepare our houses for wind, and don’t build on a flood plane.
20
It is not the energy in the oceans which controls climate just because there’s far more energy there than in the atmosphere.
Valid physics tells us it’s the other way around. It is the atmosphere (all the troposphere in particular) that autonomously comes into radiative balance with incident solar radiation, because the whole Earth+atmosphere system is what acts similar to a blackbody – not the surface, which is mostly transparent wherever there’s water.
The thermal gradient (aka lapse rate) evolves spontaneously due to gravity acting at the molecular level, and so the whole thermal profile in the troposphere is pre-determined.
Now, it doesn’t matter that the atmosphere holds far less thermal energy than the ocean. All that matters is what happens when molecules at the interface of the air and water collide. That “evens out” the temperatures and it is (eventually) thermal energy absorbed in the atmosphere that “creeps” up the (sloping) thermal plane and into the ocean. Of course the Sun adds some energy to the oceans, but its radiation passes almost entirely through the first 1cm of the surface and so its radiation is not determining the surface temperature – the troposphere is doing that by non-radiative diffusion and conduction.
Similarly, the Sun is not affecting the Venus surface temperature much with its direct radiation that is barely 20W/m^2, but that surface is over 730K. So exactly the same happens enabling energy to get into the Venus surface (by diffusion and downward convection) and this non-radiative process causes its temperature to rise during its 4-month-long daytime.
Planetary atmospheric, surface and even sub-surface temperatures are not controlled primarily by so-called greenhouse radiative forcing. That is why it’s not carbon dioxide after all.
31
hmmm!
VIDEO: 17 SECONDS: 9 Mar: ITV Wales: Changes in the Sunâs activity may have led to natural climate change
Welsh researchers have found changes in the Sunâs activity over the last thousand years may have led to marked natural climate change.
Scientists at Cardiff University studied the seabed to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic had altered, with the results showing that changes in the sunâs activity can have a considerable impact on the dynamics of the ocean, with potential effects on regional climate.
They say the study will allow them to better predict regional climate change.
Professor Ian Hall, from the University says this could lead to colder winters.
http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2014-03-09/changes-in-the-suns-activity-may-have-led-to-natural-climate-change/
10
with the Malaysian Airlines story dominating the news, i thought maybe abc breakfast wouldn’t find space for an attack on Abbott’s green credentials, but i was wrong:
10 Mar: ABC Breakfast: Bushwalking conservation
Reporter: Gregg Borschmann, Environment Editor
Last week, the Prime Minister Tony Abbott made it clear that he thought too much forest was ‘locked up’ in Australia’s national parks.
Combined with what he called ‘green ideology,’ Mr Abbott blamed this for doing ‘so much damage to our country.’
Yet well before the Greens, one of the earliest advocates in Australia for more national parks, wilderness and World Heritage areas was an economist and a member of the Liberal Party.
Alex Colley was also a pioneer bushwalker, and he died recently, aged 104…
Guests:
Bob Carr
Former Foreign Minister and NSW Premier
Keith Muir
Director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness
Geoff Mosley
Former Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/bushwalking-conservation/5309122
10
How cool the Pacific is at the moment?
BoM: El NiĂąo is the negative phase of the El NiĂąo-Southern Oscillation.
El NiĂąo events are associated with the appearance of a warm ocean current off the South American coast and sustained negative Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) values.
March 7, 2014
The much-feared El Nino phenomenon, the warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific which can trigger drought in Southeast Asia and Australia and floods in South America, could strike as early as the Northern Hemisphere summer, the US weather forecaster warned on Thursday.
10
9 Mar: Ninemsn: Council demands action after record summer
The Climate Council says Australia experienced “another angry summer” this year, with more than 150 temperature records broken…
The environmental group’s report Angry Summer will be released by Professor Tim Flannery on Monday, who said Australia witnessed substantial heat records, heatwaves and extreme weather events over the season.
According to the report, Sydney had its driest summer in 27 years, and Melbourne experienced its hottest ever 24 hour period with an average temperature of 35.5 degrees celsius.
Perth had its second hottest summer and its hottest ever night, and Adelaide suffered through a record 11 days of 42 degrees or more.
Meanwhile, towns from Tamworth to Mount Gambia to Roma all broke records for the daily maximum temperature…
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/03/10/00/08/council-demands-action-after-record-summer
and…
7 Mar: IceAgeNow: Record Cold outnumbering Record Warm temps in U.S.
For the week, for the month, and for the year.
2,628 Record Cold Temps vs 165 Record Warm temps in last 7 days alone
5,836 Record Cold Temps vs 1,995 record warm temps in last 30 days
58,177 Record Cold Temps vs 47,330 record warm temps in last 360 days
9,286 Record Cold temps vs 4,779 record warm temps since January 1st
http://iceagenow.info/2014/03/record-cold-outnumbering-record-warm-temps-u-s/
31
If last year was the “Angry Summer”, logic concludes that if it was getting “hotter”, then this year would be an “Angrier Summer”.
That it is not “Angrier”, one could conclude this is further evidence man made Global Warming is indeed paused, or in hiatus.
32
The ABC is dutifully reporting the alarmism:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-10/climate-council-reports-record-breaking-summer/5309060
I have to laugh at the brochure (how else to describe it) from the “Climate Council.” It looks like a shoddy advertising pamphlet for a discount rug store, replete with exclamation marks, star bursts and lots of bright colours to bedazzle the ignorant. Is this the best science has on offer? That’s rhetorical BTW.
