Old power stations run and run and run,
Regardless of an eclipse of the sun.
The warmists should be ridiculed in song,
To show them up and show them that they’re wrong.
Victoria is really tempting fate,
To emulate the South Australia state.
Climate records show from red to blue,
China’s M.W.P. and Little Ice Age too.
— Ruairi
Has anyone ever come up with a estimate of how far we will likely go before it becomes unarguably stupid to continue with renewable energy and its subsidies?
361
For many workers in Kurri, Raymond Terrace, South Australia and Victoria, they have already reached the point of no return.
They are now unrenewably unemployed and probably will never see employment again.
This is an appalling thing to have inflicted on you.
KK
431
Unemployment is important for power hungry people. More pragmatism and less idealism (basic morals substituted with virtue signalling) because a comfortable job is hard to come by.
90
Not if you’re willing to sell your soul. 🙁
130
Do you mean MP?
80
Or you could sum it up as more people willing to sell their soul
30
When one of two points are reached or both, first when the economy has been well and truly vandalised and national prosperity in ruin and/or when the renewable (so called) energy industry cannot afford to dismantle and replace their equipment, at which point they will abandon their no longer assets and take their subsidised profits to invest in another for profit business.
My guess is “new” technology coal fired power stations.
220
The subsidies are not sustainable.
60
We will probably keep going until we have the whole grid go down and we have blackouts in Sydney and Melbourne.
There may be a ray of light first (excuse the pun). With the ACT’s commitment to renewable energy targets, if Canberra goes out first, it will hit pollies hard. It would also probably have a positive benefit to the economy as the bloated federal public sector stops being an impediment to the rest of the economy.
Pollies will probably still try and find a scapegoat, but by then the public may have finally turned against them and the self serving ABC and Fairfax media.
170
No…the real brains behind the operation ( i.e. not politiicans ) are too outhouse rat cunning to run that risk…
The ACT hangs off the side of the NSW main HV feeds, and as such while it does have some pretty solar renewables installed so they can pull power from the main NSW grid, all the while telling people they are running off 100% renewables….which might be true, but the total power used isnt from renewables in the ACT.
ACT renewables ( ha ha – Chinese owned solar farms ) only provide 35-40% total load
March 2 2017
Mugga Lane solar farm opens, bringing ACT to 35 per cent renewable energy
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/mugga-lane-solar-farm-opens-bringing-act-to-35-per-cent-renewable-energy-20170302-gup673.html
The third solar farm funded by the ACT government opened this week, bringing the ACT to 35 per cent renewable energy.
The Mugga Lane solar farm, owned by the Maoneng Group, is being paid $178 for each megawatt hour of electricity it produces, to a maximum of 24,600 megawatt hours a year – or $4.38 million a year.
It is the third and final solar farm to open under the ACT government’s ambitious renewable energy scheme.
The others are Royalla, which is being paid $186 for each megawatt hour, to a maximum of $7.87 million a year, and One Sun, which is also being paid $186 a megawatt hour, although for a much smaller operation, with a maximum of $2.76 million purchased a year.
The three solar farms come on top of five wind farms being funded for 20 years by the ACT, the biggest by far being the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia.
Wind accounts for the vast bulk of the ACT’s renewable energy, with 600 megawatts of capacity by the time all of the wind farms are built. The three solar farms between them have just 40 megawatts of capacity.
Wind is also much cheaper than solar, with the ACT paying prices between $77 and $92 for each megawatt hour of wind electricity.”
But
http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-coal-still-cheaper-than-renewables-as-an-energy-source-81263
“In 2017, the marginal cost of generating power from an existing coal station is less than $40/MWh, while wind power is $60-70/MWh (explained below). So why do people say renewables are now cheaper than coal?
Well, they’re often talking about what would be the cheaper option if old coal-fired power stations were replaced today – in other words, the new-build price.
Making the distinction between the cost of existing energy generation and the cost of new-build energy generation in this debate is very important. Comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges.
Current prices are based on existing installations, while new-build prices compare the costs of different technologies if their operating lives started today. This matters because Australia’s existing coal-fired power stations are ageing and will need to be replaced.
Comparing new-build prices is more complicated than comparing current costs, as I’ll discuss later in this FactCheck.”
60
We got one better! The WA (Labor) Government wants to build a massive solar panel plant in the Pilbara and send the power to Indonesia. No, I didn’t make that up:
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/jobs-bonanza-in-plan-for-pilbaras-sun-to-power-se-asia-ng-b88582954z
I think I may have wet myself laughing…
50
As I mentioned the other day, the point at which renewables become ridiculous for most of the stupid classes is probably around 60c per kWh, the approximate cost of making your own electricity with a diesel or natural gas powered generator.
182
I agree. There will be a gradual realisation that the grid offers no benefit for renewable sources of generation. 60c/kWh is around the right figure. I expect it will overshoot somewhat but once shopping centres start to realise that they could make a sound economic case using their roof space for solar generation and a part of their basement for a battery and diesel generator then that will be a major step in the defection.
Hospitals already have emergency diesel and if they have gas fired hot water systems there is the possibility of low cost cogeneration. There are already quite a few co-gen plants around using process waste heat.
Once the defection begins then it will be very difficult to maintain any cost control because a smaller consumer base has to carry all the overheads and cost of capital.
171
60c/kWh is also around the borderline of where small-scale diesel power generation becomes economically viable.
140
But the gov will just put up the taxes levies duties fees on fuel.
Then, there will be a black market in petrol and diesel.
70
Resulting in: Venezuela.
Because if freight can’t be transported economically and the food harvested, then the shelves will be empty.
The lower calorific value of politicians and bureaucrats will be assessed.
110
The alt.fuels community is powering ahead right now from what I have heard, if they keep jecking up prices, ultimately people will just ignore the normal fuelsa nd make their own, the govt will lose tax revenue and the stranglehold by the NWO mob will be broken.
#NWO_Fail….
30
How long will it take someone to come up with an ethanol fuelled domestic generator? Then we can all ferment to our hearts content.
20
When the cost of government provided power starts to approach the cost of self operated diesel power, the cost of diesel will be increased to maintain a ‘healthy’ differential.
Our erstwhile government is operating on ‘In for a penny, in for 1000 pounds’. Not so easy to kill a hydra.
80
Asp, it will be worse than that, they simply ban the use of generators for household use unless you can prove, the power was out.
Plus you still have to pay for the line maintenance and availability. Just like the sewer and water.
40
…except as I have a family to provide for / keep warm, even that as a Christian who normally has to adhere to all laws of the land ( Acts 5:27-29 ), I would have to ignore the law as I must protect & provide for my family which is my Godly role ( and common sense when you think about it… ).
The other point is that God considers life sacred, and to not protect the lives of those under my protection in my role as Father, is un-Godly.
“But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
( 1 Tim 5: 8 )
Would any man not keep his family warm and protected becasue of some anti-human law?
51
Dave Maddison:
by that time the economy will be in its death throws. The typical supermarket probably has the financial resources to add electricity generation, although here in the Adelaide Hills a lot of businesses have installed generators because of the costs involved when the power fails. ( The amount of food thrown out by law after a one hour interruption is staggering).
This morning I noticed that the valley below was covered in smoke, probably because of an inversion but the first time in 13 winters here that I have seen that effect. I do know that far more wood is being used locally for heating because electricity and gas prices have gone up.
So we can expect homemade biodiesel to be more popular and soon the Dodgy Bros. will be touting biogas poducers. Then we will get some green dill advocating a large tank of water to store heat from summer to use in winter.
130
The law is an ass then. Haven’t we been informed in the past just to leave ‘fridges and freezers closed during a power outage and the food should be alright for several hours? Why the difference for supermarkets? If the ‘fridges are still cold and the frozen food still frozen why the colossal waste of perfectly good food? It’s offensive when there are people who don’t have enough to eat.
50
In his 1835 book on his visit and study of America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:
“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
50
David, don’t expect diesel and gas to be available at today’s prices when the system collapses.
100
Which, of course, will have much wider ramifications than merely rendering home generation unviable.
30
This story in today’s Age might be the tip of the iceberg: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-hospitals-and-health-services-reeling-from-electricity-price-bill-shock-20170827-gy54m1.html
But when will we reach the ‘Tipping Point’? 🙂
170
10%
00
most excellently vague
01
Another week of data with respect to the Base Load for Australia, and each day, as usual, it was up and beyond 18000MW, with coal fired power supplying 80% and more every day.
This week, one of the 660MW Units at Bayswater went offline, probably for maintenance. One of the 660MW Units at Vales Point was also down, as were two Units at Liddell, also offline, all of these in NSW. That took around 2200MW off the grid. The remaining Units were just ramped up a little to cover that loss, and at Peak Time (6PM in Winter Months) more gas fired plants came on line to cover the loss as well. That Bayswater Unit went off line on Friday morning so that work could be done over the weekend, and will probably be up and running again early this coming week.
Wind performed poorly for the last five days or so of the week, but that made no effective difference to coal fired power, as it supplied what it always does supply, good wind or bad wind.
Each week, I see something new, and just wonder at the work that goes in to keep this huge grid operational. It’s also an interesting thing to watch the sharing of power between the States as well, and see that there are times when Victoria is drawing power from the excess wind in South Australia, (rare, because more often than not it’s going the other way) drawing some Hydro from Tasmania, and at the same time, delivering power into (Southern) NSW.
I have often said that power cannot be transmitted over long distances, so this is one way that power can be seen to supply distances. Victoria is supplying its own State, and some into NSW, while at the same time is drawing some from Tas and SA.
This week’s data and comments on it are at this link.
Australian Base Load Electrical Power – Week Ending 26th August 2017
Tony.
342
Tony you raise a fair point about power and distance. There was more unicorns and rainbow speak recently of using private homes solar to generate for peak load periods, but my comment was to a work colleague ( who had solar and wanted to cash in….) I said all good and well, but you may have to wind up your inverter voltage so high in QLD to sell to NSW that its unviable and you will force the local grid out due to over voltage. Even 100 km down the road is iffy.
Additionally, the grid would have to be re-engineered to handle such a configuration.
Its almost like the greenies are trying to force everything back to medieval villages living…complete with superstition and ignorance….
282
Well I know part of their planning involves eugenics, eliminate the useless human beings they select.
120
They could start by looking in a mirror……
130
And darkness at night. Power went out for at least 5½ hours from (approx.) 3.30 a.m. in this part of the Adelaide Hills. Don’t know for how long as I left for elsewhere (and breakfast) while the commercial premises open today now all have automatic starting generators.
I am beginning to think that a lot of wind turbines are superfluous to requirements.
200
When ComBank became interested in financing Adani, the highly motivated planet savers preen their virtue by conducting a sit-in in the foyer and threaten a boycott.
ComBank make a business decision and release a new “climate policy”.
Meanwhile, ComBank is caught laundering millions destined for ISIS and no one at the GetUp office seem very interested.
They’re all down at their favourite South Melbourne cafe enjoying the regulation smashed avo on toast.
Poor people in India and dead children in Syria just don’t sufficiently offend those senses.
Greenies live in a funny world
110
The buzz word being “smashed”.
20
Okay then, let’s look at power versus distance, and also the secondary cost of wind power, that cost when wind power is low, well, really really low, currently only 200MW generated from a Nameplate of almost 4400MW. (CF of 4.5%)
Go to this link and look at the current power sharing data between the States, and while it will change over time, I’ll write that sharing data here for this point in time. (10.30AM)
Qld is sending 1100MW into Northern NSW.
NSW is sending 420MW into Victoria.
Tas is sending 520MW into Victoria.
And, while Victoria is receiving 940MW from Tas and NSW, Victoria is sending 200MW into SA.
Note how low wind power is in Tas, Vic, and SA.
Note the cost for power, up beyond $250/MWH in NSW and Vic, and up beyond $300/MWH, while in Qld with just coal fired power operating at almost Maximum it’s only $63/MWH
That high cost in those States is solely due to wind power, or more importantly, the extreme lack of wind power.
NSW is running 3 NG OCGT at Uranquinty. (350)
Victoria is running 5 NG plants. (700MW)
Qld is also running 8 of them (800MW) but only localised, mainly in the North of the State.
SA is running 9 NG plants, (1500MW) all, nine of them to make up for the lack of wind power, hence the really high current cost for electricity in that State, and still sucking power out of the Victorian brown coal fired plants as well.
That’s how the power sharing happens, only over the shorter distances and while it seems that some States are generating more than they need to supply other States, that power sharing thing is a balance of where it is needed and you can see how Qld supplies into NSW, while NSW supplies into Victoria, which also supplies SA.
Even then, there are still losses over distance travelled.
Tony.
180
Long distance transmission. Hydro Quebec lines over 600 miles, 735 KV. BC Hydro more than 500 miles, 500 KV. Then there is the 846 mile pacific DC intertie from Oregon to Los Angeles.
30
And all it took was one cold work day morning with no wind power.
The Base Load this morning was almost 19000MW. Wind power was just on 400MW, so supplying 2.1% of actual Demand.
And wind and solar are somehow going to replace coal fired power, which supplied 15200MW.
Where are all those supporters to come and argue with me ….. please.
Nup, they’ll see this, and look over at the cute Koala, making sure not to spill their coffee. Either that, or they’ll come back with ….. well, what about on Sunday 14 Oct 2014 at seven minutes past 11 in the morning when wind power supplied 100% of the power for Nuriootpa. What do say about that then, smarty pants?
Tony.
190
If we have a warm summer, the whole system is going to be on a near permanent knife edge.
Unfortunately, only a major east coast collapse will wake these idiot politicians up to the FACT that Australia needs a big new coal fired power station in each of the eastern states.
SA could use gas, since they have plenty.
121
The AusGrid site graphically shows the Network Losses for each State connected to the East Coast Grid.
It’s interesting how this changes over time depending upon from where power is being imported/exported.
NSW generally operates with Network Losses in the order of 5%-10%.
30
Due to superstition and ignorance is possibly more apposite.
20
Tony,
Thanks for your posts. I always learn something. Appreciated.
180
What does it actually mean that power can’t be transmitted long distances without significant losses? Obviously that is true, but the grid doesn’t “know” to limit an incoming feed say from VIC to say the southern part of NSW when the entire grid is connected so what does it mean?
53
It just means that you couldn’t use Tasmanian power to run say Queensland without some other inputs along the way. A better way to look at it is that most of your power comes from the nearest power station because the resistance along the way is the lowest.
If you took 3000 km of power lines there would be considerable resistance P=I^2R so most of the power starts to be lost in the transmission lines.
80
This is interesting.
Does the Australian grid not ship power over long distances using Direct Current? Is it AC all the way?
For long transmission lines, the AC line impedance results in higher overall power losses than DC resistance does.
30
Only across the 500 mile Bass Strait, Rereke.
30
Its AC all the way Rereke, this link although basic in description of the historical reasons why AC was chosen over DC, scroll down to “Battle of the Currents”
‘In the late 1800s, DC could not be easily converted to high voltages. As a result, Edison proposed a system of small, local power plants that would power individual neighborhoods or city sections. Power was distributed using three wires from the power plant: +110 volts, 0 volts, and -110 volts. Lights and motors could be connected between either the +110V or 110V socket and 0V (neutral). 110V allowed for some voltage drop between the plant and the load (home, office, etc.).
Even though the voltage drop across the power lines was accounted for, power plants needed to be located within 1 mile of the end user. This limitation made power distribution in rural areas extremely difficult, if not impossible.’
40
Interesting history, isn’t it?
Two hundred years on, and we are still bound by the decisions made, based on two hundred year old technology.
New Zealand has to move power across Cook Strait (considerably closer than the Bass Strait), but chose to go DC from the hydro stations in the South Island all the way to where it is distributed in the North Island.
It could have something to do with Scottish Engineers, who tended to come to New Zealand, because it was only there, as an offshoot of Australia, that looked a lot like Scotland, and English Engineers who were sent to Australia, “to build a colony”.
30
Some were bonnie – Florence Violet McKenzie Australia’s first female EE.
Probably avoiding NZ with all its Scottish men.
(this was a lame joke made lamer by the fact that she was born in Australia)
30
We can have global warming by long distance power transmission!
70
So utterly true!
30
It means it can be transmitted long distances only there won’t be much of it left when it gets there .
70
Exactly. But, nevertheless, it’s marvellous what politicians can do.
In the early 1980s in NSW they built a new 500kv specced line from Bayswater near Muswellbrook to Mt Piper near Lithgow. Between the two stands the Wollemi National Park. So to avoid going through that NP they sent the line via Wollar, adding 55 km to the length of the line, staying as far as was possible on the farmland.
The 500 kv line is readily identifiable, having bundles of four wires. These wires were a bit over an inch in diameter, aluminium, and I am not sure that they had a steel core, which I have seen in other power lines. The spacing in the square bundle is abut knee high to the blokes that built it. I remember being told that when running out the wires they do not allow them to come into contact with the ground, so as not to create scratches on the wires, which cause power loss into the air.
By chance I knew a little about the bundling, because I had once picked up a text book out of the dump bin at the kids’ school. The sharper the curvature of a conductor, the greater the rate of loss of power into the air. For a 500 kv conductor, the minimum diameter for a conductor to keep the loss down to an acceptable level is two and three eighths inches. But it is not possible to roll a cable so thick into a roll small enough to cart down the road. So they achieve their result with the bundling that we see. So far as I know in NSW the “bundles” of two indicate 330 kv, and the 500 kv line had the four. Apparently in some parts of the world they bundle three.
Now, we didn’t know, but that line was only running on 330 kv, until about ten years ago the kids started telling me that the power line was making funny noises, sparking noises. The first time I heard (from them, I was too deaf) it was a muggy sort of day. But I then heard that the power people by whatever name they were using at the time were in the process of ramping the voltage up to 500 kv.
So that’s where the power goes. Sometimes you can hear it crackling! For an extra 55 km!
30
Static discharge is what causes the crackling. I am told that the discharge into the atmosphere produces no current, and hence causes no losses.
I suspect that the person(s) who came up with that piece of information are related to the person(s) who invented Global Worrying.
