JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
What if this was overtaken by a debate in Australia?
https://climatechangedispatch.com/boulder-will-hold-rally-with-activists-to-announce-climate-lawsuit/
30
What is there to debate? We either keep using fossil fuel or we die. It’s that simple.
160
Yes…and the greenies dont want us to use fossil fuel, ergo…….
90
I keep saying that’s their intent, at least those of the extreme left. They just hate the West so much they are willing to destroy our Western way of life here and usher in their own regime and socio-economic change similar to communism/fascism. Of course the vast majority of Australian would reject that approach. Only ignorant or sick people vote for the Greens, a modern party that has the worst parts of extreme left and extreme right wing ideologies.
111
And after they have achieved there Great Revolution, they will be awfully disappointed to discover that the new powers find them just as disposable as we were.
40
nutters and rettuns.
00
Big Green is as huge a racket as the drug and arms trades. It’s no surprise that there are lawyers crawling all over and under it. The racket needs every one of them.
The Sierra Club took over 25 million dollars from Chesapeake Energy over a three year period for the war on coal. They stopped for the very subtle, complex and nuanced reason that they were caught. Of course, this did not stop Sierra from suing Chesapeake a few years later for causing earthquakes in Oklahoma. You know, sometimes Eurasia is Oceania’s buddy, sometimes it’s Eastasia.
We should not be surprised that the descendants of Big Bill Rockefeller are so good at disguising their commercial war on coal and nukes as philanthropy and tree-hugging. Bill was an actual snake oil salesman who declared “I cheat my boys every chance I get. I want to make ’em sharp.” Don’t worry, Bill. They were sharp.
Big Green is a racket with its armies of lawyers who are all the more corrupt for being able to walk with halos. Some of the racketeers and lawyers know full well that they are fighting for oil and gas interests even as they fight against them. Others may be believers. They haven’t worked out that simple equation: more non-hydro renewables = more oil/gas.
The upshot of all this is lots of pretend losers and pretend winners. But there is one real loser: the superlative resource which is Australian coal. We have been persuaded to sit by a fresh, abundant spring and to go thirsty – unless we buy imported tap water in a bottle, maybe from the descendants of Big Bill. Even for an age of trickery, that’s quite a trick.
260
Until it all collapses….on that day, no greenie will be venturing beyond their warm, ( previously ) centrally heated homes….
When you get out of the cities, you meet the real people. And the real people are quite unforgiving to people who stab them in the back. The saving grace will be most of the corrosive greenies who have pushed this mess are urban dwellers, and its the cities that will collapse on themselves and take many of the greenies with them.
I predict roadblocks on the outer limits of cities, with the authorities attempting trying to send people back into disease ridden cesspools of the cities. It will be important to know how to get out of cities by alternative routes, and carry bolt cutters.
131
That is the truth, unless coal fills the void.
Without coal, without gas (especially fracked gas) and with Australia’s precarious supply of oil products (oil, diesel, petrol) the equation leads to an catastrophic conclusion, not the reverse.
However, why would anyone expect the enviro-fascists to care? To paraphrase Figueres: “…we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution…”
100
“Australian Green Front Cracks: Northern Territory Lifts Fracking Ban”, article over at WUWT taken from the Guardian.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/17/australian-green-front-cracks-northern-territory-lifts-fracking-ban/
Maybe a glint of light on the horizon ……
80
Read Geoff Sherrington’s post on that WUWT story.
30
@ #1.2
That is what I had in mind when I called the debate in Australia. Less lawyers, and outside their jurisdiction.
The day must surely come when somebody successfully claims costs against a no win, no fee lawyer. Could we see that here? We should kick it along.
30
posted this on previous thread, but still hoping someone can access it fully and excerpt more.
Claimed wind farm generation figures fall well short of actuals
The Australian-6 hours ago
Unfavourable winds appear to have clipped the wings of the wind farms in the national electricity market, with their actual power production coming in about … Production figures released by the Clean Energy Regulator show AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria produced 894,077 MWh compared with a claimed capacity of 1.29 million MWh for the financial year. AGL’s Oaklands Hill Wind Farm, also in Victoria, produced 170,182 MWh compared with a claimed capacity of …
—
have found fuller version of opening line:
Unfavourable winds appear to have clipped the wings of the wind farms in the national electricity market, with their actual power production coming in about 11 per cent below their claimed production capacity in the year to July 2017.
60
pat:
This goes below the comment Unfavourable winds…
Only four wind farms connected to the NEM that services Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia exceeded their claimed capacity in 2016-17.
Production figures released by the Clean Energy Regulator show AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria produced 894,077 MWh compared with a claimed capacity of 1.29 million MWh for the financial year.
AGL’s Oaklands Hill Wind Farm, also in Victoria, produced 170,182 MWh compared with a claimed capacity of 205,422MWh, a shortfall of 35,240MWh, while its Wattle Point Wind Farm in South Australia produced 233,053MWh compared with a claimed capacity of 360,000MWh, a shortfall of 126,947 MWh in the period.
“Performance in FY2017 was primarily affected by planned outages at Macarthur, and unfavourable wind for all farms,’’ AGL said.
Rest is backgound e.g. what Adam Brandt said.
Best comment from Arvid:
“Unreliables, may contain traces of usefulness.”
The comment about Adam Brandt only being an adult because of his birth certificate seems to have been belatedly censored.
100
Graeme No.3 –
many thanks.