Apologies to discount rug stores.
51
worth reading all:
9 Mar: Forbes: Gordon G. Chang: Whistling Past The Graveyard After China’s 1st Ever Bond Default
On Friday, Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. failed to make an 89.8 million yuan ($14.7 million) interest payment, the first domestic corporate bond default in the history of the Peopleâs Republic of China.
The company, in the red for three straight years, narrowly avoided missing an interest payment on its five-year, billion yuan obligation in January 2013. Then, the Shanghai municipality leaned on banks to not press claims on overdue loans so that Chaori could pay bondholders.
This time, Shanghai officials sat on their hands after the company issued a warning on Tuesday that it was able to pay only a small portionâless than five percentâof the interest coming due. Even more remarkably, authorities let Chaori default during the annual meeting of the National Peopleâs Congress, a particularly sensitive moment in the Chinese political calendar.
Analysts correctly praised Beijing for not rescuing the solar panel company. After all, the missed payment for the first time introduced the concept of risk in the $1.4 trillion corporate bond market, where investors were blindly chasing offerings with the highest coupons regardless of the creditworthiness of issuers…
Consider the challenges. It is no secret why Chaori defaulted. The solar industry in China is notorious for overcapacity and weak prices. The country, of course, is littered with Chaoris, but solar panel overproduction is just the beginning of the story. In the âgreenâ sector, you will find excess wind turbine factories, for instance. And there are far too many coal mines, steel mills, smelters, and ship yards. Need glass or cement? China is certainly the place to go to hook up with an idle producer. Gross overproduction helps explain why the producer price index, which measures factory gate prices, fell in February for the 24th consecutive month…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2014/03/09/whistling-past-the-graveyard-after-chinas-1st-ever-bond-default/
20
nice advertising revenue for the MSM – ignore the disinfo:
10 Mar: West Australian: Andrew Probyn: Solar powers up for ad blitz
The solar industry is planning a $1 million newspaper and television advertising blitz ahead of the April 5 WA Senate election to oppose any cutting of subsidies for renewable energy…
The Australian Solar Council has contracted the creative team behind the successful 2010 mining tax campaign, with filming of the advertisements to begin in coming days.
Council chief executive John Grimes said the aim was to highlight the advantages of solar energy while pushing back against any Federal Government attempts to wind back the renewable energy target.
The solar industry’s activism came as the Climate Council prepared to release data showing Australia had experienced another record-breaking summer…
In 2009, Labor changed the target to ensure renewable energy supplied at least 20 per cent of electricity by 2020.
A 41,000 GWh target was legislated by Labor but declining demand for electricity has prompted concerns the GWh target would be more than 25 per cent of total supply by 2020…
“The Prime Minister says he wants to slash power bills, well five million Australians could tell him the best way slash bills is to have more solar,” he (John Grimes)said.
“We are playing the policy not the party and we will support a party that supports the RET, whether that’s the Greens or Palmer United Party, but the demonisation of solar must stop.”
‘Five million Australians could tell the PM the best way to slash bills is to have more solar.’ “Australian Solar Council chief executive *John Grimes *
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/21898304/solar-powers-up-for-ad-blitz/
00
I’d just like to mention technological advances.
Lately, here at Joanne’s site, I’ve mentioned that six years ago I read an article about Concentrating Solar Power, where it was said that within four or five years (one to two years ago now) they would be able to use this CSP technology to make enough steam to drive a turbine big enough to drive a 250MW generator, and a further four or five years from that (now within the next year or so) a turbine capable of driving a single 500MW generator. The same article also said that modelling showed they would be able to have enough heat storage to drive these units for the full 24 hours.
Now, three things here.
The first is that right now, the largest single unit that has been developed is the 125MW unit at Ivanpah, beset by problems since full operations started. This unit has a Capacity Factor of 37%, and translated into time, that means just under 9 hours a day. It has no heat storage. The larger the unit, the longer the compound takes to become molten enough to make the steam to drive the unit, so a natural gas turbine is utilised at startup, until the solar effect can come online to drive the large Siemens turbine. Not 24 hour power at any stage ever, and not designed to be so….. 125MW.
The second point is that nearly all CSP plants run 50MW units, and again, the best CF is 38% with 6 hours of heat storage, (averaging just 9 hours of power) and 25% without any storage, (averaging just 6 hours of power) So, while in mid Summer, the plant might actually make power for around twelve hours at best, keeping in mind the delayed startup in the AM as the compound has to be heated to molten to make the steam, imagine how low the hours of generation are outside of mid Summer to significantly lower that CF….. 50MW
Thirdly, there is the one plant in Spain with 15 hours of heat storage. The tradeoff here is that to keep the compound molten enough to make steam to drive the turbine, then a much smaller turbine/generator unit is in use, and in this case that is 20MW. Even so, and while this plant has supplied its full rated power in Mid Summer for 36 consecutive days, the CF is still only 60%, (14.4 hours a day on average)….. 20MW.
So, 125MW on a limited basis, 50MW on a limited basis, and 20MW on a limited basis.
In the 1970’s the best coal fired technology enabled a single unit to be driven on a 24/7/365 basis of 660MW, with 4 units on site for an overall Nameplate of 2640MW….. 660MW
Coal fired technology now, with the new Chinese plants will see Advanced USC coal fired plants operating two units each with an output of 1300MW for a total of 2600MW for the plant, similar to the output of the 4 X 660MW 70’s plants, and burning 17% less coal to do that….. 1300MW.
