The Top Ten solar companies don’t pay any dividends
Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden says he is wary of switching completely to renewables as it may threaten the very survival of the company.
Amazing that the oil and gas giant Shell got its shareholders to vote on whether they should put their profits towards becoming a 100% renewables corporation.
Major investors have been applying pressure on Shell to increase focus on renewables in order to mitigate climate change risks.
97 percent of Shell shareholders at its annual meeting on Tuesday rejected a resolution to invest profits from fossil fuels to become a renewable energy company. The Anglo-Dutch firm had previously said it was against the proposal.
So despite twenty years of relentless spin that “Clean Green Energy” is the future, 97% of investors know it isn’t.
Once again, the green sector have overplayed their hand. Shell‘s been good to them, pandering to the fear campaign for years, donating to their causes, and lobbying for carbon credits (because even and oil and gas company can get extra profits from big-government gravy into “sequestration” and biofuels.) But the green activists were not content. Too much is never enough.
Oil and gas companies have come increasingly under the spotlight particularly after the COP21 agreement in Paris at the end of last year and its reinforced goal to limit global carbon emissions.
The CEO knows exactly how much money solar energy makes:
Van Beurden said all the top 10 solar companies in the world represent $14bn in capital employed and invested $5 billion in solar energy last year, but none had so far paid any dividends.
With no grip on numbers, Green activists will push into fantasy land every time.
h/t Jim
Another reality check for warmist fearmongers!
GeoffW
251
They are not looking for a reality check, they fully understand what they are after and I’d suggest that they know the consequences as well. It’s just that they don’t care, as long as their agenda is achieved.
241
as long as their agenda is achieved.
Ah yes, Agenda 21.
71
Whenever I think of Agenda 21, I think of what happened to the Russian Romoanov family….
Exactly the same desired outcome by the extreme greenies…doubt it not.
This might seem harsh, until you undertsand they awant anyone who resists them, and generally 95% reduction in humanites numbers. Its intersting to note that Agenda 21 also allows for/desires crowding humanity into mega cites. AOne benefit of mega cities is that you clear the countryside of people ( which they desire ) but also in densely populated cities, disease can spread very quickly if the water , sanitation or power stops. This little tidbit is often ignored by people as it assume it could *never* happen to them. Think FEMA and its “centres”….
70
Shouldn’t that be ‘reality cheque’?
140
Quoting Geoffrey Williams – “Another reality check for warmist fearmongers”
Today is Day 9 at the 2016 French Open at Roland Garros in Paris – it is 2.30pm in the afternoon (day light saving) and it is 13 degrees and been raining all day. Day 9 is a total washout and it also rained a fair bit yesterday and it is forecast to rain the next few days as well. Well clearly it is not “GW” so the “warmist fearmongers will put it down to “Climate Change” because you see if it is cold & wet then you can’t mention “GC”. A bit like that nasty character in the Harry Potter novels, Lord Voldemort – “he who shall not be named!!!!”
70
Shell is one of the evil companies that funds the UEA Climate Research Unit.
111
They and BP actually started UEA Climate Research Unit. They demonised coal. Renewables can’t operate without the back up power from gas and oil. This suits Shell and BP.
111
There are times in business when attacking competitors is shooting yourself in the foot. There was a classic case where a big railroad was cutting freight prices in order to drive a smaller railroad out of business. After several drastic price cuts, they were losing money, but the competitor showed no sign of going under. An investigator went out to see how the little RR could survive. He soon sent a telegram to the home office: “STOP CUTTING PRICES! HE’S BUYING CATTLE AND SHIPPING THEM ON OUR RAILROAD!”
160
Looks like more Green investors need to invest in Shell 🙂
334
Hey, where’s my red thumbs. 🙁
1214
Feel better? 🙂
91
Yes, much better..
now I know someone cares enough to at least press the red button, …
…even if they haven’t the guts to actually respond. 🙂
66
I get worried about them if they are not there..
Have they jumped off a cliff in despair,
… have they committed hari-kari because of their deep feelings of ineptitude…
…. deeply concern… !
74
I’m no psychoclimatologist like Lewandowsky, but your codependency with red thumbs is either a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on…whatever thing it is which will get me some funding to study it.
71
When you have a tribe of little puppies that follow you around, and they suddenly go missing…
… of course you get worried.
Have a heart, man, think of the puppies. !!!
72
Don’t want to go all pedantic on you,Andy, but it’s harakiri or seppuku – ritual disembowlment. Just sayin’ 🙂
50
Oops, and I wasn’t quick enough to catch ‘disembowelment’ 🙁
40
Actually Lawn Bowls is becoming trendy in the inner West of Sydney, younger people are playing barefoot bowls at some of the bowling clubs that were being disembowled by an ageing population trend.Looks like fun to me ,schooner of beer in one hand,biased ball in the other.
30
29 May: Commentary: Wind energy about to face major test
By Chris Tomlinson Houston Chronicle
NEW ORLEANS — The wind energy industry is on the clock to lower costs and address nagging questions around variability and scalability.
The production tax credits that gave rise to thousands of wind farms across the country will likely be gone after 2020. Wind developers will no longer have a 2.3 cent per kilowatt hour advantage when offering their electricity to utilities and large corporations.
An industry that claimed for decades that with a strategic boost it could eventually stand on its own two feet now has to live up to that promise. Accomplishing that was the main topic at the American Wind Energy Association’s annual conference held in New Orleans…
The wind industry has already lowered the cost per hour of electricity 60 percent over the last five years. But to compete without subsidies, average costs still need to drop from roughly $55 a megawatt hour to $35 a megawatt hour over the next four years, said Chris Brown, president of U.S. sales for Vestas, one of the largest turbine manufacturers in the world.
Every year the industry needs to lower equipment costs 2 percent to 4 percent, boost productivity 3 percent and reduce capital costs, he added…
General Electric and other manufacturers announced new lines of turbines that will decrease the unit cost of electricity, and they insist there’s room to improve.
“It’s going to come in a number of different areas: longer blades, taller towers, bigger nameplates (larger generators),” said Anne McEntee, CEO of GE’s Onshore Wind busine…
The future of wind energy is a hot topic around my house because my wife works in the renewable energy industry, though I never write about her company or projects. But the conference was surprisingly upbeat for an industry that is about to lose its major subsidy, with promises to supply 10 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2020…
Optimism does not make money, though, and there are those who worry that without new emissions limits on fossil-fuel plants, wind can’t compete with cheap natural gas…READ ALL FOR OTHER POSITIVE SPIN
http://www.mrt.com/business/article_2be60d66-2563-11e6-9171-0b85a8711244.html
29 May: Herald Scotland: Roy Wood: Should we grow crops for renewable energy?
The practice of growing crops for “renewable” energy is coming under increasing scrutiny by European governments and the EU…
Of course farmers across the EU are keen to have financial support from taxpayers to grow crops for fuel. Not only does such crops give them other income streams, it also reduces the quantity of crops for food coming onto the market and forces up prices.
Speaking at a recent conference in Brussels that discussed a sustainable EU bio-energy policy post 2020, Chairman of Copa & Cogeca (organisations representing EU farmers’ unions and farm co-ops) Bio-energy Working Party Dietrich Klein said: “Advanced bio-fuels have an additional and growing role to play by 2030. They improve the competitiveness of arable crops by creating additional market outlets for crops.”
Most farmers would agree with that statement, but the more discerning taxpayer will probably be asking why they should subsidise non-food crops to make the food they buy more expensive. They can be forgiven for thinking that subsidies paid to farmers from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were meant to help provide cheap food for EU consumers rather than make it more expensive…READ ALL
http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/14523867.Rog_Wood__Should_we_grow_crops_for_renewable_energy_/
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pat:
So they want to lower the cost to produce from $A79 to $A49 per MWh? Both figures are quite low and must represent to latest turbines installed, not older ones. But coal fired in the USA delivers at between $A15 and $A20 per MWh, so if Trump wins and revives the coal industry, no-one is going to install turbines at all.
Gas fired used to be more expensive but frakking produced a glut, lower prices and coal had difficulty competing once Obama added costs to their operations.
90
Hey again folks,
I’ve been reading more and more on the subject and getting into some debates on reddit of all places, but I still feel like I am out of my depth when it comes to specific scientific studies, for instance I was linked to this:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4655
Which shows a warming trend in the Indian and Pacific oceans between 300 and 1,000 feet (100 and 300 meters)
A quote from the article:
Does that make sense to anyone?
Also I’m wondering if anyone with a bit more experience / expertise wouldn’t mind giving me a bit of an assistance? Someone I can bounce around ideas and articles with? I don’t want to leave comments here that are unrelated to the main thread topic, but I think two or more minds are better than one!
I’m a gamer, so if anyone would like to add me through Steam, we could chat there, that’d be awesome. (Or on reddit!)
(Sorry if comments like this aren’t accepted but I figured I’d ask just in case someone wants to help).
50
Paul, I can’t answer your question from a technical point of view, but I can tell you is about the 89th reason promulgated to try and explain the fact that there has been no global warming for close to 20 years. It’s another “the sea has got my heat” stories. I am sure that some of the erudite posters jets will be able to explain the issue in detail.
171
“Posters on this site –“. Darn
40
Paul: I am not surprised you feel confused – I read the article and had to go back over it to try and sort it out. A. below is my answer to various statements by them.
extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans.
A. No proof of extra heat being present is offered.
The movement of the warm Pacific water westward pulled heat away from the surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific, which resulted in unusually cool surface temperatures during the last decade….this provides a plausible explanation for the global cooling trend in surface temperature.
A. It does??? How?
If the western part has warmed and the eastern part has cooled why is the effect negative? In algeba if (A+2) + (B-2) = C then A +B = C-2?.
this provides a plausible explanation for the global cooling trend in surface temperature.
A. They’ve been telling us for at least 10 years that the temperature is still rising (hence all the number of “hottest year ever”). Are they now saying that it was cooling?
Cooler surface temperatures also are related to a long-lived climatic pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which moves in a 20- to 30-year cycle.
A. The PDO exists and is roughly a 60-year cycle. It is in the northern Pacific and affects the weather in the USA. If it has been in a cooling mode since temperatures stopped rising (~1998) then it won’t be swinging back until about 2023 at the EARLIEST.
There currently are signs the pattern may be changing to the opposite phase, with observations showing warmer-than-usual water in the eastern Pacific.
A. In one statement they claim warm water in the Pacific has moved west, then they claim it is moving east.
Because the air temperature over the ocean is closely related to the ocean temperature, this provides a plausible explanation for the global cooling trend in surface temperature.
A. If the oceans are storing heat, why doesn’t this affect the global temperature, let alone cause a cooling trend? Because they measure the temperature over land and then look for excuses why their theory doesn’t work.
I might add that satellite temperature measurements which cover a lot of the Earth (but not all) show a little bit of warming for a while, then a bit of cooling (and a bit of warming in the last year or so). If there is extra heat accumulating in the oceans, why didn’t it show up?
TIP if they bring out 3 hazlenut shells and put a pea under one, then shuffle the shells around the table top before inviting you to pick which shell hides the pea, DON’T bet!
263
Thanks for the reply! Interesting thoughts on the article.
A question I had posed before, and I’m not sure if the opposite side has given an answer, but if it did turn out that most of the heat in the past 18 years went into the ocean instead of the atmosphere, my question would be, why?
Why would it go into the ocean instead of the atmosphere, when for the past 130 years, it’s gone into both at fairly even levels? Why would it suddenly decide to only go into the ocean?
