JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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nobody here yet! sigh! 🙂
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the day is young …
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I am waiting for someone to ask me ‘how i am going’.
Whenever someone asks “how are you going”?
Reply: “I am going by car”. If walking, “going on foot”. If raining, “with an umbrella”. etc
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As the horse trainer said to the one-legged jockey, “How y’ getting on?”
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I wont be drawn to comment on that.
KK
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Oh yes, i have been here a while , but have been trying to catch up with other comments .
Its infuriating , trying to track previous comments in discussions from only a few hours ago.
There has to be a better way of arranging these topics other than simply adding a new subject heading every few hours.
Currently , a discussion just hops from yesterdays thread , over to todays latest thread, often with information being repeated.
We desperately need a Forum style format with topic folders, subject threads, and search tools.
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and editing tools.
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PeterS:
but thanks to the Trolls we have editing fools.
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That was rather rude of me. They are still God’s children if a bit dim.
Let me just say that they would fit into our current Parliament without anyone noticing. Indeed the dimmest ones could become Treasurer and Minister for Electricity, or even Premier, in one of our lesser populous mainland States.
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One of the two southern states I would think. Or perhaps both.
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Could be worse and be Barnabys child. The genetics there are not promising. 🙁
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You cant put brains on a monument.
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…loud and vigorous applause, even if it is from the “cheap seats.”
Nice one Graeme No 3. 🙂
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Don’t mention the tools.
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I so miss the old NNTP protocol, which, when combined with a newsreader interface, included local storage for the message headers and / or message content and also had robust filtering (kill files) with which you could somewhat manage the presence of people you thought of as wastes of time.
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Warmest Feb 09 1938-2013?
1938
YYZ
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YYZ Map
Changed a bit since 1938.
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DA AVOP Video
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D AVOP Video
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Spot the “Met Observation Station”.
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I’m guessing FEC #1
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Found it, I was close though 🙂
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Not where I live.
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She’s going down – “Man the Pumps and Launch the Lifeboats”, sorry, I meant to say “People the Pumps”.
Your ABC an hour ago – because Tuvalu; confirming the broadcaster as opinion-shaper.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-02-13/25-years-of-satellite-data-confirms-global-sea-level-rise-rate/9416570
…”To arrive at their number, Professor Nerem and colleagues adjusted the satellite data for short-term factors such as the El Niño/La Niña climate patterns, as well as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which caused sea levels to drop just before the launch of the TOPEX satellite.
They also cross-referenced tide gauge and satellite data to correct anomalies in the TOPEX satellite record proposed in an earlier research co-authored by John Church of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW)…”
“…”This is very solid confirmation … there is an acceleration and it’s the right magnitude to be consistent with IPCC, Professor Church said…”
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That article proves that if you make enough adjustments you can prove anything!
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But it helps if you know the answer first
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Or the answer you want.
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Easy to make the correct adjustments for the multitude of interfering factors to make observed data fit the answer you already know (probably by divine intuition).
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Always choose a time point BEYOND your possible life-end.
Saves embarrassment ! 🙂
Give us a rise value in 5 years time, froards.. and then back it with your wage and job. !!
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Ha. How good of the ABC to get it so very very wrong!
Tuvalu is rising. Not sinking. Seems the memo got lost! 🙂
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… or the data was really really tortured!
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The memo was redacted.
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Rising-damp? … says ABC? … so … a highly-enriched catastrophic nuthin-burger then? … scheesh … cancel the sirens! … false alarm … fake news source … again … 8 cents a day …bring back Ted Ladder …
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One choice I still have left to me,
not to watch ‘our’ ABC.
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I haven’t. Not for a long time.
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Did they adjust for last Saturday night’s lotto?
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Well prof Church will be O.K.for a few more years.
Maybe even a raise.
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Anthony Watts has a scoop.
‘A little bird told me that NASA GISS / GISTEMP might be on the chopping block since it’s clearly redundant, and alarmist, just recycling NOAA data by applying their own special sauce.’
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I am waiting to hear the toaster ping.
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That’s a fair point.
All GISS does is interpret other data and publish its interpretations.
When we had a climate commissioner in Australia, that was done on the taxpayer’s tab.
When the position was reviewed and expunged, the prime minister of the day pointed out that we would still be having the opinion of the climate commissioner, so nothing actually changed, except taxpayers did not foot the bill.
GISS is notorious for adjusting the temperature record and making scary prognostications.
I am sure a Democratic billionaire will fund a new think tank and we will still be told how things are bad.
Only the US taxpayer won’t foot the bill.
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That will be a relief for their IT systems administrator.
Apparently, there is a water pipe from an upstairs bathroom running across the ceiling of their computer room in NY city. It flooded the place one day. I guess the Sys Admin winces every time the bathroom is used.
🙂
So if you thought their data was … urmm … well there is supposedly a good reason.
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” Warren Blair
February 12, 2018 at 3:05 pm
Government spending based on unvetted science . . .
The current Ridd saga is your baby.
Seminal paper highlights science ‘waste’ with detailed AU examples.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/12/the-zealous-overselling-of-climate-science-has-come-home-to-roost-as-budget-cuts/#comment-2742274
Links to
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X17309955?via%3Dihub
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A Red Team
‘We suggest the need for a new organisation to undertake quality reviews and audits of important scientific results that underpin government spending decisions on the environment.’
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Oh no, they say.
Not the Integrity Commission,
KK
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”
She Feels Your Pain
By Kate on February 12, 2018 12:45 AM | 55 Comments
Caroline Mulroney defined energy poverty at #MNC2018 as only an elitist can.
“People are living in energy poverty, people have to choose between buying hockey equipment or going out to dinner with their families”https://t.co/AF582tnkGo#PCPO #PCPOLdr pic.twitter.com/RSMtT9dUSm
— JohnToryWatch (@JohnToryWatch) February 10, 2018”
Sounds like Canberra
(If you’re not up on Caroline’s place in Canadian politics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Mulroney )
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Oh the Humanity!!!! Bit of a “first world” problem maybe?? 🙂
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Bob Peel –
yet ABC still hasn’t carried the Tuvalu is growing story!
meanwhile –
12 Feb: Bloomberg: Billionaires and Athletes Freeze as Winter Smacks Olympics
Sports Billionaires and Athletes Freeze as Winter Smacks Olympics
By Heejin Kim and Heesu Lee; With assistance by Sam Kim
It ain’t the Game of Thrones, but these Olympics are being lashed by a winter that’s proving a little too cold for comfort.
With temperatures dipping to as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius, the games in South Korea are poised to be the coldest in two decades. The freezing weather, combined with wind gusts of more than 45 miles an hour at some venues, has delayed three alpine skiing competitions and fueled concerns over the safety and performance of athletes. It’s also not sparing the throngs of spectators and other celebrities at the event in Pyeongchang…
“Yesterday was my first time at the Olympic Games and the ceremony. It was so cold,” Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said at an event the day after the Feb. 9 opening ceremony, drawing chuckles from the audience. “But it’s exciting, it’s warm in the heart.”…
“It’s a challenge with the combination of cold weather and strong winds,” said Petter Kukkonen, the Finland coach for the Nordic Combined event, which involves cross-country skiing and ski jumping.
The wind is stronger than in Finland, he said. “We postponed our jumping training yesterday because of the strong wind. This is outdoor sports, and it’s a big dream of every four years and if it’s ruined by the wind, it can be sad,” Kukkonen said…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-12/billionaires-and-athletes-freeze-as-winter-smacks-the-olympics
7 Feb: UK Telegraph: Guy Kelly: Who needs winter sun? On another planet in the coldest corner of Europe
You have to take your hat off to the Lappish in winter. Not literally, of course, that would be suicidal. But lend them some respect. Every morning between early October and April – despite enduring temperatures that can turn their eyelashes crisp; despite being suffocated under every kind of snow imaginable and several kinds that aren’t; and despite not having enough daylight to see their own children over breakfast – the people of Finland’s northernmost region get up, head outside, and get on with it.
It’s certainly a lot more than other species manage. Like the bears. The bears can’t hack it at all. Nor can the bats or the frogs. Exercising what some would deem great sense, all those creatures look around at the start of autumn, shiver, think, ‘Oh, f*** this,’ then curl up in a ball and sleep until well after Lent. Mosquitoes, such ubiquitous little bastards all summer, do the honourable thing and die. Even the region’s symbolic bird, the bluethroat – an Old World flycatcher that looks like a robin in Braveheart costume – would rather winter in Morocco or India or Iberia than stick around in Lapland. And, really, can you blame them?
That was a question I paused to think about as I looked up at the Gatwick departures board at 7am recently. I was wearing more clothing than I’d ever owned, and standing beside my girlfriend, Hattie, who was somehow wearing more. Everybody else was eyeing southbound flights to easy warmer climes. But who wants easy, when you can have freezing? …
From the air, it looked like shaving foam spread over three-day stubble. From the ground it looked like all the best travel destinations look on arrival: another planet entirely.
But they had a point about the wind. The cackling Arctic gales slapped even the Finns when we stepped off the plane. ‘How do you live here?’ we asked our driver, a smiley man with icicles dangling from the exhaust of his Skoda…
A few hours later we were collected in the middle of the night, though our clocks said 8am, by a no-nonsense local named Jukka, who took us ice fishing on one of Finland’s 187,888 lakes. The ice was 90cm thick, enough to drive a tank on…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/finland/articles/lapland-in-winter/
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”
Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!
Financial Post, Feb. 9th – The consequential upset from the proposed new legislation will continue to disrupt and erode the regulatory climate in Canada while reducing the pre-eminence of the regulatory powers of the NEB or the new, proposed CER. These regulatory changes will continue to pose fundamental uncertainties and will make even more problematic effective and efficient determinations of energy projects judged to be in the national interest.
New York Times, Feb. 10th – The Trump administration has adopted new limits on the use of “guidance documents” that federal agencies have issued on almost every conceivable subject, an action that could have sweeping implications for the government’s ability to sue companies accused of violations.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/now-is-the-time-144.html
Canada compared to USA – Canberra take note
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I wish one of the few truly professional investigative journalists would research so called renewable energy businesses, check their shareholder lists if public companies or the holding company shareholders.
