This week the Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, called people who oppose green energy subsidies “liars”.
Mr. Schmidt said: “And the people who oppose it (climate change) are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people—they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”
Meanwhile, Google uses mostly non-renewable fuel to power its operations, but has “pledged $1.5billion” to fund renewables. It has invested millions into solar panel plants that are “bird-fryers” — literally roasting birds in the sky. These investments mostly occur in states with renewable-mandates, would not survive without taxpayer funding, qualify for tax credits, and require infrastructure (like transmission lines) that electricity consumers or governments have to fund.
Google Kills Birds
The mercenary motives behind Eric Schmidt’s appeal to green virtue.
“The real charlatans are businesses like Google that use climate change as a pretext for corporate welfare.”
… nearly all of Google’s solar and wind farms are located in states with renewable-energy mandates, which create opportunities for politically mediated profit-making. For instance, California requires that renewables make up a third of electricity by 2020. Google has invested about $600 million in California’s solar plants such as the Ivanpah system in California’s Mojave Desert. Ivanpah is the world’s largest solar-thermal project, which is the target of environmentalists.
Dozens of federally protected desert tortoises have been displaced or killed. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that Ivanpah’s “power towers”—which burn natural gas—incinerate about 28,000 birds annually. The death toll is disputed by others, but Google has made taxpayers complicit in its avian-cide. The $2.2 billion bird fryer was funded with a $1.6 billion federal loan, which Google and its business partners plan to repay by applying for a federal grant.
The do-no-evil company has invested $157 million in a wind farm in California’s Tehachapi Mountains, which has killed thousands of birds including federally protected golden eagles. Google’s renewable portfolio includes a $275 million investment in two wind farms in Texas that are partly responsible for the construction of $7 billion in new transmission lines. The Texas Public Utility Commission estimates the lines will cost ratepayers on average $72 per year. Google has about $60 billion in cash and short-term investments sitting on its balance sheet.
Most of Google’s renewable investments qualify for a federal investment tax credit that covers 30% of the cost. Its $450 million investment in rooftop solar-systems also benefits from state incentives such as “net-metering” laws. This hidden subsidy compensates ratepayers for power they remit to the grid at the retail rate, which can be three times as much as the wholesale price of electricity. Net-metering allows solar companies to charge higher rates to homeowners who lease their panels, and thus for investors like Google to reap larger profits.
Read it all: Wall St Journal
Apparently most of the fuss is because Google are withdrawing from a group called ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), allegedly because of their “denial of climate change”. The Wall St Journal claims that this is a smear campaign, and ALEC have no position on climate science.
“ALEC provides a forum for sundry businesses to discuss free-market reforms with state lawmakers. Two of its policy targets are renewable-energy mandates and subsidies, which are being exploited by big businesses like Google at the expense of low- and middle-income taxpayers.
Google’s real problem with ALEC is a conflict of pecuniary interests.”
If Google was “real” about this issue, it should forego ALL subsidies, and also be prepared to pay ALL fines due to bird incineration and mincing.
Go ahead Google.. the ball is in your court.
PROVE that you are in it for something OTHER THAN the money.
662
Vote with your keyboard.
Blackban Giigle and it’s funding of bird killers; go duckduckgo:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=
Your feathered friends will tweet you their thanks.
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Done!
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Done!
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For iPad and iPhone users on iOS8 you can set the Safari default search engine to DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Just go to settings…Safari…browser and click DuckDuckGo. Easy Peasy.
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will never happen,for google it is only about the money. what is it with people named scmidt ? are they all full of sh*t.
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Yes, the further we get down the road, the more the “greenies” expose themselves ( ahem….metaphorically ) as watermelons, we see that that the large corporates will cry wolf as long as they can to keep the dosh flowing.
CAGW has been scientifically dis-proven, so this being the case, we can only conclude that large corporate who go along with The Big Lie are, indirectly, Collaborators.
You soon see peoples true colours…..
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Easy with that, if you charge giggle my midday macca’s will cost me more all that bird meat going to waste…
10
Brilliant.
Start the campaign for Google Authenticity and Honesty of Purpose NOW.
Will they donate ALL of the SUBSIDIES, collected so far, to the people in Europe and other Western countries who are unable to afford power
because of huge cost increases ASSOCIATED in part with the subsidies for “Renewable” sourced power?
That’s the test of their belief. !!!
KK
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re the Griss no 1
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I have an essay in the new book on this. When you run the numbers, Ivanpah is ‘free’ for its investors. But costs California rate payers 3x. Clearer case of ‘greenfare’ cannot be found.
Essay is titled Solar Sunset.
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Why do warmists hate birds?
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Warmists hate nature in general.
Its not just the birds, its the plants too.
They want to mince and roast the birds and they want to starve the world’s plant life.
They are Anti-Earthlife. !!
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Warmists actually hate all life (except themselves of course). One of their solutions to the world’s problems is to cull some 80% of mankind.
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Sad but true…..Georgia Guidestones anyone?
20
I see no problem with that. I simply ask, as I would with someone planning a schoolyard massacre and suicide, that they start with themselves.
10
25 Sept: Washington Times: Valerie Richardson: Climate changers criticized for taking fossil-fuel money while calling for divestment
Another climate-change group is being accused of hypocrisy for accepting fossil-fuel funding even as its leaders call for others to divest from coal, oil and natural gas.
It turns out 350.org, founded by author and activist Bill McKibben, has long relied on donations from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, according to a Thursday report in Oil Sands Fact Check…
In the video interview unearthed by OSFC, Mr. McKibben appears reluctant to disclose the name of his funders, but then admits under questioning that the foundation “gave us some money right when we were starting out.”
“Rockefeller’s is one of our … is a great ally in this fight,” Mr. McKibben says…
An analysis of tax filings last year in the Financial Post concludes that, “350.org has the look and feel of an amateur, grassroots operation, but in reality, it is a multimillion dollar campaign run by staff earning six-digit salaries.”…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/25/climate-changers-criticized-for-taking-fossil-fuel/#!
the MSM often gives the impression the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which allegedly manages tens of trillions of dollars, much of it pension funds, is pumping all that money into renewable energy, but…
following audio. BBC says 5 times more (UNDERSTATEMENT?) is being invested in fossil fuels than in renewables, fossil fuels being so much more important in the world economy at the moment, so who is doing that investing?
in response Jensen admits the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change is still part of this investment because it is still such a big area to invest in, so there has to be a GRADUAL movement towards non-fossil fuels, renewables, and so on.
(NONETHELESS, BBC GOES ON TO ASK IS IT UNPRECEDENTED FOR SUCH A GROUP AS IIGCC, REPRESENTING TRILLIONS IN PENSION FUNDS, ETC TO CLUB TOGETHER IN THIS WAY ON “A POLITICAL ISSUE” – INVESTING IN RENEWABLES? JENSEN SAYS YES, “WE HAVE THE MONEY TO INVEST”, BUT WE WANT GOVT SUBSIDIES AND A PRICE ON CARBON FIRST.)
LISTEN FROM 8 MINS:
17 mins: 23 Sept: BBC: UN Climate Summit Courts Business
We hear from Peter Damsgaard Jensen, chief executive of the Danish Pension Fund, PKA, and one of the leading members of a worldwide lobbying body, The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026s577
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On reading “Rockefeller to divest of fossil fuel assets” I thought – that would bring stock prices down, it sounds like a bear trap. Who would be picking up the pieces cheap? This post answers the question.
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25 Sept: WSJ: Ban Ki-Moon: Making Headway Against Climate Change
Progress at the U.N. summit included big steps for carbon pricing.
Second, we are seeing action. China declared that it would soon announce a date for peak emissions, and the European Union committed to reduce emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030…
Third—and in the long run perhaps most far-reaching—was the response by the finance and business communities. Individually, and as part of multi-stakeholder alliances, private-sector actors are entering the game from the sidelines. This is good news for climate action, sustainable green growth and global economic prospects…
A coalition of institutional investors has committed to decarbonize $100 billion in institutional equity investments before the end of 2015, and to measure and disclose the carbon footprint of investments worth at least $500 billion more.
