The Guardian are in hot pursuit of the nickel and dime Coal-Yeti.
Analysis of Peabody Energy court documents show company backed trade groups, lobbyists and thinktanks dubbed ‘heart and soul of climate denial’
The thing is, if Peabody was keeping the heart and soul of climate denial alive, it is now flat broke — it’s over for climate denial. No heart. No soul. Denial is dead! But can anyone spot the difference… ?
Poor Guardian schmucks. Peabody were funding people who write what they believe, so Peabody came and went and the same people are still writing what they believe. If climate skeptics were in it for the money, they’d be alarmists.
Yes, Do. Lets talk about the Funding
If climate skeptics were in it for the money, they’d be alarmists.
Suzanne Goldenberg and Helena Bengtsson repeat all the usual sacred incantations completely blind to the real money. At one point they are so stuck for “big money” they whip out a $10,000 figure, and in an article about Peabody, that’s not even from Peabody, but from Arch Coal. General Electric make $20 billion a year in profits from “renewables” — when is The Guardian going to expose their political donations or funding of “dozens” of extreme left wing front groups (to use their own lingo right back at them). Not to mention the other itsy bitsy enterprizes feeding off the scare called Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Royal Dutch Shell, and Panasonic, I could go on. Governments burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and global renewable energy investment reached $250 Billion last year, give or take a hundred billion (who cares)? It’s all part of a $1.5T climate change industry.
Whatever the influence of PeaBody is, it was nothing in comparison to the cashed up golden gravy train. Goldenberg and Bengtsson are the useful gullibles taking photos of mice while they ignore the Eleph….
Biggest US coal company funded dozens of groups questioning climate change
Peabody Energy, America’s biggest coalmining company, has funded at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on manmade climate change and oppose environment regulations, analysis by the Guardian reveals.
Two dozen — that many? They’re only taking on most universities, The EU, The UN, The World Bank, and the IMF.
Environmental campaigners said they had not known for certain that the company was funding an array of climate denial groups – and that the breadth of that funding took them by surprise.
After twenty years of non-stop propaganda denouncing Big-Coal and the massive industry of climate denial — environmental campaigners thought there would only be one dozen right, not two? Imagine their surprise.
“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” said Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigation Center, who has spent 20 years tracking funding for climate denial. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”
The biggest mistake the coal companies made was not getting more serious and funding more skeptics.
The fallacy of wind turbines is revealed with simple arithmetic.
5 mW wind turbine, avg output 1/3 nameplate, 20 yr life, electricity @ wholesale 2 cents per kwh produces $5.8E6.
Installed cost @ $1.7E6/mW = $8.5E6. Add the cost of standby CCGT for when the wind does not blow. Add the cost of land lease, maintenance, Adm.
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It’s a $1 Trillion dollar trough. Lots of piggies making sure the slops keep flowing. Maybe if the UK grid starts shutting down on a random basis they’ll start waking up.
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I always thought it did. Surely you are not suggesting that they shut it down on a planned basis …?
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Yes, Rereke. In the 1970’s it was planned by the labour unions. Today it is planned by the government. Please don’t ask me to try and explain.
20
“twenty years of non-stop propaganda”.
No, more than 20. It would be more than 30 years ago I heard a woman ringing in to the John Laws radio talkback program from the North Coast of NSW, telling us that her preschool daughter cried when she saw a loaded logging truck travelling on the road because of what she had been taught at pre-school.
Similarly, child of similar age visiting next door to us put on a scene when the neighbour took a chainsaw to cut down a tree for fence posts, because cutting down the tree would cause children to die on the other side of the world.
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Yes, I agree.
Propaganda conditioning (on the soviet model) starts in pre-school and and continues through university.
That is twenty years of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, with only the party line to cling to, because only the party line, gives a consistent drumbeat.
It takes twice that time for a person to become “desensitised” and “deconditioned”. Just in time for retirement.
There are, or will be, three or four generations of people, in the west, who have been mentally abused in this way, by persons unknown.
Countries outside of Europe and North America, seem to be less succeptable. Perhaps they have more pressing problems to attend to.
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Back in the day when Pravda was behind the iron curtain the locals would joke that to know the truth you have to read between the lines.
Fairfax, Guardian, ABC and SBS are pushing propaganda, which is pretty upsetting for all right thinking people.
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As I understand it, with the passing of the East German wall and the Soviet Union came the demise of the leftist anti-war, anti-US movement pivoting on the US-Soviet tension. The disenfranchised radical and not so radical left segued seamlessly into an eco-political arena with the lingua franca of Cultural Marxism and the resonating collectivist goals articulated cogently here, The Greens’ Agenda, in Their Own Words, by Kevin Andrews. It appeared a small step for a goaless left to don the Green mantle, and become Watermelons. There appears an instinctive attraction toward a sense of purpose when one is the occupant of a rudderless life.
