…
Sigmar Gabriel, the German Economy Minister, has announced they’d like to amend the Renewable Energies Act (EEG) in the next few months or so. The plan is for the total amount of renewable energy on the grid to be capped at 40 – 45% by 2025. It was at 33% at the end of 2015 but was still climbing rapidly. Check out the eyewatering transition being planned now:
A study by consultants ERA on behalf of the Green Party’s parliamentary group concludes that under these provisions the development of wind energy will collapse fairly soon: A target of 45 percent would mean that only 1500 megawatts could be installed annually after 2018, according to the study. That’s less than half as the average of wind energy installed in the past five days.
Boom, meet Bust.
This would be such a turnaround, that not only would new wind turbines not be added, there would be less of them:
A 40% cap for wind energy completely stop the construction of new wind farms by of 2019, according to the ERA [consultants] study. Overall, this would reduce onshore wind power by almost 6000 megawatts compared to the end of 2015 – which would mean a massive slump in wind power generation by 18 terawatt hours.
The usual understated response from the Greens:
“The domestic market for many manufacturers collapses completely,” says Julia Verlinden, spokesperson for Energy Policy in the Green Party’s parliamentary group. “With their plan, the federal government is killing the wind companies.”
Is this “Peak Wind” or will the plans get watered down?
GWPF has the translation of the German news story.
Image: From a video of the Hornslet wind-turbine collapse Denmark 2008 — watch the high speed disintegration here.
..
About time the Germans woke up. I wonder how long it is going to be before the Germans reverse their silly rollback on nuclear power?
371
Nuclear Power is NOT an option due to the fears of devastating contamination it can cause.
Many plants are starting to have problems now due to materials breaking down over time generating leaking and environmental damage.
Japan now has a problem with Nuclear contaminated pigs that have been running around and populating.
Glowing bacon anyone???
558
Horse feathers!
291
Hahaha
For half a moment I thought you were being serious,
211
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3524770/Radioactive-wild-boar-contaminated-Fukushima-disaster-causing-havoc-Japanese-communities-breeding-unhindered-exclusion-zone.html
630
Mutant pigs that multiply and consume everything while producing nothing, in a few months Japan will look like Brussels….
432
Pig poop contaminating the countryside…
Wonder how many contaminated birds are creating new problems elsewhere?
520
I’m certain there were many birds flying around Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago that migrated and pooped internationally, and stil the world turns.
292
Imagine all the fish shit from the bikini atoll
50
I now understand why you guys said “poop” so here we go again
Imagine all the fish “poop” from the bikini atoll
110
That is a delightful thought after having a drink of lakewater…
52
a thumbs up for you joe
21
All comes back to the old tried maxim “the pigs might fly”
60
Havent they heard of a 30-08?
00
Or the Cars that ate Paris.
50
Put them in sealed enclosures housing captured ISIS criminals!
70
Another example of ridiculous radiophobia. Various reports do indeed state levels of 137Cs up to 33,000 Bq/kg. In this example, if I ate 200gm of wild boar, and the radioactivity was all absorbed, it would still be less than the natural radioactivity in the human body. All around the world, there are examples of animals where the levels of mercury, arsenic or lead are potentially toxic is they form a significant part of your diet. Eating one meal of these boars would probably add the equivalent amount of radioactivity that you would get naturally in 1 week. Again it illustrates the need to get the business of radioactivity into perspective. The presence of a few slightly radioactive boar that someone could possibly eat, does not alter the fact that taking everything into account, nuclear energy is substantially safer that the alternatives. What about the 174,000 deaths from the Banqiao Dam Failure? Shouldn’t we take that into if we build hydro? Of course we should.
The fact is that whilst 100% renewable energy could conceivably work, there is no consensus that it will, with a very large number of eminent scientists believing it won’t. The 100% renewable scenario seems to me to be an article of faith within the anti-nuclear movement, but things don’t become possible because 1 ideological wishes it to be so. In my experience, energy agnostic scientists, NEVER seem to support the 100% renewable scenario, leading to the only possible conclusion, that 100% renewable energy is nothing more than pure fantasy from anti-nukes. Climate-change is real, we need nuclear energy.
92
Billy – Climate changes. Nukes are ok, until one goes tits-up close to you. We need to stop building nuclear power stations in areas prone to severe natural disasters like massive earthquakes and tsunamis, then we’ll be ok.
And today, in balmy NE Ohio, I woke up to 6 inches of snow and temps in the 30s (F)(like, 0 or less C) so I want to know where is MY global warming?
mari
122
Why I agree with the radiation comments wholeheartedly – radiophobia IN Australia is beyond absurd – what do you mean by “climate change is real”? I think we can all agree that the climate changes, but I think “climate change” doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means.
The real problem with nuclear in Australia is that we lack politicians with any semblance of courage on the issue.
10
I disagree, nuclear can be safe if its run by competent people with strict regulation and controls and not the crooks and criminals that were in charge in Japan. We have to have nuclear to reduce carbon emissions, renewables alone will not do it.
229
Just who were ‘ the crooks and criminals that were in charge in Japan’? Were they the so called world nuclear experts?
You do know that there is no recorded death from radiation at the Fukushima power plant – the death and destruction was caused by the tidal wave, you don’t argue with nature on that scale.
227
No the nuclear experts were fine, it was the power company running it and the government regulators supposed to be monitoring it. Otherwise there was have been no accident. If they had spent the money the experts advised was needed to take the emergency generator out of the basement and put them on high ground the reactors would have survived the tsunami and still be running today.
1713
climateskeptic
Why do we have, quote,
“to reduce carbon emissions”?
Carbon Dioxide IS NOT A PROBLEM. Western countries, in the main, have reduced soot and particulate matter so I ask WHY do we have “to reduce carbon emissions”?
R-COO- K+
Industrial Chemist.
92
…fry me an egg Ron, if you can manage that.
06
Still every post of yours.. absolutely EMPTY of anything !!
60
No John think about it, coal fired plants are cheaper than nuclear plus they’ll produce more CO2 that’ll help food production for the coming cooling.
It’s a common oversee but your picking up some good information here, cheers. 🙂
265
You can point all you like at Nuclear Electrical Power Generation, and mention how much of a danger it might be, but if there was ever a success story when it comes to power generation, it has to be Nuclear Power generation in the U.S.
Consider this. The AVERAGE age of every Nuclear Power reactor in the U.S. is 35 years.
All Nuclear power in the U.S. is currently delivering its power at a Capacity Factor (CF) of just on 90%.
Compare Wind and Nuclear, which are closing towards parity when it comes to Nameplate, with Wind now at 75,000MW Nameplate and Nuclear at 103,000MW, so Wind is around 73% of Nuclear Nameplate.
Wind delivers 190TWH a year and Nuclear delivers 798TWH a year, so while Wind Nameplate is 75%, power delivery is only 24% of Nuclear.
Wind CF is currently at 28% in the U.S.
So, EVERY existing wind plant in the US will reach its life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, and need to be replaced in totality, and then reach its life expectancy again ….. just to make the AVERAGE life span of all those existing Nukes.
There are NO power plants on Planet Earth which even approach that CF. The new tech Chinese HELE USC coal fired plants might be currently around 90 to 92%, but they are all new, still less than ten years old. (the oldest)
35 Years – the average age for those U.S. Nukes.
For wind to deliver the same power, you would need a Nameplate (for Wind) of 300,000MW and then in 15 years time, totally replace that with another 300,000MW, and that’s just the currently existing wind plants.
When it comes to power generation, there is no comparison.
Tony.
PostScript – There are around 55,000 separate wind towers in the U.S. There are 99 Nuclear reactors each driving ONE generator, so the average (single) generator being driven by each reactor is a Nameplate of 1040MW. One generator.
451
climateskeptic: “We have to have nuclear to reduce carbon emissions,”
Why do we need to reduce carbon emissions (actually we are talking CO2 here and not carbon)?
Are you really a ‘climateskeptic’ or are you here just pushing the agenda?
233
I’m a skeptic, I look at all the information critically. I cant speak for you though.
219
climateskeptic, you mention this:
It’s really odd that you say this, and yet, you earlier left the Comment at 2.1 where you mention this:
Obviously not critical enough ….. by a really, really, long chalk.
Methinks you may just have a scotoma.
Tony.
250
” I look at all the information critically”
roflmao…. what a load of self-delusional twaddle !!
191
Well it is school holidays….
30
‘We have to have nuclear to reduce carbon emissions…’
Whoa, stop right there sunshine, we don’t need to reduce CO2 because its a harmless, beneficial trace gas.
I think CS is a graduate of Cook et al 101.
213
No, I think he probably failed even that propaganda course.
A troll of very little brain, is septic one. !!
151
Settle down, Andy. Settle down.
310
Poor Ross, couldn’t escape, could you.
Hook, line.. I own you now.. you are mine !!
Prove me wrong.
111
Are you two cretins a tag team, perhaps ?
.. if so, you are yet to land a single blow.
Tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumber.
82
Particularly in Australia with vast open empty of people spaces and Earth’s crust extremely thick and relatively free of earthquake activity.
71
Why do we have to reduce carbon emissions? To please the UN and the Greens?
20
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM bacon
91
how is that comment supposed to be funny now its way down here !!!!!
91
You have to remember Joe that all the reactors in Germany are 1970’s and 80’s technology…. If Germany went back to Nuclear again, the reactors would all be new generation reactors that are basically chalk and cheese in comparison with the older generation reactors… The new pebble bed reactors can’t melt down, etc and so forth.
91
If they existed. Which they dont yet, nor do thorium reactors. They are not yet even in the commercial developmental stage so we are talking 20yrs+ befoer one could be up and running.
I agree, we should develop safer nuclear reactor and they should be built in countries that have the regulatory framework to operate them safely.
215
climateskeptic, where you say this
Then what you wrote at Comment 2.1 below:
Then, you, umm, weren’t really talking about Australia then.
Tony.
191
Is someone telling porkies?
101
Germany has an average of 1,600 hours of sunshine per year, that’s about 4.4 hours per day and it is one of the least windiest countries in Europe.
Germany is the world leader, closely followed by the UK, in what happens to a country when it becomes obsessed with so called green energy – and it is not good.
Although stupidly turning its back on nuclear energy, the Germans are now frantically building new coal fired power stations, while the UK is, equally as frantically, closing its coal fired power stations.
Unfortunately, the insanity of reliance on Green Blob energy policies is only going to be cured by the inevitable catastrophe of several hundred thousand people dying from hypothermia during winter somewhere in the western world.
462
If 45% is killing the wind industry then we should kill it as well and reach 45% as quickly as we can.
Its always been accepted that around this % is the sensible maximum for synergy with coal or nuclear base-load. Its exactly the mix we should aim for. So lets build them, more wind, solar and some nuclear to replace that filthy coal. Tasmania would not be in the mess they are in now if they had allowed their proposed wind-farms to go ahead and not listened to Abbott
451
Aside from actually rolling around in the ash, what’s exactly is “filthy” about burning coal in Australian power stations? More to the point, what is “filthy” about burning coal in German power stations, and have you got any evidence to support your claim? What do you classify as “filth”, and can you put figures on the concentration of gasses and particulate matter which define “filth”?
It is, after all, you who is making the claim, so you must surely have the evidence all ready to go…right?
Do you feel the same way about diesel engines – the engines which Green groups said were the best alternative to petrol (especially in Europe), as they theoretically emit less CO2 for the same volume of fuel used. (By the way, I live in Paris, and have experienced the incredible smog problems on multiple occasions, so don’t tell me it’s exaggerated, or made up).
you also claim that “…Its always been accepted that around this % [45%] is the sensible maximum for synergy with coal or nuclear base-load”. Where is the evidence for this too, while you’re at it…
I look forward to reading the vast sum of information which you will no doubt be able to enlighten me with.
365
Modern coal fired power stations are probably the cheapest and least polluting form of electricity production we currently have available.