And then trace back the shareholders to investment capital businesses or merchant bankers (e.g. Goldman Sachs, Keshik Capital Pte) and then follow the backgrounds of company directors.
I believe that there will be quite a few friends of politicians federal and state government based.
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One interesting Australian business is Infigen Wind Resources.
The share price was not exciting until 2016 when the pricing of electricity supply to the grid became of kind of auction system and fossil fuel generators had a stealth penalty imposed.
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More Google
“GOOGLE IS CENSORING WHAT YOU CAN READ HERE ON THE PICKERING POST
…in a determined effort to make you a good little Lefty!”
http://pickeringpost.com/story/google-is-censoring-what-you-can-read-here-on-the-pickering-post/8006
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Dont use Google, stop feeding them. There are good alternatives to all their tools.
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Exactly yarpos!
If you are too lazy to move your device from Google spyware you deserve all the grief you get.
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FYI. Very thorough video on Thorium breeder reactors. LFTRs. 2 hrs total. Well worth the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7eWqY93hpw
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As is highly usual, no info on the toxic refining process to extract the Thorium, or other nuclear material. The process of refining Uranium and Thorium for that matter are amongst the most toxic mining process on the planet.
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One of the most advanced arts on the planet is the art of how to promote any form of nuke without ever mentioning the toxic extraction process, the storage of liquid waste in mega tailings dams, the mobilization of heavy metals in the toxic wast slurry and so on.
Lets get our hands dirty and explore just one method to get a feel of what’s involved in nuclear power from the ground up, starting with the ground using a piece of rock ore.
“Metal Refining & Recovery, S2E3: Uranium Metal From Ore”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl3NamzoFrM
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Watch the video, Skeptic. A balanced thorium cycle actually “burns” long lived transuranic wastes ( U235, PU239) and produces very little waste as the cycle is efficient. Much more efficient than any other means of energy production and with much less environmental impact.
“The Art of how to promote any form of alternative energy without ever mentioning the toxic extraction processes necessary to make them possible, whilst “failing to mention” their overall inefficiency” is a form of propaganda, eh?
The issue is NOT about uranium ore. The issue is how to utilize an efficient process to produce energy at a lower environmental impact while reducing wastes and burning existing nuclear wastes. Give that a thought.
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“One of the most advanced arts on the planet is the art of how to promote any form of nuke without ever mentioning the toxic extraction process”
mmm just like lithium, cobalt , rare earths for magnets and solar panel production
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As is highly usual, you provide no context regarding the highly toxic mining and refining processes with regard to wind and solar components. Nuclear provided almost 7 times as much energy as Wind at about the same environmental impact as the minerals needed for the magnets in Wind generators.
“To quantify this in terms of environmental damages, consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. In 2012, the U.S. added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity. That means that between 4.9 million pounds (using MIT’s estimate) and 6.1 million pounds (using the Bulletin of Atomic Science’s estimate) of rare earths were used in wind turbines installed in 2012. It also means that between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste were created to make these wind turbines.”
“America’s nuclear industry produces between 4.4 million and 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel each year. That means the U.S. wind industry may well have created more radioactive waste last year than our entire nuclear industry produced in spent fuel. In this sense, the nuclear industry seems to be doing more with less”
Your turn.
https://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/
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And then there are those heavy metals mobilized into the environment, *sigh*. And then there is the demand from the military industry for both nukes and rare earth elements to create drones so we can be safe etc. And then there is all the hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, etc…. At least we have made a start.
From: http://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/weekend-unthreaded-198/
“Environment Skeptic
February 12, 2018 at 12:26 am · Reply
“In a hybrid, the batteries weigh half as much”
Purchased a second hand 2nd generation Prius that achieve a longevity of 999,000 Kilometers according to many i have seen advertised as X taxi’s second hand and so on. Love it and cheap to buy second hand. Around 6K dollars in my case. Have had it for around 5 months. Love it.
The batteries are the size of about three shoe boxes under the back seat and a small 12 volt battery in the rear to run the usual twelve volt assignments like 12 volt lights and so on. So the weight of the batteries is vastly less than a fully electric car. Not just half weight i would say.
Personally would never buy a new one as i would feel too much remorse that i am causing more rare earth elements to be mined out of the ground which is an extremely toxic process. And the pollution the batteries cause and so on. In my mind, they are probably the second worse car for the environment due to the toxic processes involved in obtaining the said rare earth elements. Other than that, they are brilliant for all the reasons mentioned by TdeF and agree.”
Notes and erata: thorium extraction for nuclear
https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=thorium+extraction+for+nuclear&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirpbDf_KHZAhUJ1GMKHZmYACQQgQMIJTAA
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Hydrochloric acid? What about it?
Are you going to give it up EnvironmentSceptic?
Did you know: Your stomach produces hydrochloric acid.
You’ll starve without it.
That means you also excrete it.
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Yes indeed, and too much will help ulcers develop.
Stand too close to a volcano or a pile of concentrated sulfur and it could be harmful to health.
Someone reading your post might think it is safe to drink.
Take more care!
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Typo…in an earlier post meant ‘burning sulfur’ of course. Nasty stuff at close quarters when it burns to produce sulphuric acid in moisture/rain.
It is also a question of scale, intensity, concentration, complexity, and type, amongst other category questions. For example, at low concentration when mixed/digested with a favourite food, the complex process of digestion occurs along with many other chemical/electrical reactions to sustain the body etc….A waste product/pollution generically called pooh is also created and has its own unique ingredients. Yea shall know them by their pooh
In the case of concentrated hydrocloric acid/sulphuric acid to digest an ultra fine powdered ore (rock) to extract rare earth elements to sustain the body of a hybrid car or a nuclear reaction, yea shall also know the mining process and the industry it belongs to by its own pooh
Hydrochloric acid and Sulphuric acid are only the solvent/reagent chemicals (amongst thousands of other not naturally occurring chemicals) that lead to the formation of all kinds of sub-substances/chemicals. Due to my laziness, it was never my intention to mention all the chemicals/pooh involved/produced during the mining and refining/extraction process, nor was it my intention to simplify the history of mining and the chemicals used to only two chemical reagents. To be fair….speaking about nuclear energy and the pollution caused does not start at the reactor, it begins from the mining/extraction and refining/extraction process and again during the enrichment process and other chemical reactions (more than one, hundreds) and their hundreds of different poohs….but at least it is a start to talking about nuclear industry pollution that is not at all childishly confined/fixated to the radioactive type of pooh/poohlution.
Who knows, after investigating the chemical pollution created before use and after use by the nuclear industry, we might even get on to more exciting stuff like……radioactivity!!
In any case, any natural acid like sulphuric acid from sulfur dioxide diluted and flowing down a mountain stream, flowing over rocks and over a very long period of time releasing heavy metals/gold etc from the rock is not the same as anthropogenic caused concentrated acid, flowing over finely powdered rock (ore) releasing vast quantities of heavy metals/other for example into the environment at close quarters in a short time in a mining extraction chemical process that occurs with considerable ‘intensity’ and with considerable ‘concentration’, and not over millions of years of diluted bases/alkalis on boulders etc
A nice example is when a tailings dam bursts and releases concentrated mining chemicals into a river. Needless to say a little more than indigestion will occur and the river is decimated….made extinct of species. There are those who will say, “it’s only a flesh wound”
For example, vinegar (acetic acid) is nice in a salad. Concentrated Acetic acid (vinegar/acetic acid) is called ‘Glacial Acetic acid’ and is extremely dangerous/harmful to skin etc.
One of the results of mining rare earth in the geographical location of australia. I suspect the remaining processing is conducted in Malasia due to the abundance of clean water. really clean water is helpful.
http://savemalaysia-stoplynas.blogspot.com.au/
Random article about rare earth mining in China.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution
Toxicological Evaluations of Rare Earths and Their Health Impacts to Workers: A Literature Review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601293/
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Sulphuric Acid. What’s wrong with that, Environment Skeptic?
Nature produces more sulphuric acid in a day than man manufactures/produces in a year.
Without sulphuric acid, Environment Skeptic, there would be no clouds and no rain.
The planet would die from a continuous heatwave for ever.
You see, sulphuric acid is used by nature to make cloud droplets and rain droplets. No sulphuric acid, no cloud droplets and no cloud droplets, no clouds and no rain droplets and no rain.
Water vapour, even in a super saturated atmosphere, does not condense without an electrically charged particle to act as the nucleus to condense around. Remember that: a condensation nucleus. Whatever is acting as the condensation nucleus must be electrically charged. You can see this at work in a cloud chamber.
The sulphuric acid molecules bind to the charged nucleus first. They then grab handfuls of water molecules from the air, more and more and the speck grows to become a cloud droplet. That won’t happen without sulphuric acid. So nature makes sulpheric acid. In huge quantities. Look at the millions upon millions of tonnes of clouds around the planet.
One of the reasons Earth has so much cloud is because the galaxy uses Earth’s atmosphere as its own private cloud chamber by shooting cosmic rays at it. Cosmic rays are charged nuclear particles produced in huge quantities in supernovae. The ones which help produce clouds are muons or electrons travelling at relativistic speed. These are secondary cosmic rays, produced by high energy cosmic rays colliding with air molecules at the top of the atmosphere.
It doesn’t happen without sulphuric acid. We use it as a chemical drying agent because of its voracious appetite for water. So does nature.
Go see the CLOUD experiment at CERN, or Svensmark’s SKY experiment. You will learn something. (btw: Sky is danish for cloud).
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“Sulphuric Acid. What’s wrong with that, Environment Skeptic?”
A little is nice and tangy, like phosphoric acid in cola. Some would argue it is good, except for the accelerated dissolution of teeth.
In high concentrations and volumes, life ceases and leaches/mobilizes heavy metals and generally reacts with anything it comes into contact with forming new chemicals and compounds. Generally not healthy for life although some life thrives, like certain microbes that live in volcanic vents at the ocean floor…..
