JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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A podium position comment!
What do we think of segregation?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-18/shebah-rise-of-ridesharing-for-women-only/8271910
Choice is good, but I worry where that is all heading, and why do people believe that a rare event is likely to happen to them?
70
There’s plenty of female only things … Gyms are another one, for example. Then you have things like Black entertainment award shows. Imagine if there was a white entertainment awards show. Oh wait, that’s the Oscars.
Yes, for the slow folks, that was a funny.
161
The saying, “What goes around, comes around,” comes to mind. Black only schools were once anathema. Now they’re being given serious consideration by some of the “more intelligent” among us.
On the other hand, the Uber driver was a jerk and Cassie Chick’s fear was well founded. So what do we do about it? And I don’t know. If she was my wife, what would I want to do? I’d want to let her go armed. And that’s probably not a good thing either.
100
Nah, she could have stopped this carjacking!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/uber-carjacking-leads-to-police-chase-through-brisbane-streets/8287138
20
Sigh.. This was in my local newspaper recently:
like I expressed above: sigh…….
290
Yes, there seems to be an attempt to by-pass any debate. The same approach is being adopted by some reporters ad commentators in the main newspaper here, notably when talking about electricity supply. It is interesting that the comments are heavily weighted against the notion.
We now have an openly sceptical Senator and to the surprise of other politicians and many in the media the earth hasn’t split and the devil appeared to drag him down to hell. It may embolden others to speak out.
190
On ABC yesterday, I watched Barry Cassidy interviewing/debating Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg. The discussion was about the CO2 emission levels of a new coal fired power station, meeting Paris agreement commitments, RETs, etc., etc. It didn’t take long to realise that both Cassidy and Frydenberg believed that CO2 was a dangerous pollutant.
Whilst it is good that people are now looking seriously at other future sources of energy besides wind and solar, I believe the biggest challenge is educating people that CO2 is not a pollutant.
IMO, that is the debate we can’t afford to by-pass!
381
+10..
Not only isn’t a pollutant, it is absolutely essential for all life on Earth, it is currently at quite low atmospheric levels.
The very last thing we should be doing is trying to curtail it, particularly as the so-called fix is such a huge waste of money and destroys energy security.
This anti-CO2 madness must surely end soon !!!
384
Its going to take someone like Donald Trump to actually say CO2 is not a pollutant and tell them why.
The left ridicule the US Administration for coming up with the catch phrase ‘alternative facts’, but it fits the bill perfectly when it comes to climate change theory. So I go on the attack and at this point the green left get very angry and change the subject, reaffirming my belief that victory for our side is not far off.
Josh Frydenburg is vacuous and has no political future.
201
Not while we have Marxism masquerading as Education it won’t.
81
The pseudo Marxists have entrenched themselves into the education system for more than a generation, its a disgrace, but we can turn this around very quickly.
Convincing people between the age of 20 to 40, that CO2 is not a pollutant, maybe a lost cause.
10
CSIRO (Josep G. Canadell,)
Greening of the Earth and its drivers
Published online 25 April 2016
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n8/full/nclimate3004.html
50
I had the opportunity to talk to a farmer, a fairly bright bloke from Naromine on the weekend. I spent a lot of time tlaking about the SA debacle, but also how the whole CO2 thing is nothing more than a cover for communism via greenism.
At one point the penny seem to drop and he said words to the effect that “well if the Establishment is doing it…uh oh….”
Good thing is he will talk to his mates and spread the word at a grassroots level ( excuse the pun )
The truth is getting out there, slowly…
121
They haven’t got the balls to say it!!!!
GeoffW
20
We can go one better….more bonkers stuff….money sequestration….
Nothing quite like a green “bottom of the mine” scheme?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/government-interested-in-carbon-capture-tech-frydenberg-says/8284682
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has revealed the Government is considering lifting a ban on allowing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to invest in carbon capture and storage.
Key points:
•CEFC currently prohibited from investing in carbon capture technology or low-emission coal-fired power plants
•Frydenberg says Government interested in changing rules to ensure energy stability
•Opposition would oppose changes, says market “not talking” about new coal-fired plants
The technology involves capturing carbon dioxide from a power plant and burying it underground in a bid to reduce emissions.
“Carbon capture and storage is an important technology,” Mr Frydenberg said.
At the moment the CEFC, the Government’s green bank, is not allowed to invest in it.
But amid the Coalition’s renewed support for coal-fired power, Mr Frydenberg said that could change.
“We’re going to look at all our options because of the challenges that we face, namely to ensure energy security [and] energy affordability, as we transition to a low-emissions future,” he said.
Shadow Energy Minister Mark Butler said it would require the kind of legislation Labor would strongly oppose.
“This would be an outrageous act of vandalism against a successful financing mechanism for renewable energy, for energy efficiency projects and for genuine low-carbon technology,” he said
20
Carbon capture? Try ghost busters, I believe they’re very successful & would probably be more successful than the so called environment minister.
60
I wonder if Fraidenberg knows that these sorts of comment and ridiculous idea just drive more and more people away from the Turnbull Party.
They are truly destined for the rubbish tip next election.
100
So how do we get the debate into the mainstream.? Seems to me that the MSM are upping the alarm, everything they say just automatically assumes the IPCC and all world govts are.correct in their support of CAGW
00
Hmmmm…… selling ice to Eskimos. Who would have considered such a thing???
60
A little bit of minor but forgotten history, possibly of interest to some in Sydney.
In 1968 I went to work in Pyrmont when the end of the peninsula was all owned by CSR. This was then regarded as ’the pitts’ – although the usual term was for a part of the human anatomy which probably wouldn’t pass the mods. One of the CSR sugar boilers was regarded as eccentric as he was buying terrace houses in Pyrmont Bridge Road, near Harris Street. He had 5 in a row and had converted 2 into his residence, another was for his in-laws. These were all “pre 1954” properties, indeed much older, and therefore subject to Rent Control introduced in 1939 (or before) meaning landlords made little in the way of profit and consequently neglected maintenance, so they were run down and changed hands at low prices. He has foreseen, unlike others, that the removal of rent control and the proximity to the City would eventually make him wealthy, which I believed turned out to be true after he sold 7 or 8 of them.
At the end of the peninsular there was the Caneite factory (which didn’t use cane but pine fibre) and the Sugar Refinery on the wharves on the Harbour, and behind them the Distillery (making much of Australia’s rum from molasses from the Refinery), the Central Sugar Laboratories (doing the analyses for the whole of Australia), the Transport Co. (Mccaffrey), the CO2 bottling plant etc., and the notorious Bone Char works. This was located on a hill alongside the main road into Sydney from Balmain (Victoria Road) and was regarded as a stinking eye-sore, so much so that when the CSR stopped using bone char and let bushes grow on the unused land they were given an Award by the Council for their efforts for beautification. The objection by everyone who smelt them was the tonnes of rotting bones stocked for bone char production. This had been going on for over 100 years but few had ever got used to the smell. Bone char was used as a de-colourising agent in sugar production because it consisted of porous bones (with some ion exchange properties) and dispersed carbon black (around 14% when fresh and below 10% when disposed of). The bones were loaded once a day into a vessel very similar to an old rendering ‘dish’ used in whaling circles to extract whale oil, and a cover bolted on top. This had a spout/coil much like the old time whisky distilleries vessels except in this case it provided bone oil. Such was the smell that it was hard to get workers for this job despite higher wages and a work ‘day’ not exceeding 2 hours.
You can get some idea of the objectionable odour of bone oil by the reaction of Charles the Second who was fed some by the attending physicians as a last resort to revive him from his collapse in a mild stroke (from which he may well have recovered but for his physicians). They considered it their strongest medicine. He opened his eyes and apologised to his physicians for “taking so long to die” (sarc off/). He died shortly after.
CSR didn’t really know what to do with the bone oil, for years they burnt it in the boilers and the heaters in the char end, and as a (smelly) lubricant for some equipment. One day during the Second World War the shift chemist on duty got a telephone call from someone in the Department of Munitions who was had heard a rumour that CSR had some bone oil, then in extremely short supply as a lubricant for optical gear. The shift chemist replied that they didn’t have much, only a drum in stock. There was a sort of squeaking sound then the bureaucrat asked tremulously how much was left of the four gallons. The chemist who was working 12 hour days 6 days a week, mistook his agitation and told him they only had a 44 gallon drum and they weren’t interested in drumming any off. When the bureaucrat recovered he revealed that they were desperate for some as their allocation from overseas sources was 1 litre for the year. CSR donated the drum to the war effort.
It sticks in my mind that even then they talked of one litre, not pints. Possibly this was because the first users were Swiss for lubricating watches and Germans – for lubricating gun and bomb sights.
Another WW2 story:
When the Queen Mary – then acting as a troopship – came into Sydney Harbour one day (probably 1942/3) the Captain inquired of The Department of Munitions whether they would be cleaning the funnel stacks, as was done in the UK. This unusual enquiry caused some head scratching as the ship was known to be an oil burner until ‘the penny dropped’ and a team removed many tonnes of ‘dust’ from the stacks. Far from soot the dust was quite high in vanadium pentoxide, which was in short supply in Australia but essential for making armour plate.
190
Good story Gno3,I heard a story years ago that Tin mined in the NT contained a small proportion of tantalum or tantalite,which in the days before mobile phones was considered a nuisance and the tin gougers were penalised for too much of this element in the ore supplied to the smelter. What I want to know is where did the tantalum end up? In a tailings dump at Port Kembla maybe it could be worth a look now that this stuff is in demand.
50
Griffo:
The link is a little dated but it seems some people have already worked that “there’s money in them the tailings”. Just click on tantalum in the menu (or any other thing you find interesting). I recall that when gold was first mined at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie that it had telluride (tellurium) as a by product which was dumped as tailings until it was realised that it could be processed. Also the Bird in Hand mine at Woodside (in the Adelaide Hills) is in line to restart (if the flooding problem can be solved) and it has some bismuth in the gold.
http://www.ga.gov.au/data-pubs/data-and-publications-search/publications/aimr/black-coal
20
Calexit is here. They have a spiel that will probably make the idea very attractive to those who don’t know what’s really at stake. Their claim about business being stifled by the U.S. for instance, isn’t true. It’s been California driving out business at a record rate. They can move to Texas or Arizona and have a much more business friendly environment than California. And they’re doing it in record numbers. Individuals are also leaving. And if this goes through as they hope and is approved by the voters, I’ll leave California too.
On the other hand, some of the complaints are legitimate. But California can’t solve them by leaving. This is one of the most regulation fanatical states in the country. And one thing that could happen is that as soon as the U.S. isn’t obligated to defend California anymore, Mexico could send an army north to retake the state for Mexico. And California couldn’t withstand that. So I wonder what they think will happen.
If Trump is still president he’ll squash it before it gets off the ground. I think even Hillary wouldn’t let it happen. After all, a huge chunk of her support, support she didn’t even need to worry about, lives in California.
It’s no crime to talk about it or even to vote on it but doing it is insurrection against the United States and probably treason — not sure on treason but I think so. The next few years should be very interesting, more interesting than even 2016. This may be the epic showdown of the 21st Century. Will someone fire on Fort Sumter again?
91
Roy,
the spiel says California is the sixth largest economy in the World; I can remember when it was the fifth largest, about 2 years ago. I wonder what it will be by the time of the Referendum in 2019?