Oh also, are there any datasets that measure the deeper parts of the ocean discussed in the article? Where are they getting their temperatures from?
130
There are precious few temperatures from the deep sea. It is usually given as 1℃ in the depths. There was a claim that they had measured a rise of 0.001 – 0.003℃ but how? Answer: Silence.
The depths they do quote are measured by the Argo buoys which have operated since 2003. There must be data somewhere (try Joanne’s archives, there was a post on that fairly recently if my memory can be trusted.
As for why “the heat” should change direction that is a good question. The “science” doesn’t explain it nor why it should happen. It is the sort of hocus-pocus that makes people into sceptics.
191
Just how would you measure 0.001 to 0.003C? I bet the uncertainty in those measurements are much larger than the change they claim.
40
The measurements are imaginary so the accuracy is the same.
20
Only explanation is a whale fart, A blue whale’s fart bubbles are large enough to enclose a horse. The forward thrust generated with each fart can propel the whale fifteen metres.
So considering the bubble size and a whales core temperature ~37°C one could engulf a 1.1 metre Argo Buoy giving a short false reading.
30
Bob Tisdale has some incredibly detailed analysis and a few eBooks on ocean temperatures if you really want to delve into the subject.
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/
It’s far too involved for me to get into, though – I prefer to concentrate on energy discussions
71
This graph explains things reasonably well
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/figure-42.png
Basically ZERO coverage below 700m in the southern oceans, where most of the water is, before 2003
Not that flash in the NH either !
Even with ARGO, in 2010 they were stretching to 30% coverage in the NH, and maybe 50% in the SH
Still not as bad as the Surface temperature coverage. 😉
30
Thermal vents and submarine volcanos. We are all sitting on a ball of molten rock, with a very thin crust. Every so often the equipment in my office shakes, just to remind me of that fact.
60
Again Paul, you will find good background reading on the ocean heat topic at Jo Nova’s previous posts:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/study-shows-argo-ocean-robots-uncertainty-was-up-to-100-times-larger-than-advertised/
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/02/how-to-unscientifically-hype-insignificant-noise-in-ocean-warming/
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/10/missing-heat-not-in-deep-oceans-but-found-in-missing-data-in-upper-ocean/
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/ipcc-in-denial-just-so-excuses-use-mystery-ocean-heat-to-hide-their-failure/
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/the-travesty-of-the-missing-heat-deep-ocean-or-outer-space/
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/ocean-temperatures-the-new-bluff-in-alarmism/
00
Paul,
The answer to that is, it wouldn’t. The laws of physics by which incoming radiation interacts with the atmosphere and the ocean didn’t suddenly change. And there is no argument anyone can make to contradict that. It’s a fact — the laws of physics are immutable. Therefore there was no change in the way heat interacts with either one.
Jaymez has posted links to some very good explanations about what you’re asking about.
00
All the non-explanations in the NASA article remind me of this old song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxU995zbfno
20
Paul,
Some points in no particular order:
Ocean heat capacity is absolutely huge. And so any discrepancies in atmospheric temperature projections can be accounted for by the slightest of changes in ocean temperatures. If you make a lot of assumptions about what is happening at the deepest levels where little is measured.
The Argo Array has only been fully functional since about 2006, so the accurate records do not go back very far.
Some will quote ocean temperature records going back to the mid 1950s, but these were very sporadic, and often related to shipping channels and certain scientific voyages. Later, commercial and military shipping took surveys in shipping routes and on longer voyages, but it was hardly ‘global’. Also of note, the technology of recording varied greatly over time: Thermometers in buckets for surface temperatures, then engine inlet sensors for surface temperatures (adjustments needed to correlate the two). For deeper temperatures initially reversing thermometers were used, then a disposable probe (XBT) then later fixed and then Argo floats. Adjustments are required, in fact the entire XBT record was fairly recently recently adjusted after finding an error in the algorithm used.
The Argo floats are individually very very accurate, but errors in correlation between depth sensors and temperatures meant some data/some floats were removed from record due to an ‘artificial cooling bias’.
There is also the little statistical issue as to whether the ‘law of large numbers’ applies with the Argo floats: ie they are not repeatedly measuring the same thing, but are forever drifting in depth and direction. This is perhaps a moot point if they are really as supremely accurate as is stated.
To me, their conclusions may quite possibly be entirely accurate, but this is very much a developing data set, the data does not go back very far, and the conclusions are suppositions.
130
Paul the natural oscillations are the main players and anything else you hear, along the lines of the ocean swallowed the hiatus warmth, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Be critical of everything involving models and instead fall back on intuition, commonsense, observation and intellectual curiosity.
As a point of interest, apparently the subtropical ridges in both hemispheres are intensifying, now if you look at the synoptic chart for Australia this Thursday you should see the phenomenon.
61
Paul:
Percentage of ocean temperature monitored since 1950. charts. 2013
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/26/ocean-heat-new-study-shows-climate-scientists-can-still-torture-data-until-the-data-confess/
61
Figure 4 on the article linked – % of ocean measured.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/26/ocean-heat-new-study-shows-climate-scientists-can-still-torture-data-until-the-data-confess/
50
You really do have to ask why the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA is concerning itself with
Yes, the JPL may employ Rocket Scientists, but that does not equip the organisation to comment on Hydrology. It is totally outside their remit.
That report was a 100% Gold Plated stitch-up, that hopes to leverage one of the few remaining US Government sponsored agencies that has some credibility left.
Come on guys, we are supposed to be skeptical, yes?
232
We are sceptical of AGW but we still require some clue as to what is really happening.
What is the cause for the invigoration of the Southern Ocean carbon sink? The falling blue line indicates its increasing absorption.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/media/436198/air-sea-flux-anomaly.png
30
Paul, one of the names is Josh Willis, who admitted to deliberately erasing/ignoring ARGO buoys that showed a cooling trend.
I’m sure someone here will have the link. (Was on my old computer)
93
If true, that is as corrupt as I can imagine a scientist being. Wow.
Do you have a source for that? Was it in climategate?
Also, what is your take on climategate itself? Were they real emails or forged?
45
Read this excellent summary and commentary on the Climategate emails.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdf
John Costella explains it well and it is a good read.
Also have a look at some of the other articles on the Lavoisier Group website.
43
1. On the on the Willis Argo Buoy adjustments see ://jennifermarohasy.com/2008/11/correcting-ocean-cooling-nasa-changes-data-to-fit-the-models/
2, With regards Climate Gate I and II, they have been discussed extensively at this site. You can search on any topic in the top right hand side of the page. That might then obviate the need to bring up an old topic in a new post if you are genuinely looking to get the background and information you are looking for. For instance, on the Climategate topic alone you could read, in descending chronological order:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/finally-the-new-revised-and-edited-climategate-timeline/
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/hot-new-search-tool-for-climategate-i-and-ii-combined/
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/climategate-iii-the-password-is-out/
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/east-anglia-university-are-trying-to-spot-hoaxes/
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/climategate-ii-handy-guide-to-spot-whitewash-journalism-the-top-10-excuses-for-scientists-behaving-badly/
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/more-emails-phil-jones-paid-13-7-million-in-grants-but-not-a-public-servant/
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/breaking-more-emails-released-climategate-ii/
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/soul-searching-enviro-journalists-admit-they-look-duped-and-should-have-talked-to-sceptics/
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/04/speigel-online/
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/03/putting-climategate-in-perspective/
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/climategate-arrives-in-the-us/
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/new-scientist-becomes-non-scientist/
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/cru-data-cooking-recipe-exposed/
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/the-australian-gets-serious/
00
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
Josh Willis:
“Basically, I used the sea level data as a bridge to the in situ [ocean-based] data,” explains Willis, comparing them to one another figuring out where they didn’t agree. “First, I identified some new Argo floats that were giving bad data; they were too cool compared to other sources of data during the time period. It wasn’t a large number of floats, but the data were bad enough, so that when I tossed them, most of the cooling went away.”
Pretty shocking,really. Without confirmation that the floats were indeed malfunctioning or were miscalibrated in some way, Willis just “tossed” their data.
71
Thanks Ted, that’s what I was after 🙂
21
The null hypothesis for the modern warm period is that the warming represents recovery from the Little Ice Age.
It is up to the warmunists to prove that incorrect with their ‘settled science’.
~ ~ ~
NASA explains the halt in Global Warming in 2009
Figure 1: The world’s surface air temperature change (“anomaly”), relative to the world’s mean temperature of 58° F or 14.5° C, averaged over land and oceans from 1975 to 2008. Inset are two periods of no warming or cooling within this overall warming trend.
In 2013, Trenberth proposed that the missing heat had gone into the deep oceans:
“The oceans can at times soak up a lot of heat. Some goes into the deep oceans where it can stay for centuries.”
2014: Lack of ocean heat puzzles Nasa
“Some studies have suggested that heat is being absorbed temporarily by the deep seas, and that this so-called global warming hiatus is a temporary trend.
But latest data from satellite and direct ocean temperature measurements from 2005 to 2013 “found the ocean abyss below 1,995m has not warmed measurably,” Nasa said in a statement.”
~ ~ ~
Paul: “Which shows a warming trend in the Indian and Pacific oceans between 300 and 1,000 feet (100 and 300 meters)”
As we see, there is no missing heat found in the deep oceans, which brings us back to between 300 and 1,000 feet (100 and 300 meters).
The warmunists claim the SkS widget 4HiroshimaBombs shows the correct amount of heat supposedly going into the oceans since 1998.
Thats a lotta missing heat hiding in such a small section of the planet’s oceans.
51
Hi Paul. By now you should have found your answers in the previous Jo nova posts I pointed you to. Specifically including this on: http://joannenova.com.au/2015/02/how-to-unscientifically-hype-insignificant-noise-in-ocean-warming/
WRT “Also I’m wondering if anyone with a bit more experience / expertise wouldn’t mind giving me a bit of an assistance? Someone I can bounce around ideas and articles with?”
I don’t think you cold do better than to use the Jo Nova posts as your source. I doubt there is any important point in the climate debate which hasn’t been discussed and explained in one of Jo’s posts. Either use the search facility on Jo’s page, or simply google. ‘topic’ jo nova and the relevant posts should come up.
00
I have to smile every time I hear of greenie friends of the dirt having a go at companies like Shell. I know that they are an Energy Company per se, but you think they’d be having a go at those many Companies making the huge equipment that actually powers the World. (and trust me on this, there’s a lot of those companies making equipment like this)
Those greenie followers are all clueless Pixie Ann Wheatley types when it comes to matters like this. What they fail to realise is that these huge companies have actual knowledgeable advisors who tell them the truth about where they should invest their money, that technologies like renewables just don’t work, and any money on a huge scale invested in them is a lose lose situation.
I want you to look at the image at this link. This is from just one of those dozen or more companies working on equipment like this.
This is a large generator, just one generator.
This one generator generates more power sent to the grid in a year than EVERY wind plant in Australia.
Compare this one generator now to the largest concentrating solar power plant on Earth, that plant at Ivanpah, which has three 125MW Units. (one turbine driving a 125MW generator per unit)
To deliver the same power to the grid as that one generator in the image, you would need 60 of those units, so 20 Ivanpahs.
Here’s an image of the multi stage turbine which would drive a generator similar to the one in the above image.
Only coal fired power can drive that turbine/generator unit.
THAT is what those advisors might tell executives of Shell and like Companies. Other than that truth, some perhaps sarcastic advice might go along these lines.