I guess the question is, whats wrong with all life reverting to unicellular level….or maybe we could evolve into some kind of simple but effective insect?
We might do well as insects. Maybe that is where the future lies and in letting artificial intelligence do our thinking for us, or even a good meme. We could eat some kind of green slurry of copper sulphate made from the sulphuric acid and copper for instance.??
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There’s an old saying:
” a little science goes a long way “.
And you are surely demonstrating that.
The big issue is really about corruption and government agencies looking the other way when industrial and mining practice is allowed free rein to “save” money.
What we really need is honest government.
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Environmental sceptic:
Toxic effects depend on the amount of the supposed toxic material in a form that can enter the body. As example barium is about 5 times more toxic than lead if ingested in soluble form, yet millions of people every year have a “Barium Meal” for stomach and duodenum X-rays without any problem (well toxic problems anyway). That is because barium sulphate is one of the most insoluble sustances know, it doesn’t even dissolve in concentrated sulphuric acid unlike a lot of ‘insoluble’ organic materials.
So if thorium is toxic it has to get into the body by inhalation, skin absorption or ingestion. As Monazite (thorium ore) is a common component of many beach sand I think we can rule out skin absorption because someone would surely have noticed in the last 100,000 years. Nor does it form many volatile compounds, so inhalation is unlikely. That leaves ingestion and you have to show where it can be ingested as a soluble form in enough quantities to be a problem.
You have also include the exaggeration from “interested parties” whose exaggerate their current interest e.g. when I was involved in Health & Safety the manual spent many more pages on the dangers of newsprint tan on cyanide, partly because of the ILO pushing their barrow.
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What toxic process? U238 is as harmless or dangerous as lead. Don’t eat it though. Thorium does not need refining beyond extraction of the metal. It is 100% usable. I would suggest wearing a mask and filter and gloves around any raw heavy metals and especially powder but I am unaware of any special toxicity.
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Mercury, Phosphorous, Cadmium and more are dangerous, mercury particularly because it forms a vapour you can inhale. You do not want a lung full of heavy metals. Phosphorous was a real danger to match makers, producing Phossy jaw. Radium to watch makers, who painted it on the dial and could lick the brush. Arsenic to hat makers who used it to soften leather in a process known as felting, thus producing the phrase mad as a hatter. We need metals. However apart from normal protection against inhalation, leaching into water or raw handling and skin absorption, I have not read any specific problem with Thorium refining.
Rather the 300kg of Neodymium in each windmill is more of a problem with the world now possessing 350,000 windmills. That’s 100million kg or 100,000 tons of pure neodymium. This is moderately to highly toxic but I doubt anyone is going to eat a windmill.
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No idea why a comment on the toxicity of elements would be in moderation. Maybe the word windmill or toxic?
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Or mad as a hatter?
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Mercury, Phosphorous, Cadmium and more are dangerous, mercury particularly because it forms a vapour you can inhale. You do not want a lung full of heavy metals.
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Phosphorous was a real danger to match makers, producing Phossy jaw. R
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Radium to watch makers, who painted it on the dial and could lick the brush.
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Ars*nic to hat makers who used it to soften leather in a process known as felting,
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Think it’s also used to treat that new green product bamboo and everything made from it like pillows etc.
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Mercury was also used by hat shapers:
this form of poisoning led to the term: “mad as a hatter”.
Moving forward a few hundred years, we now have people that are mad as hatters without any physical poisoning at all.
They have succumbed to the common disease of groupthink and are known as “environmentalists”.
KK
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I have it… Very funny. The moderator software has banned an element of the Periodic Table. Ars*nic.
Mercury, Phosphorous, Cadmium and more are dangerous, mercury particularly because it forms a vapour you can inhale. You do not want a lung full of heavy metals. Phosphorous was a real danger to match makers, producing Phossy jaw. Radium to watch makers, who painted it on the dial and could lick the brush. Ars*nic to hat makers who used it to soften leather in a process known as felting, thus producing the phrase mad as a hatter. We need metals. However apart from normal protection against inhalation, leaching into water or raw handling and skin absorption, I have not read any specific problem with Thorium refining.
Rather the 300kg of Neodymium in each windmill is more of a problem with the world now possessing 350,000 windmills. That’s 100million kg or 100,000 tons of pure neodymium. This is moderately to highly toxic but I doubt anyone is going to eat a windmill.
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You have breached the individual moderator standards.
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And for that you will be sent to the penal colony of Terra Australis – to invade the joint!!!!
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That’s one for the album. (just testing)
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Bad Bad Bad Tdef.
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We still have plenty of mercury entering the environment via those nasty compact fluorescent light bulbs that nobody likes. How many of those bulbs and fluorescent tubes are thrown away each day?
Where is your nearest reprocessing plant? (Not just the collection point) And who audits their processes to ensure there are no mercury leakages into the environment and water system?
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Thorium mixed with tungsten are the electrodes used for Tig welding stainless steels , and yes you don’t want to be inhaling the dust when preparing the electrode for welding by grinding .
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Yet another example of authoritarian censorship which is coupled to partisan MSM reporting with the objective of imposing the views of the leftists onto unsuspecting members of the public, and even influencing naive politicians.
Journalist Paul Sheehan wrote an excellent book about this indoctrination and propaganda, including “paid advertising dressed up as news”;
The Electronic Wh*rehouse
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Here are a few lines from an article in Mining Monthly from yesterday-haven’t seen any mention of this in the msm
What else is their to say!
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Oops What else is there to say (that’s what)
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I commented on coal royalties y’day. I’ll copy the post:
Qld. coal royalties:
NewMatilda scoffs at the piddlin amount of coal royalties in Qld.
While the Queensland Premier thinks coal is the “backbone” of the state’s economy, every year coal battles with motor vehicle registration to be the Queensland government’s seventh biggest source of revenue. Each provides a thumping 3 per cent of the money that pays for hospitals, schools and services in the state.
The real money comes from the Commonwealth, taxes and sale of goods and services.
As I wrote last year, coal royalties were slim favourites to win this year, with Treasury expecting them to bring in $1.684 billion to $1.654 billion.
Excitement reached fever pitch on Queensland budget day this week. And the winner was….
Car rego by $1.632 billion to 1.594 billion! Well done, drivers. Better luck next year, miners. And bad luck, Queensland Treasury, who picked it wrong. Again.
It seems hat the author is advocating closing down coal mines and doubling our rego fees in spite of the fact that Qld seems to be permanently exporting >500 MW to the mendicant southern states who can’t meet their responsibilities. But [There is always a BUT] according to Fin Review:
A surge in coal royalties is expected to boost Queensland’s predicted surplus for the 2017 financial year to $2 billion, the state’s mid-year update will reveal on Tuesday.
As revealed by The Australian Financial Review in October, the state’s budget bottom line will receive a significant boost from the tripling of coal prices over the past few months, with the net operating balance for this financial year expected to more than double from $867 million to $2 billion.
The windfall has allowed the Palaszczuk government to cut its fiscal deficit in half from $2.006 billion to $1.015 billion, but there is growing pressure on Mr Pitt and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to use some of the proceeds to spend money on infrastructure to kick-start the lacklustre economy.
40
Its not whats said , its where its said. This should be the lead story in the MSM business stream, not buried in the mining monthly. It would make a great script for a coal industry defence advert.
20
Some renewable supporters might say that I’m cherry picking data, but hey they do it, so why shouldn’t I occasionally do it also.
However, of more importance, if there is indeed a situation like this, just what would those renewable supporters have us do? Sit it out and wait for the wind to pick up.
4AM this morning, while nearly all of us were tucked up in bed sound asleep, the total power being consumed across the AEMO five State coverage area was 19800MW, and try telling that to a green power supporter. They’d automatically assume you were making it up.
19800MW
At 4AM
The lowest power consumption in the last 24 hours.
Of that total, fossil fuels supplied 18800MW.
Of that, coal fired power alone supplied 16900MW, and only two Units of 48 in all were not operating.
So of that total, we have this breakdown
Total Demand – 19800MW
Coal Fired Power – 85.4%
Gas Fired Power – 9.5%
Hydro Power – 2.8%
Wind Power – 2.3%
Solar Power – 0%
When wind power is as low as this, what do we do about it, if that’s all there is to be?
I’m certain that these renewable supporters have no concept of just how much electrical power is needed on a constant ABSOLUTE basis to keep things going.
And if you thought wind power was low at 4AM, right now at 10.30AM (EST) wind is only supplying 0.7% of what Australia is consuming. That’s at a Capacity Factor of only 4.4%, so of around 2200 individual wind towers, only around 95 of them are actually turning over.
Even on their best days, they can only deliver (not on a constant basis but at just one point in time) perhaps 12% of what is actually needed.
You just can’t build enough of them to cover what is required, no matter what anyone says.
Tony.
170
“only around 95 of them are actually turning over.”
There could be more than 95 of them turning over because I read somewhere that if they sit idle for too long that can flat-spot their bearings so they have may have to turn their generators into motors to make them spin. Of course, that means they are consuming electricity instead of generating it but at least they look good with the props spinning and that is what is really important, isn’t it?
90
Rotating using electricity from the grid.
40
When I pass stationary windfarms while driving, I never notice them doing this slow turn thing. Is it such a slow rate that you wouldnt notice for the few seconds or tens of seconds they are in view?
10
I have seen wind turbines in my area turning very slowly and the props appear to be feathered and there does not appear to be any wind in the area so perhaps they are not generating electricity at that time.
10
At Tue 13 Feb, 11:40 (NEM Time) wind was generating a little over 1% of demand @ 387 MW.
20
It’s now Qld’s turn. Hot, cloudless skies and we are importing with high prices.
I note 118 MW from liquid fuels, would that be Avtur in RR turbines or have we gone diesel too?