325
The French have a lot to be grateful for to Charles de Gaulle, merci beaucoup, not only do they have clean green electricity but they can sell excess at a profit to their neighbours with the windfarms.
240
Haha Ive already worked out how it works on this site. The answer is Google it yourself.
527
climateskeptic: “Haha Ive already worked out how it works on this site. The answer is Google it yourself.”
So you don’t know? You don’t have the facts to back your claims up. Just more hot air from a believer in CAGW.
I think every reader on this site knew your answer before you posted.
I get a charge out of the ‘thinking’ of you believers in the religion of CAGW.
Thanks for the laugh!
182
No “Climateskeptic”, you made the claims, so you should be competent, and confident enough to back them up with evidence when asked for it. It is you who should be using Google in this case, not I.
You’re not capable of even this small task? You cannot even tell me how you define ‘filthy’ with regards to German, or Australian coal fired power stations emissions?
You cannot even point me towards any analyses of German or Australian coal-fired power station emissions (with respect to air quality regulations)?
Not much of a skeptic, are you?
171
Seems the septic one has trouble using Google.
Sloth, and the incapability of genuine thought, is the hallmark of an SkS monkey.
101
Some people are shown the photos of the “good old days” when no scrubbers were used, everyone burned any old coal, peat, wood, cow patties. Of course, a little earlier they were dumping sewage and the remains of tanneries, butchers, and candle makers into the streets and rivers, so bad air was at least a little cleaner to walk in!
We a far from the days of yore, and have the tech to burn coal quite cleanly. And if the same amount of tech in cleaning the exhaust of diesel vehicles had been applied, it wouldn’t have taken off – would have cost too much.
mari
81
Oh No , we have an Abbott,abbott,abbott twerp here… Hilarious. !!
The last major Tassie wind farm was cancelled because it was horrendously expensive and was going to be basically useless.
But you, being a John Cook SkS addict, would never let facts get in the way of a rant.
http://www.hydro.com.au/energy/taswind
Tasmania would not be in the problems they are now in if they hadn’t been greedy and used a whole heap of their hydro water to send electricity to the mainland.
Last I heard, the reason for the BassLink breakage was probably because they were pushing the amount of electricity to more than the cable could take. Certainly the pictures of the breakage they have found point to an overload.
It will now cost them far more to maintain electricity until either BassLink is fixed, or they get solid rain on the west coast.
294
As of the 4th. April the Tasmanian dams are down to 13.6%, as opposed to 22.4% at the beginning of the saga in mid Dec. There is some talk they cannot go down to the last drop of water because it may damage the turbines; probably will get through to the winter rains, but as you say at what cost. Their 305 MW of wind turbines haven’t done much of late so its up to 200 MW of good old diesel generators which really can’t do much for their clean green image, apart from their total mismanagement of their assets.
292
and you must be one of the dozen people still left that would vote for him again
540
New polling released by The Australia Institute shows that a majority of Australian voters (63.4%)
http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/feb16%20poll%20-%20abbott_0.pdf
431
Great choice left: the champagne do nothing socialist or the rapist
81
climateseptic,
You released a consensus showing 97% of all scientists.
234
There was a recent poll on whether the Australia Institute had any credibility on anything it did
65-35 NO, NONE, NIX, ZILCH, NYET, NEIN
Where can you find this poll ? Why, google it yourself. But you won’t find it on the AI website, or the Conversation for that matter. Not even the ABC.
202
Australia Institute.. roflmao.. !!
far left wing idiotlogs.
91
I’ve done plenty…
And you….. are you still chasing SkS for something to post ?
31
Let’s assume 25 percent of Liberal voters are not happy with the leader, mainly because of the renewable scam being reintroduced and would seek an alternative party.
Maurice Newman said as much the other night on Lateline, but Talcum has trained under Machiavelli and plans to squash that idea with a quick Double D election.
91
Maurice Newman. Poor old confused Maurice Newman.
Still Thinks he’s head of the Prime Ministers Business Advisory Council.
STILL thinks there IS a Prime Ministers Business Advisory Council!
No seriously…. He really does!
Poor old Maurice Newman. Perhaps not the best source of wisdom, El Gordo.
413
Perhaps if Turnbull had kept him on, Turnbull wouldn’t be in the predicament he is now, an empty left-wing sock-puppet.
Whoever is advising Turnbull now has even less idea than the ALP (is that even possible?)!
Or is Turnbull only taking his own advise!
111
‘Perhaps not the best source of wisdom…’
I consider Maurice one of Australia’s leading intellectuals.
43
Oh, El Gordo…
“I consider Maurice Newman one of Australia’s leading intellectuals”
Yes, and Mr Sgwiggle was one of Australia’s greatest conceptual artists!
Maurice Newman?!?! Jesus Christ on a bike! He still thinks he’s head of the Prime Ministers business council. Do you want to tell him? Or best just leave the poor duffer alone, eh?
32
Really? Says more about you than it does about him.
13
Says they are both intelligent humans being, unlike you.
Socialism, group think by its very definition.
Still waiting for someone else to feed you something worthwhile to post, hey septic one.
Maybe head off back to SkS?
oh.. that won’t help you either.. no-one posts there because of its zero-information status..
42
Still waiting to see your first contribution of any substance. What year was it when you last did anything else but just head-nodding.
14
Ooooh, Andy, skewered.
24
You wouldn’t understand substance, except the stuff you get from the septic.
Its all you have.
62
“skewered.”
How.? he has produced NOTHING.. yet again !!
Are you and him cis-mates?
52
When either of you produce even the slightest bit worth bothering with.. I’ll rip it to shreds.
You KNOW that, that is why you continue to produce NOTHING.
62
Wisdom on dealing with fools :
4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.
6 Sending a message by the hands of a fool is like cutting off one’s feet or drinking poison.
7 Like the useless legs of one who is lame is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
8 Like tying a stone in a sling is the giving of honor to a fool.
9 Like a thornbush in a drunkard’s hand is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
10 Like an archer who wounds at random is one who hires a fool or any passer-by.
11 As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.
( Prov 26:4-11 )
10
Was that 63% of coalition voters or 63% of all voters?
The poll I would like to see is preferred Prime Minister with 4 options offered: Turnbull, Abbott, Shorten & Albanese. Now, that might provide a clearer picture once you strip out all the ALP (and, likely, Green) voters. It might also provide a reality check to Mr Shorten.
101
Intresting that your comment on your “abbotting” is all can manage in reply.
But we know you are here only to provide low-quality comedy relief.
Have you been reading John Cook’s comic series that calls itself SkS, or something?
123
Andy, if one looks at the Hydro annoucements, they are saying the reserves will go down to 12% and then stablilise if they get 50% of average rainfall.
OK fine, but looking at the BOM maps for rainfall the west coast catchments have received from 200 to 400 mm. for the past three months, which is perhaps a little above average, so the inference that their problem is due to low rainfall won’t pass the pub test.
The extra cost of diesel generators, curtailment of industrial production etc. lays at the feet of those running the state: they made the decisions of going into Summer with only 22% lake capacity.
It really creates havoc for their image, an intangible quantity, why would one use them as consultants on green enegy when they ran their own lakes dry?
112
Andy
I suppose one could say that SKS is the “climate septic tank”.
121
Niiiice.
101
And it certainly look that is where climateseptic originated, the very depths of SkS.
122
The point at which more wind energy stops being worthwhile is around 17% of capacity. This was worked out by Danish engineers around 2005 and in Spain by 2008. ( Check also newer work showing that 17% wind generated in Ireland only resulted in 9% reduction in CO2). It took politicians a long while to understand, in fact I don’t think they have quite grasped it yet.
As for your claim that the solution to wind farms not performing as desired do try to understand that if one wind turbine isn’t working then the only result of 100 extra turbines will be 101 turbines not working. “The wind is always blowing somewhere” might be true, but how would it benefit Tasmania if there was a gale in Tahiti or strong winds in Upper Volta? There have been several checks (one even by the Beyond Zero Carbon mob) which show that wind generation across SA, Tas., Vic and NSW correlates, or more simply, No wind in SA today, no wind in Tasmania today, and No wind in NSW.
173
Its perfect for Tasmania since their base-load is mostly Hydro
319
And how would that apply in the current position ?
There is a tiny grain of truth hidden in that claim; yes, hydro is essential to balance wind. So the amount of wind has to be LIMITED to what hydro can supply. There is a technical matter of wind power fluctuations but I can see that technical matters would be beyond you.
Keep chanting Two wind turbines good, Four wind turbines better. It isn’t true but it help finding you when the lights go out.
184
climateseptic,
Now I know you, you were the spruiker who sold the monorail to Sydney and the Gold Coast.
204
James if only you had some talent that was detectable
418
climateseptic,
Not detectable to you – but it’s all in the name that really matters.
193
Yes, James, what is your particular talent?
211
James recognises twits when he sees them. !
112
Well, I dips me lid, then. Anyone with the ability to ‘see’ others on the internet is indeed talented.
27
Ross,
Not hard to spot.
61
Especially if you are being detained by a full length mirror.
05
“by a full length mirror”
I’m sure you use one while you are posting… just to satisfy your ego.
62
You are running out of steam Noddy-Andy
15
You are NOTHING but an empty septic, and you keep proving it.
61
To the talented climate sceptic
If Tasmania is so good why high unemployment, why we can,t see people flocking to this now giant park area. A few more years of this and even Bob Brown will convert his wood burning house to a mud house.
131
Don’t you just love people like climateskeptic here:
Total Absolute power requirement (what he refers to as base-load) for ALL of Tasmania is 650MW with a daily peak around 1000MW
Total absolute power requirement just for Sydney is around 4000MW with a daily peak up around 6000MW.
So, with Sydney alone requiring an ABSOLUTE 4000MW for 24 hours of every day, and the Wind power absolute total for ALL OF AUSTRALIA currently at 1027MW, I’d be confident to say that Wind power in all of Australia will never reach the total required just to supply the absolute requirement ….. just for Sydney, let alone all of Australia.
It’s nice to have commenters like climateskeptic come here every so often to supply some light comic relief.
Tony.
261
Your lack of facts is the real “light comic relief” here. Tasmanian hydro has generating capacity of almost 3X the “power requirement (what he refers to as base-load) for ALL of Tasmania (of) 650MW with a daily peak around 1000MW” for when the wind isn’t blowing. It can use all the output from wind turbines by using its hydro as floating base-load and therefore saving its water. Cant believe your lack of comprehension on this.
120
” therefore saving its water”
roflmao… saving their water…. yes obviously..
read before you post, silly child.
192
You must be related to J.H. below
217
And you must related to a three toed sloth.
132
Tassie dams are running out of water,….
…. but the boy from the septic says its because they saved water.
Quite bizarre.
183
Then why did Hydro Tasmania start installing 200 MW of “dirty” diesel generators if the 305 MW of windfarms, Woolnorth and Musselroe Bay, produced enough to keep the lights on?
161
Also had to turn the Tamar Valley gas station on they sold a year or so earlier. Good thing they hadn’t completely decommissioned it.
Deals done with the paper plants and their power stations as well.. do they use coal or gas… some sort of FOSSIL FUEL for sure.
SO Tassie is now nearly TOTALLY RELIANT ON FOSSIL FUELS.
And all because the wind turbines allowed them to save their water. 😉
202
“Its perfect for Tasmania since their base-load is mostly Hydro”
Climatefool sounds like that Iraqi propaganda minister, “Baghdad Bob”. Tasmania’s hydro power situation is in total collapse because they ran themselves out of water…. Yet he is determined to call it victory.
Ecofascists are beyond reason and physics.
213
Only extremely dim-witted people post this kind of rubbish because they have nothing intelligent to say.
121
climateseptic,
And you’re straight into the ‘ad homs’ – pure Alarmist 101 when you “… have nothing intelligent to say.”
152
James and Andy et al. you can dish it out but you cry and cant take it. You started the the name calling, just go back through the threads. Poor dears are taking their bat and going home
120
Whimpy little child.. do you need a tissue.?