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Just reading the comments on the Guardian site I’m astonished.. There’s posts from well informed people on matters of science arguing coherently and with logic – and the replies to these are emotive vitriolic and willfully ignorant. I know for a fact I was taught lots of things that were rubbish at school and it’s taken me decades to discover the many ‘facts’ that were mistruths (mind you, I called a few whilst in school and earned many canings for my efforts) so it’s not like the school system has changed – but heck, the commenters clearly have missed being educated in some pretty basic things like the philosophy of science, the carbon cycle (basic biology), the principles of C3 photosynthesis and simple things like how buffers work in chemistry.
Never mind the empirical evidence of things like global greening, the readily accessible NOAA sea level data and so forth, things that could be determined with basic researching skills.
I don’t know why I remain surprised though, a friend working toward her Masters recently showed me an essay she had written and I was truly stunned to see it was a mere 2 foolscap pages long – an essay!.. double spaced! I could barely conceal my surprise. The quality was akin to a marketing presentation of bullet points and loose factoids and would have earned me an F at high school had I presented such a thing the decades back when I was being educated.
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The corollary of this thinking is that all sceptics must, of course, be funded by Big Coal/Big Oil.
It couldn’t be because they know more about physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, meteorology, electrical engineering, statistical analysis, computer modelling … than climate scientists.
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Please, do not use those long sciency words (like “thermodynamics”). They will be highly offensive to any of the vapourous luvvies, who just happen to access this site by accident.
Think “Precautionary Principle”!
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R W
Then they’d miss the finer points of this then?
“The critical thing is not to get bound up in a further exercise of that stultifying doctrine of paralysis known as the ‘precautionary principle’ so beloved of the Khmer Vert eco-(in)activists. If we had never acted in any different fashion until we were absolutely certain of the outcome, we’d still be swinging from branches in the primaeval forest canopy.”
From
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/06/the-case-for-br.html#comments
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Absolute nonsense! We`d still be debating the risks of going up into the trees in the first place,
40
Pauly:
It is impossible to know less about physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, meteorology, electrical engineering … than climate scientists. On the other hand they are adept at calculating money inflow and their computer modelling has been persistently wrong, but also aimed at money coming in.
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Pauly, I have often thought it good that most skeptics don’t get money from industry, organizations, governments, etc.; and that if they did receive massive grants, contracts, and other funding they would not long be skeptics. It is an ironclad rule that those who pay your wages, give you grants, give you big gifts, and so on, attach strings to the money. Hopping up and acting when these strings are pulled end independence of those receiving all the money. This ends their independence and often their integrity.
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.
Otherwise known as;
He who has the Gold makes the rules
10
You heartless sob. How could you be so callous?
You know each of those words must come with its own trigger warning.
The little kids at uni must all be hiding in their safe spaces and crying their eyes out.
And it’s all your fault.
40
“The filings do not list amounts or dates”. Love the idea that this explains why alarmists are losing. – Steve Goddard
101
The green blob reveals itself again. They are so mindlessly fear driven that they believe that ANY denial, however limited, will destroy their “the science is settled” mantra. Hence, they feel that they must suppress ANY counter evidence, statement, or belief for fear their “truth” will become FALSE! Sadly, their “truth” is not even false but is properly labeled Arbitrary. It is not enough connected to reality even to be false.
Truth is not established by agreement nor destroyed by disagreement of others. Truth is the recognition and demonstration of correspondence with reality. Thus, a single individual can know a truth without anyone else on earth agreeing or disagreeing that it is a truth. A collective opinion can be coherent or incoherent with that truth but, either way, the collective opinion is totally irrelevant to that truth.
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Thank you Lionell. We need to keep on restating that philosophy, over and over again.
“If you cannot perceive the truth, you are condemned to live in a world where everything becomes lies.”
I read that quote somewhere, but I cannot remember who said it.
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Science Is a Single Mind, Learning
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It’s going to get quite overwhelming for the Watermelons as truth breaks out with ever greater persistence, together with the solar minimum and declining crop production. And there’s just the tonic for that lot. A plethora of Trump like individuals arising throughout the West to sweep away the Green infected elite.
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A Green billionaire spending money promoting ideas he approves of is “contributing to the cause”
A Conservative billionaire spending money promoting ideas he approves of is a filthy evil denier.
So Ted Turner is a saint, and David Koch the devil.
It is a staple part of Leftist discourse to apply double standards at the beginning and stick to them throughout.
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I’m a bit uncomfortable with JoNova referencing The Guardian with smucks( alternately schmucks or shmucks). Smucks of all variant spellings around the world should be greatly offended. The rest of her article is a brilliantly conducted expose of Goldenberg and what appears, in my opinion, to be Goldenberg (and her Luddite comrades’) efforts to deliberately be identified as paid shills for the alarmists- which is where the really big bucks, euros, and pounds, are made.
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Are female “smucks” referred to as “smuckettes”? And are young “smucks”, “smucklings”?
I shall ponder on this …
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Hyacinthe Smuque thinks you’re wrong.
On the other hand Johann Michael Ritter von Smuck-Affenthaler thinks you may be right.