20
The IPCC numpties used to rabbit on about climate refugees, but I am starting to think the Klimitariat are using ” predictions” to speak what will happen ( a form of an advanced warning Kabbalist curse upon all western civilisation ? ) , but through inflicting the economic forced green suicide ( forced suidide = genocide) upon people like has happened in California and now SA….
132
Jonestown revisited! It’s just too true!
41
check the comments:
26 Aug: WUWT: Anthony Watts: “Instant Replay” – Watch hurricane Harvey explode from a tropical depression to a Cat 4 hurricane
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/26/instant-replay-watch-hurricane-harvey-explode-from-a-tropical-depression-to-a-cat-4-hurricane/
26 Aug: Financial Times: Ed Crooks: Coal’s US comeback fuelled by rival
Production and exports increase on back of higher gas prices but outlook still cloudy
In the spring, the company(Paringa Respources) was able to raise A$53m (US$42m) on the Australian Stock Exchange and a $20m debt facility from Macquarie, and construction started this month. A year from now, the Poplar Grove mine is scheduled to begin production.
The investment is one of the signs of life in the US industry, along with increased production and exports, fuelling talk that coal is making a comeback.
Production in the first quarter was up 14 per cent on the equivalent period of 2016, and exports were up 58 per cent…
Coal is in a head-on battle with gas to supply the US with electricity. As benchmark Henry Hub gas fell below $2 per million British thermal units last year, coal-fired plants provided just 30 per cent of US power, their lowest level on record…
This year, with gas back above $2.90, coal’s share is edging up to 32 per cent, according to the Energy Information Administration…
If gas prices stay at about these levels, lower-cost production from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and the Illinois Basin, which includes Poplar Grove, can be competitive. But higher-cost Appalachian coal from the eastern US will often be uneconomic…
Stopping coal plant closures has become a priority for the mining industry. Glenn Kellow, chief executive of Peabody, argued in a speech last week that there should be a two-year moratorium on coal-fired power plant closures “to protect reliability . . . until a thorough review of the grid is complete.”
Privately held miner Murray Energy has similarly called for the administration to use its emergency authority under the Federal Power Act to keep coal plants open…
So far, though, the Trump administration has been reluctant to interfere in the market directly…
The sting in the Trump administration for coal producers is that it has also been trying to encourage more oil and gas production, again by cutting regulation and by opening more areas up for drilling. The best hope for coal would be faltering gas supplies and soaring prices.
(Grant Quasha, Paringa’s chief executive) argues it could happen. “Shale gas does not make any money,” he says.
“Eventually that will start to affect sentiment in the capital markets, and in the long term it will result in higher gas prices. And that will help the coal business.”…
https://www.ft.com/content/0b46c740-8925-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787
50
Warwick Hughes put up this graph on precipitation in Adelaide.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/adelrain178yrs.jpg
There appears to be a slow trend towards desertification.
60
EG, what I see on that graph is the drought of the mid-1860s which prompted Goyder’s work, and the droughts of the 1880s which confirmed his work. What’s just missing on the left edge is a reading for the dry year of 1838, the short but notorious drought-time when the ‘bidgee ran dry (and which may have been part of a whopper Nino since it coincided with the Agra famine of 1837–1838, 800,000 dead).
As far as trends go, people can take their pick. If trends didn’t end our bell-bottoms would cover entire football fields. Show a graph of the same region between 1959 and 1999 and you have a trend toward humidification (or something). Show the slice from the previous forty years and you get the opposite effect.
All I see there is a place with long-term mediocre rainfall on a continent which never plays fair.
222
The 1837-39 El Nino was intense and all the other low precipitation dates in the graph are related to El Nino.
60
North Adelaide has the best record and 9 of the 13 wettest years were in two decades between 1906 and 1924.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=139&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=023011
40
In those two decades the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) must have been in its negative phase, which would account for increased precipitation no matter what ENSO was doing.
10
Did readers see the article by Nick Cator in The Australian on Aug.22? In it he pointed out that the voters are getting older.
“medical science and an ageing population are doing curious things to electoral demographics. The average age of those eligible to vote in the 1975 election was a little over 42. Now the average voter is over 47 and rising.
Australians turning 60 in 1975 could expect to vote in five more elections. Today they can anticipate seven or eight.
In 1975, when Whitlam lost power, 40 per cent of eligible voters were under 35. The over-55s commanded just 25 per cent of the vote. Now the tables have been turned. For the first time, the over-55s were the largest cohort in last year’s election, commanding more than 35 per cent of the vote. The millennials’ share was a little more than 30 per cent.”
With that strategic ‘vision’ that he is so renowned for, MT has followed Shorten and gone for the ‘youff’ vote and ignores the older voters except as a bottomless pit of money that he can throw away. This leaves a wide gap between the centre-left of the Liberals and the right wing parties such as ALA and the Lib-Dems. Hanson I see as a rightish demagogue counter to the Xenophon leftish demagogue. Both are prepared to vote for any spending if it appeals to them, at that time, as a way of buying votes (much as the major parties do).
The current position is that politicians are irrelevant to the country except for their ability to make life difficult and more expensive for those who they ignore until the frantic lies during election times. The result is a race between the politicians wrecking the country and a groundswell of rejection of them as happened in the USA. I cannot help think that the politicians are leading and Australia will shortly be like Spain or Greece, although the odds on Venezuela are SHORTENING.
180
Former Prime Minister John Howard said recently that for a very long time in our political history the two major parties have attracted between them 80 per cent of voter support, but now he estimates that support is down to 60 per cent.
So now there are 40 per cent of voters who will not support the major parties.
Consider 2010 when after winning a substantial majority of electorate seats in 2007 Labor lost so many that they were forced to form a minority alliance government. And by the way, PM Rudd and Spin Doctor Hawker (cousin of New England “independent” MP Windsor) recruited at least two “sleeper” supporters in 2008 after Oakeshott won the Lyne electorate in a by election as an “independent”.
I believe that 2010 was the turning point that Howard referred to and calculation base for his 40 per cent figure.
He is an amateur but quite good electoral boundary and ballot box voting by polling booth number cruncher.
So I believe that the next election will be another cliff hanger, and subject to the leaders of the major parties remaining leaders by then, that Labor will not be able to muster enough support to form government and the Coalition as they now are will be expanded by recruitment of like minded patriots, you know their names and parties, all conservatives (minus the “Black Hand” Liberal faction members). And that coalition of the willing will dismantle the vandalism dragging our country down.
120
Dennis:
The worse case would as in Germany where the 2 major parties became a Grand Coalition and chaos and disaster followed.
70
Unfortunately I could imagine that happening here, at least with the former Goldman & Sachs chairman joining the party he would have preferred to lead but decided not to join because unionists would not accept his business background, he once said. He also said that he would join any party that offered him a path to The Lodge, Canberra.
And taking his “Black Hand Faction” colleagues with him to join Labor. They are all determined to get their way regardless of the harm done to Australians.
What a situation that would be.
On a more pleasant note, just maybe not given the increasing opposition voters are displaying for both leaders and parties.
I am expecting that the union controllers of Labor will be campaigning hard via GetUp and generally to sway voters to their side of politics.
And voters will need to exercise extreme caution if considering voting for an “independent” because, I have heard on the grapevine, the unions already have selected “independents” to stand in marginal electorates.
60
Iagree 100%. In Indi in SE Victoria, the member there says she is “Independent”, but talks and has pretty much the same political platform as labor…..
I don’t know how people can be so easily fooled – its so blatantly obvious she is anything but independent.
40
Sorry….NE Victoria….
40
Cathy is a wanna be greenie and rumour has it she can’t turn right hand corners.
20
Old power stations run and run and run,
Regardless of an eclipse of the sun.
The warmists should be ridiculed in song,
To show them up and show them that they’re wrong.
Victoria is really tempting fate,
To emulate the South Australia state.
Climate records show from red to blue,
China’s M.W.P. and Little Ice Age too.
210
Ruairi you are a whiz! Another good one.
GeoffW
20
Ruairi
You could really rub it in if the first line started
“Coal power stations”
20
Aussie coal exports to China continue to break records, yet the deaf, dumb and blind politicians continue to tell us that coal is a thing of the past.
230
They do, but they fail to add “for Australians”.
110
They are playing the shortened (30 seconds) version of this TV ad quite regularly up here in Queensland.
This is the full 90 second TV ad.
Coal: Making the future possible
We need more of this to sink in.
Tony.
171
I have viewed that very good advertisement several times in New South Wales country and elsewhere when travelling interstate.
50
We are getting similar same ad down in vic
40
I don’t watch tv but watched Tony’s link to the ad. Shout it from the rooftops.
30
I wonder if they have an ad spruiking the benefits of the horse and cart while they are at it?
19
If they do have such an ad Craig, you would be a walk up start for a leading role – as the horse’s a*se.
110
You don’t have to “spruik” the benefits of the horse and cart. If you have access to grass, and no time dependencies, they are are a lot cheaper to run than a petrol or diesel truck. That is why “rag and bone” men still use them in the larger UK cities and towns. Well, that and their photogenic properties, for the tourists.
70
Still, RW?! I haven’t been aware of seeing any since I was a child, back almost in pre-history!
30
Rag and bone men, that is. Not horses and carts….not a bad idea…I like horses!
30
They should CT because that’s where we are headed .
40
Cart and horse is your wish for society, isn’t it CT.
Except yourself… of course. !
31
I always get annoyed, when you see these images of industrial plants, and the film makers have pushed cooling towers to the fore. “Oh look it is belching all that ‘stuff’, we need to get a shot of that”. Could somebody get on to dipstick central and point out that those towers are making clouds, and not white smoke?
80
It’s a NO from me, I am not homophobic and know some good people who are homosexual, but marriage is for a man and a women and always has been back before modern religions were formed. Family units based on human needs, functions and purposes.
The equality tantrums are illogical.
100
However the US is exporting more coal.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32092
graph of U.S. quarterly coal exports, as explained in the article text
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Quarterly Coal Report
Coal exports for the first quarter of 2017 were 58% higher than in the same quarter last year, with steam coal exports increasing by 6 million short tons (MMst) and metallurgical coal exports increasing by 2 MMst. Most of these exports were shipped from Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico ports. In EIA’s most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA expects growth in coal exports to slow in the coming months, with total 2017 exports forecast at 72 MMst, 11 MMst (19%) higher than the 2016 level.
Exports to Ukraine consolidate energy security.
http://www.uscoalexports.org/2017/07/31/ukraine-2/
The deal, which came about in part due to help from the Trump administration and the Ukrainian government, fits with President Trump’s goal of using energy exports as a geopolitical tool as well as Ukraine’s efforts to reduce Russia’s control over energy among its neighbors.
“In recent years, Kiev and much of Eastern Europe have been reliant on and beholden to Russia to keep the heat on. That changes now,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a statement. “The United States can offer Ukraine an alternative, and today we are pleased to announce that we will.”
Also the Russian Federation now controls Ukrainian coal reserves as it just happened to ‘liberate’ known areas.
Clearly, like the South China Sea claims, a way of controlling energy while denying it to competitors.
We in Australia are getting the short straw.
70
It illustrates that climate change is just a side-show to the really important geo-politics. The COP jamborees are supported by the really nasty countries as a way of gaining credibility, especially amongst their own population.
40
can anyone help.
I’ve been trying to find out how much of Texas wind is working at present. have tried to go to various ERCOT (The Electric Reliability Council of Texas) websites, but nothing will open for me.
tried to go to CPS Energy link, from a link I posted in jo’s previous “solar” thread, but it wouldn’t work.
Wikipedia: Wind power in Texas consists of many wind farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 21,044 MW from over 40 different projects. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. Wind power accounted for 12.63% of the electricity generated in Texas in the 12 months ending Oct 2016…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas
20
pat,
Here’s the Texas ERCOT link Opened okay for me.
System is operating normally.
Bottom left heading Systems Conditions has a drop down menu. Hit the arrow and click on forecasted and actual wind etc.
Wind currently generating 4600MW of a Nameplate of 21,000MW. (CF 22%) Current Demand is 36500MW so wind is supplying 12.6% of that Demand.
Seems like pretty normal operation to me.
Tony.
91
thanx Tony. page still won’t open for me however.
MSM isn’t asking ??? about wind power, but is quick to say how much oil & gas are being affected.
found this:
26 Aug: SanAntonioExpressNews: San Antonio power outages likely due to Harvey, but no widespread water shutoffs expected
By Brendan Gibbons and Rye Druzin
Due to Harvey, two South Texas wind farms CPS buys power from will be shut down to protect the equipment. The wind turbines can provide 180 total megawatts, or enough power for 36,000 Texas homes at peak demand…
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/San-Antonio-power-outages-likely-due-to-Harvey-11961863.php
interesting piece from 2011. don’t know how things played out since then:
2011: NYT: Gulf Coast Wind Farms Spring Up, as Do Worries
By KATE GALBRAITH
The wind farm, which began operating in 2009 and doubled in size last year, reflects the new geography of wind power in Texas, the country’s leading wind state. The vast majority of Texas turbines have gone up in the west, harnessing fierce winds that sweep southward from the plains. But the West Texas projects have been hindered by a lack of transmission lines to carry the power.
Meanwhile, several big wind farms have begun operating in the general vicinity of Corpus Christi in the past few years, and it is likely that more coastal projects are on the way.
“The short term for coastal wind is great,” said Patrick Woodson, the chief development officer for E.ON Climate & Renewables North America, which last year expanded a wind farm that it owns just north of Corpus Christi. “There will be a number of prime sites that get built out in the next two to four years.” …
South Texas now accounts for roughly one-ninth of the state’s total wind capacity. A substantial amount of the recent growth on the Texas electric grid, which gets nearly 8 percent of its power from wind, came from the coast, said Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Public Utility Commission. Transmission infrastructure is plentiful along the coast, unlike that in West Texas. And coastal winds are strongest in the afternoons and in the summer, wind experts say…
But the arrival of turbines along the Gulf shores has spawned a range of concerns, like their impact on birds and coastal habitat and the turbines’ effect on military radar…
Wind developers have encountered some unusual issues along the coast. Mr. Pitts said that no hurricanes had struck since Iberdrola’s wind farm began operating but that corrosion posed problems for the turbines because of the “salt fog” that envelops the area. Mr. Woodson said workers at E.ON’s coastal wind farm, which is built above cotton fields, had spotted alligators in drainage ditches…
Texas is also hoping to develop offshore wind power in the Gulf of Mexico, and the state’s General Land Office has leased out four parcels for offshore wind development since 2005. No turbines have gone up. But Herman J. Schellstede, a Louisiana-based official with Coastal Point Energy, a development company that has taken the leases, said he aimed to put up a test turbine on an offshore platform nine miles south of Galveston and have it operational by October. The turbine would replace a meteorological tower that has measured the winds there for over three years.
“Two hurricanes have gone directly over our tower without any damage, thank God,” Mr. Schellstede said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11ttwind.html?mcubz=0
50
That ERCOT page says in bold ….. normal conditions.
However, Texas, was, as a whole, around 4000MW down on normal daily generation at Peak, and that amounts to around 8% less power than normal, for a whole State consuming around 50000MW a day Peak. Currently the State is around 2000MW short on the daily usual power consumption for this time.
Tony.
51
Power generation of any description ain’t much use if the poles and wires cop it.
90
I’m curious, and haven’t the skill to figure it out on my own – all the reports for wind and solar state the number of HOMES it can power – does this include the infrastructure it takes to supply some of the needs of a home? Sewage pumped away, water pumped in from reservoirs? And what, exactly, does it mean by “powering a home?” Basic lights and appliances, no HVAC? HVAC included? I know I use far less electricity than the average on my street, maybe in my “neighborhood,” even with central A/C, which I keep set much higher than most people around here (most settle on 72 F, mine is at 76, and has been off for a week now, not worth running for the few hours of warm each day, even here in the hot month of August in the USA.) And I don’t, for example, need a pump to supply well water, or one to macerate and push waste water/sewage out to the main sewer, like my sister does – is that figured into the power needed?
And on top of that, the little niceties of civilization – like streetlights, traffic lights – is the power needed for that included, or conveniently left out of the calculation?
10
Pat,
For what it’s worth…
From http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html
Real-Time System Conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last Updated: Aug 27, 2017 10:20:00
_____________Frequency
Current Frequency__________60.023
Instantaneous Time Error_____0.312
~~~~~~
_____________Real-Time Data
Actual System Demand_______37479
Total System Capacity________45437
.. .(not including Ancillary Services)
Total Wind Output___________3997
~~~~~~
_____________DC Tie Flows
DC_E (East)________________-29
DC_L (Laredo VFT)___________101
DC_N (North)________________0
DC_R (Railroad)______________0
DC_S (Eagle Pass)_____________1
30
26 Aug: CBS: Hurricane Harvey: Texas power outages affect more than quarter-million
Last Updated Aug 26, 2017 3:41 PM EDT
More than a quarter-million customers are without power in Texas early Saturday after Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Utilities are reporting outages affecting more than 336,000 customers as of 3 p.m. ET.
AEP reported more than 216,000 customers without power as of early Saturday. CenterPoint Energy reported more than 21,000 customers without power. Excel reported more than 78,000 outages.
Outages were also reported by Austin Energy, CPS, Entergy and Oncor…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-harvey-texas-power-outages-affect-more-than-255000/
60
About LNG.
The US is now in a glut and prices keep falling.
It is exporting to countries like Pakistan to keep the Chinese out of the market.
We Australian consumers could benefit by imports of such gas, as it is much cheaper than our own home grown.
Pity we are not allowed this.Everyone else is.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-05/natural-gas-exports-can-solve-u-s-energy-glut
We are indeed in a poorly planned country when it comes to energy.
The party that recognises this and fixes it will be a winner.
180
Dan “Deranged” Andrews is looking at spending tax-payers money on an LNG import terminal, whilst maintaining a ban on onshore exploration and drilling.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/150494/Australian_State_May_Back_Floating_LNG_Import_Plan
120
Bikini Atoll coral reef survived SST of 55, 000 degrees and fifty years later its a virtual paradise. Coincidently its supposed to be the best dive site in the world for shipwrecks.
112
We have suffered orchestrated attacks on our power for thirty years. Australia is being crippled by this insanity, carbon tax on carbon tax. Dynamiting power stations. Closing manufacturing across the country by attacking the very foundation of modern western society, cheap electricity.
