TonyfromOz explained how fatal the numbers on “carbon capture” are. (It’s like the GFC of engineering). The new coal plants cost 60% more to build and waste something like 40% of the entire energy they generate to “catch” a beneficial fertilizer and and stuff it in a small hot hole underground.
It’s hard being first, but hey, the plant is only 2 years behind and $4.4 billion over budget. Part of the costs are due to delays because of wet weather. (Apparently the climate models did not see that coming…)
Obama has set aside $6 billion since 2009 for lab research and “commercial deployment” of clean coal. In response to the abject failure he’s doing what most people do when spending other people’s money — “Despite these troubles, the White House says it will continue to support clean coal.”
News last week:
America’s First Clean Coal Plant Put Mississippi Power ‘on the Brink of Bankruptcy’
[Link may not work, try “cached copy“.]
Stephen Lacey
Last week, state regulators approved an emergency rate increase for Mississippi Power in order to keep the company afloat as it completes the increasingly-expensive Kemper plant. Mississippi Power customers will see a temporary rate increase of 18 percent — a change that could become permanent, depending on the utility’s financial health.
The 582-megawatt Kemper plant was hailed as an important step for the clean-coal industry in 2008, after receiving $270 million in government grants and eventual approval from the public service commission to build the facility. The integrated combined-cycle power plant is designed to create and burn synthesis gas made from lignite coal, while also pumping carbon-dioxide pollution into a nearby oil field.
Building the first-of-a-kind commercial plant has been challenging for Mississippi Power and its parent, Southern Company. Kemper is two years behind schedule and $4.4 billion over budget.
According to Darren Samuelsohn in “What’s wrong with clean coal” (Politico) the Kemper plant was supposed to capture 65% of the CO2 and pump it into an oil field to help produce more crude.
And as the plant blows through deadlines, the cost has ballooned dramatically: An original price tag of $1.8 billion has swelled to $6.2 billion.
Progress since then [2010] has been anything but smooth. Southern Company, which in its earliest iteration in 2006 envisioned a $1.8 billion project, (excluding costs for the adjacent mine and carbon dioxide pipeline) has had a litany of missed deadlines and budget overruns. It had to repay more than $130 million in federal tax credits after missing its May 2014 deadline to start producing power — a delay that company officials blamed in a 2013 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on “abnormally wet weather and lower-than-planned construction labor productivity.” Critical pieces of the plant’s infrastructure have been built, torn up and rebuilt again. For every month of delay, Southern Company has said in its financial disclosures to the SEC that the plant’s price tag goes up between $25 million to $30 million.
He also says Kemper may be bad, but it’s the best “clean coal” anyone has:
As clean-coal projects go, Kemper — even with its delays and cost overruns — practically counts as a success story. Another high-profile test case for the technology — FutureGen 2.0 in central Illinois — died three months ago after its federal subsidies evaporated. Two more major federally funded demonstration projects in California and Texas are also imperiled.
But one small Canadian plant somehow sort of works
So far, one major power plant has managed to make carbon capture technologies work. In Canada, SaskPower launched the first coal plant in the world to sequester its carbon dioxide emissions from an existing facility. The $1.2 billion retrofit now captures 90 percent of its emissions and sends them via an eight-inch pipe to an oil field for energy production about 45 miles away.
“It’s working great,” said Mike Monea, president of the company’s carbon capture and storage initiatives at the Boundary Dam Power Station, which is about 10 miles north of the U.S. border near Estevan, Saskatchewan. But the plant uses a different technology from Kemper’s and is also nowhere close to Kemper’s size ─110 megawatts, compared with about 580 megawatts. It also required $200 million (U.S.) in Canadian government subsidies.
Read the long feature in “What’s wrong with clean coal”. Engineers will find it interesting.
“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
Not sure where that was first said, but very apt nowadays.
270
“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.” …..And then, just a tad later they capture their Carbon.
Here is an example amongst many of how Carbon is ‘financially-captured’.
Another One Bites The Coal Dust – Alpha Natural Files For Bankruptcy
110
Or, you could say that when coal is financially captured, [not physically/geologically/chemically captured.], it is an act of ‘sequestration’. You could stretch it and call it a form of Carbon sequestration of coal sequestration.
From Wikipedia:
“Sequestration (in law) is the act of removing, separating, or seizing anything from the possession of its owner under process of law for the benefit of creditors or the state.[1]”
So here we have an example of Carbon/coal sequestration. Crazy/mad, is it not?
80
From Wikipedia:
“Sequestration (in law) is the act of removing, separating, or seizing anything from the possession of its owner under process of law for the benefit of creditors or the state.[1]“
So that’s what they’ve down with our money, eh?
10
If these idiots were serious, there is only one way to store carbon monoxide safely, pipe it into the deep ocean, serious pumps needed. That we and nature needs all the CO2 we can get escapes their attention, but the deep ocean is the only safe option.
10
Here yopu go:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080314112906AAWt7st
50
“The Quotation Page” entry:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26869.html
10
Thanks Slywolfe!
I always enjoy references which ground us in the established knowledge of the past.
30
It is the nature of Government to design their “programs” so that they will fail. When they fail, the excuse will be that not enough Government was involved and not enough of other people’s money was spent. So they get to do it again but on a much larger scale. This process continues until either the economy that was to be the source of the money collapses or the people revolt or both.
A rather recent example: NASA successfully put men on the moon. Their budgets were cut. They successfully put a Shuttle into space. Their budgets were cut. The Challenger failed spectacularly, and NASA’s budget expanded by many billions per year so they could replace the Challenger.
The lesson that was learned once again: Succeed, then fail, and you get to expand and spend more. Continue to succeed and you are downsized and your budgets will be cut. The consequences of that practice are obvious to the most casual observer. This has been the way of governments since the first government failed to deliver on its promises to keep the people fed.
This situation is simply a repeat of an ancient tradition followed only by governments. The names and amounts are different but the process and the results are exactly the same as they have been for hundreds of thousands of years and for tens of thousands of governments.
Explain to me again why we need so much government. Especially since they are so hazardous to ones health and wealth.
503
Good thing we have yet another Socialist/Communist UN “plan” to fail then :
Obama Agrees To New UN Development Plan To Convert U.S. To Socialist Nation By 2030
http://www.progressivestoday.com/obama-agrees-to-new-un-development-plan-to-convert-u-s-to-socialist-nation-by-2030/
A month ago, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General stated that the Obama administration was set to sign an international agreement eradicating global poverty. While the exact means of achieving this lofty goal were a little sketchy, the fact that sustainable development was going to be the main mode of transportation was all too clear. And for those of us who have been studying Obama’s green agenda for many years, seeing the term “sustainable development” is enough to set off Marxist alarm bells so loud it would even cause the angels in heaven to cover their ears . Even so, without a link to the actual document, my hopes of exposing the true collective agenda of the UN agreement was slim at best…until now.
Yesterday the UN announced that all 193 member states, which includes the United States, have reached an agreement on new global development goals to eradicate global poverty. According to the UN goals titled “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” they “encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda that heralds an historic turning point for our world.”
As it pertains to wealth redistribution and universal employment the proof is found on page 7, section 27:
“
27. We will seek to build strong economic foundations for all our countries. Sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth is essential for prosperity. This will only be possible if wealth is shared and income inequality is addressed. We will work to build dynamic, sustainable, innovative and people-centred economies, promoting youth employment and women’s economic empowerment, in particular, and decent work for all.
….also includes other extremely disturbing goals such as :
– forcing businesses and people to adopt sustainable consumption and production practices (page 19, Goal 12)
– managing how much food is wasted, making cities and towns develop in more sustainable ways (page 18, Goal 11)
– redistribute wealth among nations (page 17, Goal 10)
– “data monitoring and accountability” (bottom of page 23)
– implement the Global Jobs Pact of the International Labor Organization (page 17, section 8.b).
Ah Socialism….failure one year….and the next…and the next…..
Socialists cant survive in the real productive world – so they have to bring the world to a disfuctional state so they can exist safely….
140
Time to call the senators and Congressmen and scream bloody murder. Unfortunately under International Law if the President signs it is good to go.