20
It would have been funnier if I’d put in the punch line, but too late.
It will have to sink ignored like the latest prediction of warming.
20
Yes, I am greatly offended…no, wait a minute…
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please don’t go off in a Huff, man. !! 🙂
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Dennis, Thanks. I’ve gone full schmuck now. T’was a migraine day, and at 2am.
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Breaking News: Man throws rock in ocean, ripples felt at The Guardian.
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Haha . . Bravo.
Isn’t that just the epitome of The Guardian thinking . . the “feelings” and the the whole gratuitous “think of the children” thing.
Similarly, I cringe when Bill Shorten uses the same emotive angle highlighting “fairness” where the only thing missing is the pout of the spoiled brat.
In contrast, a tweet on Tom Nelson’s feed pointed out:
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“Fairness” was the mantra of Hugo Chavez, the architect of Venezuela’s current economic success
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As all correct thinking socialist know —
20
Another trough spotting
“This is where your money’s going when you give it to World Vision in Laos”
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/06/this-is-where-your-moneys-going-when-you-give-it-to-world-vision-in-laos.html
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Poor underpowered dearies indeed. They have yet to realise it’s far, far worse than that.
“See us here, see us there, pick us out anywhere.Take a look, we’re everywhere…”
“See Us Here”
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Slade – excellent band, great classic rock, hard rock & glam rock. Far Far Away absolutely love this song.
[This is an old thread already so this comment may not be seen by very many readers. But I’ll approve it.] AZ
00
I feel jipped.
Where’s my cheque from Peabody !!!
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You and me both!
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My only thought was Flannery wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for $10,000…
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A simple experiment – cross all the funding. Big Bad Coal can fund the warmists and skeptics get funded by altruistic righteous government grants. Lets see if the results follow the source of funds.
100
Quoted from Wiki;
They are starting to sell off the furniture to survive even though The Guardian is one of the UK’s larger selling news papers by circulation.
The Guardian
40
Darn!
Poor proof reading as I got those slanty bits wrong again even though I thought I had checked carefully .
20
“…consistently loss-making.”? “…the paper made more losses than predicted,…” Why are they so wordy? Whats wrong with saying “…the paper lost more than predicted,…”? Maybe that has something to do with their increasing irrelevance. This must be a British thing like “went missing.”
30
So then, General Electric make around $20 Billion a year in profit from renewables. That’s a lot of dough!
Now, just imagine (it’s all you can do really ….. imagine) the profits they make from the umm, non renewable equipment they make and sell.
Here’s the link to GE Power.
They don’t even need to mention their renewable equipment there.
Just cruise the site there, and take your time. Powering Pakistan. India to grow by 50%. Etcetera.
Look at the links (above that top image) for their equipment in Gas, Steam, Nuclear.
They are making an absolute motza from that stuff.
Let the renewable lobby point to their profits from renewables and say, well, whatever they want to say, because GE is quietly doing their, umm, core business in power generation, and doing it big time.
If fossil fuels were dying, then someone better tell GE pretty d@mned fast otherwise they might lose the lot. (Yeah! Of course they will)
And GE aren’t the only ones either.
If coal was dying, they’d be getting out fast.
They aren’t, and neither are the others.
Oh, and any of you who are, umm, perhaps just the slightest bit curious about Nuclear power, click on the Nuclear Power Plants link there, under the Nuclear tab.
Scroll down a bit and read the text there for the ESBWR. (Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor) That’s driving ONE generator of 1520MW. Just that ONE single generator supplies almost 40% more power than EVERY wind plant combined in Australia.
And pretty soon, coal fired power plants (well, not here in Australia) will be driving single generators of that size, and GE will be making them too.
Also, read at that same Nuclear area about PRISM.
GE might be doing renewables, but it’s their, umm, niche market, eh!
Tony.
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Well chosen niche markets like renewables are obviously such a marketing clincher for Watermelon goodwill. Like useful club swinging idiots, they’re best humoured and kept onside.
20
don’t u just love the names of the orgs – in this case “Climate Investigation Center”. lol.
check the smug faces:
Climate Investigation Center: Who we are
The Climate Investigations Center (CIC) was established in 2014 to monitor the individuals, corporations, trade associations, political organizations and front groups who work to delay the implementation of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis
Kert Davies, Executive Director
CIC was founded by Kert Davies, a well-known researcher, media spokesperson and climate activist who has been conducting corporate accountability research and campaigns for more than 20 years.