Throw anything you like at me.
Yes, I called you out for being a JohnCook /SkS devotee…
I know that’s a pretty bad insult, but grow up and get over it.
[I know it’s fun throwing verbal rocks at each other. But enough is enough.] AZ
142
Gentlemen please, here is something to help CS and I would like Tony’s critique.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/tasmania-urged-to-add-more-wind-and-solar-amid-energy-crisis-95773
90
El Gordo, For all of March and the first week of April the SE windfarms operated with a capacity factor of 23%, but there were significant periods of very little production and particularly from last Thursday at noon until lunchtime today, where the average was only 10%, and it dipped to as low as 200 MW a couple of times.
As for the article about wind and solar saving the day, most intelligent people would disagree with it. Even on windy King Is. which has solar, wind turbines, diesel generators and a battery set-up it’s diesel that keeps the lights on 70% of the time when the wind isn’t blowing enough, see the KIREIP site.
Es veras que Vd.habla castellano, o sea hay otra explicacion para su nombre? Actually Don Quijote would have a fine time here with all the windmills.
121
Back luck el gordo looks like you aren’t intelligent enough either. Notice that is not about facts to support a position or an argument, its all about one intelligence to come to an instinctive correct answer, what a load of nonsense.
Robs clever enough to know we are wrong and he is right but its a pity he’s clever enough to work out that King Is. has no hydro so is a complete furphy for this discussion.
118
Waffler !!
You have nothing.. another empty AGW devotee who thinks he is septical but “believes” every little piece of AGW propaganda put in front of him.
It must be truly sad for you to be so, so GULLIBLE !!
153
climateseptic,
“James and Andy et al. you can dish it out but you cry and cant take it. You started the the name calling, just go back through the threads. Poor dears are taking their bat and going home”
No need to stutter.
Please provide links to the threads to support your allegations.
183
Does anyone know what the population of King Island is ?
Good to see that the septic waffler HAS to rely on Hydro to even PRETEND that renewables can do the job.
Tell me bozo, where is the hydro for Sydney or Melbourne going to come from.?
133
“looks like you aren’t intelligent enough either”
Coming from someone with an intellect of a 10 year old, that’s quite funny !!
123
“its all about one intelligence to come to an instinctive correct answer”
You are talking about things you obviously know nothing about.
133
Andy, your lack of substance is showing again. Name-calling when you cant think of a sensible come-back.
Now you are so clever you know what I believe. Its a wonder you waste your time here, sheltered among all the nodding heads. Why don’t you go into the big wide world and use your skills to convert the warmists. Put your case, publish a paper, expose the conspiracy, put together your own models and convince the masses instead of pocking sticks at each other here instead with the restricted vocabulary of a special ed. class.
419
My lack of substance? roflmao !!!
You have yet to produce even one substantive piece of real fact, just mindless waffle.
John Cook has taught you well. !
153
Poor septic.. truly backed into a corner.
Knows he can produce NOTHING that can’t be immediately shot down.
133
Truly pathetic, comes in with “skeptic” in his name and thinks people won’t immediately pick him as an SkS Wannabe.
153
You are obsessed with Cook. Get over it and
218
An EMPTY septic…. still stinks.
123
“You are obsessed with Cook.”
You are the one emulating him by LYING by putting “skeptic” in your moniker.
Seems you are the one “grovelling” to him.
163
Draw a trend-line through this and tell when the the decline starts
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2016_v6-1-550×318.jpg
215
So, you don’t know anything about El Ninos, either.
Keep going.
Display your ignorance so we can all laugh. 🙂
143
I’m signing out now till tomorrow, must be way past your bedtime. I have a few papers to read and referee, cant play with the children all night.
219
Can’t play with children all night…
I’m sure you must be upset about that. !
Come back when you have actually learnt something past primary school !!
143
Well take out the el nino years if you want, but all of them and get back to tomorrow. You can draw a graph or do i have to do that for you as well? CU soon my child. Dont forget to put on you night light in can Cook scares you in a dream.
217
You poor child-mind.
You have just admitted you know nothing about them.
” but all of them and get back to tomorrow”
Getting even more incoherent now, poor thing.
Try not to have a mental breakdown overnight !
123
“I’m signing out now till tomorrow”
Big Dog says its time to go to bed for the septic one.
93
climateseptic,
1998.
82
James,
That’s more information than his mind can handle.
73
and again:
“James and Andy et al. you can dish it out but you cry and cant take it. You started the the name calling, just go back through the threads. Poor dears are taking their bat and going home”
Please provide links to the threads to support your allegations.
42
‘its all about one intelligence to come to an instinctive correct answer’
It does appear so and on this occasion the windbags lose the argument.
https://stopthesethings.com/tag/tasmania-basslink-failure/
Don’t feel too bad, we live in a highly specialized world and you can’t be expected to keep up to speed on everything.
42
Wow, so much wonderful info from a completely unbiased web site dedicated…wait ..what…to the complete abolition of wind-farms. Looks like Andy was right about you, not quite clever enough.
15
climateseptic,
Unlike SKS, of course, which is totally unbiased, uncensored, unambiguous and not to mention – sorry, wow distracted 235 comments on this thread so far in just 24 hours.
No wonder Jonova is awarded the Best Topical Blog in the Weblog awards – 2015, Lifetime Acheiver weblog awards – 2014, and Winner Best Australian NZ Blog – Twelfth Annual weblog awards… and unattended.
Hmmmm let’s just look over at SkS – crickets – guess everyone is over here.
climateseptic/Ross – I’m sure all here who support Jonova appreciate your assistance increasing the KPI’s on Jo’s behalf and making it the most popular, and widely peer-reviewed, best-damn-climate-blog there is.
Hope you continue to contribute in your own small ways – it all counts for the stats – well I don’t have to tell you boys about stats and how they work… now do I…
62
Its what you say not how loudly or how often you say it. Maybe you should also consider posting on SKS, as you say it is after all also ” totally unbiased, uncensored, ”
Congratulation to Jo and all of you, would be more impressive if the award had some connection to science rather than just a soap-box award.
16
Plenty of connection to science.
But you would never recognise it, because you don’t know what science is.
52
Where is the the homework graph you were supposed to do. Didn’t turn out the way you expected or just didn’t do it?
24
So, still absolutely EMPTY
An empty septic still stinks.
52
Noddy, you’ve run out of material. You need a new script writer
15
climateseptic,
You are here because this is the only forum where you can actually test your warmist beliefs because SKS has a bad habit of removing opposing views depriving you of an audience.
That would make you an attention seeker.
There is a decline from the peak of the 1998 el-nino through to the beginning 2015 el-nino.
42
HAhahahahaha, you are deluded. What cherry picking nonsense are you going on about, its 2016 and the trend is up, whether you include all the el ninos or leave them all out.
There is a decline from the peak of the 1998 el-nino through to the beginning 2015 el-nino.
15
ZERO content, yet again. BORING !
52
Have a look at the last 200 of your posts, now there is a rich vein of pointless, repetitive, rude and childish nonsense. Its like you don’t have a life. You are there in the oldest threads I can find and your sad cries for help seem to be endlessly unanswered. Its like some masochistic self flagellation. What a sad sack you must be.
16
roflmao.. glad to know you are thoroughly wasting your time. 🙂
Still waiting for you to produce something with even the slightest content.
I suspect that will never happen.
41
Oh, and do make sure you read all the posts properly, there is much there for you to learn.
42
Not from you Noddy. Others actually provide links that are sometimes quite good, sometimes just blog rubbish, but you Nod in agreement with all of it and become rude and obnoxious to those that don’t Nod as fast as you do. You need to develop some independent thinking skill
14
Waiting, waiting , waiting….. still nothing, nada, zilch.
42
climateseptic,
You set a task.
You didn’t specify a time frame.
30
Hey James, Did you know there’s been no warming in Australia this century.
http://s19.postimg.org/5ohrvh5bn/Australia_March_2016.png
30
The cooling in RSS started in 2001, and has been briefly disrupted by the Current El Nino (a regular event probably forced by solar/cloud/wind) and the North Pacific blob (an unusual blob, possibly volcanic from most recent investigations.
One the El Nino subsides, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Only a fool draws linear trends through transient events.
20
Who said anything about linear, is that the only trend-line you know. You must live in the clouds, I prefer to live on the ground. UAH is a distraction from the reality of surface temperatures.
04
Andy,
Yes, as a matter of fact – and another amazing fact is that none of the kids now studying global warming are actually history students because global warming has not occurred during their lifetimes.
climateseptic,
Yes, I believe you do spend the majority of your life with your head in the sand.
Please tell us all about the reality of the surface temperatures – not your homogenised, amended or adjusted temperatures.
Let me help you – why is it that after 300 years the normal human body is still the same temperature despite the type of equipment used, but all historic surface temperatures are adjusted down while modern surface temperatures are adjusted up because of the type of equipment used?
50
The reality of surface temperatures.
There is only ONE surface temperature set in the world that is evenly spaced, and UNTAMPERED. that is USCRN
Over its period of operation, its trend is an almost exact match to both satellite data sets for that region.
The surface data, as expected, shows greater peaks and troughs.
The global surface temperature sets are unevenly spaced, sparse in many areas, fabricated and infilled in many cases, and have had any semblance of “reality” manipulated out of them. They are a FARCE !!
20
NO, septic, wind it is NOT perfect for Tasmania.
Tassie relies for a lot of its income from tourism because of its pristine environment.
Wind turbines ABSOLUTELY DESTROY the environment, and with it, the tourism.
243
He’s gone, Andy. Settle down, now.
610
Have you got even the smallest substantive statement to make?
Or just an empty mind.
93
John the wind industry is killing itself which was always going to be the case when you launch a new industry that’s equivalent to reopening a buggy whip factory with plans for expansion.
234
There are two contstaining factors working against renewables.
One is the cost, viz the subsidies that make power hideously expensive.
Second is the security of supply issue requiring back up power.
I would suggest both factors are a part of Germany’s decision, it’s the absolute maximum the country can bear economy wise and technology wise. There’s a reasonable chance they’ve over shot the mark and are relying heavily on the international grid to balance things. For Australia to try to do the same is a recipe for disaster. A broad, diverse supply is likely to hold us in best stead. Include nuclear and renewables but be cautious about the levels of subsidies to all. Typically wind requires upgrade of the grid over a certain % input as part of it’s often unsung cost.
130
Third, is conservative governments.
214
“Third, is conservative governments.”
Thank goodness. !
Proves that conservative governments have at least some common sense.
142
Ross you are doing yourself a disservice, its not about political science. Just a short note, I come from Labor’s left faction and have crossed the floor over climate change.
The right treat me very well, while the left spit on me in the street.
81
? Cry me a river, Gordo.
Crossed the floor? Or left the party?
26
Nice to see you admit its TOTALLY POLITICAL !
50
Germany’s entire onshore average wind turbine capacity, its actual power generated compared to the plated capacity of its on shore Wind Turbines is very close to 18%.
Arguably one of the least efficient and least productive and most expensive Wind Turbine generating systems in the world.
And just to show what an utterly deceptive and l—-g bunch of troughers, about as bad as you will find anywhere, I quote below from one of the”European Wind Energy Association” [ EWEA ] web propaganda sources.
This applies to the EU.
Note the highly deceptive or worse, quotes in that short passage;
Total wind power capacity [ thats 100% of generating capacity ] could [ ??? ] produce 315 TWh and cover 11.4% of the EU electicity consumption in a normal wind year
[ “could” but never ever does and never ever will but an excellent ploy to deliberately mislead the public and the ignorant leftist and green sleaze agenda pushers that seem to infest the media these days. ]
So pray tell me, what the hell is and how does one conclude that it is a normal wind year when it is spread across the EU’s over 4.4 million square kilometres or the equivalent of about 60% of Australia’s 7.6 million square kilometres in a region of the planet renown for its highly variable North Sea created weather systems and its highly variable seasons.]