I can’t see why you are worried, apart from possibly being forced to move interstate. This is obviously a reaction to the election of Trump and by 2019 that will have worn off. In any case the Democrats outside the State e.g. those in Washington with thoughts of running for President aren’t going to welcome losing their largest block of voters i.e. donors, nor delegates to the Electoral College.
70
I can’t blame you for wondering why I would worry. But the force that has gripped California for nearly all the time since WWII has been gaining strength and it has no regard for reality. Remember the Hollywood twit who was calling for a military coup? That is the depth of thinking going on. They have no regard for the constitution unless it serves their agenda or can be bent by the Supreme Court to do that. So I’m in wait and see mode now that an active movement is underway. Critical thinking isn’t even in their lexicon. They want what they want, cost be damned, just as they always have.
As for moving, only if I’m forced to do it. Frankly, I was born here, have lived here all my life, I love this state in spite of its government and at the age of only a month shy of 78 I’ve been alive longer than any of the SOBs who think this is a good idea except maybe Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown. So I could easily resent this whole thing except that resentment is only going to drag me down.
As a more practical thing, I think they will either come to their senses or try it and be stomped into the ground by whoever is president at that point. I cannot see any president doing other than stopping them by whatever force may be necessary. The Supreme Court can’t act proactively and California is not likely to take hat in hand and beg the court to let them go. And the President need not even think about the Supreme Court. He can act immediately to put down any insurrection, even by using the military on U.S. soil if need be.
But things could get dicy between now and the spring election of 2019.
Is this just a reaction to the election of Donald Trump? Trump may have accelerated it but there’s some evidence of secession thinking going back before Trump. If you read their manifesto you’ll conclude that they blame a Democrat ruled government for everything from the drought (just kidding) to failing schools (not kidding). And there are any number of states doing better than California is and Sacramento could have followed any of those examples and we’d be better off.
60
Was this idea of secession not rejected by the Us Supreme Court in the case of Texas v White ? quoting from Wikipedia :
Texas v. White, United States Supreme Court, (1869)
In 1869, the Supreme Court ruled that secession of Texas from the United States was illegal. The court wrote, “The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility “through revolution, or through consent of the States.”
It would seem that California could only secede from the Union by armed revolution or by unanimous decision by the other States that they no longer wanted to have anything to do with California, ie expulsion.A bit humiliating I would have thought for a state whose inhabitants believe (with considerable justification to be honest) that they are the cleverest , richest and most beautiful/handsome in the USA.
70
Mike,
I think you weren’t supposed to remember that little detail. 😉
The whole thing is laughable since business and individuals are fleeing the state for almost anywhere else in the country. That California can make it all by its little old self is a complete joke.
80
I think its aan interesting test case ( like the brave new world of SA and its debacle with renewable power that plain doesnt work…) – maybe they should let CA leave, and let it die once it does so.
Hollywood is full of people who make a living playing make believe, much like 5 years olds with a box of dress up clothes. The fact that CA is stuffed full of strange people ( Roy excepted ) kind of doesnt surprise me that weird ideas get a decent run. I was talking to this californians wine maker ( admittedly who looked like a hippie ) who had a mini melt down with trump winning. Having said that, my relative is a greens voter and cant even talk about Trump / right wing politics.
Sometimes its best to let the kiddies play with stuff, to learn they shouldnt do it….
60
Since I mentioned treason I did some research. It is treason for any official of the United States or any state — someone who took an oath to uphold the constitution — to make rebellion or insurrection against the United States. But the only punishment is to be removed from office and barred from any public office for the rest of that person’s life unless congress should act to remove that “disability”. There is mention of a fine involved but no details I could find.
It appears that the thinking is about like this, if you are an elected official, someone who took an oath to uphold the constitution, then we do not want to treat your act of betrayal of your oath as being as serious as it would be if you were any citizen or resident and did the same act of betrayal.
It’s the same philosophy as in impeachment and conviction of the president or other federal elected or appointed official. We will go no further than removing you from office and prohibiting holding any future office.
Nothing says anything about the civilian leaders of the Calexit movement or any other group attempting insurrection (or I don’t know how to search for it). But it would certainly be an act of war against the United States from what I’ve read.
As far as the president’s authority in the case of insurrection, this from Wiki may be about as confusing as you could want. It’s also more thorough than anything else I could find in a reasonable time — if you trust Wiki, which may or may not be a good thing to do.
On attempted secession of a state: here is a guide to how to do it. With only these options I wish them luck. It’s interesting reading though for anyone living stateside or having an interest here.
60
Roy:
Back in 1933 West Australia voted to succeed from the rest of Australia. They petitioned the British Parliament but the petition was rejected and they are still with us, and still grumbling at times.
The petition to the UK was necessary as at that time the Constitution of Australia was an Act of the British Parliament (necessary to allow the various Colonies to amalgamate). No such nonsense these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_secession_referendum,_1933
40
We humans are a contentious lot for sure. I can only hope that unless there is nearly universal agreement on splitting up Australia or the U.S. we can hold it together until everyone has settled down and can think more critically. But I think there will never be a shortage of complaints. And the least little thing is sometimes seen as grounds for Supreme Court action instead of legislative, at least here anyway.
50
Maybe just SoCal can secede leaving the northern part (where the dams happen to be) to remain in the Union.
30
the globalists want to destroy national borders; see for proof this link: https://im42na.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/globalism-is-an-outright-war-waged-against-the-ideal-of-sovereign-peoples-and-nations/
30
California out on its own with border controls in place to protect the Calif’s from incursions by the citizens of the USA won’t look such an attractive proposition if the BIG earthquake which is overdue historically or even a series of much smaller quakes occur once again down that San Andreas fault or one of the many faults that make up the San Andreas fault system.
Would the Calif’s self appointed elites such as Hollywood and Silicon Valley and assorted politicals then demand that the USA rush to their rescue despite the border checks and the hard line anti USA attitudes of the current Calif elite.
[ quotes ; various from Live Science;] San Andreas Fault Facts
—————-
And then there is the REAL BIG ONE, the Cascadia Subduction Zone
Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes;
A Magnitude 9 earthquake scenario; [ Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources Information Circular 116 ]
————————————–
.
California out on its own and entirely reliant on its own reasources could find they are living in very interesting times indeed.
20
Well, that is lucky for people in California who might be thinking of Treason.
Here in Australia Treason is the only crime which still has the death penalty.
Treason: the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill or overthrow the sovereign or government.
10
Oh Bum,
Moderation again. What did I say this time?
10
Catastrophists are last to feel surprise,
That levels of the sea could fall or rise.
Let’s hope the dam can hold at Oroville,
As spillways weaken from the overspill.
The E.U. should respect each sovereign state,
While many think they’ve left it far too late.
A cereal brand of corn is much less bought,
And such a loss of sales is food for thought.
S.A. endured its fifth blackout last week,
Or one a month, with prospects looking bleak.
Australia’s air-conditioning could stop,
If power-stations close and shut up shop.
90
Ruairi,
A brilliant summation of our state of affairs.
This has a good picture of the damage at the Oroville Dam now that no more water is going over the “emergency spillway”. You can see at least one spot where erosion into the structure of the dam itself appears to have begun. And I can see no remains of the original concrete lined channel leading from the spillway.
The opinion right now seems to be that if the dam goes, warning could not reach those downstream in time. The water would flow right over everything, right down through Sacramento, then Stockton and the delta and out through San Francisco Bay. I can’t even imagine the carnage. It’s a touchy situation.
This will lead to a lot of information if you’re interested.
More rain for today and expected to be heavy. The lake behind the dam is being emptied of up to a third of its water to make a safe catch basin for the additional water.
60
It’s been drought for years and now it’s more than we can handle. It points out the foolishness of assuming the climate will present the same weather year after year after year… …forever.
It also points out how negligent California has been about keeping up its critical infrastructure — another blessing of constant Democrat rule.
70
Roy
Crank this and comments into your thinking
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/30-miles-due-west-of-oroville-in-the-flat/
00
The failure of Oroville Dam would far and away exceed our famous floods of the past from dam failure for death and destruction, the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the second one in 1977. In ’77 more than one dam failed when more than 12 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. And there had been a previous flood in 1936 as well.
We had our own Southern California disaster in 1928 when the St. Francis Dam gave way. It’s placement was faulty from the start, with both sides anchored in shale. Almost as soon as the lake behind it was full it gave way at both sides, leaving a reinforced center section still standing. It ended the career of LA City Engineer William Mulholland. You geologists will understand why it was a bad choice of location.
Our most famous lover’s lane is named, Mulholland Drive after City Engineer Mulholland. It runs along a large part of the Santa Monica Mountains at ridgetop level and offers some spectacular views on a clear night. I’ve always wondered if it was named before or after the dam collapsed.
We don’t have a very sterling record of dealing with nature. Let us hope the California Water Resources Board can do better with Oroville.
00
Thanks Roy,
I don’t know what the solution is, but there is no doubting the erosional and scouring power of a fast moving body of water which becomes even more corrosive by the action of the load it gathers.
30
I am now convinced that climate change really is happening but it is one hundred percent natural and the trend is for serious cooling, not warming since the primary thing that global temperature tracks is solar output and that is seriously dropping.
72
So not only do we have to convince people of no globull warming but serious cooling is about to take place if it hasn’t started already.
82
Dave:
We should invoke The Precautionary Principle. Tell the Greens that we must build up the CO2 level so plants don’t die off in the coming Ice Age. We must do it for the sake of our grandchildren.
101
The Greens don’t care. They don’t want you to have grandchildren. They believe that privilege is reserved for them.
40
How is it that NSW is experiencing global warming (hot) in Feb, yet WA, Tas and Vic are merely experiencing weather (wet and freezing cold) in Feb?
132
Summer and yet it was only 7c overnight, 8.1 now @ 7.45 (northern Vic).
What happened to CAGW ?
Isn’t it supposed to be the hottest ever according to our state funded propaganda media outlet,
the AlpgreensBC ?
How come the Leftoid Imbeciles only flog their nonsense/religion on the hot days, but are suspiciously quiet on the cool/cold days?
Could it be that the Australian BSer’s Corporation has their own agenda ?
That couldn’t be right, or could it?
Just look at 2 of their many taxpayer funded signature shows: Q and BS , and ‘the Dumb’,and judge for yourself.
Are we getting our monies worth ?
I says, sack all the leftoid infestation, and defund both the useless ABC and SBS.
We can do without taxpayer funded propaganda from Marxist Infiltrated Conglomerates!
92
I bet that despite freezing conditions here in VIC it will be declared the hottest February EEEVVVUUUHHH!
72
Change the word ‘Temperature’ to ‘BS’ and then their statements such as ‘the highest Feb ‘BS’ ever’ would be correct…..a rarity from the likes of the ABC !
52
We are seriously considering lighting our fire and others have had their fires going since last week. Yes, we’ve had some hot days but, overall, this year has been very wet and cold.
41
Our stove is going now. It is about 16C on our back verandah. I’m in and out chasing cockatoos, king parrots, rosellas, lorikeets and magpies off my apple trees. This is despite netting the trees thoroughly. I come back in to enjoy the stove and my coffee and then have to charge outside again…sigh! The cockatoos in particular add insult to injury by loudly squawking at me after they’ve wrecked the best fruit higher up the tree. What a ghastly racket they make, the worst I’ve heard anywhere and it’s all summer long. Summer should be in inverted commas atm!
30
We succumbed and got the fire going. Our two hounds went and laid right in front of it the moment it started to glow. What a miserable day it’s been.
