A hundred billion from a bank in Spain,
To change Earth’s climate, will be spent in vain.
To subsidize all solar panels, now,
Australia milks the poor as their cash cow.
The bats that eat mosquitoes, fear windmills,
Most likely, as they sense a threat that kills.
Since CO2 is life’s essential gas,
To denounce it first, then market it is crass.
_Ruairi
A website that chronicles the climate insanity:
climatechangepredictions.org/
30
“Breaking The Ice”
BEAUFORT SEA (March 10, 2018) The Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) and the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Hartford (SSN 768) break through the ice March 10, 2018, in support of Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2018. ICEX 2018 is a five-week exercise that allows the Navy to assess its operational readiness in the Arctic, increasing experience in the region, advance understanding of the Arctic environment, and continue to develop relationships with other services, allies and partner organizations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication 2nd Class Micheal H. Lee)
https://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/20180313204950.aspx
60
Let us hope the climate crusading Prince Charles never becomes King of Australia.
80
The role of the Queen
Australia is a constitutional monarchy. A monarchy is a country where the position of head of state is inherited. A constitutional monarchy is one where the powers of the monarch or sovereign—the King or Queen—are limited by law or convention, and generally exercised only according to the advice of an elected government.
The head of state is a formal, symbolic and ceremonial position, as opposed to the position of head of government, which has the administrative power to govern the country. In some systems of government the head of state and head of government are the same person—for example, in the United States the President has both functions.
Australia’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth is also Queen of the United Kingdom and several other countries which used to be part of the former British Empire. The Queen’s role as Queen of Australia is quite separate from her role as Queen of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom Government plays no part in the Queen’s role as Queen of Australia.
In Australia the powers of the Queen have been delegated by the Australian Constitution to her representative in Australia, the Governor-General. That is, while Australia’s head of state is the Queen, the functions of head of state are performed by the Governor-General. The Queen’s only necessary constitutional function is to appoint the Governor-General, and in doing this the Queen acts as advised by the Australian Prime Minister. The Constitution gives the Queen the power to disallow an Australian Act of Parliament, but this has never been done and it is extremely unlikely that it would ever be done.
83
Dennis, I was trying to be humorous on the hypocrisy of Charlie’s extravagance which one would not expect from a Climate Doomsday Prophet. If you follow the link I provide you would see he is over the top in this department. An extract:
“In 2006, for instance, Charles used the royal train simply to travel to Penrith to visit a pub — at a cost of £18,916 — as part of his ‘pub in the hub’ initiative to revitalise village life.
And he spent £20,980 for a day trip by plane from Scotland to Lincolnshire to watch William receive his RAF wings.
By contrast, the Queen travelled by train — courtesy of First Capital Connect — to Sandringham at Christmas. Her ticket cost £50, instead of the £15,000 her journey would have cost by the royal train.”
Cheers.
70
I understood John and I agree that Charles is a strange man.
41
This is quite unfair. The Royal Train exists for such a purpose. Like the Palaces. Royal watching is one of the great attractions of Tourism which is itself a major income for the country. Tourism is the third biggest industry, supporting more than two million jobs and over 80% of Britons approve.
As for Charles, he is a figurehead, a simple man in many ways. His support of Global Warming representative of many people who believe what they are told.
Many other countries including Spain and Greece have restored their Royalty. Norway, a new country has invented their Royalty last century. Even Russia is considering it.
So while it is fashionable to attack British institutions, British Royalty, British Christianity and British History, it is our birthright and the most successful and free system in the world today, the model of democracy.
Where I have a huge problem with our government is that it is ordering our electricity suppliers to steal our money and give it to windmill companies, without any taxation or explanation or right. Neither Kings nor Goverments have the right to order that you pay someone else, let alone for nothing at all. Governments can only tax. The RET money never goes near our government, is outside their budget and is the biggest carbon ripoff in the world, 10x Gillard’s carbon tax.
So as the 40% of migrants to this great country agree, if the monarchial system is not broken, why break it? There is no real cost in running a train which would otherwise sit idle. It’s like the cost of an army when not at war. Justifiable.
101
Green thumb ×1000 TdeF. Annie
31
TdeF
………. “a simple man in many ways”
Understatement of the year!
10
Let me clarify the statement above. This Yank loves British humor and tongue in cheek understatements like that are a big part of the reason why. Something that IMO there is not nearly enough of in our comedy here.
20
John, at the moment, I think that most Australians would prefer the status quo rather than the Republican alternative with say, Julie B or Mr Trumble or comrde Shorton as president.
Dennis’ outline indicates how powerless Charles would be.
KK
121
John. Let us hope Chuckles never becomes king of anywhere, along with Consort Camilla.
Dennis: “… it is extremely unlikely that it would ever be done.” Sorry to break it to you mate, but the law runs on technicalities exactly like that written in black and white, not on wishful thinking. Any clause that gives the head of a foreign power (as defined by the recent parliamentary eligibility wrangle) veto rights over decisions of the Australian parliament is a potential ticking time bomb whether you care to admit it or not. Consider also that Charles is noted for NOT complying with parliamentary convention and keeping his nose out of politics, but rather interfering in a manner that hasn’t been seen since the time of the Hanoverians.
A lot of what you attribute to the constitution is not in the constitution at all — it is only convention, and conventions can be and are torn up at will, as has happened with increasing frequency in recent years.
From the Constitution:
1.1.1 The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a federal parliament which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate, and a House of Representatives …
1.1.2 A Governor General appointed by the Queen … may exercise … such powers and functions of the Queen as her Majesty may be pleased to assign to him.
You say:
The head of state is a formal, symbolic and ceremonial position, as opposed to the position of head of government, which has the administrative power to govern the country.
Further down you contradict yourself:
The Constitution gives the Queen the power to disallow an Australian Act of Parliament, but this has never been done and it is extremely unlikely that it would ever be done. Vetoing Australian legislation doesn’t sound very symbolic to me. Sounds rather like active intervention in government, wouldn’t you say?
In Australia the powers of the Queen have been delegated by the Australian Constitution to her representative in Australia, the Governor-General. No they have not!!! Those powers are delegated at the discretion of the monarch. The monarch can give the GG all or no powers, at his/her discretion. Those powers are delegated by convention.
The Queen’s only necessary constitutional function is to appoint the Governor-General, and in doing this the Queen acts as advised by the Australian Prime Minister. By convention only!!! There is no constitutional requirement for the monarch to follow the wishes of the Australian Parliament, in the same way that the PM is, by convention only, the leader of the majority party. There would be blood on the streets if a monarch went against the wishes of parliament, but there is no actual constitutional requirement to follow the advice of parliament. We could face a hung situation where Charlie wants one GG candidate and our PM wants another — and a constitutional crisis because legislation could not be proclaimed. Remember it’s not that long ago that Charles was pushing to be made GG of Oz himself.