However to show how these attacks are organized on a world scale, in the US they are removing Confederate monuments. In New York, Christopher Columbus has to go, in Columbus circle.
John Batman, founder of Melbourne is having his name removed.
Australia day is being removed.
In London, the saviour of England, the hero of Trafalgar who won against both the French and Spanish navies and outnumbered 2:1, shot by a sniper, Lord Horation Nelson, hero of an entire nation is now a villain and need to be removed.
World wide there is a simultaneous attack on the histories of Australia, Britain and America, on the history, the institutions, the religion, even the parks and monuments. Gay marriage? Moving Australia day? Who is dreaming this up?
Now are these simply coincidences after two hundred years or is it all being directed? Who decides the next target?
Consider Global Warming is simply not true, but it has been very successful in diverting $1.5Trillion a year into the pockets of others for no good at all. The next attack is on religion, history and institutions of the very successful British based Western democratic civilizations.
So the People Against Everything are at it again, as statues were defaced in Sydney where no one would have dreamed of such a thing just a year ago. Now this might sound like a world conspiracy, but what other explanation is there? Simultaneous madness? After all, Columbus was Italian and his crew Basques. Sure people lived across the continent we now call North America, but did they know that? Did the people who lived in Australia before Captain Phillip even know they lived in Australia or what shape it was? Did the people of South Australia know they had the most reliable and cheapest power in the world just a few years ago? Who is driving this insanity? Why?
431
I am particularly upset at the changing of Australia day. Why not use a date form the Aboriginal calendar, or commemorate a great aboriginal who welded his people across 3,000 miles into one country with one administration and one language? Build a monument to the greatest aboriginal of the last 50,000 years, the one who did the most for the country of Australia. Engrave it in the one language using their script and their dating system. The so called invasion of the continent we now know as Australia has a date, what else has a date? It is Australia day.
What is puzzling is the speed with which this whole attack on our society gathers pace and is clearly directed. Almost without exception, it is a few “Green” politicians doing this, in one council after a survey of only 86 people, half of whom were against it. We are being railroaded. Daniel Andrew’s direction to shut down our coal power is part of this push to cripple our society. They define what is politically correct and that changes internationally in a matter of weeks. It cannot be coincidence. Our enemies are inside and they are being elected to positions of power while everyone else is trying to earn a living. This is all fifth column, destruction from inside government and with real intent.
222
Precisely!
That is why questioning the point at which the common folk will throw their hands in the air and turn their backs on the ruinables is idle speculation.
The voters, by and large, have no notion that wind and solar are many time more expensive and many times less useful than fossil fuels.
The public psyche is being driven by a madness similar to the Salem witch trials.
At some stage the camel’s economic back will break, and all Hell will break loose. By that time the only issue will be survival. The forces that are driving this evil will ensure that the populace remains convinced that coal is evil and that smoke and mirrors are the only rational source of energy.
We’re talking Agenda 21 here. The plans are all in place. Total global population a manageable few million; slaves eeking out a living in squalid slums to feed the technocrats.
40
.
Hanlon’s Razor;
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity“
50
Yes, but simultaneous stupidity in the US(Civil War), Britain(Trafalgar), Australia(Phillip’s landing)? This all in a matter of a few weeks.
Soon Italians will be asked demolish the Colisseum, the memory of the Romans. Then Venice, the capital of the slave trade needs to be destroyed. Then the Vatican, centre of Roman Catholicism. In Australia we even have a Cardinal on trial by media demand and without any evidence which is public. This is not all a coincidence. Destroying our power system is just the first step and Climate Change an unbelievable premise. No one even believes this any more! Not Al Gore. He is like Kenny, just going through the motions.
60
I still can’t believe it will be allowed to get to the stage where they take away the only power plants which can actually keep the Country operational. It will never get to that stage.
They’ll find a way to back down, no matter what the embarrassment might turn into, but they will back down, and the only question now is which side will it be, because whoever does it first will suffer short term embarrassment, but when the real truth does come out, and that will happen, that side who says it first will eventually be part of a crushing victory if the other side doesn’t immediately go along with it.
I can’t figure out how no one anywhere is onto the fact that right now, ten past midnight on Tuesday morning, South Australia is almost 100% fossil fuelled, and has been for most of the day already gone. If word of that were to ever get out, Weatherill would be a laughing stock.
Tony.
90
No doubt about who they are. They, socialists, commenced their new world order objective in the late 1800s when The socialism based Fabian Society was formed, George Bernard Shaw was a founding member. The Australian Fabian Society is full of ALP members and the ALP Constitution number one item refers to socialist objectives, modified from the original statement but still published to the present day.
Former PM Gllard formed the Socialist Forum years ago as a faction for far left reds and fellow travellers. Just before she was appointed deputy leader of the parliamentary Labor Party she merged the Socialist Forum with the Australian Fabian Society.
The NWO agenda did not get far until the United Nations was established following WW2. One contributor was Communist and Labor Attorney General Evatt who put forward the plan to have member nations sign as many UN Treaties as could be arranged and all with the potential to enable governments to get around the laws of individual nations, if deemed to be necessary, e.g. when citizens will not agree for change to be implemented, when constitutional law gets in the way of UN objectives and agenda.
The UN has grown into a huge organisation with many arms of influence and interference in member nation’s affairs and governance. Unelected officials influencing the elected representatives of those nations. Taxpayers being fleeced to finance the UN and UN business.
And they have escaped major scrutiny since the end of WW2 or from the very early 1950s.
And until recent years few people wanted to know this information, and most I suspect remain blissfully unaware.
221
I never expected Menzies tradition Australian Liberal Party or National Party MPs to become puppets for the NWO/UN socialists.
Or that any Australian politicians would work against the best interests of their constituents, undermine national prosperity, steal our wealth and send it to foreigners, etc.
212
Red thumb error-sorry
Geoffw
51
You will find as many examples as you like of politicians working not just against the interests of their constituents but towards the eradication of democracy as we know it. There is even a structure which seems to me to have been specifically set up for this purpose – it’s known as the EU.
120
Mr. xxxxxx ( to a local NSW state mp)
Once, I was a keen liberal supporter. I had a belief in the freedom of the human to engage in activities, free from unnecessary government interference: In other words, a belief in the principles of liberalism, as they are known in this country.
Then along came the greyhound dog matter. Personally, I have no interest whatsoever, in the dogs. You then decided to shut the industry down by a decree, because of a report by some left wing journalists. Notwithstanding that many people have invested in the industry and enjoy the “dogs” as both a hobby and a business, you treated all, as criminals. I suspect that most people, in the industry do the right thing.
There is a government department that should have been sacked for failing to enforce the rules in the greyhound dog industry.
During the reporting season for public companies, I note that there are some that are issuing profit warnings due to dramatically rising energy prices. As a householder, I can understand the pain by those companies and the pain for the average domestic bill payer. There have been steep rises over recent years and I suspect, with plenty more rises to come.
This means that many companies will consider moving their operations overseas. You should be aware that this process has been an ongoing one. These companies will move to countries where the governments are not so naive.
It is clear that government policy is the blame, for energy costs, in the name of so called “green energy”. This policy has ensured the enrichment of a few at the expense of the many. I suspect that you have sycophantic belief in the dictates of the United Nations, a rotten and corrupt organisation, in particular branches, the UNIPCC and the UNHRC. The United Nations is an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy that has gone feral. Basically, you have sold out the working people of this state, to a pernicious ideology, from the United Nations.
As one who is trying to get a house built, I have been ensnared by the basix program, which has caused much angst and the building costs to rocket. It has also locked me into a design which I will be unable to get out of. What happens if additional cooling and heating could be required in the future? What if the relative costs of gas versus electricity change and it becomes more attractive to change the energy mix? I am locked into a damaging regime.
The people wonder why they are being locked out of home ownership. This country once had a proud level of home ownership, but that level is now slipping away, with more people being caught in the “rental trap”. You are now making home ownership a luxury item for the favoured few. You and your cohorts have done me, and others, much harm
You have trashed people rights; you have forced them to suffer through a cold winter, and you are encouraging our companies to relocate their activities to foreign countries.
My next door neighbour said that he goes to bed fully clothed, as he is scared of his power bill.
What do I think of you and the government? I could say that you have earned my disrespect, or that I am appalled or disgusted. I could say that I am shocked. But to say so would not be truthfull.
330
I am at your side John, thank you for your valuable comment
70
🙂
30
Considering that the EU central government has the right to dictate to EU member nations I view it as the prototype One World Government.
160
Yes Dennis, you have hit the nail fair and square.
Another point that we should be very concerned about is the attitude of the millennials. Many of them have no knowledge of recent history, of the holocaust, of socialism, which is simply a pink shade of red, and of communism.
The bastion of freedom today is not Western Europe but is Eastern Europe. They have had the hard experience of communism, and do not wish to return there. The Eastern Europeans are more concerned with personal self interest; a guiding principle of the free market.
The millennials are easily suckered by propaganda, such as we get with the climate con and socialism. Getting duped with propaganda is easily done if one does not engage is elementary thinking.
90
I’m not sure that’s altogether true actually.
My 27 year old son sent me a link the other day. It was to that movie, “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret”.
He’s not much interested in politics being more interested in modifying his Nissan Skyline turbo.
We had a conversation about scare stories in general and sent him a link to Ice Age is Coming 1978 Science Facts narrated by Leonard Nimoy and featuring at the end, our old friend, the ethically conflicted Prof. Stephen Schneider of global warming fame.
I haven’t heard back so I suspect his Nissan Skyline is taking priority and all is right in his world.
80
My next door neighbour showed the 1978 film to his two daughters. They both opined that Stephen Schneider had a nice bum, back in the day.
20
Who gave them the ‘right’? I didn’t. Nobody asked me for permission to subvert either my native country or my adopted country. I thought my native country was free and I thought my adopted country also was one of the world’s best countries for the freedom to live one’s life without undue interference in one’s personal affairs and income. The amount of tax removed from us in various forms is huge and most of it is frittered on politicians’ and local councillors’ own little ridiculous projects, in which we actually have no say.
What happened to ‘No taxation without representation’ and taking only that needed to support essential, and I mean essential, services and to aid those in genuine need, not the lazy bludgers?
In our shire there always seems to be the money for projects like prissy walks and picnic areas but not for clearing the regrown fire-prone scrub along the roads and clearing up the litter the great travelling public throw everywhere…uglifying the very countryside they presumably want to see.
Sorry…rant/
111
Look at the “Illuminati” card game from 1990s- part of the NWO script is ” rewriting history”….so only The Party knows what went before, but erases it so The Party controls the future.
NK skirmish is also part of the same plan.
40
TdeF:
I am all in favour of defacing any statue of our Glorious Leader Lord Waffles and his likely successor Glorious Leader Big Brother Shorten.
As I recall the citizens of Ballarat have experience of this in the local park with the busts of Australia’s past Prime Ministers where several replaced heads are under lock and key. I am also in favour of a number of our politicians, State as well as Federal, being locked up.
130
That’s the Prime Ministers Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, notable is the delay of including PM Tony Abbott’s bust due to a drying up of funding from the fund bequeathed by MP Richard Crouch was covered by the City Council to maintain the tradition.
As someone with strong political views I can see the temptation in smashing an effigy of someone you see as a traitor to the nation but renege to lower myself to the very levels of vandalism that disgust us and displays the regressive mentality that leads to destruction and not discourse.
70
In the old days it was the head of a person on a pole that had riled up the plebs .
51
No Robert, heads on poles tended to be the opposite – put up by riled up Kings to serve as an example to other potentially unruly subjects.
Is there nothing you aren’t able to be 100% wrong about?
315
No, he is right. Usually done by the winning side. For example the Terror in the French Revolution. Thousands of head rolled, mainly the rich. Civil wars too. Seems to frighten people. Why though the pompous personal attack?
100
Give him a break he’s running short of lithium the poor fellow.
81
How many heads on poles did the French Terror produce? Heads on poles don’t roll. You seem mighty confused.
Heads on poles were a mediaeval custom. A rebellious Baron, for example, would be executed by somebody up the food chain and his head would be sent to that Baron’s seat of support to be displayed in a prominent place – the “pole” (or a hook high on a wall) was to prevent his relatives from retrieving the head.
15
“as an example to other potentially unruly subjects”
So, they were put there to rile the plebs.
Your own words prove you 100% wrong…… as they always will do.
82
subdue is the implication and how I understood it. Be calm or else.
10
I don’t agree with much of what you say here, Gee, and less with what Craig mutters, but this is something that is true, Gee Aye, across history the methods to remind the little people and the losers of wars were meant to subdue them, keep them quiet, lest it happen to them.
In the case of Civil War Memorial statues, however, it is the losers who set out to ensure certain members of their society understood who was in charge. They were erected not to celebrate the local hero but to remind the ex-slaves just who was still the boss. The Southern Generals had one hometown, not hundreds.
Of course, the winning side, or the higher authority, usually gets that honor. The American South is unique in that it is the -losers- who erected the statues to commemorate their leaders and subdue those who dared think they were actually free. And the USA is unique, as far as I know, in allowing the losers to do such a thing.
There is a difference between preserving history and historical places, sometimes as a reminder of what should not ever happen again, and preserving the ideology of the side which lost. States “rights” or slavery, it doesn’t matter – the South declared a war of secession, and lost. We in the USA remained one nation. Very few places allow the losers to celebrate their generals and heroes in such public and official places as we do, and it is time some of those statues came down. The manner in which it is being done is not ideal, it’s counter-productive and almost as oppressive as the erecting of the statues was meant to be, but it still needs to be done.
00
So Mary, your rule for good civilization is that all statues of the losing side in a war must be removed?
00
a point of order in this case is that the losing side put them up later. They were not pre-existing to be taken down after defeat.
My opinion on this whole thing is “it depends”. If anyone is arguing wholly one way or the other, without considering each case individually, they are deluded or lazy.
00
You know it is not shameful to agree with someone on something eventhough you’ve disagreed with them on other things. Do you agree?
31
Change your med, gee .. you are yapping meaninglessly…. yet again.
30
lol
30
I take it you were a eye witness, Craig? Or do you find it difficult to distinguish between Game of Thrones and reality?
To set the book straight: As far as English Law was concerned, the heads of convicted Traitors, as determined by the rule of law, in a Superior Court, could be “struck off, and ‘spiked'”, on the outer city walls.
Kings, whether riled up or otherwise, were not involved in that process, except that the King could theoretically pardon a person, who had been found guilty of treason, by the court.
40
A “traitor” tended to be a baron, duke or a aunt whom the king needed to do away with. Plebs were not part of politics.
38
How does spell correct turn earl into aunt? Bizarre as people who deny the reality of climate change…
310
“Plebs were not part of politics.”
Oh dear.. CT’s arrogance is manic.
He thinks he is part of the far-left ruling class.
Your baseless ego really is FAR above anything you can support with your empty rhetoric, isn’t it petal.
We all now know EXACTLY where CT classes himself. !
And its SICKENING.
72
And Andy his suit hasn’t been washed since 1920.
Poor Moichel.
61
‘Bizarre as people who deny the reality of climate change…’
Only your version of climate change, where CO2 is the main driver.
I cannot speak for my colleagues here, but I think the predominant influences on earthly climate are the gas giants, moon and sun.
70
May the Gods of Climate Change strike down the deniers and their children and their children’s children and curse them to eternal damnation in a very hot place which also has an unpleasant smell and few facilities and no television or comfortable chairs. The Curse of Craig is powerful indeed.
60
El Gordo, attribution is in: CO2 is likely performing over 100% of the current climate change work, seeing as the alternative forcings are mostly pulling in the opposite direction.
You can’t just make stuff up about “gas giants” – you need to back that up with some data.
Here is the data that does exist:
27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#/media/File:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
26
No CT, You have not given one piece of empirical evidence that CO2 causes any arming at all.
There is NO CO2 warming signal in the satellite data or in sea level rise.
In FACT there is no proven CO2 warming signal anywhere.
Attribution studies based on manic brain-washed agenda-driven assumptions and base level ignorance, are MEANINGLESS
And certainly anything to do with climate on Wikipedia can be summarily dismissed as nothing but propaganda trash.
Science is about measureable evidence.
Something which you are TOTALLY DEVOID of.
61
Craig the theory that CO2 is causing global warming simply doesn’t stack up.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/08/28/new-paper-at-least-80-of-the-warming-over-the-last-century-due-to-natural-phenomena/#sthash.HH01HpQD.dpbs
31
Think this makes you 100% wrong but I’m willing to make it 97% .
https://ryanphunter.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/the-the-french-revolution-violent-from-its-inception/
31
A trawl around the various UN web site reveals and/or betrays a Global administration-in-waiting. Not governance per se but administration. Far harder to push back against. Faceless. Impersonal. Remote. Unelected and unelectable. Legions of bureaucrats and committees. And all on a time line, as proclaimed by the “transformational” sustainable development agenda, the Habitat III Urban agenda, all with event horizons set at 2030.
This lot of Borg cannot be stopped as things are. There is no political alternative to the cult of globalism, except … just maybe … presently in the US, Russia and India +/- China. Political parties across the spectrum offer the same global chancre, the same poisoned chalice, little realising that they become entirely irrelevant once the UN trap is shut.
What stopped the League of Nations … needs no answers. Now it seems we’re in a multi-dimensional cultural war. The shift to spear chucking is a hairs breadth away. A twisted pan-Western civil-war? Is that the sort of thing the Davos NWO want in order to truly ‘save the world’? Don’t they realise that they will be the first to be flushed away into irrelvence?
111
The image from those who concoct such wickedness.
50
Climate Change Then.
From Science and Every Day Life by JBS Haldane 1939
This volume was picked up at a Church book exchange and is quite interesting. The name Haldane was familiar to me from a plaque on a piece of metal pipe in a public park in Broome, WA (ca 1985). The plaque declared that it was the world’s first recompression chamber, commissioned from the British Admiralty (advised by the famous physiologist JS Haldane). In use it had dramatically reduced the death rate from the bends among the Broome pearl divers. The recompression chamber has subsequently been restored and moved the museum in Broome.