We’re only getting the birds in late in the afternoon now and mainly the Rosellas, King Parrots, Bronzewing Pigeons and Magpies. We have no fruit trees so they just come and annoy us for a free feed of seeds.
30
2PM, the Dandenongs, 12.2°, after a night of solid rain. 34 years ago, almost to the day, the place was an inferno.
41
The jetstream has gone wonky and global cooling has begun, but we have to wait for Barnaby to get off his arse and say something.
“I think more politicians ought to get off their fat bony arses around the country and speak up about what’s right for their people,” Barnaby Joyce told the ABC.
61
What’s happened to Barnaby? Has Malcolm gelded him?
30
They’re all a bunch of spineless geldings.
10
Noticed autumn leaves on trees in the main street today. Must be due to global warming.
22
Things that make you go hmmmmm
This one is doing the rounds at present.
Been digging to counter it however I’m all over the place.
Clarity of input would be great … I’m not going to let this person go on with his diatribe.
20
It’s been warming for more than 2 centuries since before we put out much CO2.
Experts “surprised” to discover what skeptics have known for years: world has been warming for 200 years
It wasn’t CO2: Global sea levels started rising before 1800
The coldest point of the Little Ice Age was 1680.
Something else caused this warming. The models don’t know what it was. Whatever causes a two hundred year warming trend causes record hot years to cluster together.
ie. IF Nature were warming us, we’d still get record years grouped together at the end of a long warming cycle.
132
Be good to see a sensible theory to explain this
David Evans May 10, 2016
33
Its had about 10 magnitudes more peer review, from both sides of the fence, than any other scientific paper. Of course it takes time.
33
lol
00
One of the problems you face with this question is that the data that goes into reported global temperatures is homogenised. One approach to test their reality is to ask the person where they live and get the actual temperature record for the location. If it is in a developed area it will almost certainly have increased in temperature. The next step is to look at a nearby location that is undeveloped with a long temperature record and compare. That data is usually trend less or even cooling in recent years. The homogenised data tends to be weighted toward the built up areas. So you can demonstrate how the data provides are not taking account of development on temperature – warming is local not global.
If the location is in Australia then the BoM has actual recorded temperature records that go back a long way for some locations e.g.:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=085096&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=047007&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Lighthouses are usually a very good reflection of climate trends because those locations have long trends in Australia and are influenced by the stability of the ocean.
The temperature over land is essentially indicating weather. Energy available to Earth’s climate system on a time scale of interest to humans is stored in the top 700m of the oceans. The recent records show a a very small increase in temperature:
https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month_mt/T-dC-w0-700m10-12.dat
However longer proxies for this temperature such as ocean sea level have shown a similar trend over the last two centuries e.g.:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.htm?stnid=680-140
Trying to bring a local perspective to the question may get the person to question the propaganda they read.
30
Thanks
Will go digging
This fellow is one of those pushing the ten hottest years in recorded history are only since the climate change agenda began.
He’s not interested in location … doesn’t understand there is no place to get an average and BOM may but it will obviously be homogenised.
10
The Stupidity of Windy Governments.
Was just looking at the announcement of the last of 75 wind turbines erected at Ararat in Victoria.
Reported cost is $450 million with a life span of 25 years, an installed capacity of 240 MW and 13 permanent staff – so much for job creation.
Delivered capacity will vary from 0-240 MW with an average of about 80 MW or a total of about 700 GWh per annum.
So how do they make money?
Depreciation on $450 million over 25 years is $12.9 million pa or about $18/MWh.
Let’s give them a 6% return on their capital, that’s $27 million pa or about $39/MWh.
Operating costs? Let’s give 13 staff $1 million, and assume that’s 20% of total maintenance and operating costs, equals $5 million pa or about $7/MWh.
All up that’s a total annual cost of $64/MWh to give them a 6% return on their capital.
Slight problem, the average wholesale price of electricity in Vic in 2016 was only $46/MWh, so a loss of $18/MWh, or a reduction in their return on capital to only 2%.
Note however that in SA the wholesale price in 2016 was $62/MWh, and this year to date it is over $100/Mwh.
But wait, there’s more. They are also entitled to sell their Renewable Energy Certificates, current spot price over $90/MWh. So thanks to the government RET they will generate a handsome return, all funded by electricity users, sponsored by stupid governments.
And don’t forget, there’s more. When the wind isn’t blowing, there needs to be back up coal/gas available to keep the lights on, hence the continuing escalation in prices.
Note: In January 2015 Ararat Wind Farm Pty Ltd signed a Deed of Entitlement Agreement with the ACT Government, under the Electricity Feed in (Large –Scale Renewable Energy Generation) Act 2011. This Agreement represents a power purchase agreement with the Australian Capital Territory Government (ACT), guaranteeing the purchase of approximately 40 per cent of the energy produced at the site. This was awarded as a part of the ACT Wind Auction and the Government’s plans to source 90 per cent of its electricity needs from renewables by 2020. The award has provided significant long term investor security for Ararat Wind Farm and enabled construction to commence in late 2015. (That clever ACT government, aiming to be 100% green. Hope they turn their lights out when the wind isn’t blowing.)
The RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems) that owns the Ararat Wind Farm is a global renewable energy company which has been active in the renewable energy industry for over 30 years. Its core business is to develop, construct and operate large-scale, grid-connected renewable energy projects worldwide for commercial, industrial and utility clients’. RES is active in the wind (onshore and offshore wind) and solar energy sectors and is increasingly focussed on the transition to a low-carbon economy providing transmission, energy storage and demand side management expertise.
Renewable Energy Systems was started in 1982 as part of the Sir Robert McAlpine group of engineering and construction companies. Since late 2003 RES has been based at its low carbon headquarters building at Beaufort Court,[2] Kings Langley, Hertfordshire in the UK.
Follow the money to understand how these investors are making huge profits thanks to stupid governments.
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Good analysis Robber.
71
How do they make money?
You can dump your electricity into the ground and still sell LGCs at $89 MWhr. Thats twice the wholesale price and this is by law in addition to any income from selling the electricity. Anyone who wants to sell a MWhr has to pay you $89 for doing so. If you manage to sell your electrity, you get $133 Mwhr. Simple. No need to risk your windmills in a storm or run them at night or low wind or at all. There is no obligation to supply base load. Windmills exist because 10% of the population and all the politicians want them and you pay for them but there is no real expectation that they actually do anything much, even by the investors.
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Could you build a “wind farm” and never produce electricity and still make a profit from the LGC’s?
What’s to stop somebody building a fake wind farm that just had fans that spun in the wind for effect but you didn’t bother putting any equipment in the narcelle? It would be much cheaper to build and you would just sit back and farm LGCs.
Perhaps you could occasionally hire a diesel generator to put a bit of power into the grid so no one would get suspicious about zero power production.
80
Not in Australia, the LGCs (large scale generation certificates are handed out based on actual production). The UK is different where it can sometimes be more profitable NOT running your turbine (constraint payments).
Solar panels get their Certificates in advance i.e. assumed amount of generation. Nothing to say that you have to maximise your output.
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There is a difference between producing energy and selling it. Wind and solar often produce energy at times when there is a surplus or no one wants it. At these times they can get 1C per Mwhr or nothing. They can always undercut constant coal which is not paid anything if the electricity is not sold.
Would anyone run Hazelwood or Point Pelican under such terms? No.
30
Tdef
You are wrong about the 1c/kWh. The price can and does go negative. There is a cost attached to turning down output from dispatchable generators and intermittent generators. Generally it is easier to take a wind turbine off line than reduce output from a large generator to a low level. Even more cost if the large generator has to come off line completely.
For the analysis I did for my submission to the Finkel Inquiry I was interested in June demand and costs. On the 30th June in 2016 the wholesale price dropped to -$22.63 for the 4 to 4:30am period. It was negative on a number of mornings and spiked to over $3102.23/MWh at 7pm on 28th.
The subsidies for wind plants vary but they are generally applied to dispatched energy so the wholesale price has to go a long way south before they would come off line. As the number of wind plants increase there will be more periods of negative wholesale cost. To supply 100% renewable into the NEM there needs to be massive storage and the rated capacity 10 times the average demand. Essentially there is always extra power available except on the one day toward the end of June that defines the system capacity. Renewables without storage is absolutely hopeless. None of this can be done cheaply so the power costs have to rise.
I think State and the Federal Governments will be getting very nervous about Hazelwood going off line for ever. I expect they will come to some agreement to fund the operation as ENGIE cannot do that through the wholesale market and remain profitable.
20
It’s not a price if it goes negative, paying people to take power. Are you saying windmill operators pay people to take the power? Why would anyone do that? If there is a surplus of power where supply exceeds demand, why hand out cash?
10
Really, what does it mean practically for the wholesale price of power to go to -$22.63? Please explain how this works in practice or is it just a fabricated number.
As for Hazelwood subsidies, it is only that the $500Million in secret subsidies have stopped which has forced this action. They know the Victorian government will be forced to pay them. Again. The same with Pelican Point where they are refusing to turn it on just because people need the power. Simiarly with Port Augusta and probably with Whyalla. These are not public companies with obligations to the public. It is a negotiating tactic and it will work.
What is amazing is all the subsidies by governments which are hidden, whether South Australia or Victoria or Tasmania. So we pay a fortune up front for power and then we pay even more in our taxes to cover for the fact that we cannot get reliable power from windmills.
This is Alice in Wonderland stuff.
20
I also read about these ridiculously high rates. $14,000 a MWhr. Now I am reading of negative rates, which make no commercial sense! What these look like to me is computer generated oddities from feedback logic. Fanciful output of academic bargaining systems where people have not put reasonable practical limits on the logic. No one would really pay $15K and no one would really pay to sell. I would guess that at the end of each day, all added up, the amount to pay does not vary so much but people are fascinated by these absurd and possibly very short term extremes. They may fall out of the logic, but human negotiators would not go there. This is like instantaneous acceleration in a mechanical system, an artifact and not sustainable.
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Possibly the same people who wrote the simplisitic models for modelling global warming. It’s what happens when economists write software.
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TdeF
The electricity price is set in half hour periods in a bidding process. I think they nominally bid a day out but the pricing can and does change right up to the period of dispatch. If the wind picks up early morning, say 2am, and the demand is low there can be an excess of power likely in the next dispatch period. It actually costs money to take coal generating plant off line and then bring it back on line for dispatchable generation committed for later in the day. Hence the coal generator will prefer to stay on line at its lowest stable output and accept a penalty in a period to save money overall. The price goes negative to encourage enough generation to reduce load so the grid is not oversupplied.
Wind and solar generators get paid a minimum amount for all power dispatched. There are different schemes applying. The latest is say a 10 year contracted price of the order of $100/MWh PLUS what they get from the wholesale energy market. A project proponent, ACT government for example, bears the risk of the difference between the contracted price and the Large-scale Generation Certificate, which vary in price day to day. The linked paper explains the various incentive schemes:
http://climatechangeauthority.gov.au/files/RET-Factsheet.pdf
The link also has the target by year so you know how many certificates are needed into the future. Essentially it is a tax on power purchase so something like an added GST for the benefit of using power from renewable sources. The only way to avoid it is to not buy electricity. No wind or solar project would be economic without LGCs. These days most get direct government support as well. The NSW paid 60% of the cost of AGLs two large scale solar plants. I do not know how the LGCs are split up in that deal. The logic for LGCs is that all the coal plants can produce electricity at lower than the true cost of new power plants because the capital is sunk and paid off. So no one could afford to build renewables without incentives.