The fact that the power of veto has been largely latent during the reigns of an Edward, 2 Georges and an Elizabeth is no guarantee of future latency under another monarch. Under Elizabeth we have come to expect constitutional stability (apart from the 1975 aberration, which the Queen took no part in), but there are never any future guarantees. The situation could arise where the GG and a politically active monarch are at odds. Who knows what the outcome of that could be?
So we are subject to the will of the monarch of a foreign power who can overrule our parliament, but we can’t have somebody in parliament whose father was born within the bounds of that foreign power, due to a potential conflict of interest of the parliamentary candidate. Who dreamt that one up????? Perhaps it’s time we got British monarchs to swear allegiance solely to Australia before we accept them as our head of state.
You must remember that when the Constitution was being thrashed out back in the 1890s, Britain would not allow Australia too much independence. Consequently the Constitution was written so as to give Whitehall (via the monarch and the GG) veto power over any Australian decisions that did not suit Britain’s interests. We were mere colonials and were to be treated as such. We shared the same flag and the same citizenship as the UK; our courts could be overruled by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (until Hawke abolished appeals to the PC in 1986); until 1942 (Statute of Westminster Adoption Act) the British Parliament could still legislate directly for Australia; any of our parliament’s legislation could be overruled by the GG on instructions from the Foreign Office.
Lest you think I am an agent of the enemy, let me state categorically that I loathe Turnbull and Labor, but an Australian republic is a realistic inevitability. Wake up and smell the roses. The current system is a relic and a farce — a farce that has worked quite well during the 20th century — but a farce nevertheless. When Charlie is crowned it might well bring this farce to a head if he starts throwing his ill-informed weight around. Do you really believe that modern Australia is incapable of governing itself without foreign influence however benign and ethereal that influence might presently seem to be?
31
You design the right structure for our republic and I’ll vote for it.
Currently I wouldn’t commission any of our politicians to design a chicken coop, let alone craft a new constitution.
You may recall that Mr Trumble was a key proponent of the last Republican push and I suspect that the Australian voters imagined him as President and voted no.
Did he have a proposed new constitution at hand before the vote?
The present system has worked well but I really don’t want Charles to follow his mother into the role. He is unfit.
We only have a few years to design our future before she goes. Is that being done?
KK
50
I don’t know KK. Whether appointed or popularly elected, the constraints on the role of GG need to be codified very clearly so that we don’t end up with a de facto 2nd PM with real political power. Nor do we want mates appointing mates into the job. Ex politicians should be entirely disqualified as should party luminaries and big donors, and possibly some other classes of individual. That probably means we end up with a long list of generals and judges, which is what we have now.
All I know is that the constitution was written for its time, and its time has passed. All constitutions date and develop black spots. The royal prerogative as it stands is one such black spot in ours. I guess if we had what we have now but sever the royal connection, then effectively we continue with the present system of appointed individuals, which is basically what Turnbull proposed, except we add the codified constraints on eligibility and functions.
40
I would never vote for a popularly elected President because that would, by definition, give us a politician who would then insist in meddling in day to day government. Nor would I vote for a rebadged GG, that wouldn’t be a change at all.
My solution would never get accepted: A President elected by an electoral college to serve a max four years with a staff of lawyers so he could be the people’s representative to the high court, a super-ombudsman sort of.
00
For people confused by the terminology used by by Climate Science, Willis Eschenbach has created “The Climate Dictionary”and posted it on the WUWT web site
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/16/the-climate-dictionary/
41
Help! I’m being held prisoner in an insane asylum run by politicians.
110
Oh no! It’s the United States that I’m being held in. And there’s only one sane politician in the whole place and he’s not a politician.
Oh what will I do? The stink of corruption gets worse by the day.
Anyone know of a nice clean hole I can crawl into and hide for the next 20 or 30 years?
70
Dogenese finally found one honest man though. So all that searching in the dark with only his lamp for light has finally paid off. But now no pone believs the honest man he found is honest.
I don’t know what to do. 🙁
Help!
40
Go to sleep and hope to wake up yesterday.
70
I will as soon as I perfect my time machine. So far it only runs forward and only at the same speed as time is running so I’ve no escape yet. It definitely needs more work but I’m close to a breakthrough and then I can get to safety. But then I’m left with the question, “How many yesterdays should I go back?” And I don’t know the answer.
Doggone it, here come those men with the net again.
00
I would prefer manipulated by to run by ….
41
Germany’s green energy destabilising electricity grids …
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-green-energy-destabilizing-electric-grids/
61
Also interesting …
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/business/energy-environment/german-renewable-energy.html
41
Sounds like Germany and South Australia have a lot in common.
60
Germany builds cars.
50
“Germany builds cars”—that people wanted to buy, internationally.
40
And have a population and domestic market more than three times the Australian population and EU nations within vehicle transporter driving distance.
Economies of scale of production brings manufacturing cost down.
60
However, I believe German car making is heavily subsidised. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
30
They enjoy certain tax advantages from all levels of government; except the EU.
That’s about the level of “subsidy”, AFAICT.
FWIW; not being mugged is not withholding funds from social welfare programmes.
30
Germany’s most obvious subsidy is that they trade in the Euro which is much weaker, being dragged down by the PIGS, than a stand alone Deutsche Mark would be.
00
There were many immigrants from Germany in the early days of white settlement in S.A.
30
True, the Lutherans were industrious immigrants and came in organised groups.
30
Germany also remains a large producer of high quality precision machine tools just as they have been since long before I was born. Many dies and punches and one sheet metal shear and one plate shear at my families business were manufactured in Germany. When I was a kid I sheared a lot of plate an sheet metal on German made machines and punched a lot of holes using American made iron workers with German made punch and die sets installed.
40
A hundred billion from a bank in Spain,
To change Earth’s climate, will be spent in vain.
To subsidize all solar panels, now,
Australia milks the poor as their cash cow.
The bats that eat mosquitoes, fear windmills,
Most likely, as they sense a threat that kills.
Since CO2 is life’s essential gas,
To denounce it first, then market it is crass.
130
Note for Queenslanders re vegetation management
What wasn’t mentioned up front in Jo’s thread on
“The politically incorrect guide to climate change” by Marc Morano
is that in his “how I got to where I am” is the revelation that it included finding that the devastation of the Amazonian rain forest is a beat-up like that going on with woody vegetation management in Queensland – could even be the model for same.
60
“Carbon Oxide Causes Supernovas And Will Destroy The Solar System”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/carbon-oxide-causes-supernovas-and-will-destroy-the-solar-system/
“We all know CO2 was going to destroy the planet, now it is confirmed as inevitable. No more than 10 or 20 billion years and it’s guaranteed that’s where we end up. But not only that, it’s far worse than we thought! With 97% of stars being in this type range, every single star system with life on it is doomed. Doomed! I Say! We MUST act now to find ways to sequester this carbon where it will be safe. We simply must Save The Galaxy from these rogue racist WHITE dwarf stars. Time is running out! Send money now! or be responsible for the murder of the Galaxy! /sarc; (sort of… parody is more like it. Then again, some of the stuff published as Peer Reviewed is not that much different…)”
61
Where Student’s “t” test came from
https://theconversation.com/the-genius-at-guinness-and-his-statistical-legacy-93134?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%2016%202018%20-%2097048378&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%2016%202018%20-%2097048378+CID_c46a57621b028facbf529f8c73032266&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The%20genius%20at%20Guinness%20and%20his%20statistical%20legacy
10
I think that is the longest link I’ve ever seen.