Another new coalition of more than 160 institutions, local governments and major individual investors will divest $50 billion from fossil fuels in the next three to five years and reinvest in clean energy…
Change is in the air, and the investment and business communities are helping to create those powerful winds. Awareness is growing that climate change is not just a burden but an opportunity…
One powerful tool to achieve this is putting a price on carbon. Increasingly, economists and policy experts are providing evidence that carbon pricing mechanisms, such as emissions-trading systems and carbon taxes, can invigorate economic growth and not impede it, as was commonly feared. Putting a price on carbon will provide markets with the policy signals needed to invest in climate solutions…
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ban-ki-moon-making-headway-against-climate-change-1411688616
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“the European Union committed to reduce emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030…”
Believe what they do, not what they say.
Talk is cheap. The EU is morally bankrupt.
Lignite rules. OK.
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LOOOOOOOOL yes tell us more about how carbon pricing embiggened growth in the EU.
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Wow…..imagine that….a venerable ( ha ha….) organisation starting with “U” being puppet for institutional investors running a huge CAGW fraud so they can force a price on carbon, and the big hitters can hoover up massive subsidies….
No wonder they shout down sceptics…they are a threat to cash flow….
Sounds more like the plot of a movie about da Mob….
50
making us safer, as usual?
25 Sept: Reuters: Lisa Anderson: US Homeland Security moves to tackle climate change risks
“Increasingly, we’ve moved not only from a security focus to a resiliency focus,” said Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at Homeland Security, an agency better known for its fight to curb terrorist threats.
Durkovich spoke Thursday on a panel at the Rising Seas Summit, a three-day conference organized by the U.S.-based Association of Climate Change Officers to discuss tools and ideas on building resiliency, particularly against rising sea levels…
http://news.yahoo.com/us-homeland-security-moves-tackle-climate-change-risks-225151680.html
***the funniest speech at the Climate Summit. the “controlling” finale is priceless:
23 Sept: Ambafrance: Climate disruption – Speech by M. Francois Hollande, President of the Republic, at the Climate Summit
We think we have time, but today it’s a matter of urgency.
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere broke a new record in 2013. Climate disruption is no longer a hypothesis, it’s a certainty. Warming threatens peace and security. Climate disruption is behind more population displacements than are caused by wars.
So everything must be done to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions radically, so as to limit the global average temperature rise to below 2ºC…
Today we have an obligation to succeed. The 2015 Paris conference must enable us to achieve a global agreement, an ambitious agreement that can ensure we reach what’s called carbon neutrality – that is, greenhouse gas emissions compatible with the planet’s absorption capabilities…
At this very moment, the French Parliament is discussing a bill on the energy transition that fixes the energy savings to be achieved by 2050, envisages reducing French emissions by 40% and indicates a 32% target for renewable energy by 2030…
But here I want to emphasize France’s responsibility, because we must not only set the example, not only host this conference, but be capable of making the gestures and sending the signals that are expected of a country like France.
That’s why, for us, the Green [Climate] Fund is an entirely new prospect, which should be extensively financed. France will contribute to the tune of $1 billion over the coming years to the capitalization of the Green Fund…
***If I wanted to sum up my remarks: it’s a race against time – not just against climate that could devastate the planet. No, against the time that is ticking by. Are we capable of controlling time? Are we capable of controlling space? Are we capable of controlling nature? Are we capable of controlling ourselves?
So let’s not let time decide for us. Let’s also be capable of delighting the world again, of giving the world’s young people the hope that they’ll live better than us…
http://www.ambafrance-in.org/Climate-disruption-Speech-by-M
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pat:
Since Hollande’s “great plan” is to shut down one third of their nuclear capacity and REPLACE it with output from wind turbines, French emissions will INCREASE.
The stupidity of politicians who cannot or will not understand that wind turbines don’t work all the time is astounding. They think that once you have installed a wind turbine then your problems are over, although current news from the UK, Germany and Belgium would suggest otherwise. Were France to cut the output from nuclear immediately, both the UK and Belgium would have blackouts in the coming winter. As it is, both will be very lucky if they avoid same by depending on heavy supply flows from France.
Germany too is facing difficulties because the price dumping of “renewable” supplies has driven a lot of responsive generation off the grid. So Germany faces either a glut of electricity much of which has to be sold at a loss, or a shortage which has to be filled by buying foreign electricity, and without any French surplus they will be up the proverbial creek. No wonder that they are building brown coal fired stations as hard as they can.
And their emissions are rising fast, thanks to “renewables”.
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For the life of me, I just cannot figure out these politicians who proclaim that they are going to replace coal fired power or even Nuclear power with renewables, and it’s not just one of them, Hollande here, but all of them across the whole Planet, both at Federal and State level, say Jay dear in South Australia.
Now, I don’t expect politicians to actually know anything about electrical power generation, but what I do expect them to do is to ask one simple question, and there must be people who advise these
idiotsWorld leaders.What’s going to happen when they do actually start turning them off, and the power goes down. It’ll be too damned late then to say ….. “Why wasn’t I told?”
I expect them to ask one question.
“What’s going to happen when we do turn them off?”
Tony.
Post Script – Hey, just a general comment here. Have you ever noticed how none of the usual suspects ever come in and comment at these Threads, standing up for their beloved renewables.
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“none of the usual suspects ever come in and comment at these Threads”
They know they haven’t got a wing or a prayer…… like the poor endangered birds that they so love to blind, chop up and/or roast !
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At the risk of repeating myself:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=
The Google’s quack science the chop.
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Oh buggar.
That’s:
Give Google’s quack science the chop.
Silly old duck.
20
They fear the release of the Power Kraken poised to drag them to the depths of reason and reality!
Apart from that I think that you have accurate facts and figures on your side Tony and they have no comeback. 😉
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To be pedantic, that should really be, “They fear the awakening of the … Kraken …”
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Yes it is a bit pedantic LOL! but I can justify my cultural illiteracy.
In the 1981 movie Clash of the titans Zeus shouts “Release the Kraken” and again in the 2010 remake Liam Neeson’s Zeus uses the same line, you are correct as ‘Awaken, Summon, Call and Raise’ the Kraken have also been used in the many versions of the story, I probably used ‘release’ considering I saw the 1981 movie as a child and developed a flash memory of the event.
Apart from the above explanation I wasn’t present when Zeus originally said it. 🙂
50
Tony:
A little O/T but how long do wind turbines last? Here’s an early off-shore ‘farm’ which has been dismantled because of cost after 11 years. Even then, only 1 out of 6 turbines was still working.
Vattenfalls admitted that the maintenance costs were too high (including one that went up in flames) to justify replacing the turbines with new ones.
You’ll be pleased to know that they have had to restore the seabed to its original state.
http://www.windpoweroffshore.com/article/1313014/gallery-vattenfalls-yttre-stengrund-decommissioned
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Ah, makes my heart beat a little faster when I find gems like this.
This was done in the early days, back in 2001, so it only cost 13 Million Euros for those 5 towers, and one of them failed within a year.
It has run at an average Capacity Factor approaching 10%, so prone to failure as they were, so let’s see then.
5 (Towers) X 2 (MW) X 24 (hours in a day) X 365.25 (days in a year) X 0.1 (10% CF) X 12 (Years of operation) giving an all up power delivery of 105GWH over their life span, the same power delivered by Bayswater in, umm just under 40 ….. HOURS.
Oh, beating heart be still!
12 years of operation for 40 Hours of power.
Wind can replace coal fired power. Yeah! Right!
Tony.
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Hi Tony,
I stand in awe of your work assessing the “productivity” of the renewable power systems.
Other “warming atrocities” committed on the general public are apparent in recent changes to building codes in Australia where
lip-service is paid to the god of global warming.
By comparison to your work my calculations are rough and “indicative only” but do show a trend.
The three main items besides electricity supply by solar PV systems which are optional are:
1. The installation of household tanks fed by intermittent rainwater pitter-pattering on our roof.
2. The BASICs requirements to prevent overuse of air conditioning during temperature extremes: this requirement appears as a set of aluminum shades installed over windows which screen light from the building in summer and allow entry in winter.
3. The installation of complex hot water systems which use a combination of electricity from the mains plus a powered system working as a reverse refrigerator which is known as a “heat Pump”.
What prompts this comment is your estimate of 40 hours of power from a windmill.
These “green” accessories for all NSW homes are not “carbon” neutral and seem to serve the main purpose of showing the green elite voters that respective political parties are listening to them.
My most recent peeve is with Item 1 which is supposed to switch to mains water when the tank runs dry.
It will IF the switch system still works.