There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
And the wind turbine company executives are clearly demonstrating here that they have no problems at all in deliberately distorting and bending the truth to the maximum if it will increase their profits from the tax payer’s hard earned.
101
Windmills have been used successfully for hundreds of years and have done valuable work around the world.
As a youngster I can recall the common sight of them dotted around the locality and I suspect that they are still valued in isolated areas with access to ground water and no electricity.
In Europe windmills have been used to grind grain and pump water but have been seen as less effective than modern systems.
Whether they are still used to pump water over the dykes in Holland, I don’t know, but modern windmills seem to be providing no benefit to anybody but the “manufacturers££££” and the Green tinged politicians who use them as vote harvesters.
Current power generation by windmills is an engineering nightmare which must end soon despite political efforts to keep the Green dream in play.
Don’t blame engineers for this windmill fiasco, this mess is purely political.
KK
342
KK,
The windmills you’re talking about were developed over quite a long time and how to deal with the unusual was probably learned the hard way just like the failed example here. If they had gone much more slowly into electricity generation by wind power the same maturation process could no doubt have occurred. And also the fallacious financial picture that drove them into existence could have been discovered a lot less expensively. But such things take time and everyone is in a hurry.
So though you’re right about its being a political mess, engineering needs to shoulder some of the blame too. We have rushed headlong into something without knowing how to keep our fantastic new machines, those “save the world” windmills, safe under all circumstances.
As for whether windmills are still used or were ever used to pump water over the dykes in The Netherlands**, I’ll just ask my wife who was born there and let you know. But probably not because electricity, as you pointed out, can do the job much better.
——————————————
Well, just had a long talk with my wife. And she can’t confirm whether wind power is still used to pump water from the lowlands over the dykes or not. But see the linked article. There are very few operating windmills anymore. But she’s quite sure it once was done that way. Windmills go back a long ways in the Netherlands and have been used for grinding grain and other purposes for centuries.
121
** The name Holland is many times used to refer to The Netherlands but it’s really just the name of two of the provinces into which the country is divided, Norh Holland and South Holland. The country as a whole is The Netherlands and mail addressed by my wife to relatives there is addressed to The Netherlands, not to Holland.
Netherlands means low, referring to the fact that so much of the country is below sea level and was laboriously claimed from the sea by building dykes and then pumping out the water.
111
I suspect the area of the Netherlands was even larger before the formation of most modern countries in the 1850s. It was a descriptive term rather than a country. They were literally lowlands. Even the coast around Normandy has tides which go out kilometers, bordering the English channel. Much of Belgium bordering Holland is also at sea level. In WW1 what stopped the Germans was the opening of the sea gates at high tide, drowning much of Belgium in water at least a metre deep. The Belgian government retreated behind the Yser river which the Germans never crossed. There was no time to do this in WW2. The soil in the area did not recover for about twenty years.
As for windmills and waterwheels, the medieval source of power, they were abandoned once steam engines were available. Prior to electricity, the distributed energy through London was high pressure water and London has hundreds of miles of such pipes.
The current fascination with windmills is part of the shaman love of earth, wind and fire. It has nothing to do with sensible. In fact without storage, all these Green ideas are simply throwbacks to the Middle Ages, like the Greens themselves. They have no idea what life was like without coal.
80
Hi Roy
I was going to continue my diatribe by saying that the only power generating mills to be built should have been experimental.
The builders of the current mess made a lot of money out of what were essentially Government Contracts.
Had they been paid by the effective kWh made accessible to the public they would never have been put up.The tens of thousands of non functional mills worldwide will only ever be dismantled and removed at taxpayer cost, not the manufacturers for sure.
The Green industry is just as rapacious as any other and the whole cynical mess needs more public exposure.
191
It will probably never be stated any better than that, Keith. If all this green stuff had to actually stand on its own merit I doubt we would see windmills at all and probably a lot less solar. But governments always need something to point to and say, “See what we’ve done for you? Now reelect us.”
Well, now we see what they’ve done for us alright. But we’re still reelecting them. I’ve no idea how to break the cycle until, as you say, there’s so much more public exposure that no one ca ignore it anymore.
60
And it appears to have begun. But how long it will take is anyone’s guess.
40
And when the power came through in the 1960’s the farmers around here could’nt get their channel filled dam water, windmill, pumped to an overhead tank for domestic and live stock water supply converted to the electric pressure pumps so as to connect to the SWER grid line, fast enough.
Up a windmill tower at 10o’clock at night in the dark with a welder running and my young wife holding a torch so I could see to weld up a couple of broken stays on the windmill tower to stop the break from going any further so she would have water in the overhead tank for the toilet and for the livestock while I was away for a few days in Adelaide starting next morning is not my first choice for a reliable domestic water supply system.
Put in a decent pressure pump and some piping, prime the pump and turn on the power and we had regular, reliable water at pressure across the house block and where the stock troughs had been connected to a pipe system nearly every time and all the time we wanted it.
With the old windmill and overhead tank for a bit of pressure, if the wind didn’t blow for a few days we were in deep strife and had to carry water to the toilet and some other domestic requirements .
Plus trying to make sure the livestock had access to dam water somewhere which sometimes mean’t shifting them into another paddock.
The classic outback Wind mills for pumping water are an absolute requirement when you don’t have any other options but they are a complete and very large pain in the butt when they have an air leak somewhere and you see your mill spinning merrily away and think you have got water until the tank runs dry and then!
Or you hear it clanking in the distance, think to yourself, that doesn’t sound usual and then spend the next two days fixing the bloody thing up again.
Been there.
Done all of that which is probably why I think that the wind turbine renewable energy promoters and proponents are stark raving mad as well as being both thoroughly conned and near criminally ignorant, [ especially considering the amounts of tax payers funds just totally wasted on renewable energy over the last two decades,] as to the true characteristics of wind energy and the totally spurious claims it can replace fossil fueled generators.
The industrial entrepreneurs of the 17th and 18th century got the hell out of wind power just as fast as they could when the steam engine became reliable enough to run a factory.
As did the ship owners and navies of the world.
And they had 3000 years of wind technology to draw upon and they still couldn’t get windmills and wind power to be reliable or to generate as much power reliably and continually as a stinking, clanking, noisy, coal gulping steam engine with only a couple of decades development behind it.
120
ROM
A good description of life without articulated water, tough.
Newcastle had a hilltop reservoir to service the city until about 90 years ago when the first supply dam came online.
40
Bloody auto correct.
Should read “reticulated”
50
KK
I don’t know what Newcastle had before the reservoir on The Hill in 1887, but that reservoir was itself supplied by reticulated water pumped from Maitland to Buttai booster pump station, to Waratah booster pump station, to Tyrrell St pump station, into the reservoir. Three batteries of steam-driven pumps had to handle it before it gravity-fed around the city.
The Walka Water Works at Maitland had 3 x 150hp pumps, each with a 36 tonne flywheel. It drew 3843 megalitres from the river in 1915, its peak year. I can’t imagine a windmill or flock of windmills supplying enough water to run the steelworks and the city on that scale. There is no substitute for coal-fired horsepower.
Walka continued as a backup to Chichester Dam until 1940 and in 1951 was converted into a makeshift power station because of power shortages after the war. Water from Chichester is still boosted at Buttai and Tarro pump stations into Newcastle.
Unlike ROM I’ve never had to dangle from a windmill, but I have slipped, slid and sworn my way up and down riverbanks at 3am fixing pumps and foot-valves. You don’t appreciate how much we take reliable water-on-tap for granted until you have to supply your own. Ditto for a reliable power supply. Coal rules.
50
Interesting.
I visited Chichester about a year ago and that brought back memories of earlier visits that ended in the mid seventies.
We do have Glenbawn and Tomago but I get irritable about the politics surrounding our water supply and the recent theft of local water users hard earned cash from the sale of the dam site deemed by Sydney Pollies to be no longer needed.
Before the reservoir I suspect that tank water from roof runoff was the main source with market gardens using wind power to pump from the sandbeds.
KK
40
ROM
Yes.
After the SWER line came in every turn of the crank to pump the house bore I could feel it turning into a submersible – being 17 paces from the meter box.
But.
Modern technology isn’t always. At one stage we were a test site for hydroscans. Gave them up as a very expensive hobby and went Grundfoss.
Same with solar hot water. Oodles of sun. Theoretically sound, practically imperfect in our experience. Two tanks rusted out in 19 years so never broke even. Now on a Rinnai gas on demand. Plumber who installed it knows of only two solar ones left in the area.
And the 1964 Southern Cross mill just keeps filling its turkey’s nest with minimal problems. Last ones due to the dam running out of water in the recent drought.
50
Hi Ian
Assuming that was the SEWER line”.
I’m curious to find out more about the turkeys nest and
“Last ones”. Is that last turkeys?
KK
10
Jonova — Good news to start the day! — Eugene WR Gallun
72
“The plan is for the total amount of renewable energy on the grid to be capped at 40 – 45% by 2025”
When a country uses its neighbours as a dumping ground and a top up for electricity, it’s not really their renewables target achieved. The figure should be shared. It pretends that every country could do the same.
151
Someone was lucky in catching the windmill failure from start to finish. It looks very similar to what happens to helicopter rotor blades if they strike anything. And the helicopter blades are made to rotate even faster than the windmill and everything is designed for the stress involved. Yet they can’t stand overloading nor can they stand any significant hit on anything. They move so fast that even small stones are like a rock and can shatter them.
I’m left wondering why the blades didn’t “feather” as multiengine airplane propellers can do, thus reducing the driving force theoretically to zero if the turbine was facing anything close to directly into the wind. The excuse of a failed breaking system seems a bit lame considering that whole row of runaway turbines.
It’s vivid evidence that these things are dangerous machines. Also perhaps vivid evidence that wind farming isn’t exactly a mature science. And that tends to be the situation when you rush headlong into something on such a grand scale. It’s too easy to leave out consideration of the unusual or the (as I’ve seen it put in a recent tragic local high school science project gone awry) “unforeseeable”. But of course, it was foreseeable.
I guess they don’t teach Murphy’s Law to engineering students anymore. 😉
151
Something else that can go wrong, is sometimes they don’t face into the wind. Unlike a mechanical windmill with a tail pumping bore water to stock troughs, these wind towers are controlled by computer. Normally they all face the wind and I can tell which way its coming by looking out at them. Sometimes things must be snafu at the sub station, because one or more, will be facing in random directions. And, like grid connect solar, when the main grid went down a while ago, they all stopped..
Great video. 😀
81
Here is he final report on the incident
http://www.windaction.org/posts/20929-final-report-on-investigation-of-a-catastrophic-turbine-failures-february-22-and-23-2008
It seems they were performing maintenance (on the braking system, ironically) when a gear failure caused a shock loading that disabled the airbrakes on the blades and prevented the shaft brake from working since the gear was ahead of the braking system. From there, the turbine was uncontrollable so all they could do was cordon of the area (half what some debris actually flew) and wait for either the wind to die down or the outcome seen in the video
80
Willy,
The turbines yaw out of the wind as part of their protection system. If they are over driven they will yaw to reduce output. If they are shut down they will yaw out of the wind first to reduce loading on drive train. Big turbines don’t have a tail, they typically have a small wind vane at the rear to control the turret pinion motor. If the grid goes down and there’s nowhere to dump the power the turbines must shutdown, that is, turn and apply brake.
50
Thanks Robk, I might be observing a plant that’s a little older tech. This one 05, has a single master pole, not a wind tower, which detects the wind speed and direction. From there the wind towers are directed by computer, which way to face, whether to feather etc. I’m not sure how they run the newer plants. Towers are much taller now too.
30
There’s lots of different designs.
10
Or Sod’s Law, which may be more appropriate given the sanctimony of windmill proponents.
20
There is also Hogue’s law (invented by my brother, not me) which states that if anything can go wrong it probably already has.
Sometimes that seems more accurate than humorous. 😉
30
More details on the issues besetting Germany’s wind farms can be found on this site:
notrickszone.com/#sthash.MqOJpO91.S0JqmEeD.dpbs
50
FTFY.