Compare the technologies.
So, to equal (in Nameplate only) a new USC plant of 2600MW, you’ll need 21 solar plants like Ivanpah, and still only get 60% of the total output from the coal fired plant.
Or, 52 units of the current 50MW solar plants and still only get 30% of the power.
Or, 130 of the 15 hour storage plants, and still only get 75% of the power.
Literally humungous amounts of money to replace JUST THE ONE coal fired power plant.
When you read of technological advances in solar power, be aware they are on a small to tiny scale. It’s not the generator. It’s the steam. If they cannot make enough steam, then all they can drive is small units.
Even that Ivanpah plant which runs the largest single unit, of 125MW cost almost $3 Billion.
It’s the steam.
Tony.
50
An article Tony? Is that the basis of all this? Call me old fashioned skeptic, but if that article was crap from the beginning aren’t you just thrashing a dead horse?
26
Judas Priest, most everything in 2008 was just an article on the Internet. I looked at quite literally thousands of articles, mostly factual information from factual sources, because even then, I knew opinion was just that ….. opinion.
This was an earlier Paper commissioned by the U.S. Government’s Department of Energy, pdf, long and very, very boring, highly technical, and hard yakka to get through.
But hey, knock yourself out. It’s in there somewhere.
Assessment of Parabolic Trough and Power Tower Solar Technology Cost and Performance Forecasts (pdf document 344 pages)
Tony.
Post Script – Man, I knew that saving some of that stuff would be of some use to me in the future.
80
thanks for digging it up. It is long and boring as you say. Just looking at the executive summary – your opinion is that “Market acceptance” by 2022 is not likely?
00
Tony; a question?
What MW output would that $3 billion buy you in a coal fired plant?
30
Hard to say really.
In China, they quote a cost of $2 Billion for a new two unit USC (UltraSUperCritical) coal fired plant. That’s in China, so costs would be (probably horrendously) more here in Oz.
A similar plant in Germany, burning brown coal, and also including coal drying at the front end for greater efficiency cost around $3.2 Billion.
So, a new USC coal fired plant would have two units each driving a 1150MW generator, so total output of 2300MW. These also operate at a CF of around 94%, which is understandable while the plant is still new, but they have been operating the first of these plants at that CF for a number of years now.
So then, as a simple exercise, let’s look at total power delivered to the grid.
In the life of this Ivanpah solar plant 25 years operating at that figure of around 35%, you would generate power to the grid in the amount of 9,600GWH of delivered power.
A prospective two unit new tech USC will deliver this same amount of power, at that normal CF operation in, umm ….. 184 DAYS.
25 years of power delivered in 184 days.
Oh dear!
Tony.
50
Thanks Tony
I’ve done some of those figures in the past myself but as you are far more familiar with the data and much better at the analysis I would trust your figures far more than my own.
I’m probably too optimistic but I am pinning my hopes on the Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks fusion reactor. If that works and we should know that “IF” by around 2017, then every single current bet in the world of global energy production is off and no longer valid.
The world would then have what would effectively become an unlimited source of clean almost pollution free energy [ and in a fully transportable package ] and consequently the global production and business systems and the global economy will shift and change over the rest of the 21st century in ways we of this age can never even begin imagine.
20
While the possibility of fusion power seems attractive, the problem here is one of scale.
Small amounts of generated electrical power are encouraging, but from that point, we have to wait for the scaling up of anything like this to large scale power plants, similar to current large scale Nuclear power plants.
Most current nukes are now capable of having at least two units on site, each driving a Generator of around 1100 to 1200MW.
For fusion to have something akin to that you are looking at probably decades away.
It’s an attractive hoped for future ….. if it can be scaled up to that level.
In the interim, we just have to go with what we have while waiting for this to come to pass.
Tony.
60
The change in concept and what seems to be one of the major changes in thinking from the big centralised power generation units that predominate at present to a distributed but closely interlinked system is increasingly being suggested.
It makes a lot of sense as a distributed system would probably mean that only a small part of a grid would / could be knocked out through a natural disaster or a terrorist attack rather than a major generator knocked out for possibly months before being able to get back on line.
The key of course is that similar generation efficiencies can be met with a small multiple generation unit / interlinked system as can be from the current big centralised coal / nuclear / gas powered generation systems.
With fusion reactors such as the Skunkworks reactor assuming it is a goer, the fuel, the non radioactive Deuterium and the highly radio active Tritium which would need some heavy shielding all of which is very well developed since the 1940’s would ,for a year’s supply of fuel for one fusion reactor would fit into the average water flask .
So you don’t have the problem in such a distributed power generation system of having to supply vast quantities of coal or oil or gas to all those widely distributed power generation sites.
It could / would come to each unit in a small shielded container on the back of a ute.
Apart from the fusion reactor technology, similar in concept small transportable sealed for their 20 year life nuclear reactors are being developed by a number of companies which also are proposed to operating on a single to multiple unit distributed interlinked generation system .
At the ends of their useful generation life , they would be lifted from their pits, replaced by another new or refurbished unit and hauled back to a central refurbishment factory there to be refurbished or scrapped as their condition warranted.
Again the annual fuel requirements per unit could easily fit on the back of a truck including the shielding.
Some reading and this is only one of a number of similar designs as can be seen in the Nuclear Regulatory site;
Small Nuclear Power Reactors
Nu Scale
Wiki; Small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor
20
Say its true Jo đ – there is a rumour circulating the alarmist blogosphere that your hubby has just been appointed Tony Abbott’s new climate advisor.