This is an overly complex system which would have been better done as a community based dam which harvested run off from main storm-water drains in our city.
Individual household tanks are a waste of money from an efficiency point of view and even from a CO2 analysis.
Dams are more cost effective and more CO2 effective.
Item 2, the shades in aluminum cost us almost $3,000 and I have estimated that we will pay them off in terms of power saved in winter and summer in about 2046.
Item 3, the heat pump on our new house lasted 3 years before it stopped working because of the complexity of the technology and the unit had to be replaced.
The CO2 cost of this fiasco is appalling.
In summary, compulsory Residential Dwelling sops to the Global Green vote catching system are not Carbon Neutral, even if that was relevant, and in fact are a bigger drain on cash and CO2 than the earlier, simpler systems they are replacing.
KK
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Clarification
The solar pv system is optional,
The the three systems listed are compulsory and add many thousands to the initial cost of the home plus require increased maintenance and early replacement expenditure.
KK
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They’re supposed to last 20 to 25 years but (based on purely unscientific anecdotal evidence) almost everything I see has them dying at 10 to 15 years. Maybe the newer ones last longer, but they’re still a net user of power over their lifetimes… especially if you include the energy used to remove their rotting, dangerous hulks once they die.
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NielsZoo
September 27, 2014 at 10:26 pm
_____________
The answer to your question on the economic life of wind turbines lies in this widely quoted 2012 study of the UK and Danish wind power industry by Prof Gordon Hughes.
The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark
Executive Summary
1. Onshore wind turbines represent a relatively mature technology, which ought to have achieved a satisfactory level of reliability in operation as plants age.
Unfortunately, detailed analysis of the relationship between age and performance gives a rather different picture for both the United Kingdom and Denmark with a significant decline in the average load factor of onshore wind farms adjusted for wind availability as they get older.
An even more dramatic decline is observed for offshore wind farms in Denmark, but this may be a reflection of the immaturity of the technology.
.
2. The study has used data on the monthly output of wind farms in the UK and Denmark reported under regulatory arrangements and schemes for subsidising renewable energy.
Normalised age-performance curves have been estimated using standard statistical techniques which allow for differences between sites and over time in wind resources and other factors.
[ edit note ; “The almost always used “Normalised ” performance comparisons between the various energy production technologies makes NO compensatory allowances for the “dispatchment” characteristics, the intermittency and unpredictability of the so called wind and solar renewable energy systems.
So “normalised” data used for comparisons between power generation systems still gives wind and solar a very false advantage in the data numbers when comparing the eficiency and economics of the various power generating technologies ]
.
3. The normalised load factor for UK onshore wind farms declines from a peak of about 24% at age 1 to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15.
.
The decline in the normalised load factor for Danish onshore wind farms is slower but still significant with a fall from a peak of 22% to 18% at age 15.
.
On the other hand for offshore wind farms in Denmark the normalised load factor falls from 39% at age 0 to 15% at age 10.
.
The reasons for the observed declines in normalised load factors cannot be fully assessed using the data available but outages due to mechanical breakdowns appear to be a contributory factor.
.
4. Analysis of site-specific performance reveals that the average normalised load factor of new UK onshore wind farms at age 1 (the peak year of operation) declined significantly from 2000 to 2011.
In addition, larger wind farms have systematically worse performance than smaller wind farms.
Adjusted for age and wind availability the overall performance of wind farms in the UK has deteriorated markedly since the beginning of the century.
.
5. These findings have important implications for policy towards wind generation in the UK.
First, they suggest that the subsidy regime is extremely generous if investment in new wind farms is profitable despite the decline in performance due to age and over time.
.
Second, meeting the UK Government’s targets for wind generation will require a much higher level of wind capacity – and, thus, capital investment – than current projections imply.
.
Third, the structure of contracts offered to wind generators under the proposed reform of the electricity market should be modified since few wind farms will operate for more than 12–15 years.
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The answer to your question is elementary; most politicians are not scientists nor engineers, rather lawyers and economists like Stern and Garnaut, and do not understand the basics of power production (also think that CO2 is a pollutant) and believe that green energy will supply high intensity baseload power. I honestly wonder what France’s neighbours are going to do when the wind doesn’t blow and France is using all of its nuclear power for itself. It’s decision to go nuclear was made in the 1960’s and reinforced by the Arab oil embargo; at least the SNCF is pretty independent of oil.
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They will say it was the previous govts idea….
10
Clearly, “Bush’s fault” (regardless of political venue).
10
Given that France is roughly 80% nuclear and 20% hydroelectric, I would have thought they are a pretty good example of ‘low emissions’ – as defined by the warmists.
Francois Hollande has had some stunningly bad opinion polls lately, and as a nominally socialist president, I guess he needs to appeal to his side of politics…
10
Seriously? I mean, seriously?
280
It’s what happens when pork-barrel politics meets debt socialisation. Similar schemes to shake down the taxpayer are rife through the EU and the UK. The UN do it on a global scale.
240
Now how do you define rackeeting again….cant recall…
30
It works like this:
1. The Government gives you “a loan” to do some business.
2. If you bet the money on a horse race, and loose, you then have an obligation to pay it back (this is why the Government will only give you a loan if you don’t need it).
3. If you bet the money on a horse race, and win, you get to keep the winnings, and still have the original stake money.
4. You can choose to go back to step 2, and keep doing so until you loose, at this point you just pay back the original loan, and walk away with all the winnings you might have made.
5. If you really do something of value with the money, the Government will get very embarrassed, because people start asking why it was up to private enterprise to do what ever it was, and not the Government. So, right about that time, the Government will step in and write off the original “loan”, by issuing a grant, so they can claim to have paid for it all, up front as it were, and claim that it was all their idea in the first place.
Anybody can do this, you just have to be in a position where you don’t need the loan, and it helps if you know “the right people”.
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the Nicholas Lewis/Judith Curry study. can u believe WaPo goes to Skeptical Science for a comment?
26 Sept: WaPo: Jason Samenow: Study lowers range for future global warming, but does it matter?
Doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere won’t produce as much global warming as some previous estimates, says a new study. However, scientists don’t universally accept this result nor do they agree about whether it makes much difference about what we should do about it…
Myles Allen, a climate scientist at Oxford University – not involved in the study, called the methodology “sensible enough”, similar to that of a study he was involved in a year ago.
But Allen is not convinced the study’s results are novel but rather fit into an existing consensus…
The blog Skeptical Science warns that even if the sensitivity is low, significant warming is still likely if emissions are not cut…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/09/26/study-lowers-range-for-future-global-warming-but-does-it-matter/
27 Sept: Australian: Graham Lloyd: Climate not as sensitive to carbon dioxide
The findings have generated vigorous international debate about an issue that remains a key area of uncertainty in climate science…
Dr Curry said the paper was not the last word of climate sensitivity because it related only to the uncertainty in external forcing, surface temperature and ocean heat uptake.
It did not take account of solar influence or internal variability.
In an essay published this week, President Barack Obama’s former climate advisor Steven Koonin said today’s best estimate of the sensitivity was no different, and no more certain, than it was 30 years ago despite billions of dollars having been spent
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/climate-not-as-sensitive-to-carbon-dioxide/story-e6frg6xf-1227072070917
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The climate must be sensitive to hurt feelings,and/or pockets. Rent seekers and pocket-liners must be held to account. Open up for more googlemockery. Googlemocking begins now …
60
Their wind power Texas take-over could be called a googlef**t … especially when the subsidies stop.
50
The FBI are taking an interest in Google and Apples’ cell phone encryption policies.
40
I think its good there is encryption – people do have a right to privacy.
I believe Boeing make a serious “black phone”
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/defense-space/ic/black/index.page
Try and tamper with it and it wipes the phone…very good.
In my office, the gen Ys cant understand why I’d want privacy. My answer is read history.
They still dont get it….ah the joy of dealing with the Borg hive mind.
40
24 Sept: NYT: Coral Davenport: Emissions From India Will Increase, Official Says
In a blow to American hopes of reaching an international deal to fight global warming, India’s new environment minister said Wednesday that his country would not offer a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a climate summit next year in Paris.
The minister, Prakash Javadekar, said in an interview that his government’s first priority was to alleviate poverty and improve the nation’s economy, which he said would necessarily involve an increase in emissions through new coal-powered electricity and transportation. He placed responsibility for what scientists call a coming climate crisis on the United States, the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas polluter, and dismissed the idea that India would make cuts to carbon emissions.