20
In Australia there are 3669 MW of wind turbines connected to the east coast grid. Last month they averaged a capacity factor of 23% producing 627,800 GWh of electricity which is equivalent to one only 850 MW 24/7 thermal station. However, there were significant periods, up to 12 hours, with less than 10% production and even figures as low as 200 GW a couple of times.
Do we need the associated problems of the windfarms for an irregular supply of electricity when basically you have to have back-up thermal generation of some sort 80% of the time. Tasmania has 300 MW of windfarms and is resorting to 200 MW of diesel generators to overcome the problems of selling-off too much hydro electricity in the carbon years.
130
Neither wind or solar power have the ability to supply base load electricity. Their only real use is to supply the power to pump water up to high storage basins for use during short term peek loads and even then they can’t be relied on.
110
Ivan, I think that a lot of people realise that green energy will not replace coal/gas/diesel/hydro power, the figures are there to verify this, but unfortunately our beloved politicians have little understanding of anything much of a technical nature, and are susceptible to various lobby groups peddling their wares supported by our inner city caffe latte folk who, in Melbourne, for example, elected Adam Bandt as their local member.
Yes 200 GW will keep their lattes warm, but will only just alone power the tram and train services of Melbourne town.
100
I’ve mentioned it here before, but wind power is also used to generate power to compress (a lot of) air in the vast cavities left behind after solution-mining various metal salts. The compressed air is then used to increase the efficiency of gas-fired power generators at the salt processing plant. Not a bad system, but just as with the examples you’ve mentioned, it’s hardly consistent, reliable, or predictable.
40
Here is an analysis of a couple of compressed air energy storage systems at Huntorf, Germany and McIntosh, Tennessee
http://orbit.dtu.dk/fedora/objects/orbit:72193/datastreams/file_6324034/content – see section 3
The round trip efficiencies are 29% and 36%, respectively, so a lot of energy is wasted
I believe that they are OCGT plants as McIntosh is used as a peaking plant to peak shave using off peak nuclear generated electricity.
30
For a change on renewable energy storage take a look at Euan Mearns site Energy Matters and the already in the concept test stage, the ARES, Advanced Rail Energy Storage rail road regenerative system where renewable energy powers locos to drag a string of rail cars to the top of a long incline and then when the power is needed, the appropriate number of rail carriages are rolled back down the long incline using their regenerative braking to feed power back into the grid.
Yikes!
It won’t go anywhere due to costs and maintenance costs but mankind’s imagination seems fairly unlimited when it comes to dreaming up totally useless, utterly impractical, extremely inefficient and very expensive ways to “Save the Planet” all over again.
80
ROM
The perpetual motion machine must work if we give it one more try
/s
50
No, no, no! You’re forgetting basic principles here.
Then repeat in an endless loop…
And that’s how you get a perpetual motion machine.
Too real to be /s
40
From the comments in that ARES article – a gloomy (realistic?) perspective
Here is a more recent article discussing whether meaningful grid scale storage is possible at all
http://euanmearns.com/is-large-scale-energy-storage-dead
10
And still it’s just forge ahead full speed into the unknown. And they can do it because they can reach into our pockets and pull out a handful of our money any time they want to.
I’m reminded of a song from the now distant past with a line about, “…doing 90 miles an hour down a dead end street.”
10
Typically pumping water has an efficiency of around 70%, regeneration 70%,that’s 49% of original energy, then there’s pipe losses. It’s a great system if the source of power is cheap. Germany has these systems for coal to utilize off peak. These schemes are struggling with renewables because the mandated feed in of renewables is high and the peaks and troughs are all over the place.
40
Robert O
200 MW Diesel gensets plus 208 MW CCGT (gas-fueled) plus 58 MW SCGT (gas-fueled) plus 60 MW SCGT (gas-fueled) plus 120 MW SCGT (Liquid-fueled).
That’s 650 MW continuously from fossil fuels.
As TonyfromOz pointed out, that is pretty much the absolute load now supplied with natural gas and diesel fuel.
All the unreliable renewables (hydro and wind) are doing is satisfying the peak.
10
Wow! This is the equivalent of force feeding the German Mafia cucumber sandwiches.
The UK is already learning the same lesson: do we need to force feed with whole cucumbers in reverse?
120
It probably wouldn’t hurt. But with my luck they’d turn out to enjoy it which spoils some of the effect. 😉
20
And by the way, you deserve a complement for thinking up that last line without the slightest trace of actual objectionable content — a master piece for sure.
20
How to build a tax-payer funded solar power plant in Australia:
“Origin is among the prospectors, applying to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency for funding to support a 106 MW solar farm of its own to be built on the Darling Downs next to its existing gas-fired plant.”
Shift to zero-carbon power must start by 2018 to avoid extra warming: study
50
A few years ago, I worked on an exploration well for Origin in the Bass Basin, which cost in the order of US$20 million to drill, and found less gas than the average cow releases in a day (officially, “…no presence of hydrocarbons…”).
I wonder if their attempts at extracting taxpayers money will be more successful than that “dry” well… I hope not.
**The figures and quotes are publicly, and freely available, so I have not breached any confidentiality agreements…
70
Origin, Shell, BHP and others should stick what they know best, finding Hydrocarbons, not building windmills. When you look at their policies now, it is very hard to find what they are doing now, expect they have non existent or striving for low carbon foot print. These companies are run by lawyers now not by explorationists and will cease to exist sooner than I thought.
70
When I first watched the video I laughed, but then realized how dangerous it was. The debris was said to cover a 1/2 mile area. Any windmill anywhere with a breaking failure could explode like this. On the other hand this Denmark and wouldn’t we all want to pay 41 cents a KWH to live around a propeller bomb.?? I’m going to stick with increasing my carbon footprint and fertilizing plants.
141
I believe that thanks to off-shore wind the Danes now pay the equivalent of 50 cents a KWh.
60
Greg Hunt is a disgrace, as is the leader of this great nation.
https://stopthesethings.com/2016/04/05/how-wind-farm-developers-use-taxpayer-subsidies-to-steal-homes-gag-their-victims/
70
Could not agree more el gordo
10
After Germany spent endless billions on this idiocy the share of TOTAL primary energy generated by solar, wind and geothermal combined was just 2.4% in 2013.
But coal, gas and oil supplied 80.4% and bio fuels and waste supplied 8.6%.
Here is the pie graph for Germany from IEA for 2013. These fools are barking mad and this won’t change the climate at all. Meanwhile in the developing world ………
http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/GERMANY4.pdf
101
BTW here is the pie chart for World TOTAL primary energy generated supply.
Oil, gas and coal is 81.4%, Biofuels and waste is 10.2% and Geothermal, Solar and Wind is 1.2%.
Amazing that after decades of pouring money down the drain Germany has only increased their percentage of renewables by 1.2% more than the entire world.
Of course no change possible for climate change or SLR or extreme weather events or those poor polar bears or Greenland, Antarctic ice or the GBR or MDB or floods or droughts or…………
http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/WORLD4.pdf
70
20 years from now we will again have to spend billions removing these rusting forests, and yes this will come from our tax money again.
The decision makers will be still alive and I am more than happy to spend my own money to reopen Nuremberg and charge them with the crimes against humanity.
70
…but…but…’superior orders.’
50
Gore sees progress on climate change
“Solar and wind installations have outstripped even recent predictions, he said.
Wind power estimates for 2010 made in 2000 were exceeded by 14 times.
Solar estimates for 2010 made in 2002 were exceeded two years ago by 58 times, and last year by 68 times, he said.”
> And yet, the climate still changes.
~ ~ ~
Climate change is a multitrillion-dollar business opportunity, according to John Kerry
> If saving the planet was your motivation, why would you see it as “a multitrillion-dollar business opportunity”?
70
This is a bit O/T but I live in far southwest QLD. At the moment we have a solar power company signing up most the district to solar. It dosen’t feed back to the grid and only works during the day time. Basicaly our power will feed off the solar first, and any shortfalls are picked up by the current mains system. Our current power bill for 2 cattle stations is $12K/yr(and rising). Two systems will cost about $60k and deliver a 50-70% savings on our power bill – (so the sums add up.)
The thing is, our current power company will have a 50-70% drop in their income, but still have to maintain the existing infrastructure. – Something will have to give.
110
It takes a long time for the penny to drop, doesn’t it?
40
Binny @ #16
There are already a couple of countries of which I think Spain is already well down the track as outlined below, that have started charging solar and wind installments and in Spain’s case, a hell of a lot of micro hydro systems on their rivers and streams, for the use of the grid system beginning right at the meter box whenever they feed power back into the grid from their own installations.
I suspect that those charges levied on solar and wind suppliers of power are going to both expand and escalate very rapidly as the great con and the utter impracticality of wind and solar to ever be more than a gross and unaffordable irritant for a modern industrialised nations power supply systems are realised.
[ Germany from a policy of going totally renewable by about the mid 2000’s only a few days ago has just capped the renewables at 45% of Germany’s power requirements. And that 45% might never be reached as there is a massive public backlash rapidly building in Germany against the gross stupidity and corruption created by renewable energy companies ably assisted at every turn by corrupt politicians both local and federal plus the green sleaze which is up to its highest petals in hypocrisy and the the corruption muck. You can almost here the howls of outrage from the aforesaid corrupt officials and the green sleaze from here ; ref; GWPF ]
Furthermore as the stupidity of ever believing that renewable energy is capable of supplying an industrialised nation with a steady, regular, low priced, low cost [ not always the same thing if the thick skulled easily conned politicals, plus the bankers and lawyers and the green sleaze get involved;] reliable power supply finally begans to penetrate into the thick skulls of the politicals and the anti development of the Green sleaze also becomes recognised in aforesaid thick skulled politicals, there is quite likely going to be a severe back lash against the gross excesses and the horrendous cost of renewables along with their complete lack of any predictability and reliability plus their serious health creating problems at least for wind in the rural areas.
There is also no regard at all for the effects of infrasound, blade flicker and visual destruction on the environment on the health and well being of the local rural people wherever such renewable installations are built.
And for solar the serious long term health problems of the production workers created by the highly health destroying chemicals used during production of the panels of the renewables .
A solution to the excessive costs imposed on consumers by very long term government contracts signed by unaccountable politicians, many with a big fat finger deeply inserted into the lucrative government funded renewable energy pie, through contracts with the renewable energy rip off merchants would be to impose increasing tariffs for a number of renewable specific grid complication problems on the renewable energy generators.
And that would include household mounted solar arrays who use and make use of the previously long established grid systems but who have never made any contribution towards enhancing the grid system.
The new levies and tariffs for the use of the grid to earn income through renewable energy generation would be to cover and cater for their highly variable out put which the owners/ operators of these renewable energy systems seem to believe, they have the god given right to feed power back into the grid at any time and then get paid full rates for that power.
Plus a new and heavy levy imposed on renewables to cover the seriously high costs of trying to keep grid stability by the grid operators plus all the extra costs that don’t exist with the big centralized fossil fuel powered generators due to their stability of output.
But which the highly variable and totally unpredictable renewables imposes on the grid operators as they try to ensure a steady continuity of supply and ensure the critical grid frequency control for consumers and industry.
Spain, Ireland even Denmark, Poland and other nations and now Germany and soon the UK are all beginning to call quits on renewable energy as the consequences in de-industrialisation due to extreme energy cost begins to bite so hard that even the thickest skulled politicians are beginning to get the message.
In the realms of the extraordinary, France in fact has just appointed a Minister for Re-industrialisation which is a very telling development indeed and another harbinger of things to come.
Renewable energy is now on the skids big time but they are so deep into the tax payer funded trough that they just can’t extract themselves without serious consequences for all those including the green sleaze who bet the village on renewables .
I could put that last couple of lines in some very salty rural language which would no doubt get the Mods attention and this post in moderation!
90
PS; When Merkel in Germany goes and that may not be very far away, my guess is that by the end of this decade, there will only be lip service at best paid to renewable energy in Germany as it moves towards a re-industrialisation.