You might try this approach:
About Guinness, and Student
20
But it wouldn’t be a record then
10
Chiefio in full sarc mode
“OMG! “Climate Change” Moving Earth POLES! We’re All Going To Fall Off!!”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/omg-climate-change-moving-earth-poles-were-all-going-to-fall-off/
30
For Jo’s “Sparky Car*” file
“Flaming Sparky Car Batman!”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/flaming-sparky-car-batman/
* Term borrowed from SDA
60
Some good news to wake up to, from the so called referendum on renewables
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=sa+election&oq=sa+ele&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l2j5.1973j0j7&client=ms-android-telstra-au&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#scso=uid_H3ytWrvoG4OG8wWzxI7ICg_1:19
40
The SA battery situation;
http://www.upsbatterycenter.com/blog/teslas-100-megawatt-battery/
41
See #12 above and move further away
20
The Liberals will put in an Interconnector to NSW and subsidise solar panels more generously, apparently.
They are pseudo marxists.
80
They might just as well have held an election and no one turned up. The change of Premier and, presumably, cabinet, is meaningless. All the parties—Liberal, Labor, Green, Xenophon—had the same policy regarding electricity generation and distribution. No coal, the only source for a future. Parasites rule.
150
I would rather savour the moment that means I no longer have to look at or hear that smarmy piece of work Weatherdill. That alone is a great leap forward.
You are also thinking that a politician is actually going to act on pre election promises and not do something entireley different. We havent even got to the “now we are in power and have all the information, its much worse than we thought!!! emergency measures/tough decisions are needed!!”
50
If you were Premier, how would you fix the power stuffup? The new Premier has been given a poison chalice with labor having burnt the crops and salted the fields. He could do no more than apply the brakes which, I concede, he is unlikely to do.
When wind and solar can supply 100% of demand on a clear windy day and those generators have watertight supply contracts there is simply no room for a coal fired power station,
00
They have a BS statement about the 2016 blackout. It WASN’T due to power lines coming down.
40
How the government really works with the help of experts .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mokllJ_Sz_g&ebc=ANyPxKr3gJ8MlJr-S2VMP4Oc5mFlAGnGKt3KS2j5TiCEt9VePKR8adQXgIwPDdJXmBDW485BlUo_KjUyQsv-WnnmChYLFV0-vg
40
For modern scientists, politicians and “science communications” graduates there is only one key aim in their work: to verbalise problems so that the presenter (politician) can fill one minute of interview time with politically useful verbosity.
Actually solving problems was something that people did in the old days, back in the sixties.
KK
90
I came here this morn expecting to read about the demise of Mr Weatherill and what it could mean for SA.
What can be done? Sweet F A I suspect. It’s not as if the coal fired plants were mothballed and I doubt the libs could build a new one with so many wind mills guaranteed market access.
BTW When do you southerners change your clocks?
100
Sunday 1 April at 3.00 am
no joke.
61
I have given up following SA politics due to the silliness of the SA electorate. I had to look up the results, I would normally be following them!
Is Peter Lewis still around? I remember asking a person who lived in his electorate about what he did. He sided with Labor and gave us 16 years of it. Plus he put some fisherman out of business in return for siding with Labor.
70
Labor should have lost government four years ago but were propped up by independents.
What ended their chances this time was the electoral boundary redistribution that they challenged via the High Court unsuccessfully last year.
I watched a small part of the coverage last night and smiled when a Labor person referred to his side having been set up to lose. They held power because the opposition was facing an electoral gerrymander and even with a few percent more than half the vote kept losing.
102
Don’t forget Dennis in the last election even the leader of the Libs urged voters to vote Labor
20
I was not aware of that Robert
31
Basically it was a variation on play number 3 from the current ‘How to be a cutting edge Jurno’ manual.
You find a question your target has already answered, then with minor re-wording, repeat the question, then repeat, and repeat.
Eventually the target verbally slips up and, being the cutting edge jurno that you are and product of the latest university education, you convert that verbal slip into a soundbite, file your breaking news report and sit back to wait for your Walkley.
With Marshall in 2014 he had been campaigning pretty much constantly for the last month and a day or so before election day he stumbled and said (paraphrasing) ‘I think you should vote for Labo…Liberals’.
So yes, he said it, but if you are the sort of person who is going to tear strips over someone for a verbal slip then you were probably never really going to vote for him in the first place and reflects more on what passes for media analysis these days than it does on him.
Tax policy? Who cares.
Reforms on Education? Pffff.
Plan to take the first born child of every household for medical experiments? Not remotely interested.
Verbal sleep deprived tongue slip? HEADLINES!!!
60
Ahh Mudcrab not sure where you get “tear strips off” from and as you agree he said what he said so what .
Obviously it was a slip of the tongue at the time but you have to admit that it was a doozie.
20
Hanrahan, Jo will get to it.
James, I received a phone call at work once from Peter Lewis because I was the “contact” about population statistics and had to listen to him for about twenty minutes. I answered his simple question but then he just started raving on about things I didn’t understand. At my much younger age then I felt I couldn’t hang up on a politician, even an eccentric one!
I seem to think that he has passed on, but don’t quote me on that!
40
I think I might have heard the phrase ‘dropped on his head at birth’ used once in relation to him!
30
Hanrahan:
Don’t worry, Weatherdill’s legacy is more blackouts for SA. There is a further 3,178MW capacity of wind turbines to be added to the existing 1789MW, and on top 1515MW of solar generation to be added. As Paul Keating might have said “Never stand between pigs and a trough of subsidies filled by a State Premier”.
As the existing system struggles to cope the addition of all that variable capacity means that soon it will be overloaded. AEMO has been very quiet about its actions but it has obviously insisted on a good proportion of reliable gas generation at all times and any excess has to go away via the interconnectors or some of the wind farms have to shut down. Soon it will be more of them missing out on the money and there will be demands that they be paid for NOT generating (as in the UK and Germany). The South Australian government will be left to pay this demand, as no other Premier would want to pay out on such a vote loser. As the incoming SA government will shortly find out, the piggy bank is empty, so there will be a flood of lower priced wind electricity onto the market. This won’t harm the wind farms because they get the subsidy under the RET (currently about $85 per MWh) so above $25 they make a profit, but the gas burners probably need $75 and without subsidy, so they will shut down. The result will be more blackouts.
Indeed should there be a strong enough wind then the grid will probably be overloaded anyway as not enough can be sent to Victoria through the existing interconnectors.
There will be screams for an interconnector to NSW (at least on the SA side of the border) but in the meantime the falling demand as businesses shut down and those fed-up with the blackouts move Off Grid will make matters worse. The latter move will force up the costs of connection driving more business out of the State and more people Off Grid.