“What cuts?” Mr. Javadekar said. “That’s for more developed countries. The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away.”
***Mr. Javadekar was referring to an argument frequently made by developing economies — that developed economies, chiefly the United States, which spent the last century building their economies while pumping warming emissions into the atmosphere — bear the greatest responsibility for cutting pollution…
“Twenty percent of our population doesn’t have access to electricity, and that’s our top priority. We will grow faster, and our emissions will rise.”…
****As President Obama and Chinese leaders have signaled that they intend to enact policies to decrease their emissions levels in the coming years, cooperation from India on a global climate treaty is crucial…
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/asia/25climate.html
***Dear Coral – Mr. Javadekar is not making “an argument frequently made by developing economies” & you know it.
in fact, you know everything about the Rio Declaration/UNFCCC/Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR)/Green Climate Fund, etc., so don’t play your readers for fools. we have memories, even if you, like other MSM, pretend not to.
****stop the China nonsense. Coral. here’s some reading material for you.
funny how no MSM whatsoever has picked up on the Fox News’ exclusive! hard to let go of that China meme, isn’t it?
24 Sept: Fox News: George Russell: Climate change? China rebuts Obama
While President Obama challenged China at the United Nations to follow the U.S. lead in pushing for drastic reductions in national carbon emissions to save the planet from “climate change,” it appears that China has dramatically different ideas. As in: no.
According to a document deposited at the Geneva-based U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in advance of a planned meeting next month, China — now the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases — insists that the U.S. and other developed countries endure most of the economic pain of carbon emission cutbacks, and need to make significantly more sacrifices in the months ahead…
CLICK HERE FOR THE PAPER…
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/09/24/climate-change-china-rebuts-obama/
30
Google’s slogan == Its okay to be evil if you do it with other people’s money!
180
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?
20
Dinner?
20
Google would do better to seek advice from physicists who understand thermodynamics. I’ll come out of retirement for a salary of less than $1.5 billion. I’ll even give them this free advice …
The easiest way to understand why it is not radiation to the surface which is determining the mean global temperature is to think about the thin surface layer of the oceans, especially in non-polar regions where most of us live. There are published measurements of solar radiation entering the water and penetrating at least 20m. Let’s define the water surface as having that thickness which absorbs the first 10% of the energy in the incident solar radiation. (This is quite thick enough to determine the surface temperature.) So the other 90% of the solar radiation warms colder regions below. Thermal energy in those colder regions below the surface cannot rise to the warmer surface above it. Instead it heads for the poles and so has no effect on the temperature in the non-polar regions of the oceans.
Now, to calculate the surface temperature you would have to use only 10% of the solar flux in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations, and obviously that gives temperatures way below freezing point, even for the direct flux of 650W/m^2 at noon in the tropics on a clear day. For example, for emissivity of 0.984 for ocean water, 65W/m^2 gives only 185K. So you have a very obvious and huge different between observed temperatures in non-polar ocean surfaces and the temperatures derived with radiation calculations.
So let’s focus on this issue Roy and all ye who still believe in radiative forcing.
10
What search engines other than Google can be used?
Any suggestions.
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Baidu, Yahoo, and Bing.
40
re alternative browsers :
Check out Duckduckgo which claims reduced tracking
duckduckgo.com
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I also use DDG, it seems like an okay option.
DDG gathers which search result was clicked on. When you click a search result it actually sends that choice to DDG, which then redirects your browser to the page you really wanted.
For example if I search DDG for “Right wing” one of the top results will be a Wikipedia article. If I click the entry for Wikipedia’s Right Wing article, the request that my browser makes is NOT to “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics”, it actually goes to “https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FRight-wing_politics”. You can check this with Firefox’s builtin web developer features (or use the FireBug add-on). So DDG can certainly collect which search result you click because the request does not got directly from your browser to the web site you chose, it goes via DDG.
This DDG tracking function should not be surprising because it is technically necessary for any search engine that aims to improve the relevance of search results over time by getting feedback from what users end up clicking. Google also logs which result you pick but they use a different technique which is not a redirect.
DDG also claim that by redirecting from their site this has the advantage that the site you clicked on won’t know what your search terms were. It is not obvious how it is in any way bad for a web site to know what search terms are bringing it traffic, but there is an explanation. Just because you trust your search provider not to track you does not mean you can trust the next web site to not track you, and the web site may have Google analytics and AdWords and other trackers running on it as most websites do. Because your browser passes the address of the previous web page to the next page (the referrer page location where you clicked is passed to the next page) this means trackers at the destination page can associate your search terms with the ID they have already established in a cookie for either the site you picked or the Google site hosting the AdWords script. In that way your searches can be traced to you personally by other trackers even though your search provider isn’t tracking you. This leakage is what DDG prevents by using the redirect.
On the plus side, and it does add some credibility to DDG’s stated policy, I don’t see any cookies that could be used to track my browser uniquely or to tie my search terms to my search result choice. I use the Cookie Monster add-on for Firefox to block cookies for some sites, but I actually don’t have it enabled for DDG and my NoScript add-on is configured to allow scripting on DDG. So while I do have an unusually high level of defenses in my web browser, they are disabled to allow DDG to do basically anything. Even so, no cookies appear in the requests my browser makes to DDG. So they seem to operate as advertised. Your IP address is the only thing they could be recording to identify you, and if multiple people share the same phone line or Internet account the IP is not sufficient.
So the main difference between DDG and Google is that it seems to be technically infeasible for DDG to do the level of logging, spying, and profile selling via IP addresses alone that Google does more comprehensively via AdWords and cookies.
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Thanks for that post.
DDG is great because it returns my own site as #1 whereas my Google ranking has been downgraded. 🙂
10
Quack.
20
Bing is Microsoft and worse than Google and Yahoo ain’t much better. I use DuckDuckGo and have been very happy with it. It’s not supposed to track but in today’s age, who really knows.
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There is many. It’s also time to abandon the gmail and all the other services from that company !
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Dogpile. I kid you not. I use it rather than Google who, incidentally, are 16 years old today. And they act like it.
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Ixquick is good, you can turn off tracking, and it has a private mode that operates through a range of anonymous proxies, it removes cookies, etc.
All of this is configurable, so you will probably need to find a child of five, who will probably know more about this sort of stuff than the average blog commentator.
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Thanks to all for suggesting alternative search engines.
50
I recently heard Google described as the private sectors NSA. I suspect there are a lot of grey areas of privacy laws that Google runs afoul of and siding on political issues with the incumbent administration likely buy a lot of protection from investigation.
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Yes, and for that reason Google should be subject to a detailed audit and an independent overseer with the ability to force disclosure on how and where the information gathered by Google is used.
Google is interested in much more than just improving my “user experience”.
30
The loose application of terminology by Mr Schmidt and his ilk continues to appall me, especially when they denigrate or wish actual harm to people who may have different views to themselves on climate.
I’m sure that there are very few climate change deniers, that is, those who believe that the global climate does not change or vary over time. Perversely, it may be that the likes of Mr Schmidt actually believe the climate has never and should never change and see only humans as causing climate change.
However, there are those who regard the influence of natural factors in changes to climate to be of most relevance; for example, solar incidence variability or volcanic activity.
Further, there are those who regard to influence of human activity including production of so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions as having some influence in climate change.
Of this last group, some see that human influence as insignificantly small, others as significantly large.
Of those who see it as significantly large, some consider that it will be accommodated through the same adaptive (including evolutionary) response processes that the global biosphere has demonstrated to natural climate change over millennia.
Others consider this as catastrophic for the planet unless man-made emissions are strategically lowered by managed programs. There are those who actively (including use of threats or actual use of force, possibly violence) demand social and economic reform on a global scale to reduce man-made emissions in a hope (or on a pretext) that catastrophic events will be somehow averted.
If Mr Schmidt labels anyone who doesn’t fit that last grouping as a “climate change denier” (which I suspect he may), he and his like need to argue their case more intellectually persuasively to convince those who are sceptical of the need for such measures including many scientists.
Perhaps he should Google how to apply precision in use of terminology and persuasive argument.
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Good post, mmxx.
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Its because they are sitting smug at home in the knowldge that they are “saving the planet” with their hot water solar panel..weep..a friend of mine who is a geologist became very interested in CAGW after reading posts here..