And as Jo and the GWPF have pointed out, most of the current wind and solar installations as they become economically un-viable after about 15 years for wind and near the same for solar, maybe longer in Germany for solar as solar panels are pretty idle during winter in those latitudes, will never be rebuilt and the decaying, rusting, glass strewn remains will become a multi billion Euro headache for both local and federal poiticians to have to deal with and clean up.
Elsewhere today is a repeat of that rather famous quote, an approximation being“Science advances funeral by funeral”, a proposition that it seems after a recent research paper on the advances in science, might be quite correct.
I would suggest that a similar situation applies to major political policies.
The promotion of renewable energy will die in the a**e as its proponents leave politics and die off and a new generation of politicals and scientists says ” well it wasn’t our stupidity that forced renewables onto you voters so lets just get rid of them and start again!” [ > on the next bit of stupidity! ? ]
50
Yeah when our grid was first installed 30 years ago, we all had to sign 20yr contracts as to miminium power usage (miminium bills).Plus everyone had to make the call then and there, to be in, or out – no later connections where allowed.
I can see the same thing happening again – Either everyone commits to long term miminium contracts, or everyone goes fully off grid.
30
I can see connection fees rising a lot with electricity prices flattening or falling once the renewables generation industry collapses. This will allow the connection fees to reflect the cost of grid infrastructure separate to the cost of generating the electricity itself. Then home solar installations (mini power stations if they have battery storage and feed in management) won’t unfairly leverage infrastructure costs from normal consumers.
Then they need to somehow charge excise for recharging EVs and plug in hybrids to fairly reflect the costs for road users.
40
Another windy “Oh Dear”.
“Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa
Energy policy goes physics-free;
The Scottish supply is now based on nuclear, wind and imports with a little hydro and gas on the side. I think nuclear and wind is likely the worst combination for any grid that no sane power engineer would design. Variable and intermittent wind does not sit well with constant, base load nuclear power. We have reached this point in pursuit of Green dogma.
In this post I examine the policy and politics that led to this event and go on to consider the social and economic consequences of a nation-wide blackout that power engineers now believe is far more likely than before.
What could go wrong?”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/04/y2kyoto-state-o-62.html
and link
70
But we do laugh at the dirty pollution coming out of coal fired power plants don’t we.Ive pointed the deception to many people and the response is generally disbelief when I tell them it’s steam.WATER VAPOUR! Man what sort of effect do you expect when you take a photo with the sun in the background.What does one hav to do to debunk this stuff.
70
I was up at SteamFest in Maitland the morning.
Was a great morning, plenty of stationary steam motors, traction engines, and 4 or 5 mainline steam engines, including a Garratt., as well as old railcars etc. (see link on first line)
Plenty of steam, but also PLENTY of yummy smelling particulate matter from some of those old engines.
I love those old steam engines, but its probably a good thing that we changed to electric trains where the real pollution can be controlled properly in coal fired power stations.
111
“Peak Wind” and posts from climateseptic. Hilarious. This site just gets better. Thanks Jo.
113
I’ll ship you some of my “Peak Wind” of minus 19 Celsius with the windchill in Southern Ontario Canada…
Wonder what this will do to the record heat records…
Must still be in the minus 30 Celsius in the Arctic.
Ops, windchill is not a temperature reading…hmmmm. Still is minus 9 Celsius(without the breeze).
40
would be keen to see the de icing techniques used on wind mills at these temps
50
We fertilize the fields lining up the cows infront of the wind turbines after they have the runs…
Loaded on scissor lifts…
30
Sooooooooooooooooooo the wind farms reduce co2 levels but raise the methane levels?
40
solar and wind… great for power in a blizzard. 😉
51
Pretty sure that climateseptic must be a reject from one of John Cook’s climate 101 classes.
82
Hi Peter, I’m doing my best to keep him here for the laughs. 🙂
42
waiting for the unthreaded comments……………but cant wait so was i the only person to see on the morning news people saying their micro wave ovens leak RF because their mobile phones worked when in one (not turned on obviously) no wonder AGW has had such a good run with people as stupid as this
83
would be nice if my red thumber explained what was wrong with me comment LOL
51
Like a Facebook comment I had brought to my notice. Entreating people to buy their meat from Coles and Woolies, because your local butcher kills animals for that which he sells
50
Its like a dairy farmer stealing milk from cows so buy the pretend sh…..version from coles
20
If only the indigenous folk of South Western Australia had used windmills instead of Chert stone …
Discovery sheds light on Australian island-mainland interaction
“This indicates one of three things,” said archaeologist David Guilfoyle, of Applied Archaeology Australia.
“The tree has become locally extinct on the island; or this implement was used during a time of lower sea levels, when people could walk to this granite dome; or that this implement was brought over to the island in more recent times.”
The second scenario relates to the last Ice Age, when global temperatures were much colder than today, causing the expansion of the sea ice at both the south and north poles, dropping the ocean levels around the planet.
In this part of the world, some 80-100 kilometres of coastline extended from the modern day shoreline at the height of the last Ice Age, some 18,000 years ago. Over time, as the planet gradually warmed, the ice caps melted, and the sea levels rose. ”
. . .
Also a carbon (sic) tax would have saved them along with vigorous bicycle riding.
20
OK enough is enough, Bruce Spingsteen has just cancelled a concert in protest of the law not allowing trans gender people to use the wrong toilet (other sex toilet)……………….I have an eighteen year old daughter and i dont want a man dressed up as a woman using the same toilet she does and i dont care what that comment makes me.
150
“Born with no DNA” 🙂
60
I thought the title would have been “born with the wrong DNA”
50
You may be interested in this video: http://youtu.be/aDAU3SPYFsA. “The transgender: normalising mental illness”.
30
It makes one of the sensible members of society.
Otherwise you open the door, literally for all sort of perverts……
……..”oh if I dress up as a girl, I can sneak into the woman’s toilet”!
This cis-gender stuff really is getting pretty sick, isn’t it.
113
crakar24, I would rate you as a responsible parent, thumbs up from me.
101
Cheers graham
00
There has been a lot of talk about the usefulness of computer models to predict future climate, so I thought I would try and relate models to a field more relevant to me so as to understand them better.
Imagine you wanted to launch a rocket and wanted to predict the impact point obviously there would be a multitude of parameters needed to be addressed as a model input. Most of the ballistics are well known and winds below 100 meters will affect the trajectory above this they won’t due to the Mach number achieved at this height.
Therefore you would think it would be a straight forward job to accurately predict the impact point and create a safety trace (round circle) of a couple of kilometres at most.
Of course here I am talking about a scenario where everything works perfectly however as we all know sometimes things go wrong so lets look at what can go wrong.
Winds:
If the winds below 100 meters are stronger or they gust above the upper limit the rocket could go off course but we can mitigate that by launching in low winds and we have many decades of wind data from this area so we can confidently launch at a low wind period of time. Risk mitigated
Mechanical failures:
These are more difficult to mitigate however, we would be using a rocket we have used many times before and these rockets have never failed. Another consideration is the high level of engineering practices and rigorous design engineering principles that underpin the building of the rocket. Risk mitigated.
Collision with aircraft and satellite:
This risk is mitigated by issuing a NOTAM for the area. Risk mitigated
So now our safety trace will have two circles, an inner and an outer, the inner circle (when things go right) will give you a high probability of injury or death if one was to be in that circle. The outer circle would give you a low probability of injury or death if one was to be in that circle.
So now we can launch our rocket yes? No.
Enter human risk aversion syndrome and the what if principle or if you like the precautionary principle. The what if principle is when the people analysing the model output don’t have the confidence in their own ability to accept the results, rather than proceed based on the result they instead search for other safety issues they believe must still exist but have been over looked.
For example our rocket will travel say a distance of 500 kilometres and a height of over 200 kilometres, its flight path will take it over a road two lanes wide so……………..”what it” it landed on the road and hit a car? Lets factor that in by shutting the road. So now we have two circles and a rectangle covering the road for a length of two hundred kilomters and so the risk aversion activities go on.
When your thought process is clouded so much to make you shut a two lane road because a rocket will fly overhead at 200 plus kilometres then it is not hard to imagine just how many and how large our safety traces can be. This process continues until we reach a point where we can no longer launch the rocket and then something fascinating happens.
When we launch our rocket we will have equipment to track and monitor the rocket during flight, this equipment is operated by humans, if we allow our safety traces to get too large through risk aversion we end up with the situation where our equipment and therefore humans are in the safety trace and we cannot use the equipment.
The people who analyse the output of their models are now left with a choice, they can either start again with a more realistic approach to risk mitigation or they can stay on course and make it up as they go along.
For example if some equipment is in the safety trace they will convince themselves that equipment is not needed for flight safety monitoring of the rocket…….I hope you see the irony here because after all the show must go on.
There could be a situation where all the buildings and equipment are in the safety trace in this case we can no longer launch the rocket as stated above, obviously this will not do so they devise a way to mitigate the use of certain buildings that are mission essential by stating these buildings are more structurally sound than the others. Sounds OK except the model does not delineate between building structures ergo you could be sunbaking in a bikini or encased in ten ton of concrete it matters none you are in the safety trace.
There are two other buildings that house equipment not related to the rocket launch and these are not the type of buildings you want a rocket to hit, these buildings get a passing mention as it is a legal requirement but are then completed ignored because they will be a show stopper.
Therefore the model output analysers are now pretending to be structural engineers in order to change their view on reality. What I have just described is completely fictional of course but could happen and their behaviour mirrors that of the climatologists we see today.
62
There has been a lot of talk about the usefulness of computer models to predict future climate, so I thought I would try and relate models to a field more relevant to me so as to understand them better.
Imagine you wanted to launch a rocket and wanted to predict the impact point obviously there would be a multitude of parameters needed to be addressed as a model input. Most of the ballistics are well known and winds below 100 meters will affect the trajectory above this they won’t due to the Mach number achieved at this height.
Therefore you would think it would be a straight forward job to accurately predict the impact point and create a safety trace (round circle) of a couple of kilometres at most.
Of course here I am talking about a scenario where everything works perfectly however as we all know sometimes things go wrong so lets look at what can go wrong.
Winds:
If the winds below 100 meters are stronger or they gust above the upper limit the rocket could go off course but we can mitigate that by launching in low winds and we have many decades of wind data from this area so we can confidently launch at a low wind period of time. Risk mitigated
Mechanical failures:
These are more difficult to mitigate however, we would be using a rocket we have used many times before and these rockets have never failed. Another consideration is the high level of engineering practices and rigorous design engineering principles that underpin the building of the rocket. Risk mitigated.
Collision with aircraft and satellite:
This risk is mitigated by issuing a NOTAM for the area. Risk mitigated
So now our safety trace will have two circles, an inner and an outer, the inner circle (when things go right) will give you a high probability of injury or death if one was to be in that circle. The outer circle would give you a low probability of injury or death if one was to be in that circle.
So now we can launch our rocket yes? No.
Enter human risk aversion syndrome and the what if principle or if you like the precautionary principle. The what if principle is when the people analysing the model output don’t have the confidence in their own ability to accept the results, rather than proceed based on the result they instead search for other safety issues they believe must still exist but have been over looked.
For example our rocket will travel say a distance of 500 kilometres and a height of over 200 kilometres, its flight path will take it over a road two lanes wide so……………..”what it” it landed on the road and hit a car? Lets factor that in by shutting the road. So now we have two circles and a rectangle covering the road for a length of two hundred kilomters and so the risk aversion activities go on.
When your thought process is clouded so much to make you shut a two lane road because a rocket will fly overhead at 200 plus kilometres then it is not hard to imagine just how many and how large our safety traces can be. This process continues until we reach a point where we can no longer launch the rocket and then something fascinating happens.
When we launch our rocket we will have equipment to track and monitor the rocket during flight, this equipment is operated by humans, if we allow our safety traces to get too large through risk aversion we end up with the situation where our equipment and therefore humans are in the safety trace and we cannot use the equipment.