10
The Vienna Convention doesn’t work like that. The US is still required to ratify it domestically for it to have effect……unless…. the remainder of the world buys into it and it becomes part of the body of common international law. (Example, the laws of armed conflict are not signed by all states but are an international norm and binding on all due to both time and number of signatories.)
20
Well if we’re talking income equality then I want equality with the pay and retirement conditions our not-so-esteemed previous two PMs did and do. Those are Rudd and Gillard, if you’re not from Oz.
00
A distant relative of mine was president of Miss. Power many years ago. He ran a tight responsible ship, with honor and effectiveness. Now politics and rent seeking extremists are wrecking what was a great company.
This financial disaster is just a foreshadowing of the costs that the climate kooks are willing to impose on us. Insurance costs, government wasting tax payer resources on climate kook boondoggles, higher costs and lower quality power- all are thanks entirely to this President and his insiders inflicting their anti-science agenda on America.
390
Too right Hunter. I would say financial disaster/extremism and broad economic collapse. ‘Slow motion de-leveraging’ [speeding up somewhat overnight.] IMO.
“This Coal Mine Valued At $630 Million In 2011 Just Sold For One Dollar”
“As Bloomberg explains, “a slump in the price of coking coal, used to make steel, to a decade low is forcing mines to close across the world and bankrupting some producers.”
80
It seems to me that nothing can be done. I remember watching multiple US Senate Energy and commerce hearings. They seem to be a waste of time and bandwidth. The numbers that I recall were more than 100$ per ton for capture and then an additional 35$ to 50$ to pipe the volatile CO2 to the approved oil field sequestering site.
This was repeated in theoretical statements in various hearings. One of the other highlights was that each theoretical carbon capture implementation would necesarily be unique.
00
Consider the following statements
And
That means, per unit of energy produced, this fancy new technology vents into the atmosphere half the CO2 per megawatt of conventional coal-fired power station. Hardly a breakthrough is it?
320
Does the often quoted CO2 emissions from using gas of +/- 50% of conventional coal represent reality?
Does this 50% include the gas vented to atmosphere in the first stage of most gas extraction processes, the CO2 removal stage?
An example is the Gorgen Field at Barrow Island where the raw gas has a CO2 content of some 50% which is removed by the CO2 removal (amine) unit and vented directly to atmosphere.
Gas may not be the 50% CO2 saver claimed.
130
terrarious:
Old style black coal stations are about 960, old style brown coal about 1290 – these being most of those in use in Australia. Newer style black can be as low as 700 and brown coal about 800.
The latest CCGT plants are between 440-400.
All figures kg per MWh of electricity.
Once SA shuts down its old style coal plants and is reliant on power from Victoria to (mostly) avoid blackouts, it will be running around 630-660. We’re it to vastly increase its OCGT capacity ( to around 9 times what it uses ) and stop both wind and Vic. supplies then it would run around 630-650, in other words there is no point in more wind at all. If the SA government knew what they were doing – a very unlikely event – they would be far better off installing CCGT plants. They would be cheaper than wind turbines, far more reliable and deliver less emissions.
100
Sorry,
Meant to add no they don’t count that come before use. This might involve people having a good look at the emissions, not just CO2, involved in wind turbine and PV panels manufacturing.
70
Stupid, expensive, greenie, coal projects deserve to – pardon the pun – crash and burn.
Buy that applies to all stupid, expensive, greenie, energy projects, which rely solely on subsidies to survive.
292
Being a bean counter I like to compare this project to alternatives. Suppose you wanted to halve the CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations. How about invest in equal amounts of nuclear power and conventional coal-fired power stations instead of 100% coal?
Let us take a ridiculous cost example. The proposed 3200MW Hinkley Point C will cost an eye-watering £24.5bn ($38.5bn) to build or $12m a megawatt. The 582MW Kemper project would have cost at least $6bn or $10.5m a megawatt, with higher running costs. The conventional coal-fired power station may cost around $2m a megawatt. Nuclear and conventional coal would average $7m a megawatt if you are extremely wasteful.
Alternatively, why not build a gas-fired power station? Like the Kempor project it also has half the CO2 emissions of conventional coal-fired power station; is far more fuel-efficient; and has proven technology, so less risk of cost overruns and reliability problems.
The final alternative is the most logical and proven. Rather than Government meddling in the means of energy production, let the market decide the optimal mix. Competition will force the energy suppliers to serve their customers. A fraction of funds being wasted can be spent on better forecasting into the nature and extent of the coming cataclysm. 🙂
221
Does “equal amounts” refer to number, MW production, operating costs, construction costs, physical size? I am confused – obviously a slow neuron day.
100
Sorry Rereke. To cladify, I meant MW.
60
Some of our American friends may know the term Asshat engineering, A few years ago planet saving eco idealists came up with filtering out a cars CO2 emissions through limestone rock (CaCO3) but the amount of rock needed would last for 6 miles and cost $100 not to mention extra fuel use from the added weight.
Unnecessary expensive wasteful ideas only encourage regressive development and line the pockets of Asshat engineers with public money better used elsewhere.
180
Is that the concept of running exhaust through a Calcium Hydroxide (limewater) solution so that the CO2 reacts with it, forming CaCO3 as a precipitate? Great for school chemistry class demonstrations, not so great when you have to deal with a large volume of high alkalinity liquid in a moving vehicle. Asshat seems like far too polite a term for it.
Mind you, I know one chap who runs a small hydrogen generator in his petrol-driven car, which reportedly increases fuel efficiency to the point where the owner thinks it’s worth the effort to maintain it (though there is a certain element of enjoyment as well). He lives in Peru, and fuel prices are not super cheap, nor super expensive.
80
i think the money would have been better spent on fusion research, or on similarly far-off, but ultimately beneficial power generation technology, but then, I think a well-targeted $6.2 billion could help things along a bit, and maybe we could stop saying that fusion is 20 years away, as we’ve been saying for the last 40 years or more…
in the meantime, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is big business these days, and CO2 plays a big part in it, although this is hardly new technology, with trials having been undertaken in the 1970s. It makes sense to do something useful with the CO2, although it won’t necessarily stay underground for very long.
70
“It makes sense to do something useful with the CO2”
Putting into the atmosphere would have the best benefit for the planet. 🙂
But sure, if you can economically use it somewhere on the way, go for it.
121
I think fusion may be closer than that.
30
Jo
Somewhat o/t
“I have seen this story all over the place, touting some Indian airport that will, gasp, entirely power itself with solar. Look at the picture environmentalists are bragging about. The solar panels to power a few buildings cover perhaps 10x or more of the land taken up by the buildings themselves. They paved paradise and put up … a solar farm.”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/08/is-this-really-what-environmentalists-are-after.html
90
With the global economy in meltdown and a global recession building very nicely, it is striking how ideological eco-delusion drives onward, fueled by a haemorrhage of other peoples rapidly diminishing money, in effect exacerbating the recession and further compromising the future. The Telegraph highlights recent financial events, as the oil price plummets,
Events conspire to throttle in the Green Blob. With a surplus of cheap oil and equally low gas prices, the burden of farcically named ‘renewables’, reliant upon a continued torrent of unsustainable subsidies and dire psychological threats around a non-problem, cannot be borne by economies in collapse.
They didn’t anticipate a major global recession when they planned COP21 in Paris. They thought we’d be in full blown recovery and disposed to affording some of their nightmarish dream, which they are desperate to trap you into….for example, in Delusionville for example, one can acquire a ‘cash incentive twice as much as was offered through the California Solar Initiative rebate program. Property owners in Riverside County that participate are able to go solar for as little as zero down and receive cash-back’.
The Parisian Escargot Fest is destined to become a train wreck, not only because the Green delusion is beleaguered by the reality of economies under severe duress unable to afford further recession deepening Green stimulus, but because under the circumstances of a global recession, the Green snail eaters cannot avoid the fate of being seen as glittering chandeliers of hypocrisy.
170
Unfortunately if your prediction about Paris is correct ( and I agree with your prediction) the economic conditions will just give them an excuse to carry on to the next talkfest to try to carry their plans through to fruition.
100
The hackneyed spin is looking very threadbare. The irony is that the recession may well lead to further decline in CO2 emissions, without any further Green ‘assistance’.