Davies was the chief architect of the Greenpeace web project ExxonSecrets, launched in 2004…
More recently, Davies established the PolluterWatch program at Greenpeace, which launched the report Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Dan Zegart
Dan Zegart is a freelance investigative journalist. A ten-year newspaper veteran, he has written, reported or produced for Ms., The Nation, Playboy, The New York Times, PBS Frontline, ABC TV Directions, ABC TV 20/20, and CBS Evening News.
http://www.climateinvestigations.org/who_we_are
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$10,000 to deniers! we’re on the wrong side:
13 Jun: Reuters: Alexander Hubner: Former Deutsche banker jailed for carbon trading fraud
A former Deutsche Bank employee was sentenced to three years in jail on Monday for his part in a scheme trading carbon emission permits designed to curb global warming but used to fraudulently collect tens of millions of euros of sales tax…
The case stems from an investigation into so-called carousel trades in the European Union’s carbon market in 2009 and 2010, in which some buyers imported emissions permits into one EU country without paying value-added tax (VAT)…
European police agency Europol has estimated the cost to taxpayers at more than 5 billion euros ($5.64 billion) since 2008…READ ALL
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutschebank-court-idUSKCN0YZ1S6
13 Jun: WSJ: Madeleine Nissen: Ex-Deutsche Bank Employees Sentenced in Tax Fraud Case
The investigation, which involved dozens of bank employees, began in 2009
Six were fined or given suspended sentences for abetting value-added tax fraud while one was found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to three years in jail, which he plans to appeal, his lawyer said.
A spokesman for the prosecutor said the ex-employees were found to have participated in tax evasion when buying and selling carbon-emission certificates between late 2009 and early 2010. They did so through a chain of firms set up in Germany by mainly wealthy foreign investors. The investigation, which involved dozens of bank employees, began toward the end of 2009.
The prosecutor said previously that the individuals’ actions led the bank to issue erroneous value-added tax statements resulting in tax evasion of €220 million…
Deutsche Bank is currently involved in thousands of separate lawsuits, and has set aside €5.4 billion this year for legal costs…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ex-deutsche-bank-employees-sentenced-in-tax-fraud-case-1465825280
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comment #16 is in moderation.
13 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: India coal pathway central to climate challenge – Bloomberg
Analysts expect India’s power sector emissions to treble by 2040, blowing the 2C carbon budget, unless clean energy investment increases
China’s economic rebalancing will see its greenhouse gas emissions peak as early as 2025, forecasts Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Yet rising coal use in India and other emerging Asian markets points to a 5% increase in global emissions from 2015 levels by 2040…
Between 2016 and 2040, analysts project US$7.8 trillion globally will flow into clean energy – two thirds of total power sector investment.
But lead author Seb Henbest said: “It would require trillions more to bring world emissions onto a track compatible with the United Nations 2C climate target.”
India is critical, with electricity demand set to grow 3.8 times over the period. Despite pouring $611bn into renewables and $115bn into nuclear, the surging economy is expected to rely heavily on coal, trebling its power sector emissions…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/13/india-coal-pathway-central-to-climate-challenge-bloomberg/
fiction:
Bloomberg: NEW ENERGY OUTLOOK 2016: POWERING A CHANGING WORLD
New Energy Outlook (NEO) is Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s annual long-term view of how the world’s power markets will evolve in the future…
Cheaper coal and cheaper gas will not derail the transformation and decarbonisation of the world’s power systems.
By 2040, zero-emission energy sources will make up 60% of installed capacity. Wind and solar will account for 64% of the 8.6TW of new power generating capacity added worldwide over the next 25 years, and for almost 60% of the $11.4 trillion invested…
http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook/
20
Notice the similarities between the long predicted but so far non existent Global Warming and the human caused Climate Change that nobody seems to be able to separate or distinguish from the aeons long “natural” climate change and the comparisons with all that highly promoted Renewable Energy transition and Decarbonisation and the Demise of fossil fuels.
ALL of it is “Predicted” only and ALL of it is “Predicted” to take place over the next 20 or 30 years.
I also will make a couple of Predictions which will be a lot more accurate , in fact undeniably accurate compared to any Predictions the Renewable Energy outfits will or ever can make.
I will continue to pay taxes in what ever open or hidden form they might take.
At a now nearly 78 years old I will be dead sometime from within the next few minutes to maybe at the very best the next couple of decades. [ A potential that is to my kids horror! ]
Unlike the predictions of the Renewable energy troughers and the Climate Change fanatics there is no arguing with my predictions.
None of those claims from Renewable Energy pimps and troughers and none of the claims of the Climate Change cultists are proven through observation and hard science to be happening or is there any verifiable evidence that either the so called Climate Change or the so called Decarbonisation or the Transition to Renewable Energy is happening on a very large, national fossil fuel replacement scale or that it will ever happen on a large national and continental energy supplying system scale.
Witness Germany, the poster child of Renewable Energy and Denmark and Spain plus an increasing number of other nations including China, all of whom are now restricting and controlling the building of new wind turbines and solar farms.
In Germany’s case and no doubt a precedent for others with wind turbine and large solar proposals, if they are to be built they have to be the outfit with the tender for the lowest 20 year contracted energy prices before they get permission to build.
And soon like Spain when the OPM runs out, the renewable energy outfits will be charged for both the use of the power grid and to cover the controlling of the instability they introduce to the formerly very stable power supply system and grid.
Plus charged for the energy they draw back from the grid of 8% on up to at least 12% of the total of actual power they produce, not plated output, to run their turbine’s internal systems when the turbines are not generating power.