The people who analyse the output of their models are now left with a choice, they can either start again with a more realistic approach to risk mitigation or they can stay on course and make it up as they go along.
For example if some equipment is in the safety trace they will convince themselves that equipment is not needed for flight safety monitoring of the rocket…….I hope you see the irony here because after all the show must go on.
There could be a situation where all the buildings and equipment are in the safety trace in this case we can no longer launch the rocket as stated above, obviously this will not do so they devise a way to mitigate the use of certain buildings that are mission essential by stating these buildings are more structurally sound than the others. Sounds OK except the model does not delineate between building structures ergo you could be sunbaking in a bikini or encased in ten ton of concrete it matters none you are in the safety trace.
There are two other buildings that house equipment not related to the rocket launch and these are not the type of buildings you want a rocket to hit, these buildings get a passing mention as it is a legal requirement but are then completed ignored because they will be a show stopper.
Therefore the model output analysers are now pretending to be structural engineers in order to change their view on reality. What I have just described is completely fictional of course but could happen and their behaviour mirrors that of the climatologists we see today.
62
Gosh, JDAM and crakor, you two should get together and compare notes.
But if you’re going to pretend that BOTH your posts about modelling, comparing it to a field relevant to you, are your own thoughts, change the odd word or phrase, FFS!
It might give your separate posts, a little more credibility. It’s not rocket science, chaps.
15
Gosh Ross,
I am torn between what makes you so dumb
1, Spelling my name wrong or
2, Failling to understand the two comments are one the same
I will just pretend you are an id i ot (cheating spam trap) and treat you with utter contempt from now on
20
Every village needs one? 🙂
10
O/T
8 Apr: SacBee: AP: Terrence Petty: Climate change lawsuit by 21 youths takes big step forward
PORTLAND, Ore. — The federal government and big energy companies lost an important round Friday in their effort to block a climate change lawsuit by young plaintiffs who contend the U.S. is failing to protect them from the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin in Eugene rejected motions by the U.S. government and trade groups representing the energy companies to dismiss the lawsuit by 21 plaintiffs ages 8 to 19.
A U.S. District Court judge has final say over whether the lawsuit will proceed to trial…
The defendants have 14 days to file objections to Coffin’s recommendation.
Coffin wrote in his decision that the debate about climate change and its effects has been before various political bodies for some time now. There is a need for the courts to evaluate the “constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government,” he said…ETC
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article70831837.html
8 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: UN: Ratify Paris climate deal or face exclusion from decisions
Head of legal affairs outlines implications of early entry into force for Paris deal, and voting rights of countries slow to approve treaty
An eight-page advisory (LINK) published on the UN climate body’s website says governments who have joined the deal “will enjoy certain rights and privileges” including the right to approve decisions.
“Parties to the Agreement are responsible for governance, oversight, leadership and decision-making over the Agreement,” says the document, authored by UNFCCC legal chief Dan Bondi Ogolla.
Those who have not completed the process of ratification “cannot, however, participate in decision-making” it warns, although they can make “interventions and submit textual proposals”…READ ON
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/08/un-ratify-paris-climate-deal-or-face-exclusion-from-decisions/
30
8 Apr: Fox News: George Russell: Exclusive: The UN starts toward new control over the world’s oceans
The United Nations has launched a far-reaching initiative that could give U.N.-sponsored authorities sway over the biological resources of the high seas—all the waters that lie outside national territories and economic zones.
The potential shift in power involves multi-trillion-dollar issues, such as whether large areas—conceivably, as much as 30 percent– of the world’s international waters should be designated as no-go areas to protect biological diversity; whether and how to require elaborate “environmental impact assessments” for future ocean development projects; and how to divide up the economic benefits from the future development of “marine genetic resources.”…
The agreement that ensues from those discussions, however, is seen by some involved in its hoped-for creation as the salt-water equivalent of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which will be formally signed at an April 22 ceremony in New York—a global, permanent and legally-binding deal for the management of Earth’s last frontier, which will spawn further layers of regulation in years to come.
“The climate negotiations showed the possibilities for us to come together,” Speer told Fox News…
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/08/exclusive-un-starts-toward-new-control-over-worlds-oceans.html
20
8 Apr: Scientific American: World Bank Wades into Climate Fight
The bank aims to increase climate aid and consider global warming in decisions
By Jean Chemnick, ClimateWire
The World Bank Group announced yesterday it plans to mobilize more than $40 billion in clean energy and climate-friendly investments by 2020 and enact a variety of measures to help developing countries meet their international pledges to curb climate change…
“It’s a plan that aims at swinging the pendulum away from investments in fossil fuels toward investments in clean energy, and to put new resources in critical areas like green transport and climate-resistant agriculture,” said John Roome, the bank’s senior director for climate change…
The climate plan premiered ahead of next week’s annual spring meeting for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund…
The bank also promised to take actions of its own to help put the world on track to contain warming…
“Essentially what we’re doing is making climate change a central part of everything we’re doing, building it into our DNA and treating climate change as a critical part of our overall approach to eliminating extreme poverty and improving prosperity,” said Roome, who called this “a fundamental shift for the World Bank.”…
Protecting poor countries from the effects of climate change is an even bigger focus, Roome said…
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-bank-wades-into-climate-fight/
World Bank/IMF want to help the “poor countries”. thought that’s what they were supposed to be doing for decades, so what went wrong?
30
pat mentions this (my bolding here)
Let’s pretend that these renewable plants are already on the drawing board, so all they need to do is raise that $40 Billion and use that to pay for them.
Between now and then, (2016 to 2020) Bayswater (just that one plant alone) will have delivered just under 4 times the power that all these renewable power plants will deliver in their first year of operation, and Bayswater will most probably still be delivering power when these still as yet unplanned renewable plants will have reached their end of life expectancy.
They keep putting up these renewable dreams, and I’ll just keep showing them up for the nothingness that they are.
Four Threads back, pat also mentioned (at this link) that just to keep to the +2C degrees, they will need $89 Trillion by 2035. This $40 Billion amounts to a little under ….. THREE AND A THIRD DAYS worth of that total, and they hope to raise that in four years. Hmm! I hope someone is working harder than this to raise the money they need. That $89 Trillion they need by 2035 comes in at $12.19 Billion a day, 365 days a year, from now until 2035.
I seem to recall a famous line from an old movie ….. “Tell him he’s dreamin'”
Tony.
140
4 Apr: World Bank Blog: James Close: New open online course: from climate science to action
Over the past two years, the World Bank’s flagship climate change report series Turn Down the Heat and its complementary free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) have helped bring important climate related issues to policy makers and concerned citizens, reaching nearly 39,000 people in more than 180 countries worldwide.
Now, with the adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP 21, we are ready to launch a new and exciting MOOC: “From Climate Science to Action – Turn Down the Heat Series”. The MOOC is delivered in association with the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus – the one stop shop for development learning…
The MOOC Experience
This MOOC ***(LINK) showcases video conversations with renowned climate scientists, policymakers, and practitioners. Their perspectives provide a synthesis of the most recent scientific evidence on climate change, strategies for low emission and climate resilient development, and an analysis of the Paris Agreement and other outcomes of COP 21…
The learning sessions start on May 9 and enrollment is open now…
https://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/new-open-online-course-climate-science-action
***from Course LINK:
Course Instructors:
Pablo Benitez, Senior Economist, The World Bank Group
Prior to joining the Bank, he was Chief Economist of Marbek Resource Consultants Ltd., where he led strategic environmental economic analysis projects for government and private sector clients in Canada and internationally. Previously, he worked for the Ministry of Environment of British Columbia and contributed to the design of the first carbon tax in North America…ETC
Alan S. Miller, Principal Climate Change Specialist, The World Bank Group
Alan Miller is an internationally recognized authority on climate finance and policy. His clients include UNDP, US AID, and ADB. In January 2014 he retired after 16 years working on climate change issues for the World Bank Group including 10 years for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the Bank, and 6 years at the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multilateral fund supporting climate change projects. His responsibilities included representing the IFC/WBG in international forums focused on climate change and green growth including meetings of the UN Climate Convention and the G20, as well as climate change policy development, training, and publications…ETC
He previously created and directed the Center for Global Change at the University of Maryland (1989-96) and served on the staffs of the World Resources Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council…
Course Format sounds like fun!
20
In other words, here’s how to make money off global fear mongering. Can’t see how economic analysis, finance and policy would play out any other way…
30
Golly. I was wondering why the Germans were digging all that brown coal. The rumours that the coal was to be used for performance art or something must have been exaggerated.
Still, when you consider how much of EU renewable is actually incinerator fodder – and that those naughty German nukes are still in operation! – I guess wind (and solar panels at 50+ degrees north) never represented much of a solution. The real cost gets lost in those transfers, but you can only play pass the parcel for so long. Qatari and Russian gas is nicer than coal, but only “clean” if you don’t mention the hot wars, cold wars, cool wars, and pipeline wars.
Disgruntled Germans of the green persuasion can always make like their ancestors and move to South Australia. There they will find the basket case of their dreams.
70
7 Apr: Competitive Enterprise Institute News Release: CEI Fights Subpoena to Silence Debate on Climate Change
State Attorneys General attack free speech, intimidate policy groups and scientists
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today denounced a subpoena from Attorney General Claude E. Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands that attempts to unearth a decade of the organization’s materials and work on climate change policy. This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and former Vice President Al Gore…
The subpoena requests a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information. It demands that CEI produce these materials from 20 years ago, from 1997-2007, by April 30, 2016…
Read the subpoena here (PDF).
https://cei.org/content/cei-fights-subpoena-silence-debate-climate-change
40
Even Bloomberg, not known for their climate scepticism, have denounced this atack on free speech. See the GWPF here http://www.thegwpf.com/attack-on-free-speech-cei-subpoenaed-over-global-warming-skepticism/
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can’t copy. must-read. federal-grant-funded turbine, damaged by lightning, will cost nearly $100,000 to repair & other wind woes:
8 Apr: JournalGazette&TimesCourier: Rob Stroud: Lake Land board to weigh future of wind turbine
http://jg-tc.com/news/lake-land-board-to-weigh-future-of-wind-turbine/article_5fa0e041-11e7-50d6-b0af-a7ce75438f33.html
8 Apr: CCTV America: Facing grid constraints, China puts a chill on new wind energy projects
Story by Reuters and CCTV News
Energy wastage on wind farms in China worsened in 2015, as plunging utilization rates kept 33.9 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) from being delivered to the grid, the energy regulator said, the equivalent of a fifth of total generated wind power…
Such huge electricity capacity, if transmitted to the power grids, could be hazardous to grid operators, according to the local officials.
Wang Feng, the division head of Energy Bureau of Jiangxi Province, told CCTV that the scale of existing wind power installations is huge, leaving the grid struggling to cope with it.
The amount of electricity generated by a wind turbine doesn’t coincide with the times of day when power is most needed, he added. This poses a safety challenge to grid operators and makes power grid vastly more fragile…
“Long distance power transmission poses bigger risks of blackouts at the receiving end. If the power goes all of a sudden, it could cause large-scale blackout at our end,” Wang said…
http://www.cctv-america.com/2016/04/08/facing-grid-constraints-china-puts-a-chill-on-new-wind-energy-projects
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8 Apr: Huron Daily Tribune: Chris Aldridge: Oil leaks at wind turbines in the Thumb not a rarity
UPPER THUMB — Ominous black spots on wind turbines in the Thumb have raised a few eyebrows.
Huron County Building and Zoning Director Jeff Smith says residents have questioned what look like grease stains on six or seven turbines between Sebewaing and Owendale.
“It was disturbing to see that,” Smith said, adding he drove through the area Monday.
Seals on the turbine were coming out of bearing holders, Smith said, comparing it to a vehicle with a bad wheel bearing. He said he’s not sure if the bearings on the turbines are faulty or defective.