61
oh wouldn’t that be BEAUTIFUL.. đ
And well deserved. đ
Please, Please say it is true. đ
51
Oh great choice!
Please say it is so.
I can see our resident warmies apoplectic with rage if it’s true. It’s going to be an epic popcorn moment!
41
They are going to have to go back to their psychiatrist, Lewendopey, to get a massive re-gig of their medications.
Mind you those medications are obviously already badly out of balance.
31
The G:
Psychiatrists are doctors as it is a requirement before you can study the subject, hence can prescribe medicines.
Psychologists aren’t allowed to issue medication scripts as they haven’t got the training.
Lewandowsky is one of the latter.
60
correction accepted. đ
10
At least it’s not Monckton. David at least is a scientist.
010
Why would Monckton be considered as an advisor to the Australiam PM??
Oh.. Of course, you just wanted to bring his name up for no apparent reason and dish out a little ad hom.
91
Or any country’s PM
06
There is no Human endeavour that is not improved by including an English gentleman. If asked, a former advisor to Baroness Thatcher RIP, recently voted the World’s Most Inspirational Woman, could certainly give sound advice on a plethora of issues.
80
why wouldn’t he? Do you have to be a citizen? (that’s not a rhetorical question). Same head of state at least.
Anyway Abbott is all about soil carbon, and actually Dr Evans actually appears to know a crap load about soil carbon/modelling so it seems like a good fit/
30
Hey Mattb, thumbs up from me. đ
10
Monckton, whatever his faults, did more than anyone except FOIA to turn the tide against climate extremism – he single handedly convinced the American Republicans that climate alarmism was reinvented Communism, and broke the cross party consensus on environmental policy. They were so impressed with his presentation to them, at one point they asked Monckton to represent their views.
151
What Mr FoIA achieved was truly enormous. We might all bow down and reflect on that at every mention of his name.
Monckton and a few others may have done a lot more though and might still be battling tenaciously if not for Mr FoIA.
That one courageous, considered and selfless choice that proved so catastrophic to the cause of AGW alarmism , perhaps the 20th century’s greatest institutional deceit perpetrated against a free citizenry.
10
Another idiotic statement. Keep giving, fool. ! đ
42
If you bothered checking your facts before mouthing off, I guess you wouldn’t be a climate alarmist. đ
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/gop-chooses-lord-hitler-y_b_565126.html
60
gees , I hope that wasn’t aimed at me, Eric đ
21
Sorry Griss đ – thought it was a reply.
50
If you google “Abbott Climate adviser”, the various media climate catastrophist outfits seem to be pretty damn sure that David Evans has been appointed as Abbott’s climate adviser.
And are they getting their knickers in a twist / very tight knots over it with the usual very nasty ad homs and outright vicious insults already flying.
That of course is the only response left to them and is to be only one to be expected from the usual rabid cabal of the character assassination climate catastrophists these days.
Vicious character assassination of skeptics is all they have left as the plateauing of global temperatures continues while CO2 levels still rise. The science as always moves and that will spell the end of the great global warming scam that has already cost some many tens of thousands of lives in avoidable deaths from the no longer affordability of energy and the consequent deprivation of energy for the porest and lowest earning to stave off the winter cold in Europe alone.
The dreadful stench of the failed great climate warming scam will stay with climate Science and it’s media running dogs for a generation or more into the future.
Never again in the next couple of generations will the media be seen as honest and truthful reporters of news and global affairs and that also will spell the end of some of the more rabid media supporters and promoters of the now failing great global warming scam.
121
Absolutely – not disputing that alarmists make a lot of sh*t up. But given the number of true believers hired by Krudd and Gillard, its not impossible the rumour comes from an insider. Of course, it could just be that their meds aren’t making it, since Abbott got elected.
71
Yep, let the ad homs begin. Found this little gem worthy of a giggle.
W@nkers.
81
You have absolutely no idea how ugly this will get before the scare is over. Its ego now, not shame that is the main motivation here and it will see the debate dive to unimaginable lows, and then keep plummeting.
111
I’ve just written the alarmists next diatribe. Ooops.
61
Apologies for the unattributed quote. It was found here.
40
I’m guessing the quote was from the comments; the quote has disapeared.
And even more funny, the source article for all the abuse was suspicious itself, and has disapeared.
Instant rage.
10
Yes, from the comments.
Seems they have been caught out and are covering their tracks. đ
00
Heywood
Anti-semitic? I thought that was the realm of green-leftish academic “intellectuals”…
20
ROM they have one other act left.
As the cause craters, is exposed for the fraud and waste it is, these critters will turn on each other.
The abuse they have directed toward all who doubt their divine revelations, will seem as praise and blessing compared to how they will treat each other, in attempting to evade responsibility.
Buy popcorn.
20
I really don’t think many Australians realise just how serious this European situation is when it comes to the no longer affordability of power primarily due to the truly crazy all out drive to move to renewables like wind and solar under the dictates of the EU commission.
A lot of european countries are now refusing to honour renewable subsidy contracts and / or just refusing outright to pay any subsidies for most classes of renewables.
The power affordability situation in Germany is quite horrific for the lowest paid and the pensioners.
From a Feb NoTricksZone post
17% Of All German Households Now In Energy Poverty! Spiegel Writes Of An âEnergy Cost Explosionâ!