“So then, you want to construct a renewable power plant, eh! It would be cheaper to dig a monster hole in the ground, light a fire at the bottom, and have two Caterpillar D9’s bulldozing money into the hole.”
Tell this to greenies and the only thought they would come up with is that they should just hook up one of those turbine/generator units to one of those solar plants.
It will just sit there, never even getting to the point where it would turn over.
Just another statue to idi0cy!
Tony.
382
You left off nuclear. But otherwise, spot on.
161
And here’s their even more impressive unit that is used to generate most of the electricity in the industralized country with the lowest CO2 emissions per capita bar NONE – France.
https://www.gepower.com/steam/products/turbogenerators/gigatop-4-pole.html
3 Ivanpah’s solar collectors combined would just get it running on a sunny day. That’s over half a million heliostats => over a million mirrors (How much cleaning folks? I see green jobs!).
71
2 of Ivanpah’s units are out of action, so the only thing being driven is the people who put up the investment. Who were they? Mostly taxpayers who never got asked about “the investment”.
140
Wiki;
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility
[ quoted variously;]
&
&
&
& [ from another Wiki source;]
It was reported in November 2014 that the investors in the plant were applying for a $539 million federal grant to pay off their federal loan
————————
.
Nov 2014;
Google Engineers Explain Why They Stopped R&D in Renewable Energy
[ quote;]
Two Google engineers who worked on the RE<C initiative have finally opened up about why the team halted their efforts. And it wasn't because they thought existing renewables were enough to decarbonize the global economy.
"Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach," wrote Google's Ross Koningstein and David Fork in a piece published yesterday in IEEE's Spectrum.
It's a striking admission from a company that has relentlessly supported the growth of renewable energy.
When Google first set out on its mission, the RE<C team was convinced that existing renewables (or those close to commercialization) could reduce emissions enough to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But by 2011, when engineers realized that their investments were not playing out as expected, they ditched the program and set out to rethink its goals.
"As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions," wrote Koningstein and Fork.
The team came to that conclusion after examining different scenarios for renewable energy penetration using a low-carbon modeling tool from the consulting firm McKinsey. They compared those scenarios to former NASA scientist James Hansen's famous 2008 model showing that a 350 ppm emissions level was needed to stabilize the climate.
They didn't find promising results:
We decided to combine our energy innovation study’s best-case scenario results with Hansen’s climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require…radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.
Those calculations cast our work at Google’s RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants — a situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation study’s best-case scenario. Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking: Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change.
Two Google engineers who worked on the RE<C initiative have finally opened up about why the team halted their efforts. And it wasn't because they thought existing renewables were enough to decarbonize the global economy.
"Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach," wrote Google's Ross Koningstein and David Fork in a piece published yesterday in IEEE's Spectrum.
It's a striking admission from a company that has relentlessly supported the growth of renewable energy.
When Google first set out on its mission, the RE<C team was convinced that existing renewables (or those close to commercialization) could reduce emissions enough to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But by 2011, when engineers realized that their investments were not playing out as expected, they ditched the program and set out to rethink its goals.
"As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions," wrote Koningstein and Fork.
The team came to that conclusion after examining different scenarios for renewable energy penetration using a low-carbon modeling tool from the consulting firm McKinsey. They compared those scenarios to former NASA scientist James Hansen's famous 2008 model showing that a 350 ppm emissions level was needed to stabilize the climate.
They didn't find promising results:
We decided to combine our energy innovation study’s best-case scenario results with Hansen’s climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use.
So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require…radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.
Those calculations cast our work at Google’s RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants — a situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation study’s best-case scenario.
Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change.
This realization was frankly shocking:
Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change.
91
Darn @$#%;
Double up on some of that above post @ #6.1.1.1.1
My apologies folks.
40
CO2 level is not rising exponentially. Close examination of the curve over recent years reveals it’s going up in a straight line. But what’s one more lie?
90
Analitik,
the 4 Pole Generator you linked to is the one used for those big Nukes.
Trust me here. That generator will never even move, no matter how many mirrors they use to point at their solar power tower.
The largest unit they CAN get to actually turn over is that 125MW unit at Ivanpah.
It has everything to do with the weight of the rotor inside that generator, the long silver coloured thing you see in that expl0ded image of the generator.
Everything depends on the weight of that rotor. That has to be turned over at 3000RPM (3600RPM in the U.S.) and snap your fingers, as that’s 50 rotations of anything up to 400 tonnes.
To make that weight turn over, it requires a custom sized turbine, as shown in my first comment above.
To make that multi stage turbine turn over requires humungous amounts of high pressure steam.
To make that steam requires huge amounts of heat, only the province of coal fired furnaces. (or a large scale nuclear reaction)
So everything is dependant on the actual weight of the generator’s rotor structure.
CSP cannot make the huge amounts of steam required. They can make enough, but only just, to drive a turbine specifically designed for a 125MW generator, as used at Ivanpah.
It’s explained in more depth in a Post of my own at this following link (from 7 years ago, so I was still only learning here)
The Problem With Solar Thermal Power
Tony.
150
I should have made my comment “3 x Ivanpah’s solar collectors combined”.
I fully understand CSP and it’s limits. You would also need to add a lot of thermal insulation to the steam pipes for the runs to the turbine but it could be done, in a pure engineering sense. It just wouldn’t be practical which is why they site the (much) smaller generators at the towers.
My post was to give an idea of the ridiculous scaling needed for CSP to produce meaningful amounts of power, without even thinking of the much vaunted storage that can be implemented with molten salt. With that option, the power output falls as you scale in the amount of thermal storage (since the energy collected doesn’t vary but the usage is spread out over time) so the example I gave would easily double for a CSP plant with a few hours of storage.
30
“3 x Ivanpah’s solar collectors combined” – multiple towers (9),each with it’s set of 57,000+ heliostats, with output combined to feed a single turbine if I’m not being clear enough.
40
And that generator would still not turn over, ever, no matter how many mirrors and solar collectors in towers.
Back in 2008, I trawled through a serious paper, 648 pages pdf document detailing what they thought would be the future of CSP. That paper was written in 2001. The prediction was that by 2008, they would be able to drive a single 250MW generator with some heat diversion. By 2012 the prediction was a 500MW single generator with some heat diversion and by 2015, a 500MW single generator with 15 hours heat diversion, the aimed for dream of what they called baseload power.
Here we are in 2016, and the biggest unit is still only 125MW, which they can just barely get to turn over, as long as they have a Natural gas turbine to run it up to speed and keep it there until the heat is enough for the CSP steam component to take over, and that solar component is lucky to achieve four hours power generation, and virtually none at all in the Winter Months.
This paper was the typical model.
If it actually could be done, it would have been done by now, but they are no closer to it than they were in 2001.
Tony.
120
It can be done but the overheads are too high (even beyond the ridiculous overheads inherent in CSP). The outlet temperature for the Ivanpah towers is 1050 deg Fahrenheit (565 Celcius – around that of a HELE coal plant and far above that of a PWR) and the cycle pressure is 160 bar (16 MPa). The issue is the rate at which the steam can be generated to drive the generator (ie mechanical power) and running multiple collectors can do this. It’s just a preposterous configuration that allows for zero redundancy and rules out partial operation which is why even renewables proponents would not specify such a plant layout. But is it POSSIBLE to make it work (for brief periods at inordinate cost).
http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projectID=62
20
Hi Tony,
Is there a sweet spot whereby to maintain a decent power output south of 100 MW per turbine? Given the amount of torque you would need per turbine to turn over, with solar maybe its just practially limted to using lots of smaller turbines end of story….
Thoughts welcome…
20
OriginalSteve, how right you are in respect of smaller turbines.
I did analysis on all the CSP plants in Spain, all 24 of them. I collated them all into a table for the sake of seeing them all in the one place with all the relevant information.
That table is shown in the image at this link.
Note that 20 of those 24 Plants have a Nameplate that is either 50MW or multiples of 50MW. A 50MW turbine/generator unit is the best case for CSP, so where you see those plants with multiples of 50MW, then they have solar fields to support 50MW units, eg, 100MW is two units, 150 is three and 200 is four.
All of them use Natural Gas (NG) to run the units in the mornings until the compound medium is molten enough to support wholly solar operation. The more heat diversion, (in hours) then the more the NG turbine is used.
Where you see those indicated hours of heat diversion, be aware that this is only the case for the middle of Summer, as in most cases, they are not economically viable to run the plants in Winter, and most close down for the Winter Months.
If the plants did not have NG to start and run the units, there’s every chance that they would not even start at all until well after the compound medium became molten enough to support the unit.
Those two U.S. plants which run the specifically designed 125MW turbine/generator would never start without their NG turbines.
Tony.
60
Tony,
Have you any idea how supposedly sound engineers come up with these wild projections of what’s possible? It’s almost like they’re playing a computer game and can change the rules at will.
Isn’t anyone in the solar industry capable of being embarrassed?
00
Hi Tony
Thanks. I think what I was thinking is that with perhaps one large turbine, there would be some form of efficiency in terms of maintenance costs, however having multiple smaller turbines means more maintenace costys, but soem form of redundancy, although I’m not sure how many hours a typicla 150MW turbine has for MTBF…..
In terms of economics, it would be intersting to see over a 20 year life, once you factored in all the extra maintenance, spare parts and plant costs to run multiple smaller turbines and extra natural gas infrastructure to start up / run in winter, whether its viable or not.
Thoughts welcome….
00
Statue to idiocy is right on Tony. Wind turbine use is environmental vandalism. Possibly even wind turbine terrorism.
There is even a proposal to license electricity users in the UK.
103
License electricity users??? What would you need to do to get the license, a safety test? The lessons are just 3 and every kid learns them before age 5 or 6:
1. Don’t try to use electric gadgets while in the bathtub.
2. The light goes on and off when you toggle the switch.
3. Don’t forget to plug in your appliances.
And just for good measure, don’t stick your finger in the light socket.
00
Tony Ivanpah looks like going out of business.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/solar_energys_real_problem.html
60
No worries, I feel sure Anastasia will want it put on a ship and moved here to Queensland.
Tony.
70
Hi Tony,
Have you finished your response to the Queensland Ruinable Energy Expert Panel yet? Any chance of a copy? I’m registered to comment, but it doesn’t look like I can view any other responses. I can give them a few pages of home truths, but I’ll likely be involved in a town planning court battle coming up around the deadline for comment to QREEP …
90
Martin,
eight days now my Submission has been with them, and still it doesn’t show at their site.
I’m sort of not holding my breath, but in perhaps another two or three days, I might send them an email and politely ask the question.
I’m pretty sure that they really are required to put it up at their site because it’s a Submission to a Government Body, not quite sure.
If they don’t, then I have a couple of other options I hope to follow.
I notice from your site that you have an email address.
The document is in Word, so if you say so, I can email you a copy of the document if you wish.
Tony.
80
Thanks Tony, yes please, email it.
With previous calls for submissions on planning matters, you only got to see them after the comment period has closed, so this might be the same. The explanation (or excuse) might be that it cuts down the +1 me too, petition type responses, or objections to the responses of others. As you have already noticed, the “consultation questions” are loaded with trip-wires. They are mostly full on in support of renewables, so merely pointing out the obvious insanity of the meme can result in a response being ignored as “not properly made”.
40
Tony. What percentage of Shell is left after shell pays back money it has borrowed. Same question for other corporations?