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Tdef
There is no fast storage in the electricity grid. Everything going in has to come out as power at the end of the lines plus making up for the losses getting it there, every second of every day of every year. If it doesn’t match, the lights go out or the system trips on over voltage and then the lights go out.
It takes time and money to fire up and synchronise any generator. Some generators are less expensive than others to bring on line and off. If there is a sudden shortage or increase in demand forecast for a period then the price can spike. Lets say a generator is down for maintenance for a period but there is a looming shortage, that operator may be prepared to accelerate the work and get the unit back on line but he would need a lot of money to do that and it has to be recovered over a few hours of generation so he will only offer if the price is high enough. Every generator supplying the market at that time enjoys the benefit of the price spike.
In this submission I have a chart that shows the June price for power in the South Australian portion of the NEM:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgWpiQvBCqnKZ5dJy
You will see how the price varies over each 30 minute billing interval. Actual generation scheduling is done over 5 minute intervals but pricing is every 30 minute period. As more wind and solar plants are introduced, balancing supply with demand is becoming more challenging.
00
Tdef
The pricing has nothing to do with software. It is the reality of operating power generation. Large coal fired plant works best when it is run near maximum load and conditions are nice and stable. Changing operating points incur costs that may not show up immediately but the operators have a good understanding of how it will show up and hit their bottom line. Taking large coal generators off line, cooling down and then firing back up to take load also comes at a cost without actually sending any power out so they need a decent margin above their normal steady state price when they actually generate to compensate for the extra cost involved in being required to jump to the tune of the wind and sun. Wind and solar generators have priority in the dispatch. They usually bid in at negative cost because they need to dispatch power to get their LGCs. The LGCs are usually worth more than the wholesale price.
10
There is a difference between producing energy and selling it. Wind and solar often produce energy at times when there is a surplus or no one wants it. At these times they can get 1C per Mwhr or nothing. They can always undercut constant coal which is not paid anything if the electricity is not sold.
Would anyone run Hazelwood or Point Pelican under such terms? No. Enegie confirm this.
10
I wonder if that is already happening?
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I see Graeme No.3 has already responded.
30
The value of intermittent generation into the grid is negative. The only way it can be of value is if it is tied to storage. To supply power on demand in Australia as and when required it needs to have a rated maximum capacity around EIGHT times the average load demand and the storage needs to be sufficient for FORTY hours of average load demand through the last two weeks of June in every year.
I endeavour to make this point in my submission to the Finkel Inquiry – see link below at post #13.
The value of wind and solar to the grid is much worse than 99% of Climate Change skeptics actually appreciate.
Think about your own requirements for electricity. Can you imagine only having your lights on when the wind blows! Can you imagine only using the oven when the sun is high in the sky! Modern society only functions when electricity can be supplied on demand. Imagine the chaos if traffic lights only operated when the wind was blowing. Imagine surgeons eagerly watching the daily weather forecast to decide if they operate today.
I am highly confident that NO ONE has thought through the consequence of renewable energy policy. It is indeed a dim and dark hole with no light at the end for the vast majority of electricity consumers.
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G’day Rick,
Sounds like even gas has its problems. This report appeared earlier this afternoon.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/second-gas-turbine-at-pelican-point-unviable-for-years/8287118
CheerS,
Dave B
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Rick
Your explanations for TdeF in 10.2.1.1 5 and 6 are excellent.
There is another reason I think you missed.
The NEM arranges for FCAS (Frequency Control and Ancillary Services).
For a premium, generators bid to supply this service on a continuing basis. Consider it an opportunity cost, because they could otherwise have this power bid into the market.
In return they agree to have a specified load available to supply quickly when AEMO require it (or reduce it).
With large turbo machinery, this is not instantaneous. The FCAS contract specifies the RATE at which the load may be increased or decreased.
Rapid changes in load with large turbo-generators create an increase in EQUIVALENT operating hours.
Since maintenance is performed on the basis of operating hours, frequent or rapid changes in load cost maintenance dollars.
00
Rod
Thank you for your support and additional reasons why the grid is a complex place that politicians should stay well away from.
I have just tried to explain Power Factor on the latest thread. There was a view being expressed that the power factor is related to the ability of the grid to store energy when the supply exceeds the demand.
00
That is another thorny issue.
Due to the nature of Wind generation, additional power factor correction is often required. Condensers and other apparatus is not cheap.
Excellent point.
00
Turns out that the optimistic 25 years lifespan is really more like 12-ish years on land and more like 10 at sea, but they still continue to use that as the marker.
https://notonmywatch.com/?p=972
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Here is my latest “geek” video.
https://youtu.be/xCKrRRZgc2o
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http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
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I am grateful for the opportunity to watch a giant U-turn in “consensus science“ as President Trump shuts down the flow of federal research grant funds to support the UN’s AGW fable.
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I said I would post a link to my submission to Finkel’s inquiry into the electricity market before it was submitted. Here it is:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgWpiQvBCqnKZ5dJy
It needs to be downloaded to view it.
40
Good analysis Rick. A couple of comments:
Focus on getting your key recommendations and conclusions highlighted in the Exec Summary and eliminating the non-essential. For example:
This modelling demonstrates the impracticality of intermittent generation meeting the NEM demand.
Having large coal plants or gas plants on standby as and when intermittent generators lack capacity will increase electricity prices as intermittent supplies increase to meet the RET objective.
It is apparent that the consequences of giving priority dispatch to intermittent generators has not been adequately assessed in terms of network reliability and electricity affordability.
The escalating costs of the overall electricity market may make it economic for small consumers to go off grid with solar/battery arrays, but that will do nothing for larger consumers and industry.
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Robber
Thank you for reading it and commenting.
My submission does not have recommendations so there are none in the summary. Conclusions presented in the summary are intended to be broad and not overly negative of renewables. I would like the inquiry to actually read the document. Finkel’s opening submission only contemplates integrating renewables. There is no thought of stopping them. Anything that condemns them outright will not get through the first gate. My hope is that readers are sufficiently attracted by the opening to follow the logic and prospect for a grid supplied from intermittent generation. If they get to Figure 5 they should realise it is an impossible dream with current technology. I specifically stuck with the same power and energy units of MW and MWh so that the scale of what is required is not hidden by using other common units such as GWh and TWh – hence numbers have lots of zeros.
I am highly confident that no one in AEMO or government has actually modelled high uptake of renewables into the grid prior to any government policy on renewables. The one thing that this inquiry should do is to undertake some serious modelling. There is ample data to do that now. The grid can no longer be treated as an infinite sink for intermittent generation. I stop short of making such a recommendation because I am not certain that modelling has not been done. I once spent 6 months trying to get Elcom approval to connect a 10MW solid state mine winder to the network. They did the modelling but it was slow work. I doubt that knowledge is now available to any of the network operators. It would be done by consultants who have vested interest in a project proceeding.
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Rick, it is going to be interesting to see how many submissions they receive. They intend to publish them all on their website, but none I can see to date. Deadline now extended to March 3, so presumably there are going to be some substantial submissions that will make for interesting reading and analysis.
I don’t think that the government realises what a can of worms it has opened with this inquiry and the consequences for the 2020 23.5% RET that requires wind/solar to grow from 7% of supply to 18.5% (with hydro making up the other 5%). That is an enormous change to the network. Surely AEMO has done some modelling?
Feb 15. Media statement http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/Unified-approach-to-power-system-security-required
Feb 10. http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/AEMO-Statement-On-Senate-Select-Committee
Dec 12. http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/New-Era-For-Transmission-Planning-In-National-Electricity-Market “Unless alternative technologies can commercially provide the energy and system stability services delivered by coal generation, up to 12 gigawatts (GW) of new gas-powered generation (GPG) may be required to support intermittent renewable generation,” said Mr Cleary.
Aug 11. http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/Strategic-efficient-investment-required-to-support-Australias-energy-transformation “AEMO has modelled the impact of withdrawing a further 1,360 MW of coal-fired generation capacity to meet the COP21 commitment under AEMO’s neutral scenario, with results suggesting potential reliability breaches occurring in South Australia from 2019-20, and New South Wales and Victoria from 2025 onwards.” “These breaches would most likely occur when demand is high (usually between 3-8pm), coinciding with low wind and rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation, and low levels of electricity supply imported from neighbouring regions”. “In this scenario, the majority of coal-fired generation withdrawals are assumed to come from Victoria, which would reduce that State’s generation output to support South Australia and New South Wales via the interconnected network,” said Mr Cleary.
From Dr Finkel’s preliminary report: “The heart of the Review’s task is to find solutions to address the so-called energy trilemma – policies that simultaneously provide a high level of energy security and reliability, universal access to affordable energy services, and reduced emissions. This is easier said than done.”
30
I expect all of the current AEMO modelling is based on the immediate future and did not start until the problem was already emerging. Even now it does not take a clean slate approach to what would be done if you started fresh right now with current technology; making most of existing assets. As I see it there is no possibility of integrating intermittent generation into the grid in any economic way.
There is potential for independent local intermittent generators supplying low energy intensive consumers in localised networks not connected to the grid.
If there was any serious modelling being done it would demonstrate that intermittent generation cannot possibly lower CO2 output while the grid remains reliant on dispatchable generators being fired up and ready to come on stream at short notice. There is already ample evidence of this with Germany’s experience.
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Rick Will February 20, 2017 at 8:21 am
“I said I would post a link to my submission to Finkel’s inquiry into the electricity market before it was submitted.”
Robber February 20, 2017 at 9:05 am
“Good analysis Rick.”
I agree Good analysis!
Here in the US we have ‘trucking companies’, that have ‘somewhat damaged’ lead acid gel cell or agm batteries @200 lbs/kWh! Easy to repair for any EE plus teenager looking for a sixpack! These ‘trucking companies’ seem be able to get the lead to you as a favor. Drivers oft remark “you live way beyond nowhere”
04
Will
I appreciate you taking time to read it.
In my past I have worked at lead mines and lead smelters. Decades ago the mines used large lead traction batteries and they served reasonably well for about 7 years. The lead was then recycled and cost of remanufacturing batteries was not horrendous. In fact the mine had an interest in dissipative use of lead like that added to petrol and paint but that was possibly not good for human life. I learnt a reasonable amount about lead acid batteries. I even built a bike using lead/acid batteries. It was very heavy for its range and speed.
As an undergraduate I postulated that battery power and energy density needed to be dramatically improved to make battery cars technically feasible. By the time I reached the end of my career batteries had achieved that. I am very impressed with lithium battery technology. The chemistry was not even contemplated when I was an undergraduate.
I have done some detailed comparison of lead/acid and lithium batteries. If lead/acid batteries cost nothing they may still not be competitive with lithium. The space required to store enough to run a decent load; the charge/discharge cycle losses; the low cycle life; the low charge and discharge rate; the need to ventilate gases and the difficulty of placing all that weight all add cost to the installation. My 5kWh lithium fits inside the bottom of a shallow cabinet in the garage. It is ventilated but that is for heat loss from the inverters. I would need about 12kWh of lead acid to do the same job and it would have about 1/3rd the cycle life. It would require a lot more space and I would, indeed, get some exercise from installing the battery.
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Rick Will February 20, 2017 at 2:52 pm
“Will, I appreciate you taking time to read it.”
Rick,
Thank you for your considered reply. I disagree with your assessment of modern lead acid ‘cells’. I learn much from your experience. Thank you! Batteries are always a bitch! Each and every cell must continuously be cared for by ‘moma cat’, “wers my food”?