But the clincher for him was..when he started reading the lame “defence” by clueless half wits here.. 🙂
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My opinion is that Google is now past the Adizes Institute’s “Corporate Life Cycle’s “The Fall “stage and is already into the “Aristocracy” stage.
You can click on each of the Corporate Life Cycle stages in the Adizes site above and get an expanded explanation of each stage in the Corporate Life Cycle.
We only have to think back a few decades to remember how so many companies and even entire countries were going to outpace everybody else through their combination of entrepreneurial expertise, economic power and dynamic leadership or so we excitedly informed by press release, opinion articles and the MSM and then look at where those companies and even nations are today.
In the 1980’s Japan was about to exceed America’s GDP by the early 1990’s.
They then ran into the problem of stagnation of their economy, the increase in the value of the yen and the aging of their work force exacerbated by a high level of xenophobia muted somewhat now by the realisation that they need all the cheap labour they can get to keep their economy running.
Microsoft was for a short period the world’s dominant software company that seemed as if it was about to control the entire software based business of the globe, a sure fire way of ensuring that a whole host of other companies were going to try and knock Microsoft off it’s perch..
And they succeeded as the appearance of the technologically advanced Smart Phone and new advanced soft ware and changes at the senior executive level changed the way in which the big mass markets in soft ware operated.
Apple looked likely to race up the computer technology ladder but a change in CEO’s when Steve Jobs left in the early 1990’s dragged Apple right back down but it re-invented itself when Jobs returned to run Apple again but never looked like it would have more than a good slice of the computer market by then.
The Finnish phone company, Nokia dominated the world and looked likely to continue to increase that domination until their soft ware developer which Nokia bought out turned out to be a complete mess both in program delivery abilities and organizationally as well as executively as a new book by a senior executive of that soft ware developer has just exposed.
Caterpillar one of the world’s largest and most dominant producers of heavy earth moving machinery as well as engines for decades and regarded as one of the world’s best run corporations, was another company that went down the Corporate hole in a big way in the early 1990’s when the big Japanese companies very nearly took the Earth moving machinery business away from Cat’s.
But they re-invented themselves the hard way and finished up by giving the Japanese a hard lesson in corporate business survival.
Then there was “Enron”, the world’s fastest growing financial entrepreneurs, a company that had the smartest people on Earth all in the same room, bankrupted and then the CEO jailed a few months later.
Lehmann Bros, increasingly dominant in world financial business and then bankrupted within days when the financial bubble broke in the GFC of 2008.
The list is endless of corporations and countries that were all set to dominate and even rule the parts of human endeavor they were engaged in until their corporate life cycle fell to pieces as they reached their peak of influence and power and then started the long, long fall to near or total obscurity.
One thing I have learn’t in this life is that whenever a company or corporation or an organisation or NGO or some such looks to be becoming completely dominant and almost untouchable, like all those towering structures that are all flash and dazzle and glamour on the outside, go looking for the termites in the basement.
They will be there and growing in size and numbers if you look hard enough and listen closely. and those business termites will grow in size and numbers until they eventually bring the whole structure down.
Google is no exception.
It’s size and it’s increasing hubris, particularly of it’s executives, merely makes sure it’s eventual fall will be even harder.
And few will offer any but rhetorical regrets as the world just gets on with life as usual..
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That is an interesting, and potentially useful, reference. Thank you ROM
70
The largest and most voracious termite of them all is the conviction that managerial decision and having the right set of rules strictly enforced is all that is necessary to guarantee continued success. Managerial words, pictures, and spreadsheets are assumed to be the magic that cancels the laws of logic and of nature. Actually understanding and clearly communicating anything is strictly forbidden. Managerial whim, the primary form of expression of hubris, takes over and drives the system to extinction.
At this point, engineers are required to use magic to make things that work and no longer have the freedom to follow the evidence. The rule book MUST be followed even as it clearly fails to work, increases costs, and reduces productivity. Repeated crises results in a repeated and exhausting all hands on deck response. The staff is forced to work overtime to save the day. The day cannot be saved.
Good managers and engineers leave to find sanity and to found the competition. The end game of the progressive failure is assured. The mind and body of the enterprise is already dead. The slow process of increasing entropy takes over and leaves only a rotting corpse.
Google has passed its Use-By date by at least a decade.
PS: Start Page is another useful alternative to Google.
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Sounds like Lionell has worked for a very large European company!!!!!
30
No but close. I have worked for and consulted for far to many medium to large US corporations. The second of which had major British and Swiss subsidiaries. I found, in Europe, the thinkers don’t do and the doers don’t think. Anyone who both can think and do is deemed impossible and is treated as if they don’t exist.
In far too many places in the US it is different: the doers can’t think and the thinkers can’t do. Those who can both think AND do are identified as “not a good team player” and are eventually asked to resign. Sadly, the end result is just about the same. Entropy takes over and the demise of the enterprise is certain.
20
Yes. That’s been obvious for some years now
Sure, the original Google search engine was innovative, but the real deal was the initial Google Earth. A boon for geologists, map makers etc, but it has had the most technically useful features slowly whittled back to the values of a shallow tourist guide (simultaneously, the commercial version has become horrendously expensive)
Who can forget the illegal collection of private wi-fi data as the street photographs for Google Maps were rolled out ? Google execs denied all knowledge of this but we have absolutely no independent evidence that this data was then destroyed
In short, Google execs have been corrupted by power in a relatively short time frame; that they don’t give a damn is just a measure of corruption by power
40
I’ve been sorta waiting for one of the renewable urgers to come in and stand up for their beloved renewables, but hey, they know nothing about renewable power, other than they would be opening themselves up to ridicule on a subject where they just blindly believe what they are told.
Bird frying and bird chopping and chasing subsidies you may think of as major things, and I don’t want to belittle that, but the main point we should be arguing against renewables is their failure to actually deliver power.
This Ivanpah plant runs the latest state of the art turbine, and even then, it’s barely able to drive a 125MW generator, and there are three of them at this plant, three Power Towers. They have no heat diversion, so it only operates while the Sun shines on the mirrors focussed at the top of the tower to make the compound molten enough to boil water to steam to drive that turbine, which then drives the heavy weight of the generator’s rotor. So, in the interim, and it’s also the only way they can actually fire it up in the first place, they use a Natural Gas fired turbine to spin up the generator and drive it until the molten compound can take over. If they just relied upon the compound, then chances are that for up to 6 Months a year it wouldn’t work at all, because the Compound would not be able to make steam to drive the turbine to drive the huge weight of the generator.
This is the best they can do with the current technology. A 125MW unit.
The plant is currently operating at around a 25% Capacity Factor, which means that for three units of 125MW at 25%, then it’s the equivalent Nameplate of just under 100MW. They claim they can operate at 32%, but hey, even if they could manage that, it’s laughable.
And it only cost $2.2 Billion, and is only slated to sell power into the market for 20 years.
So, at a 25% Capacity Factor spread across the whole year, that means this plant delivers power for on average 6 hours a day, and only after the NG part has run the units up in the first place.
So, if the plant runs well in the Summer, then, hey, it must be doing pretty badly in the Winter Months.
I also note that now pilots are complaining that they are being blinded by the glare when flying in that area.
So, here we have birds being fried, and hey, why are they being fried you may ask. That tremendous glare attracts flying insects for miles around, and the birds come in to feed, so if it wasn’t there in the first place, then the birds would have no reason to be in that area.
Tortoises, birds, pilots. All minor really.
The plant delivers no realistic amounts of power whatsoever, and to even suggest that plants like this are the way of the future to replace coal fired power is so laughable.
Heat diversion is the trade off here. If there was any form of heat diversion, then the compound would, umm, NEVER reach a state where it could make steam to drive the turbine.
If they did install any heat diversion, then they would have to redesign the whole plant to only run smaller Generators.
Green urgers froth at the mouth and hope for this technology to come to pass.
8 years ago, they were hoping to have the ability to run a 500MW generator with this process in five years, and that was three years ago, and it’s still as far off now as it was then. On top of that, the (I hate this word) modelling showed that they could achieve a 250MW generator running 24/7. The best they can do is 20MW and that’s only for the Summer Months, and the best they have achieved so far was for 36 consecutive days of 20MW, which generated 17.28GWH of power for the grid, the same power delivered by Bayswater, with all 4 units in operation in six and a half ….. HOURS.