00
TIMELAPSE VIDEO: 12 Feb: Maritime Executive: Video: Eduard Toll Breaks Ice on the Northern Sea Route
by MAREX
Teekay recently took delivery of the Eduard Toll, the first of six icebreaking LNG carriers that it is chartering to Sovcomflot for Novatek’s Yamal LNG plant. The vessel made history in January by completing the first unescorted east-to-west transit of the Northern Sea Route during wintertime, and Teekay has released a time lapse video captured during the voyage (above).
The Toll is the fourth of the new Arc7 class of icebreaking LNG tankers for Yamal LNG. The vessels’ ice navigation capabilities will cut down the shipping time between the plant in the Russian far north and Asian customers by nearly a month. Without these groundbreaking ships, Novatek would have to ship its products westward, around Europe, then east through the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea to reach Japan and South Korea.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/video-eduard-toll-breaks-ice-on-the-northern-sea-route#gs.omfhLAI
10
The Siberian Times recently told of the exploits of a nuclear ice breaker.
Perhaps SovRepSA could hire it for the northern summer. Park the truly “impressive” Taymyr at Glenelg and link with the grid. What could be better?
10
There has been a lot of talk about Musk’s BBB [bluddy big battery] but I don’t recall the cost being disclosed. Has it been? If not are there any reliable guesstimates?
40
What a great name for Tesla’s “gift” to SA.
When Elon Musk needed ballast to test his new rocket he used a Tesla Roadster but the BBB would have been more effective if he wanted to test the lifting capacity of the rocket.
10
The contract value is “not disclosed” and the contract is “not disclosed in full as it contains confidential business information”. The cost is estimated at about $50 million.
It’s intriguing the way it is being used, often pumping 30 MW into the grid for 10-15 minutes and then back to zero. There are suggestions it is being used for Frequency Control Ancillary Service (FCAS) where prices are reportedly higher than the general wholesale market.
It never delivers more than 30MW. There have been reports that 70 MW is purchased by the SA government, but that is never explained.
30
Forbes estimated the entire cost at US$150 million.
10
Tesla Power Pack commercial costs were last reported at us$350,000 /MWh. Installed.
But Musk did openly offer to “share” the cost with SA as it was a learning project !
The Hornsdale power Reserve site home page has a graphic that details the battery charge/discharge times and power cost.
https://hornsdalepowerreserve.com.au
…and the Opennem site gives details of the battery performance, charge, discharge MWhs , together with associated costs of power so you can see how much money its making and how little power it contributes to the demand…..so far 0.9 GWhs or, 0 %. of the 330+ GWhs consumed in SA over the period. !!
00
Sorry In all the excitement of having my computer back after 48 hours deprived, I posted this on the wrong thread.
Gold plated distribution systems are just a figment of the imagination of the ratbag fringe.
We had a bit of a thunder storm here [Gold Coast Hinterland] Saturday afternoon. Official wind strength was 100 Km/H, somewhat less than the average Sydney southerly buster. To be fair, from my experience with cyclones up north we had about 120 Km/H for 6 or 7 minutes, & the area of most destruction, about 3 miles away may have been a little higher.
However this was considerably lower than we had 15 years or so ago, & a lot less than regularly experienced 25 or so years ago. Back then houses were regularly damaged, & most had sheds blown down/apart.
After a local outcry from residents from loss of power supply, Energex developed a good maintenance program of tree control, power outages were few, & repairs quick.
Since then maintenance has slipped, with perhaps a green attitude reducing the distance of the clearance of tree branches, despite trees having grown considerably.
In our current storm a tree came down across a main road 4 kilometres from here, trapping my son & some other cars, when another came down behind them. With others threatened to come down where they were stuck, he called for us to go down with a chain saw.
Sure, we’ll be right there. Well we will be, after we spend 2 hours with a dozen or more neighbours clearing enough of the 4 trees down across our 2 kilometres of minor back road, to get through. Care had to be taken of the 4 power lines down across the road as well.
In one stretch of Beenleigh Beaudesert road with no trees down, just branches, the lines were down between every power poll.
I have bought a 10 KVA 3 phase gen set for such emergencies, so lost no food this time, but the computer, & TV doesn’t like the 220V power it supplies. It is also amazing how disruptive no TV, computer or boiling water & cooking on a bar-b-que can be, even for just 48 hours.
If this is our future, I’m really glad I’m mostly past tense.
100
Funnily enough, I bought a 2 stroke Stihl chain saw after the last major storm we had a while back, so we could make sure ambulances etc could get into our area if needed, after many trees came down and blocked off roads you normally dont have issues with.
Interesting too that the numpties in parliament in canberra have also banned new small capacity 2-stroke ( chain saw ) engines after 2019. but as they move to electric chainsaws, it might be fun charging them with no power……I guess they really do want us to suffer in the new green utopia….you have to wonder….
I suspect that the green dream ( “the green dream” is also the nick name given to a bright green coloured animal euthanasia drug ) will be short lived once people start living like back in the 1800s with little or no electricity.
You wonder why they have started to basically fortify Parliament House in Canberra, and stopped people getting on the roof….
60
A tip for further down that road to utopia.
Save a bit of automotive antifreeze for soaking your loose axe handles. The glycol swells the wood and doesn’t evaporate so they stay tight.
50
After cyclone Althea, which damaged many near new, well built homes in Townsville, JCU did a major study with wind tunnels and completely revised the building codes. This seems to have worked with new buildings no longer blowing down.
What sucks is that our councils have never done anything similar with trees in the city. Townsville has not had a direct hit since Althea but passing storms still cause major damage to the electricity supply from falling trees. Surely the tropical coast councils can fund a chair at JCU to come up with guidelines on trees. Inappropriate ones should be removed. Wouldn’t that go down well will the tree huggers. lol
50
After cyclone Althea, which damaged many near new, well built homes in Townsville, JCU did a major study with wind tunnels and completely revised the building codes. This seems to have worked with new buildings no longer blowing down.
What sucks is that our councils have never done anything similar with trees in the city. Townsville has not had a direct hit since Althea but passing storms still cause major damage to the electricity supply from falling trees. Surely the tropical coast councils can fund a chair at JCU to come up with guidelines on trees. Inappropriate ones should be removed. Wouldn’t that go down well will the tree huggers. lol
10
Hasbeen
Somewhat o/t
Is your alternator brushless or brush type?
I’m getting the inkling that the power from brush type alternators might be cleaner than brushless ones unless pure sine wave type. Latest is that Grundfos reckon our old brush type Dunlite will be ok for their latest all electronic soft start submersibles but to make sure if we get a new one that it is pure sine wave.
20
The alternative might be to use the generator to charge a battery and draw from that through a suitable inverter that supplies pure sine wave. How you isolate that power for use by the TV and computer only is beyond me. The point being that the invertor for such (smaller) use would be far cheaper than trying to supply sine wave AC to the whole house.
20
For the computer, you just need an inexpensive UPS (APC makes good ones in the US, I assume there would be something equivalent in OZ). Not sure about the TV because they generally draw a lot more power than a computer.
00
It’s just plain dumb is it not?
Internally your TV (LCD type) and PC runs just about all of it’s electronics on +12, +5volts and some low voltage negative supplies, so why don’t the put a battery power option on them?
00
5V small appliances don’t give a rats about input voltage as long as it’s in the ballpark. The first thing that happens is that it goes through a full rectifier which then powers a high frequency oscillator which goes through the primary of a ferris ring transformer. The secondary voltage is sampled and the oscillator freq varied to give regulated 5V O/P. That’s a switch-mode P/S.
It’s not that simple of course but there is no 240 V transformer nor washed-off power generating heat as in traditional regulators. This is what allowed apple to market their first puter with a built-in power supply, as I recall.
00
The wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply
00
Has been, about 6 months ago one of the power poles about 2 blocks away from me was replaced. Mmmmm I thought, I wonder if they will ‘trim’ the gum tree which was about 3-5 meters away from the brand spankin’ new pole? Nope!
So during the storm the gum tree did as nature intended. Dropped its rather large branches across the power lines.
What about this ‘gold plated’ electricity grid? Have the greenies vetoed any and all tree clearing?
Incidentally. I had to go to Yarrabilba about 20ks away from me. I had to find alternative routes twice. In one section of road about 800 metres long, four sections of power line were crushed. Looking at the many trees still standing very close to the power lines, I have to wonder, how long before the next power outage?
50
Mate of mine when 4WD-ing always carries a saw…..
20
Well I should think they should reclaim the expense of tree damaged powerlines through the carbon tax.
Now there’s a thing to get the Greenies all hot under their collars about!
00
12 Feb: ConservativeTreehouse: sundance: February 12th Interview With Joe DiGenova – Discussion: Schiff Memo…
Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova conducted a radio interview earlier today with WMAL where he outlines some of the nuance within the Schiff memo and the response from the FBI. Worth listening…AUDIO 7mins29secs
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/12/february-12th-interview-with-joe-digenova-discussion-schiff-memo/#more-145779
12 Feb: Washington Times: Rowan Scarborough: Dossier’s 10 core collusion accusations remain unverified 20 months later
J.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon spokesman and Trump campaign adviser, has suffered over a year of government, press and congressional scrutiny. All the negative attention is because he had brief encounters with the Russian ambassador at the Republican National Convention.
“At least four dozen Trump associates have reportedly been summoned before the various congressional committees and special counsel over anything and everything related to Trump-Russia,” Mr. Gordon told The Washington Times. “Apart from targeting the president with a high-tech coup, the Democrats and ‘Never Trump‘ Republicans are trying to destroy a large group of innocent people who were merely trying to serve their country in presidential politics.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/12/trump-dossiers-10-core-collusion-accusations-unver/
40
12 Feb: Daily Caller: Chuck Ross: Susan Rice Sent ‘Unusual Email’ To Herself Moments Before Trump’s Inauguration
Two Republican senators say they’ve uncovered an “unusual email” that Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice sent to herself on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham say they find the email odd because of the timing and the substance of the message. They also noted that Rice suggested there was talk of withholding classified information from the incoming Trump administration.