All the best! -will-
03
Former Newman government ‘killed off’ profitable climate change company Ecofund
“Queensland’s former Newman government sold off a state-owned company combating climate change despite being told in confidential briefing documents that it was a “profitable, cash flow positive and standalone entity” whose revenues were set to double.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/newman-government-killed-off-profitable-climate-change-company/8280374?pfmredir=sm
. . .
How many ‘carbon-offsets’ must Queenslanders purchase before Queenslanders prevent their first heatwave?
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So Ecofund was trading carbon credits – memories of European carbon trading disasters? Selling things that don’t exist – a banker’s dream.
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Oh, the insanity! Carbon capture and storage is back on the agenda!
CCS uses about 40% of a power station’s output and you need a huge amount of storage for the liquid CO2 produced which has to be buried FOREVER. And the volume of liquid CO2 is (I think) at least twice as great as the coal used to make it.
It would better to build a pipeline to international waters and dump the CO2 off shore. Problem solved.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2016/s4622768.htm
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I’m sure that most people have heard of the Heimlich manoeuvre, which is the emergency procedure to carry out in cases of a person choking.
But what if you’re on your own?
Some years ago, I was on my own at home with a very nasty throat infection – I could hardly swallow, and began to choke on a pea. It was frightening – I could barely inhale. I had to do something fast, and thankfully in that moment, it occurred to me that I needed gravity to help. I knelt down, touched my head to the floor – and out popped the pea. I’ve done this a couple of times since – relief in both instances.
I’m putting this out there as a suggestion. Perhaps any doctors, nurses or other healthcare workers reading this might wish to comment?
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Via Scott Adams’ blog … Try the McGurk Effect!
“If you like or hate science you will love this real life example of cognitive dissonance”
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157194850226/two-monday-mind-blowers
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Okay, this is a slightly ignorant Tony wondering out loud about something which has always intrigued me, and will probably see me being (gently I hope) chastened here at this site for my cluelessness, further reminding me that I need to stick to electrical power generation, and not attempt to move into an area where I know less than that. (which i still a lot more than the general public, I might hasten to add)
For some background, as a family, in 1960 we moved from
MexicoVictoria to Queensland. There were Mum and Dad, and five of us children, and I was the oldest, aged nine. We lived at Labrador, near Southport on The Gold Coast.We did have TV, and Mum made it a point of seeing that the older two of us, (me, and my seven year old Sister) would be gently persuaded to watch the ABC News every night to expand our minds on current affairs. It was probably boring as children, but one thing the two of loved was watching the weather report at the end of the news, and even in those days, that ABC weather report was the most comprehensive report on TV.
What the two of us children especially looked forward to every night was to watch for the Maximum Temperature in the State of Queensland, not to see the temperature but to hear the wonderful place names in our new State. The minimum was always a shoo-in, as even back then, it was always Stanthorpe.
However, the Maximum was spread out around six or so of those far Western and Northern towns, Mount Isa, Camooweal, Urandangie, Birdsville, Boulia, and a couple of others with exotic sounding names we had never heard before.
Like I mentioned, the actual temperature was (almost) incidental, although, as children, we marvelled that it was always so hot, usually ranging between 105 and 115 (40C and 46C) even then, back in 1960, and this was for around five to six Months a year. However, what my Sister and I looked forward to was the place names, and we would have good natured bets between the two of us over which town was going to be the one mentioned tonight with that State Maximum.
Okay then, now here’s the point I am trying to make here.
Back in 1960, there were a number of places where they would take the temperature, and as I said half a dozen or so would be in line for the State maximum.
Now scroll forwards to 2017, and watch the ABC News weather report for Queensland. Instead of there being half a dozen or so measurement stations, there are now many hundreds of them spread around the same general area, and even the ABC lists the temperatures in four areas now, with at least forty three places where they show them on the screen.
The question I have is this.
If, in the old days they had only a dozen or so weather recording stations in that vast area, then the average maximum would be ‘X’ degrees.
Now that they have many hundred and more of them, all in a similar area, and all of them with similar very high temperatures, would that now skew that average maximum every so slightly higher, showing an overall rise in the average maximum temperature, giving them a perceived ‘proof’ that temperatures have indeed risen. If you now have more high numbers in a mathematical equation to find the average, is not that average now somewhat artificially raised.
Incidentally, those maxima are surprisingly close these days in 2017 to what they were in 1960 when we, as children would watch so avidly.
Tony.
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I don’t have a proper answer but I would have thought that in 196x it would have been a huge task for the bureau itself (and even harder for the ABC) to get many remote region temperature report available on the actual day of the reading.
Actually I wanted to object to calling Victoria Mexico. You’ve got it the wrong way around.
Mexico is a country, some say it is a developing and poor country, that is closer to the equator than a highly developed nation, the USA. Mexico has a line of the tropics going through the middle of it.
Queensland is a bit backward, and is closer to the equator than the civilized, Australian rules playing, southern states. Queensland has a line of the tropics running through the middle of it.
23
“”Mexico is a country, some say it is a developing and poor country,”
And Victoria is doing the opposite of developing and is heading in the “poor” direction.
How long until they meet somewhere in the middle, do you think?
53
Depends how long Dopey Dan stays in power. If the electorate remains stupid enough to keep him in power, I am confident Victoria could surpass South Australia in the race to Third World economic status by 2025, the target year for 40% renewables.
http://www.delwp.vic.gov.au/energy/renewable-energy/victorias-renewable-energy-targets
50
Unfortunately, while people of Tony’s calibre continue to move north, the reelection of Roz Andrews seems likely.
10
This was never meant literally. It was always loosely based around the border areas, most commonly the border of NSW and Victoria, where it probably most gained some traction, and also the Queensland NSW border, most commonly on the Gold Coast, strip which, while only 20 miles long extended from Southport in the North to Coolangatta in the South, and Coolangatta is loosely in a Twin Towns arrangement with Tweed heads, both towns straddling the border, and the term was used as friendly banter, and applied to NSW residents and also those from Victoria.
I first heard the term (Mexico) used in the early 60’s not long after our family moved to Queensland. I asked my father what it meant, and he mentioned it was most probably loosely associated with Victoria, as a whole, and gained the most traction in NSW, where, when asked where they were from, and the reply was Victoria, the usual friendly response was ….. ahh! Mexico.
It most probably originated, so my father mentioned, from a song in 1939 sung by Gene Autry, The Singing Cowboy. That song was South Of The Border. The first line of that song is ….. South of the border, down Mexico way ….. etc. My father mentioned also that he could not recall the term being in use prior to that time.
So when someone from NSW asked a newcomer where they were from and they said Victoria, it was, umm, south of the border, hence Mexico, a little similar in application to English rhyming slang.
It was a joke Joyce!
But then, you knew all that, didn’t you Gee?
Tony.
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South Of The Border – Gene Autry
Tony.
10
But then there was Gene Autrey.
10
My comment was in jest too!
The original reason for the expression had more to do with the direction of human movement due to need for labour plus retirement. Victoria through the period you mentioned was on the decline and people were getting out, like Mexicans traveling to the US for work. VIC and QLD are now both net receivers of people from other states.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3412.0Main%20Features62014-15?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3412.0&issue=2014-15&num=&view=
I could not find a breakdown of where people from each states went. My guess is that VIC gets a lot from TAS and SA rather than QLD.
10
“You can tell a Victorian but you can’ttell them very much”
00
“Average temperature” for a geographic region the size of QLD is mathematically and thermodynamically impossible to compute and is therefore completely meaningless.
70
Tony:
The ‘official’ temperatures are compiled from selected sites, not all. This might be of interest. (If you haven’t been to the site before ignore all comments by sod and SebastianH. )
http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/13/more-data-manipulation-by-noaa-nasa-hadcrut-cooling-the-past-warming-the-present/#sthash.1acvuFmO.dpbs
00
How B.C.’s formerly ‘revenue neutral’ carbon tax turned into another government cash grab
30
I hope against hope that this is my last post on this lunacy. I started by foolishly saying I would write about the benefits, costs, and outcomes of the BC carbon-based energy tax, so I was stuck with doing it.
Willis Eschenbach
20
Lawrence Solomon: Finally it’s safe for the whistleblowers of corrupted climate science to speak out
50
Has anybody noticed that ‘Mick the Hockey Stick Mann’ is here in Australia and has given at least 2 interviews on the CAGW forever media outlet, the AlpgreensBC .
Mr BS was accompanied by Dr Karl who was eagerly saying yes to any and all absurdities being flogged by him!
A thoroughly sickening experience to observe such duds in action!
Where’s Mark Steyn or Lord Monckton when you need them ?
What is that DUD Mann doing here???
40
At least we were spared Gore.
20
gone viral, as they say, & pretty much all MSM carrying variations of the AP story – “Scientists hold rally in Boston to protest threat to science”.
Fairfax adds the perspective of WaPo’s CAGW- advocating, long-time Desmog contributor, Chris Mooney, author of “The Republican War on Science” – but it’s not politicising science or anything like that.
white lab coats were handed out to the activists, no doubt to give the appearance more scientists were present than actually were!
20 Feb: SMH: Chris Mooney: ‘Make America Smart Again’: US scientists rally against Donald Trump’s policies
by Washington Post with AP
Boston: Hundreds of scientists and their supporters rallied in historic Copley Square on Sunday, demanding that the Trump administration accept empirical reality on issues such as climate change and highlighting the centrality of objective information to making policy.
The scientists, some dressed in ***white lab coats, called on President Donald Trump’s administration to recognise evidence of climate change and take action on various environmental issues…
“We did not politicise science,” said Naomi Oreskes…
The event, called the Rally to Stand Up for Science, was organised by the Natural History Museum, ClimateTruth.org and a number of other groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists.
It was timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), also occurring in downtown Boston.
This timing – along with the science-intensive community in an area that features Harvard, MIT and numerous other universities – probably helped to ensure a good part of the turnout…
***The organisers promised that they would provide not only signs but also “lab coats” to those who attended…
While the event’s Facebook page did not explicitly attack Trump, it did say that this science-focused rally would be “the first one since anti-science forces and climate deniers have taken office”…
The event, which covered much of Copley Square, seemed to be a promising sign for a far larger March for Science event, scheduled for April 22, Earth Day…
Yet there are tensions within the science world over these marches, and especially the April 22 event. They were apparent inside the nearby AAAS annual meeting on Saturday. There, hundreds packed into a panel discussion, hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled “Defending Science and Scientific Integrity in the Age of Trump”.
The panel included John Holdren, former Obama science adviser, and Jane Lubchenco, former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. No speaker directly opposed the march, but Holdren did voice his worry, in a general sense, about whether messages emanating from the science world at this moment would be strategically co-ordinated or constructive.
“If we let a thousand flowers bloom, one liability is that we will end up with a whole less than the sum of the parts,” Holdren said.
When an audience questioner asked whether the planned April 22 march would lead to scientists being perceived as elitist or partisan, Lubchenco advised that the community should “encourage people who aren’t scientists to march as well. Have it be a celebration of science.”…
One audience questioner even went so far as to suggest that the United States was becoming like fascist Germany, leading to a strong rebuttal from physicist Kurt Gottfried, one of the founders of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who was born in Austria in 1929.
“I have experienced what you are talking about,” Gottfried said. “And I want to warn you against overstating the case. I ***think the United States is not Germany or Austria in 1938.”…
Some of those who turned out at Sunday’s rally criticised Trump’s appointment of Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency over the objections of environmental groups…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/make-america-smart-again-us-scientists-rally-against-donald-trumps-policies-20170219-gugl1l.html
21
If those scientists protesting against Trump were deported the US would instantly become smarter and greater. Pity we can’t contemplate doing the same thing here with some CSIRO scientists.