JBS Haldane was the son of JS Haldane, was equally famous as a physiologist and a committed Marxist. He was able to sustain this social belief despite the horrifying stories of repression in the USSR through the 1950s and 1960s.
Haldane wrote a weekly column about science for the readers of the Daily Worker (communist newspaper) for 16 months through 1938 and 1939 and the articles were collated into subject groups and published 1939 and subsequently as a Pelican paperback in 1941.
Haldane explains the idea of proxies for past climate, particularly pollen grains which can be identified with a microscope and last a long time in lake sediments. He then details in another article many changes in the past climate in the Northern Hemisphere over 20,000 years. Alternating cold and warm periods are described and also very wet periods and drier times. Evidence for wet periods includes Roman wells in which the bottom of the well is now 100 ft above the current water table, but they were used because wooden buckets have been found in them. He also talks of oysters growing on the coast of Canada, which is now too cold for them and pollen grains in mud sediments in Finland from varieties of trees which these days do not grow anywhere north of France.
So Haldane, the left wing socialist certainly thought that the climate had varied a lot in the past and quite naturally. His judgement on Anthropogenic Climate Change was this; “Does weather control history? … Any theory according to which history is determined by something we can’t control is popular with reactionaries. For it means that people who try to make the world a better place are dangerous visionaries.”
The difference between then and now is that Haldane thought that man made changes in the climate were a good thing!
Whether he would side with the reactionaries now I do not know but it might be significant that when he decided to leave England, late in life, he choose not to go the USSR but to migrate to India.
170
I had a similar find at a church exchange in Dora Creek.
Haven’t read it yet, just flicked through.
20
Ironic that Haldane, a past leftist
would not pass muster
today as a climate alarmist –
he’d be chucked down the memory
whole as a dastardly apostate.
50
Bureau of Meteorology statement on faulty temperature observations.
“The CEO and Director of Meteorology Dr Andrew Johnson has established a review to ensure the matter is understood and resolved thoroughly. The panel for this review will include expertise from outside the Bureau”. On August 1 Dr Johnson’s letter to the minister indicated that the review would be completed in a matter of weeks.
Time’s up!
170
The clock started ticking in 2015 when PM Abbott lost the cabinet vote for an independent audit, due diligence to be conducted at the BoM.
172
Yes wasn’t that story dropped like a drunken uncles dirty remark at a 16th.
111
We do not even know if the panel has been appointed or who is on it! Maybe it will all be kept secret. Minister Frydenberg does not seem to want to open up the matter at all. Neither did Greg Hunt (the previous minister).
100
I have christened (if such phrase is still allowed) the Minister for Rearranging the Deck Chairs. Supposedly one of the most intelligent Ministers in the current Federal Government but all I can say, after 3 self serving nonesense articles in The Australian, is God help us.
70
The ministers now have to form and push policy’s that come from the backroom , their choice to become a yes man (woman) , Frydenberg is no dummy a Lipspittle suck up definitely.
Won’t matter who does his job they all have to toe the backroom politics.
Only way to change it is for more votes to go to a party like one nation because if they hold enough seats it’s going to hurt the mainstream parties .
80
25 Aug: WindPowerMonthly: Craig Richard: Insurer Munich RE buys stake in Texan wind farms
UNITED STATES: German insurance group Munich RE has bought a minority stake in two identical 230MW wind farms in Texas from private investment firm Starwood Energy.
The insurers bought a 49% stake in the twin Horse Creek and Electra projects in Haskell and Wilbarger counties in north Texas from the Connecticut investors.
The two 230MW sites comprise 100 GE 2.3-116 turbines and both went online last year. General Electric also provides long-term service at the two sites…
A Munich RE subsidiary, HSB Engineering Insurance, insures wind turbines, solar and photovoltaic installations, and other products associated with renewables…
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1442916/insurer-munich-re-buys-stake-texan-wind-farms
25 Aug: Bloomberg: Comcast Solar Marketing Deal Prompts Partner Sunrun to Soar
by Brian Eckhouse & Gerry Smith
Sunrun Inc., the residential solar company that’s boosting market-share, rose to a 52-week high Thursday after saying it will tap a partnership with the biggest U.S. cable-TV company to add new customers.
Comcast Corp. and Sunrun agreed to a 40-month partnership after a trial showed that cable customers had interest in solar products, according to a statement Thursday. San Francisco-based Sunrun will be Comcast’s exclusive residential solar provider.
San Francisco-based Sunrun surged 11 percent to $7.69 at 11:37 a.m. in New York — the biggest intra-day jump since November. Comcast shares fell 1.3 percent to $40.14…
Comcast has about 27 million subscribers in markets that include Chicago and Philadelphia. The cable giant will advertise the solar program as an option for its XFinity Home service, which gives customers the ability to automate devices around the house, like turning lights on and off.
There’s some precedent for energy and telecommunications companies to collaborate.
Five of the largest Czech utilities offered mobile services as of January 2016, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance…
Comcast has been expanding into new lines of business as growth in selling cable-TV subscriptions slows…
Sunrun, the U.S.’ largest residential solar-only installer, has just under 150,000 customers, Jurich said. It expects to do 45,000 installations this year. Customers typically sign 20-year leases or power purchase agreements…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/sunrun-finds-key-partner-to-market-its-solar-panels-comcast
30
Regarding the NWO, during the 1990s ABC National Radio broadcast a series of lectures on New World Order for which I obtained a transcript which I showed to a former conservative side senior cabinet minister for comment. A WW2 veteran, he was dismissive of any suggestion that the agenda was sinister and said that the world does not want another world war and we must work to get people together and create a more prosperous life for as many people as possible.
On reflection I now accept that he was genuinely wanting to do good and that the UN system was the right way to proceed. But I am also convinced that he was naive, and despite or because of his good intentions and honesty (a true public servant) he was oblivious to the plans of the socialist infiltrators – e.g. Labor Attorney General Evatt’s treaties to be signed contribution to the cause.
And the more I think about the extremely clever and cunning ways the steps have been disguised and presented with meant to make us feel good titles, aims and objectives – e.g. national parks to conserve that land for future generations. Who could argue with that objective, unless it was pointed out that the real plan was to prohibit mining of valuable natural resources and forestry, etc.
How ridiculous is Agenda 21 now 30 with items like marine national parks here prohibiting commercial fishing and in many areas family fishing. And then with most of the fishing trawler fleet licences taken with compensation to the holders seafood now imported from countries where “sustainability” is apparently not so important. Like the transition to a clean energy future but send our coal and gas offshore to be burnt to obtain cheap electricity, and make Australia the highest priced electricity country of all.
And, as Jo has written about here, the “crony capitalists” who only seem to care about profiteering from subsidies paid by the customers in addition to their grossly inflated electricity bills. All happily joining into the tax feeding frenzy and related economic vandalism.
I had better stop here because I get wound up, this takeover of my country frustrates me, angers me and those responsible make me feel sick.
150
A very perceptive man once said,
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
250
I see smoke ….
60
Brilliant Yonnie!
Cicero kept his society safe from traitors. Can we do the same? We know who he is.
100
Who they are?
10
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
30
oh really! lol.
27 Aug: Sunday Mail: Electricity prices Qld 2017: Households without solar lose out
by Michael Wray
HOUSEHOLDS without solar power have copped the largest electricity price hikes in the past 12 months, leading social workers to warn the burden of surging energy prices is falling on low income earners and renters.
The latest St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland energy price report has highlighted the growing divide between households that can afford solar energy and those relying on regular electricity.
According to the report, households with a 3kW solar system had an annual bill that was $935 less than non-solar households.
Queensland Council of Social Service essential services manager Carly Hyde said the evolution of the energy market had created the risk of a growing divide between those who could take advantage of opportunities to reduce their energy costs and those who could not…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/electricity-prices-qld-2017-households-without-solar-lose-out/news-story/4ef3d730e8ff2707355c8ff7a2eb2858
80
Well the catholic charity St Vincent de Paul will soon be onside, calling for those with SOLAR CELLS on their roofs to subsidise those who cannot access this well spring of social largess.
130
Thanks to the RET, those who cannot afford solar panels pay half the cash cost of purchase and installation. Then the poor have to pay again when the panels actually work uselessly at lunchtime while supplying the really needed power at 6am and 6pm. Tough for the poor.
Given the CO2 released in manufacture of the solar panels, world CO2 actually increases at the direct cost of the poor. So the rich get richer and the poor poorer and CO2 goes up, thanks to the caring Greens who rob the poor while pretending to save the planet.
You get the same selfish people pushing tokenism. Now to add a plaque to Captain Cooks statue to recognize the contribution of Aborigines in creating the country of Australia. Not to help them at all close the gap. A footnote. Then in Victoria, a proposed new statue to young street addicts rather than any attempt to reduce the problem. Similarly solar panels for the rich paid by taxes on the poor. Feel good selfish tokenism while the Greens jet off on annual holidays or to Green conferences on not flying.
40
25 Aug: Oklahoman: PSO Wind Catcher case should proceed, regulatory judge says
by Paul Monies
A preapproval case for Public Service Co. of Oklahoma’s Wind Catcher project will go ahead after an administrative law judge ruled Thursday against a motion to dismiss the case brought by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter.
Without comment, Corporation Commission Administrative Law Judge Mary Candler denied the attorney general’s motion in a hearing Thursday morning. However, Candler approved another motion to have PSO pay for witness fees and other case costs for the attorney general’s office, which represents consumers in utility cases.
The attorney general’s office argued PSO failed to follow competitive bidding rules and didn’t show additional need for generation in the $4.5 billion Wind Catcher project. The project will involve a 2,000-megawatt wind farm in the Oklahoma Panhandle and a dedicated transmission line to take the electricity to 1.1 million customers of PSO and its sister utility, Southwestern Electric Power Co.
PSO’s share of the project is estimated at $1.36 billion. PSO wants the commission to waive competitive bidding rules and allow preapproval to recover costs from customers once the project is in service by late 2020…
Construction on the wind farm began last year, although developer Invenergy needs to meet additional deadlines in order to fully qualify for federal production tax credits for wind.
The project also needs approval from state regulators in three other states and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission…
PSO estimates the Wind Catcher project would add another $78 million to customer rates in 2021…
http://newsok.com/article/5561463
15 Aug: Oklahoman: Oklahoma AG seeks dismissal of PSO Wind Catcher case
by Paul Monies
Oklahoma’s attorney general wants state regulators to dismiss a preapproval case for Public Service Co. of Oklahoma’s Wind Catcher project, saying the utility didn’t follow competitive bidding rules and hasn’t shown a need for new generation.
“The Attorney General’s full participation is essential, as PSO’s customers are at risk to bear the $1.36 billion cost of the Wind Catcher project if the commission grants PSO’s requested relief,” the motion said…
Meanwhile, PSO filed for a $156 million rate case increase in June, which if approved would boost average residential bills by $14 per month…
In its motion to dismiss, the attorney general’s office said the pending PSO rate case and the Wind Catcher case together could result in a $250 million annual rate case increase by 2021. The utility’s estimated cost savings for fuel include assumptions about the price of natural gas, which its experts said could be $6 per thousand cubic feet by 2020. That’s double the current price…
http://newsok.com/article/5560139
30
Just to lighten the mood. 🙂
This is how desperate for distraction they are getting. They want he man who ran away to lead us……somewhere……..
We are now approaching peak silliness.
41
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/grace-collier/peter-costello-our-best-hope-against-bill-shorten/news-story/8eef6067a10fa4690b3ebdec7b149ccb
Google jump didn’t work on that: Do it yourselves from this…worth it for the humor value. 🙂
42
Peter Costello was a good Treasurer, got us in the black and avoided the sub prime fiasco with tight regulation. Julia and Swany spent the lot, like drunken sailors on leave.
91
He was the Hammock Dweller that would not stand up to Howard and gave us the structural budget problems we have now. Probably one of the most ineffectual treasurers we have ever had and that would have been made MORE plain if he hadn’t had boom conditions for his tenure. All he was good for was peeing our money up against the wall and wasting the mining boom.
And, objectively, when push came to shove the whole thought of actually leading his party when things got hard frightened him out of politics.
Still, bring him back by all means. Economically illiterate lamb to the slaughter come next election. May even lose it by more than if they bring our Tones back?? 🙂
43
so he read the safety advice
20
Har Har. 🙂
10
He didn’t fancy being leader of the Opposition.
The GFC saw Julia and Swan hand out $900 to anyone who pays tax, that was a complete waste and keeping tradies afloat building school halls was pathetic.
Tell me what are these structural budget problems which Costello is blamed for?
41
Screwing up the revenue side of the budget by handing out one offs as tax cuts that are politically hard to claw back. Pretty simple really.
Libs just dont get the whole budget thing. It has 2 components. Revenue and Spending. Obsession on spending is stupid.
22
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
10
Not only hindsight eg.
One example.
I remember when Howard/Costello brought in the rules that super income for over 60’s would be untaxed. 🙂
At the time there was a lot of discussion and laffs in my workplace along the lines that it would be great for a certain cohort…but completely unsustainable in the longer term as the population ages. Populist bad economic management to buy votes in the short term that has created a structural problem in the out years….and that was obvious as a baboon’s big red bottom from the get go.
The current Govt are pretty much a policy vacuum on anything that matters, and i think one reason for that is that they STILL have to many hangers on from the Howard/Costello era who should have been flushed some time ago, but were too powerful within their little club to get rid of.
20
Okay you win on that.
Bill wants to embrace Beijing’s Belt and Road, do you think it will be a vote catcher?
10
LoL! Hadn’t heard that one, but it fits with the current Bill as Che clone East German Economic mole hype. 🙂
20
Sorry hit post before i answered. Fat fingers. 🙁
Vote catcher? MeH…dont think it will make any difference to anyone who hasn’t already made their minds up. Which according to the better poll aggregates is about 53-54% of the electorate. I think Bill would have to get caught in a Shaved Goat and Mango Butter situation for that to change much at the moment. 🙂
30
One Belt One Road is going to be big at the next election, bread and circuses. Talcum is holding back for strategic reasons but Bill doesn’t see a problem.
‘Opposition foreign spokeswoman Penny Wong has supported Australia signing up to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure plan, after the Turnbull government resisted a push to align the Chinese fund and the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.’
Oz
10
Interesting.
We’d probably get better value out of that than funding Adani’s rail line, and on the evidence i think Bills strategic judgement is currently showing as a bit better that the Trembling Truffles.
20
eg, that report is from back in May.
not sure that something like that, essentially sunk like a stone since then (too many govt Fwark ups distracting people) is going to be of much significance at the next election.
10
The MSM has fallen silent since May, something must be up. If you get a chance browse through this, I see infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/ChinasRoad
10
Thanks for that link eg. Plays into the way the world is going strategically. China seems to me to be heading towards a learning curve on how to develop and use power, and i think its going to be for Australia as a “middle power” to work out where we fit into that. challenging huh? But, i dont think a challenge that can be avoided. There WILL be fwark ups along the way, thats part of human nature. All a bit scary. 🙁
A lot of the angst about this is the relative decline of the US in terms of economic, and military power. A different world coming, but…its coming like it or not. Doesn’t have to devolve into war and conflict though the chances of that being part of it are not trivial.
Like i said, a bit scary especially if you are a follower of history. BUT…..i think there are also viable paths ahead. Knowing the history doesn’t mean that history has to be repeated. The rise of China is something to be given a lot of thought i reckon as to what it will come to mean.
20
At least they don’t have a deity.
The new owners of TEN are Americans, if Jack Ma put in a bid for the whole of Fairfax should we knock him back?
10
Hey eg…at least it wasn’t Faux News. 🙂
10
The Murdocracy was pipped at the post.
00
Jack Ma wanted Domain because its the big money spinner, so how about giving him the rural papers?
Fairfax churn out propaganda on a daily basis, little would change.
00
More globull warming from their abc .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-27/snow-falls-across-chilly-canberra/8846826
50
Henry, aged 8, calls out that the emperor has no clothes.
120
It was sleeting/snowing at Dom Dom Saddle (Black Spur) at lunchtime today and the temperature was 4C. By the time we were driving down Hoddle St it was 12C! Tonight at home it is clear and perishing cold…brrr.
50
Gee, Annie. You could make it a bit easier!
I found Dom Dom Saddle on Google Earth, and I thought, “That’s interesting. Annie’s been up in the bush. Now where’s Hoddle Street?”
Blow me down, Annie, there’s four Hoddle Streets in Victoria!
Maybe it’s an Aussie thing…
70
FijiDave,
I suspect this the Hoddle St that Annie is talking about.
30
I have answered FD but it’s in moderation!
20
Quite correct Raven! Thanks, Annie.
BTW, we had a hard frost last night, it was very pretty this morning.
40
Fiji Dave…my humble grovelling apologies! As I expect you have discovered by now: Dom Dom Saddle is the highest point as the Maroondah Hwy passes over the Great Dividing Range to the NE of Melbourne. Around here we refer to it as the Black Spur…apparently it was formerly known as the Blacks’ Spur.
The Hoddle street I was referring to is the one that runs down from Clifton Hill at the end of the Eastern Fway in Melbourne, roughly north/south past the MCG and becomes Punt Road around the River Yarra and runs past Christ Church, South Yarra.
20
Thanks Annie and Raven
Your grovelling apologies are accepted, Annie! 🙂
At least I know where Melbourne is, having visited there a few years ago. I was surprised by the amount of snow on the hills as we descended towards the airport, and also by the fact that snow was on the ground there. Expatriate natives of that city were also surprised when I mentioned the snow to them.
When I saw ‘Black Spur’ I was momentarily a little confused. I had heard of the ‘The Black Stump’ and knew that if you were beyond that place, you were truly a long way from anywhere. Black Spur looks just a short long way from anywhere!
20
Gone forever that snow.
AlGor(ithm) and Tim Foolery have told us so.
50
This week just passed: Docket
From Yahoo Finance
Popcorn futures skyrocket.
130
Can Greenpeace be found, traceable bank accounts, tax returns etc.
Sounds interesting.
70
Greenpeace are getting some serious push-back in India, too.
Link to story
110
A site I use to look at regularly but have sort have missed out on recently for various reasons.