As quoted from “Der Spiegel”
Rising energy costs are becoming a problem for more and more citizens in Germany. Just from 2008 to 20111 the share of energy-poor households in the Federal Republic jumped from 13.8 to 17 percent.â
40
Germany does indeed have nearly 20% of its power from renewable sources, but when you take out Hydro and Biomass, long existing power suppliers, and just isolate Wind Power and Solar Power, that percentage comes down to 8.6% of all Germany’s power.
So the huge costs now facing Germans are due in the main to what is really boutique power suppliers.
Then, if you take into account that Hydro power is close to if not the cheapest form of power generation, so if Cheap Hydro power lowers the overall cost of renewable power which is at this high level, then that should be a stark indicator of just how expensive both Wind Power and Solar power really are.
Tony.
100
Thanks. Some good info there on the details, Tony.
17% Of All German Households Now In Energy Poverty!
Now to the JoNova denizens here who haven’t quite realised what this means on a personal basis, walk down your street and then the next street and the next street and the next and count the houses.
And realise if you were in Germany every sixth house in your street and all those other streets can no longer afford to pay for the electricity that you so casually switch on and expect light and heat and power to be there every time you flick that switch.
And think about it that every one of those every sixth house has probably been cut off from all power for maybe years ahead and how that would affect you and your household if you like those german and UK citizens were permanently cut off from all electrical power even though it ran past your front door.
That is what the completely callous elitist dominated greens and climate catastrophe alarmists are trying to achieve here in Australia just as they are attempting to do through out the western world.
40
That AIMN blog is the worst nest of red and green rattelsnakes imaginable.
11
There are certain climate blogs in Australia which are misleading the public into thinking there is valid physics which indicates carbon dioxide causes warming.
As a fellow Australian I have a right to ask the owners to produce such physics to justify their action, before a court if it becomes necessary. I will be able to prove them wrong.
52
I hope someday, when the extremists have faded from the limelight, that what they said and what they did will for a generation or two, be brought up over and over again whenever one of their kind surfaces or a newbie quotes them. All their useless predictions, climate models and just plain junk science should never be forgotten but forever throw back at them as justifiable ridicule.
60
Doesn’t work that way unfortunately. Look at John Holdren, Obama’s science advisor.
In the 70s he was doing global cooling scares (still our fault of course), before he shamelessly switched to global warming scares which are our fault, then moved on to placing an each way bet with his “global climate disruption” cr@p.
31
Didn’t work for Paul Ehrlich either. They gave him an award for being consistantly wrong for 40 years.
30
Who will volunteer to organise doing this for Australia?
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/3/9/your-environment.html#comments
I particularly like the idea that it becomes a resource for school kids.
30
[As a fellow Australian I have a right to ask the owners to produce such physics to justify their action, before a court if it becomes necessary. I will be able to prove them wrong.]
So, when is the case running then?? I’m still waiting for Monkton to sue someone.
111
depressing. bolt has a thread fact-checking a lengthy Anne Summers/abc interview with Flannery. meanwhile, the A-PAC tv channel, funded by foxtel, has multiple viewings today of the following “sold-out” lecture:
VIDEO: 4 Mar: UC lecture: Tim Flannery “filled with horror” over climate projections
Environmental scientist Professor Tim Flannery discussed the need for long-term, consistent policies on climate change and biodiversity conservation at a sold-out University of Canberra lecture on 24 February.
Professor Flannery is an internationally renowned environmentalist, former Australian of the Year and award-winning author, including of the New York Times bestseller The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers…
http://www.canberra.edu.au/monitor/2014/march/4-krebs
thought i’d just check to see if Flannery was on abc’s The World Today. he wasn’t but this was. sounds like the 200+ scientists have decided on their answer by their framing of the question?
10 Mar: ABC The World Today: International sea ice conference in Hobart
ELEANOR HALL: More than 200 scientists from around the world are spending this week in Hobart investigating why sea ice levels in the Arctic and Antarctic are responding differently to the warming of the planet…
FELICITY OGILVIE: The conference is about sea ice in a changing environment. If you’re saying that the changes in sea ice are due to climate change, why then would ice be increasing in Antarctica?
IAN SIMMONDS: There’s a number of reasons and again, we’re still coming to grips with what the total picture is in terms of the Antarctic. But in the Antarctic there are regions of sea ice which are rapidly decreasing in the so-called Bellingshausen Sea, which is near the Antarctic Peninsula. There’s a rapid decrease in sea ice there.
But in other parts of the continent around the coast, there’s dramatic increases. And when you take all those together, you get an actual total increase in the amount of sea ice…
IAN SIMMONDS: Now, there are features which are referred to in our business as “teleconnections,” which means if you impact on one part of the climate system, you’ll see a response in a remote location…
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s3960138.htm
00
website for the Hobart sea ice symposium:
InternationalSymposium on Sea Ice in a Changing Environment
http://seaice.acecrc.org.au/igs2014/
10
If they hold it next winter they might be able to see the sea ice from their hotel windows. That’s if we get enough warming to produce sufficient ice, of course. Here’s a hopin’.
20
http://earthquaketrack.com/quakes/2014-03-10-06-39-09-utc-2-8-0
Global Warming has caused another earth quake!!!
00
Flannery’s records include a 2nd hottest and 5th driest. Please explain?
00
“Broken records”, just like the perpetrator.
Do you know that last year it was the 16th sexiest autumn ever in Perth, and the 3rd gayest spring in Sydney, and the 6th most flamboyant summer in Melbourne? Those “records” just keep a’tumbling with this “climate weirding” thingy.