Weatherill will be overseas drawing his excessive pension and claiming it wasn’t his fault, even as his 75% renewables target is achieved at the same time as the State goes bankrupt.
140
How many windfarms and solar panels do South Australia need to become self sufficient? They will never have any electricity security at all until they go nuclear or coal fired .
81
The Libs are offering only 40,000 household batteries compared with Labor 50,000. They are also planning a stronger link to NSW. That will enable the good people of NSW to share the pain of high power prices experienced first in SA and now in Victoria due to the way intermittent generators destroy grid economics.
People in NSW should be raising hell over the prospect of a stronger link into NSW. A link with similar capacity to the Vic link will increase wholesale prices in the NSW network by at least 15%. It also enables the wind generators in SA to get back up to their unconstrained capacity factor, which supports the delusion of economic generation for another couple of years.
110
This will be sharing the misery around of higher electricity prices. I wonder if it could result in a nation wide east coast grid failure? A sudden dropout of wind generators in SA causing east coast power plants to trip out? I don’t think that would happen, the limiting factor being the size of the interconnect, plus the comparative small size of the S.A. Load. But with more unreliables coming online perhaps it might happen one day. Then perhaps people might wake up about unreliables!
70
A 600MW link would be covered by running reserve in NSW so not likely that its sudden loss would be significant for NSW. The impact is more insidious. NSW will be told they can get free power from South Australia when the wind is blowing. That sounds enticing.
The consequence of the free power is that it reduces base load so it eats into the economics of coal power stations. Then NSW needs more fast response gas to cater for the swings in supply AND demand coming from SA. That forces up the average price of power in the NSW network. So free (or even negative) wholesale power for say 10 hours out of 8760 hours in year and $60 higher wholesale power prices for the 1200MW swing introduced by the interconnection that is sourced from fast response OCGT for 8758 hours a year. Essentially double the wholesale price for that 1200MW. That alone will increase the cost in NSW by 5% but it will ensure the early closure of Liddell and that will result in a 15% increase with much higher risk of forced load curtailment.
So the year following commissioning the link, there will be a 5% increase in wholesale price in NSW. That will translate to about 5% increase in retail price in NSW as interconnectors are not free and NSW will need to put up their share to get access to the free power. Three years later Liddell will close and that will cause an increase in wholesale price of 15% as all its output will shift to gas; a combination of OCGT and CCGT. That will work out at about 10% retail increase. The wholesale price is now beyond the ability of Tomago to cope so they pull the pin the following year. That takes out the largest single customer and their support industry. Eliminating that baseload destroys the economics of the next lowest order coal generator and they close the following year. That increases wholesale price by another 15% and retail by 10%. With retail prices now at world record levels every roof gets panels and every garage/basement gets a battery. The NSW grid is near death.
If the SA Libs can get their act together as early as end of 2019 we should see Tomago closure by 2024. Of course it could be sooner if NSW can get their own act together with more wind and solar. They may not even need the help of SA to make their grid uneconomic. AGL left to their own devices could do a good job alone.
90
The spirit coming to an election near you?
“As a social conservative, I would like to let everyone know that yes, I will cut off my own nose to spite my face. I am going to vote for Ryan Meili next election. IF I was in Ontario, I would vote for Wynne.
It is time to demonstrate that it is not safe to denigrate me for my beliefs. It is not safe for any political entity to refuse to support what I want in any way.
I will be enjoying the decline IMMENSELY. I am tired of being the but of every political joke, from every political party, in every region of the country. Welcome to the suicide pact. Infanticide is untouchable; welcome to Prime Minister Trudeau, FOREVER.”
Just substitute Australian names
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/03/reader-tips-4144.html#comment-1160872
40
I was at the checkout at Coles during the week and when the girl got to my 12 pack of Milo Dairy Snacks she did something very unusual. She kept on turning it round looking for something which I assumed was the bar code. However she was looking for the Use-by date and told me if it’s 10th April 2018 it has to be recalled. Before I could say anything she told me that one of the ingredients was missing, but quickly corrected that to say the notice about that ingredient on the outside packet was missing! I was absolutely astonished and said “who cares?” I also marvelled that anyone would pick that up.
I wondered whether this was because of the insanity of political correctness but more likely it’s litigation paranoia.
Fortunately my pack had 14 April 2018 and she was able to let me have it. Later I thought if it was the 10th I could have got the store manager to issue me a waiver notice which I could sign.
71
A few tainted melons caused 7 deaths in Australia and has destroyed the melon industry for the immediate future. The melon market in Australia is dead for at least this year.
In my view there is some cause to be paranoid about food products not being to specification. Although controlling potential issues at the check-out would seem to be way too late. Many use the self checkouts so that would not be an ineffective control.
50
If the missing ingredient was the cause of allergic reactions then it could lead to a death. Not surprising they are getting uppity.
50
Here in the US I would have been demanding to see the manager to ask why the heck hadn’t the defective product been pulled off the store shelves? The check out is NOT the place for that kind of screening to be done. Upon notification they should immediately pull ALL of that particular product off the shelves, sort the bad lot(s) from the good lot(s), and make sure only the good goes back out on the floor while the bad stuff is isolated so everyone knows it is not to be used until it is properly accounted for and disposed of or returned to the manufacturer. Doing anything else is just unacceptable.
40
Thanks for your replies. Couple of things.
Firstly, yes the fact that this was raised at the checkout stage was astonishing. I would have expected this type of recall to have been done by the store staff who packed the shelves. Self-checkout is common now so it would have been interesting to see what happened. Probably the supervisor there would have been alerted by the customer.
Secondly, the product itself was obviously safe. It was just something (obviously trivially) wrong about the notice about one of the ingredients. Perhaps the printer had malfunctioned for that one line mentioning that one ingredient. As a regular user I was not impressed, but fortunately I was not affected anyway.
10
Ian Hill,
Coles know milk junkies when they see one.
10
“Dinosaur Death Watch.
…-
“Disgraced Media Already Hit with Massive Layoffs in 2018”
“By the time President Trump’s presidency is over, one of the biggest pieces of fake news we will look back on is when we were told by the media that Trump was good for the media business. According to what is happening in a place called the real world, the truth is that business for the media is horrible.
We will start with the Denver Post, which announced Thursday that, between April 9 and July 1, 30 jobs will be cut from its newsroom. That is a massive 30 percent cut of its current staff of 100 journalists.
Just 10 years ago according to the far-left Washington Post, the Denver Post employed 600 journalists. That is close to a 90 percent reduction in only a decade.
Just a few hours later we learned that another wave of surprise layoffs hit the Chicago Tribune.”
“the San Jose Mercury News was hit”.
“the East Bay Times wiped out a quarter of its editorial staff”.