What tangible do they really have to offer other than ‘No’……?… Green jobs for all? I think the Green chancre will find further infection an exhaustingly unproductive activity.
It’s now high time The World regathered its wit, its optimism and its vigour.
20
The warmists are heedless of cost,
As our coffers they quickly exhaust,
While the ‘carbon’ is captured,
Their souls are enraptured,
Though billions to folly are lost.
300
Excellent! Well done Ruairi. 🙂
70
Sadly.
<blockquoteWhile the ‘carbon’ is captured,
Their souls are enraptured,
Though billions to folly are lost>
an accurate commentary!
20
Every time there is a report on Kemper it states that someone, somehow, is still funding the bludger. Are these the same people who were buying Timmy’s Geodynamics at over $2 back in late 2007? And whose money is it?
90
“The $1.2 billion retrofit now captures 90 percent of its emissions and sends them via an eight-inch pipe to an oil field for energy production about 45 miles away.”
Forgive me for being stupid BUT how the heck does one use CO2 for “energy production”?
Do they grow trees with it in greenhouses and then burn the wood for energy?
What am I missing here?
I’m pretty sure we already have CO2 drenched greenhouses so has the Boundary Dam Power Station discovered something completely new??????????????????????????
Cheers,
40
Popeye at #14: “The $1.2 billion retrofit now captures 90 percent of its emissions and sends them via an eight-inch pipe to an oil field for energy production about 45 miles away.”
Forgive me for being stupid BUT how the heck does one use CO2 for “energy production”?
I think that in this case they mean that they pipeline the CO2 45 miles to the spent oil fields, pump it into the ground and that is pushing out the remaining oil. That is what is meant by “energy production.”
80
Thanks PK BUT that means that the oil that is released by pumping it out with CO2 will now produce MORE CO2 (when they burn this lot) so they can pump more oil out! Then they can do it all again & again ad ifinitum!
Mmmmmm – maybe they’ve discovered perpetual motion/energy (sarc)
These people are stark raving!!!
Cheers,
50
They need to pump something down to push the oil out, and apparently CO2 does a pretty good job.
Better than using water or similar, what a waste of a valuable resource.
And as you say, all that pumped CO2 will eventually escape anyway, as well as helping release even more CO2, so all is good 🙂
60
Maybe they could use the CO2 to grow tomatoes faster in those CO2 enriched greenhouses. Then the CO2 would be captured by the tomatoes which could then be eaten? 🙂
60
James , your mates hydrogen generator scheme doesnt work as you have to pass a charge through water to seperate the hydrogen,by attaching a wire to your car battery in effect converting energy from your battery into hydrogen,as they say around here ‘you don’t get owt for nowt’. Meanwhile in the states, the people that fought a war of independence largely over taxation are not only being shafted on taxes to pay for this crazey carbon capture scheme but are having to bale out the company responsible with massive hykes on energy bills !! i get the government of the people bit but what happened to government by the people for the people ?. Whilst i write this comment the news is full of talk about a stock market plunge because the chinese economy is struggling, so who needs carbon capture anyway when the best way to cut our co2 emissions is through a world wide recession !! p s some newspaper hack has already written the morning headline “the great fall of china”
50
CCS again comes into view. The scientific monster of our age standing for all that is grossly stupid and moronic in human endeavor.
It is one of the strangest, most idiotic concepts I have ever come across.
Words fail me and the very mention of CCS sends me off to ruminate about the fate of man when politics can be so powerful as to require CCS and at the same time be so devious and willful as to inflict this on tax payers.
KK
120
I thought I should link to Flannery, Steffen’s latest report for 2015.
Unbelievable stuff, but what would you expect?
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/climate-change-2015-growing-risks-critical-choices
40
‘A very strong and rapid decarbonisation of the global economy could stabilise the climate system below 2°C’
That won’t work, CO2 doesn’t cause warming, apparently.
‘while a business-as-usual scenario could lead to temperature rises of 4°C or above by the end of the century threatening the viability of modern society.’
No you’re wrong Mr Flannery, global cooling has begun in subtle ways beyond your anthropological understanding.
Modern society in a century is beyond our imaginings and there is no way in the world we can predict the climate that far ahead, not yet at least.
110
I laughed when I read, “Mississippi Power customers will see a temporary rate increase of 18 percent — a change that could become permanent,…” Could become permanent? When has a temporary tax or levy not become permanent? It brings to mind the Greiner Govt’s 3×3 petrol levy which one day just disappeared in to the price of petrol in NSW forever; or Joan the Socialist Kirner’s Pyramid Building Society to Repay the Greedy Losers tax which also just disappeared into the price of fuel. Nope, one they get used to paying the increased prices the Mississippi Power customers will see a permanent rate increase of 18 percent.
140
I recall that the Nick Greiner Coalition Government also abolished the Sydney Harbour Bridge road toll, but the Carr Labor Government re-introduced it.
50
SaskPower in Canada sort of works, because:
The dumping ground – an old oil field relatively close-by
How many examples of this geologic serendipity may we find, one wonders ??
60
Has anyone thought of the obvious here with that Boundary Dam single unit in Canada.
(Part of) the captured CO2 is sent via pipeline to the nearby oil field and pumped into the ground to assist with the removal of the remaining oil in that oil field.
The CO2 pumped in then forces the oil out.
Hmm, just the oil only and the CO2, well I guess that just stays underground then, eh!
Or, umm, would it not also come up the pipes which recover the oil, and be just vented off into the Atmosphere, sort of like out of the stacks back at the plant if it wasn’t diverted to the Capture part of the process in the first place.
So, here’s me thinking that CCS stands for Carbon Capture and umm ….. STORAGE.
Guess they missed that part, eh!
Oh, and I wonder what happens to the CO2 when that expired oil field is
full of CO2depleted of oil. Seal it, and then build a new pipeline and pumping facilities to a new oil field I guess, and hope it’s nearby.And then a new oil field, and then another.
CO2 pipelines good, Keystone bad!
Tony.
260
Good, Tony – you’re starting to think like a geologist, heaven forbid 🙂 🙂
110
This is one kind of thing that happens:
http://frackland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/simulating-induced-seismicity-using.html
“it was clear from relatively early on than the CO2 injection was producing geomechanical deformation.”
That was just 4 million tonnes of CO2 over several years. Now imagine power station sized emissions. I wonder if they got scared of the implications at the Decatur, Illinois project.
70
Reminds me of a car exhaust jack, used to lift an entire car using an inflatable bag connected to the car exhaust pipe..
Give me an inflatable bag and i will move the world 🙂
40
Norway and its depleted North Sea oil fields were going to be the CO2 dumping grounds, err! CCS reservoirs via the oil pipelines already existent that had been used to bring North Sea oil to the Norwegian oil processing plants.
______________
Statoil Mongstad Fact Sheet: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Project
Company/Alliance: The European CO2 Test Centre Mongstad (TCM) owned by The Norwegian Government, Statoil, Sasol and Shell
Location: Mongstad, Norway
Feedstock: Exhaust gases from a Residue Catalytic Cracker (RCC) and Natural Gas Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant
Size: Cracker exhaust gas 74,000-82,000 tCO2/yr; CHP plant exhaust gas 22,000-25,000 tCO2/yr
Capture Technology: Two Post-combustion capture plants, one based on chilled ammonia technology and one based on amine technology. Alstom power has run tests on the chilled ammonia plant. Aker Clean Carbon has completed test at the amine plant. Shell CANSOLV are currently running tests at the amine plant.
CO2 Fate: Released to atmosphere,
Timing: Started operation in May 2012
Motivation/Economics:
This was to be a 2-phase project. Phase 1 was the test center and Phase 2 was to be a full-scale capture plant. The purpose of the test center was to test out several processes to determine the most economical process for Phase 2.
In September 2010, an estimate was that the CCS pilot plant at the Mongstad refinery and power station would cost about 6 billion kroner ($1.02 billion). In October 2010, the Norwegian Government announced that it was increasing CCS spending by 1/3, i.e., Nkr 2.7 billion ($462 million). The majority of this would go to the Mongstad Project.
In September 2013, the Norwegian Oil and Energy Ministry announced that it had dropped plans for the full-scale CCS plant at the Mongstad refinery. However, testing by TCM at the pilot plant would continue.