Here is just one sauce i used to make this assertion. The sauce uses multiple sauces.
From Zerohedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-24/fuse-lit-corporate-bond-market
“The Fuse is Lit on the Corporate Bond Market”
“The media continues to claim that the only sectors in trouble of a slow down are commodity players, particularly energy.
It’s a nice narrative: everyone knows that Oil and other commodities have collapsed in value, putting pressure on their producers.
Unfortunately, it’s not true.”
The world has been on a massive borrowing binge since 2009.”
“A corporate bond is a bond issued by a corporation in order to raise financing for a variety of reasons such as to ongoing operations, M&A, or to expand business. The term is usually applied to longer-term debt instruments, with maturity of at least one year.
Corporate bond – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_bond
50
From the article above: “And if you believe the defaults will be isolated to Energy companies, you’re mistaken. Corporate leverage has skyrocketd in the last four years. And as we noted earlier, the quality of the bonds being issued is suspect at best.”
40
Tony
This comment from
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/30/nuclear-demands-a-share-of-illinois-carbon-subsidies/
” michael hart
May 30, 2016 at 12:31 pm
“Politicians quickly learn that they cannot allow now unprofitable fossil fuel and nuclear power companies to fail.”
I have to disagree. They are learning far too slowly. But politicians were quick to ignore people who told them the truth many years ago. They ignored the advice of competent advisors, and believed that environmental advocates had discovered something that competent engineers and scientists hadn’t.
If you lie down with greenpeace then you will get mould and economic gangrene.”
70
All those things you mention are controlled/indebted to the finance industry.
The secret to getting “economic gangrene” is to get into debt.
2 big to fail means more debt. Tax payers don’t actually have money when it comes to government. The standard treasury is a government bond (IOU) which an appropriate bank can monetise out of thin air.
Your mission if you choose to accept it is to find a corporation/large company or government that is not in debt.
40
IMO Michael Hart’s observation seems to apply to the Queensland vegetation management laws too
30
Tony
What about solar and household batteries ? catalyst had a program about this a little while ago.
Talking about how it would change everything etc. does this have legs or face the same issues as renewables in general?
Regards
Stevo
20
Tony’s commented on it before
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/02/the-amazing-brilliant-one-of-a-kind-mark-steyn-tours-australia/#comment-1783140
And others too
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/03/easter-unthreaded/#comment-1793804
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/05/children-win-climate-change-legal-case-lose-future-economy/#comment-1806301
30
Thanks
00
The thought of having a massive lithium battery bolted to my house gives me the creeps….if it caught fire it would be a ferocious fire
00
Bolt a water tank next to it and when the fire melts through it puts it out.
00
In today’s Brisbane Courier Mail there are two letter writers claiming:
(1) “This month both Tasmania and Portugal had days where all power was provided by renewables;Iceland ,of course, has been doing this for years”
(2) “Germany recently produced so much renewable energy that commercial customers were paid to use electricity, while Denmark regularly exports excess power produced by its windfarms”
Does anyone have stats to check such claims?
Of the top of my head Tasmania might have been able to skinny through with hydro but you have to ask why they need Basslink to be replaced.
Iceland has a lot of geothermal?
Germany and Denmark have a lot of windfarms but given the unpredictability of wind isn’t the letter writer simply reflecting the fact that once generated the power has to go somewhere and in Europe that means export…but there have to be just as many instances when there is no wind ,no windpower thus requiring imports or fossil fuel or nuclear or blackouts to rescue the consumers from the shortcomings of renewables?
71
John
I don’t think the facts will back up the claims. Denmark is actually reducing its wind generation capacity because it loses so much money. They sell excess to their northern neighbours during autumn and spring when the wind blows but energy demand is down, then during winter they have to buy back electricity to keep the lights on –buying at a much higher rate than selling. So they are rethinking their energy policy.
Germany is building about 20 new coal fired power stations to help cover the reduction in nuclear power. So obviously the wind mills do not supply enough.
90
I have a plan for a new low energy SUV that has a Vespa motor scooter bolted on at each corner.
The theory is that each scooter uses far less fuel than a standard average SUV internal combustion engine and therefore the emissions output must be lower.
I have not done a cost-benefit analysis but have forwarded my theory to the extreme Greens.
The SSUV would come in standard green outside and red-pink interior.
100
Denis you are talking about Extreme Carbon Greens. This blog really needs a cleanup when it comes to spreading information about Carbon Greens which are not the same as ordinary, forest saving greens who have a diverse environmental interest.
If looks like a Carbon Green and talks like a Carbon Green, then it is probably a Carbon Green.
For people who fit in the category of ordinary green tree hugger etc, it is a real insult to be put in the Carbon Green category.
30
There is also an ‘Extreme Carbon Green’.
Thanks.
20
The Australian newspaper reported in 2014 or 2015 that our former Treasurer Costello had returned from a trip to Germany where he met a former German Minister for Foreign Affairs who is a Green. Costello would not repeat the exact words however did indicate that the German described the Australian Greens as being far to the left of international Green politics.
40
For Portugal, have a look at http://euanmearns.com/did-portugal-run-for-four-days-on-renewables-alone/
It looks like they lost money doing this because they had to export power at a low price a lot of the time. Which make you have to wonder why they didn’t curtail their wind turbines rather than generate heaps of low value electricity…
Tasmania had to use some of their rainfall else it would have been wasted but the reservoirs are still pretty low – see the comments at http://euanmearns.com/the-tasmanian-energy-crisis/
Germany often has to dump power as they cannot seem to curtail output effectively and the losses (paying users to take power that they are forced to pay the wind/PV farms for) get passed into domestic consumer electricity rates – http://notrickszone.com/2016/05/21/germanys-volatile-power-grid-spinning-dangerously-out-of-control-prices-go-negative-25-times-in-2015/
30
J.W.
Try working through euanmearns.com where these claims are examined in depth. Lots of graphs etc.
The short answer is that Tasmania still had to use gas for most of the time. The wind power they’ve got is minor and really a waste of money. NOTE hydro used to be classified as non-renewable until the greenies realised it was the major part of non conventional generation so including it makes their figures look far more impressive.
Iceland relies mostly on hydro (approx. 75%) the rest is geothermal.
Re reply from Ross:
Some years ago the prices for Denmark – Norway exchange were $A26 per MWh (export from Denmark) and $A83 to buy back. Since then the onslaught of German surplus (which comes at the same time) skews the export price even to negative. The Norwegians love it.
Incidentally you will hear the “Denmark gets X percent of its electricity from wind” – it isn’t true and hasn’t been for many years. (X was 42% for 2015). What they do is try and use about 10% wind overall and export the rest. With the ‘hiding’ they get on export/import the price of Danish electricity is very high.
50
The Tasmanian reserves are back to 23% as of today which is about the same as were mid Dec. There were good falls of rain the previous week which put them up to 20% and it allowed all the stations in the Mersey-Forth scheme to be used as water was going over the spillways. The only dam spilling now is Paloona the last dam on the Forth River.
As well the two windfarms (300+ MW) were running at approx. 55% for May, about twice the production of the previous two months.
This would have allowed some respite for the Tamar Valley station which has been producing since January.
The main storages, Lake Gordon and the Great Lake, are way below capacity and will take years to refill, if ever.
People seem to be blaming lack of rainfall for their predicament, but I would dispute this as average rainfall was received in western Tas. where most of the dams are. Other parts of the state didn’t get much Spring rain but that is irrelevant. Hobart is a dry place. Look at the BOM rainfall maps and note the location of Strathgordon.
There is no further news about the cable repair and some talk about another cable. The idea of the cable was originally to sell peak hydro power for a profit and purchase off-peak electricity from Yallourn to offset this.
30
Your questions are (mostly) answered at “Energy Matters.”
Find it here: http://euanmearns.com/
30
The claims may well be true.
However, you need to take into account the circumstances. Iceland has a total population slightly larger than Wollongong NSW. It exists on top of a volcano that generates lots of heat. Many countries have much larger populations and no handy volcanoes to provide energy for heating and electricity.
Denmark can produce 100% of its energy from renewables. However, it can’t produce it when it needs it. The consequence is that it needs to export the energy when it cannot usefully be used and re-import it (at higher cost) when they do need it.
Many assume that 1kWh is 1kWh but energy produced at peak times can be worth a couple of orders of magnitude more than energy produced at other times. Electricity travels at the speed of light and needs to be consumed as soon as it is produced. There is no storage available at all. So if you produce some during the night when no-one wants it it will count towards your total generated capability but will be of no use to you.
Germany is just getting to the point where its grid is becoming unstable. Power cuts are much more common than previously. Some time ago, a major manufacturing facility was damaged by a power cut. Such things were not expected. They now have their own back-up supply. My bet is that it will be powered by reliable fossil fuels.
Anywhere that provides most of its energy from renewables currently has a very small population and convenient volcanos or mountains for geothermal or hydro power.
The other point to note is when they say 100% they usually mean only electricity. All forms of transport still uses fossil fuel almost entirely.
50
So solar and renewable companies are like Qantas? It doesn’t pay any dividends to its owners but its management and board certainly take their share. Same sort of thing I suppose.
60
You have to wonder why they even had a vote on such an issue.
Were they trying to make public point about their own company and the Board wanted a mandate to just get on with the real business of O&G without distractions? Was the CEO frustrated with pressure from the Greenies and this was a way to get them off his back?
It just seems really strange that they should even contemplate such a move.
40
For those with a love of words, the very interesting Etymylogicon explained Shell has a scallop shell as its emblem. The original father/son Shell business supplied shells in Victorian times to shell collectors in 1832. At one stage the owner’s son went to the Caspian Sea to collect interesting shells and decided there was a real potential in oil and commissioned the world’s first oil tanker. There was a time in the 1890s when most of the world’s oil and oil technology came from Baku on the Caspian and it was a focus of all armies in WW2. By the way, fractioning oil was invented in the 1840s but the highest fractions like petrol were just too explosive to be useful until the 1890s. The Russian love of lower fractions for their cold climate saved them in WW2 as most of their tanks ran on diesel.
The Shell company no longer sell shells by the seaside, but they are flexible. You have to consider that there might be more money to be made in failing as while no one is making a profit, everyone is being paid handsomely to fail.
Flannery’s promoted hot rocks scheme in SA (the technology is relatively straightforward – from a dead kangaroo specialist) still annoys, with all the board on salaries of $400Kpa. and given $93Million of public money to fail. Shareholders are not as interested in such outrageous examples of very profitable failure.
50
Here is a link to a new technology that seems interesting, but I admit is out of my league. Anybody know anything about this technology?
http://www.jouleunlimited.com/
20
Gordon:
Do NOT invest in it. Yes, it works…sort of. The problem is that sunlight is a diffuse source of energy and you need an ENORMOUS area to make enough fuel to be profitable. It doesn’t matter if you use enclosed tubes and supply concentrated solar power, you still have to collect it from a large area.
I looked into this some years ago and forget the ratio but you needed sunlight to be about 10 times stronger to be profitable. They may have made some improvements but wait until they actually pay a dividend before getting involved. A flat pond, say Lake Frome, might just be enough to supply most of South Australia’s needs (ever shrinking as the State economy does).
50
The real problem is the raw energy and then conversion rate, like all solar. Each year we burn a million years of fossil fuel through historical carbon capture. The real problem is that the dinosaurs were not around for long enough. We are out by a million to one on solar. You would have to half cover the state of Victoria with solar panels and then where would we live? The area requirements of solar and wind are just ridiculous, destroying the landscape. Of course you could put everything in the middle of Australia but without storage, that is useless.