Predictions, predictions, predictions, nothing but predictions and all for two or three decades ahead and therefore not worth the paper or the electrons that are uselessly expended in publicising those quite spurious and unprovable predictions.
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The two certainties in life……death and taxes! 🙁
00
Without any self awareness, the proposition by the Guardian is that scientists can be bought, journalists can be bought, politicians can be bought and that people express the opinions of their own political group and not science fact. I can only agree.
Further the coal will be sold. The gas will be sold. So why would a fossil fuel provider lobby anyone or hand over buckets of cash to someone to question global warming? Why would a fossil fuel vendor care? They care far more about the price of their product and long term if they can sell less for more, they win. You can see the motivation for pushing windmills and gas turbines and solar panels. The motivation for selling boring coal is less obvious.
In fact in Victoria, the new French owners of the largest power generator in the state are seriously considering shutting it down and crippling the state and also South Australia and Tasmania. Why? Why buy a power station and shut it down? To save the planet?
Well possibly carbon credits delivered in France. Also because there is more money in renewables and closing it pushes up energy prices and creates an even bigger income for the company and their friends. The idea that companies, politicians and journalists are all acting altruistically and only Guardian journalists are pure and simple is absurd. The second part is true. No one benefits from questioning the Climate Warming faith. Trillions are changing hands supported by the Guardian. Back to paragraph one.
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Good grief….
This website and WUWT seems cutoff from economic data concerning hydrocarbons. The implications of the latest economic data are scintillating.
From: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-13/coal-production-collapses-35-year-low
“Coal Production Collapses To 35-Year Low”
“Submitted by Oil & Gas 360 via OilPrice.com,
Coal production in the first three months of 2016 was 173 million short tons, the lowest quarterly level in the United States since a major coal strike in the second quarter of 1981. Among the regions tracked by the EIA, the Powder River Basin (PBR) in Montana and Wyoming saw the largest decline both in terms of absolute tonnage and as a percentage of the previous quarter.
30
Historically low natural gas prices. Says it all.
However these are limited resources and in Victoria from Bass Strait and we will run out as we are doing with petrol. The refineries will close and this will hit our balance of trade hard. Meanwhile the French want to close Hazelwood. How did closing the Tamar Valley gas turbine work out then? Maybe at sometime in the future we Australians will have a sensible energy policy, devoid of political science. It is quite outrageous that we have all this uranium and not a single nuclear power plant. Now all the coal and not even mining it. Is no one planning for the future?
30
Why do you think Peabody has gone bankrupt?
BTW Coal has not been displaced by renewables in North America but by natural gas. Low gas prices and the need to ramp up and down to follow win/solar fluctuations are what has made coal plants uncompetitive – particularly their inability to quickly lower output when prices go negative due to periods of high wind and clear skies. For the same reason, there are nuclear plants shutting down in North America.
But the GLOBAL picture for coal consumption is a different story
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coal and gas usage in the USA
Data from BP annual energy report
I think the graph says all that needs to be said
http://s19.postimg.org/l7qzc4k37/coal_and_gas_USA.png
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“International Rig Count”
From: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=79687&p=irol-rigcountsintl
Total world oil rigs in May 2016 *1405
Total world oil rigs in May 2015 *2127
Total world oil rigs in May 2014 *3371
When will Skeptical Greens and Carbon Green adherents all go out celebrate??????????????
The Carbon Greens got the emission cuts they had to have (Borrowed from Paul Keating)
The skeptical Greens can now congratulate and appease the Carbon Greens and proclaim, ‘LOOK!!!! YoU gOt WHaT yoU WanTed!! …now give it a rest. 🙂
10
Following on from that…….. “look you got what you wanted”, now give it a rest because there are other very, very serious environmental problems that need immediate attention. You have had your turn and fair share of the economic and other limelight.
20
can’t copy this at FT but u can link from GWPF:
13 Jun: GWPF: Financial Times: Kiran Stacey: Britain Told To Brace Itself For Power Shortages
Britain should brace itself for a winter of tight electricity supplies that will force National Grid to use its last-resort measures and push wholesale prices up, according to a new analysis
Figures from Enappsys, which monitors wholesale electricity market data, show the grid will have an even more difficult job keeping the lights on than last year, when it took new emergency measures for the first time.
They show that for long periods, generators are likely to be able to charge dozens of times the usual wholesale price — costs that will filter down to consumers. Enappsys warned that some small suppliers may not be able to afford a sudden rise in costs and may even be driven out of business…
LINK TO FINANCIAL TIMES FULL STORY
http://www.thegwpf.com/britain-told-to-brace-itself-for-power-shortages/
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go to any story at The Guardian and this pops up as a BREAKING STORY! but it only APPEARS to be true:
14 Jun: Guardian: Michael Slezak: Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change
Exclusive: scientists find no trace of the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that was the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef
***Human-caused climate change APPEARS to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/14/first-case-emerges-of-mammal-species-wiped-out-by-human-induced-climate-change
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The population hasn’t been very high for at least a decade. In 2008 the count was believed to be individuals or less.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/13132/0
00
Stupid numlock. 50 individuals or less.