[ More including a long list of press releases ]
————–
Norway Terminates Full-Scale CCS Project at Mongstad 24 / 9 / 2013
60
The World Economy is in serious decline primarily because it has been hijacked by “Greenie Idealistic Extremists” demonizing “fossil fuels”. Unless this madness stops soon a “Global Economic Depression” is inevitable. One by one Economies around the World are falling over – the “domino effect” is in full swing. Once the carnage is complete the post mortem will be simple – the “AGW Myth”, promoted inexorably by “Greenie Idealists”, brings down the “Global Economy”. The good news is that the citizens of Earth will understand who created the mayhem. Expect the Green’s vote to collapse not only in Oz but globally.
160
King Geo,
It does not matter as OriginalSteve just mentioned Obama Agrees To New UN Development Plan To Convert U.S. To Socialist Nation By 2030
This was the raison d’etre for the green Eco madness in the first place as French Socialist, Pascal Lamy the former WTO director general makes plain. He also made plain economic collapse will ALSO be used to push ‘Global Governance’ Lamy even states that the EU was the test model
In his essay Whither Globalization? — Is the globalized world of the 21st century being managed with a system — and a mindset — designed for a century that has faded away? Lamy makes it clear that a socialist/communist style world government is the goal. This is reiterated by Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, four years later. She says:
****
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” … democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, is the best model.”
*****
That is pretty darn blunt. The world elite wants to rid themselves of pesky things like national borders and the serfs actually having a say in how they are governed. No more charade, just DEMOCIDE — Death by Government for those who protest enslavement.
Lamy is a bit more circumspect
20
CO2 wants to be free and plants are desperate for the stuff, don’t cage it! What a disgraceful waste of money.
Question for Tony or others: Apart from the wasted money for CO2 capture equipment, if that was all stripped out and scrapped, could this plant be made economically viable as per a conventional coal power plant?
101
If people want to invest in this stupidity, fine, BUT LET THE USERS WHO WANT IT PAY FOR IT. Smart meters can allow people to choose “green energy” only so let those who want it pay for it and let others use traditional energy. It must be a proviso though that users of green energy must never be allowed to consume coal, gas, nuclear or hydro (which is integrated with fossil power). If the wind stops or sun goes down, greenie lights go out or they can pay humongous amounts for “clean” coal. They must not have the backup of the stable and economical traditional generating sources.
172
I wonder how many of those green believers actually believe that they can ….. SELECT green power only for their homes, or that the Smart Meter will recognise green power only.
All electrical power is just that, electrical power on the grid. No one anywhere can tell if it’s green, if it’s coal fired power, NG power, or whatever.
The electrical power is electrical power, no matter where it comes from.
The only way they can ensure that green power only is supplied to their homes is to completely and utterly disconnect from the grid altogether, and wire the whole network specifically from the wind or solar plant to their respective green power selection homes.
While ever people believe that just because they have elected to have only green power supplied to their homes, (usually done over the phone, and usually at a umm, small extra cost) then they will believe that all power coming into their homes is sourced, just specially for them, from green sources.
Next time you get one of these calls, ask them what the total power output of the nearest renewable power plants are in that grid area, and then ask them how many people have elected to have that green power and what is the total consumption of all those who have elected to have green power only.
The power connected to all homes is the sum total of ALL power plants connected to the grid.
I wonder which of those electrons are the green ones only, and how they instinctively know which green supply homes only to go to.
Tony.
192
‘Cos they’re clever little green electrons and recognise where their greenie fans live! If only! I’d love to ensure that greenies could opt for green electrons only and be totally forbidden to use any others! 😉
110
Tony, I believe it is possible for someone to consume green energy only with appropriate metering without having a separate grid. A master database can know how much green energy is produced and that amount is then allocated to green consumers. Once that allocation is consumed then the green consumer’s lights go out. This can be done with smart metering. See ROM’s post #31.1 at http://joannenova.com.au/2015/07/labors-want-to-waste-100b-to-make-australian-energy-50-renewable-more-expensive-by-2030/
124
I guess you could have Smart meters that are linked to actual production numbers from wind and solar, and turn off when there is none available.. like on those cold windless winter nights/mornings or those very hot cloudy days in summer.
102
Spot on it’s not only possible but desirable!
10
Tony you make an excellent point here
I would add that there seems to be a very puritanical thought process that has overtaken the GREENs.
The GREENs “demand” that the electricity is 100% “coal free” in its production. – “Halal” electricity.
Coupled with the fact that they neither labor or take responsibility for the hard work that is required to produce it.
The irony is that eventually they will end up as coal too one day ….
70
What logical and reasonable people do not understand is that Greens just hate dirty black coal. They do not want ‘clean’ coal, an abomination. They do not want any coal. The movement is the industrial equivalent of breatharians. After all food comes from shops, you can live without meat and the animals can roam free, electricity comes from wires, telephones from space and cheap holidays appear in poor places with great beaches. Armies and defence are so yesterday. Everyone can live in harmony. Greenies do not need farmers or miners or manufacturers or dirty coal. Leave it in the ground. Gaia will provide.
162
I wonder how many people think that the “steam” coming out of power station cooling towers is smoke from “dirty” coal or C02?
Even the ABC knows what it is! (I’m shocked!) http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3230982.htm
If you look around the web you will find a lot of confused people on this matter.
122
I spoke to my local state “representative” the other day (Liberal) and he seemed agreeable to the idea of introducing market forces into the “green” energy scam. I told him I knew for a fact that smart meters, as I found out on this blog in answer to a question I asked, could definitely do the job of selectively charging for green energy and turning the power off to a customer when the wind and sun stop doing their thing. He said he did not know that and some parliamentary committee had not been able to find out. Thanks for the info about smart meters ROM. See #31.1 at http://joannenova.com.au/2015/07/labors-want-to-waste-100b-to-make-australian-energy-50-renewable-more-expensive-by-2030/
103
Just a note for those who wish to refer to comments within any blog article: The direct URL (link) to the individual comment is “hidden” in the date-time of the comment. The link here is to #25.
Copy the comment’s URL by placing e.g. your mouse pointer over the date-time and right-click for the context menu and select “Copy link location” or similar, depending browser. You can then paste the link into your own comment wherever you want.
30
24 Aug: Guardian: Connie Hedegaard: The world has noted Australia’s lack of ambition on climate change
Not many believe it is a durable, economic and responsible strategy to continue to bet that the future belongs to coal. China is rapidly ceasing to be an importer of seaborne thermal coal and India’s energy minister says he is confident India will stop importing coal in the “next year or two”. …
(PROMOTES THE SYDNEY TALK)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/24/the-world-has-noted-australias-lack-of-ambition-on-climate-change
(THE OBVIOUS RESPONSE? AUSTRALIA SHOULD BE BUILDING MORE COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS AND INCREASING ITS DOMESTIC USE OF COAL. btw nowhere is connie’s new job mentioned.)
24 Aug: ABC Life Matters: Jobs or environment, one or the other?
A billion dollar coal mine project in Queensland is on hold because of a legal objection triggered by two endangered species…
The mining industry says that these legal objections are a tactic to scare away investors and thousands of jobs hang in the balance…
But is it a case of the environment squeezing out jobs ? How should we measure the value of conservation against job creation?
Guests:
Professor Allan Dale, The Cairns Institute James Cook University
Geoff Cousins, President Australian Conservation Foundation
Jenny Hill, Mayor of Townsville
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/jobs-or-environment2c-one-or-the-other3f/6716144
ABC’s Natasha Mitchell is all friendly with CAGW-believing callers until Warren, an engineer & sceptic, phones in around 31mins 50secs: one brief question, natasha repeats, we’re running out of time.
Warren’s question to Geoff Cousins: does he believe renewable energy, such as solar panels & windmills, will be sufficient for this nation?
Cousins: the answer to that is yes & there have been very complete studies that have been done on that. u don’t cross over by pressing a button. u start by shutting down the most polluting coal plants first. stapylton in vic is a good place to start. switch subsidies into renewables & yes, we have very complete studies, yes it can be done.
this is what is being pumped out 24/7 on taxpayer-funded ABC.