Ryan Maue’s (Unofficial) Record-breaking temperature across the Globe [ the “daily” record,for that day and time of day . It does change through the day as the times of reading the temperature rolls on through the day.
.
Locations approaching or surpassing Unofficial daily [ 27 Aug ] temperature records based on temperatures at 0800UTC 27 Aug 2017
————-.
Unofficially, there are currently 0 stations that have broken their daily high record, 3 that are tying it, and 13 that are near it.
.
Unofficially, there are currently 0 stations that have broken their daily low record, 1 that is tying it, and 30 that are near it.
—————.
City, Country, Temperatures, Previous record, Record equalled and /or broken and by how many degrees [ F ]. Data base length in years are all given in the tables.
For some years past the daily records have generally been slanted towards a greater number of warmer records than colder records.
Now it seems that trend may have reversed when we look at the lists of matching and / or new records as given in the table.
I guess I will have to monitor this site a lot more closely to see if the cooling trend and colder temperature records begin to become the dominant trend.
70
The deceptions continue: Channel 9 News weather report, lots of very cold regions and then, the very hot 35C Darwin … that’s normal for this time of year.
A few days ago my mid north coast NSW region was referred to as hot around 30C and northern Australia at much the same was “baking hot”.
Enough of this brain washing.
Read Paul Sheehan’s fantastic book “The Electronic Whorehouse”, “advertising presented as news”, the milder sin.
110
What no reports of the drought currently affecting Texas .
30
as defacing/destroying statues etc has been brought up, I wonder how many have heard about this story, which is quite telling, tho it’s not the first time the media is the message:
VIDEO: 25 Aug: GatewayPundit: Jim Hoft: Police Investigating Whether Local NBC Affiliate (KPNX/NBC) Was Involved in Monument Vandalism (VIDEO)
Arizona Department of Public safety is investigating vandalism of a monument in Phoenix.
The vandalism was discovered by reporter Bryan West from the local NBC affiliate
But now surveillance video shows the NBC news van was at the scene prior to the vandalism and that the head lights of the van were on the vandalism while it was happening.
Bryan West joined the News Channel 12 team after graduation from Northwestern University in 2011…READ ON
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/08/police-investigating-whether-local-nbc-affiliate-involved-monument-vandalism-video/
VIDEO: 9mins55secs: 23 Aug: Phoenix New Times: Surveillance Videos Contradict Channel 12 News Report on Confederate Memorial Vandalism
by Ray Stern
Update: Channel 12 (KPNX/NBC) changes tale on Confederate memorial vandalism after New Times story.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/video-contradicts-channel-12-report-on-confederate-memorial-vandalism-9621173
25 Aug: Phoenix New Times: Channel 12 (KPNX/NBC) changes tale on Confederate Memorial vandalism after New Times story
by Ray Stern
The Facebook site of the reporter, Bryan West, has been taken down, too…
Also of note, Channel 3 (KTVK-TV) and Channel 5 (KPHO-TV) published the surveillance video on AZFamily.com last week, but edited out key scenes of the suspect’s arrival and departure. AZFamily also cut out the part near the end of the video where West and the cameraman show up, and the report failed to explain to viewers that the source of the light on the memorial is a news van’s headlights.
The 911 call that West made about the vandalism has not been released by the Arizona Department of Public Safety…
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/confederate-memorial-vandalism-report-by-channel-12-news-gets-changed-video-deleted-after-new-times-story-9628634since the FakeNewsMSM lost the US election, they have done everything possible to incite protest, violence and even to normalise the idea of killing the President.
without the media incitement, and relentless coverage of every anti-Trump movement/anti-Trump statement, we would not be seeing such madness on the streets.
at Charlottesville, if you check it out, the FakeNewsMSM was literally embedded with the rioters, in opposition to the police.
when will the media be held to account, and by whom?
70
comment has gone into moderation.
20
It didn’t take long for the CAGW crowd to blame Hurricane Harvey on Global warming.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/08/26/climate-change-advocates-use-harvey-tout-global-warming/
70
If that is true then they have clearly not thought the subject through.
By withdrawing from the Paris Accord Trump has ensured that billions of USDollars which would have been
mandated for dispatch to unaccountable UN and various foreign accounts is instead now available
to help the storm ravaged citizens of Texas , from whom in deed much of the Climate aid money would have been extracted.
If he plays his cards right Trump can take the advantage by saying that , if this is a CAGW extreme weather event than it is better that the money should be spent where the dangers are greater , ie the Gulf states of USA, than sent to corrupt political mobsters abroad
or to US bankers , as would have been the case under Paris .
110
I was reading through a recent financial report belonging to the company I work for, and it seems that they borrowed money (in the order of tens of $millions) to pay out dividends to shareholders, rather than cutting said dividend, and presumably lowering the share price a bit.
Is this a normal practice?
From my position as someone with no “business” or “financial” background, or training, this seems… really stupid, but maybe there is some logic in it, somewhere…?
60
Dividends can only be paid from trading profits. It is an offence under the corporations act to do otherwise.
Was there an announced profit?
50
I had the unfortunate experience of watching a ‘debate’ on TV with five of the smaller political parties represented leading up to our elections here in New Zealand next month.
The moderator asked each of the leaders of their respective parties in turn, “Are you a Climate Denier?” This said with such a sneer that it was clear that to have any opinion other than frothing alarmism would bring on the wrath of the Gods.
Needless to say even the most conservative of the five people asked backed off as if they’d been asked, “Are you a paedophile? Have stopped bashing your wife?”
Disgusting bias.
110
Hi Dave,There has to be a simple and answer to this question of so called ‘denier’.
I know its difficult in such a circumstance (tv interview) but a good debater would turn the question back onto the moderator and work from there.If people haven’t the guts to stand up for what they believe to the truth then they should be honest with themselves and get out of politics.
Regards GeoffW
30
There is a simple answer , no one denies the climate is changing has been for millennia but there is no proof of mans involvement just a consensus of theories.
30
Too right Robert . . .
GeoffW
20
The problem is, I think, Geoff, that an awful lot of the voters in this country are ardent Warmists and the politicians well know it. In fact, going by the audience support for the Green Party ‘leader’ (he was referred to by one smarty as the Undertaker of the Greens – given the downward spiral of their ratings) that one could be excused for thing the audience was stacked with Greenies.
You are quite correct that if they haven’t the guts to follow the truth, but merely bow to rowdy ones then they should be out of politics.
20
This is a bit of a cheeky comment , taking advantage of the unthreaded nature (still the weekend here in Blighty), given that it has little relevance to renewable energy or climate change , but it does refer to the Australian Climate and Geography .
I have just been watching a BBC film by Gordon Buchanan about the endangered elephant herds ( what is left of them after poaching) in East Africa and i wondered whether it was possible to find a refuge for elephants in Australia’s bush lands which resemble the dry scrub of East and South Africa.
They would be safe from poachers in Australia because the Australians share the accolade with the Canadians of being among the most decent and law abiding communities on Earth.
I know that animal imports like cane toads and rabbits have caused ecological havoc , but camels have naturalised quite successfully and i have never seen any adverse comments about them .
So is it a solution to the extermination of elephants and rhinos in Africa?
50
Probably not.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-22/last-african-elephant-in-australia-dies-at-dubbo-zoo/8377038
30
Dubbo also lost 4 of its 5 rhinos to a mystery disease in the space of a few days a year or 2 back.
40
well rabbit have “naturalised” quite successfully unless I misunderstand what you mean by that. Camels are not concerning people as much but just because something is worse mean they are not bad too…
A randomly obtained paste here that would summarise just about any web page on the topic
“As large herbivores, camels add to the total grazing impact with damage likely to be most severe during and coming out of drought. They also destroy fences and are a potential carrier of exotic diseases that may be a threat to livestock. Camels are of concern to indigenous communities because they can foul water holes and damage ceremonial art and other cultural sites that are often associated with water holes.”
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They … are a potential carrier of exotic diseases that may be a threat … [they] … are of concern to indigenous communities because they can foul water holes and damage ceremonial art and other cultural sites that are often associated with
water holes[drinking establishments].”I just thought I would make it a little more “ockkerish”,
31
Here is an update on the devil.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/facial-tumours-found-on-relocated-tasmanian-devils/8720728
The devil was once widespread across Australia, but the arrival of the dingo with Indian immigrants brought an end to their existence on the mainland.
21
“Scientific American Sokalized”
“A few years ago, I learned of an article by Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi in the November 2009 issue of Scientific American called “A Path to Sustainable Energy.” My first impression was, “These guys must be joking.” My second impression was, “Yes, they are joking, and the joke is on Scientific American.” Jacobson and Delucchi wrote a spoof to show what tomfoolery can be published in Scientific American, rather like Alan Sokal’s spoof of post-modernist jargon in Social Text. They did manage to squeeze in some calculations that detail what is really involved in a carbon-free economy, but avoided all precautionary words, lest the editors reject the manuscript. It’s a laugh a minute.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/27/scientific-american-sokalized/
60
I still have the Scientific American October 1987 for the article claiming that solar PV prices were dropping so fast that within 6 years no-one would build a new coal fired power station. Should I copy it and send to the 62 countries looking at building new coal fired plants?
100
More on the diesel vehicle “scandal”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/27/another-example-of-climate-alarmism-idiocy-germanys-dieselgate/
And the comments
40
All is not lost.
Half of Torontonians would vote PC in the next election, new poll suggests
20
Ontario is the world’s guinea pig when it comes to ruinables.
50
Only because South Australia had less economy left to ruin.
60
Which is why Victoria is next. !
73
Sorry, South Australia are amateurs.
Boondoggle: How Ontario’s pursuit of renewable energy broke the province’s electricity system
70
Meanwhile, back at the
ranchReservation.Powering Ontario’s Remote First Nations
Sorry, our priorities don’t include you.
50
Ontario is a haven for cheap power. Retail price of CAD0.11/kWh is peanuts compared to SA at AUD0.47/kWh.
20
Despite Ontario having electricity prices 30 years behind Australia, in a highly inflationary service, economic pain is still being felt there.
An interesting comment from the linked article:
The engineering groups, that should know better in Australia, are not as vocal in their disgust as far as I can see. Maybe intermittents are such a good money spinner for the profession that they have not taken the time to understand the harm that is occurring and/or not willing to bite the hand that feeds them.
30
This is more from the same link:
This demonstrates clearly the financial incentives for industry and financial institutions to push renewables. They have got hold of what is fundamentally an essential service and squeezing for every last drop. There is a lot of money in energy at basic consumer level and doubling the price makes it an incredibly attractive money spinner for anyone able to climb on board.
The immediate fix is to prohibit all non-dispatchable generation from supplying the grid. If the power cannot be guaranteed 24 hours per day the generator has no right degrading the grid.
Pre the NEM, only State government owned generators and a very few government sanctioned co-gen plants could supply to the network. The latter were paid peanuts for their contribution. I spent six months negotiation and refining the design of a 10MW dirty load, so termed, to avoid light flicker. Now anything is able to attach to the network.
40
Rick
“Because they know how to turn a light bulb on and off, they’ll issue policy statements on the most complex engineering system on the planet,” said Paul Acchione, a former head of the engineers’ society.”
But how many of them needed to change one?
20
need to correct the following from my comment #26:
meant to say PHOENIX (anti-Trump rioters/police), not Charlottesville when I wrote:
“at Charlottesville (SHOULD BE PHOENIX), if you check it out, the FakeNewsMSM was literally embedded with the rioters, in opposition to the police”
only excuse for the error is I was watching 2 cricket matches at the time, so I was somewhat distracted.
examples re Phoenix:
CNN Saba’s entire Twitter account is a typical MSM TrumpDerangementZone but, if you scroll to her Phoenix stuff on Aug 22, you will find her living it up with the rioters. plenty of lies and misinfo as well, given the Fire Marshall restricted the hall to 19,000 and Trump asked for those left outside to be allowed in, if possible.
Twitter: Saba Hamedy: Moved from LA to the Beltway. Former entertainment reporter, now at @cnnpolitics. @mashable, @latimes
(TWEETS: 22 Aug by Saba)
OH on the roof: “it feels more like a party than a protest” #trumprally #protest
Views from the roof of the parking lot across from Phoenix convention center. People packed on every floor. #trumprally protest
All you can hear from up hear is the roar of chants blending together. #trumprally #protests
Btw police in a line in front of convention center in case you couldn’t tell. #trumprally #protest
AND MUCH MORE
https://twitter.com/saba_h?lang=en
23 Aug: Buzzfeed: Brianna Sacks: Police Fired Gas At Protesters Outside Trump’s Rally
Riot police deployed pepper spray and rubber bullets against protesters in Phoenix, but organizers and witnesses said the protesters were peaceful…
Crowds of people fled the area, but dozens remained, demanding to protest peacefully…
the riots occurred after the rally. those who attended were safely allowed out through an exit away from the remaining protesters, which Daily Mail’s David Martosko tweeted were few in number:
TWEET: 22 Aug: David Martosko, DM: Not many protesters remaining as we leave…
the ***ICONIC PIC with the photographer obviously with the protesters opposite the police:
22 Aug: ***ArizonaRepublic: Police tear gas protesters in Phoenix following Trump speech
***PHOTO CAPTION: A protester sits on Second street in front of a line of Phoenix police officers trying to clear the area after they fired gas into the crowd on Aug 22, 2017.
Kylee Whiteagle, 19, Phoenix, said demonstrators were peacefully protesting in front of the convention center…
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2017/08/22/z-police-tear-gas-protesters-phoenix-following-trump-speech/592622001/
***Wikipedia: Arizona Republic: In the paper’s 2016 editorial decision to take the further step of actually endorsing a Democratic candidate for the first time, the paper argued that despite Clinton’s flaws, it could not support Republican nominee Donald Trump, denouncing him as “not conservative” and “not qualified.” The board also argued that Trump had “deep character flaws…. (and) … stunning lack of human decency, empathy and respect,” suggesting that it was evidence he “doesn’t grasp our national ideals.” The paper also noted its concern regarding whether or not Trump would possess the necessary restraint needed for someone with access to nuclear weapons, stating, “The president commands our nuclear arsenal. Trump can’t command his own rhetoric.”
***Arizona Republic kindly published this instruction piece prior to the rally:
18 Aug: ArizonaRepublic: How to attend (or protest at) President Trump’s Phoenix rally Tuesday
whose side were the MSM on? includes Getty’s version of the ***ICONIC PIC above:
Click thru 10 Getty Images from riots between anti-Trump protesters and police in Phoenix
http://www.gettyimages.com.au/event/president-trump-holds-rally-in-phoenix-arizona-775025337?#president-donald-trump-speaks-to-supporters-at-the-phoenix-convention-picture-id837554150
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comment in moderation beginning “need to correct the following from my comment #26”
26 Aug: Fox News: ‘Antifa’ website linked to G20 violence banned in Germany
by Lukas Mikelionis; The Associated Press contributed to this report
Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière claimed the website helped incite the violence in Hamburg and warned of “serious consequences” of left-wing radicalism, the New York Times reported…
Local police said at the time that the militants set up street barricades, looted supermarkets, torched cars and attacked police officers with Molotov cocktails, iron rods, and slingshots.
The violent clashes between the Antifa and police led to around 476 police officers being injured, while around 186 demonstrators were arrested and 225 were temporarily detained…
Following the announced closure, the extremist website now directs visitors to a “what to do” article calling the government’s move an “authoritarian crackdown.”
It also urges people to spread “revolutionary material and ideas everywhere” and come up with “alternative ways to communicate with each other and the general public in times of intensifying state censorship and control.”
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/26/german-authorities-ban-extremist-antifa-website-over-connections-to-g20-violence.html
27 Aug: The Hill: Ned Ryun: The real threat to our republic is the Orwellian Antifa
(Ned Ryun is a former presidential adviser for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority)
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/348137-the-real-threat-to-our-republic-is-the-orwellian-antifa
amusingly, turned on ABC Nightlife after watching cricket last nite and they were playing Pokey Lafarge’s “Riot in the Streets”, which has had much MSM coverage:
The Playlist: LCD Soundsystem and Pokey LaFarge Reckon With What is Happening
The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and …. Pokey LaFarge, ‘Riot in the Streets’ …
But listen to the lyrics, which are about a race riot after a police shooting, trying to understand what happened and is happening. It’s like an explanation of now, delivered in an ancient language…
NYT-5 May 2017
See It Hear First: Pokey LaFarge Gets Serious About ‘Riot in the streets”
Huffington Post-2 May 2017
Pokey LaFarge On World Cafe
NPR-26 May 2017
Pokey LaFarge joins World Cafe to perform new songs from his latest … Ferguson, Mo., which he says inspired his song “Riot In The Streets.
40
Regarding our various governments’ love of power from ‘renewables’, it is interesting to look at this list of ’emission-intensive trade-exposed industries in the current Regulations of the ‘Clean Energy Act 2011’, that under a future ‘renewable powered Australia’ are unlikely to survive:
Part 3—Emissions‑intensive trade‑exposed activities 113
Division 1—General 113
Division 2—Production of glass containers 114
Division 3—Production of bulk flat glass 115
Division 4—Production of methanol 116
Division 5—Production of carbon black 117
Division 6—Production of white titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigment 118
Division 7—Production of silicon 119
Division 8—Smelting zinc 120
Division 9—Integrated production of lead and zinc 121
Division 10—Aluminium smelting 123
Division 11—Alumina refining 124
Division 12—Production of high purity ethanol 125
Division 13—Production of magnesia 126
Division 14—Manufacture of newsprint 128
Division 15—Dry pulp manufacturing 130
Division 16—Cartonboard manufacturing 132
Division 17—Packaging and industrial paper manufacturing 134
Division 18—Printing and writing paper manufacturing 136
Division 19—Tissue paper manufacturing 138
Division 20—Integrated iron and steel manufacturing 140
Division 21—Manufacture of carbon steel from cold ferrous feed 145
Division 22—Petroleum refining 148
Division 23—Production of ethene (ethylene) 151
Division 24—Production of polyethylene 152
Division 25—Production of synthetic rutile 153
Division 26—Production of manganese 154
Division 27—Production of clinker 156
Division 28—Production of lime 158
Division 29—Production of fused alumina 159
Division 30—Production of copper 160
Division 31—Production of carbamide (urea) 162
Division 32—Production of sodium carbonate (soda ash) and sodium bicarbonate 163
Division 33—Production of ammonium nitrate 165
Division 34—Production of ammonia 166
Division 35—Production of iron ore pellets 167
Division 36—Production of liquefied natural gas 169
Division 37—Production of magnetite concentrate 170
Division 38—Production of glass beads 171
Division 39—Production of sodium silicate glass 172
Division 40—Production of polymer grade propene (polymer grade propylene) 173
Division 41—Production of rolled aluminium 174
Division 42—Production of chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) solution 175
Division 43—Production of fused zirconia 176
Division 44—Manufacture of reconstituted wood‑based panels 177
Division 45—Production of coke oven coke 178
Division 46—Production of hydrogen peroxide 179
Division 47—Production of ceramic floor and wall tiles 180
Division 48—Production of nickel 181
Division 49—Production of helium 183
Division 50—Production of dried distillers grains with solubles 184
Division 51—Production of glass wool 185
Division 52—Production of coal char 186
Division 53—Production of ferrovanadium 187
Division 54—Rendering of animal by‑products 188
Note: Division 12—Production of high purity ethanol!