00
***Guardian’s bio can’t even say Caroline Lucas is a GREEN PARTY MP!
13 Jun: Guardian: If we’re to win the climate struggle, we must remain in Europe
Concerted EU diplomacy helped secure a landmark agreement at the Paris climate change summit. We should not leave the field just as the battle is turning
by Caroline Lucas and John Ashton
(Caroline Lucas is the ***MP for Brighton Pavilion and a member of the cross-party parliamentary environment audit committee. John Ashton served from 2006 to 2012 as special representative for climate change for three British foreign secretaries. He is cofounder of E3G.)
Brexit would leave the field clear for those on the right who always hated the idea that by intervening in the economy for the public good we should build an energy system that is clean, efficient, decentralised and driven by the needs of households and communities, not overbearing private corporations.
They would demand the repeal of the Climate Change Act, the dismantling of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, a new dash for gas with even more fracking than is currently in prospect, and the removal of any remaining measures to encourage renewables, energy efficiency and community energy…
Our democracy is indeed broken. But it is we who have broken it, not the EU…
The market is like fire. It can serve us well if we control it. Otherwise it consumes everything in its path…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/12/win-climate-struggle-remain-europe-paris-summit
who’s the “we” who will control the economy? lol.
anti-Brexit Guardian-sponsored poll:
13 Jun: Guardian: Tom Clark: EU referendum: leave takes six-point lead in Guardian/ICM polls
pro-Brexit Express reports on this one:
13 Jun: UKExpress: Marco Giannangeli: End of EU rule FINALLY in sight: Leave camp take 19-POINT lead as Britons flock to Brexit
Brexit 7 points ahead in TimesUK poll:
13 Jun: Reuters: Polls show increasing support for Brexit; Murdoch’s Sun backs ‘Leave’
According to the YouGov poll for The Times, “Leave” held 46 percent support compared with 39 percent support for “Remain.”…
Ed King says the polls are CLOSE! the CAGW mob have always been bad with figures:
13 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Meet the climate sceptics backing the Brexit campaign
Nestled in a red brick Georgian mansion, a short walk from Parliament, lies the heartbeat of the UK’s Eurosceptic and climate sceptic campaigns
***With 10 days until the UK votes on its future within the European Union, the polls are close…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/13/meet-the-climate-sceptics-backing-the-brexit-campaign/
20
13 Jun: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Tory donor plans link to French energy grid to avoid UK blackouts
A prominent Conservative donor has set out plans to capitalise on the threat of electricity blackouts by building a new £1.1bn link to France’s nuclear-powered electricity grid…
The Ukrainian-born entrepreneur (Alexander Temerko) says the Government’s energy strategy is “detached from reality”, arguing a combination of decommissioning of coal power stations and a failure to support investment in their replacements will lead to electricity shortages…
Now Mr Temerko has unveiled the new “Aquind” interconnector project, which would have a 2 gigawatt (GW) capacity – equalling the size of Britain’s biggest existing interconnector, and larger than any rival proposed project…
***Lord Callanan, who sits on the Aquind board with Mr Temerko, said: “With a growing energy supply gap threatening UK households and businesses, there’s an urgent need for a fast and reliable way to introduce new capacity. The interconnector will significantly ease the pressure on the UK grid and reduce the risk of blackouts.”…
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy and Climate Change said: “Keeping the lights on is non-negotiable. We are tackling a legacy of underinvestment by building new energy infrastructure which is fit for the 21st century…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/12/tory-donor-plans-link-to-french-energy-grid-to-avoid-uk-blackout/
***Lord Callanan was a Member of the European Parliament for North East England and Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group from 1999 to 2014…On 8 August 2014, it was announced that he would be made a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords.
13 Jun: UK Times: Robin Pagnamenta: UK taps French power surplus with new cable
Britain is set to double the amount of electricity it imports from France under plans to construct a new £1.1 billion subsea power cable…
The cross-Channel interconnector, which is due to be announced today, will be capable of both importing and exporting power, but analysts believe that a shortage of British generating capacity and a surplus of French nuclear electricity mean that generally it will flow from the Continent rather than to it…
“With a growing energy supply gap threatening UK households and businesses, there’s an urgent need for a fast and reliable way to introduce new capacity,” he said…
Britain already has a two gigawatt interconnector to France that is owned by National Grid and RTE, its French equivalent. It has been in service since 1986 and supplied electricity to the UK almost non-stop during the year to March 31.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/uk-taps-french-power-surplus-with-new-cable-2bdpf3gxn
what a sorry state.
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Funny isn’t it, that when the UK wants real electrical power to avoid any problems, they don’t plan new wind plants, they just propose to build a huge new Interconnector to France to hook into their, umm, monster Nuclear power generators.
France generates 420TWH from its Nukes, and that’s twice Australia’s total power generation from every source.