51
Sorry Naomi, it became politicised the minute the IPCC was created.
31
Evidence of “climate change™” ?
Where?? there is absolutely no CO2 warming signal in the whole of the satellite temperature data.
Just a step from the 1998 El Nino.. absolutely nothing to do with CO2..
…. and what looks like a simple transient from the most recent El Nino.
Even these spikes were less than a degree.
Where is this “evidence” of human forced “climate change™” ???
02
I see coal-fired power stations could become eligible for funding from Australia’s green bank under changes being considered by the Turnbull. Not good enough. Scrap the green bank and the numerous subsidies and disincentives to allow new generation coal fired powered stations to be built for base load ASAP. We have sufficient renewables in place for the time being. We need more base load power not less. If LNP makes that promise I will vote for them. Otherwise they will not get my vote under any circumstances. As for the ALP+Greens they do not exist as far as I’m concerned. There are other parties to choose from that will not lead our nation over the cliff or do so a lot slower.
70
20 Feb: Australian: AAP: Meredith Booth: South Australia power market ‘not broken’ Senate inquiry hears
South Australia power market ‘not broken’ Senate inquiry hears
UPDATE: SA plant deal alone not enough
Winning a long-term power contract with the South Australian government would not prompt French multinational power company Engie to restart its mothballed gas-fired plant at Pelican Point, a Senate committee into the resilience of Australia’s electricity infrastructure has heard in Adelaide.
The power station operators, which heard from the Australian Electricity Market Operator too late on February 9 to fire up and prevent forced blackouts of 90,000 homes in Adelaide, would need more long-term contracts on top of the Labor South Australian government’s 75MW tender to bring its second 240MW unit out of its mothballed state…
Two executives from rival energy generator and retailer AGL, cancelled their appearance at the committee this morning drawing criticism from Committee chair, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who said she was “extremely disappointed” and it was pretty bad form…
Earlier report: SA power market ‘is not broken’
South Australia has one of the most widely fluctuating energy profiles in the world with demand varying greatly across the year, a Senate inquiry has been told.
The SA government has blamed the blackout on a failure to turn on Engie’s second gas fired unit in Adelaide.
But spokesman (Engie corporate affairs head) Jim Kouts has told the committee the market operator was well aware the plant had been mothballed for some time because it was unviable to operate it continually for just a few high-demand days each year…
Engie told AEMO it could secure gas and have the plant operating in an hour, but it was ultimately not required until the next day when it ran for four hours in similarly hot conditions after being directed to turn on.
Mr Kouts said he had “great empathy” for people who lost power during the heatwave.
“We’re all part of the community,” he said…
“The market is not broken. The power is on,” he said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/south-australia-power-market-not-broken-senate-inquiry-hears/news-story/388cdf7c1e79dfc1a861531dc8f57844
11
My bolding here:
What!
Please don’t tell me that this woman is the chair of a Committee inquiring about electrical power generation.
Thank heavens lowly little nobodies like me never get an invite to Inquiries like this. I have a pile of questions I would really like to ask that Senator particularly. (and hey, even I know that witnesses are not actually there to ask actual questions. They are just there to be scapegoated, because Senators don’t want to actually hear the truth.) People can make submissions, but they just get dumped straight into the bin, unread.
This committee is the Resilience of Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World – Select Committee
Even the title is skewed towards their desired result. SHY is the Chair, and there are three Labor Senators, Two Liberals, and Malcolm Roberts of PHON.
Please don’t tell me these people actually know what questions to even ask in the first place, let alone make recommendations.
We are truly stuffed.
Tony.
71
That’s for sure.
Next thing we’ll find out, Sarah Sea Patrol is an expert witness on submarines!
This is an abomination.
70
It’s such a pity that we can’t get word to Senator Malcolm Roberts to ask two specific questions regarding that recent electricity load shedding in South Australia.
1. What was the total power demand just before the load shedding began? (Answer – 3000MW)
2. How Much power was all the wind power in South Australia generating at that same time? (Answer – 80MW, or 2.7% of the actual power requirement, so, operating at a 5% Capacity Factor.)
Capacity Factor is a meaningless term for the Committee to hear, because not one of them would have the first clue what Capacity Factor was, but perhaps Senator Roberts could then explain it to them.
Tony.
91
Malcolm is not on the committee. He is out west on a listening tour.
10
You can contact him, as with all politicians: senator.roberts@aph.gov.au
00
Snow in Victoria. Must be Globull Warming.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/summer-snow-on-coldest-february-day-in-a-decade/news-story/c33ffa73542a7f7e6e180a79f457adea?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=HaraldSun&utm_medium=Facebook
42
Since this is the Magnificent Joanne’s unfettered fred.
Was Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn ‘fired’; or did he ‘resign’ temporally as National Security Adviser? The difference here is that the General already ‘has’ the affirmation of the Senate as presidential NSA (not the ugly building with nastiness). Who is out gaming whom?
24
Here is a nice little article by Judith Sloan that Willard really ought to read (and absorb).
21
Caution – Sarcasm alert.
Isn’t battery technology wonderful, eh!
It’s rumoured that so far, around 1% of Australian households are becoming fully (?????) self sufficient when it comes to electrical power generation and consumption by adding batteries to their systems.
So, umm, Australia’s total power consumption is around 200TWH per annum. (so that’s 200,000,000MWH per year)
Residential power consumption is (around) 25% of the total, so that’s 50,000,000MWH per annum.
With 1% of residences now going off grid and battery supported rooftop solar power, so that’s 500,000MWH per annum.
So, that means we have effectively saved the output from ONE UNIT at Bayswater for, umm, 43 DAYS.
We’re saved.
Tony.
80
Keep it up and we won’t even miss Hazelwood. Not.
10
Back to the 19th century? In the “good” old days, people survived with kerosene lamps and wood stoves and fires for heating, and open windows for airconditioning. I wish the greens would all go off grid and off the air waves.
30
Here’s a comment posted elsewhere by a regular here, Bernd Felsche.
QUOTE
Their push for off-gridding homes by massive subsidies for energy bombs in homes; to store the “excess energy” from PV panels and to make the houses “independent of the grid” doesn’t pass the sniff test. [Keep in mind that Enron Musk is a very persuasive salesman to punters who aren’t up to speed with the fundamental physics of the nonsense.]
Every year here in the Perth metro area, we encounter series of dull days, where the clouds cover the sky and not much sun gets through so there will not be any excess; but instead a constant draw on the batteries. At least one dull period of 5 days or more is encountered every year. Every other year or thereabouts, that period increases to 10 days; sometime 14 to 15 days and; in the records; up to 19 days.
To sustain an average household for a day requires about 20 kWh; so for just the “regular” 10-day dull period, the battery must have a capacity of over 200 kWh. (That’s like 200 large car batteries in terms of capacity.) Of course those batteries must first be charged and if that’s to be by PV under cloudy skies while still running a household; then good luck to you; because it’ll take upwards of 200 m² of PV panels to do it “reliably”.
And then are the years where the dull periods stretch to nearly 3 weeks.
Responsible providers of off-grid PV systems; for farms, etc; don’t recommend monster batteries because the costs of maintaining batteries over the years is unsustainable. Instead; they recommend a diesel generator to recharge the batteries when there isn’t enough sunshine to do it.
Imagine how that would scale to suburbia.
Hmmm … smells like shanty-town on a winter’s morn’.
END QUOTE
AND ELSEWHERE HE WROTE
QUOTE
The costs of the “Redflow” batteries (being pushed) is $20,000 for 10kWh; so you need 2 of them per day of average household electrical power consumption; when the sun’s not shining. Sometimes; the sun doesn’t really shine for 2 weeks.
While those batteries “do not wear out”; they do have mechanical pumps and membranes that do. It changes the cost centre from those with which we’re familiar to ones with little history.
END QUOTE
60
19 Feb: KCSG Utah: Earth Day Network Launches Three Year Campaign on Environmental & Climate Literacy
by American Forum Media Service
WASHINGTON D.C. – On April 22nd, Earth Day Network (EDN), global coordinator for Earth Day, is launching its Earth Day 2017 three year campaign for Environmental & Climate Literacy.
The campaign is focused on promoting mandatory environmental and climate literacy along with civic engagement and sustainable economic development.
This year’s campaign will fight against efforts to silence science and focus on creating and supporting knowledge sharing, community engagement, citizen science and stewardship.
Earth Day 2017 will see teach-ins around the world and a March for Science rally on the National Mall that will bring together scientists and supporters to demand that our leaders recognize the scientific truths across all disciplines, including climate change and other environmental issues.
The Washington rally and teach-ins, and other world-wide events will build a global citizenry fluent in the concepts of climate change and aware of its unprecedented threat to our planet and is a major focus of Earth Day Network’s efforts leading up to the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in 2020.
“We need to build a global citizenry fluent in the concepts of climate change and aware of its unprecedented threat to our planet,” says Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network. “Environmental and climate literacy is the engine not only for creating green voters and advancing environmental and climate laws and policies but also for accelerating green technologies and jobs.” …
http://www.kcsg.com/view/full_story/27366337/article-Earth-Day-Network-Launches-Three-Year-Campaign-on-Environmental—Climate-Literacy-?instance=more_local_news2
11
Check out the Aneroid Energy site.
As Adelaide starts a new week, once again Wind Power goes missing just as industry wakes up from the weekend.
From just after 8:30 AM this morning Wind Power Plants were providing about 60MW – <4% of installed capacity.
By 2:30 PM wind is still supplying only ~6% of its installed capacity.
NOTE: The 1,576 MW of installed Wind Power capacity came at a cost of about $4 BILLION.
Gas plants, including Pelican Point, have ramped up to meet the needs of SA.
On an average business day SA needs supply at just over 2,000MW.
Currently, 600-800MW is imported from Victoria.
It’s going to be interesting to see what unfolds as the end of March closure of Hazelwood (1,400MW) gets closer.
PS Does anybody know what’s happened to the Saudi Arabian owned 20MW Royalla Solar Plant near Canberra?
It’s been off grid for the past 5 days.
50
I just realised that it could be a negotiating strategy by the Saudis to get a long term REC with the ACT at a higher price.
It appears that the ACT is negotiating longer term NEC’s with new/proposed wind and solar plants all over the East Coast of Australia so that the ACT can claim That ALL of its power is from renewable sources.
I wonder how they differentiate/filter out the unwanted coal/gas/diesel electrons from the desired wind/solar/hydro electrons in their power supply?
40
That must be like food labeling laws.
“Contains local and imported products.”
10
Yet not one single wind turbine in the ACT.
Public service driven FARCE in its highest.. or lowest form.
And of course they are connected to the NSW grid, so they ALWAYS have coal-fired back-up.
Raven..no “local” at all
14
I have a friend with one on his roof. It is in Cook if you want to visit it. Or did you mean commercial turbine?
Coldest Canberra February temperature on record or so the MSM tells me. Who’d believe them?
01
Here is the real reason the greens are trying to kill our power grid:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/bluescope-steel-profit-jumps-nearly-80pc/8285628
“BlueScope’s boss has warned of an “energy catastrophe” in Australia unless new baseload power generation is built to replace aging coal-fired power stations.