80
Good luck finding them, unexpurgated. Those I’ve seen (mostly from the UNSW clique) are almost incomprehensible, full of double-double-negative phrases and the like, and all of them avoid transport fuel issues as if they had leprosy
Whenever a Cousins sprukes “complete studies”, he must be challenged to produce them, unexpurgated, for the public gaze. Then you will be told that these reports are still in the draft phase and not quite complete
70
pat:
a short guide
It’s all in the family
Why does the Left media protect the left?
Greg Combet (Labor) partnered to Juanita Phillips (ABC).
Gai Brodtmann (Labor) married to Chris Uhlmann (ABC)
David Feeney (Labor) married to Liberty Sanger (guest commentor on ABC)
Barry Cassidy (ABC) former speech writer for Bob Hawke (Labor) from 1986-1991
Heather Ewart (ABC) married to Barry Cassidy (ABC) speech writer for Bob Hawke (Labor) from 1986-1991
Maxine McKew (ABC) married to Bob Hogg (former ALP national secretary)
Maxine McKew (ABC) became Labor politician.
Virginia Trioli (ABC) married to Russell Skelton (The Age)
Mark Kenny (Fairfax) married to Virginia Haussegger (ABC)
Christine Wallace (ABC & Fairfax) married to Michael Costello (former Chief of Staff to Labor’s Kim Beazley)
Annabel Crabb (former Fairfax journalist now with the ABC)
Tony Jones (ABC) married to Sarah Ferguson (ABC) Coincidentally Jones took over the Lateline role from Maxine McKew
(from ABC presenter to Labor politician)
David Penberthy (journalist) married to Kate Ellis (Labor)
Paul Kelly (former Fairfax journalist) formerly married to Ros Kelly (Labor)
Kerry O’Brien (ABC) former press secretary to Gough Whitlam.
Mark Colvin (ABC) married to Michelle McKenzie (Leichhardt deputy-mayor and Greens Councillor)
Denis Atkins (ABC Insiders regular) married to Melanie Christensen (ABC Canberra)
Paul Barry (ABC) married to Lisa McGregor (ABC)
The lamentable Mike Carlton (formerly Fairfax) and Morag Ramsay (ABC)
Andrew Fraser (Fairfax) and Catriona Jackson (formerly Fairfax and Labor press secretary)
And so the list goes on…
110
Amaaaazing!
10
You have to wonder what they discuss in bed.
10
Incredible. That list deserves wide circulation.
10
24 Aug: ABC Big Ideas: Should science be sexy?
The number of students studying Year 12 science and top level mathematics in Australia is at a twenty year low. Our future depends on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This where the jobs of the future will reside. Improved scientific knowledge is also the key to the big challenges we face, such as climate change…
Guests:
Reece Jackson, Astrophysicist, cosmologist, producer Know Idea podcast
Associate Professor Bryan Fry venomologist, thrillseeker
Dr John Hooper, Head of Biosciences and Geosciences, Queensland Museum
Wendy Zukerman, ABC producer, Presenter Science Vs. podcast
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director Global Change Institute, University of Qld.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/should-science-be-sexy3f/6715130
ABC’s Paul Barclay moderates; ABC’s Zukerman on the panel. ABC is dominating all discourse in Australia.
samples:
Paul Barclay: “what about the idea of having more rock star scientists?”
at 44 mins: Paul Barclay: Ove – do u think it would be better if there were more members in Parliament who were Bachelors of Science?
Ove: Scientists make dreadful politicians because they are hog-tied by the truth.
Paul Barclay to Ove: u recently offered to brief some MPs in Canberra who were sceptical of “climate change” (Zukerman- mmmm) & we know that scepticism doesn’t just reside in Canberra (Zukerman – mmmm) but to a small but significant extent resides in the community. does this suggest there is some hostility to science & scientists?
Ove says he organised experts to offer to speak to MPs because it isn’t an opinion, it’s about the scientific understanding of the problem. (interjection by male panellist “you probably lost them when u said ‘scientific’ right”.) …etc.
Ove brings up John Cook’s 97%.
Barclay to Zukerman: pseudo science. popular ideas with little science. paleo diet, i don’t know, wind turbines, or something like that…. doing the podcast u do, which is terrific, r u getting any sense that there is a movement of the community that is seduced by this pseudo science on vaccinations, climate change denial.
Zukerman: there is absolutely a movement there. trouble is pseudo science often begins with a grain of science…
at the end Barclay refers people to ABC’s BooksPlus for their interviews with authors who are writing about CAGW.
names:
May: ABC BooksPlus: David Mitchell – The Bone Clocks
June: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven
April: Books and Arts: Art and Climate Change, Alice Robinson, Iago
The ART + CLIMATE = CHANGE festival draws together a wide range of galleries, artists, and speakers for five weeks of images and ideas about climate change.
April: James Bradley – Clade
It is set in our world, in the very near future, when catastrophic climate change has begun to wreak havoc.
40
“Where we missed it… ”
So, I read the long feature …
“Read the long feature in “What’s wrong with clean coal”. Engineers will find it interesting.”
As an Engineer this does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling …
Curious though, I wonder if the residents of Mississippi knew what they were getting especially when they were then forced to pay 18% higher electricity bills to subsidize this project.
The good news is that the company were sued successfully in court and are now going to have to pay it all back to the consumers 😀
It is also interesting to note that the reason for building Kemper (besides the new EPA rules ) was the company’s prediction that gas prices would increase thus making it profitable. “missed it again…”
I did like the reference to the Canadian success story, but AA battery sized power stations simply do not cut it in the USA 😮
110
Bit like building a Formula 1 racing car and then finding out the braking distance is twice as long a first calculated.
50
$6.2bn for 582MW? That’s $10.65 per Watt. More than twice the cost of new nuclear power plant in the US according to the EIA. Non-viable technology.
80
I’ll toss in a couple of items for our readers and lurkers to think about if they don’t already know this info.
First up as an appetizer is related to the lifetime of corporations and companies and the life cycle they generally go through.
The average lifetime of American corporations is about 40 years.
The life cycle stages of corporations and companies have been outlined in the Adizes Corporate Life Cycle site which lists ten stages in a corporation’s life cycle.
Mousing over each stage given on this Adizes site gives a drop down with a brief explanation of each stage.
The Adizes Corporation’s Life Cycle goes a long way towards explaining the rise and fall of corporations, even those that appear to be so well based they will exist far into the future and including those corporations which come under discussion here on Jo’s site
—————-
The next and more relevant item to much of the discussion on what appears to be a developing global economic and societal crisis not only in the developed world but also in many parts of a number of artificially created nations, nations whose borders do not recognise the various geographical distribution of ethnic, religious and tribal groupings and therefore split and divide centuries old ethnic, religious and and racial groups who still yearn for their collective tribal like groups to be brought back together under the one banner.
They therefore are a constant source of unrest and disturbance and opposition to the governments of those artificially created nations as mostly seen today in the Middle East, North Africa and in western China, in Tibet under Chinese hegemony and in Pakistan and its north west territories and etc.
The great capitalist economic cycles are outlined in the theories of Nikolai Dmyitriyevich Kondratieff (1892 – 1938) and are consequently called the Kondratieff Theory and the Kondratieff Waves of an approximately 60 year long economic cycle in capitalist societies and economies.
Kondratieff was executed by Stalin in 1938 during the Great Purges for as seen by Stalin, he was challenging Stalin’s plans for the economic and societal reconstruction of the pre WW2 USSR.
One of the papers that Kondratieff wrote and which Stalin took umbrage at is The Long Waves in Economic Life
A lot of economists don’t subscribe to the Kondratieff Cycles and Kondratieff Wave economic theory but their own theories don’t explain the regular historical rises and falls of national and global economies over the last few centuries any better and usually somewhat worse than does the Kondratieff Waves of economic activity in capitalist based economies;
Quoted from the above link;
There is much more associated with capitalist economic cycles including military conflict of a significant and / or major proportions and the destruction of a great quantities of psuedo wealth on a huge scale as the artificially created appearance of wealth through non productive and society parasitical pursuits are again destroyed as t another of the great Kondratieff Wave cycles comes to an end.