Incidentally, how efficient are those Nukes in the U.S. eh! France runs theirs at a Capacity factor of around 75%, and in the U.S. with mainly older Nukes, they manage a CF of 93%, and have been doing that for decades now.
The total power delivered to the Australian grids by every wind plant in Australia, for their whole of life 25 years (if they ever make that) is delivered by all those U.S. nuclear power plants in, umm, 115 days!
Ain’t statistics wonderful.
Tony.
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The total power delivered to the Australian grids by every wind plant in Australia, for their whole of life 25 years (if they ever make that) is delivered by all those U.S. nuclear power plants in, umm, 115 days!
I appreciate your purpose here, but despite repeating this concept many times, it only encourages the activists to install more wind power … 3x more actually, just to catch up.
Cassandra suggests that only a grid-collapse disaster (as horribly ugly and destructive as that would be) will actually change anything. And the posturing politicians will pull last nanosecond stunts galore to avoid that.
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“And the posturing politicians will pull last nanosecond stunts galore to avoid that.”
Please remember scale factor! “posturing politicians will pull last nanosecond”?
At the speed of light that is 24cm. No way such politician can locate its own gluteal muscles with one or more upper appendages in less then than 20 minutes! 7.200,000,000,000,000 nanoseconds! Politicians make excellent alligator bait!
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The true cost nuclear energy has to take into account the cost of disposal nuclear waste and the chemical waste generated during processing/enrichment.
This true costing is presently largely avoided by merely keeping the ‘spent fuel’ on site in ‘cooling ponds’.
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The really dangerous thing about nuke power stations is that they are targets when the process of reciprocal destruction/war occurs. Even if they are not, the possible loss of skilled personnel during war would mean headless chooks would be servicing the remaining plants for example.
Try costing that.
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Mike, surely that applies to any of the important infrastructure?
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Gday Annie. Nuclear infrastructure in particular does not cope well.
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It (Nuclear power) can barely keep its diapers clean during the good times
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“This true costing is presently largely avoided by merely keeping the ‘spent fuel’ on site in ‘cooling ponds’.”
That “spent fuel” in one “pond” has much more ‘recoverable energy’, then all of the current solar arrays, plus ‘wind-farms’ will ever produce! Only after all the ‘Mikes’, jump into the volcano, can we learn how to try to recover such energy!
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Will Janoschka,
you might be interested in this. I showed the link in an earlier comment here, and mentioned it by name PRISM.(Power Reactor Innovative Small Modular)
Take this link and then scroll right to the bottom. There’s just some basic information, but it does sound interesting.
Tony.
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TonyfromOz June 15, 2016 at 1:01 pm
“Will Janoschka, you might be interested in this. I showed the link in an earlier comment here, and mentioned it by name PRISM.(Power Reactor Innovative Small Modular) Take this link and then scroll right to the bottom. There’s just some basic information, but it does sound interesting. Tony.”
Anton, I did read! That puppy can eat up Plutonium, for electrical power, and only fart CO2, H2O, and wee bits of CH4! How wonderful!!
All of the high level nuclear waste in the US should be put down in a trench 85 ft below surface, in the medians of the US interstate highway system. Lesser depth in the north where residual heat may assist snow removal! 🙂
You never ever want to “dispose” in such a manner that “recovery” is not ‘profitable’ later!
All the best! -will-
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Look really closely at this innocuous image at this link.
Nothing much eh! Just a bare hand holding a small ceramicised pellet.
That pellet is the end result of 5 processes. It is just one pellet which goes into the fuel rods for a nuclear power plant.
That pellet is enriched to around 3 to 5% enrichment level, which is as far as the enrichment is needed to go to for power plant usage.
Those pellets are then inserted into rods.
For a PWR, the rods are around 13 feet long. The rods are then constructed into an assembly bundle containing 180 to 260 rods, depending upon the type of assembly. Then depending upon the type of PWR reactor, they use around 120 to 190 of those bundles inside the reactor.
For a BWR reactor, those same pellets are inserted into different length rods and the bundles are also different as well, containing in the low 90’s in number of rods. A typical BWR reactor would contain between 370 to 800 bundles, also dependent upon the reactor design.
A typical large Westinghouse PWR reactor will contain around 190 fuel assembly bundles, so, around 51,000 rods, and around 18 Million of those individual pellets shown in the image at the link.
With judicious use, those rod bundles are rotated into and out of the reaction, so much so, that in the U.S. some reactors can go 18 Months between refuels.
At refuel time, thosee pellets are now down around 0.75% enrichment. Some Countries have reprocessing for the rods where the pellets are removed, and reprocessed, and others have storage.
Look again at the image. The hand is just bare skin, with no protection.
Tony.
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You know how I sometimes rabbit on about the bogus statement used by wind plants, you know, this one ….. this wind plant can supply all the electrical power needs of X number of homes. That’s just a ploy used by them to impress, because, (a) the plant is only connected to the grid, and (b) the wind plant is not connected directly just to power any homes, and (c) well, the wind plant cannot supply the constant 24 hour supply for those homes anyway.