Rice sent the email at 12:15 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2017, her final day in office. In the message, she memorialized a Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting she attended with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
The topic was the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion. According to press reports, Comey briefed Obama that day on the unverified Steele dossier…
Rice also wrote that there was a discussion over whether classified information regarding Russia should be withheld from the incoming Trump administration…
“From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” she wrote…
http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/12/susan-rice-sent-email-herself-inauguration/
Grassley-Graham Letter to Susan Rice re Obama Meeting on Trump-Russia Collusion; email attached.
8 Feb 2018: From: US Senate Committee of the Judiciary To: The Honorable Susan Rice Senior Fellow, Belfer Center Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-02-08%20CEG%20LG%20to%20Rice%20(Russia%20Investigation%20Email).pdf
11 Feb: RealClearInvestigations: Paul Sperry: Exclusive: CIA Ex-Director Brennan’s Perjury Peril
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes next plans to investigate the role former CIA Director John Brennan and other Obama intelligence officials played in promoting the salacious and unverified Steele dossier on Donald Trump — including whether Brennan perjured himself in public testimony about it…
Brennan also swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document (excerpt here LINK), even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign…
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/02/11/former_cia_director_john_brennan_investigated_for_perjury.html
40
I don’t think many people saw this post of mine on Weekend Unthreaded.
South Australia to get 211MW of dual fuel gas and diesel generation.
Cost 100 million Euros. (A$156 million)
https://www.wartsila.com/media/news/05-02-2018-wartsila-to-supply-smart-power-generation-plant-to-south-australia-2112540?utm_campaign=594a60fa1bab8e5c3e04882f&utm_content=5a77ef8894a32630d903bd88&utm_medium=smarpshare&utm_source=linkedin
60
yet another expensive band aid
20
But it’s O.K., it’s a “smart” one.
00
I thought they were against pollution and CO2 emissions from fossil fuel.
20
PeterS:
Until an election comes around. That would make approx. $A1.4 billion spent boosting generation. At least this lot will be from a reputable firm and likely to work when needed.
10
12 Feb: The Hill: Federal abuses on Obama’s watch represent a growing blight on his legacy
By Monica Crowley
(Monica Crowley is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research)
In all of the discussions about the political weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, alleged corruption at the highest echelons of those agencies and serial abuse of the secret FISA process surrounding the 2016 election, one name has been conspicuously absent: President Barack Obama.
High-ranking officials and other major players in those agencies — which Obama oversaw — are increasingly embroiled in the growing scandal: James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Andrew Weissmann, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr.
Given the tight control Obama exercised over every part of his administration and agenda, the idea that any of these appointees and loyalists freelanced their activities without at least his tacit approval or that of his White House strains credulity…
One of the criticisms of President Nixon was that even though he wasn’t aware of the Watergate break-in, he had created an environment in which such an action was acceptable.
Decades later, Obama created a climate in which the potentially criminal misuse of the DOJ and the FBI, as currently being unraveled, was not just acceptable but perhaps encouraged, thereby giving rise to what could be the most dangerous scandal in American history…
But something else, something more profound, drove their efforts: their urgency to preserve what Obama once called “the fundamental transformation of the nation” — a grand project much bigger than Obama himself or any other single figure. He largely fulfilled the long-held progressive ambition of changing the nation’s course, only to see Trump threaten to change it once again: not to return it to where it was pre-Obama, but to smash the corrupt existing order that had made their progressive advances possible…
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/373379-federal-abuses-a-growing-blight-on-obamas-legacy
30
Pat
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/obama-portrait-.html
10
Pat:
It was not enough that the Obama
administration presided over only
an average of 1.5% real GDP growth
over eight years?
.
And the slowest rebound from a recession
since the 1930’s?
.
And the disaster called ObamaCare, that I am
suffering with for the fifth and final year?
.
And ramping up the war in Afghanistan,
yet it is still obvious we will lose.
.
And pulling out so many troops from Iraq
that ISIS took over a third of the country for a while.
.
And to add to that sorry legacy,
Obama led a Chicago-style inside attack on
Donald Trump’s campaign,
smearing a novice politician,
who is not the smoothest talker,
or Teleprompter reader …
and yet … Trump still won !
.
I consider Obama the second worst
president in American history,
mainly for :
.
(1)
The “permanent war”
in Afghanistan, which contributed
to the heroin problem in the US
(the Taliban shut down the poppy crop
when they were in charge … and then
encouraged it to raise money after
they lost control of Kabul,
.
(2)
Obama found a way to govern
with a pen and a phone,
while bypassing Congress for his
last six years — a horrible violation
of our Constitution that other presidents
have already copied, and
.
(3)
Obama also found a way to make new
laws by having environmentalists / activists
sue the EPA, claiming they were ignoring some
“pollution”, and then the EPA would settle a case
they could have won in court,
for the purpose of creating
a precedent for the EPA
seizing new powers not specified
in any Congressional law.
My politics blog:
http://www.ElectionCircus.Blogspot.com
20
10 Feb: Reuters: UPDATE 2-Norway defends its tax regime supporting oil exploration
The competition watchdog of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is investigating the tax regime following a complaint by Norwegian environmental group Bellona.
Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have also mounted a legal battle in Norway to try to stop the government from expanding exploration areas in the Arctic…
Norway allows companies to deduct 78 percent of their exploration costs from taxable income. Since 2005, companies without taxable income have been reimbursed for the value of this benefit directly in cash.
Bellona’s complaint focuses on those provisions for the up-front cash flow reimbursement of exploration costs, which the organisation argues are in breach of state aid rules of the EEA.
This has so far amounted to over 100 billion Norwegian crowns ($12.54 billion). In 2014 alone, the government paid 14.2 billion Norwegian crowns in reimbursements to the petroleum sector.
“This means that if income is derived from petroleum activity taxed at a rate of 78 percent, the state, through the tax system, should cover a corresponding share of the cost incurred to earn this income,” the ministry said…
The government argues that the scheme can generate trillions of crowns in future tax payments for the state.
Bellona says that the state, as tax collector, should not trade such benefits for future gain…
Norway, western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, is seeking to attract more oil firms to explore in the Arctic Barents Sea…
https://uk.reuters.com/article/norway-oil/update-2-norway-defends-its-tax-regime-supporting-oil-exploration-idUKL8N1PZ64A
6 Feb: Platts: January 2018 U.S. Rig Count – Starts Off with Growth – S&P Global Platts
S&P Global Platts Analytics, today announced the U.S. rig count for January 2018 was 1,070, up 40 (+4%) from December 2017, and up 297 (+38%) from January 2017. This rig count includes U.S. onshore, U.S. inland waters, and U.S. offshore Gulf of Mexico drilling rigs…
“While a significant amount of month-to-month improvement was due to drilling activity in the Permian (both in Texas and New Mexico), we are now starting to see some dispersion in permits that points towards future growth being led from other regions in the months ahead,” said S&P Global Platts senior industry analyst Trey Cowan…
https://www.platts.com/pressreleases/2018/020618
10
9 Feb: Revelator.org: Drill, Baby, Drill: The U.S. Added 38 Percent More Oil and Gas Rigs Last Year
Burn, baby, burn: Experts express fear about the enormous climate impact of this boom in new fossil fuel development.
by John R. Platt, editor of Revelator
(John R. Platt has also written about climate change, pollution, wildlife trafficking, and a variety of other environmental topics for Scientific American, TakePart, Audubon, Mother Nature Network, Motherboard, Hakai, Conservation, Sierra and a bunch of other publications)
“This will have a very significant climate impact,” says Romany Webb, climate law fellow with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The oil and gas industry is a huge source of methane, which is a really potent greenhouse gas. And then on top of that you also have the carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of this oil and gas. So this is very concerning from a climate perspective.”…
Experts also connect the boom to the policies of the Trump administration, which has prioritized the extraction of oil, natural gas and coal over the development of renewable energies even as the planet continues to warm. “That the hottest years in human history coincide with a dramatic increase in U.S. drilling for oil and gas is a reminder of what a rogue nation we now live in,” says noted environmentalist Bill McKibben…
It doesn’t look like this will slow down any time soon. The number of rigs has already increased in the few days since January ended. The weekly Platts RigData Locations & Operators Report for Feb. 5 reveals that there are now three additional rigs in operation, for a total of 1,073, with 61 more facilities “waiting to spud” (industry terminology for getting ready to start drilling)…
S&P released its data the same day the U.S. Energy Information Administration issued its annual Energy Outlook report for 2018, which projects U.S. oil production will soar past 11 million barrels a day by the end of this year…
The report also found that natural gas use in this country will increase at an annual rate of 0.8 percent through the year 2050…
The total effect of this mad rush to drill may be felt for even longer than that. “Our short-term folly will be felt for tens of thousands of years in the geologic record,” says McKibben.
http://therevelator.org/38-percent-more-oil-gas-rigs/
8 Feb: NYT: Bret Stephens: Apocalypse Not
In 1919, the director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines offered a dire warning for the future. “Within the next two to five years the oil fields of this country will reach their maximum production, and from that time on we will face an ever-increasing decline.”
Nearly a century later, in July 2010, The Guardian ran a story with an ominous headline: “Lloyd’s adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings.” …
I thought of these predictions on seeing the recent news that the United States is on the eve of breaking a 47-year production record by lifting more than 10 million barrels of crude a day. That’s roughly twice what the U.S. produced just a decade ago, and may even put us on track to overtake Saudi Arabia and even Russia as the world’s leading oil producer. As for global production, it rose by some 11 percent just since the Lloyd’s report, and by almost 200 percent since 1965.
Call it yet another case of Apocalypse Not…
In our own day, people like Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein have made careers saying more or less the same thing. This is a world where the clock is permanently set at two minutes to midnight, and where only a radical transformation of modern society (usually combining dramatic changes in personal behavior along with a heavy dose of state intervention) can save us. Above all, the Vogtians say, we need less: less consumption, less stuff, fewer people, and so on…
So far, the Borlaugians have mostly been right. To the extent that starvation is a phenomenon of recent decades — as in places like North Korea and Venezuela — it is mainly the result of gross political mismanagement, not ecological disaster. Peak oil keeps being defeated by frackers and deepwater explorers. As my colleague Nick Kristof recently pointed out, by most metrics of human welfare, the world keeps getting better with every passing year.