21
Country towns only have official records since 1950 or later. The real impressive (or oppressive) records are unofficial.
No mention of the coldest days records that were broken all over the SE in October.
10
I think I’ve posted these before, but here are some of the BOM HQ (should they add a “sarc” tag ?) adjustments
I’ll do 2 per post so as to avoid the auto-mod, hopefully.
Wangaratta http://imageshack.com/a/img62/8606/ryi8.jpg
Dubbo http://imageshack.com/a/img841/5209/um31.jpg
00
I haven’t checked all the towns but if you look at the BOM site for Echuca the data starts in 1960 for the airport. There is nothing before that. I’m not doubting you but where did you get the data? I know that postmasters were taking official temperatures before the airport was built.
10
try this.. lots of time required.
10
Thanks. Harvest is over so I’ve got time and I’m bored.
00
ps. many pages to look trough..
Of course the ones I have grabbed are the ones that grabbed my eye.
Certainly some interesting insights into the BOM adjustments.
They seem to adjusted everything to about the same positive trend, except where there are likely to be other records, ie major cities.
00
Its called Homogenising, I think. đ
00
Echuca http://imageshack.com/a/img801/638/wo47m.jpg
Darwin http://imageshack.com/a/img197/821/9p4q.jpg
00
Maryborough http://imageshack.com/a/img560/1208/41mu.jpg
Wagga Wagga http://imageshack.com/a/img812/8859/ap4y.jpg
00
Ballarat http://imageshack.com/a/img837/1914/w92l.jpg
Benalla http://imageshack.com/a/img585/7364/sh6l.jpg
00
If you look at the early 1900’s in all of these you will see what that real temperatures were like.
OPPRESSIVE !!!
00
ROM –
fuel poverty in the EU is sky-rocketing, but it’s difficult to get an accurate picture. for example, Spain will release a new report this month, but it will only cover to 2012 from what i understand.
The Guardian has a less-than-stellar Society/Fuel Poverty section, but search “fuel poverty” on abc.net.au & it comes up: Sorry, there are no results for “fuel poverty”. i did find two abc links dated 2010, but they are the same story with AGL saying high electricity prices means more GST, so govt can rebate to the fuel poor! when MSM pushes CAGW policies that raise the price of electricity, the last thing they want to do is let the public know the inevitable, & often deadly, consequences:
the hypocrisy of Opposition parties who politically exploit the situation when they are just as responsible for the situation is shocking, but does not excuse present govts redefining the “fuel poor”:
Dec 2013: Guardian: Press Association: Government accused of redefining fuel poverty to bring down figures
Commons committee says 2.4 million people to be classed as fuel poor rather than 3.2 million under Energy Bill amendments
The Labour MP Joan Walley, who chairs the cross-party committee, said: “The government is shifting the goalposts on fuel poverty so that official statistics record far fewer households as fuel-poor…
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said:
“The changes to the fuel poverty definition helps to get a better understanding of the causes and depth of fuel poverty, and to target policies more effectively…
Walley also warned that the coalition’s shake-up of green levies â intended to shave ÂŁ50 off average annual bills â could end up hitting fuel-poor households.
“A short-term bid to cut bills must not throw energy and climate change policy off-course,” she said.
“In the longer term green levies could actually keep bills down if they drive energy efficiency improvements that cut the cost of heating our homes.
“Insulating homes and supporting green technologies is vital to help the fuel poor and cut the emissions causing climate change.”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/02/government-accused-redefining-fuel-poverty
21 Feb: BBC: Northern Ireland pensioners call for extra funds to end fuel poverty
Mr Monaghan said their surveys suggest that four in every five pensioners in Northern Ireland were worried about keeping warm.
“That should be a shocking statistic, but it has become the norm,” he said…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26273504
4 Mar: BBC: Reevel Alderson: How do you define poverty in Scotland?
“Life expectancy in some parts of Glasgow is in the low 50s. And that is no different from some parts of Africa and other developing nations,” he said…
Meanwhile, those in fuel poverty spend more than 10% of their net income on fuel…
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-26433799
8 Mar: WinsfordGuardianUK: Charity brands child fuel poverty figures ‘alarming’
Research by the Childrenâs Society has revealed 2,240 children in the constituency are in families that are not getting the Warm Home Discount (WHD).
The WHD provides a ÂŁ135 annual rebate on their fuel bills â enough to cover a typical familyâs energy bills for a month.
3,117 children in Weaver Vale, 3,471 in Crewe and Nantwich, and 1,351 in Tatton are also among nearly two million children across the UK missing out…
A separate study by the charity found that more than three million families were likely to cut back on food this winter so they can pay their energy bills.
http://www.winsfordguardian.co.uk/news/11062285.Charity_brands_child_fuel_poverty_figures__alarming_/
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I’ve written to various newspapers over the years on the issues of global warming and wind turbines, and always use data which is easily accessed via the internet to support any statements or calculations I make. More often than not, these are historic real-world temperature records.
In response, not one ‘warmist’ has produced any numbers backing up their case, the reply usually referring to ‘the science’, and assuring readers that we really must trust the scientists. The usual scary tales such as ocean acidification, melting ice caps and others are also regurgitated. I’ve even seen this from someone professing to have a Ph.D. in physics. He totally ignored the points I’d raised from the Central England Temperature record and flood data over the last century, and spouted the same old stories, without reference to any numbers whatsoever in his reply. Some scientist!