There is simply not enough solar, although this technique does produce storeable energy and portable energy, a great advantage over energy at lunchtime only. It also does carbon capture, of great appeal to people who think CO2 is the problem, not energy itself. It also produces Vodka.
40
On can use crops to produce both oils and sugars and convert them to ethanol, and oils such as canola oil. Whether it is efficient, or not, is debatable, but if it were to be why would we be still using products based on the distillation of oil?
50
given that (Brent) crude oil is currently trading at about 31cents (US) a Litre, then I guess ethanol/methanol still costs considerably more to make.
30
Ethanol also per litre has far less energy. 21Mj/litre against 34 for petrol and 38 for diesel. So Ethanol at 67 cents per litre is equivalent to $1 against 31c, so 1/3 to 1/4 of the value of petrol or diesel. In some states vendors can legally dilute petrol up to 10% with ethanol without notice and increase profits, lowering fuel economy, potentially damaging engines and generating more CO2. All in the name of saving the planet.
50
Thanks for the info Graeme. There is an old saying; if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. I find the Joule technology interesting. They are supposedly building a production facility this year and then start production in 2017. I am NOT investing in it, but I do find it interesting.
20
“A typical SolarConverter® array will encompass 1,000 acres,”
A square mile is 640 acres.
“At full-scale commercialization, a 10,000 acre Joule plant will represent a reserve value of 50 million barrels of solar-derived fuel, equivalent to a medium-sized oil field.”
That’s 15.625 sq. mi., or 4046.86 hectares
Now there is the problem of keeping bacteria healthy and happy at grid-scale. Is there a waste product?
I did not find a time frame but some oil fields have been producing for decades. Are these 10,000 acre bacteria farms supposed to do that?
I don’t think I will invest.
60
Yes, for bacteria alcohol is the waste product. Humans love it.
50
Preferably in Champagne form 🙂
20
With lots of CO2 bubbles.
30
Correction 1 sq km = 100 hectares = 245 acres .
20
The algae to hydrocarbons in solar ponds was researched quite extensively some years ago in the western USA.
Joule Unlimited are proposing to use [ genetically ? ] engineered cynobacteria to do the same process but with fewer stages in the conversion to hydrocarbon fuels.
Researchers have been all over this at least a decade ago.
[ Paper ] A new dawn for industrial photosynthesis [ 2011 ]
Carefully selected Algal species were used that had a high oil content that could be extracted and the algal residual after the oil had been extracted returned to the ponds as a fertilizer and feed stock for the pond algae.
It turned out that with the open pond system, algal spores from the innumerable other species of algae in the environment just drifted in and settled down to a rather luxurious algal life style which involved throwing most of the original carefully selected oil producing resident algae out of the ponds.
And so ended another of the innumerable schemes that are going to save the world from itself and make somebody a mega billionaire whilst using Other Peoples Money to do so.
It would be no different with ponds that use a highly specific bacterial species to try and create a hydrocarbon fuel.
With open ponds and specifically selected or genetically engineered bacterial strains an essential ingredient for the successful production of hydrocarbons in this Joules Unlimited scheme, one would have to be out of their cotton picking minds to invest in such a scheme where any bacteria with a long established disposition to settling down into a nice warm pond and multiplying furiously after doing so will be drifting by.
The immense variety of bacterial species, a lot of which are just sort of floating around in the air currents or raindrops after being lifted up to cloud levels in thermal currents and then dispersing over immense distances would hardly know their luck on finding themselves presented with such an inviting bacterial live in proposition and would promptly settle in.
So would end another hydrocarbon production scheme from the carefully selected bacterial species in yet another save the world, make us rich scheme.
—————
Study Finds the Air Rich with Bacteria
20
Hydro Tasmania undertook a feasibility study into a 600 MW windfarm for the northern part of King Is., the electricity would have been sold to the national grid by a cable to Vic. At 600 MW it would have been Australia’s largest windfarm. Anyhow after a lot of consultation and consideration they decided it was not economically viable. Opinion of the islanders was about 50-50 for and against.
It may have had something to do with the election of the Abbott government, but my point is if one cannot make a profit in such a windy place as King Is. then where else would you put one?
King Is. has a combined wind/solar/diesel/battery system for its electricity and although the wind turbines (2.5 MW) can provide enough power for the island intermittently, the diesels tend to be on 3 out of 4 days.
Listening to the ABC today with comments about saving the Great Barrier Reef from Climate Change with renewable energy, I am not too sure how the politicians will do this. According to my estimates to go 50% renewable by 2030 means a requirement of about 15,000 MW of 24/7 electricity, or 60,000 minus 3,500 MW of existing turbines, say 55,000 MW of wind turbines in round figures. However, when production drops below 10% which happens regularly one requires 15,000 minus 5,500 MW, or 9,500 MW of 24/7 electricity from somewhere. The only option is gas turbines if one switches the coal stations off. So as well the 55,000 MW of wind turbines one also needs another ten x 1000 MW of gas turbines to prevent blackouts! Will this save the reef?
40
Robert O:
Those would gas turbines that don’t emit CO2 would they be?
Like the proposed solar power tower in Pt. Augusta which our [snip] [snip]** leaders each promised $200 million towards. Obviously it has a gas turbine to supply electricity when the sun is very low in the morning sky, or on a cloudy day, and the exhaust warms up the working fluid. Ivanpah used so much natural gas that they were threatened with the need to be licensed as a gas fired plant. Quick political action needed to head that off.
** Reference to village inhabitant in the Kingdom containing the Wizard and Sir Rodney [OK AZ?].
30
How does anyone expose the corruption and fraud involved in the decades long CAGW mitigation scam? Don’t forget that this fraud and con involves every country on the planet, plus most journos and media.
When a 43 year old accountant tried to get the US SEC interested in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme he had no luck. He immediately understood this was a Ponzi scheme after a brief look at the DATA, but everyone else refused to show much interest. He worked solidly for ten long years before these donkeys woke up. Madoff was arrested and charged and after his trial everyone suddenly understood that he had run the biggest Ponzi fraud in history.
Of course Madoff’s Ponzi fraud was tiny compared to the trillions $ to be wasted on CAGW mitigation that won’t make a scrap of difference to the temp or Co2 levels. The numbers involved to expose this fraud are readily available for everyone to read. Co2 emissions we are told will actually INCREASE by 34% by 2040 and yet there was dancing in the streets of Paris just 5 months ago and the media wildly proclaimed the planet would be saved. Will they ever wake up? Here is how the biggest Ponzi scheme was busted after 10 years hard work by Harry Markopolis.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/busting-bernie-madoff-one-mans- 10-year-crusade/?r=AU&IR=T
42
I’ve landed in moderation land again. Can’t anyone be allowed to tell the truth anymore?
21
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone. “It means just what I choose it to mean – neither more or less.”
Have your Thesaurus handy.
20
Yes Graeme no 3 and your point is?
10
I landed in moderation for using a word (to describe our political ‘leaders’) so watch what word you use.
00
Neville choose your words more carefully, this is not Bolter and the Deltoids. Do a rewrite without the vilification and it should pass muster.
Truth is a variable, for instance you believe CO2 causes a little warming outside a controlled environment. I rest my case.
10
There are certain words that trigger the auto-mod…
….. the FRORD word for example (intentionally mis-spelt)
21
Ah yes! Slartibartfast. I remember him well!
Tony.
30
he did all the fjords with the crinkly bits, right?
10
29 May: JunkScience: Claim: Wind turbines on Galapagos replace millions of liters of diesel since 2007
But…
The release notes $10 million was spent on wind mills to save 2.3 million gallons of diesel. But the pump price for diesel in Ecuador is on the order of $0.29/gallon.
This means that $10 million was spent on windmills to save roughly $667,000 worth of diesel fuel. Such a bargain!
The media release is below…
(includes) The achievements have led to awards from Power Engineering Magazine, World Energy Forum, and Energy Globe…
http://junkscience.com/2016/05/claim-wind-turbines-on-galapagos-replace-millions-of-liters-of-diesel-since-2007/
29 May: TheGazetteIowa: George C. Ford: Solar energy sector facing challenges in Iowa
Utilities want owners to pay more of fixed costs
Haman said solar and wind energy have been popular with farmers and rural Iowa residents because of the net metering rate or tariff allowed by the utilities.
“Without the net-metering tariff, the cash flow does not look nearly as attractive — even with the state and federal tax credits,” Haman said.
Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy have submitted “notices of inquiry” or pilot proposals to the Iowa Utilities Board to address their concerns about shifting fixed costs from solar energy generators to non-solar customers…
http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/solar-energy-sector-facing-challenges-in-iowa-20160529
70
I would say that the 97% is 3% inaccurate !
30
Credit where credit is due ;
97%, thanks to “Bulldust” [ #23.3 ] will now known as the “Cook Constant” of climate science.
31
This looks like the start of something beautiful? Well, the start of something…
00
29 May: Financial Times: Pilita Clark: Environmental issues left behind as Brexit rhetoric intensifies
But as the June 23 vote nears, anxiety is growing among some companies and many green groups about the relatively scant attention being paid to how a Brexit might affect the environment and UK energy industries.
Neither Leave nor Remain campaign leaders have focused heavily on the referendum’s implications for EU rules that shape the UK’s approach to product standards, air pollution, climate change, wildlife protection and energy use.
“It’s a major oversight,” says Nick Molho, executive director of the Aldersgate Group, a sustainable business body representing companies operating in the UK with a combined annual global turnover of more than £400bn.
“It’s alienating part of the electorate, ***especially young people who are very interested in the environment,” he says…
One of the Aldersgate Group’s largest members is Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate.
It sent a shudder through the renewable energy sector after it warned in April that a Brexit “could make the UK a less attractive place to do business and may become a factor when Siemens is considering future investment here”…
Fresh EU renewables targets are planned for 2030, but some analysts believe a Brexit would embolden critics eager to water down environmental laws they say are pushing up energy prices and making companies uncompetitive…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/080b8528-2442-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c.html
***YOUNG PEOPLE are feeling alienated because CAGW-invested Aldersgate Group (which includes Siemens, Vattenfall, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Sky, WWF, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Friends of the Earth) says so! lol.
41
29 May: AFR: Jacob Greber: Election 2016: Labor may need to scrap carbon compensation
Labor may need to dump its support for an energy payment to welfare recipients as shadow finance minister Tony Burke flagged further spending cuts to be announced ahead of the July election…
John Daley, chief executive of the Grattan Institute, said the age pension would be “the right place to start” looking for savings, given more than half of payments flow to people with more than $500,000 in assets.
However, while a full-blown change in the assets test to include some of the value of housing was “not the place you’d start in the middle of an election campaign”, an obvious option would be the energy supplement, which was introduced to help families cope with higher energy costs after the now-scrapped carbon tax was introduced, he said.
In this month’s budget, the Coalition closed the supplement to new pensioners and welfare recipients for a saving of $1.4 billion over five years.