“the far-left CNN is not only collapsing in the ratings but dealing with some massive layoffs of its own.” [more]
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/03/16/nolte-disgraced-mainstream-media-swamped-massive-layoffs/ ”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/03/reader-tips-4144.html#comment-1160820
80
When journos reduce themselves to cut and pasting from other sources, and just uncritically regurgitating what pollies blurt out , then they have little basis for complaining about losing jobs, or for even being able to call them “jobs”
10
I found this paper authored by AGL’s chief economist Tim Nelson:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619017303500
This quote shows how little understanding he actually has:
This is a link to Figure 5:
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1040619017303500-gr5.jpg
It is apparent that the brains trust of AGL has no idea how the capacity factor for wind and solar will become demand constrained. That is already happening in South Australia and yet this economist has not worked out what it means for cost curves of intermittent generators.
With this level of understanding we will see the NEM over the abyss within 10 years. I cannot believe there is not someone in AEMO or even the banks waving a large red flag about using LCOE as a basis for comparing intermittent and dispatchable generators.
This quote comes from the link Dennis posted at #6 on the German grid destabilising:
I expect to see residents in SA complain about their inability to pump out power from their solar panels when the sun shines brightest. I also expect to see reports of equipment damage due to poor voltage regulation. However they have made the choice for 10,000 fewer batteries that Libs offered. NSW would be nuts to allow their wind generators better access into the NSW network. NSW residents should resist this with great force as it will guarantee a jump in power prices in the state. Germany’s neighbours are aggressively limiting the destabilising impact of the German grid on their networks.
90
RickWill:
Agree about SA and I don’t think batteries will save them, even if they could be installed n time (Weatherill promised 400 in the 2014 election and got 50 installed), Besides 5,000 batteries storing at most an average 10kWh each is 50MWh or 1.6% of the NEW wind farm capacity, which they would supply in a very moderate breeze.
And re those costings, what about those from Finkle? Or the operating cost ($24 per MWh) published by Infigen? If these figures from AGL are correct then subsidies should be cancelled immediately.
90
Graeme#3
Any of those figures you see for cost of wind and solar are all for unconstrained capacity factor. The costs rise geometrically with market share.
Already AEMO are forecasting zero minis, demand in the SA network by 2024:
http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/SA_Advisory/2017/South-Australian-Electricity-Report-2017.pdf
See chart on page 23. That destroys any notion of baseload in the state. It means none of the grid scale generators have demand at that time. Think how that will affect their capacity factors.
The key facts remains that there is no economy of scale with solar and negligible economy of scale with wind. So grid scale wind and solar can never compete with local wind and solar because the grid scale is knobbled by the high cost of transmission, distribution and retail costs.
60
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/the-eu-this-week-germany-gives-up-on-hard-targets-turkey-plans-80-coal-stations-eu-dithers-on-paris/
21
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/forget-momentum-for-renewables-five-of-the-g7-nations-increased-their-coal-use/
32
I was wondering why you’ve attracted the attention of the red thumb troll Dennis but there it is you mentioned “coal” .
31
Coal is good, coal is great, coal will be with us as a mainstream global energy source for many decades
70
wheres my red thumb?
20
I can give you one if you really crave it but wasn’t planning to!
20
Black diamonds for ever! Newer brown version very acceptable too 🙂 There are lots of forms of carbon that give us life in abundance, not only various compounds thereof.
30
Only positive thing about the SA election and the one in Melbourne was the greens went nowhere
110
That is good news.
70
No doubt the Greens will be holding a conference down the bottom of Bob Brown’s Tasmania garden and demanding that the fairies explain what went wrong.
91
Listening to ABC AM today [it was supposed to be Macca] they said the greens dropped 25% I think.
Some here say you shouldn’t vote for either main party. Well voting for minor parties isn’t working. The X man missed out YEA!, SA Best didn’t win in the house and One Nation did poorly in Qld. Dealing with minor parties is impossible and people are waking up.
60
Nick X is a weird one.
He is either seen as this amazing wonderful person who you must go to if you have ANY problem, or a complete fraud who made his entire career on the back of stunts.
As I mentioned to a taxi driver a month or so ago, ‘He came in on the No Pokies banner, but we still have pokies’.
(To which the reply was, ‘Yes, but we have less pokies then we were going to have’.)
He has certainly run out of some of his friends. Several pubs here in Adelaide have been running Anti SA Best posters on the grounds his ‘reforms’ would cost jobs and close pubs. The performance of Team X in the Senate also has done little to suggest his brand are strong performers.
So, personally I am pleased to see his lack of voter support, but overall in this election I have felt a bit like a turkey being forced to choose between Thanksgiving or Christmas.
30
The absence of a gloating DiNatali back by noddy dog staged diverse underlings can only be a good thing
40
Power just went out @ 9:15am Ballarat Victoria, anyone else experiencing blackouts?
50
Powercor outage site has blackouts over the Western half of Victoria, ours is a fault in an outer suburb, sounds like the storm that came through tripped something out.
40
Power back on!, thought I’d let everyone know as the public concern was palpable.
A question for those that remember, was the original electrical grid prone to regular blackouts?, I think it was.
40
An interesting story about blackouts in Ukraine:
https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/
30
I understand that parts of Melbourne suburbia are suffering blackouts of various kinds.
41
I’ll be 76 next month and my memory says there weren’t “regular” outages. There was a bad period when Premier Joh broke the hearts and pocket books of the electrical trades, there have always been areas disrupted by storms and localised outages when a car hit a pole or a transformer failed but never supply related failures. But who knows what is causing the issues in Vic.
I do suspect that grid maintenance is being overlooked because you can only spend a $ once, either on wind mills or maintenance. And everyone knows that grids are obsolete in the days of distributed generation anyway.
30
‘St Patrick’s Day revellers are being told to stay indoors as the big freeze hits swathes of the UK.’
The Sun
60
That’s to avoid them turning blue.
I’d tell you the joke about the blue pigeon but it would get me censored, banned and probably prosecuted.
70
I just did a search and you are wise although you may have escaped the prosecution with the Phoenix version, not the London one.
50
The Sydney bronze rat wouldn’t pass either
20
most of them wont be in any state to feel the cold
30
On St Patrick’s Day in 2003 I got sunburnt sitting out for lunch in Gloucestershire! In 2013 it was pretty cold in North Yorkshire well into May. I was walking in flurries of snow to get our newspaper for many, many consecutive days.
We have a wondrously variable climate on our planet don’t we?
50
We were burying another aunt a while ago and the cemetery is on a fairly bleak cypress pine sand hill. A cousin looked around and observed
“You know this is the only growth area in town”
which is true for many small towns in western Qld.
I was just looking at one of the photos at
http://pickeringpost.com/story/a-race-where-all-three-no-hopers-get-a-place/8121
captioned ” Emblematic Adelaide scene”, was reminded of that comment and wondered if that had spread to SA?
50
Another Ian thank you for that ,Pickering has a wisdom beyond the ages .
20
The snowflakes hate him more’n Trump.
I hope he has written his book, he almost trained a Melb Cup winner, flew his helicopter on rescue missions after a tsunami and smuggled diamonds in Africa. I’m sure there are other stories where they came from.
50
Take you Pick.
lol
31
And obviously a knowledge of where a lot of skeletons are
40
Several reside in his own closet, I believe.