If environmental alarmists ever wonder why more people haven’t come around to their way of thinking, it isn’t because people like me occasionally voice doubts in newspaper op-eds. It’s because too many past predictions of imminent disaster didn’t come to pass…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/opinion/environment-oil-scare.html
10
Pat
I saw somewhere recently (might have been SDA) that rigs idled by what passes for energy policy in Canada are moving to USA where there is work
00
pat:
doesn’t Platt’s name have an R in it?
00
The Trump admin. has, or is about to, open up more area in Prudhoe Bay. This is important because there is an economic minimum that the Alaskan pipeline can carry [I assume the costs are in keeping the crude viscous in the cold.] and that was due to happen in a few years.
Maybe the Canadians would feel more at home there than in Texas. 🙂
00
I wonder if South Australia will become the first place in non-Third World to have most if not all of its electricity produced by diesel?
100
12 Feb: Guardian: Australia’s solar power boom could almost double capacity in a year, analysts say
Solar farm approvals and record rooftop installations expected to ‘turbo-boost’ production
by Naaman Zhou
Together, the new large-scale projects could add between 2.5GW and 3.5GW to the national grid and rooftop installations could add another 1.3GW, according to the Smart Energy Council’s estimates. This would nearly double the nation’s solar energy capacity, currently 7GW, in a single year.
“The train tracks are about to converge,” (CEO John) Grimes said. “Rooftop installations and utilities are both booming and could turbo-boost the solar numbers overall.”…
“Solar is the cheapest way to generate electricity in the world – full stop,” he said. “It’s not unusual for grid pricing to be north of 20c per kilowatt hour in a majority of jurisdicitions. A solar array, at an average size for an average home, if you amortise the cost over 20 years, the effective rate is 5c per kilowatt hour. That’s called an economic no-brainer.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/11/australias-solar-power-boom-could-almost-double-capacity-in-a-year-analysts-say
12 Feb: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: S.A. to host Australia’s first green hydrogen power plant
The South Australia government has announced funding for what will be Australia’s first renewable-hydrogen electrolyser plant – a 15MW facility to be built near the end of the grid at Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula.
The “green hydrogen” plant – to be built by Hydrogen Utility (H2U), working with Germany’s thyssenkrupp – will include a 10MW hydrogen-fired gas turbine, fuelled by local wind and solar power, and a 5MW hydrogen fuel cell.
Both will supply power to the grid, will support two new solar farms and a local micro-grid, and will also include “distributed ammonia” that can be used as an industrial fertiliser for farmers and aquaculture operators.
The $117.5 million project, which will receive a $4.7 million grant and a $7.5 million loan from South Australia’s Renewable Technology Fund, is being described as a “globally-significant demonstrator project” for the emerging hydrogen energy sector…
“More renewable energy means cheaper power and the ability to store renewables means the benefits of that cheap power can be experienced around the clock,” energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said in a statement.
“Hydrogen also offers an opportunity to create a new industry in South Australia where we can export our sun and wind resources to the world.”
The announcement continues a late rush of pre-election funding initiatives by the Labor government in the last few weeks, including for microgrids, virtual power plants, more grid-scale batteries, and five potential pumped hydro projects, scaling the range of storage options.
South Australia, which goes to the polls in little more than four weeks, already sources half of its electricity needs from wind and solar and will soon source even more as new projects come on-line, and hydrogen is seen as a major new opportunity…
The project at Port Lincoln will be nearly 10 times bigger than an electrolyser planned by the ACT government as part of its push to source 100 per cent of its electricity needs through renewable energy…
H2U chief executive Dr Attilio Pigneri said the hydrogen gas plant and fuel cell will be able to provide balancing services to the national transmission grid, as well as fast frequency response support for new solar plants under development in the Eyre Peninsula…
Asked about the skepticism surround hydrogen technologies, Pigneri said there was a “lot of momentum for batteries, but hydrogen technology is quite robust .. it may provide a more effective option than batteries, because you can store as much as you want.”
The Port Lincoln facility will store 10 tonnes of hydrogen, equivalent to 200MWh…READ ON
http://reneweconomy.com.au/s-a-to-host-australias-first-green-hydrogen-power-plant-89447/
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Some small words of caution.
Hydrogen gas must be produced, and that production always requires more energy than can be retrieved from the gas as a fuel later on. This is a limitation of the physical law of the conservation of energy .
If carried out in atmospheric air instead of pure oxygen, as is usually the case, hydrogen combustion may yield small amounts of nitrogen oxides, along with the water vapor.
Pure hydrogen is the smallest element and some of it will inevitably escape from any known container or pipe in micro amounts, yet simple ventilation could prevent such leakage from ever reaching the volatile 4% hydrogen-air mixture . So long as the product is in a gaseous or liquid state, pipes are a classic and very efficient form of transportation. Pure hydrogen, though, causes metal to become brittle, suggesting metal pipes may not be ideal for hydrogen transport.
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Oh boy, oh boy…South Australia and their wind power…
Here we are at 2014 hrs on Tuesday night and they are
“producing” 40 MWH of “wind and other” (ruinables).
This should be great for their hydrogen production…
Might ever have to use their battery for…..ten seconds….
Their diesels might even help a little…
Nothing like using “green power”, eh….
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“More renewable energy means cheaper power and the ability to store renewables means the benefits of that cheap power can be experienced around the clock,” energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said in a statement.
Umm, what’s wrong here.
Renewable energy means cheaper energy? Not so far. THAT IS THE BIG LIE!
Ability to store the energy? Not a unique sell point (USP) as coal, oil, and gas are stored energy.
Coal can supply energy around the clock NOW!
00
Don’t get sucked into believing that South Australia can be used as an example of how good renewable power can be.
Current Australian Demand (actual power consumption) in the five State AEMO coverage area is 29280MW.
Demand by State as a percentage value is:
NSW – 37.5%
Qld – 32.1%
Vic – 21.3
So, the biggest consumers are those three States, adding up to just on 91% of all power consumption
SouthAus – 4.8%
Tasmania – 4.3%
Wind power percentage of that total across those five States is around 3.3%
Bayswater Four is coming back up on line, so now there is only the one 280MW Unit at Gladstone off line of 48 coal fired Units, and coal fired power is generating 20200MW.
If they can’t make renewables work in a State with such small power totals, there’s zero chance they can make it work on the bigger scale.
Tony.
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So at say 5%
South Australia uses SFA!
I wonder about the cost % they have spent on
GAS
DIESEL
WIND
SOLAR
TIDAL
BATTERY
Over the last 10 years in comparison to the other 4 states in AEMO?
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Tony,
Here we are at 1938 hrs in Qld and SA wind and other is clocking in at
a MAGNIFICENT 37 Mega Watts….
YAHOO…..
Time to cut the interconnector….
30
Well given SA’s raving hatred towards coal and their great praise for renewables as being the answer to all their power needs, a better option is to make the interconnector work only one way – namely send electricity to Victoria but never the other way.
10
Or maybe just equalize the rates of exchange on a quid pro quo basis.
The amount of power Interconnector SA each day!
Surely everyone should be happy with that?
10
Try again as it does like me using the ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ symbols
Or maybe just equalize the rates of exchange on a quid pro quo basis.
The amount of power from the Interconnector to SA equals the power to Interconnector from SA each day!
Surely everyone should be happy with that?
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”
B A Deplorable Sewer Rat | February 13, 2018 12:52 AM | Reply
She is unqualified for that job but hey many of Trudeau’s ministers were picked strictly based on his whimsical notions of quota balance over talent.
Correction: she’s perfect for the job. Having no educational background on the subject and, apparently, no direct experience in that field, she can render excellent judgement. She is, therefore, completely unhindered by the biases created by actual knowledge and facts and, thereby, flexible and open-minded.
Such impartiality and objectivity is what we should expect expect from our government ministers.
Standard disclaimer: the preceding was meant as sarcasm.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/koreabarbie.html#comment-1154349
Is this the system yhat Australia has imported for ministerial selection?
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13 Feb: Asahi Shimbun: Associated Press: OLYMPICS/ Wind, ice and cold make Pyeongchang Games too wintry
Wind and ice pellets left Olympic snowboarders simply trying to stay upright in conditions that many felt were unfit for competition, the best ski jumpers on the planet dealing with swirling gusts and biathletes aiming to shoot straight.
All around the games, athletes and fans are dealing with conditions that have tested even the most seasoned winter sports veterans.
Low temperatures have hovered in the single digits, dipping below minus 17 degrees with unforgiving gusts whipping at 70 kph making it feel much colder. Organizers have shuffled schedules, and shivering spectators left events early…
The raw air sent hundreds of fans to the exits Sunday when qualifying was called off after women’s slopestyle devolved into a mess of mistakes, and Monday’s final started 75 minutes late. Of the 50 runs, 41 ended with a fall or a rider essentially giving up. The temperature dropped to 3 Fahrenheit, with high winds…
“It was unbelievably cold,” said Japan’s Noriaki Kasai, competing at his record eighth Olympics. “The noise of the wind at the top of the jump was incredible. I’ve never experienced anything like that on the World Cup circuit. I said to myself, ‘Surely, they are going to cancel this.'”