One might ask ‘what is left of Australian manufacturing’ if all the factories currently manufacturing these products are forced to close? On the other hand, if these factories are all exempted from the Australian ‘renewable energy’ future, how effective can any ‘clean energy’ policy be?
180
20 years of SpaceWeather data from NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer-
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ACENews_curr.html … – there are long term trends!
https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/901876692393787398
Top line shows that this past solar cycle was very weak. In fact, it is one of the weakest since the beginning of the space age.
Bottom line shows that the weak solar cycle is resulting in higher cosmic ray fluxes. In fact, we are trending towards a record high.
50
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ACENews_curr.html
30
‘There are predictions that the Sun may be returning to a reduced level of activity such as occurred roughly every 80-100 years over the past 500 years …’
Its a Gleissberg Minimum.
60
Bets on the next cycle?
Lower than current or higher?
10
A song for all the weather worriers, and charlatans of catastrophic climate —
https://youtu.be/GeecXiqNzWA
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Not saying anything at all about this one .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-28/gangland-widow-roberta-williams-parliament-against-bill-shorten/8848540
50
Here is one for Tony:
This gives an indication of the people destined to benefit from Queensland’s foray into the deep hole of economic decline.
I expect Tony could crowd fund his presence at this event to offer an alternate view. In fact all these industry forums need to get a dose of reality.
It is now widely recognised that increasing renewables requires equivalent increase in fast response gas turbines. Their combination results in very expensive electricity as they displace slow response low cost coal generation. The only way that Australia can afford this technology is to have it produced in China using Australian coal. Ultimately the whole cycle is unsustainable and an economic dead end.
The grid should only have dispatchable generators connected. The only place for renewables is off-grid with whatever battery is needed to supply the local load.
100
I offer $50 towards Tony’s admission fee, should he choose to accept it.
62
Likewise.
30
I would go in a heartbeat if there was any point.
I went along to the Rockhampton meeting for the 50% Renewables thing, and I have never seen a more closely controlled meeting in my life.
I got the chance to ask two pertinent questions during the meeting, (1) directly from their own findings where it was shown conclusively on the projected slide that the power being generated from any proposed (thought bubble only) renewables was nowhere even close to 50% of actual demand in Queensland, and the response was waffle in the extreme for 20 seconds, and he had no idea what I was alluding to, only to run out of time and move to the next speaker, and (2) the finding that if no coal fired plants were to close in that time frame, (2030) then how did they hope to lower coal fired generation to the required level, also in black and white on the projected slide. He actually looked stunned when he saw the figures on the slide himself, realising the glaring mistake himself. He mentioned something about delivering power into NSW, scratched his head went umm and ahh, and moved onto the next speaker.
I was shut down from even asking follow up questions, by an apparatchik of to the side of the ‘top table’.
After the meeting I approached one of the two visiting ‘delegates’ and asked if my submission was read. He asked my name, obviously thinking I had not made any submission at all, and when I told him, there was a blank stare followed by ….. oh no, we don’t read any of the submissions. We have staff to do that, and they bring anything pertinent to our notice.
Had that submission even been read by anyone at all, and I truly suspect that it was not read by anyone at all, it would have been patently obvious that they could see that I had them by the gonads, but there was still a blank look, closely followed by turning away to speak to the next person. I’m pretty sure they have an idea that some people may just be inconvenient to have around, and they wind it back if it looks like embarrassment may ensue.
I see absolutely no point whatsoever attending these very carefully staged events after that little effort.
It may sound like an excuse, but hey, if they don’t want to listen, no matter how true the things I speak about are, they just do not want to hear them.
I would like to say I have an impact, but I really don’t. No one of consequence wants to even listen in the first place, and that one meeting proved exactly that point.
The same applied to the Federal Government Inquiry into Wind Power as well. I made a submission to that along similar lines, and that also disappeared down the memory hole as well.
Tony.
151
There is a little more history now on the poor economics. More people with eyes open to the fact that it is a dead end industrially. The circumstances of the forum may give some ideas on how you get attention. There has to be someone questioning the madness.
60
I think you are doing more good here on this site and on your own web site. Keep up the good work. I agree it is likely a waste of time to attend that Powering North Queensland Summit.
However if you were allowed to make a presentation it could be different.
80
South Australia prove that you can’t cure stupid with more stupid but they won’t give up the fights.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-28/expressions-of-interest-wanted-for-renewable-tech-fund/8849114
70
Molten salt as good as coal and can provide baseload power 24/7 .
Port Augusta solar thermal power station – Solar Reserve
United States-based company Solar Reserve has been seeking federal support for a $650-million solar thermal project in Port Augusta.
It would use more than 10,000 billboard-sized mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to generate heat.
Energy would then be stored in molten salt, producing baseload power 24 hours a day similar to a traditional coal-fired generator.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-22/which-companies-are-vying-for-renewable-energy-funding-in-sa/8290736
50
LoL!
If it is so good and cheap why do they need government (taxpayer) support?
72
What about the 24/7 baseload power claim , similar to coal my butt .
60
That is old news. The State government will pay AUD70/MWh for the power produced by this bird incinerator. That will leave all other consumers to pay the difference through their usage and fixed charges that I estimate at AUD430/MWh. It is good to be the State government when it comes to power pricing deals.
The comment about 24 hour base load power is nonsense. On consecutive cloudy days the incinerator will actually be an energy sink.
It should reduce the population of sulphur crested cockatoos.
60
I know the solar thermal was old news but I’ve never seen the efficiency claim of 24/7 baseload power before.
20
Forget about the renewable solar.
The best use of Molten Salt is this one.
http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
50
Let us just ignore the fact that the Spanish and USA endeavours with mirrors focused to heat salt have been TECHNICAL FAILURES and FINANCIAL DISASTERS.
80
And I’ll chip in $50 to help him get from Rocky to Townsville.
50
When Australian grids go down how long can the following services be expected to operate?
Landline phones?
Cell phone towers?
Water?
Sewerage?
Natural gas?
Air traffic control systems?
Emergency services radio and data systems (police, fire, ambulance)?
Critical military systems (radar etc.).
There will also be traffic chaos because I don’t think any traffic signals have power backup.
72
The NBN has effectively finished land line phones. Phones go down when there is a power outage because the NBN modem in your house requires power. The exchange may have back up but your modem does not.
60
Because we’re out in the sticks we still have the copper line and I’m thinking of going back to ADSL , speed was better than wireless and I get a message every other day about network outages for urgent repair and or upgrades .
30
Does that mean you are paying for two lines into your property?
My old land line phone plugs into the new NBN modem. The modem worked on the ADSL system until new connections made in the exchange to the NBN system. I have not tested to see if the copper is now able to handle the phone without the modem. I suspect not.
This gives more detail on the NBN services condition on power outage:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/what-happens-in-a-power-blackout.html
40
NBN is wireless via a tower about one kilometre away , phone is still thru the old copper line .
30
RickWill –
yet when I asked Optus about landline problems once NBN reaches my area – which unfortunately is soon – they never mentioned this.
yet it’s mandatory to move to NBN.
60
I just posted this link above which gives the power outage status:
http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/what-happens-in-a-power-blackout.html
I guess NBN could say you need to read the fine print.
So far I do not have any issues with NBN but the system is new to our area. Telstra mailed me a new modem and wireless telephone handset without any prompting. I just connected and away it went. A few days later a technical called to do the switchover in the exchange. He needed to check which line I was using because I had previously had two lines into the house but now only one.
40
The cell phone will depend on the size of the battery in it. Do not know if the cell towers have back up.
Water and sewerage are likely to be problems after a few hours but they should have contingencies. It is matter of the robustness of the contingency in a feral outage.
Gas has line packing and storage that should give a few hours. However unless testing has been done to assess response in power outage there may be fail-safe controls that restrict usage.
Large airports have emergency generators for essential services like air traffic control. Melbourne has its own co-gen plant used for electricity as well as heating and cooling.
Road traffic becomes chaotic and grinds to a halt during peak hour once power goes off. There are not enough police to man busy intersections and would be a dangerous function these days.
40
We rely on power here for everything except for the gas water heaters but they need electricity to function .
Water , sewerage , oven all electric but cooktop is gas , when the power goes out the only thing that still is usable is the gas cooktop .
Two toilets are hooked up to a dam supply via gravity feed but sewerage outfall is via electric pump .
20
UNBELIEVABLE!
28 Aug: Guardian: Joshua Robertson: Renewable energy generates enough power to run 70% of Australian homes
Renewable Energy Index shows sector will generate power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects being built in 2016-17 are completed
Australia’s renewable energy sector is within ***striking distance of matching national household power consumption, cranking out enough electricity to run 70% of homes last financial year, new figures show.
The first Australian Renewable Energy Index, produced by Green Energy Markets, finds the sector will generate enough power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects under construction in 2016-17 are completed.
The index, funded by ***GetUp through supporter donations, underlines the advance of renewables, despite Australia’s electricity markets still leaning heavily on carbon-emitting coal and gas-fired generation…
Renewables, which made up just 7% of national electricity output a decade ago, accounted for 17.2% last financial year. This jumped to 18.8% last month…
This is saving the power sector from carbon pollution equivalent to taking more than half of all cars in Australia off the road, according to Green Energy Markets…
Green Energy Markets analyst Tristan Edis said the emergence of renewables, in particular wind and solar, as a “significant source of power” had ushered in a “construction jobs and investment boom…
Miriam Lyons, GetUp’s energy campaigns director, said that “everyday Australians are voting with their rooftops” in a move that “heralds the end of the era of big polluting energy companies dominating the market and manipulating prices to fill their own pockets”…
The Australian Renewable Energy Index will be published monthly.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/27/renewable-energy-generates-enough-power-to-run-70-of-australian-homes
30
If you go to this site now!
South Australia is virtually 100% Fossil fuels
There was upwards of 100MW of Liquid Fuel generation!
The Diesel gensets are up and running!
110
27 Aug: SMH: Renewable energy booming but could soon turn to bust, analysts warn
by Nicole Hasham
New data to be released on Monday shows Australia produced enough renewable energy to power 7.1 million homes, or 70 per cent of households, in the year to June…
Mr Edis said investors had recovered confidence under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull but the boom “could soon turn to bust” unless the government adopts a clean energy target, which would provide investment certainty beyond 2020 when the renewable energy target peaks…
Almost 150,000 small-scale rooftop solar systems were installed during the year to June, which will deliver about $1.6 billion in power bill savings over the next decade, or almost $10,000 per system…
Mr Frydenberg cited Clean Energy Council figures showing there was a record $8 billion of renewable investment underway, delivering more than 4000MW of new renewable generation capacity…
GetUp! environmental justice campaign director Miriam Lyons said the new data showed the renewable energy industry was now a “major player”
“It reveals a dramatic shift in public sentiment towards green energy … [and that] public support for renewables has been resilient in the face of so many political attacks,” she said…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/renewable-energy-booming-but-could-soon-turn-to-bust-analysts-warn-20170825-gy4egf
Wikipedia: Miriam Lyons
Miriam Lyons is an Australian policy analyst, writer and commentator. She was the founding Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Development (CPD), a left-wing think tank set up in 2007.
While studying politics and international relations at the University of New South Wales, Miriam Lyons co-founded Nexus, a non-partisan network designed to connect young people with the democratic process. She was also involved in setting up Vibewire, originally a national youth-run website and now a youth-run incubator for creative and social change projects…
Miriam Lyons was the Policy Coordinator for newmatilda.com before co-founding Australia’s Centre for Policy Development with John Menadue in 2007…
She also been a frequent guest on various politics and current affairs shows, including Q&A, Sky News, and The Drum…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Lyons
Twitter: Miriam Lyons
Ideas junkie, Governomics co-author, @centrepolicydev co-founder. Currently working at GetUp! All views subject to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.
10
Half heard on Ray Hadley this morning
I think it was Yass with last night’s minimum of -7. Old record was -5.
Sounds like ripe for a bit of “BOM-ination”
60
totally pathetic:
28 Aug: AFR: Ben Potter: $110m loan for SA solar thermal plant not in bag – Josh Frydenberg
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said a $110 million loan relied on by US company Solar Reserve to deliver cheap renewable power to the South Australian government should be reviewed by federal green banks and infrastructure bodies.
Solar Reserve and the SA government relied on the loan in striking a deal for the US company to supply power from a proposed $650 million solar thermal power plant to the state government at a low $78 per megawatt hour.
Mr Frydenberg said on Monday that he was “absolutely committed to a solar thermal project in South Australia and welcomed the announced offtake arrangement between the South Australian government and Solar Reserve”.
But he said Solar Reserve would have to go through the proper processes to get the loan. “As every taxpayer would expect Solar Reserve now needs to put in a formal application for the $110 million which will then be assessed,” Mr Frydenberg said…
SA Premier Jay Weatherill challenged Mr Frydenberg to honour the government’s pledge. “The federal government can vet it all they like. We just want them to keep their promise,” he said…
“The government will ask the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to work with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), in consultation with the Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency (IPFA), to provide the government with advice on the project,” Mr Frydenberg said…
But the money ***wasn’t linked to any particular project even though Solar Reserve and the SA government relied on it to announce the unexpectedly cheap power from the solar thermal plant. The technology has great potential but is in the early stages of being proven commercially and has no operating projects in Australia…
Mr Frydenberg said ARENA and the CEFC “have a strong track record in supporting the commercialisation of emerging technologies and will use that expertise to take solar thermal to the next level in Australia”.
As well as vetting the project for the federal government, ARENA and the CEFC could decide to back the Solar Reserve project through their own independent funding processes if they decide it stacks up…
http://www.afr.com/news/110m-loan-for-sa-solar-thermal-plant-not-in-bag–josh-frydenberg-20170824-gy3k3r
40
28 Aug: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Shell wins approval for 250MW solar plant in Queensland coal country
International oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has won planning approval for a 250MW solar plant in the heart of Queensland’s coal country, in what appears to be its first big move into large scale solar in Australia, and indeed the world.
The company last week revealed it had won the planning approval for the Delga Solar Farm from the Western Downs regional council, which now finds itself in the middle of a large scale solar boom, including a 1,000MW project being considered by the Singapore-based investor Equis.
Shell’s partner in its renewable energy push, through its New Energies division, is with another Singapore-based group Sunseap…
The Wandoan area is mostly known in energy circles for the huge thermal coal project – potentially 30 million tonnes a year – that is proposed by Glencore…
The local council says it has approved eight large scale projects – including a 300MW project by Luminous Energy a 107MW Dalby solar farm by Origin Energy, and another 30MW project by FRV, and a 20MW solar plant near Chinchilla by Eco Energy World.
It has also approved the 450MW Coopers Gap wind farm which will begin construction shortly.
“We’ve fully embraced the future of renewables and energy production in our region, and we welcome the proposal of Shell Australia onto the solar energy scene in the Western Downs,” Mayor Paul McVeigh said in a statement on the council’s website (LINK)…
Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates there are 29 large scale solar farms under construction in Australia. RenewEconomy estimates 34 projects totalling 2,350MW are being built, or about to begin construction after signing PPA.
RenewEconomy further estimates another 89 large scale solar projects totalling more than 16GW in the “pipeline”.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/shell-wins-approval-for-250mw-solar-plant-in-queensland-coal-country-92201/
30
“Wind Power–Some Basic Facts”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/28/wind-power-some-basic-facts/
30
The Black Spur can seem a long way from Melbourne on the way back home, when it’s late and dark and one is trying to keep one’s eyes propped open and alert for kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, deer, foxes, echidnas. We saw some pretty large deer there a couple of weeks ago right by the side of the road just before Fearnshaw Reserve (halfway between Healesville and Narbethong). There are huge numbers of wombats around here and some of them are enormous. We see a lot of dead ones along the roads and just lately have had a large old sick, mangy wombat grazing on our lawn by day.
For info for UK contributors here, the wombat fills much the same niche as the badger. We used to have problems in Gloucestershire with those; infecting the cattle with TB. One local farmer counted about 55 of them in a 6 acre field! The numbers were right out of control.
30
This was meant to be a reply to Fiji Dave and Raven further back.
20
27 Aug: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Forgotten cogs of British energy feel heat on front line
The high-voltage cables of the UK’s transmission network may bring electricity from far-flung power plants closer to populated areas, but it is the distribution network operators (DNOs) which reduce the voltage to carry power to 30m British homes.
If the transmission network is the energy equivalent of a motorway, says the Energy Networks Association (ENA), then the distribution network operates like the A and B roads. Unravelled, these networks span more than 600,000 miles, requiring an estimated £34bn of investment between 2014 and 2020.
For years, the operators of these sprawling wires and sub-stations – some owned by energy giants SSE and Scottish Power – quietly attracted billions in foreign investment, but were largely the forgotten cogs of Britain’s energy machine. But the emerging sector shake-up means this tribe of understated engineers and planners are now at the forefront of a rapidly evolving industry.