“GE knew but did not tell us,” Smith said of turbine manufacturer General Electric, adding he got an email from NextEra Energy stating a cleaning crew is coming.
There are 32 turbines in Exelon Wind Generation’s Harvest 1 project in Oliver and Chandler townships. A 400-foot, 485,000-pound turbine that fell on Feb. 25 spilled 25 gallons of greases, oil and coolant, according to the DEQ (LINK)…
Exelon says the fallen turbine held about 400 gallons of oil.
The leaks aren’t limited to just Huron County.
South of Minden City, some of DTE Energy’s 20 turbines are planted in organic farm fields…READ ALL
http://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article_efa9917b-2d8e-5927-9f5c-5494a426f71d.html
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Pat
I’ve posted this before but it fits here
One wind farm in Colorado gets a semi load of Mobil 1 synthetic every fortnight.
Via the truck driver on another blog.
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8 Apr: EnterpriseBulletin: JT McVeigh: Petition could be last stand against wind turbines
For Betty Schneider the petition she has online at Change.org is a case of David and Goliath.
Schneider and members of her community in Clearview Township have been fighting wpd Canada and their wind turbines for more than seven years, including taking them to court in 2012 citing plunging land values for area properties.
Schneider and co-complainants were told by the judge in Barrie that they were pre-mature in their charges and that they should bring their case back to court once the turbines were up….
She worries that the area will see more because she suggests with the millions of dollars needed for the infrastructure it is to much money just for the initial eight, and believes that the area will experience the same circumstance as Shelburne who now supports more than 150 wind turbines.
“In twenty years who do you think will pay the millions of dollars to take the old turbines down, by then they will be worn out and rusty sitting on a concrete pad that could support First Canadian Place in Toronto,” said Schneider. “It won’t be wpd that’s for sure.”…ETC
http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com/2016/04/08/petition-could-be-last-stand-against-wind-turbines
7 Apr: Herald Scotland: Letter: Turbine toll on birdlife
I WAS fascinated to read that a magnificent, and rare, gyrfalcon is patrolling North Uist (“Twitchers in a flap to spot a gyrfalcon”, The Herald, April 6). Let’s hope it avoids the Harris wind turbine that tragically finished off the “once in a lifetime” visit by the white-throated needletail in June, 2013.
Research from around the world has recently revealed horrifying levels of bird and bat mortality caused by wind turbines. The systematic cover-up and burying of corpses is routine…
Recent figures for bird deaths indicate: Spain, 330 birds per turbine per year; Germany , 309, and Sweden, 895.
Before any more turbines are built the wind industry should tell us the Scottish figures.
George Herraghty…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14408530.Turbine_toll_on_birdlife/
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8 Apr: Bloomberg: Mathew Carr: Carbon Futures Market Shrinks by Record as Glut Persists: Chart
***CHART: Open interest in EU carbon market plunges
Outstanding positions fall record 38 percent
The tally of outstanding contracts in Europe’s carbon futures market is waning as a centralized reserve to reduce a glut of emission allowances won’t start until 2019. Flat power demand and more renewable energy capacity is exacerbating the oversupply of pollution permits. As Germany pays utilities to keep coal plants on standby, EU politicians still seem unwilling to let market economics achieve emission-reduction targets, said Louis Redshaw, founder of carbon-market consultants Redshaw Advisors in London…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-08/carbon-futures-market-shrinks-by-record-as-glut-persists-chart
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PIC: 8 Apr: CentralChronicleIndia: Inferior technology turbines burst into fire
Ratlam : There is a great thrust in the area of renewable energy and state governments go extra mile to attract projects but in the race for generating green energy, it looks like quality and superior technology are taking a back seat. On 23 March an INOX wind turbine went up in flames emitting huge amount of smoke creating panic among the villagers nearby in last week. The incident happened in Jasdhan, Rajkot, Gujarat.
The modelDF 93.3 is a certified project by C-WET Again another INOX wind turbine went up in flames in Jaora in Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh in the wee hours of Sunday raising questions on the quality of the technology used and its ability to adapt to Indian conditions…
http://www.centralchronicle.com/inferior-technology-turbines-burst-into-fire.html
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8 Apr: CarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Top EU court rejects LafargeHolcim’s appeal over stolen EUAs
Europe’s top court has dismissed an appeal by cement giant LafargeHolcim in its lawsuit against the European Commission over the 2010 theft of 1.6 million EU Allowances…
Holcim filed the lawsuit against the EC in 2012 for failing to freeze the online accounts containing the stolen allowances, for not returning the units to the company, and for allowing other firms to surrender them for compliance…
The ECJ also ordered Holcim Romania to pay the European Commission’s legal costs…
According to EU records, the 1.6 million units were in Nov. 2010 transferred from Holcim’s Romanian account to registries in Italy and Liechtenstein, then moved on to the UK, France, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, before eventually being sold on emissions exchanges BlueNext and Climex.
Some 695,000 EUAs were later returned to Holcim by European authorities, but the remaining permits were not recovered by the company despite the commission knowing their exact location in the registry system.
The EC defended its actions, citing EU law stipulating that any details regarding the allowances were confidential and could only be given to authorities…READ ALL
http://carbon-pulse.com/18175/
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9 Apr: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: UK solar power installations plummet after government cuts
Fall in solar power was expected after ministers announced 65% cut to feed-in tariff, but size of drop-off will still dismay green campaigners
The amount of household solar power capacity installed in the past two months has plummeted by three quarters following the government’s cuts to subsidies, according to new figures…
The feed-in tariff data for solar schemes under 10kW, considered largely household installs, is slightly skewed because there was a surge in March 2015 as people rushed to meet a deadline for an attractive rate, and because the scheme was closed for the first week of February this year. However, observers said it was clear the bulk of the fall was down to the cuts…
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “It’s only fair that the costs on people’s energy bills to support solar projects should come down as the industry establishes itself and costs fall. Ultimately, we want a low carbon energy sector that can stand on its own two feet rather than relying on subsidies.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/08/solar-installation-in-british-homes-falls-by-three-quarters-after-subsidy-cuts
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7 Apr: CatskillDailyMail: Firefighters keep up with modern dangers
By Michael Ryan Columbia-Greene Media
WINDHAM — It is something a typical resident or business owner might never think about but it was very much in the thoughts of area firefighters when Windham Hose Company No. 1 hosted a seminar on the dangers and difficulties of battling fires involving solar panels.
“The evening was definitely very educational,” Company Fire Chief Michael Scarey said. He noted an estimated 60 volunteers from nine departments in three counties participated.
Career firefighter Ray Stoval shared his experiences with the tricky, modern-day technology…
“There are a lot of safety concerns connected to solar panels,” Scarey said. “For one thing, the juice box is always hot. You can’t just pour a direct stream of water on it. You have to spray a mist or fog.”
The added weight of the units and its effect on roof strain is also a vital factor to consider when trying to save a structure.
Hose No. 1 borrowed the idea from Palenville Fire Department fire chief Anthony Spring, who held a similar class last month…
http://www.thedailymail.net/news/article_2eebf2da-fc7a-11e5-b951-db28a188e0a8.html
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Knock all the Prayer Wheels down and end the Global Scam !
High time the renewable energy racket had the rug pulled from underneath it …..globally .
Then Straight-Jacket all its medieval advocates ….also long overdue .
There is only one equation that explains all … CAGW / CACC = BS .
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Modern coal is very clean energy and unbelievably convenient given some of the struggle stories here. Nothing matches it for clean and cheap power and what more do we want? Who needs windmills? Certainly not in coal rich Germany or Australia. So why are all the windmills being built in places where they are not needed in the forseeable future? On top of all the oil in the North Sea? That is a crime against humanity when you consider people in Africa have no electricity, so no refrigeration, so no antibiotics! All the rich countries are building windmills and solar farms. The self indulgence, the utter selfishness of the Green voters is staggering.
Underneath all this angst about coal is the outrageous lie by repetition that coal power is dirty power and CO2 is pollution. Ridiculous. So all carbon lifeforms are dirty? That’s everything on the planet from bugs and barnacles to bears. I thought the Greens loved nature? Coal is only old rotted plants. Nothing man made at all and life giving chlorophyll is a very dirty long chain hydrocarbon which turns CO2 back to the oxygen we need. It all came from CO2 or we would not have any oxygen. Where is the thank you for CO2, the wonder gas which supports all life? All is pollution apparently but then as Green peace founder Dr Pat Moore says, Greenpeace do not have a scientist among them.
Coal is incredible and yes, it will run out. Then you can forget the hundreds of thousands of old rusted and very dangerous windmills. They will be quite dead, never used. An endless blot on landscapes, ancient monuments to a forgotten religion of Global Warming. What a useless waste, but typical of an indulgent rich self focused society and a crazy religion. It will be very hard for later generations to understand because it does not make sense even now.
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The two major parties here, and the greens, have prevention of global warming as part of their mantras. The greens are totally behind renewable energy, and Labor’s position is 50% renewable by 2030 as espoused by Mr. Shorten, whilst the coalition has more modest goals. The basic assumption is that carbon dioxide causes global warming, therefore don’t use fossil fuels; evidence supporting this hypothesis is debatable and by no means proven.
We need enough electricity generation to provide about 25,000 GW for our cities and industry, so already having 3668 MW of wind turbines we would need another 50,000 minus 3668, say, 46,000 GW of wind turbines to achieve Labor’s target; that is using a capacity factor of 25%.
Using the Macarthur windfarm as a model this means 5,500 ha. for 420 MW , or 13 ha. per MW of capacity, therefore 13 x 46,000 ha. = 598,170 ha. of additional windfarm. or roughly 77 km.x 77 km. of windfarm!
Not really feasible nor achievable I would have thought, just a political thought bubble. And what happens when they are all idle which happens quite regularly, e.g. from Thursday at noon until today at noon with only about 10% production.
As for solar it’s only 9 am to 4 pm.
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By no means proven? Really?
What warming? It is disproven. There was ‘warming’ for ten years and nothing for decades before or since. Then the ‘warming’ may well have been simple instrument change in the 1980s, not warming at all. 0.5C is only a reading error for thermometers we replaced. As for being caused by CO2, CO2 has steadily increased for a century but there has been no simultaneous change in temperature, so that is disproven. How long does this ‘global warming’ take? How do you get Climate Change from CO2?
It is this fear of CO2 which has been whipped up, when this is the gas of life. Everyone is made from CO2, trees are made from CO2 and oxygen comes only from CO2. We are not dirty and polluted. The oceans are not acidic. There is no warming. Why are we building huge windmill farms and solar farms in countries which do not need them? Will they protect rich countries from CO2? What sort of science fantasy is this?
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TdeF: it’s a fantasy that’s made a lot of people rich, got a lot of people promoted and much more -Nobel Prizes, industrial contracts, and fame – all based on nonsensical pseudo-science. I’ve said this before on this site, but for the warmists I’ll say it again. In the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750AD), CO2 was, so we’re told, present in the atmosphere at 280ppm. Now it’s just over 400ppm, and the human race is still here.
As you point out, the temperature changes which cause so much hand wringing are trivial – fractions of a degree.
Where is the dangerous man-made global warming we’ve heard so much about? Let’s not call it ‘climate change’!
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Germany Finance 2016
It is rumoured that Germany will incur a small deficit because of its refugee policy in 2016.
The law in Germany regarding deficits is strict, even Merkel is not immune.
2016 is definitely proving to be an interesting year
Thank you Jo for posting the video of the Wind generator. Apparently the life span of these things is also dependent on the wind blowing (but not too much) 😮
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… even Merkel is not immune
I’m afraid she is, as is Hollande and the Dutch.
They have broken the Brussels rules on deficits quite often with no repercussion at all. The very fact of a deficit has been covered up, denied. The EU and its’ bastardised child bureaucracy in Brussels do exactly what they want whnever they want. Hypocrisy is a concept reserved for the hoi-polloi.
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[…] reading: http://joannenova.com.au/2016/04/german-govt-plans-will-kill-wind-industry/ […]
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