Alpine skiing, meanwhile, still hasn’t been able to get started at all, leaving stars like Mikaela Shiffrin of the U.S. and Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway waiting for their turn in the spotlight…
Waldner pointed out that he needs to figure out a way to get three men’s races–the combined, downhill and super-G–completed by Friday, because there is only one hotel right by the speed course at the Jeongseon Alpine Center. The male skiers need to vacate their rooms to make way for their female counterparts, whose speed events are supposed to begin Saturday…
Even those attending indoor events have been tested. Long, cold waits for buses have left workers, media and fans complaining…
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802130018.html
11 Feb: LA Times: Every Olympic athlete in Pyeongchang should be vocal about climate change
By Auden Schendler
(Auden Schendler is a senior vice president of Aspen Skiing Co. and a board member of Protect Our Winters)
At a cross-country ski area outside of Carbondale, Colo., the thin track was recently refreshed with a meager two inches of snow. Yet people were out in droves, delighting in all manner of snow sliding. It was a hot January day, so blistering that a local rancher called it beautiful “for April.”…
Give people even a little snow and they will find a way to celebrate being alive…
But every Winter Olympian’s love of their sport began with a childlike vision of fun. That’s the real reason climate change poses such a menacing danger to winter sports: Rising temperatures are threatening not just what we do, but who we are…
There’s even a word for it: solastalgia. A climate scientist friend, Elizabeth Burakowski, told me the term describes “the existential distress caused by environmental change, the homesickness felt when one is still at home. It is the unease one feels during those warm, snowless winters.” Today, many lifelong winter athletes are familiar with solastalgia — and a lot of everyday Vermonters and Utahans and Californaisn are too.
The anxiety is justified. NASA scientists named 2017 the second-warmest on record, surpassed only by 2016. According to both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 17 of the 18 hottest years have occurred since 2001…
Colder places and colder seasons are changing faster than warmer ones…
Researchers at the University of Waterloo predict that, by 2050, 9 out of 21 former Winter Olympic sites will be too warm to host the games. Pyeongchang, fortunately, is one of the predictably cold ones, though organizers still expect this year’s games will require man-made snow…
In a report that will be released after the Olympics, the nonprofit Protect Our Winters finds that high-snow years in the U.S. produce, on average, an additional $692.9 million in economic value and more than 11,750 additional jobs nationally. During low-snow years, snow country loses $1 billion in value and more than 17,350 jobs compared with an average season…
But we need more than leadership from a few (athletes). The Olympics are an international stage from which athletes can demand action from the countries they represent and mobilize their sponsors and fans. This year, all the Olympians competing in Pyeongchang should be ***vocal in some way — every last one….
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-schendler-olympics-climate-change-pyeongchang-20180211-story.html
*** perhaps they will be once their vocal chords have been defrosted.
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Some thinking required maybe
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/12/eu-trade-threat-paris-climate-ratification-in-all-future-trade-deals/
and comments
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Michael Mc Cormack is tipped to get Barnaby’s job if he falls on his sword, which would be a pity because Mc Cormack is an AGW zealot.
50
The perfect deputy for this leader.
20
That is a real shame. I thought the Nationals had some rationality. Not all of them it seems.
00
NBN out for 12 hours today similar tomorrow and next week and the week after that , this is what we have had to put up with since changing over about 6 months ago .
40
$100 BILLION for 25 million people = $4,000 for every man, woman, thing, child, baby in this country.
AND THEN whoever wants it can pay a handsome connection fee.
What a joke.
Kevin Rudd sure does need to say sorry, but not to the folk who get special generous financial handouts because of the colour (????) of their skin.
[Apartheid is alive and well in this country.]
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Teslstra almost Australia wide wireless broadband 4G soon to become 5G.
Works well for me.
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Beijing seeks ‘big data’ catch up.
‘China is building a global big data network to study Earth and support research on climate change, as well as predict and mitigate natural disasters, scientists said on Monday.
‘The project will include more than 1,200 scientists at 130 institutions worldwide and cover more than a dozen subjects, ranging from oceanology to meteorology, according to Guo Huadong, who is leading the project for the Chinese Academy of Sciences.’
00
Skynet Chinoise
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noticed a couple of joke replies when I came back online after a second spectacular electrical storm in Logan tonight (I switched everything off) so, in response, will post some media collusion stuff, which is always good for a laugh:
12 Feb: The Hill: North Korea is a murderous regime, why is the media glamorizing it at the Olympics?
By Joe Concha
Trust in media is at an all-time low. But loathing of it is likely at an all-time high. The latest example of backlash against the increasing tone-deafness among some of the Fourth Estate occurred over the weekend, during fawning coverage of North Korea’s presence at the Olympic Games in South Korea, particularly as it pertained to the North Korea’s official director of the Department of Propaganda and Agitation.
Who runs that department exactly? The new “it girl” for the New York Times, CNN, Reuters and ABC News, to name a few. Her name is Kim Yo Jong, the sister of dictator Kim Jong Un.
“Without a word, only flashing smiles, Kim Jong Un’s sister outflanked Vice President Mike Pence in diplomacy,” The New York Times gushed on Twitter to its millions of followers.
“Kim Jong-un’s Sister Turns On the Charm, Taking Pence’s Spotlight,” the paper of record’s headline reads…
But it wasn’t just the Times…
An ABC News headline continued the unintentional comedy: “North Korea’s 200-plus cheerleaders command spotlight at 2018 Winter Olympics with synchronized chants.”
The whole “stealing-spotlight” thing was all the rage on this opening weekend out of Pyeongchang, as CNN was hammered from all sides for this headline on the aforementioned Kim Yo Jong: “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics.”…
But the real outcry surrounded the story’s comparison of Kim Yo Jong to Ivanka Trump…
So what’s the motive behind such glowing coverage of a murderous country whose people are literally oppressed prisoners in their own country?
President Trump — and by extension — Pence, of course…
CNN contributor and Washington Examiner reporter-columnist Salena Zito sums it all up with her usual sober perspective: “I am deeply saddened by how my profession has normalized and glamorized this murderous regime. And then we wonder why no one trusts us.”…
http://thehill.com/opinion/international/373420-north-korea-is-a-murderous-regime-why-is-the-media-glamorizing-it-at
12 Feb: CNBC: New York Times CEO defends coverage of Kim Jong Un’s sister as ‘good reporting’
•Critics slam media outlets, including The New York Times, saying they were fawning over Kim Jong Un’s sister at the Winter Olympics.
On Sunday, a New York Times story, “Kim Jong-un’s Sister Turns On the Charm, Taking Pence’s Spotlight,” said, “Ms. Kim managed to outflank Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Olympics, Vice President Mike Pence, in the game of diplomatic image-making.”…
But Thompson said The New York Times covers North Korea regularly and the piece was only one slice of a larger story.
“It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that The New York Times elicits strong opinions,” Thompson said Monday on “Power Lunch.”
“It’s absurd to imagine you have to pack everything about your coverage of the country into every single story,” he said. “That’s a naive and really, if I can say, a foolish kind of way of looking at news.”
***”The New York Times is for sophisticated readers of news,” he said. “No one who reads the Times could think for a second that the Times doesn’t understand about human rights abuses or North Korea’s nuclear program.”
The Times wasn’t the only news organization that reported on Kim Yo Jong’s attendance at the games. The Washington Post called her the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea.” CNN said she was “stealing the show.”…
Thompson said the overall coverage of this year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea and, by extension, the political climate in that area of the world, has been “brilliant, actually.”
“We’re in the middle of the conversation,” he said. “What’s amazing about The New York Times, it’s probably more in the middle of the conversation now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. And that inevitably means there will be occasions where not everyone likes everything we do.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/story-about-kim-jong-uns-sister-is-good-reporting-ny-times-ceo.html
NYT doubling down?
Warm Welcome Home From Olympics for Kim Jong-un’s Sister
New York Times-12 hours ago
SEOUL, South Korea — The love affair that Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korea’s leader, enjoyed at the Winter Olympics in South Korea has not ended now that she is back home…
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12 Feb: Newsbusters: BBC’s Katty Kay Denies Media’s Strange Obsession With Kim Jong-un’s Sister
By Bill D’Agostino
During a Monday segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, David Ignatius of The Washington Post marveled at the effect Kim Yo-jong had had on America’s media and referred to her presence at the Olympics as “lipstick diplomacy.” Kay bristled at Ignatius’s premise, insisting that nobody was defending North Korea. “I think it’s erroneous to suggest that anybody is supporting Kim Jong-un’s sister,” she protested.
The media’s surprisingly favorable reaction to Kim Yo-jong has been well-documented; CNN claimed she was “stealing the show” and described her as North Korea’s “charm offensive.” An NPR piece admitted that she had “captivated media attention and fascinated the public.” And The Washington Post dubbed her the “Ivanka Trump of North Korea,” absurdly praising her as “a political princess.”
Even NBC’s Willie Geist, a consistent regular on Morning Joe, complained in a tweet that “some media” seemed “enthralled with Kim Yo-jong.” Nevertheless, Kay continued to deny. “That’s kind of insulting to say, ‘Oh, well people are being duped by this woman coming across,’”she complained…
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2018/02/12/bbcs-katty-kay-denies-medias-strange-obsession-kim-jong-uns
BBC’s craziest moment was on World Service OS program, hosted by Nuala McGovern (who previously worked with Brian Lehrer at NY public radio WNYC).
BBC have pulled the audio, but the first 4 and a half minutes went (paraphrasing):
BBC’s Laura Bicker in S Korea: Pence snubbing Kim’s sister, did not stand as the Koreans walked out. a lot being made of this in S Korean media.
Presenter Nuala McGovern in S Korea: it was really quite something. I have to say I was glued to it as well, Laura. one, because Kim’s sister was so warm. it’s like she was made for that job. you know when you see royalty, and they are so used to it, and they kind of have this charm offensive; that’s what she appeared to be cutting across as I watched it and then, just a few seats away, VP Pence was seated. I expected a few more seats between them. more mocking of Pence waving as the US team came out (laughter) … Laura joins in.
Laura: you mentioned the Kim dynasty. when it comes to her (the sister), she is actual royalty in N Korea if you want to put it in those terms. there are fears this is a charm offensive on the part of the North, and there’s a feeling S Koreans are falling for this charm it.
AUDIO: 53mins: 10 Feb: BBC OS (Outside Source) and the Winter Olympics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172vrbb3b49mlx
more BBC:
Kim Jong-un’s sister: ‘Sweet but with a tomboy streak’ – BBC News
North Korea leader’s sister takes ‘real power’ south to Olympics – BBC News
The Ivanka of North Korea. Meet Kim Yo-jong – BBC News
first there was the fawning over the N Korean cheer-leaders:
Winter Olympics: North Korean cheerleaders mesmerise crowds – BBC 10 Feb.
the first to be “mesmerized” was The New Yorker on 8 Feb before the Olympics even began.