Will no one come in here and stand up for these useless things.
Tony.
302
A question for Tony,what is the worst option of the “renewable” generation methods PV solar or wind farms,or are they equally hopeless?
30
Solar PV – Capacity Factor 13%, and at lower latitudes in SH or higher latitudes in NH, then that CF is as low as 9%. Most claim around 19%, but so far no Plant on Earth has delivered at that CF, except for Summer Months, and it’s a crying shame that the industry standard is power delivered across the full year.
Concentrating Solar Power (Solar Thermal) – Capacity Factor (averaged because there are a number of different types) – 28%, and that’s not an isolated plant, but the average of all of Spain’s 24 CSP plants.
Wind Power – 30% (probably best case, as the current whole of World Average CF is currently only 19%)
All are as hopeless as each other, utterly hopeless.
Tony.
192
Tony,
You just provided me with the data I need. In a couple of weeks we’ll be attending a meeting where emPower (which I mentioned earlier) will provide their full presentation and a free dinner to go along with it. I intend to be armed with a few simple facts and capacity factor will be one of them.
And who would turn down a free meal these days? Not me!
Thank you big time. 🙂
I’ll have to behave myself so as to not appear to be a fanatic. But presenting a few real world facts about solar should be easy enough to do.
80
Roy,
Tony always gives the promising picture. What he doesn’t take into account properly is the reliability factor. That is what is the most power that could be reliably taken (assuming a days storage) from the systems in question 24x7x52. This amounts to the sources capacity to perpetually replace Coal – Which is supposed to be the green dream.
This has to take into account what is the MINIMUM these plants output consistently rather than the average (unsustainable) lumpy supply they provide. Solar and Thermal and PV Solar are better than the windmills ( which actually generate zero reliable power) because the sun is somewhat reliable at coming up in the morning. A Properly designed baseload equivalent solar array, in the tropics must allow for about 5 consecutive days shading @ 20% output in order to avoid failing over to diesel backup. What this means is that the reliable output is only about 1/5 of the value Tony gives. Capacity factor is an annualised average it gives the false impression that this is the sustainable output but it would only be so if the system had 365 days of energy storage. Practical storage is one day for large and 5 days for small systems, thus you need to look at the minimum output of single day generation to plan reliable supplies (those that replace coal).
Ask then, with all this nameplate capacity – how much coal and gas they are going to permanently shut down, and who are the first people slated to be shed off the grid the first time it’s cloudy for more than a day in a row.
Ask how much land area they consume for solar/wind per Gigawatt (actual – baseload equivalent), ask how much land their biggest coal plant sits on. Compare the Gigawatts per square meter.
NB Reliable solar (with at least a days storage) comes out at only 5 W per square meter (a capacity factor of maybe 0.02) with the absolute best panels available today. It takes over 15 square kilometers of panels to replace just 1 GW of coal assuming 24 hours of storage in the solar array.
Another question you can ask, ask how much electricity their renewable plants provide, then ask them what their losses are ( typically 10-15%) compare – there are not too many grids where renewable input exceeds the system losses. Ask why their renewable capacity can’t even cover their system losses!
60
Bob,
Thanks. 🙂
Having had solar water heating myself, which is the thing emPower seems to push the most, I’m well aware of other factors. But I’ll keep that 1/5 number in mind.
It takes very little cloud cover to spoil your expectation, particularly with water heating, because clouds are very good at stopping the IR spectrum while letting through a lot of the spectrum where PV gets its output. And we live where coastal cloudiness is quite prevalent. And if not that, higher cloud layers are also frequent.
My main concern is to be able to balance the superlative presentation with some of the not quite so superlative. I hope I can get the chance I want but there’s bound to be a question and answer period where I can ask a pointed question or two
10
You going to be shining a light on real-world performance 🙂
tish-boom!
40
Tony
Nit-pick.
Higher latitudes have the same effect in both hemispheres.
Cheers
Dave
30
Thanks FijiDave,
It amazes me just how the brain works.
I always proof read what I have written in Preview, a lesson learned from my Mum ….. “always proof read Tony, always.”
As I was reading what I wrote, there must have been an error message sliding down the neural pathways, because I hesitated when I reached that phrase, read it again slowly, and then added the Northern Hemisphere wording, and it still seemed odd.
Anyway, I should have known that. I live here in Rockhampton, Under Capricorn, 23 and a tad degrees South, and The Roaring Forties blow onto Tasmania.
Tony.
Post Script – Say, I’ll bet not many of you knew that the Tropic Of Capricorn is moving slowly Nothwards, by 15 Metres per Year. (Milankovitch Cycle)
60
Hmm Tony, that went well!
90
Actually you, Tony, (and others who comment in a technical vein) do a splendid job.
When I commented above, I was a little bit in trepidation expecting someone to tell me to pull my head in, and that I knew not of what I spake. I don’t recall ever advising my (stern) English Master that he had a miss-spelled word on the blackboard!
Tricky business, this!
60
Andrew:
Which is worse, Ebola or anthrax?
Seriously wind does reduce emissions up to about 10% of total capacity. Beyond that there is no more reductions, and above around 17% wind starts to INCREASE emissions. There is nothing new about this, both the Danish and Spanish authorities made public statements to this effect well before the cost pressures nearly sent Spain bankrupt and Denmark into banning any more wind farms.
Solar PV has all the “advantages” of wind with the added “benefit” of being more costly. This doesn’t worry the gullible, all of whom can afford solar panels and shove the cost onto the less well off. Commercial PV panels are, and have been a financial disaster, as anyone who knew what the electricity cost would have predicted. Large scale PV solar thanks to ridiculous subsidies is proving disastrous in Germany, not least because it drives low emission technology out of the electricity market, leaving coal fired.
Without any method of large scale, cheap storage to smooth out the fluctuations “renewables” are a waste of money.
90
Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa. So 10% of a CF of 19% means they reduce emissions by 1.9%? That’s more than enough for the Progressive Eco-loons to destroy the economy and plunge world back into the Middle Ages for.
80
Why not? Their fretting over a substance that is in total 0.04% of the atmosphere, and of which humans contribute 5% of that.
But they are
95% surepositive that the earth will die off in 50 years.40
I know you hate models, but here’s some you might like (no, it’s not people in swim suits): http://calgary.spedweb.com/process-plant-models/
10
And what are Microsoft, and Oracle doing?
30
They also are following the myth of the magic of managerial decision making into the swamp of increasing entropy. See more detail at my post at 16.2.
I learned a long time ago that a manager who thinks his job is to make decisions has no useful work to do. If you have the information to make the decision, a decision is not necessary. The correct path is obvious. If you don’t, the best possible outcome of a decision is that it does no harm. That eventuality is as likely as being able to break The Three Laws of Thermodynamics while making something that actually works.
60
Most of the problems in human history have come from morality being used as a front for self-interest.
121
A couple of years ago I read that Google was funding warmists.
And then along came ‘googlegate’. No-one should forget googlegate! It involved allegations that Google was ‘influencing’ the result of searches for ‘climategate’.
Bing is my default search engine.
90
You think Microsoft is any better that Google?
30
Given Bill Gates’ views I wonder what may be hidden inside of Bing. But it definitely has advantages over Google for some searches, among them, if your search will contain a lot of image or video results, Bing will hand you a list of everything it finds, whereas Google does not. And that’s a real advantage. When I wanted images of lightening over the Grand Canyon I used Bing for that reason and there was the whole list consolidated in one place.
40
Jo,
Seems to fit here
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/like-speaks-unto-like-but-says-nothing-new-as-it-never-hears-it/
50
That looks like the history of the human race. I wonder exactly what part of that cycle we’re currently in.
As if I didn’t know. 🙁
30
As always, those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. If they are lucky, it will be in Iambic Pentameter and they may be able to write another verse. If not, they will simply soon be dead.
Sadly, those of us who do work to learn from history are little more than struggling wanderers crying out in the darkness. Only the owls reply: “WHO…Who…who…”.
At least we can write the next verse. Hopefully, there are those in the future who can learn again, the lessons we have learned, and will write still another verse. If not, ….
Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall comes to mind.
50
Had a quick look through for comments with lots of thumbs down. Not any. Boring.
346
Happy now?
70
There I was thinking just today, I wonder what happened to John Brookes?
Still here but not as much to say these days.