Key points:
•BlueScope CEO warns of “energy catastrophe” if new gas power generation not built
•Company’s profits jump nearly 80pc on rising steel prices
•BlueScope warns of further cost-cutting to save up for Port Kembla maintenance
The steelmaker’s chief executive Paul O’Malley unveiled a large 80 per cent profit bounce, but warned that power-intensive industries like his faced a crisis if energy security was not addressed urgently.
“If there’s gas in Australia and we say it can go overseas and we don’t have any baseload generation then I think we’re going to have an energy catastrophe in Australia,” Mr O’Malley said in response to a question from the ABC.
“If we do not have coal then we must have gas. If there is no gas in Australia then we have no baseload energy.”
50
Pascoe thinks this is a NEW “bombshell”?
20 Feb: SMH: Michael Pascoe: The climate bombshell the politicians didn’t touch
Never mind the politicisation of energy and carbon policy – the market and legal system is moving rapidly to instil the discipline and punishment the government isn’t game to discuss.
That was the core of the climate change bombshell dropped by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Friday. The policy vacuum will be filled by the personal liability of company directors and the disclosure requirements of financial regulators…
In keeping with the Paris Agreement Australia has signed and the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) policy development, APRA leaves no room for climate sceptics. Both the obvious physical and perhaps less obvious “transition” risks of climate change are real and present dangers to the financial system APRA is charged with safeguarding…
APRA and its international counterparts fear the impact on banks, superannuation funds and asset managers of changes in policy, law, markets, technology and prices that are part of the agreed transition to a low-carbon economy…READ ON
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-climate-bombshell-the-politicians-didnt-touch-20170219-gugn0r.html
21
“In keeping with the Paris Agreement Australia has signed and the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) policy development, APRA leaves no room for climate sceptics.”
In otherwords, forced socialism via green decree….
But then there is Donald Trump……
40
I wonder… when was the last time that anyone representing The Greens encouraged people to go for a bushwalk, go to their local park, go to the beach, or just to get outside, and away from their normal environment for a short time?
I can’t for the life of me, remember them saying anything positive about, well, anything really, but, admittedly, it is extremely hard to listen to the sanctimonious whining from Hanson-Young, Bandt, and Di Natale for more than a few seconds, so maybe I missed something?
They can’t seem to even manage being positive about the government spending someone else’s money on “carbon capture and storage” technology…
With such rampant negativity, and hypocrisy, how could any sane person still think The Greens have any genuine regard for the environment and conservation?
30
anyone get the impression Bloomberg & the rest of the CAGW pushers are merely playing games with the general public with all their rubbish about renewables & divesting from fossil fuels, etc?
theirABC & Fairfax – & the Murdoch press for the most part – would also have us think the world is running away from fossil fuels.
19 Feb: Bloomberg: China’s CNPC Buys Stake in $22 Billion Abu Dhabi Oil Venture
by Anthony Dipaola and Mahmoud Habboush
Asia will show the fastest growth in energy demand over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency. Abu Dhabi is among Persian Gulf oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Iraq that are tapping Asia for energy investments…
“If you’re Abu Dhabi and looking for demand growth, China is the future and its demand is going to continue to grow,” Chris Gunson, a Dubai-based lawyer at Amereller Legal Consultants, said Sunday. “For the big buyers in Asia, the logical source of that future supply is the Gulf.”…
CNPC is joining the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations, or ADCO. BP and Total each hold 10 percent stakes in the venture, while Japan’s Inpex Corp. owns 5 percent and GS Energy Corp. of South Korea holds 3 percent. Abu Dhabi plans to retain a 60 percent stake in ADCO and is seeking an investor for the remaining 4 percent, Adnoc said in the statement…
Japanese companies are partners in at least four other oil-production ventures in Abu Dhabi, the largest sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates. Korean and Chinese companies are exploring at smaller concessions in the emirate. CNPC’s engineering arm also helped build an export pipeline in Abu Dhabi…
Abu Dhabi is seeking to boost production capacity to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2018. ADCO pumps about half of Abu Dhabi’s roughly 3 million barrels of daily crude output…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-19/abu-dhabi-awards-china-s-cnpc-stake-in-main-onshore-oil-deposits
19 Feb: Bloomberg: AP: Iraq Says Proven Oil Reserves Rise to 153 Billion Barrels
Iraq says new exploration has revealed an additional 10 billion barrels of oil, bringing its total proven reserves to 153 billion barrels…
He says Iraq will ask the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to adopt the new figure…
20 Feb: Bloomberg: Oil Supercharges the Kazakh Tenge, and the Gains May Not Be Over
by Will Davies
Crude is greasing the wheels of one of the world’s best-performing exotic currencies…
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is also a fan, saying earlier this month that the tenge could climb 15 percent in 2017 thanks to elevated crude prices…
In January, Kazakhstan produced 1.67 million barrels of oil a day…
11
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/second-gas-turbine-at-pelican-point-unviable-for-years/8287118
01
I’m sensing a little common sense coming into the picture today. For example, BlueScope Steel warns that Australia faces an energy catastrophe if the states do not have a base load power target as distinct from a renewables target, and if new coal/gas power stations are not built to maintain base load power. Also each stares should provide sufficient base load power on their own and be able to assist other states with that power where necessary, ie both ways. This means SA has to build quickly coal and/or gas power stations. I hope they keep repeating these facts in the media. If they do the ALP+Greens will be laughed out of Australian politics. LNP will then have to change tune or else they will follow. I would go further and say any party that does not follow this goal to provide targets for reliable and affordable base load power across the nation is a danger to our nation’s security and economic survival, and should be treated accordingly, in the courts if necessary.
50
If One Nation gets the balance of power (or better) in Queensland, around 6,000 MW of coal fired, base load will be built in Northern Qld.
Got a call from the ON Qld leader this afternoon in relation to this. We are progressing to where the power stations will be constructed.
We’ll flood the grid with cheap power…there is more than one way to cease this RET madness. Hehehehehe.
92
This is great news Scaper , but for gods sake tell em to get the message out there .
20
All in good time, Robert.
It seems that a few parties are talking about constructing a coal fired power station up north. But no one to date can answer the questions.
Where. Cost. CBA. How is it going to be supplied. Until these questions can be confidently addressed it is all fluff. The people are tired of fluff. They want the answers.
30
Too right we do want answers but more important we want someone saying the opposite to the crapp we’re hearing from Libs and Labs on energy and the whole Co2 and CAGW scam .
I would have thought one nation would have been all over the SA power issue but they have been quieter than the liberals .
10
RR:
I can’t remember who it was said “When the enemy is shooting himself in both feet, don’t try to take the gun off him”.
20
Point taken
00
The China Infrastructure Bank won’t touch it because of its green rules, so I imagine a Beijing consortium would automatically win the tender by offering to build the coal fired power station on the never never.
00
The other way is to repeal the RET. Stop it. Electricity would drop by at least half. Blackouts would stop. Power stations would compete to lower prices. No one would build windmills.
Plus stop paying people to generate their own electricity while taking ours when it suits them at night and still days when they have none, again at our expense. Basically get the politicians and Union Labor governments out of our electricity. Stop this nonsense about saving the world and Green jobs. After thirty years of this, those claims are just nonsense.
40
Not sure who still gets big feedin tariffs any more Tdef , I get 8 cents for what I export and it’s capped .
So I don’t get anything for exported basically after the first month , the rest they take for free for the next two months .
00
Looks like multiculturalism is about to collapse in France in a violent way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHEK4fqJnKE
40
🙂
22
Will Janoschka – you asked earlier about the removal of President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. I won’t speculate, except to say:
Flynn is a lifelong Democrat, from a Dempcrat family. he seems to have shared Trump’s desire for detente with Russia but, as we have seen in recent weeks, they were surrounded by anti-Russia war hawks, Democrat and Republican, (incl VP Pence & Gen Mattis, & Republican senators, McCain & Graham, etc).
Stephen Cohen, Professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at Princeton and New York University is married to editor and publisher of progressive left The Nation – Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Cohen is my go-to man on Russia and he is uniquely fair to Trump, simply because he supports detente with Russia, which he sees as a good thing, unlike most of the prog left, who loved the Soviet Union, but are hostile to present-day, post-communist Russia.
this program is recorded just as news was breaking that Flynn did mention sanctions (as if it matters), so it’s only the final 4 mins on that breaking news, but there’s much of interest in the full interview. DRAINING THE SWAMP IS NOT EASY:
15 Feb: AUDIO: 39mins50secs: The Nation: Kremlin-Baiting President Trump (Without Facts) Must Stop
Bipartisan allegations that Trump is a “puppet” of or “compromised” by the Kremlin have grown into latter-day McCarthyism with grave threats to America and the world.
By Stephen F. Cohen
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.)
Cohen regrets the subject of tonight’s discussion. He prefers to focus his decades of scholarly study and personal experience on loftier developments in Russia and issues in US-Russian relations. But the bipartisan, nearly full-political-spectrum tsunami of allegations that President Trump has been seditiously “compromised” by the Kremlin (Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 15), with scarcely any non-partisan pushback at any influential political or media levels — and without any yet verified facts — is deeply alarming.
Begun by the Clinton campaign in mid 2016, and exemplified now by the strident innuendos of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and equally unbalanced bookings at CNN and elsewhere, the practice is growing into a kind of latter-day McCarthyite red-baiting and hysteria. Such politically malignant practices are to be deplored anywhere they appear, without exception, whether on the part of conservatives or liberals or progressives.
They are driven by political forces with various agendas: the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party that wants to maintain its grip on the party in its internal struggle ahead by insisting she did not lose the election but it was stolen by Russian President Putin for Trump; by enemies of Trump’s proposed détente with Russia, who want to discredit both him and Putin; by Republicans and Democrats outraged that Trump essentially ran and won without either party, thereby threatening the established two-party system, etc.
Whatever the motivating factors, the ensuing slurring of Trump, which is already producing calls for his impeachment, poses grave threats to US and international security and to American democracy itself.
6. Finally, there is the resignation (or firing) of General Michael Flynn as Trump’s national security adviser for having communicated with Russian representatives about the sanctions imposed by Obama just before leaving the White House and before Trump was inaugurated. Flynn may have misled Vice President Mike Pence about those discussions, but they were neither unprecedented nor incriminating, so far as is known. Other American presidential candidates and presidents-elect had communicated with foreign states—as Nixon seems to have done to prevent a Vietnam peace agreement that would favored Humphrey, or perhaps as Reagan did with Iran to prevent release of its American hostages before the election. Indeed, it seems to have been a common practice. For example, Obama’s own subsequent top Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, told The Washington Post recently (February 9) that he visited Moscow in 2008, before the election, for talks with Russian officials…
More generally, if Flynn’s purpose was to persuade the Kremlin not to overreact to Obama’s sanctions, which were accompanied by a provocative threat to launch a cyber attack on Moscow, this seems wise and in America’s best interests. Unless our political-media establishment would prefer the harshest possible reaction by Putin, as some of its Cold War advocates apparently do…
In concluding, Cohen suggests that it is less Putin who is threatening American democracy than is the Kremlin-baiting of President Trump — unless facts can be produced for its allegations. Less Putin who is endangering US and international security than the American enemies of détente who resort to such tactics. Less Putin who is degrading US media with “fake news” — unless facts are presented to support the mainstream media allegations against Trump regarding Russia. And less the “former KGB ***thug Putin” who is poisoning American politics than the US intelligence leakers who are at war against their new president.