Mr Daley said the change had essentially created a two-tiered pension system that was “tough to justify as a matter of principle”…
“If there isn’t a carbon pricing scheme, why is there compensation.”…
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/election-2016-labor-may-need-to-scrap-carbon-compensation-20160529-gp6lgq
31
Naomi Know-it-All is at it again…full of stuff & nonsense:
29 May: CBC: Naomi Klein says Alberta wildfires linked to climate change in Calgary address
It shouldn’t be controversial to connect the two, author says
By David Bell, Mike Symington
Refusing to link climate change to the Fort McMurray wildfires puts Albertans at odds with the scientific consensus and it’s a barrier to a meaningful conversation on how to move forward, an award-winning journalist told hundreds at the Congress 2016 of the Humanities and Social Sciences on Sunday…
***”Every serious international publication has linked the fires with climate change,” Klein told about 400 conference attendees…
“It is still something of a controversial statement to say in Alberta, people still feel that it is somehow not compassionate, not polite to make the connections with climate change.”
On Saturday, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said in his conference keynote address, it wasn’t helpful to reduce the conversation to a ‘one or the other’ proposition when it comes to industry and the environment.
“I believe that we have to adapt to reality,” Nenshi said.
“And yes, we’re moving to a low carbon future, of course we are, but there’s still a role for business, there’s still a role for carbon, there’s still a role for people to make a decent living.”…
Klein went on to say that about 90 per cent of high carbon fuels, like bitumen, would have to remain in the ground to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/naomi-klein-calgary-congress-2016-1.3606419
31
Fixed it.
This is what the people are really feeling.
50
29 May: Financial Times: Paris climate deal vulnerable to a Trump presidency
by Barney Jopson in Washington and Pilita Clark in London
While Mr Trump could not single-handedly scrap the agreement — which Washington and Beijing had rallied more than 190 countries to join — he could withdraw the US, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, or block the action needed to cut emissions to the levels promised by Mr Obama…
But if Mr Trump used the presidency to cast doubt on the need for climate action, he could weaken the resolve of other leaders sceptical about the deal.
Attacks on the Paris agreement could occur at three different levels under a Trump presidency…
Withdrawal from the pact
“Even if Donald Trump becomes president he cannot pull the US out of the Paris accord quickly because there is a four-year withdrawal period written into the agreement,” said Michael Jacobs, a UN climate negotiations expert at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think-tank.
“That’s not a coincidence,” he added, noting the timing matched the length of a US presidential term.
However, the agreement is not yet in force and it is not likely to be by the time a new president is sworn in next January — a possibility that could leave Mr Trump with an easier get-out if he wins…
READ ON FOR “The US courts” AND “Executive (in)action”…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ed80b3fc-245c-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c.html
51
Have they ever even mention there are
I wonder which leaders might that be?
20
Pat,all Trump has to do is “Withdraw”payments to the UN.The USA is one of the “Biggest Contributers”to the UN.
40
guarantee our profits or else:
29 May: Financial Times: Attracta Mooney: Slash greenhouse gases 57%, investors tell David Cameron
A group of large institutional investors managing more than $13tn in assets has urged David Cameron to back proposals to cut greenhouse gases by 57 per cent before 2032.
The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which is made up of 122 big investors including BlackRock, Amundi and UBS, has called on the prime minister to ensure proposals put forward by the Committee on Climate Change, the body that advises the UK government on meeting its environmental targets, are not watered down…
Stephanie Pfeifer, chief executive of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, said: “Long-term investors, especially those investing in infrastructure, like to know what is going to happen with climate change policy over the long term.
“Investors want to feel they have regulatory certainty going forward.”…
A lack of investment from institutional investors in infrastructure, particularly in the energy sector, would hurt the UK, which is having to cope with the closure of old power stations.
Earlier this year, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a professional body, warned it would be “almost impossible” for UK electricity demand to be met by 2025…
Rory Sullivan, a consultant specialising in climate change, who previously worked in the asset management industry, said investors needed either certainty around future policies on global warming or incentives if they were to help meet the country’s energy needs.
“People are sitting on their hands and not investing. That is how investors respond to uncertainty,” he said…
Ursula Bordas, policy adviser at PensionsEurope, a trade group for retirement funds, said there are many examples across Europe where governments changed their policies around climate change and energy, hurting investor returns in the process.
“Government policy needs to remain consistent or [it] risks making investors extremely wary of future investments,” she said.
A spokesperson for the prime minister said: “The letter has been received and the government will respond in due course.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8b0972de-2355-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d.html
31
Hi Pat,
I haven’t been able to read through your posts; not because of lack of interest, but because of the formatting.
Due to the nature of html, indenting paragraphs is seldom an available format in comments. That leaves your posts as a large single block that is uncomfortable to read. If it’s uncomfortable, well there are others with intelligent posts who’s work is easy to read. I move on.
There is a simple solution, though. Insert a blank line between paragraphs. Please. I really would like to read one of your posts through some day.
gary
30
What is the real Return On Investment for shareholders in Wind Turbine businesses? Even with the government arranged subsidies that result in consumers paying far more for electricity supplies than they would pay if there was no so called Renewable Energy Target and related wind and solar systems.
It is my understanding that there are now many no longer used wind turbines around the world, and wind turbine companies that have closed down or have advised shareholders that they plan to close down because replacement of the equipment would cost more than the dividends paid to shareholders.
The leftists knew what they were doing, RET is just another socialist attack on capitalism, another rung in their ladder to undermine and destroy the capitalist system.
81
Have a look at the “Looking Forward” section in this report on Infigen. See the contribution of RECS to the companies bottom line (400 of their 550MW of wind farms are off PPAs and depend on RECS).
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/infigen-energy-where-to-from-here-79184
Giles really should put a gag on David Leitch for exposing the wind industry in this light.
And for some truly horrific financial figures, you can dig into the annual report for Hepburn Wind to see why there was no dividend for this community funded project
https://www.hepburnwind.com.au/journal/fy2015-annual-report/
40
“97 percent of Shell shareholders”
Is 97% a magic number? It seems to crop up everywhere
82
Yeah, what’re the odds?
52
Shell we all celebrate. I thought Shell’s main focus was LNG – now it seems that will be the case based on shareholder pressure,
61
It is Cook’s Constant … a new universal constant in the climate science field. I dubbed it thusly on WUWT a few weeks ago (search for Bulldust):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/12/john-cook-is-cooking-up-more-97-consensus-while-two-papers-refute-his-statistical-sleights-of-hand/
70
You people dont get it. There is a vast movement out there who expect you to die, not of heat but of cold and hunger when green policies bear fruit.
Nearly all these believers will be cast aside as the one world government takes over as comrade Figuries hopes. The last thing the elite will want is religious adherents to green doctrine. Enlightenment is dead, a new dark age (literally and metaphorically) is beginning.
00
Jacob, steady on, things are dire, but the mass intent is more delusional than murderous. I suspect many really think they can stop storms with windmills and keep the house warm with good wishes.
00
In returns to those who invest,
Renewables fail every test,
With billions now lost,
Have learned to their cost,
By the Greens to be less than impressed.
90
Psst John – John – John Cook
97% – did you conduct this survey?
I’m SURE the number is correct THIS TIME!!
Cheers,
52
“Senators Slam Loretta Lynch: End The Climate Change Witch Hunt”
Exxon signed an agreement which deepened ties with Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft just as the Obama administration was trying to isolate Russia and its economy. That payback, which had the added bonuses of cementing Obama’s liberal global warming climate change crackdown (which incidentally benefits none other than carbon credit powerhouse Goldman Sachs the most) came when the New York Attorney General launching a sweeping investigation of Exxon mobile to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change, or to investors about how that risk might hurt the oil business.” (My bolding)
From zerohedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-29/senators-slam-loretta-lynch-end-climate-change-witch-hunt
70
Further from the article at Zerohedge: “In light of the continued push by state AGs to go after Exxon on climate change, five senators have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch demanding that in two weeks, the Department of Justice “immediately cease its ongoing use of law enforcement resources to stifle private debate on one of the most controversial public issues of our time – climate change.” Or, said otherwise, to end the government witch hunt against political opponents of president Obama’s energy agenda.
60
From: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-29/senators-slam-loretta-lynch-end-climate-change-witch-hunt
20
Quoted from Jo’s headline post;
To use the Occams razor principle; ie; the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct explanation;
or
The more assumptions you make the more unlikely the explanation is
So from that ;
*The Shell Corporation investors and shareholders are using their own money and are therefore each responsible for and are the victims or benefactors of the fate of their own money ;
*The green sleaze and the warmustas and the politicals are all using, misusing and corruptly dissipating Other Peoples Money [ OPM ] and are never held responsible or ever accept responsibility in any way for the loss or disappearance of that “Other Peoples Money”.
—————
*”Shell” was around in the 1830’s [ TdeF @ # 10 ]
*The political green sleaze has been around since the Ozone Hole science debacle in 1988.
*”Renewable energy” as we know it, has been around since the early 1990’s.
————
.
*Shell will most likely still be around in one form or another in 2050.
*The ever sleazier fascist greens might get to 2030 or even 2040 before dissapearing up their own orifice but maybe not as long as that as their vote percentage has started dropping precipitously to the low single figure percentages in some German states, in Austria and many other Green strongholds across Europe let alone what might happen if Trump makes it to the Presidency of the USA.
*Renewable energy will just fade away by 2030 as the subsidies begin to be severely pulled back as in the UK, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Poland, some states of the USA and etc as the politicals run out of OPM and the public gets increasingly angry at the political elite.
51
ROM,
Our uranium exploration efforts were whiteanted by deep greens hidden internationally, after the discovery of Ranger in 1969.
Far less visible then, but quite visible in hindsight as the international socialist green method becomes clearer.
Geoff
31
Piano wire was used very “Effectively”by the Mafia in the”Bad Old Days” When”The People”finally wake up to this “Scam”it may be detrimental to ones health to be a part of this “Scam”
20
And in other news, Boeing shareholders voted to continue making jets and not switch production over to the paper aeroplanes that some juveniles were throwing around in the hall during the AGM.
81
Global Warming = Global Fraud !
42
Wind and solar are not renewable power substitutes !
They are suitable only for Remote Area Power Supply where it is not feasible for even fuel generators because of fuel transport costs .
Any body that thinks it compares to coal or gas fired grid power has got rocks in their head.
They are many times more expensive but do offer remote areas a power option be it an expensive one .
But better an expensive power option than no power option !
it is ridiculous to use either of these power sources in place of where grid power all ready exists.
It is criminal that in an energy rich country such as Australia the cost per Kwh is 30 cents thanks to this ‘renewable ripoff’ in comparison to China’s 8 cents per Kwh.
Only Denmark and Germany are higher!
No wonder we cannot manufacture anything competitively !
Even the socialist U.K. 20 cents per Kwh….The USA about 12 cents per Kwh
We can thank our already record high powert prices to the Alp/Greens Socialist/Marxist unholy alliance during the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years of pain.
Something everybody seems to forget is that the Great Big New co2 Tax , if it was not abolished , was about to go on fuel prices effective july 1 2014 ,which we narrowly avoided thanks to Abbott and a hand few of cross bench Senators that Turnbull and the Greens have now recently conspired to get rid of with the new senate voting reforms !
it would have been another 10% across the board on all petrol/diesel , which is already grossly overpriced according to global oil prices.
The powers that be want the great big new tax , carbon credits , emission trading rip-off , or whatever they call it this month , to be etched in stone .
The Scum that want this Crap need to be run out of town permanently.
With the pending Presidential election of Trump in the USA , there is now a real possibility of the beginning of the end of this global scam .
Where is Our ….Australia’s Donald Trump ?
We need a real Leader to replace these CAGW Shysters !
Vote One … ‘The Donald’!
61
The Australian government is doing all it can to increase renewables, presumably in remote areas, but the green blob is not happy.