30
That’s why I’d like to read his book. I love the euphemism “colourful racing character”. It’s apt.
20
Another Ian:
The population growth rate is dropping.
2014 1.688 million 1.0%
2015 1.696 million 0.47%
2016 1.706 million 0.6%
2017 1.71 million 0.23%
30
well below replacement rate for a few years now
still I suppose it is all part of the grand plan to save the planet by reduced activity/population
10
Looks like this Beast from the East has nothing to do with a Heat Wave in the Arctic (-27°C). Happy St. Patrick’s Day to the Irish as Ireland beat Eddie Jones’ England.
30
There must be good winds in the east. SA windfarms are currently producing around 1269mw. The state is currently producing about 6oomw more than the demand. The question is what are they going to do with the extra MWs? Gas is still producing 391mw but legislation demands that retailers buy the power from wind farms and solar first. What a ridiculously inefficient way to run a power generation complex. No wonder fossil fuel power, and power overall, has become more expensive.
Not sure how they work out which electrons come from where.
70
Yes!
It’s crazy. Do the general public and business really deserve this abuse?
50
Yes, ironic really that on the day Labour and their policies get dumped in SA, it turns out to be one of the very few days that their RE power plan actually supplied enough to meet demand for more than an hour or two.
OK , it was a low demand day ..(1.2 GW) and obviously much more windy than normal…but i hope it chokes Wetherdill to see the irony of the coincidence 🙂
10
I see the Australian Conservatives have failed quite badly in the SA election. Poor Corgi. 🙂
32
Yeah great outcome Phil, after all a healthy economy and stable electrical grid are highly overrated eh?
60
Here’s an interesting rumour.
“ListenSport @ListenSport · 55m55 minutes ago
Breaking. Just told by friend that @PeterDutton_MP told a Lib colleague he fears losing his seat unless he goes to election as leader. Is he taking on @TurnbullMalcolm #auspol #libspill”
Dutton..as Lib Leader and PM?? I’d like to see that. 🙂
11
Simon says – oops scientist says:
18 Mar: Guardian: Robin McKie: Billion-dollar polar engineering ‘needed to slow melting glaciers’
Underwater sea walls and artificial islands among projects urgently required to avoid devastation of global flooding, say scientists
Scientists have outlined plans to build a series of mammoth engineering projects in Greenland and Antarctica to help slow down the disintegration of the planet’s main glaciers. The controversial proposals include underwater walls, artificial islands and huge pumping stations that would channel cold water into the bases of glaciers to stop them from melting and sliding into the sea.
The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.
Flooding in these areas is likely to cost tens of trillions of dollars a year if global warming continues at its present rate, and vast sea-wall defences will need to be built to limit the devastation. Such costs make glacier engineering in polar regions a competitive alternative, according to the team, which is led by John Moore, professor of climate change at the University of Lapland.
“We think that geoengineering of glaciers could delay much of Greenland and Antarctica’s grounded ice from reaching the sea for centuries, buying time to address global warming,” the scientists write in the current issue of Nature (LINK)). “Geoengineering of glaciers has received little attention in journals. Most people assume that it is unfeasible and environmentally undesirable. We disagree.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/18/billion-dollar-polar-geoengineering-to-slow-melting-glaciers-global-flooding
40
Well, if they use only their own money, I say go for it.
40
Pat…surely it isn’t April the 1st yet?
30
“celebtivism”? doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
original headline:
The age of celebtivism
Thomson Reuters Foundation-20 hours ago
unsurprisingly changed to:
17 Mar: Thomson Reuters Foundation: Stephen Hawking was the kind of celebrity activist we need more of
by Vicente Lopez Ibor Mayor
(Vicente Lopez Ibor Mayor is Co-Founder of Lightsource BP and Chairman of the Lightsource Foundation. He is also Chairman of solar storage company Ampere and is former Director of Spain’s Energy Commissioner)
The example of figures like Stephen Hawking in the realm of science and Leonardo Di Caprio in the field of clean energy (who incidentally yesterday announced his investment in a landmark eco-friendly hotel), prove that global issues can indeed be mainstreamed provided there is the right commitment and authenticity behind it.
After all, we are living through a moment where celebrity activism – or celebtivism, as I like to call it, is driving political conversations and social change…
It is the maturity of something that has been building for over a century: celebtivism is almost as old as celebrity itself…
Whatever our personal feelings about celebtivism, stars can quickly raise awareness to do with an issue in ways others cannot.
This is particularly true of one of the most pressing challenges affecting the world today – climate change and the corresponding need to promote the clean energy transition…
And crucially, there is a need to ensure celebtivism involves meaningful engagement with experts, allowing them to guide their efforts and focus their energies in projects that can really move the dial on the key indicators…
To see how Hollywood can do celebtivism right to promote the clean energy transition, Leonardo DiCaprio provides a rare example…
In 2013 he held the “11th Hour” benefit, which became the world’s highest-grossing environmental charity event ever held, raising nearly $40 million.
And through this all, he has stayed in regular contact with noted researchers – such as Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, who says of DiCaprio “I have talked with him and his folks frequently over the phone”…
That is the kind of Celebtivism our planet needs.
https://news.trust.org/item/20180317041018-bj4fk
Wikipedia: Vicente Lopez Ibor Mayor
He is chairman of Lightsource Renewable Energy Ltd, the UK’s largest solar energy generator, operating the largest portfolio of commercial scale solar photovoltaic (PV) assets on ground and roof in Britain…
Mayor has worked extensively in the renewable energy sector…READ ON
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Lopez_Ibor_Mayor
20
a celebtivist at work:
17 Mar: ColumbiaMissourian: Bill Nye delivers facts and laughs in Jesse Auditorium
By Kennedy Simone
Nye gave his audience tips on combatting climate change, pointing to education, access to the internet and both renewable and reusable electricity for all people. He presented multiple graphs showing the increase in global temperatures throughout the year, then pulled up a photo of the U.S. Constitution on the screen for the audience to see.
“I encourage you to look at the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 refers to the ‘progress of science and useful arts’,” Nye said. “People, science is in the Constitution!”…
Nye kept the audience laughing with some friendly political jabs at climate change doubters such as Ken Ham, Joe Bastardi and even President Donald Trump, and gave a show of his ***celebrity status. He made a call to a well-known astrophysicist in front of the audience.
“Hey, Siri. Call Neil deGrasse Tyson,” Nye said.
Although Tyson didn’t answer Nye’s call, the audience still appeared impressed.
During the Q-and-A session with the audience following the presentation, a young boy with blonde hair and a blue-striped shirt gripped the microphone to ask Nye a question.
“Why do you want to teach kids science?” the boy asked.
Nye’s answer was simple: “To change the world.”
https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/bill-nye-delivers-facts-and-laughs-in-jesse-auditorium/article_9cc78814-2991-11e8-8c16-fbc59d083f82.html
40
17 Mar: CBC: Analysis: Trump’s goal of ‘energy dominance’ could change the global balance of power
The United States is on track to become the world’s biggest oil producer and it has big plans for the future
By Tony Seskus
Fuelled by technological breakthroughs and cuts to taxes and regulation, the United States is on target to become the world’s biggest producer of crude oil in the next five years.