President Eisenhower eventually stopped Joseph McCarthy. Who, Cohen asks, will stop the new McCarthyism before it spreads even more into the professed “soul of democracy”? Facts might do so. But in lieu of facts there are only professional ethics and patriotism.
https://www.thenation.com/article/kremlin-baiting-president-trump-without-facts-must-stop/
***Cohen does not say “thug”.
sadly, MSM and the War Party (R & D) have no intention of changing the subject from Russia – there are about 12 investigations under way if I remember correctly – and the MSM expect every question asked of the President should be about Russia or Flynn. any other topic is FakeNews, as far as they are concerned.
theirABC/Fairfax/Guardian are no different.
02
“this program is recorded just as news was breaking that Flynn did mention sanctions (as if it matters), so it’s only the final 4 mins on that breaking news, but there’s much of interest in the full interview. DRAINING THE SWAMP IS NOT EASY:”
Pat,
I’m just trying to get folk to perhaps start thinking! Some of the spook guys are good at their trade… Every Cajun knows that ya gotsa get rid o’da ‘gators before you drain da swamp! Was Flynn ‘gator bait? Voluntarily? Who leaked? Do I get a cut?
Are there now ‘only’ 13 different recordings of the same conversation? Perhaps the administration will auction off all 13 before anyone reviews any! What is the commission that Sotheby’s now gets?
02
Will Janoschka – shouldn’t have relied on memory re number of investigations. think I got mixed up with this:
19 Feb: AP: Aide says senators want materials saved for Russia probe
By DEB RIECHMANN and EILEEN SULLIVAN
The Senate Intelligence Committee has sent formal requests to more than a ***dozen organizations, agencies and individuals, asking them to preserve all materials related to the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related issues, according to a congressional aide…
mind u, if all these investigations went ahead separately (which is not suggested in the piece), it would add up to TEN investigations. the idea is to have Trump’s entire presidency dominated by this FakeNews story:
17 Feb: Bloomberg Editorial: Investigate Trump’s Russia Ties
At least six agencies are investigating Trump’s ties to Russia…
American spy agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and likely sought to aid Trump. According to news reports, there is also evidence that the president’s associates were repeatedly in contact with Russian intelligence during the campaign. This week, Trump’s national security adviser resigned after making misleading statements about a conversation he had with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions.
Yet more worrying, much of the public evidence about all this has come from anonymous leaks…
Although the House and Senate intelligence committees are looking into Russia’s involvement in the election, potential pitfalls abound: The committees deliberate behind closed doors, evaluate classified evidence, and may never make their full results public…
One option, as Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed, would be a select committee made up of the top members of other congressional committees relevant to the investigation…
Another option would be an independent commission…
An investigation of this gravity can’t succumb to political interference or partisanship…
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-17/investigate-trump-s-russia-ties
the desperate, dishonest MSM:
13 Feb: WaPo: Here’s how Trump avoided questions about Michael Flynn in today’s press conference
By Callum Borchers
The glaring omission immediately struck journalists — the ones who didn’t have opportunities to ask questions, anyway.
“Interestingly, there was not any question about the future of the president’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer observed, as soon as the news conference concluded. “That’s a big news story today, but the two American reporters who asked questions, asked questions about the U.S.-Canadian relationship. Presumably, that’s what the White House wanted.”
“It is clearly what the White House wants,” CNN analyst Gloria Borger replied, “and I don’t know if they arranged that in advance.”…
Journalists besides Borger also seemed to wonder whether the questions had been set up. Several pointed out that the two U.S. news outlets receiving questions were the conservative Daily Caller and the ABC affiliate in Washington, which has taken what The Post’s Paul Farhi described in 2014 as “a subtle but noticeable turn to the right” since being purchased by the Sinclair Broadcast Group…AND ON AND ON…TWEETS GALORE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/13/trump-got-through-an-entire-news-conference-without-facing-a-single-question-about-michael-flynn/?utm_term=.fd96b7f4bd46
02
AN ABSOLUTE MUST-READ:
20 Feb: Townhall: President Trump Has Been Far Too Nice To The Mainstream Media
Kurt Schlichter
(Kurt Schlichter, Senior Columnist for Townhall.com, was personally recruited to write conservative commentary by Andrew Breitbart. He is a name partner at a growing Los Angeles trial law firm, a retired Army Infantry colonel with a masters in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College, and a former stand-up comic)
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/02/20/president-trump-has-been-far-too-nice-to-the-mainstream-media-n2287759
20
Gunna share that around.
00
Give him time. His main priory is to produce results. If he does achieve sufficient good results for his country anyone who still hates and demonstrates against him will be treated as traitors, and the public will be right behind Trump for doing so.
00
Would that it were so. But the US is partitioned into a few heavily Leftist, high-population states and Republican every-where-else. The US Media are more than 90% Democrats and are already criticizing Trump for every action he takes, including things that Obama did previously, himself. The bubble will be maintained at all cost. This partitioning began the day after the election, with immature mouth-breathers shrieking “Not my Pres’dent.” The Dimocrat Party can’t let up for a second, lest a few of their number take a look at reality. They will destroy the country, if necessary, rather than be denied power.
00
19 Feb: NY Post: Michael Goodwin: The media doesn’t call the shots — Trump does
PLUS
Times, they’re not a-changin’
He’s No. 1.
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman takes the cake for writing “The Dumbest Thing Ever.” A recent anti-Trump rant included this absurdity: “Ladies and gentlemen, we were attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, we were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and we were attacked on Nov. 8, 2016.”
http://nypost.com/2017/02/19/the-media-doesnt-call-the-shots-trump-does/
11
Yesterday, while I was waiting in a car for my stepson, one of his boys, 8, saw a headline on a piece I was reading that mentioned Trump. He said ” I hate Donald Trump”. His five year old brother echoed him. I very much doubt their parents taught them this ( could be wrong I guess, but I’ve never heard it from them ), so who did? Why did they? What does an eight year old, no matter how bright, know about America and it’s politics? I was so gobsmacked I couldn’t find the words to ask the obvious: WHY?
How many 5 or 8 year olds are saying things like this? Do they hate Merkel? May? I have heard comparisons of Trump and Hitler. Ridiculous hyperbole, of course. But the indoctrination, by the left, of our children smacks of Der Hitler Jugend to me.
61
Many of my relatives have a similar attitude. It’s very childish as well as anti-democratic. The people have voted for Trump and so they have to give him a chance. If he does something really stupid then it’s a different story but so far there is no sign of that. I don’t say much to my relatives for now as I like to give Trump some time to produce good results if he can. Then they will have egg on their faces and I will remind them of their ill advised attitude and childish hatred towards Trump. Even if he becomes a sort of Hitler, which I don’t expect him to, much of the blame still rests on the leftists for creating the vacuum thanks to Obama, selecting Clinton as the candidate who happens to be about the worst person anyone with common sense could imagine, and thus allowing Trump to win the election.
51
I studied Hitler for 5 years while writing a book. It’s my opinion that Obama has far more Hitler-like traits than any other figure in US politics. Trump has a few such traits, but not the most important. Hitler loved power, and curtailing the EPA represents a diminution of Federal power, not something a Hitler would do. There are 17 other traits, not all of which Obama shares. Any Trump-hater has become a bit of a Hitler, himself, hatred being one of der Fuehrer’s primary qualities.
31
Can I just say if you’re listening Vlad Putin can you do for us Aussies what they reckon you did for the Americans , you know made sure the power went back to the people .
10
***a recent tactic of MSM is to claim u have spoken to whole loads of unnamed current & former officials. plenty of condescension in the following:
20 Feb: Fortune: Reuters: Former CEO Rex Tillerson Is Still Finding His Place as Secretary of State
One of Rex Tillerson’s first directives as U.S. secretary of state was an order to senior staff that his briefing materials not exceed two pages…
More than a ***dozen current and former U.S. officials familiar with briefing procedures said Tillerson’s predecessors would typically request far more detailed information. His aide R.C. Hammond said the directive reflected Tillerson’s focus on key facts rather than lack of interest in finer points of foreign policy…
As a first-time government official with no prior diplomatic experience, Tillerson faces close scrutiny over how successful he will be in managing both the State Department bureaucracy and its relations with Donald Trump and his administration…
“People want to back him,” one veteran senior official said about the former Exxon Mobil boss. “But people are feeling that this building is being stripped,” said the official, referring to a sense that with so many top positions vacant, the State Department is not fully equipped to help make policy in the new administration.
There is also unease over possible deep staff cuts and the future of some departments. Two people said employees in the Bureau of Management and Resources were told to apply for other positions within the State Department. Hammond, Tillerson’s aide said no decision had been taken to close that division…
“Tillerson is not John Kerry, it is unfair to compare the two,” said Hammond. “He will quietly go about his job as a counselor and advisor to the president.”
For Tillerson’s State Department the concern is how to maintain a similar degree of communication with an administration grappling with a succession of crises, ***nine officials involved in foreign policy and security issues, said.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/20/rex-tillerson-donald-trump-state-department/
worse than the cheap celebrities pushing this stuff:
20 Feb: CatholicCulture.org: USCCB, CRS urge Secretary Tillerson to support ***Green Climate Fund, clean-energy investments
Two bishops who chair committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined by the president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, have called upon Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to support the ***Green Climate Fund, an international program that is part of the Paris agreement on climate change…
Bishop Oscar Cantú, Bishop Frank Dewane, and Sean Callahan said in their February 17 letter that Tillerson appears to share Pope Francis’s “nuanced understanding of climate change” — an understanding that “creates space for reasonable people to recognize, without controversy, that the climate is changing and highlights the importance of adaptation in response.”…
“From the perspective of Catholic social teaching, adaptation ranks among the most important actions we can take,” they continued. “Adaptation policy is fundamentally concerned with helping God’s creatures and all human beings, especially those who are poor, to adapt to the effects of climate change, ***regardless of the causes.”
***The prelates and Callahan urged Tillerson to foster adaptation by supporting the Green Climate Fund.
***They also called for a greater US investment in clean-energy technology.
https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=30796
01
Andrew Bolt puts green prophesy failure into the public arena, explaining that AGW is ‘fake news’. Good move, victory is now close at hand.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-increase-in-polar-bear-numbers-just-one-example-of-global-warming-fake-science/news-story/8018aa3566e1902999690af262a63adc
10
Victory by rhetoric. That’s so satisfying
00
You need to work harder.
http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/energy-and-climate-intelligence-unit-climate-change-survey/
00
Ahh, another meaningless survey with no money question. No ranking of “concerns.” Everyone can be concerned about everything with just a word.
Does being “very concerned” actually tally with someone being willing spending $10 a month… we know why they don’t ask the most important questions.
10
Trump is “sticking to his promise”. http://www.themadpatriots.com/freedom-news/new-travel-ban-will-target-the-same-seven-countries/
00
I just found this comment on WUWT, and thought it was such a good concise comment, it’s worth bringing to a larger audience.
Ian W February 22, 2017 at 6:47 am
Temperature is actually the incorrect metric for atmospheric heat energy as the amount of water vapor in the volume of air alters its ‘enthalpy’. The correct metric is kilojoules per kilogram and can be calculated from the temperature and relative humidity.
A volume of air in a misty bayou in Louisiana with the air temperature of 75F and a humidity of 100% is twice the amount of energy as a similar volume of air in Arizona with the air temperature of 100F and humidity close to 0%.
It is therefore incorrect to use atmospheric temperature to measure heat content and a nonsense to average them. Averaging the averages of intensive variables like atmospheric temperature is meaningless. It is like an average telephone number or the average color of cars on the interstate mathematically simple but completely meaningless.
00