Surely not. What about all the informative comments about Search engines, deterioration in the performance of wind turbines, the cyclical performance of commercial enterprises, bird killings and all the rest. You should really have a read through John.
50
you want thumbs down ? go to skeptical science and ask about no warming for 17 years or record antarctic sea ice extent,you will get all the thumbs down you want,before moderators remove your post.
30
better…?
90
26 Sept: Washington Times: Drew Johnson: Stop taking environmentalist hypocrites seriously
They indulge in excess while urging others to conserve
A lot of the money Mr. (Tom) Steyer now uses to advance his fringe environmental agenda was made off his investments in oil and natural gas.
While managing his hedge fund, Farallon Capital, Mr. Steyer made a killing off the same fossil-fuel industry he is now smearing as greedy and sinister…
Given the stakes of our nation’s energy debate, Americans should stop taking these environmentalist hypocrites seriously.
Any list of “do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do” environmentalists needs to put former Vice President Al Gore at the top…
Public pressure eventually forced Mr. Gore to give his Tennessee home a green-friendly overhaul. Since slapping solar panels on his roof, though, Mr. Gore purchased additional properties, and he continues to fly in private jets, even though the resulting carbon dioxide footprint can be more than 100 times greater than flying commercial.
Another elder statesman of enviro-hypocrisy is Robert Redford. The actor urged Americans to embrace “green buildings that use less energy,” but when an environmentally friendly housing development was planned too close to his Napa Valley winery, the actor quashed the project…
George Soros is a megadonor for environmental groups like the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Both groups are staunchly opposed to fracking, a technology that uses pressurized water and sand to capture oil and natural-gas deposits trapped deep underground.
His support for abolishing the drilling technique didn’t stop him from recently buying a $234 million stake in Consol Energy, an avid practitioner of fracking.
Then there’s Bill McKibben. As the head of 350.org…
He’s gone so far as to demonize imported foods, including oranges, because of the fuel consumed to transport them.
That hasn’t stopped Mr. McKibben from jetting around the globe to spread his anti-fossil fuel-message. It’s still unclear how this busy jet-fuel-guzzling travel schedule squares with his hard-line views on citrus…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/26/johnson-stop-taking-environmentalist-hypocrites-se/?page=all
50
GREENHOUSE SMASHED –
Click here.
No one has a valid counter argument. Keep watching, or try yourself to write a valid rebuttal..
00
keeping in mind China’s CO2 emissions are set to soar over the coming decades, so trading CO2 emissions could not possibly have anything whatsoever to do with stopping CAGW:
26 Sept: Reuters: Valerie Volcovici: China embraces carbon pricing and UN takes a shine to plan
Millions of visitors and residents could hardly miss the message projected on the side of the world famous United Nations building in New York this week: “Put a price on carbon.”…
Carbon pricing, largely rejected by the United States and struggling in Europe, is suddenly all the rage, with China leading the charge…
Boosters of carbon pricing policies say that once China sets a national price on carbon, others will follow.
“Once China goes live, that will establish a major price (signal) that will affect all the other markets and all other (carbon) prices,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change…
“You will see a shift in the fulcrum toward China and that will attract other countries,” Rachel Kyte, World Bank Group special envoy for climate change, told Reuters…
The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) has been lobbying since 1999 for an international framework for carbon trading…
“We’ve spent a lot more of our time talking to businesses in China to build capacity to make emission trading work,” said Dirk Forrister, president of IETA.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/us-un-climatechange-carbon-pricing-idUSKCN0HL2HM20140926
20
Mr. Schmidt certainly knows both how to run a business and how to get the support of those who believe as he does. It’s too bad that the two goals conflict so much that it can be called hypocrisy.
Wouldn’t it be nice if he could stick to things where his expertise is unquestionable, running a business and Internet search engines? 🙁
50
It’s very scary when the the planet’s major information provider becomes a propaganda channel. Even scarier is that the unwashed majority usually swallow whatever PR is pushed onto them.
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I travelled to Spain, two years ago. I was driving north from Madrid, close to the Sierra de Guadarrama, when I saw a Golden Eagle, close to the road. Two days later, returning from El Escorial to Segovia, I saw a Spanish Imperial Eagle glide low over the road. At that point, It struck me that I hadn’t seen a single wind-turbine. When I turned south, into Extremadura, the landscape made up for that: phalanxes of turbines, usually immobile, when I passed, carpeting one hillside after another. They do turn, at times, and I saw no more eagles.
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The other mechanism by which wind turbines remove raptors from an area seems to be by discouraging the habitation of rodents. Apparently, the ground-borne vibrations makes their burrows too uncomfortable.
Similar effects observed in e.g. Germany with foxes.
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“our children and our grandchidren”
Empty rhetoric and the last emotional refuge of those whose cause is doomed.
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Found a super alternative search engine which does not seem to have any position on AGW
https://duckduckgo.com
I’ve checked it for malware seems clean. But check in case…. Im sure Google must be worried about this…
Only problem is chnaging emails ect but this shouldcome in time and should be ableto transfer all email to new one
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27 Sept: Winnipeg Sun: Ezra Levant: Global warming stalls — but not demands for cash
But all the celebrities and PR men in the world can’t hide a fact that the United Nations itself acknowledges: there just hasn’t been any measurable global warming since 1998.
The UN has a $100 word for that — a “hiatus.” Like a recess, or vacation. As in, it hasn’t happened since the 1990s, but it will be back for sure. Any moment now.
Normally people, if they were campaigning to end something and it ended, would declare victory, have a celebration and move on.
But you don’t understand the UN. To declare victory against global warming would mean that they would have to find new jobs…
That’s why the UN – and their chorus in professional environmental groups and the mainstream media – have changed the terms. First it was global warming. Then climate change. Now it’s “climate disruption.” …
For what?…
A position paper from China, leaked to Fox News, has some clues…READ ON
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/09/27/global-warming-stalls—-but-not-demands-for-cash
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26 Sept: Forbes: Addison Wiggin: Profit From Global Warming Even If You Don’t Believe In It
One year after the metro Chicago floods, Farmers Insurance Group filed an unprecedented lawsuit against 200 local governments. The lawsuit’s premise? Farmers incurred losses because the cities failed to expand their sewers and stormwater drains… and the cities should have known better because climate change had been making Chicago-area rainstorms more frequent, more intense and longer lasting since the 1970s.
For real.
In the end, Farmers backed off the suit. Legal experts said it didn’t have a prayer: Governments are usually immune from this sort of litigation, dontcha know…
Still, the suit is “the first loud shot in what I think will be a long-term set of litigation battles over failure to prepare for climate change,” says Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Governments may be immune… but private companies are not. “One could easily imagine architects and engineers being accused of professional malpractice for designing structures that don’t withstand foreseeable climate-related events,” Gerrard tells NBC News…
The world’s wealthy will become interested in global warming when it starts costing them money, says the celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“The evidence will show up when they need more evidence,” Tyson told MSNBC in June…READ ON
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/09/26/profit-from-global-warming-even-if-you-dont-believe-in-it/
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Peak Oil?
Tell ’em they’re dreaming …
Russia, viewed by the Obama administration as hostile to U.S. interests, has discovered what may prove to be a vast pool of oil in one of the world’s most remote places with the help of America’s largest energy company. (Exxon Mobil Corp.)
Russia’s state-run OAO Rosneft (ROSN) said a well drilled in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) struck oil, showing the region has the potential to become one of the world’s most important crude-producing areas.
“It exceeded our expectations,” Sechin said in an interview.
This discovery is of “exceptional significance in showing the presence of hydrocarbons in the Arctic.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-27/rosneft-says-exxon-arctic-well-strikes-oil.html
The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore.
Output from the Kara Sea field could begin within five to seven years, Sechin said, adding the field discovered today would be named “Victory.”
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For all the complaints (environmentalist hyperbole?) about arctic drilling, it has been happening for quite a few years now, and I am not aware of any major environmental catastrophes in the area – of course that is not to say it isn’t possible, and that it won’t happen, but it is far from the picture of total environmental disaster which is so gleefully painted by the likes of Greenpeace.