“It’s possibly one of the worst governments we’ve ever seen in Australia’s history on the environment,” said ACF chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy.
‘In particular, the Coalition was marked down for its support of coal and uranium mining, lesser targets on pollution and clean energy and its unwillingness to expand regulation over major projects.
‘However, the government was credited for its commitment to delivering on the Murray Darling Basin Plan and for establishing a $1 billion fund to spur investment in renewable energy.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/environment-scorecard-coalition-agenda-woeful-lags-behind-labor-and-greens-20160530-gp7a9s.html#ixzz4ABDJxzk1
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
30
Way back in 1960,I used to have a friend,whose parents had a farm,a few miles out of town(Jamieson,Victoria).The farm was too far away from the”Electricity”lines,so they relied on a single cylinder Lister deisel engine for their power.They also had”Windmills”to pump water from their dam to the milking shed,house and water the stock.
Quite often on week-ends when the wind wasn’t blowing,we would have to move the Lister diesel down to the dam to pump the water to the house and the stock.These wind mills weren’t fit for any-thing else because they were”Unreliable”then and nothing has changed since 1960.
And the”Greens”call these”Bird Chompers Renewables”?New Technology?
You have to be kidding.
40
From the Shell Chairman less than a week ago:
Hardly fits the picture painted above. Love the 97% connection, that was cute.
411
Sillyfilly,
You forgot to add the fact that Shell are talking about “2035 and beyond”, with various charts indicating 2040, and mentions of 2050 as well. This is far enough away to sound impressive and visionary, but also far enough away that absolutely anything could happen in the meantime, (as their disclaimer states…)
All quotes from Ben van Beurden; London, May 11 2016; (my emphasis)
“…In 2015 the board recommended that shareholders support the resolution that called for enhanced transparency on climate change. We felt we were doing a lot of that already, and much of the rest was planned. In 2016, we have a new resolution from Netherlands-based retail shareholders. This calls for an accelerated move into renewables. The risk of reduced returns to shareholders from an accelerated shift into renewables means it would be unwise for Shell to simply swap investment in oil and gas for renewables, and on a principles basis, we think it is unwise for the board to be tied to any particular strategy in this way, irrespective of what that strategy is. Therefore we are asking shareholders not to support this 2016 resolution…”
also:
“…We also set out how Shell is investing in low-carbon energy- “new energies”- and reflect on the wide range of business choices we can make until 2035, and beyond…”
Then:
“…Let me give you an impression of the scale of the issue. Much of the infrastructure and services for energy were designed with a long lifespan in mind: power plants – 40 years; the planes you fly on – 24 years; your car – 15 years or maybe longer. It will take time, investment, and different attitudes from consumers and suppliers to change all of this. Here are some examples of the scale of what would need to happen. If you look at the IEA 450 scenario, the two degree scenario, then CO2 emissions from energy fall from 32 gigatonnes per year today by 13 gigatonnes to 19 gigatonnes by 2040.
So what does it take to reduce emissions by just 1 gigatonne? 1 gigatonne will cost you the closure of one third of all the coal fired power plants in the United States and replacing them with zero emissions plants. That’s 263 power plants closed. 1 gigatonne reduction means 275,000 wind turbines. That’s double the number in the world today, with all of the permit challenges in that sector. And 1 gigatonne means removing over 200 million cars – basically twice as many as are driving in the United States today. And all three of those examples are just 1 of the 13 gigatonnes reduction you need in the 450 scenario.
None of this is to say that the energy transition is impossible, It can happen from a technological and economic perspective, although it will need more political and societal push than we see today – and we think Shell can thrive in this transition. At Shell, we believe that public policy should focus on the long term, access to cheap, clean and reliable energy. We see an opportunity in an expanded role for natural gas in the power sector, to displace coal. We look for governments to support this, and the deployment of carbon capture and storage facilities. And we believe that carbon pricing, led by governments, would be the most effective policy instrument for permanent reductions in emissions…”
Royal Dutch Shell plc. 2016 Annual Socially Responsible Investor Event transcript
102
I need to add that they will only spend “around $200m a year”. It costs Shell (or any oil company) anywhere from $450K-$1.2million per day to drill just 1 mid-to-deep water offshore well which could be done pretty fast, or, as is more likely, it will take somewhere in the order of 90-120 days to finish – if it goes according to plan. For the amount of money they spend on drilling each year alone, $200m is tantamount to a token gesture. To think otherwise is, just…silly, filly.
“…Shell’s capital employed in New Energies activities is some $1.7 billion today and we are currently spending around $200m a year to explore and develop new energies opportunities. There is, we think, material upside in new energies for our shareholders, and we think that a position in new energies will be important for Shell and shareholders in the energy transition. But I want to stress that this will take time, this is one of our longer range, future opportunities, and we will be capping our exposure here from a financial perspective as we establish commercial potential at scale…”
Ben van Beurden; London, May 11 2016
61
So, the vapourous, hand-wringing alarmists are quoting temperature rises in hundredths of a degree celsius, and Shell are responding by saying that they are right onto it, and they will have a solution to the non-problem within a time frame that is measured in mere fractions of a century.
And here we are, seriously discussing this? We have all fallen down the rabbit hole. Lewis Carrol would be proud.
100
‘Hardly fits the picture painted above.’
The chairman is paying lip service to the green blob, in reality the company has a judiciary responsibility to the shareholders first and foremost. So the game is up for the warmists.
‘Love the 97% connection, that was cute.’
Its an amusing coincidence.
80
97% of alarmists will quote the 97% figure, for 97% of the time.
It has become a religious mantra. Which is appropriate, I guess, considering the irrationality of those involved. It is a form of numerology.
70
Time to rewrite the hitchhikers guide- 97 has replaced 42
30
The answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Yup, I do think you’re right.
30
Of course oil companies will advocate for Gov-led carbon pricing, because not only is it good PR, but because they can and will pass such costs on to their customers they shift part of the tax burden away from themselves and their shareholders to the middle class and the poor.
50
Great statement there. This is a problem across the whole spectrum of all the CAGW issues.
90
When one pits the shareholders against the delusional Greens, the shareholders always win because the delusional Greens are… delusional!
61
And Greens have no concept of creating wealth or the difference between revenue and profit.
And no understanding that unless it is borrowed the money governments have available to spend come from the higher income earners and businesses, that around half of income taxpayers do not pay enough to cover the government services they access. And that 36% of federal budgets is spent on welfare.
50
once touted as a tool against CAGW, BBC now ignores those claims. btw only 20% of palm oil is even certified as coming from sustainable practises. Unilever refused to take part in the program:
AUDIO: 18mins. 31 May: BBC Business Daily: The Price of Palm Oil
Murder and theft, as well as environmental destruction, lurk behind this staple ingredient of supermarket foods and toiletries – as presenter Manuela Saragosa discovers.
A Colombian farmer recounts the crimes committed against his own family in order to take control of his land, while Agus Sutomo of the pressure group Forest Peoples Programme explains how palm oil farming goes hand-in-hand with human rights abuses in many parts of the world.
Manuela also hears from Danielle Morley – spokesperson for the industry’s self-regulator Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – about how serious the big palm oil growers are about cleaning up their act.
And Manuela asks the chief sustainability officer of one major buyer of palm oil – L’Oreal’s Alexandra Palt – how she can be sure the raw materials they buy have been legitimately produced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03vz88y
(paras spaced out for gary turner)
50
there’s at least two sides to every story!
30 May: CarbonPulse: End of an era? Carbon Expo’s future in doubt as attendance dwindles
The future of Carbon Expo, the pre-eminent conference and trade fair for the global carbon markets and climate finance industry, is in doubt amid falling attendance and as sources said some of its organisers want to give the annual event a makeover that could include hosting it in a new location…(CARBON PULSE, RUN BY EX-REUTERS’ STAFF, NOW REQUIRES SUBSCRIPTION FOR FULL ARTICLES)
http://carbon-pulse.com/20580/
28 May: CommoditiesNow: Spirit of Paris gives fresh impetus to climate finance and carbon markets
The 13th edition of CARBON EXPO in Cologne has ended with a strong show of continued commitment to and renewed optimism about the future of carbon markets…
“The spirit of Paris was palpable in Cologne which was very inspiring for all taking part in CARBON EXPO,” adds Christian Glasmacher, Senior Vice President of Koelnmesse GmbH which co-organized the event with IETA and the World Bank Group…
Baker & McKenzie, a primary and continuing sponsor of the event, noted the conference’s success in bringing all of the major players together. “Once again Carbon Expo has brought together global thinkers at the forefront of climate policy and finance”…
More QUOTES:
“I am especially pleased that new and ***young*** players joined the event this time. This is an important step for the advancement of the carbon market,” Christian Glasmacher, Senior Vice President of Koelnmesse GmbH.
http://www.commodities-now.com/reports/environmental-markets/21504-spirit-of-paris-gives-fresh-impetus-to-climate-finance-and-carbon-markets.html
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27 May: Bloomberg: UN Draws BNP Paribas for Green-Bond Push to Unlock Funding
by Matthew Carr, Jessica Shankleman
The United Nations is on a mission to make green bonds even greener and has linked up with BNP Paribas SA to make it happen.
Securities based on the UN’s own carbon market criteria would boost the credibility of clean-technology finance and reduce borrowing costs, said Grant Kirkman, a team leader at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change…
Green bonds are typically issued by development banks, such as the World Bank, municipalities, utilities and companies to raise money for projects from renewable energy power plants to electric cars and other technologies aimed at curtailing global warming…
The UNFCCC is promoting the standards of its carbon market, known as the Clean Development Mechanism, as investors including TIAA Global Asset Management in New York say there is still no industry standard for what makes a green security…
“There’s concern about the greenness of the green bond market,” Kirkman said in an interview at the Carbon Expo conference in Cologne, Germany. “The CDM process may make the climate benefits of a green security more watertight.”…
BNP Paribas is examining how to package the 10,000 projects and programs registered with the CDM into securities, which may help transfer money from developed nations to poorer countries, said BNP Paribas’s Sfakianos in London…
A bond’s environmental credibility could be enhanced if the projects receiving the financing choose to cancel the CERs they generate, Kirkman said. This would mean the credits couldn’t be traded or used to offset emissions, helping curtail a glut that has driven their price down 98 percent since 1998…
“There’s just no process that’s as rigorous as the CDM, so it does make them a very attractive investment” for those in the green-bond market, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said Wednesday. “It guarantees there are concrete emission reductions, there’s a quality seal on it.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-27/un-enlists-bnp-paribas-for-green-bond-push-to-unlock-financing
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Jo
As Steve McIntyre says “Watch the pea, not the shell”!
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/05/yesterday-at-the-un-environment-assembly-governments-agreed-to-accelerate-sustainability-is-that-saf.html
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Anyone up for buying into Infigen?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/infigen-energy-exploring-options-to-realise-value-20160517-gowskv.html
Looks good, right? But then check the “assets” underwriting the concrete portion of the valuation.
https://stopthesethings.com/2016/05/30/panic-erupts-infigen-set-to-offload-worn-out-australian-wind-farms-to-even-greater-fools/comment-page-1/#comment-428483
The spirit of Babcock and Brown lives on (to continue separating investors from their money)
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No wonder activists hate them. Most are still sane.
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I suffered for my music. Now, it’s your turn …
Global Warming Catastrophe by Travis T. & the Missing Heat
I adapted the lyrics from a Clive James poem recently posted @jmarohasy, “Imminent Catastrophe”.