Amusingly, in one instance a ‘know it all’ replying to a point I’d made asked readers ‘Who do you trust more? The scientists or this writer to a provincial newspaper?’ The same writer airily dismissed my simple calculation relating to wind turbines as ‘obscure’ and again had no reply to the points I’d made. Instead he chose to sidestep my data.
I notice on this website that the same thing happens, with website links being a favourite ‘cop-out’. Effectively the warmist concerned is saying ‘Trust me, just read this link, and you, foolish denier, will be enlightened’ – but failing to come up with any reasoned arguments of their own.
I can only conclude that the sceptics have won the argument over CO2.
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“usually referring to âthe scienceâ, ”
Oh No…. not “The Science” lol
They mean the propaganda fraud stuff they dish out, which bear very little resemblance to any real science.
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More like scientology IMO – and like the scientologists, they try to sue you if you look at them funny, IMO đ
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Computer models are only tools, as are many of the pollies, journos and pseudo-scientists that would abuse them.
It takes engineering nouse to use them safely and within their limits though.
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Saints be praised,flim flam[flannery to warmer wallys]today on A pac has given the Arctic a reprieve.According to flim flam the arctic will now not be ice free till the end of the century.The bad news as always,CO2 is retaining 80% of the worlds heat,just not in the last 17 years.
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Is there nothing an expert in dead giant kangaroos does not know about the climate? With anyone else you would want proof, but clearly Tim has the gift of prophecy.
What is interesting is that Tim knows all about the oceans now, that the oceans control the climate and absorb all the heat so the air does not warm and temperatures do not go up but why didn’t he say so in the first place. That would haves saved billions in carbon taxes. Or you could take the view that the Australian carbon tax has saved the planet and we should be grateful for the tax both major parties promised absolutely we would not have. How can Bill Shorten now refuse to remove a tax with which his party rejected at every election?
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The now proven existence of the gravito-thermal gradient in any planetâs troposphere and even sub-surface regions completely over-rides any effect of radiation, because the pre-determined thermal profile sets the supporting surface temperature. Back radiation and also conduction at the surface-air boundary slow the rate of cooling in the early pre-dawn hours as the supporting temperature is being approached. Without it, rapid cooling would continue all night through. Radiation plays only a minute role in slowing that portion of surface cooling that is itself due to radiation, but non-radiative cooling accelerates to compensate anyway. It is the supporting temperature at the base of the troposphere which determines mean temperatures in the surface, not radiation which passes through the transparent thin surface layer of all the water surfaces anyway
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Sorta reminds me of the following.
The turbo encabulator
Great punch line at the end!
Tony.
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Nice one Tony,video proves as long as it looks like you know what you are talking about there are gullible people to listen.Like the price,but will need partners to buy one,interested.This video may have been a tool in the edumacation of flim flam,though he does not have the same flair and CONfidence when speaking.The other problem for flim flam is no matter how much work you put in,you can’t polish a turd.
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IN SUMMARY
To: anyone interested in atmospheric thermodynamics.
The mid-19th century Clausius (hot to cold) statement of the Second Law has been discarded by physicists because, for non-radiative processes, it strictly only applies in a horizontal plane. Currently Wikipedia reads …
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibriumâthe state with the maximum possible entropy.
The state of maximum entropy has to be isentropic, and an isentropic state exhibits a thermal gradient in a gravitational field because the sum of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy for each molecule would be homogeneous.
Roderich Graeff was good with his experiments but admitted to little formal education in physics. He mistakenly multiplied the -g/Cp gradient by the degrees of freedom, and this led him to believe he had possible perpetual motion, which was wrong of course. People often quote the Verkley paper published 2004 and I have reviewed it here.
Whether you like it or not, the gravito-thermal gradient does evolve and I have studied the evidence and the theory on it probably more than anyone else in the world. It is the “trillion dollar question” and I have answered it comprehensively and cogently, complete with diagrams and calculations. Its existence debunks any claim of net warming by carbon dioxide.
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An isothermal profile in a gravitational field is not isentropic, for the simple reason that, firstly you are assuming all molecules have the same kinetic energy, but secondly, we know the ones at the top have more gravitational potential energy.
So, consider the following initial state …
Molecules at top: More PE + equal KE
Molecules at bottom: Less PE + equal KE
In such a situation you have an unbalanced energy potential because the molecules at the top have more energy than those at the bottom. Hence you do not have the state of maximum entropy, because work can be done.
Let’s consider an extremely simple case of two molecules (A & B) in an upper layer and two (C & D) in a lower layer. We will assume KE = 20 initially and give PE values such that the difference in PE is 4 units …
At top: A (PE=14 + KE=20) B (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: C (PE=10 + KE=20) D (PE=10 + KE=20)
Now suppose A collides with C. In free flight it loses 4 units of PE and gains 4 units of KE. When it collides with C it has 24 units of KE which is then shared with C so they both have 22 units of KE.
Now suppose D collides with B. In free flight it loses 4 units of KE and gains 4 units of PE. When it collides with B it has 16 units of KE which is then shared with B so they both have 18 units of KE.
So we now have
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=18) D (PE=14 + KE=18)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
So we have a temperature gradient because mean KE at top is now 18 and mean KE at bottom is now 22, a difference of 4.
Note also that now we have a state of maximum entropy and no unbalanced energy potentials. You can keep on imagining collisions, but they will all maintain KE=18 at top and KE=22 at bottom. Voila! We have thermodynamic equilibrium.
But, now suppose the top ones absorb new solar energy (at the top of the Venus atmosphere) and they now have KE=20. They are still cooler than the bottom ones, so what will happen now that the previous equilibrium has been disturbed?