The boom in battery storage, solar panels and mini-generators means more companies and homes will be relying on their own electricity or exporting it back to the grid, playing havoc with the usual supply-demand dynamic. A surge in electric vehicles would complicate this role further…
Last year, Ofgem said it was “pleased” with the progress that networks were making, but what a difference a year can make. Since then, energy bills have returned to the political stage. Networks account for 23pc of the average energy bill, so Ofgem is under pressure to prove it can keep a grip on costs…
DNOs are not set up to take risks, their shareholders don’t want them to, and the regulator has not wanted to either. This means they are not fully able to anticipate customer needs.
“In a world where we’re trying to plan the system of the future you could argue that we need our DNOs to be more proactive in anticipating the future of the energy system,” (Duncan Sinclair, a partner at Baringa, the independent business and technology consultancy) says…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/27/forgotten-cogs-british-energy-feel-heat-front-line/
20
26 Aug: YomiuriShimbunJapan: Find way to secure power supply while considering environment
A panel of experts for the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has begun discussions to review the nation’s basic energy plan, which serves as a set of guidelines for national energy policies. One focal point is measures to take advantage of coal-fired power generation as a baseload power source.
Coal-fired thermal power enables stable fuel procurement and has low generation costs. But this energy source poses challenges for the environment…
The nation has about 150 coal-fired thermal power facilities. Coal accounts for about 32 percent of the nation’s total power output, exceeding a government-set target for fiscal 2030 by 6 percentage points. Furthermore, plans are under way to build more than 40 new coal-fired thermal power units…
For energy security, the use of nuclear power is essential. Nuclear power generation, which produces almost no greenhouse gases, can help the nation achieve the target set under the Paris Agreement.
To meet a target set by the government for nuclear power to account for 20 percent to 22 percent of the energy mix for fiscal 2030, about 30 nuclear reactors need to be reactivated. Only five reactors are currently in operation. If nuclear power is to be used as a baseload power source, efforts should be increased to restart reactors.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003904080
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https://www.facebook.com/stuburguiere/videos/10154942835218379/
20
Just reading around over the last few weeks, even months maybe, in the energy production game the “War on Wind” is beginning and is building up quite ahead of steam if thats the appropriate terminology.
And it is already under way in Germany and now the EU in a very low key but subtle way as new possible and likely quite revolutionary rules covering the “unreliables” and demanding those unreliables step with a “reliability” and a “predictability” if they want to have a place in the energy production game are brought into operation.
As well the unreliables and unpredictables willbe required by legislation to match and compete with other forms of energy production all operating in the same economic and financial environment ie; no subsidies that others don’t get as well for providing power under the same conditions.
The new rules will be fought tooth and nail by the unreliables but the counter will be from all the other types of energy producers who have been badly missing out and might just start to sniff blood in the water as far as the renewable energy industry is concerned..
So the new rules will slowly but surely morph their way through the political system over the next half dozen years particularly as a new generation of politicians and media types begin to take charge as the older and pro-bigoted towards renewable energy generation fades out.
A few good long period blackouts will fix renewable energy right up as well as spell the career end for quite a lot of foaming at the mouth, rabid renewable supporting politicians and sundry bureacrats and advisers and analysts and lobbyists and, and!
60
how about not penalising coal:
28 Aug: ABC: Malcolm Turnbull says Government has ‘no plans’ to build or fund coal power
By political reporter Henry Belot
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says his Government has no plans to build a new coal-fired power station, and he wants to resolve a fractious debate over a clean energy target (CET) by the end of the year.
After spending a day touring the Snowy Hydro Scheme, Mr Turnbull on Monday backed away from an investment that could appease some in his party room hesitant to support a clean energy target…
Some Coalition MPs including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Craig Kelly and former prime minister Tony Abbott want the target to allow for more coal power plants.
The Prime Minister was not drawn on exactly where the CET should cut in — but told ABC’s 7.30 program the Government had “no plans” to build or fund new coal-fired power stations.
“We are already taking strong steps on Snowy Hydro which is a Government owned energy company,” Mr Turnbull said.
“It is a vitally important national project — it’s a vitally important national infrastructure.
“We’ve certainly funded to a large degree a lot of green energy.
“It’s about doing stuff outside the box.”…
The Federal Government opened the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to coal power projects earlier this year…
“The critical thing to remember is that if you bring in intermittent renewables like wind and solar, obviously wind doesn’t blow all the time, sun doesn’t shine all the time,” Mr Turnbull said.
“If you bring them in and replace baseload power that generates all the time, you run the risk of ending up with inadequate baseload power, massive spikes in energy prices and huge reliance on gas.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-28/malcolm-turnbull-says-no-plans-to-build-or-fund-coal-power/8850332
50
Recent research has determined that Methane hydrate is not a smoking gun in the Arctic Ocean Another climate scare story bites the dust!
40
Alarmists would have you think that the world is an unstable system ready to explode at any time into runaway conditions and this a direct effect of Western democracies and steam engines. You have to wonder then that it is has been remarkably stable and predictable for so long. In reality complex systems find the most stable and self correcting equilibrium positions where forces act to counter any change, not augment it.
The other myth is that mankind actually has a significant influence on the planet’s temperature. This arrogant, even absurd conjecture suggests that almighty humans affect the vast deep oceans, the Himalayan mountains, the vast deserts of the world and the giant continent of Antarctica because of our use of rotted plant matter to power our machines. Deus ex machina? No, our heat output is insignificant. Our CO2 natural and absolutely necessary and we certainly do not control our world, as every Hurricane demonstrates so emphatically.
Now we are to believe we somehow create or even influence hurricanes. We wait anxiously for the first anti democracy crusader to blame hurricane Harvey on Western Democratic use of fossil fuel. What China and Russia and Saudi do with vast quantities of oil, gas and fossil fuel is their business.
After thirty years of this and no evidence of Global Warming for twenty of them, it is time to blame the US civil war, the Battle of Trafalgar and the discovery of Australia on the heroes of these events. Meanwhile Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stalin, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro are heroic figures never to be criticized. From Brussels to Maastricht to Canberra and Washington and the EU and UN, the real battle is against the bureaucrats and journalists trying to control our lives.
Hurricane Harvey was not created by Global Warming or methane pockets in the ground and runaway scenarios are absurd fantasies.
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G’day TdeF,
You can stop waiting. SMH’s Peter Hannam got with the “blame Houston” theme this morning.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/houston-you-have-a-problem-and-some-of-it-of-your-own-making-20170827-gy5cmy.html?btis
Cheers,
Dave B
20
Ha! So the Gods of Climate Revenge have struck Houston specifically because many of the world’s biggest oil companies have offices there? This one in five hundred year (who sets this stuff?) even is their own fault? This journalist should go to the Carribbean. He would win any limbo competition. Rarely has anyone gone so low under the bar.
31
SMH Formguide
“Delingpole: Australian Environment Editor – ‘Houston – You Made This Problem!’ ”
“Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald writes:
Yes, Houston, you do have a problem, and – as insensitive as it seems to bring it up just now – some of it is your own making.
Let’s be clear upfront. I unreservedly wish that all of your millions of citizens get safely through Tropical Storm Harvey, and the biblical-scale deluge and floods that are forecast to swamp your city in coming days.
But, as the self-styled “world capital of the oil and gas industry”, there’s a connection between rising global greenhouse gas levels and the extreme weather now being inflicted that some of your residents have understood for decades and had a hand in.”
More at
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/28/delingpole-australian-environment-editor-houston-you-made-this-problem/
40
Here is the article at the SMHuffPo:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/houston-you-have-a-problem-and-some-of-it-of-your-own-making-20170827-gy5cmy.html
Dancing on the Houston graves while virtue signalling about CAGW being responsible for worse storms.
20
Sorry Another Ian and Bulldust. I’ve just replied to Pat above, before getting to your replies.
Cheers,
Dave B
10
No apology necessary at all. Always good to have many pairs of eyes patrolling the loony CAGWers.
20
Actually I would go further… I find it quite annoying that the SMHuffPo and similar (i.e. most MSM) outlets go out of their way to #NotAllMuslims when the latest European cultural enrichment has occurred, despite clear evidence why the incident occurred; but here they are pronouncing that AGW is to blame for the ravages of Hurricane Harvey. Such certainty all of a sudden. Integrity and news reporting seldom go hand in hand anymore.
00
So anything IS possible!!
“Former NYT climate author Revkin gets Pwned by fake photo from another climate alarmist”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/28/former-nyt-climate-editor-revkin-gets-pwned-by-fake-photo-from-another-climate-alarmist/
30
Careful what you watch or this could be your fate
“A study conducted by Katharine Hayhoe’s dad suggests even recorded lectures by Katharine Hayhoe can convert climate skeptics.
Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change
A new study finds that a lecture from evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe successfully educates evangelical college students, validating the “trusted sources” approach”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/28/study-katharine-hayhoe-can-convert-climate-skeptics/
40
And it can get worse
Sunscreen on eyeballs to watch the eclipse!!
Link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/08/charles-darwin-2.html#comments
40
On Tesla – “Solar panel in a coal mine;”
Links at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/08/we-dont-need-no-644.html
30
The feasibility study for Snowy Hydro 2.0 has been given an extra $8 million of our taxpayer money by Turnbull to bring the cost to $29 million.
Can someone please explain how such a feasibility study could possibly cost so much when it is obvious from the outset that it’s a useless exercise?
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/08/28/pm-to-fast-track-snowy-hydro.amp.html
73
Publicity email from the PM:
“We are making Snowy Hydro 2.0 a reality.
This game-changing project is already employing 350 people – and will create more than 5000 new jobs during the construction phase of the development.
It will provide affordable and reliable electricity to Australian families and small businesses – powering half a million homes at peak load.”
On ABC 7.30 last night he said there would not be any new coal fired power stations but also pointed out to the presenter that wind and solar are unreliable, he said “no wind, no sun ….”.
They admit to the energy crisis but seem determined to ignore RET and related subsidies (tax) on consumers.
Furthermore, my latest water account has an attachment that includes;
“Changes to water charges
Our costs go up each year – expenses such as materials, chemicals and employee costs increase each year. We estimate we will spend over $3 million on electricity alone in the coming year.”
and more including servicing and paying off loans – $180 million as a result of an extensive infrastructure improvement over the past 20 years.
As a result of council mergers in my council district mid north coast Midcoast Water is now part of the Council’s responsibilities.
Midcoast Water is imposing an 8 per cent increase in charges and Council is imposing 10% increase for most ratepayers this year and 10% a year for the following two years.
The rate of inflation at this time is around 2%, wages and welfare payments are not much better than inflation and electricity is rising even faster than council rates.
Meanwhile 1 in every 8 Australians live in poverty, thousands are homeless including children.
The politicians on both major party sides gloss over this and try to play we are better than them political games.
Yesterday Bill Shorten rubbished the hydro scheme extension, or seemed to be.
61
Even though they are spending/wasting $29 million on an overpriced “feasibility study” it sounds like they are forging ahead witt the project anyway.
Do you think the illiterate classes understand that this white elephant produces no new power and in fact will generate much less power than was required to pump the water in the first place?
I bet coal power ends up being used for most of the pumping, not the unreliables.
How can any engineer in good conscience work on such a project?
52
Snowy Hydro 2.0 will be yet another example of a random thought bubble of a politician that gets turned into a multi billion dollar waste of money due to no proper engineering or economic analysis, just like the NBN.
And the “feasibility analysis” is being done by the same company that will be tasked to build it. What do you think their assessment of the feasibility will be?
62
David
Another example of a “government enthusiasm”
“Government wisdom” just adds to the list of oxymorons IMO
40
David and Ian, they do know what they are doing but will not admit that the RET was and remains an excuse for what they are doing for their UN comrades. RET is like a Trojan Horse hiding the real purpose inside a less fearsome exterior.
How ridiculous could it be for about 5% of generated/captured electricity to be the basis for charging at retail price level?
And 5% of heavily subsidised with taxpayers/electricity user’s monies.
NBN was nothing more than a Mark 1 vote catcher ($4 billion) then a Mark 2 version for over $40 billion, each “high speed broadband”, in other words like generator “nameplate” capacity and no mention that the base level would be no faster than the dial up it replaces.
We would be forgiven for thinking that price is no barrier if it fools voters.
40
hardly a revelation, Karl:
28 Aug: ClimateChangeNews: Coal to power India for ‘decades to come’, says government planning body
Coal will continue to produce roughly three-quarters of India’s electricity, says body charged with central planning, as it lays out plan to boost mining production
By Karl Mathiesen
The Three Year Action Agenda (LINK), released on Thursday by the National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayong), laid out a nine-point plan for boosting coal production in India in order to feed increasing demand from India’s coal power sector.
India has 304 million people without access to electricity, the report said, which necessitated growth in all parts of the energy sector…
The nine-point plan for expanding coal production included:
•Increase of state-monopoly Coal India’s production to 1 billion tonnes per year by 2019-20
•Exploring 25% of the country’s untapped 5,100 sq km coal bearing lands to find new reserves
•‘Proving’ 25% of the 139.15bn tonnes of coal reserves currently classed as ‘indicated’.
•Completion of three railway projects to assist in the transport of coal
•Reduce the prevalence of low quality coal
•Adopt “clean coal technologies”, such as coal gasification
The open-ended assertion that coal will remain dominant in India’s power sector for many years echoes previous public statements by energy minister Piyush Goyal. He who told parliament in May coal “will remain and to continue to remain our mainstay and there was no such agreement in Paris that will stop us from continuing to encourage coal-based generation of power”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/08/28/coal-power-india-decades-come-says-government-planning-body/
40
smart meters–just say NO! see http://balance10.blogspot.com/2017/08/world-news-update.html
30
29 Aug: Guardian: Michael E. Mann: It’s a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly
by Michael E Mann
We can’t say that Hurricane Harvey was caused by climate change. But it was certainly worsened by it…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-more-deadly
28 Aug: Vox: How global warming likely made Harvey much worse, explained by a climatologist
Here’s what the science can tell us.
Updated by German Lopez
Renowned climatologist Michael E. Mann on Sunday provided some answers…BLAH BLAH
Other climatologists agree with Mann. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, told the Atlantic, “The human contribution can be up to 30 percent or so up to the total rainfall coming out of the storm. … It may have been a strong storm, and it may have caused a lot of problems anyway — but [human-caused climate change] amplifies the damage considerably.”
That helps explain how Harvey suddenly led to what experts have called a 500-year flood.
Was this article helpful?
28 Aug: ABC: AP: Climate change seen as cause for mudslide in Switzerland
Switzerland’s environmental protection office says the effects of climate change are partially to blame for a mudslide through a southeastern village that left eight people missing after a massive chunk of rock broke off an Alpine mountainside…
His office said Monday that Switzerland has experienced an ***average temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius since record-keeping began in 1864, over twice the world average of 0.9 degree.
It said climate change effects include “urban heat islands” in Swiss cities, localized water shortages, and the instability of mountain flanks like the one that cracked and triggered Wednesday’s mudslide in southeastern Bondo.
Authorities suspended the search for the eight missing on Saturday.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/climate-change-mudslide-switzerland-49462875
AP’s Swiss mudslide story is all over MSM. SwissInfo article adds the following to the ***temp excerpt:
Temperatures could rise by 1-3 degrees by 2060, the office predicts.
20
29 Aug: Reuters: Tom Sims: Insurers count cost of Harvey and growing risk from climate change
Additional reporting by John O’Donnell in Frankfurt, Paul Arnold in Zurich and Aparajita Saxena in Bangalaru; Editing by David Goodman.
FRANKFURT, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Damages from Hurricane Harvey’s ravaging of Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast are estimated to be well below those from the major storms that hit New Orleans and New York in recent years, insurance executives have said.
Though insurers should swallow the claims easily, given that there have been relatively few natural disasters so far this year, the storm will weigh on an industry struggling to contain prices while sustained low interest rates suppress returns on its investment holdings.
The early assessment of damage from Harvey, made while rain continued to pelt the fourth-largest city in the United States, came as a scientist from the world’s largest reinsurer predicted that climate change is likely to result in more intense storms in the future.
“There are more thunder storms in parts of Europe and the United States than in past decades,” said Ernst Rauch, head of Munich Re’s Corporate Climate Centre, which monitors climate change risks.
“They are more severe. We will not necessarily see an increase in frequency, but we can see an increase in intensity. If we see this, we would have to adjust our risk premium.” …READ ALL
https://www.reuters.com/article/storm-harvey-insurance-idUSL8N1LE3FY
28 Aug: Breitbart: Eco-Alarmists Tie Hurricane Harvey Damage to ‘Climate Change’
by Thomas D. Williams, PH.D
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/28/eco-alarmists-tie-hurricane-harvey-damage-to-climate-change/
30
Abbot and Marohasy get a run at Notrickszone.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/08/28/new-paper-at-least-80-of-the-warming-over-the-last-century-due-to-natural-phenomena/#sthash.SG5k7nh9.dpbs
30
…and Breitbart.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/22/delingpole-global-warming-is-almost-entirely-natural-study-confirms/
30
Bill Still has an “update” on Thorium developments. Some is not new but the small experiment in Norway which is working commercially is interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaOD1r8QWP8
There is a small commercial at the start that can be skipped. The thorium bit starts at 1.00 min in.
NB Bill is not a science reporter –usually US polirics.
20
Mysterious crop circles intrigue locals in English village
At a farm in Essex, England, something has intrigued locals. They woke up one morning to find a mysterious crop circle which looks like an eclipse, just days before the phenomenon was to take place.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/us/mysterious-crop-circles-intrigue-ufologists/vi-AAqCvEf
20
A man walking his dog was the first to see the image and he rang the local drone fellow.
http://www.essexlive.news/drone-footage-captured-near-london-southend-airport-shows-suspicious-crop-circles/story-30493186-detail/story.html
I wasn’t created by ball lightning.
20
Just noticed this gem on stop these things.
“Under the edicts of the cult, wind power is not ‘intermittent’, but ‘variable’.”
They seem to be taking it to a whole new level of narrative modification. ‘Variability’ now seems to be morphing into ‘flexibility’. The evidence can be found in an actual statement from the awea.org website —
“Inflexible baseload plants can actually be a significant impediment to the growth of wind energy, as the inability to turn baseload plants off during periods of low electric demand can cause the supply of electricity to exceed demand. This causes an extremely inefficient outcome in which wind plants must employ their superior flexibility and reduce their output, wasting free, zero-emissions energy.”