The Mesmerizing Spectacle of North Korea’s “Army of Beauties” at the Winter Olympics – The New Yorker
ABC was not to be left out:
10 Feb: ABC: Winter Olympics: Pyeongchang opening ceremony shows a world united is a lot more fun
By Ben Lisson in Pyeongchang
The “army of beauties” made so much noise that photographers from around the stadium rushed to the area to capture the unusual, yet mesmerising scene.
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finally, ABC shall have their moment:
AUDIO: 6mins12secs: 12 Feb: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: ‘The Peace Olympics’: North and South Korea work together
Over the weekend, Kim Jong-un’s sister who led the North Korean delegation invited South Korean President, Moon Jae-in to a summit in Pyongyang in what’s been considered as a major propaganda coup.
Guest: Tracey Holmes, ABC News Radio
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/the-peace-olympics-north-and-south-korea-work-together/9421666
at first, this pretends to be a report on the Olympics, but it soon becomes political, with the Kim sister story, plus Fran pretending she’s never heard of the N Korean cheer-leaders before Tracey mentions them! sure Fran:
(paraphrasing) ABC’s TRACEY: first game of the unified ice-hockey team, no-one gave much attention to the match itself, because the North Korean cheer-leaders had the audience eating out their hands. they were smiling, waving flags, dancing in unison. it was quite a spectactular show. that was all people could talk about as they walked out of the arena.
FRAN, FEIGNING IGNORANCE: North Korean cheer-leaders? North Korean cheer-leaders?
TRACEY: yes, North Korean cheer-leaders.
FRAN: how are South Koreans taking it, are they suspicious?
TRACEY: no, not at all. they’re taking it with open arms….etc. There are pockets of demonstrations outside. a pack of demonstrators, maybe a hundred strong, waving American flags.
FRAN: back to sister.
TRACEY mentions sister’s position, deputy Vice-President of the Dept of Propaganda & Agitation. says that kind of sums it all up. the propaganda and agitation has been working as an absolute charm offensive here; they are winning people over by doing it. we know one of the great skills the North Koreans have is exactly that, and it is in full swing here.
FRAN: on to Mike Pence…
—
TAXPAYERS FUND THESE ABC PEOPLE. WHY?
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Here’s a bit more on mercury . . . . .
2 ppb – Maximum mercury contaminant level in drinking water set by EPA
250 ppb – Typical mercury level in tuna
51,000 ppb – Level of mercury found in a flu shot
SOURCES:
ICP-MS laboratory testing at the Natural News Forensic Food Lab
Package insert of Flulaval Influenza Virus Vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline
I guess it must be far more dangerous to ingest mercury than to inject mercury directly into the bloodstream. Who would have thought?
10
A question is:
How many parts in a glass of water, and how many parts in a vaccine?
Anyone know?
10
Sorry I don’t know. However mercury was used as a treatment for the pox in the 18-19th century. So it was given deliberately to patients in what was known as the Viennese treatment. Usual dose 1/4 grain (15mg) Mercury Chloride. Unfortunately it was not effective. The toxic effects were recognised by physicians but the disease was devastating so patients would try anything.
My limited knowledge on this subject comes from recently reading “The Wine Dark Sea” by Patrick O’Brien. Dr Maturin’s patient takes 10 times the recommended dose and seems to survive it.
00
The wholesale electricity price spikes recently highlighted by Tony from OZ have been the subject of a new post in UK with lots of detail on pricing mechanisms.
Here:-
http://watt-logic.com/2018/02/12/australian-electricity-price-spike/
Thanks Tony for your regular commentary on the Electricity Generation in Australia
Nick.
40
I need a much happier face please.
N P
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How much Mercury is safe is problematic. It is not so much the ppb is in particular foods, it is a contest of how much you consume and how long it takes for your body to get rid of it. The issue is confounded with other toxic substances that come along with your food in addition to Mercury. The more Mercury accumulated in your food sources very often comes with an increased load of other toxins. Even the form of Mercury is significant. Methyl Mercury is more toxic than merely Mercury. Children are more sensitive to Mercury toxicity than adults. This implies an increased risk to the fetus during pregnancy.
Then you have to deal with the fact that the limit of the methods of detection have become significantly lower as technology improves. Once, if you couldn’t detect it, the food was safe. Now the detection limit is likely well below what would otherwise be a safe level. Food safety nuts are strongly biased toward zero tolerance so they drive the “standard” to the limit of detectability. Making in increasingly possible that the limits are set to be so safe they are unnecessarily uneconomic and pointless. All of the above makes setting an actually safe level above zero extraordinarily difficult to set and prove.
It may even be the case that zero can be as bad as too much. There is such a thing as hormesis that is not often considered. This means the levels of a substance can be too low or too high rather than “just right” for a state of health.
The bottom line is that being alive and healthy presents a risk of illness and death. The world is not a safe place for living things. Death and extinction has been the norm. Staying alive and thriving is the exception. Fortunately, our bodies evolved to deal with usual and ordinary risks and generally does an OK job of it. For the most part, we can get by simply ignoring the busy bodies trying to dictate what we can and can’t do. Only the extreme situations really matter.
It turns out that some of the extraordinary risks come from the EPA and the FDA in the form of “I am from the government and I am here to help you”. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. They can assert but the proof they are helping in every case is foggy at best and often lacking.
So what is safe? I don’t know and can’t tell you. The experts don’t really know either except for a few basic things. So, if you are still alive and healthy, good for you. If not, good luck. Give it your best shot and pick your experts carefully. Remember, past performance is not proof of future results. It simply improves your odds.
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Lionel,
When I came on to the site this morning, and it opened to the comments I’d made yesterday, it appeared as though no one had responded. And then as I scrolled down I saw that someone had, and in a way that has left me appreciating this site even more.
The first link doesn’t connect. The second one does.
I’ve got a couple of things to add to this but haven’t the time just now so it will have to wait until the next unthreaded . . . . . .
10
Try again How much mercury is safe.
10
Terrible news
For the first time, “commercial tanker crosses Arctic sea route in winter”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/13/shipping-first-as-commercial-tanker-crosses-arctic-sea-route-in-winter
20
The Guardian reported when the first icebreaker-tanker sailed and the story suggested that because of disappearing ice in the arctic it was the first crossing without an icebreaker escort at the time of year the report was written.
10
The tanker is its own icebreaker.
https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/christophe-de-margerie-class-icebreaking-lng-carriers/
00
Ship is shown going astern. It seems that it might be able to go through thicker ice that way. Up to 1.5m thick. The ship builders are not counting on disappearing ice!
00
Another leftists journalist from the ABC, Emma Alberici, has an article on company tax at ABC News. Her headline target is Qantas that, she claims, paid zero company tax over the past 10 years. And she correctly lists tax concessions and deductions as the reason. In other words Qantas Ltd is a public company and in a industry that has extremely high replacement cost on aircraft etc. But she acknowledges that Qantas and other companies that have not paid company tax have paid various other taxes federal and state.
With due consideration for the artificially inflated world’s highest electricity pricing consumers in Australia are paying the following should be of interest;
“EnergyAustralia’s tax-free decade
At a time when Australian households have seen their electricity prices soar, the country’s leading energy retailer, EnergyAustralia hasn’t been paying corporate tax. EnergyAustralia paid no corporate tax for the decade to 2016.
For the three years to June 2016, EnergyAustralia’s 1.7 million electricity and gas customers across eastern Australia helped it record $24 billion worth of income on which no tax was paid.
An EnergyAustralia spokesperson said the company’s performance, “reflects how the power-generation sector is underpinned by assets that were built last century”.
“Since 2006, EnergyAustralia has written down the value of its assets by $1.9 billion.””
10
I see Western Australia is not playing ball with the AGW crowd !
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/perth-record-cool-days-to-end-with-scorcher/9444004
20
A case of “One swallow does not make a summer”.
00
The “three decades” certainly don’t cover the time that Perth has recorded temps, so I think it’s when the temps started being measured in Mt Lawley, out of the city. Also 37 is not hot for a Perth summer – 40-42 would be more likely to be a hot day, and I don’t think we’ve had any of those this summer.
10
This year I decided to go to Albany and the SW for a couple of weeks. Boy was it cold down there. Next year, despite the volcanoes, I’m heading for Bali.
00
Oh oh. Does Climate Change cause increased fingers and really, really bad art? So bad that it somehow fits perfectly?
http://thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/figures-obamas-official-white-house-portrait-leaves-six-fingers/
00
The “artist” has painted black women holding severed white women’s heads and [kiddies leave the room] mixing sperm in his paints.
Obumma’s final FU to America indeed.
10
Phishers are getting more sophisticated.
There has been a scam for a while where you get an email from PayPal saying there has been a withdrawal and prompting you to reverse it if it is fraudulent. Of course they will elicit account details to enable you to do so. Not very subtle.
Today’s email was saying that I have changed my address to somewhere in Vic. Soon after came the activity report “that I had requested”. I assume it would have shown a withdrawal by Optus. Next came the same offer to reverse the $98 Optus prepaid transaction as before. Why would you doubt it, you already “know” that your account has been hacked and the address changed and that an unauthorised withdrawal has been made. Aren’t you going to burn your fingers answering their questions to reverse the transaction? Are they getting smarter or just more desperate?
10
Latest news from down here in the land of the lost
Due to the technological advances made over the past 800,000 years South Australians have developed a method of producing 15Mw from burning dead grass. This technological break through could not have come at a better time as progress on the perpetual motion machine using nothing but wind has ground to a halt.
In other news the construction of a plant that burns gas instead of dead grass whose promoters claim to be able to provide 300Mw is being shuttered before it begun.
10
How come they can use 19th century data when everyone knows none of the thermometer readings are permissible before 1900.
‘The outback Queensland town of Windorah saw the mercury hit 45.5C twice this week – the hottest February temperature since recordings began in 1887.’
News
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