Which once again creates the room for the only the real basis of wealth and wealth creation, that of capitalism and its propensity to develop new highly beneficial technologies and new ways to further benefit its peoples and so becomes once again the paramount driving economic force in a newly re-organising post Kondratieff Wave economy as it again rebuilds and gets on with the next great advance in capitalism and the next great lift and advance in human affairs.
—————
As an addendum for anybody who would like to look at the impact of inflation over the last half a century since 1966 the Reserve Bank has an inflation calculator
To give an idea of the huge discrepancies that now exist in the prices of the basic foodstuffs that farmers now get compared to past prices, I entered the very high price of $150/ tonne for wheat in 1974 when a world grain shortage occurred.
Today with inflation since 1974 a similar price in 2014 would be the equivalent of $1,148 / tonne.
Farmers today are getting around $300 / tonne for the same grain.
Expect major food price shocks, real shocks sometime in the not so distant future as the world farmers and food producers cannot economically survive without massive government subsidies at those steadily deteriorating, forced down prices they currently receive for their products.
And that will be another of the consequences of the coming low points of the current Kondratieff Wave
80
I’ve heard it said on more than one occasion that ‘green-dreamers’ should be made to live ‘off-grid’
I couldn’t disagree more.
They should be forced to live (on-grid) in an existence that guarantees an inexpensive 24x7x365 supply of EV charging, air-con and internet access.
A bit like it is at present thanks to FF but without the on-cost of the tithe-taxing, teat-sucking unreliable renewables (That- I hasten to add- are a must have if you actually care about the future of humanity).
And, as for those like TonyOz, who regularly posts about the physical and economic madness of the fantastical claims of ‘the wind and the sun are free’ brigade, make them off-grid.
No buts, no ifs, just do it.
Ok, the Greens would quickly swell in numbers as more and more Tonys’ would swap sides to get into the benefits of a modern, energy-hungry society, but that’s a plus, isn’t it?
Eventually, apart from the occasional ‘die-hards’ who would quickly die hard, western society would be transformed into the Utopian paradise that is the wet dream of every dyed-in-the-wool Green.
I see no downside to my hypothesis and I dare any of you to discover any flaws in my predictions!
55
Slightly O/T, but the BBC is beginning to discover that if you create a false market for something called carbon credits, then someone will game the system.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34042115
A useless, non-existent product, that nobody wants, but corporations are legally obliged to buy.
As Jo often points out, what could possibly go wrong, apart from the best laid plans of mice and men?
60
Once you understand the design of any ETS, (Cap and Trade) you’ll see that it looks suspiciously like it was actually designed by the sc@msters themselves.
At the start of each trading year, the umm, Government regulator decides the total allowable emissions for that entity, and here I’ll use a large scale power plant as an example.
That plant then has to purchase up front the government issued credits equal to its emissions for the year.
Not long after that they have the first of a set number of trading auctions, when the entity can sell its credits or even buy more of them in case they go up, and they can then sell them at a profit.
They have a set number of trading auctions throughout the year.
At the end of the year, they then total up the total emissions from the plant, and that plant then has to hand back the number of credits equal to their emissions for that year.
If they have any credits left they can then sell them at the next trading session for whatever they can get.
However, if they emit more than their allocation, they have to pay for the extra credits at the last trading price multiplied by 1.5. Because they also emitted more than their allocation, they then also have to pay a fine equal to 1.5 times the cost of the credits to cover the over emissions.
The Cap for EVERY plant is then lowered at the start of the next trading year, and the plant then has to purchase the credits for the coming year. However, if they exceeded their emissions allocation the previous year, then the already lowered emissions level is lowered even further in the amount of their over emissions from the previous year.
And so on for each subsequent year.
Any ‘blind freddy’ can see that the first trading session after the government allocation will be at a price way less than face value, as there is a flood of them, and no real reason to trade them in large numbers. Then at hand back time, that auction will see the credits traded at a huge cost as plants desperately seek to make up their allocation to hand back. The potential for sc@msters is huge.
Overseas credits are allowable, but they only count at half their face value of home credits.
Imagine a plant supplying all year, well, having to supply what they always have. Their total emissions are calculated very carefully, because keep in mind a large scale plant is emitting around 55,000 tonnes of CO2 a day, so any cost even for a couple of days could run into millions of dollars, and if they exceed their allocation, the cost could be immense.
What does a plant like that do then? Just shut down. Well, no, they have a contract to supply.
Think then of South Australia, where a number of smaller plants, (gas fired plants) only scheduled to actually run for four hours or so a day. There have been days when the wind power has failed completely to supply, and those small plants run for anything up to sometimes days on end. That only has to happen a couple of times a year, and they have not only blown their budget allocation, but with the penalties and lowering for the following year, some could be driven out of generation in a couple of years even.
If you think it’s not all that much in cost, look then at this image listing the top emitters in Australia. 14 of the top 20 emitters are power generation companies, and note the cost at far right, based on Labor’s $26/Tonne Carbon Tax. Those 14 Companies are all up beyond $200 Million and the biggies up around $500 to $600 Million a year plus.
This is a sc@m just waiting to happen. Even the tiniest amounts mean huge money.
Tony.
171
Yes, but the actual situation is even tighter than that, at least in Aus
Supply of electricity is statutorily designated by all State legislatures as an “essential service”. Refusal to supply (because one just goes on bleeding money in ever-increasing chunks) is actually punishable in the extreme by jail sentences
I do expect that if the renewabubble people are faced with that statutory responsibility, the various Parliaments will excuse them. That responsibility is no joke and obviously not suitable for intermittent supply technologies – of course that’s hypocritical but it is what I think will happen
70
“…What does a plant like that do then? Just shut down. Well, no, they have a contract to supply…”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What you do is rewrite the contracts so the amount supplied is a set amount and you install Smart Meters!!!
(Note that much of this is BEFORE Obama was in office in 2008. It happened under Bush.)
Duke Energy: Integrated Smart Grid Provides Wide Range of Benefits in Ohio and the Carolinas
In other words Duke’s PROPAGANDA was successful. My personal experience was the people who make ‘personal contact’ lied and continued to lie even when presented with written statements from Duke Energy and the US government directly refuting their disinformation.
Duke Energy Chairman’s Letter to Stakeholders 2007
Notice that Duke Is not giving the CUSTOMERS any say about becoming ” the most energy efficient in the world” they are going to MAKE them “the most energy efficient in the world. …”
Duke Energy repeats this in 2008
ERCOT is in Texas where there is a lot of solar and wind power:
Demand Response is the code words for Smart Grid. What they neglect to say is the way this Demand Response works is with Smart Meters This allows residential electricity to be turned off so the system can be balanced.
The Department of Energy is all on board too.
And the Financiers are jumping for joy:
http://downloads.lightreading.com/internetevolution/Thomas_Weisel_Demand_Response.pdf
H. L. Mencken had it right. “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” or in this case making lots of money off the backs of the poor.
50
Just in case you think the ‘Smart Grid’ is only for the USA, the UK/EU is even further advanced. (Don’t have those pesky voters to worry about thanks to the EU.)
See Richard North:
Energy: They really are serious
Energy: ‘Big Brother’ Technology
Ecogrid EU — Big Green Brother
30
We have the problem in Canada as well. Here in BC we got the smart meters illegally forced on us (all electrical gear MUST be certified by CSA before it can be used, yet the smart meters are unsafe -cause fires- and failed testing…still BC government forced them on the people regardless with no recourse).
00
Off topic, but the UNFCCC submissions for emission reduction(or not) made earlier this year are available at:
https://www.dpmc.gov.au/taskforces/unfccc/public-submissions
Picked 10 submissions at random and the ratio of believers to sceptics is about 50/50. Certainly not 97% in their favour!
50
anything CAGW goes on ABC:
25 Aug: ABC AM: Climate system changing faster than expected: Climate Council
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The Climate Council says the case for the link between climate change and severe weather events has become much stronger.
In a new report the Council states that the world’s climate system is changing more rapidly than expected.
ANGELA LAVOIPIERRE: …The Council’s professor Will Steffen paints a grim picture…
WILL STEFFEN: If we keep, if the globe keeps emitting fossil fuel emissions like we are now, we could see up to a metre of sea level rise around Australia. That could for example make a one in a hundred year flooding event in Sydney a daily event…
A 195 countries around the world have signed up to two degrees as the maximum they want to see temperature rise.