In Australia, BP are working on a 3-4 well ultra-deepwater HPHT drilling campaign in the Great Australian Bight, (spudding the 1st well in 2016), with a rig specially built to deal with conditions, at least, it will be specially built once the design is finalised… anyway, as someone involved in this particular project (in a peripheral way at the moment), I find it odd that the local opposition to such projects involves saying ‘we make our livelihood from fishing (sorry, the PC name is now ‘aquaculture’), we don’t want environmental vandals spilling oil everywhere’. They then fail to recognise the massive environmental damage caused by trawling and tuna farming – as well as assume that BP will find oil/gas in any significant volumes…
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Makes one wonder about all this oil so far down in the earths mantle, seems that it could not possibly be a fossil fuel, recent deep drilling is finding it deeper and deeper beyond where science say’s it is impossible to exist. Some one recently worked out chemically how the world makes it, perhaps it is the ultimate renewable energy, much to learn about our little planet, tho’ the stupidity of mankind in general is beyond question.
It would seem that the ultimate heretic Miles Mathis has sorted how the solar cycles work using NASA data no less, interesting read. Cheers
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You need to look up on the “Abiogenic petroleum origin” hypothesis.
Abiogenic, meaning not of biological origin. (and don’t trust Wiki.. look further !)
Have fun 🙂
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differing perspectives? which is closer to reality?
28 Sept: NYT Editorial: A Group Shout on Climate Change
So what is the verdict on Climate Week…
President Obama, for one, was as eloquent as he has ever been on the subject…
But most of the positive energy at this gathering came from people closer to the ground, like the 300,000 activists who marched last Sunday. They included mayors like New York’s Michael Bloomberg and his successor, Bill de Blasio…
And they included institutions like Bank of America, which said it would invest in renewable energy, and companies like Kellogg and Nestle…
Underlying all these declarations was a palpable conviction that tackling climate change could be an opportunity and not a burden…
Mr. Obama is in a much stronger leadership position than he was at Copenhagen, having engineered a huge increase in automobile fuel efficiency and proposed rules that will greatly reduce the United States’ reliance on dirty coal. The Chinese, in part because their own air is so dirty, have been investing heavily in alternative energy sources like wind and solar, and they are giving serious consideration to a national cap on coal consumption. The cooperation of these two countries could by itself create the conditions for a breakthrough agreement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/opinion/sunday/a-group-shout-on-climate-change.html?_r=0
27 Sept: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Dreary climate summit was surely their saddest fiasco yet
The leaden speeches at this year’s UN climate summit shows our leaders’ gullibility
For days the usual cheerleaders, such as the BBC and Channel 4 News, had been beating the drum for this “historic” and “important” gathering…
When the great day came, The Guardian published a 43-page running blog, reporting all the speeches from the likes of some Bosnian telling us that his country has had more rain this year than in any for more than a century (did global warming really start that long ago?)…
As one speaker after another overran their allotted four minutes, even The Guardian could not hide the fact that no one had anything new or interesting to say…
Most notably absent among the 120 “heads of government” present were those from China and India, two of the biggest CO2 emitters in the world. And, of course, this conveyed precisely why Mr Ban’s shindig was as much an empty charade as that far greater fiasco in Copenhagen in 2009, when it became evident that there will never be a global treaty, because the world’s fastest-developing nations, such as China and India, have never had any intention of signing one…
Until our politicians wake up from this mad dream to think for themselves and pull us back from this suicidal course, we are doomed…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/11124976/Dreary-climate-summit-was-surely-their-saddest-fiasco-yet.html
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In your researches, Pat, have you come across a number for how many of the 120 heads of state were heads of state?
Somehow, their ABC hasn’t been able to let us know.
(Does leo de-caprio count as a head of state because his personal economy and carbon footprint is bigger than 30% of the UN members? It’s a good indicator that perhaps they should stop talking and start acting- it pays better!)
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26 Sept: Reason: Ronald Bailey: China and America Climate Change Blame Game
Discord on who’s responsible for fixing the weather at U.N. climate confab
In his statement, the Chinese vice-premier swiftly made it clear that his country has no intention of setting aside the old divides—specifically, the divide in the UNFCCC that requires developed countries like the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the members of the European Union to cut their emissions while imposing no such obligations on the developing world. Zhang insisted, “We need to stick to the UNFCCC framework and follow its principles.” Translation: China’s minimal obligations must be maintained…
Assuming that China’s economy grows at 7 percent per year, futurist Brian Wang over at the Next Big Future calculates that meeting that carbon
intensity goal would actually allow China’s carbon dioxide emissions to increase from about 10 billion tons today to as much as 14.7 billion tons by 2020. China’s emissions increases would nearly equal current U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and they would be almost two and a half times greater than the two billion tons it argues that the U.S. is obligated to cut between now and 2020.
So the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases plainly don’t agree on who should cut, how much they should cut, when they should cut, and who should pay for the cuts. In his summary remarks on the Summit, General-Secretary Moon claimed that the leaders who met there “committed to finalize a meaningful, universal new agreement” next year. As it stands now, that amounts to little more than a pious hope.
http://reason.com/archives/2014/09/26/china-and-america-climate-change-blame-g
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28 Sept: Rappler: Ayee Macaraig: Modi: Developed nations must fulfill climate pledges
‘The developed countries have to fulfill their promise for funding and technology transfer,’ says Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the UN General Assembly
After skipping the United Nations Climate Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tackled the topic in another UN event but did not announce any new action his country will take to fight climate change…
“The developed countries have to fulfill their promise for funding and technology transfer”…
Modi also cited the so-called principle of common but differentiated responsibility, which recognizes that developed countries have a greater responsibility to fight climate change because historically, they contributed to the problem more than developing nations did…
Modi then expounded on how lifestyle changes and even yoga can help fight climate change…
“When we talk of climate change, we talk about holistic health care, connecting with nature. Yoga should not just be exercise for us but a means to connect with the world and nature. It should bring a change in our lifestyle and create awareness in us and it can help in fighting against climate change.
***Let’s come together and work towards International Yoga Day.”…
“When we think of the scale of want in the world – 2.5 billion people without access to basic sanitation; 1.3 billion people without access to electricity; or 1.1 billion people without access to drinking water, we need a more comprehensive and concerted direct international action. In India, the most important aspects of my development agenda are precisely to focus on these issues,” he said…
http://www.rappler.com/world/regions/south-central-asia/70378-modi-climate-pledges-unga
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New Google motto:
Don’t Be Eagle.
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It is hard to soar like an Eagle when you’re surrounded by a bunch of Google Turkeys.
30
This Bird Frier includes 173,500 heliostats (mirrors). I keep asking how much power (What % percentage)from the plant is used to move those 173,500 mirrors to focus on the 3 towers as the sun moves across the sky?? I have never received an answer from a bunch of websites reporting on this. I don’t see any reference to this in any of the sites stating the stats on this project.
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Just noticed a news article on Tim Berners-Lee the creator of the world wide web warning of governments controlling the internet.
40
Just wondering, has GOOGLE ever made a profit as a company? I seem to recall it listed on the stock market at some madly over inflated share price but I can not recall ever hearing of it reporting a profit. Might explain its need to go after government subsidies.
And how much do environmentalists hate birds? They swat them out of the air with windmills, roast them alive with solar ovens and starve them by turning grain into biofuel. I hope the birds don’t decide to strike back! LOL.
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Here’s is Schmidt’s twitter handle …. @ericschmidt
John Doerr is on the board and he is another one investing in renewables. Crony capitalism at its worst. time to dump everything Google.
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Eric Schmidt exists to exploit every nuance of everyone on the planet with a paycheck and an internet connection. I’m a bit put off by his faux sense of being well placed in the world’s moral high ground.
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Calling those who disagree about the weather ‘literally liars’ tells a lot more about the accuser than the accused.
Schmidt raises questions about his strategic vision with this sort of bloviation.
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Here is an article based partly on the Berkshire Hathaway annual report for 2013. It shows how the “renewable energy” business is just a way to transfer lots of money from tax- and rate-payers to the rich and politically connected:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/05/21/how-warren-buffet-fleeces-consumers-taxpayers-through-wind-energy
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Google practically mints money:
Net Income – GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2013 was $3.35 billion, compared to $2.89 billion in the first quarter of 2012. Non-GAAP net income was $3.90 billion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to $3.33 billion in the first quarter of 2012. GAAP EPS in the first quarter of 2013 was $9.94 on 337 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $8.75 in the first quarter of 2012 on 330 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the first quarter of 2013 was $11.58, compared to $10.08 in the first quarter of 2012.
Their effective tax rate for first quarter 2013 was 8%.
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