Let that sink in. The U.S will be bigger than Russia and Saudi Arabia.
It would be a remarkable feat and significant, too. It could clear the way for America to redefine its relationship with the world, minus a reliance on overseas oil…
“Energy security is a road map to economic prosperity,” U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry enthused during an address to a world energy conference this month in Houston.
“America is in the midst of an incredible energy revolution. Energy progress that we’re seeing here is due to a cascade of technological breakthroughs driven by innovation.
“These advances have … got powerful implications both here and abroad.”
It’s been an unimaginable turnaround…
The story doesn’t stop with oil, either.
Development of natural gas and natural gas liquids continues to sky-rocket, driving up exports and growth of the American petrochemical industry.
By 2022, U.S. Energy Information Administration projects America to be a net oil and gas exporter…
While the U.S. can throttle back on overseas oil, the integrated nature of the energy market makes true “independence” from foreign oil and gas extremely difficult. Canada, for example, exports more than three million barrels of oil per day to its southern neighbour.
“Canada does have an important role in the United States overall requirement for crude oil and refined products,” said Fogwill of CERI.
Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C., says the goal of U.S. “energy dominance” is not to become an “island unto ourselves.”…
For Sands, there may be an opportunity for Canada to be part of a wider, North American energy dominance…ETC
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/energy-dominance-u-s-canada-1.4575717
17 Mar: VOA Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe’s Coal Output Set to Quadruple as Investors Arrive
(Reuters) – Zimbabwe has attracted around $300 million in its coal industry that will quadruple production next year versus 2017, its mining minister told an investment conference in London on Thursday…
Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winston Chitando said interest had focused on coal, as well as on lithium and platinum…
He told London investors coal output in Zimbabwe would reach more than 8 million tonnes next year compared with around 2 million in 2017…
Many miners see a strong business model in coal as a high-margin business and a cheap way to generate power in remote African communities…
The world’s biggest shipper of export quality coal Glencore says the best coal will generate profits for the foreseeable future because of a shortage of new supply following a collapse in investment during the 2015-16 commodity downturn.
It says there is still demand, despite environmental opposition to the most polluting fossil fuel…
https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/zimbabwe-investors-arrive-coal/4303257.html
behind paywall:
Regional Queenslanders want Adani coal mine to proceed, poll finds
Courier Mail-13 hours ago
The polling gauged support for the coal industry and the Adani project in the Queensland electorates of Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn and Herbert. Across political lines, LNP voters (74.9 per cent) were the strongest supporters of the statement followed by One Nation, (71.2 per cent) Labor (41.9 per cent) and Greens (20.4 per cent)…
80
The Middle East oil producers must be worried, and then there are the world’s largest mostly untapped oil bearing sand reserves in Canada and South America, in that order I understand.
21
The Canadians seem to be singled out for cleaning up God’s biggest oil spill
00
There is a survey on the scenic damage caused by windfarms, for those that are interested to respond.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9ZSLCLQ
Survey by:
Dr Andrew Lothian
Scenic Solutions
http://www.scenicsolutions.world
30
I did the survey. It reminded me that there is no such thing as a good looking wind subsidy farm.
20
New ad on TV for “Dc power company” asking for $50 donations.
10
Ironic the founder is in the faith based businesses, as in he is an ordained minister and a CAGW believer which looks like how he made his money .
Getting the contract to change light globes from non toxic to highly toxic in NSW .
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M5zNhsH6Iyc
20
I was rifling through my huge DVD library last night and decided to watch the
Irwin Allen classic Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. I was struck by a thought:
What was the origin of the modern Chicken Little movement? I am a geezer who
was taught the principals of water, and the water cycle back in third grade.
I realize that religious zealots have been carrying the end of the world is
near signs for several hundred years, but what was the Genisis of the global
warming scaremongers?
The questions from my fellow junior high school science class students would
have driven Al Gore out of the room screaming. Where did the idea that the
would be burned to a crisp begin? In the movie, the Van Allen belt caught
fire. A submarine commander/scientist did some calculations and decided
the only way to save the world was to fire a nuclear missile into the Van
Allan belt. I am not one to confuse correlation and causation but given
the fact that popular media can influence the masses, could it be that crappy
Sci-Fi movies influenced people to the point that they fell for charlatans
like Al Gore and Michael Mann?
60
That episode can be seen at this link https://youtu.be/oJpFYMM5IA0 . Whoever uploaded it only capturee the central part of the image, however.
10
If I remember correctly, when they first did the calculations for the atomic bomb, they calculated that when it was exploded it would catch the earth’s atmosphere on fire. Upon redoing the calculations they realized that they were wrong about that but perhaps that was the origin for that plot device in Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea?
10
This video is about how the J-58 turboramjet engine that powered the SR-71 aircraft worked. It’s maximum fuel efficiency was at Mach 3.2. No Millennial could ever design something like this.
https://youtu.be/F3ao5SCedIk
52
Sorry David the red thumb trolls don’t appreciate fuel efficiency in non combat aircraft.
10
or they think there are competent and creative millenial engineers
10
Probably won’t like that the Concorde at flat chat had a thermal efficiency of 43% either then.
(From “Not Much of an Engineer” by Stanley Hooker)
00
SR71,..One of the few aircraft to consume significant quantities of very expensive liquid fuel even whilst standing in its hanger !
But yes, one incredible machine.
10
Graham Hancock postulates that there was one or more pre Ice Age advanced civilisations that built various megalithic structures and that these civilisations were destroyed by an extinction level event when an asteroid impacted the North American ice sheet 12,800 years ago. This event also lead to massive world wide flooding with a rapid rise in sea levels (overnight?) and to the flood event mentioned in most cultures. The flooding was caused by the release of massive lakes of water on top of the ice sheet.
Video “Fingerprints of the gods” https://youtu.be/1wJw1DcI2e4
The Younger Dryas Comet Impact. https://youtu.be/ky5t5iuU4pM
Younger Dryas Crater https://youtu.be/icqRjF04w_E
There are many other such videos on the subject.
40
Everybody say ooh what a shame .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-18/controversial-wind-farm-application-withdrawn/9560698
30
And everybody say aaaahhhh what a shame .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-18/batman-byelection-a-savage-loss-for-greens/9560912
20
16 Mar: SouthChinaMorningPost: Eric Ng: China’s solar panel industry faces a year of reckoning amid global protectionism, slowing demand at home
Chinese suppliers of solar panels could be facing an epic headwind in the year ahead, as rising production capacity is set to coincide with a downturn in domestic demand and growing trade protectionism that threatens access to the US and promising emerging markets such as India.
China exported 37.9 gigawatt (GW) of solar panels last year – equivalent to 37 per cent of global solar installation – up 78 per cent from 2016, according to China Photovoltaic Industry Association data.