If you took the USA or the UK’s target you would be in the ball park, you would have a fighting chance. If you kept reducing at that rate afterwards, after 2013, you’d have a fighting chance of getting there.
If you took Australia’s target, you’d be heading for a three or four degree world with really serious impacts, almost surely impacts we couldn’t adapt to…
ANGELA LAVOIPIERRE: Mr Hunt believes Australia’s comparatively small population should be taken into account
GREG HUNT: Warwick McKibbin has made a very interesting point. He’s a leading professor at ANU. He’s talked about effort.
And what we see is that Australia has the highest per capita reductions of any significant country in our targets, so a massive effort.
ANGELA LAVOIPIERRE: The Climate Council’s report is due to be released later this morning.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4299445.htm
40
drum roll…here it is…links to EIGHTY-FIVE PAGE report:
25 Aug: Climate Council: Climate Change 2015: Growing Risks, Critical Choices
By Lesley Hughes and Will Steffen
This latest report comes halfway through the Critical Decade for climate action and four years after the Climate Commission released its report, ‘Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses’…
Compared to our understanding when the last Critical Decade report was published, the risks of climate change for our wellbeing now look more serious at lower levels of climate change, strengthening the case for urgent action.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/climate-change-2015-growing-risks-critical-choices
40
This is very much off topic… important for those using wikipedia for specific or general information.
Note: Anyone is allowed to edit or make alterations to wikipeadia.
In an article published August 18, 2015
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/secret-life-global-warming-wikipedia.html
..this was reported.
“Wikipedia’s global warming entry sees 2 to 3 edits a day, with more than 100 words altered, while the standard model in physics has around 10 words changed every few weeks, ” Wilson notes. “The high rate of change observed in politically controversial scientific topics makes it difficult for experts to monitor their accuracy and contribute time-consuming corrections.”
I see many articles on wikipedia that “carry” qualifying statements referring to Human influenced Global Warming where they should not be.
It is one thing to read speculative statements or fabrications in news articles, but it is another to see them in an area where students visit regularly.
60
which is why teachers MUST tell their students that wiki-anything is not a reliable source.
10
not quite the same thing, but here is a link to a North Dakota coal mining company that has been gasifying the coal and selling the surplus CO2 to oil fields in nearby Saskatchewan for enhanced oil recovery. http://www.dakotagas.com/CO2_Capture_and_Storage/index.html
Using CO2 to recover more oil is well known technology – a company called Denbury Resources has made a business of using CO2 to sweep residual oil from old oil fields. Their website has more details: http://www.denbury.com/
40
O/T – has anyobne seen this before? just the title is scary enough.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/10/2015-global-temperatures-right-in-line-with-climate-model-predictions
70
Ah, that explains everything, the word compatible is ill-defined.
Its only the Guardian preaching to the converted and not to be taken seriously.
50
read all…won’t be dealt with in Paris!
25 Aug: CarbonBrief: Sophie Yeo: Russian industry paid to increase emissions under UN carbon credits scheme
A loophole in the UN’s carbon market may have led to an increase in emissions from some Russian factories, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
It suggests that weak environmental oversight of the UN’s 1997 carbon credit scheme led to “perverse incentives” for some industrial plants to increase emissions, so they could then be paid to reduce them…
Firstly, oversight of the joint implementation mechanism is weak, the study says. Unlike the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the parallel scheme for developing countries, responsibility for approving projects and issuing credits falls on the host country. Ninety-seven percent of credits have been issued in this way, without international oversight…
The problem is not unique to Russia, says a separate study by the same authors, published today by the Stockholm Environment Institute.
It points to Ukraine, which has a similarly weak Kyoto target, as another country with weak regulatory standards…
This is a problem, because, together, these countries were responsible for 90% of credits given out under the joint implementation mechanism.
Altogether, this may have allowed global emissions to be around 600 million tonnes of CO2e higher than they would have been had the scheme not been in place.
This has particularly serious implications for the EU’s emissions trading scheme, which has used more than 560 million of these credits to reduce emissions, and may have undermined its target by 400 million tonnes of CO2, says the study…
***While the problem is unlikely to be dealt with in any detail at the UN’s climate conference in Paris, Kollmuss tells Carbon Brief that it should be a priority for discussions in the following years…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/08/russian-industry-paid-to-increase-emissions-under-un-carbon-credits-scheme/
50
23 Aug: Energy review spells end of the green bandwagon: Spotlight on true costs of power generation could save us billions
By Jon Rees, Financial Mail on Sunday
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has launched a groundbreaking project to examine the actual cost of electricity generation in a move which could spell the end of billions of pounds of subsidies for green energy…
It will include not just the cost of constructing offshore wind farms, for instance, but also of connecting them to the national grid – something which critics of the green energy industry say is often overlooked by its supporters. It will also examine nuclear power and conventional energy…
The study is being conducted by Frontier Economics, the consultancy chaired by former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell.
A senior energy source said: ‘Many in the energy industry have suspected that previous governments have been “economical with the truth” about the economics of moving to a low carbon producing energy sector…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-3207201/Energy-review-spells-end-green-bandwagon-Spotlight-true-costs-power-generation-save-billions.html
60
The sting in the tail is the hint that they’ll find ways to curtail consumer demand. Personal power cuts, delivered by smart meter.
00
novel length. don’t miss the Figueres sketch which causes tears to well up in her eyes…
Aug 24 Issue: New Yorker: The Woman Who could Stop Climate Change:The Weight of the World
Can Christiana Figueres persuade humanity to save itself?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
The purpose of the U.N.F.C.C.C. and of the many negotiating sessions and working groups and protocols it has spun off over the years is to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” In climate circles, this is usually shortened to D.A.I. In plain English, it means global collapse…
Figueres, who is fifty-nine, is an avid runner—the first time I met her, she was hobbling around with blisters acquired from a half marathon—and an uninhibited dancer. Last fall, when her office was preparing for the twentieth COP, which was held in Lima, she and some of her assistants secretly practiced a routine set to Beyoncé’s “Move Your Body.” At a meeting of the Secretariat staff, which numbers more than five hundred, they ripped off their jackets and started to jump, jump, jump…
“I’m not Alice in Wonderland,” she told me, once we got upstairs. “You and I are sitting here, in this gorgeous apartment, enjoying this fantastic privilege, because of fossil fuels.”…
Figueres spends much of her time travelling around the globe, meeting with anyone she thinks might advance the cause…
“Where capital goes over the next fifteen years is going to decide whether we’re actually able to address climate change and what kind of a century we are going to have,” she said…READ ALL
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/the-weight-of-the-world
40
24 Aug: RTCC: Alex Pashley: South Africa accused of weakening emissions target
WWF warns emerging economy is manipulating baseline data to lower ambition in draft contribution to UN climate deal
***Louise Naude, climate expert at the NGO, voiced concern the baseline could be “conveniently recalculated, allowing big emitters and other special interest groups to avoid their obligations”…
As the country tries to reconcile climate objectives with poverty reduction, its energy sector’s reliance on coal puts up obstacles…
Weak INDCs from developed countries such as Australia, Canada and Japan made it understandable that South Africa wants to leave itself “a lot of negotiating flexibility”, said WWF’s top climate official ***Tasneem Essop.
“But to maintain their standing as a global leader in the climate change negotiations, and as co-chair of the G77+China, South Africa needs to table a stronger climate plan, given its position as an emerging economy which is among the world’s top 20 emitters.”…
Meanwhile, it is constructing 12 coal power plants, according to researchers at Coal Swarm.
These include a giant plant at Medupi, reputed to be the largest dry-cooled coal-fired plant in the world – built with $3 billion of World Bank funding.
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/08/24/south-africa-accused-of-watering-down-climate-goal/
check out WWF’s “climate expert”!!! on low-carbon transport! lol.
WWF South Africa Living Planet Conference: Louise Naude
2013: Louise Naude speaks about why an environmenal organisation is involved with transport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph-t4GDhbzg
WWF’s top climate official Tasneem Essop:
Wikipedia: Tasneem Essop
Tasneem Essop, former Provincial Minister of Environment, Planning and Economic Development in the Western Cape and was responsible for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) and the Department of Economic Development, as well as the Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency, Wesgro and the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board, CapeNature.