[ref] http://www.awea.org/baseloadpower
It looks like we must shutdown coal power so wind/solar benefits can be maximised
/sarc
40
That’s going to far, even by their low standards.
We really are living in Orwellian times.
https://youtu.be/_JKvogXR3A4
22
*too
22
In the same article they also say:
So their one great strength is that they can quickly reduce output, but why would they given their unfettered access to the grid whenever they decide to produce a dribble of power? Given the high rate of RET subsidy why would they ever take their foot off the gas?
20
priceless:
28 Aug: WUWT: Anthony Watts: Former NYT climate author Revkin gets Pwned by fake photo from another climate alarmist
UPDATE: Other news sources were taken in by the faked up image as well…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/28/former-nyt-climate-editor-revkin-gets-pwned-by-fake-photo-from-another-climate-alarmist/
20
just realised Another Ian had already posted the Revkin thread.
oh well, a chance to laugh again.
20
I was looking at the wind situation and realised there is a large high parked over SA. Wind generation has just nudged 400MW but averaged 200MW over all of Australia in the last 24 hours – not good for SA power cost.
Wholesale electricity cost in SA spiked to $2653/MWh on Monday evening peak. Adelaide temperature just made double digits so was quite cool during the evening peak. Will be interesting to watch when the place warms up and the wind stays away. I doubt the BB battery will not help much on those long hot nights!
40
from cached version:
29 Aug: Recharge: Most Texas coastal wind farms avoid Harvey storm damage
by Richard A. Kessler in Fort Worth
E. ON Climate & Renewables tells Recharge, however, that the storm heavily damaged the utility transmission and distribution system at its Papalote Creek I & II wind farms, located just south of where the hurricane made landfall on Friday near Corpus Christi.
The facility with 109, 1.65MW Vestas turbines and 87, 2.3MW Siemens machines, experienced sustained wind of 90 miles per hour (144km per hour) with gusts exceeding 100 mph before coming off-line.
“The park was placed into an Owner’s stop and has remained down since the storm, since the underlying grid suffered extensive damage and power was lost to the facility,” it says in a statement.
“Based on the damage …it may be several days before electrical service in the area is restored,” it continues, adding that initial reports from staff are that the turbines, substation and O&M building there “appear to be in good shape.”
The statement concludes, “Once power is restored to the substation, our team will begin working to energize the turbines, once they have been determined acceptable to return to service.”…
Elsewhere, Duke Energy Renewables tells Recharge its Los Vientos I and II wind farms (402MW) also in Willacy escaped damage. “We dodged a bullet,” says Tammie McGee, spokeswoman for Duke Energy Renewables, noting the facilities avoided the strongest winds that reached 131mph elsewhere along the coast when Harvey was a Category 4 hurricane (it was downgraded Saturday afternoon to a tropical storm). “We haven’t seen any impacts.”
Acciona Energy, owner-operator of the 93MW San Ramon wind farm in Cameron County that borders Mexico, reported no damage from the storm. The nearby 165MW Cameron wind farm, which utilizes Nordex Acciona Windpower AW125/3000 turbines and is owned by home furnishings giant IKEA, also was unscathed, an Acciona Energy spokesman says.
John Martinez, director of operations at Pattern Energy, says its 283MW Gulf Wind facility south of Corpus Christi in Kenedy County operated through the storm and did not sustain damage.
Avangrid Renewables did not immediately return phone calls from Recharge asking about the status of its Penascal I & II projects (404MW) and Baffin facility (201MW) – all in Kenedy County – that together constitute its largest renewable energy complex in the world.
http://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1335924/most-texas-coastal-wind-farms-avoid-harvey-storm-damage
10
didn’t find the following in all my searches re wind “farms” in Texas until I had the Recharge mention of Avangrid and used that name in a search. of course, this is pre-Harvey:
26 Aug: Bloomberg: Harvey Set to Overpower Wind in State Generating the Most
By Brian Eckhouse, Chris Martin, and Ryan Collins With assistance by Naureen S Malik, and Bob Brennan
Wind-farm operators have been bracing for days. Avangrid Inc., the New Haven, Connecticut-based power company, evacuated all personnel from its wind farm complex on the South Texas coast, a spokesman said in an email.
“The problem with this hurricane is they don’t see it trailing off in any direction so it’s just going to hover,” said Jeff Ferguson, the Magnolia, Texas-based senior vice president of project development at Apex Clean Energy Inc. “So it could be next week for the winds to diminish adequately so we can resume normal operations.”…
Production was set to peak in the late afternoon Friday and taper off as turbines automatically begin to shut down, according to Simon Mahan, a director at Southern Wind Energy Association. Turbines generally aren’t designed for hurricane risk, said Alex Morgan, a New York-based analyst at BNEF.
“They’ll pitch down and yaw into the wind, which allows them to safely pinwheel,” said John Martinez, director of operation at Pattern Energy Group Inc., which owns the 283-megawatt Gulf Wind farm in Kenedy County. “This way the blades don’t flex, which can be damaging. The turbines are designed to automatically do that.”
Texas easily boasts the most wind capacity among U.S. states, about 21 gigawatts, or one-quarter of national capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. A majority of the wind is located in western Texas, which Genscape Inc. expects won’t be greatly affected by Harvey.
The 3.6 gigawatts of capacity installed in the south power zone of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is a different matter. About 2.1 gigawatts is directly along the coast…
“As that storm starts coming onshore, there’s a good chance winds will exceed 55 miles per hour,” Michaella Farese, a Boston-based meteorologist and demand forecaster at Genscape, said in an interview Friday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/harvey-set-to-overpower-wind-in-state-that-generates-the-most
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just checked and I did post an earlier version of the Bloomberg piece on jo’s previous “solar” thread. this one is an update with extra info.
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29 Aug: RealClimateScience: Tony Heller: The Completely Fake Time Of Observation Bias Adjustment
NOAA makes a large adjustment to US temperatures known as the Time of Observation Bias Adjustment (TOB.) Here is their official explanation…READ ALL
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/08/the-completely-fake-time-of-observation-bias-adjustment/#comments
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28 Aug: NationalGeographic: Craig Welch: How Climate Change Likely Heightened Harvey’s Fury
Several factors have conspired to make Hurricane Harvey so destructive in Texas, and warming temperatures are likely part of the problem.
“In general, the way to think about it is: climate change has changed the environment that everything is happening in,” says Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. “When you add in the climate’s natural variability and then the right conditions come along, you can get a storm which is stronger than you might otherwise have expected.”…
Hurricanes tend to weaken as they approach land because they are losing access to the hot, wet ocean air that gives the storms their energy. Harvey’s wind speeds, on the other hand, intensified by about 45 miles per hour in the last 24 hours before landfall, according to National Hurricane Center data.
While that’s not unheard of, the potential for wind speeds to rise rapidly increases under warmer conditions, says Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric sciences professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who published groundbreaking research earlier this year on the potential for changes in hurricane wind speeds…
“If you want your car to accelerate fast, you put your pedal to the metal,” Emanuel says. “If you keep it there, it will go up to the top speed it can go. If you switch from a Volkswagen to a Ferrari, you’ll have much faster acceleration and a higher top speed.”…
Other researchers, such as Michael Wehner, a senior staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, agrees. While he points out that many Category 4 and 5 storms experience a late surge of windspeed before landfall, he said he considered it “more likely than not” that climate change contributed to Harvey’s last-minute intensification, and “I consider this a conservative attribution statement.”…
***Every scientist contacted by National Geographic was in agreement that the volume of rain from Harvey was almost certainly driven up by temperature increases from human carbon-dioxide emissions.
Wehner says the “lower bound” of the increase in rain as a result of climate’s impact on temperature is at least 10 to 15 percent.
“The big story is the precipitation—it’s a no-brainer,” he says. “Pretty much everything we’ve done so far has suggested that in this situation, precipitation will be increased. Lots of simulations are being done. In every single one of them, it rains more.”
Trenberth says that climate change alone can increase rainfall 5 to 10 percent. But if a storm comes at a time when the ocean is also experiencing unusual but natural high temperatures, that could double the increase in rainfall. In fact, it’s possible that this combination of climate change and natural variability may drive precipitation up far more than that.
“Some experiments suggest that these things can feed back on themselves and increase rainfall even more,” he says…
It’s possible, and even expected by some scientists, that climate change ultimately could drive steering currents to be even weaker…But so far there just isn’t any evidence of that.
Put another way, Wehner says, “if there is a climate signal, it’s one that’s so weak we haven’t been able to detect it.” What he meant was: The circulation patterns that steer storms like Harvey have been weak in recent years, but that change has come on very quickly. That leads scientists to doubt it is connected to climate change.
In a Facebook post, climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University expanded on that possibility…ETC
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-climate-change-global-warming-weather/
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GetUp! pockets $2m with a ‘dirty’ deal
Brad Norington The Australian August 29, 2017
GetUp! claims to have helped 20,000 members switch from Australia’s “dirtiest” electricity retailers to green energy by referring them to a rival company, despite the rival admitting it has no idea where its power comes from.
The activist group was paid more than $2 million in exchange for referring members to online retailer Powershop, promoting it as “backed by a 100 per cent renewable energy company”.
GetUp! has used the $2m — about $100 for each member referred — to campaign against Powershop competitors EnergyAustralia, AGL and Origin, which GetUp! calls “the dirty three”.
Powershop, wholly owned by New Zealand firm Meridian Energy, buys electricity from the national power grid in the same way as its “dirty” competitors. The bulk of Powershop’s electricity, often all of it, is sourced from coal-fired power stations because renewable energy from wind or hydro power can only service just over 15 per cent of the market at full capacity, and downtime is common.
Urging members to dump their energy company, GetUp! guarantees Powershop is “ranked the greenest energy retailer” and “Australia’s only carbon-neutral provider”. Critics of GetUp!, including Green Left Weekly, claim the activist group has perpetrated a myth, confusing consumers wooed to Powershop because most of the renewable energy from an alleged “100 per cent renewable power generator” is on-sold to other retailers as well. The $2m GetUp! earned from Powershop is on top of donations since its inception in 2005.
A spokesman for GetUp! national director Paul Oosting said the group was transparent about the source of Powershop’s electricity, making it clear the energy came from the national grid, which included a “mix of renewable and non-renewable energy”.
Mr Oosting’s spokesman, from public relations firm Essential Media, said the implication no carbon was offset by GetUp!’s campaign to help Powershop and attack other retailers was “not true”. He said Powershop offsets emissions from its operations, and its customers’ energy usage, by using UN-accredited certified emission reduction certificates.
The Australian Energy Council’s general manager of policy, Kieran Donoghue, told The Courier-Mail last week that activist groups such as GetUp! “compromised their integrity” by entering into a commercial arrangement with Powershop, and then campaigning as a supposed independent commentator by “bad-mouthing” competitors.
Meridian, the owner of Powershop, owns wind farms in Australia — the renewable component of electricity it generates. Green sceptics point out Meridian sells most of its renewable energy certificates to other retailers in the power industry.
In a blog for consumers, Powershop says it has been frequently asked since its launch “where does my power dome from?” Powershop continues: “The short but somewhat unhelpful answer is no one knows!”
According to Powershop, engineers and economists would “love” to be able to track the path of electrons around the electricity system, but it is not possible.
“In simple terms, all generators sell their energy to the Australian electricity market, the wholesale market. What this means is all retailers are selling customers energy that is purchased from the wholesale market, whether or not they also generate power.”
Mr Oosting’s spokesman did not respond to a question about whether GetUp! had concerns about Powershop‘s 52 per cent ownership by the New Zealand government. The GetUp! spokesman launched an attack on NewsCorp, publisher of The Australian, saying its “competing consumer campaign” One Big Switch was based solely on cost.
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GetUp established with help from Electricity Bill Shorten who, it has been alleged, used union membership monies without asking membership for approval. Foreign billionaire George Soros was a major source of funding for GetUp too.
I understand that GetUp publishes on websites spin doctor created information for their members to access so that they can “discuss” issues with people on line, blogs and other websites. And that many of their members are also student unionists.
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From their basic scientific illiteracy, it would not surprise me if twot and Ct are GetUp! members.
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BRAD NORINGTON
20,000 GetUp! members have switched from ‘dirty’ retailers to a company that has no idea about the source of its power.
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28 Aug: AP: Josh Lederman: Tillerson to abolish most special envoys, including climate
Most of the United States’ special envoys will be abolished and their responsibilities reassigned as part of the State Department overhaul, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Congress on Monday, including envoys for climate change and the Iran deal…
Lawmakers of both parties, think tanks and even the diplomats’ association have long called for absorbing some of the countless U.S. envoys and special representatives into related offices, to help reduce redundancies across the State Department’s notoriously unwieldy bureaucracy…
Of 66 current envoys or representatives, 30 will remain, a cut of 55 percent. Nine positions will be abolished outright. Twenty-one will be “integrated” into other offices, five merged with other positions, and one transferred to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign aid arm…
Some special envoys are mandated by Congress. The Trump administration will ask lawmakers to repeal those mandates.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TILLERSON_SPECIAL_ENVOYS?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-28-20-45-17
29 Aug: Bloomberg: Nick Wadhams: Tillerson Outlines Plan to Cut Envoy Jobs in State Overhaul
Also among the jobs proposed for termination is the special envoy for climate issues, following Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Its tasks will be folded into the Bureau of Oceans and International and Scientific Affairs…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/tillerson-wants-to-cut-special-envoys-in-state-department-revamp
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earlier:
23 Aug: E&E News: Depleted climate staff ‘in limbo’ as agency reshuffles
by Jean Chemnick
The State Department’s climate team is operating on autopilot as it waits for a departmental reorganization that will likely lessen its clout.
Staff rosters are shrinking at the agency’s Office of Global Change and the Special Envoy for Climate Change (SECC) office as people leave for other opportunities or are terminated under a Trump administration that’s determined to make the government smaller. While those offices continue to fund climate change programs, staff members are said to be avoiding expenditures that would raise the hackles of the Trump team.
The mood is markedly different from what it was when former Secretary of State John Kerry made climate change a top departmental objective under President Obama.
“I think the whole thing is in limbo until they figure out this reorganization,” said Paul Bodnar, who oversaw the National Security Council under Obama…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he plans to do away with many of the special envoy posts that proliferated under Obama as part of his restructuring. That plan is due to be released by Sept. 15.
***The climate envoy’s office was never authorized by Congress, and its budget was cobbled together from the department’s discretionary funds. So Tillerson has broad authority to ax it…
Sources say about three staff people remain in the envoy’s office. The former deputy special envoy, Trigg Talley, who headed the office when Trump took over, is said to have completed his rotation and is now back at his previous position directing the Office of Global Change within the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES)…
Experts outside the department say diminished staff levels and changes to the reporting structure aren’t a major problem. More concerning, they say, is the potential loss of key staffers with institutional knowledge.
“To me, what really matters is not how the ‘org’ chart changes but rather the caliber of the people who are doing these jobs and the extent to which they understand how international climate diplomacy works,” said Bodnar, who is now with the Rocky Mountain Institute.
“The crew that’s there now, while smaller than it was before, has moved through and contributed to the most intensive period in the history of climate diplomacy,” he added, referring to its role in the Paris Agreement. “So they know what they’re doing.”…
Dan Reifsnyder, State’s deputy assistant secretary for environment who co-chaired negotiations leading to the Paris deal, has also retired recently. Sue Biniaz, a former legal chief for the climate envoy’s office and a lead negotiator during the Paris talks, departed earlier this year. Numerous other architects of the 2015 climate deal left, as well…
With all the turnover, agency alumni are relieved that Talley is still there to provide institutional memory…
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060059076
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28 Aug: Newsbusters: Curtis Houck: CNN, MSNBC Shamefully Blame Climate Change for Harvey, Knock Poor Trump Voters as Houston Floods
Back during the noon Eastern hour, CNN’s Inside Politics featured one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to liberal bias. Instead of simply expressing the view themselves, a liberal journalist passes off that opinion as simply something that has been said or might be said by other people.
CNN political analyst and New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza was the one to deploy this strategy while speaking to co-host John King:
LIZZA: Well, in the wake of a natural disaster like this, where the federal government is leading the effort, is Trump really going to stick to a promise to shut down the government? And then finally I think it’s worth pointing out, you know, everyone is saying this is the storm of the century, the storm — 500 year storm. Twelve years ago was Katrina. We’ve had now three storms in 12 years that were as bad as this. ***And a lot of Democrats will be saying, you know, climate change is actually — this is the kind of flooding you would predict based on the climate change model. So that’s another debate —
KING: The climate change debate.
LIZZA: — for the — for the weeks ahead that the two parties will certainly engage in.
KING: Absolutely. If you look at Houston in the last 15 years, it’s one of the conversations that will happen, why do we keep having the storm of the century? …READ ALL
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2017/08/28/
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Re GetUp: I understand that at future elections federal and states the union movement will be backing “independent” candidates they field to contest marginal and not so marginal electorate seats hoping to take them from the sitting members of political opponent parties.
People may remember the recruitment after the 2008 by election at Lyne NSW of the new federal member Rob Oakeshott. At that time PM Rudd and his chief spin doctor Bruce Hawker recruited hawker’s cousin, the “independent” member for New England NSW. Both, and others, were recruited when Labor assessed their significant number of seat wins in 2007 and realised many were marginal and likely to be lost in 2010. Labor was defeated in 2010 but managed to form a minority alliance government at that time.
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The way Australia is going it should be renamed Trashcanistan.
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People here may be interested in this paper too, called ‘Harmonic Analysis of Worldwide Temperature Proxies for 2000 Years’ and is freely available from https://benthamopen.com/FULLTEXT/TOASCJ-11-44.
Their concluding remarks are interesting —
This paper fits well with Jennifer Marohasy
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they’ve spammed me too but at least some people find it useful
from wikip
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Clinton News Broadcasting of the US (NBN) are apparently acquiring CH10 Australia.
So I wonder who are the financiers and what is the political motive …. not hard to work it out.
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Bill said its great and welcomed the Americans, meanwhile China is investing in the hyperloop.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-08/30/content_31313294.htm
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