The Chinese solar manufacturing industry – which last year accounted for 55 to 83 per cent of global supply of products ranging from raw material polysilicon to solar panels – will have to brace for hard times, analysts said…
“We believe a down-cycle and de-rating of China’s solar sector is likely to happen in 2018,” said Daiwa Capital Markets in a recent report. “China’s solar upstream market is set for significant oversupply from 2018.”
Daiwa said it expects a profits squeeze at solar panel makers as domestic installation demand this year falls to 45GW from 53GW last year, while solar panel production capacity rises 10 to 20 per cent across the supply chain…
Sun Xingping, president of debt-laden GCL New Energy, one of China’s largest solar farms operators, told reporters on Friday he expected the national installation volume to drop to between 40GW to 45GW this year and 35GW to 40GW next year, adding that the company plans to commission 1GW to 1.5 GW this year, down from 2.5GW last year.
He said the cut back will help lower its total liabilities-to-assets ratio to 80 per cent from 84 per cent last year. The company is in talks to set up a fund with several potential investors to take over some of its solar farms and help lighten GCL’s debt load…
Last year the amount of new power capacity at solar farms in China overtook annual new capacity at coal-fired power plans for the first time. China’s solar installations added 53GW worth of power generation capacity in 2017, an increase of 54 per cent from 2016, and exceeding coal-powered capacity growth of 38.6GW…
Analysts have expressed concern whether the growth rate can be sustained, citing financing constraints, power grid capacity shortages and arrears in government subsidies…
The expansion meant a third of the world’s installed solar power capacity is located in China, and solar has moved up another position to become the fourth largest source of the nation’s power generation by capacity, making up ***7.2 per cent of the total.
However, due to the much lower utilisation rates of solar farms relative to the mainstay coal-fired plants, solar farms contributed only ***1.9 per cent of the nation’s total power output…
The falling production costs of wind and solar energy have sparked speculation that ***one day the renewable energy sources will be able to compete with fossil fuel sources without government subsidies…
Insufficient power grid transmission capacity and a lack of cost-efficient energy storage infrastructure “limit the impact of individual projects,” by keeping utilisation of wind and solar farms at relatively low levels, it noted.
This can be mitigated by further technological innovation that reduces the infrastructure and running costs of wind and solar farms.
http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2137539/chinas-solar-panel-industry-faces-year-reckoning-amid-global
10
a little weather:
PICS: 18 Mar: DevonLive: It’s Snow Sunday across Devon – live updates and pictures
Snow has fallen across Devon overnight and the A39 is blocked in both directions
There is more snow to come today in Devon as the temperature remains bitterly cold with an icy wind, the Met Office says…
As Devon continues to experience one of the coldest March weather spells in years, tonight there will be more snow in places at first, with a risk of widespread ice and a minimum temperature -3 °C but feeling much colder in the bitter winds…
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/its-snow-sunday-across-devon-1353540
16 Mar: UK Express: UK snow forecast MAPPED: Latest charts show Beast from the East 2 to hit Sunday
THE UK is to be hit by freezing weather with the Met Office issuing a snow warning across the country as the Beast from the East part 2 returns. Here are the latest charts and weather forecast maps.
By Matthew Kirkham
Cold air will once again dominate the weather as it did a couple of weeks ago with the ‘Beast from the East’ and temperatures dipped into the minus double digits.
Snow covered most of the country, and reached up to 50cm in parts of Scotland, ***making it official the coldest March on record in the UK…
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/932061/Snow-UK-live-weather-forecast-maps-heavy-snow-met-office-warning
12 Mar: HenleyStandardUK: Too early for spuds
FEBRUARY was the coldest month this winter.
Although daytime temperatures reached double figures (only just) on four occasions, the mean temperature for the month was only 2.3C — two degrees below the average.
There were 18 frosts, not quite a record (there were 23 in February 1986), with a low of -9C on the last day of the month. The following day, March 1, was the coldest March day since 1911…
It will get warmer, of course, but don’t plant those early potatoes yet as we could get frosts until mid-May!
17 Mar: NECN NewEngland: 4th Consecutive Nor’easter Unlikely Due to Bitter Cold
By Chris Gloninger
It’s been an exhausting stretch over the last two weeks. The three nor’easters have reshaped our shoreline, dumped record amounts of snow and left hundreds of thousands of people in the dark for days. We need the break, and it appears we will get one.
The next coastal storm should be shoved south, thanks to a strong area of high pressure anchored over southern Canada…
The first day of spring is Tuesday and it looks rather chilly. Our exclusive 10-day forecast is only showing high temperatures in the mid and upper 40s by day 10…
If you’re keeping track of snowfall in Boston, Logan International Airport has received 57.2 inches so far this season! That’s more than a foot and a half above average. Even though this next nor’easter appears to be a miss, we still have plenty of time to add to that total.
15 Mar: Lex8 Kentucky: More Snow in March than the Entire Winter
Our monthly total, or should I say 3-day total, has also pushed us into the top 10 snowiest March on record in Lexington. We currently sit in eighth place, just half an inch behind March 1902 with 10.3 inches…
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Paul Homewood exposes the lies of the UK MET.
“Did The Met Office Forecast The Beast In January?”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/did-the-met-office-forecast-the-beast-in-january/
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No, of course not! They just lie about it afterwards.
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Maybe we ought to come down on bad science and science fraud more generally. The era of top-down Science fraud began with aether-denial.
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Part of the control mechanism of science and religion is where they force you to believe things that cannot be true. I am an admirer and well-wisher of post Aquinas Christianity. But we can see the principle here. To be a Christian properly considered, you have to believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection. Thats really an entry ticket. With modern science, since the major age of science fraud, we had to disbelieve one proposition that was proved to be true, and believe a series of propositions, under one brand name, that could not be true under any circumstance. From this all subsequent mainstream science fraud has flowed.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvOZd_tbZ-w&t=216s Look at Lenny here. Lenny started out as a plumber. And to a plumber he should have returned. Though I would be worried that he would block up all the toilets. Nothing he and Stephen Hawking did had anything to do with science, properly considered. What they were dealing with was bad theology. I like theology. I think good theology is socially beneficial. I need to read more theological excellence whenever I get the time. But this is bad theology pretending to be science. This is very damaging, and so stupid it must come down from the oligarchy.
[snip]
[Graeme – please try a bit harder to communicate coherently. Thanks. Jo]
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I have argued about the wrongheadedness of Einstein before on this forum. Many years ago. But my presence won’t cause any problems here this time. Because I will win the arguments right away and no-one will want to argue with me about it because they will lose and not have a leg to stand on. But it will show us why the promoters of science [snip] have become so bold. They didn’t go into this CO2 warming business green. They have been lying to us about many things for a very long time and I can now throw light on all of this.
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here is some good stuff on the Miami Uni walkway failure. Juan Brown is a pilot but is meticulous when presenting engineering failures. I consider him the retail authority on the Oroville Dam near failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxQJj8D_FE0
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I had a quick look at a photo of that earlier. It didn’t look right, a bit overdone for a walkway.
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