As of 25 September 2008, Essop is employed by World Wide Fund for Nature in South Africa as International Climate Policy Advocate…
Essop worked as an Education Officer for the British Council for two years before taking up a post as Education and Media Officer at the South African Municipal Workers Union…
She has also lectured on a number of international stages on matters such as the impacts of climate change, protecting the Cape’s unique biodiversity and, more recently, has become recognised as a renewable energy champion…
WWF is a joke.
40
“abnormally wet weather and lower-than-planned construction labor productivity.”
Sounds just like Victoria’s $5.5 billion desalinisation plant which has not produced one drop of water and probably never will.
30
I wondered why no one has asked this question, and having wondered that, I then wondered why no one in a position to regulate this has done the exercise before now.
Go on then, let’s pretend that they can get this CCS process to actually work.
Coal fired power in the U.S. has decreased from a 52/3% total of the overall power generation to just on 40% now, and that has been the result of the closure of old (ancient really) and small coal fired plants, replaced in (more than) their totality by Natural Gas fired plants. No major plant greater than 800MW has closed in the last eight years I have been watching.
So then, what have we left in the way of coal consumption for those remaining coal fired plants.
This link shows that, and here, look at the total for the end of last year, and this is expressed in thousand tons, so that figure comes in at close to 855 Million tons of coal being burned, just from coal fired power alone.
All that coal being burned produces (around) 2.445 Billion tons of CO2.
If each ton of CO2 equates to 255 gallons of CO2 in its liquid form, then we now have 624 Billion gallons of liquified CO2.
Let’s pretend that they replace like for like, or retrofit existing plants for CCS. (if by some miracle they can make it work) then that CO2 you think might be used to recover oil from existing oil fields.
The U.S. currently produces 9.2 million barrels (42 gallon barrels) of oil based products a day, so 141 Billion gallons of oil from oil fields in the U.S.
Umm, see the anomaly here. 141 Billion gallons of oil out. 624 billion gallons of CO2 in, and err, that’s 4.42 times as many gallons in as out.
Oh dear, looks to me that CCS is another of those plans to kill off coal fired power.
No wonder that the U.S. (thankfully failed) Legislation stated categorically that the CO2 sequestration process was not to be used as oil recovery, but for storage in completely and utterly pristine fields.
Where oh where are they going to find that much underground storage for CO2 on the Continental U.S. you know, somewhere, where, (by Legislation) all that CO2 must be stored underground forever. Umm, and that’s just the amount each single year, and coal fired plants have an effective life span of 50 years, so now we are looking at around 122 Billion tons of CO2, or 31,200 Billion gallons, and I think that’s 31 trillion gallons, and that increases each year.
It was a con all along.
Can you see why I am so certain it will never be achieved on the scale required. It’s not a CO2 hole in the ground. It’s a money pit. Just bulldoze money into that hole in the ground.
Tony.
110
Well, I pointed this out nearly 18 months ago – the STORAGE issue is the killer. There is simply insufficient beneficial geological niches for the huge, constant volume of gas (liquefied or not)
It seems to be bit like the TV news – people see things, events, comments with their own eyes, but they don’t actually believe it until it’s been on TV. It’s the weirdest thing …
60
Yeah! The same thing also puzzled me as far back as when I started with my original Kyoto Series in early 2008.
I didn’t know as much in those days as I do now, and it probably shows in the amateur way I wrote about things in those days.
This is dated 1st June 2008.
Kyoto – A Perspective (Part 31) CLEAN COAL (Part 2)
Tony.
50
If you are going to store something dangerous (and CO2 in that quantity WILL KILL) Then store nuclear waste. It is actually a lot less dangerous to store.
20
Priceless Jo, priceless, but will it be on Q&A?
30
In the meanwhile..
Fukushima to get two new COAL FIRED power stations.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/two-coal-fired-power-plants-set-for-fukushima-power-engineering-international/
And that’s on top of the 7 already planned for Akita region on the north western coast.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/japan-to-open-seven-new-coal-power-stations/
And guess where Japan gets a lot of its coal. 🙂
71
It gets worse, much worse!
Tears spring to my eyes at the sacrilege of it all!
And just think of the children!
Santa goes bust over Finnish tax bill
40
The red thumber did not like the facts about record cold and snow I posted in the George Soros thread..
Is it you are afraid FACTS might tarnish your rose colored glasses or are you afraid FACTS might make the fence sitters realize they have been had?
At this point I am hoping glaciation hits very soon so the Sheeple wake up before it is too late to adapt. Who knows this El Nino may be the last big release of energy from the oceans with no Solar Grand Maximum on hand to replenish the energy released.
……
Am I completely off target? — No.
The Late Eemian Aridity Pulse (LEAP) was a temperature spike at the end of the EEmian.
Sirocko et al in their paper A late Eemian aridity pulse in central Europe during the last glacial inception wrote:
That was written in 2005 after Loutre & Berger in 2002, using a MODEL, wrote the Holocene would be a double precession cycle. This is THE critical scientific debate because the Holocene is about two centuries over half-a precession cycle old now. The precession cycle itself varies between 19 and 23 kyrs and we are at the 23 kyr part of that cycle. As of 2015 the Holocene is exactly 11,718 years old (based on the end of the Younger Dryas cold interval).
If Loutre & Berger are wrong about their precession match, other possible matches suggest the Holocene might be “winding-up” to “wind-down”, like all previous end extreme interglacials. (Last gasp warm pulse and then the big drop.)
The landmark paper by Lisiecki and Raymo A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic D18O records (2005) states:
A newer paper from the fall of 2012 Can we predict the duration of an interglacial? Tzedakis et. al. agrees with Lisiecki and Raymo
Both MIS-19 and MIS-11, the two best analogs for the Holocene, suffered 3 thermal excursions right at their very ends. The youngest of each was the stronger, right before each dropped into the next ice age. So don’t take comfort in the Medieval and Modern Warm Periods, they just mark the typical end of an interglacial.
Lisiecki & Raymo and Tzedakis et. al. are not the only newer papers indicating an end to the Holocene is the more likely scenario.
Lesson from the past: Present Insolation Minimum holds potential for glacial Inception (Muller & Pross 2007) states:
So why hasn’t the Holocene ended? (Aside from the vehemently denied Solar Grand Maximum we are just exiting?)
Muller & Pross go on to say
Risebrobakken et al (2007)repeat this conclusion.
So why ever would anyone in their right mind want to REMOVE CO2 from the atmosphere instead of adding it?
91
What makes the crocodile tears of the warmists over our very very stable present climate even funnier is what happens as we enter glacial inception. As Neuman and Hearty (1996) wrote “…The lesson from the last interglacial “greenhouse” in the Bahamas is that the closing of that interval brought sea-level changes that were rapid and extreme. This has prompted the remark that between the greenhouse and the icehouse lies a climatic “madhouse”!
…..
A little bit more on what is going on with the current weather systems. The switch to ‘loopy jets’ means that in winter, cold polar air is going to mix with warm moist tropical air and the areas under the mixing are going to get a major snow dump like we saw in Buffalo NY (Seven feet of snow in one storm) Greek islands in the Mediterranean (buried under 6½ ft (2 m) of snow) Norway, (“During the last two days we’ve got more snow than we had in the last two years together”) Michigan (ski area opens with record snow) Italy (all time world record snow) and Scotland where the snow was so deep it never did melt in the mountains.
Regional atmospheric circulation shifts induced by a grand solar minimum by Celia Martin-Puertas et al. takes a look at annual sediment deposits in a German lake from 3,300 to 2,000 years ago. They analyzed the sediment layers—called varve. They actually did field research in this study on atmospheric circulation shifts using carefully measured proxies for solar irradiance. This is what they found and their major conclusion.
Two papers about rainfall also with the ‘Sun Connection’ and again with actual field studies.
Remember a shift in the jets are going to shift the monsoon rain pattern.
This paper presents a possible reason why the Solar-climate connection is not straight forward. (The paper may be of use to Dr. Evans and his solar theory.)
80