Well I can play that same bogus game too.
See that image showing one pellet.
Well, just 5 of those pellets can supply the total power requirements for one home for one whole year.
Now perhaps you can see how ridiculous that claim from wind power is.
Tony.
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Indeed. The “spent” rods will act as a fuel source for the Gen IV reactors that have been built but not commercialized. Storing the rods on site will make it easier to source the initial fuel loadings when the replacement Gen IV reactors get built next to the older plants they will replace (as the Gen II, III and III+ plants eventually reach end of life).
As well as the PRISM, there is also the LFTR
http://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.glerner.com/
We’ve been through all this a few weeks back, Mike.
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Analitik, these days the idea that nuke plants will “reach end of life” is generously seasoned with the possibility that wars of any kind will cause these alleged gentle giants to expire earlier than anticipated.
Lots of interesting comments in this link.
“Why are there no Thorium reactors!?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3dsi1b/why_are_there_no_thorium_reactors/
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I love your speculation Mike. But that’s all it is.
Yes, lots of interesting comments there – try reading all of them as there are lots that point out the politics that stalled development of the LFTR.
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13 Jun: UK Express: Vickiie Oliphant: Fawlty Towers star John Cleese backs Brexit – and suggested HANGING Jean-Claude Juncker
COMEDIAN John Cleese has publicly backed the Brexit campaign as he made his views on the European Union clear in series of tweets last night.
The Fawlty Towers and Monty Python star also suggested killing European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker would be the best way to reform the European bloc.
A prominent Liberal Democrat supporter, Cleese added it was a “sad” situation and appeared to address his message to party grandee Lord Ashdown, who is campaigning for Remain.
He tweeted: “If I thought there was any chance of major reform in the EU, I’d vote to stay in. But there isn’t. Sad. Sorry, Paddy.”
Along with revealing his personal opinion, the television star also proposed a series of EU reforms – including giving up the Euro, introduce accountability and to “hang” Jean-Claude Juncker.
Cleese accused Mr Juncker of “threatening” Britain…
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/679145/Fawlty-Tower-Monty-Python-John-Cleese-Brexit-news-EU-referendum-twitter
Cleese might not be fond of Tusk madness either:
13 Jun: Reuters: Yiannis Kourtoglou: Brexit could threaten western political civilization, says EU’s Tusk
If Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum it could be the beginning of the end for the 28-nation bloc and for western political civilization more generally, European Council President Donald Tusk said.
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a so-called Brexit vote would provide a major boost to radical anti-European forces who he said would be “drinking champagne”…
“As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety.”…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-tusk-idUSKCN0YZ0Q9
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Perhaps they could go back to being a common market with freedom of movement (for citizens) between countries.
Who needs a vast bureaucracy deciding what type of potatoes you can grow?
And for the UK who needs an increasing bueaucracy seeking ever greater powers of interference with daily life (under the guise of “the EU made me do it”)?
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pat June 14, 2016 at 4:08 pm
“13 Jun: UK Express: Vickiie Oliphant: Fawlty Towers star John Cleese backs Brexit – and suggested HANGING Jean-Claude Juncker”
Hanging is so medieval! Good public propaganda/publicity to promote Don’t do dat!, back then.
In more modern times with TV and the Internet, more effective to have ‘suspect’, dig own ditch, kneel down nearby, receive small caliber bullet to back of head, then refluctively leap into said ditch!
Much more cost effective than public hanging!
All the best! -will-
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Anybody know any climate deniers?
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As a card carrying member of the Denialati I accept that climate has always changed, natural variables rule.
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As do I, while being a fully fledged Rejecter of cagw
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You guys are sceptics. The deniers are the ones listed by Graeme No.3
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Analitik June 15, 2016 at 1:18 pm
“You guys are sceptics. The deniers are the ones listed by Graeme No.3
Can I be a denier, mommy? All my friends are! Can I, can I, pleaze!
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Yes dear, I’ll just go an organise your lobotomy.
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Michael Mann and copiers who claim the climate never varies for a thousand years until the CO2 level started rising.
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Well, I tried denying climate, but it seems that long-term changes in weather patterns are going to occur whether I believe in them or not, and Just Saying NO to climate hasn’t been working all that well either.
So I have decided to accept Climate for what it is, what it does, each day, and not worry about whether or not I can do anything about it, just for today. And each day I rinse and repeat.
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Evening All
The odd thing is that global warming, despite the huge economic and political backing it enjoys, still does not have a sound, logical and scientific basis for its existence.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Speedy
Neither did the tulip bubble
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The skeptics don’t need funds when they extol,
The benefits to man in using coal.
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It can only be the responsiblity to employees and shareholders that stop them from shutting down all production. All others seem to think that what they produce is evil and destroy the world. The users of the product is somehow innocent in the destruction the use of it put on the world.
It is funny to speculate on the outcome, if they decided to stop production immidately, as no one seems to appreciate it.
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