Consider two more collisions like the first.
We start with
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=20) D (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
If B collides with A it has 24 units of KE just before the collision, but then after sharing they each have 23 units. Similarly, if C collides with D they each end up with 19 units of KE. So, now we have a new equilibrium:
At top: C (PE=14 + KE=19) D (PE=14 + KE=19)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=23) B (PE=10 + KE=23)
Note that the original gradient (with a difference of 4 in KE) has been re-established as expected, and some thermal energy has transferred from a cooler region (KE=20) to a warmer region that was KE=22 and is now KE=23. The additional 2 units of KE added at the top are now shared as an extra 1 unit on each level, with no energy gain or loss.
That represents the process of downward diffusion of KE to warmer regions which I call “heat creep” as it is a slow process in which thermal energy “creeps” up the sloping thermal profile. It happens in all tropospheres, explaining how energy gets into the Venus surface, and explaining how the Earth’s troposphere “supports” surface temperatures and slows cooling at night.
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Doug,
I guess Entropy isn’t what it used to be …
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I see your ideas DC,
I know many people are against you, but keep it up.
Many past scientists have been ostrichised đ
Don’t let them batter your down. đ
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“Many past scientists have been ostrichised” Forcibly stuck upside-down with their heads in the sand? I can think of nothing worse than having my down battered.
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Hey , I could have used the right word.. but where the fun in that. đ
Its certainly the case in so-called climate science.. so many of them with their heads in the sand, [SNIP] refusing to face reality.
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Now why did that go to moderation ? Strange.
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Many thanks for your support, The Griss.
Hereâs what a retired physics educator has written after reading the text of my book:
Essential reading for an understanding of the basic physical processes which control planetary temperatures. Doug Cotton shows how simple thermodynamic physics implies that the gravitational field of a planet will establish a thermal gradient in its atmosphere. The thermal gradient, a basic property of a planet, can be used to determine the temperatures of its atmosphere, surface and sub-surface regions. The interesting concept of âheat creepâ applied to diagrams of the thermal gradient is used to explain the effect of solar radiation on the temperature of a planet. The thermal gradient shows that the observed temperatures of the Earth are determined by natural processes and not by back radiation warming from greenhouse gases. Evidence is presented to show that greenhouse gases cool the Earth and do not warm it.
John Turner B.Sc.;Dip.Ed.;M.Ed.(Hons);Grad.Dip.Ed.Studies (retired physics educator)
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Below is a comment I have just posted on Lucia’s Blackboard in response to a common thought experiment attempting to disprove the existence of the gravito-thermal effect that is obvious in all planetary tropospheres.
The “argument has been put to me several times and is obviously yet another attempt among climatologists to rubbish what is of course a very threatening postulate, because it smashes the greenhouse.
The argument … does not display a correct comprehension of Kinetic Theory, or indeed the manner in which molecules move and collide.
If a perfectly isentropic state were to evolve then all molecules in any given horizontal plane would have equal kinetic energy, and of course equal potential energy, just as after the first two collisions in the 4 molecule thought experiment above.
Now, the direction in which a molecule âtakes offâ in its next free path motion just after a collision is random â rather like what happens with snooker balls.
So two molecules with equal KE set out in different directions after the collision, but there is no requirement that they must have more KE to go upwards. They donât travel far anyway. Itâs not as if any one molecule goes up a matter of several cm before colliding with another, for example. In fact, they nearly all travel in a direction that is not straight up or down.
At thermodynamic equilibrium (as you can see in the 4 molecule experiment) when any molecule has an upward component in its direction, it loses KE that is exactly the amount of energy represented by the difference in gravitational potential energy between the height of the molecule it last collided with and that of the next molecule. With the thermal gradient in place, the next molecule it strikes will have KE that is less than the one it last struck, and its own KE will have been reduced to exactly the same KE that the next molecule already has.
So, at thermodynamic equilibrium all collisions involve molecules which had identical KE before the collision, and so they exit the collision process still having the same KE which is the mean KE for all molecules in the horizontal plane where the collision occurred.
Now, for a small height difference, H in a âclosed systemâ where g is the acceleration due to gravity, the loss in PE for a small ensemble of mass M moving downwards will thus be the product M.g.H because a force Mg moves the gas a distance H. But there will be a corresponding gain in KE and that will be equal to the energy required to warm the gas by a small temperature difference, T. This energy can be calculated using the specific heat Cp and this calculation yields the product M.Cp.T. Bearing in mind that there was a PE loss and a KE gain, we thus have âŚ
M.Cp.T = â M.g.H
T/H = -g/Cp
But T/H is the temperature gradient, which is thus the quotient -g/Cp. This is the so-called âdry adiabatic lapse rateâ and we donât need to bring pressure or density into the calculation.
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Following on from my comment #126658 on Lucia’s Blackboard, it appears that SkS team member Neal J. King made a huge error in assuming any molecules would run out of kinetic energy when they are moving upwards between collisions. In my four molecule thought experiment #126576 we are talking about a distance averaging the mean free path of air molecules between collisions. That’s about 68 nanometres! Even in a whole kilometre air molecules only lose about 3% to 5% of their kinetic energy because that’s how much the temperature drops.
So may I suggest that Neal J. King goes back to his Skeptical Science Team to work up a better “answer” to the trillion dollar question: What’s wrong with the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect theory, which eliminates any need for explaining things with GH radiative forcing?
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