Production note: In true climate science tradition, the vocals have been ‘homogenised’, or put through an auto-tune, at a rate of 97%.
PS. It’s free. It’s for fun.
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Oohhh! Nice Telecaster!
Tony.
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I’ve had my arms around that Telecaster more than my x-wife.
’73 Custom, owned since brand new.
20
Handjive,
off topic I know, but strings. I had a friend who used to swear by Ernie Ball Super Slinky’s, and he had them on his White Tele. I did finally get some and put them on one of my 2 acoustics, an Emperador with an absolutely beautiful tone, and a nice smooth and fast neck. I got the finest gauge ones available.
I couldn’t believe how good they were. Used them for years from then. Then got married, and the guitar sort went by the wayside really.
Loved those strings.
Tony.
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Tony,
I have no favour or loyalty for a particular string brand, but use 10-52, light tops, heavy bottoms.
But, I like this quote from ZZTop’s Billy Gibbons, he of the ultra heavy crunchy blues riffs – he plays .007’s on his guitars. (youtube, 12.55)
He says BB King told him to. BB says anything thicker, you’re working too hard. (youtube, 7.00mins)
00
ABC is on a “kill coal” mission – 2 items from “Breakfast” today
ABC Breakfast: Australian Conservation Foundation calls for a ‘moratorium on new coal mines’
ABC Breakfast: Josh Frydenberg talks tourism, coal and the Great Barrier Reef
Following the latest damning news on coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, the Labor leader is coming under pressure to state his position on Adani’s giant coal mine in the Galilee Basin.
Josh Frydenberg, Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia, joins Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast
***check the POLL at the bottom of the following – in case u want to respond:
ABC Lateline: Interview: Professor Terry Hughes, Centre for Coral Reef Studies
JOHN BARRON, ABC: And since the start of this election campaign, many of you have contacted us here at Lateline asking us to look at climate policy…The dire reports we’ve been hearing on the health of the Great Barrier Reef may have added a sense of urgency to push away from fossil fuels, but with most of our energy needs still being met by coal, a lot of our export revenue as well, those bonds could be hard to break.
So, we’re asking you tonight: do you think Australia should reduce coal exports to address climate change?
You can vote in our poll on the ABC News Facebook page, the Lateline Twitter account or you can send us a comment to lateline@abc.net.au
meanwhile…
30 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: ‘Delusional’: NSW report banks on rising coal output and royalties out to 2056
The Baird government’s future projection for NSW implies the state will extract more than 10 billion tonnes of coal at the rate of almost 1 million tonnes a day by 2056, forecasts the Greens say are “delusional” in a carbon-constrained world…
The 104-page document excludes any examination of climate change…READ ON
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/delusional-nsw-report-banks-on-rising-coal-output-and-royalties-out-to-2056-20160529-gp6vq0.html
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4472312.htm
30
somehow i pasted the link to the poll in the wrong place.
here it is…poll at bottom of piece:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4472312.htm
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Will California close its last nuclear power plant – Diablo Canyon?
In a letter to Diablo Canyon’s staff by nuclear advocate, Michael Shellenberger
and
http://atomicinsights.com/diablo-canyon-employees-sold-river/
30
Ah yes!
The good old reverse argument.
Close down Base Load Power and hey, no worries, renewables can replace it. Keep it open and they won’t build them.
Diablo Canyon currently supplies 6.75% of California’s total power generation, 17.6TWH of power a year.
Wind and Solar in California currently supply around 13TWH.
So they would need to construct the total renewables already in California multiplied by 1.36. (which will not happen)
If they were to be started right now, then they would need to be replaced in toto, before a still operating Diablo Canyon would need to be closed down.
Somewhere in there is some logic which I just for the life of me, fail to see.
Close Diablo Canyon, and watch California grind to a halt.
Tony.
50
But the nameplate, Tony – that’s all that matters!
Oh, but with Aliso Canyon unavailable, the gas won’t be available to ramp “to follow load” (we all know it’s actually to fill the fluctuations from the intermittent renewables).
Let’s sit back and watch California this summer and maybe, just maybe, the public will learn a lesson about the dependency of intermittent renewables. Hopefully, only one disaster will be needed for the poplace of the other grids marching boldly to the precipice to learn a sobering lesson (hey South Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Germany – wake the fuçk up)
50
talk about unbelievable…from the utterly CAGW-infested TAI (the australia institute – see Wikipedia) with author Dan Cass who wrote for ABC for years. see his LinkedIn for the rest of his CAGW connections. 46-page report thanks all the renewable-connected entities involved in the report, but Guardian gives no hint of any of that.
comments below the article are tragic, as usual, when it involves renewables:
31 May: Guardian: Max Opray: Most voters support transition to 100% renewable energy, says Australia Institute
Polling indicates 71% would be more likely to vote for a party that supported distributed small-scale solar and storage
The Australia Institute report Securing Renewables: How Batteries Solve the Problem of Clean Electricity (LINK) includes polling indicating that 71% of Australians would be more likely to vote for a party that supported distributed small-scale solar and storage.
Based on a national opinion poll of 1,412 people undertaken between February and March 2016, the study also found 63% of respondents would be more likely to support a party that aims to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030 and that 45% would be more likely to support a party that attempts to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles…
“The combination of batteries paired with variable renewable energy such as solar and wind can now provide security of electricity supply, with zero emissions,” says the author of the report, Australia Institute strategist Dan Cass…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/may/31/most-voters-support-transition-to-100-renewable-energy-says-australia-institute
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And who will pay for the batteries? Average household reserve for 3 days about $120,000 plus controller, installation etc. Guess who?
And by the way (for the trolls) do you realise that if there is no wind or sun for 1 minute that the grid stops working? Yes the houses will have electricity from their batteries but there won’t be any on the grid, so the wind turbines won’t be able to start up when the wind does start to blow.
Just ONE of the reasons that 100% renewables won’t work.
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But Richard DiNatale has already done it so why can’t the rest of us?
http://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/richard-di-natale-the-party-leader-living-off-the-grid/
51
“as someone’s who committed to the environment and committed to sustainability” apart from the fuel for the generator, the wood? fire etc.
This is typical of “the Green Dream”, 50 acres of productive farmland converted into a lifestyle for 2 (+children+pets) I hope the under-paid nanny gets to sleep in a warm bedroom.
I wonder if the pigs, chooks etc. make it into the casserole or are they pets?
2.5kW storage ? IF he is telling the truth they are using 5.5-6kWh per day. Well below average suburbia, but then their heating is wood fired so add that in. I wonder about that solar hot water in winter, is it only the sun that heats?
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By the way, how many readers can afford 50 acres of fertile, well watered farmland just for a house and a few pets?
40
And backed up by Timmy Flannelly
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/12/03/sunny-future-solar-power-storage
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And there I was thinking it was the usual garbage when I realised it was from Timmy, so it is A-grade garbage.
Purely as a matter of interest what happens to the time signals integrated into the grid supply which control those standby appliances like digital clocks, TV recorders, night time hot water services and street lights?
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Yeah sure!
That covers the smallest fraction of the Residential sector which only consumes 28% or so of all power being consumed.
The other 72% goes to Industry and Commerce, most of them consumers on a 24/7/365 basis, so what about that then Tim.
Don’t you just love these watermelons who just think of themselves.
Tony.
61
Wall to wall Marxists on abc 21 the DumB right now with true B’lver Baird running her own BS agenda !
Totally Sickening garbage ….a real test to watch !
30
Egor TheOne –
funny – i just passed by ABC TV (very rarely go there) & caught my first-ever minute of The Drum. world map hot & glowing, a panel of dour doom & gloomers. nothing online yet, except for this Facebook:
31 May: Facebook: ABC The Drum
Tonight’s episode of #TheDrum is all about climate change. We’ll look at the parties’ climate policies & targets as well as their promises regarding the Great Barrier Reef.
On the panel: ABC RN’s Robyn Williams, former federal Climate Commissioner Lesley Hughes, economist & climate change review author Ross Garnaut and former climate policy adviser to then British PM Tony Blair, now Adjunct Professor at University of Sydney, Nick Rowley.
reply 5 mins ago:
Peter Rampling: Ross Garnaut said the Gillard Carbon Tax worked well…. emissions went up, debt and deficits went up, business failures because of the carbon tax went up and all that was happening with the carbon tax receipts were churning around the economy and buying international carbon credits, as well individuals were struggling with higher power bills…. So Ross… what part was working well?
https://www.facebook.com/abcthedrum
shut down the ABC. it is a complete joke.
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“shut down the ABC. it is a complete joke.”
100% on the money Pat !
Let the Marxists finance their own Climate Propaganda .
To know that our taxes pay for these BSers and straight jacket candidates sickens me .
These garbage organisations need to be cleaned out of existence both here and at an international level ….the Unelected Nutters (U.N.)and the Marxist Commissars of the E.U.,being at the top of a long list.
00
short video now on ABC Drum FB page.
also the following response to the Peter Rampling comment i posted above. lol.
Wendy Molloy: “Peter You’re an Idiot!”
plus:
Jon Gercama: “So any Deniers on the panel? I thought not.”
Marylu Burt: What a great program – too short though. It ought to be required viewing for everyone. If only something similar could be shown on prime time commercial TV!
——
NOW I’M OFF TO ROLAND GARROS, WHICH IS WHY I TURNED THE TV ON IN THE FIRST PLACE & ACCIDENTALLY HAD MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE INFAMOUS DRUM.
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Jo
Is April 1 having a rerun?
http://realclimatescience.com/2016/05/un-global-warming-to-make-stonehenge-tip-over/
30
So warmer winters in Britain are going to increase the population of moles? Very funny. Even if it were true, who wouldn’t want warmer winters? I suppose that would also mean more foxes and fewer moles but who cares about ecological balance when you are dreaming up disaster scenarios involving moles.
Who in the UK doesn’t pray for a return of ice fairs on the frozen Thames which only stopped in 1814 after 200 hundreds years of freezing. Global Warming started early in Britain. It’s a wonder Stonehenge has not fallen over already with all the mad moles.
20
” with all the mad moles“
You mean “nubile dancers”… don’t you 😉
10
“Druids more like”.
00
Put that as “Druids” more like. Sorry!
00
“I am a mole and I live in a hole”.
We had plenty of moles around the place in Gloucestershire. I don’t recall that they produced the degree of devastation caused by badgers and wombats, even if they were a confounded nuisance in the fields and gardens. The panic over Stonehenge is hilarious; it smacks of total desperation.
00
Renewables aren’t profitable? Do tell. And with the required 97% consensus too.
Shell finally wakes up. Or have they been awake for some time and just now decided to say what they were thinking? Well, either way, good for Shell.
But this development is certain t be a problem. Does the UN know about this heresy? Someone better tell Mr. Ban Ki Moon soon before this gets out of hand (rhyming is intentional, it’s about all the poetic ability I have).
Call the chairman of the IPCC also. I’m sure he’ll have some choice words for the Shell Oil Company, at least if he can tear himself away from his railroad duty and his other, ahem, part time activities.
While we’re at it, better call President Obama. I wouldn’t want him to have to find out about this from some lacky reading joannenova.com.au in some hard to find back office in the White House basement (you can be sure someone is reading Jo Nova every day, probably choking on it too).
10
Forgive me one more time but I can’t help myself: ROFLMAO. The truth will out in the end. Too bad it won’t change national policy anywhere. 🙁
But what a hoot! 🙂
10