30
As I mentioned earlier, Glen Innes wind farm wasn’t budging a rotor over Xmas/NY. Same I would think for the other arrays just to the south. One could be considered a piece of art-but a forest of them defiling these mountains is outrageous.
100
I have had conversations with 2 really intelligent, practical guys recently above wind mills. Neither were aware that on average they will only produce about 25% of their name plate “capacity”.
It made me realise we have a very long way to go in educating the public.
130
It hasn’t changed for centuries so why would it now? Most people will remain ignorant of the truth at best.
60
So you were translating Cicero in second year high school too!
30
Come to think of it I did when I was studying Latin.
30
Its not at the top of most peoples minds. Power had become a taken for granted utility. We should they think about it anymore than the plumbing, the Internet or why planes can fly? other people make that stuff happen and they get on with their lives. That doesnt mean they are dumb.
Now we have a destablising force injected into something that previously worked. For now , if you live outside SA, everything still seems to work. The media sells AGW, and renewables and the need “to do something!” so it all seems OK. The wont even notice until the wheels come off and that should be expected really, unless the media changes tack which seems unlikely.
Exactly they same things happen in other walks of life. Many of the important IT systems that people use hang on a thread at times, with trails of stupid decisions made in the face of professional advice until you have a tax office, census, bank, supermarket outage due to some “glitch”
20
Okay then, let’s look at how average wind power really is, even at its best.
Sunday Morning just gone was about as good as it gets for wind power.
It was generating 3300MW. That’s from a total nameplate of 4920MW, so it was averaging at 67.1% Capacity Factor. That’s pretty huge, really.
That figure was taken at 4AM on the Sunday Morning, the time when power consumption in that AEMO coverage area of 5 States and the ACT (virtually all of Australia) is at its absolute minimum, 4AM on every day.
So here we have the time for lowest power consumption, and also on the one day of the week when power consumption is at its lowest, always on the Sunday morning.
The actual power consumption at that time across that whole area was 16270MW, almost 2000MW lower than the rolling average for the year, 18000MW+.
So wind power was supplying 20.3% of what was required ….. at that ONE POINT IN TIME, and that’s the best I have seen in the last 10 Months or so I have been collecting and detailing this data.
So, even at wind power’s absolute best, at the time, and on the day of lowest overall power consumption, it can still only manage 20% of what is actually required ….. ABSOLUTELY.
I couldn’t care less what the green urgers say about how ‘good’ wind power is.
You cannot run a Country on 20% of the power that is needed, even if it could generate like this all the time.
You cannot introduce what would only amount to minute power consumption efficiencies which will supposedly lower power consumption when you have a figure that large at the lowest point.
Tony.
280
I se SA wind producing a massive 14mw at the time of me writing this comment.
80
Tony, Why has NSW been importing +/- a QW of power for the last couple of weeks?
20
NSW has a lot of Units off line, I would say for routine maintenance in the lead up to Winter, when they need all they can get.
As you may know, most of the Units in NSW are large, so we have one Unit at Bayswater (660MW) two Units at Eraring (2 X 720) and one Unit at Vales Point (660MW) and yesterday, Unit One at Liddell went back down too, and that may be a failure, not just maintenance.
So, that’s 2760MW off line and with Liddell, 3220MW down, so NSW needs all the power it can get.
Those Units have been down for more than a week now.
Tony.
40
No way of telling how much of this under delivery actually happened when the power was needed. Was it useful or just a problem that triggered a lot of pointless shuffling?
41
What Central Bankers Are Pushing http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/04/kgb-grabbed-russia-via-maskirovka-what.html
21
I’ve been waiting for the unthreaded to tell about our experience on Sunday. My husband, who is an Anglican priest, decided it was high time to talk about what is happening about the way people are being misled about supposed manmade global warming/ climate change. He had thought long and hard about how to approach it as the local vicar/rector and decided the time would be in the context of the Harvest Festival Eucharist. His sermon was listened to with quiet attention but there was one person who exhibited the classic signs of cult behaviour. She sat forward with her hands over her ears and then stood up, still with her hands over her ears. We were surprised that she didn’t walk out. However, my husband continued without batting an eyelid. He has since included it the parish newsletter, with details of links to this site, WUWT and Notalotofpeopleknowthat and books by Tim Ball, etc.
So now he has put his thoughts out in the public domain locally.
421
It’s not that there aren’t people around who know what we think about it but it is a slow business discovering who is of like mind. There are quite a few around here, in fact, who share our opinion but there are also quite a few decent people who are totally misled as they haven’t had time to investigate the matter and who rely on the ABC and The Age for (dis)information. There are, unfortunately, quite a few hippy dippy greenies around too. The lady I referred to above just screamed my husband down very rudely last year when he dared to make a slight allusion to agw/cc and has been pretty difficult on other occasions too but he decided he was not going to be bullied by her.
291
Man Made Global Warming is a pseudo science socialist religion, not based on facts or science. Now enshrined in government taxes and laws, it has become more dangerous to society than most other cults. Australian Climate laws are now doing real damage now to the poor in Australia and benefiting only the rich middle classes. People are being dramatically impoverished by the greed of others.
There is no point ministering to the sick, the needy, the old when condoning this theft of their poor income to pay for pagan windmills. The idea of saving the world by punishing our own communities does not make sense. It is not generosity of spirit.
However the overreach of the RET, the obvious crippling power prices, the legally hidden dilution of petrol with ethanol, the forests of windmills and the total lack of sea rise might just start to make people think that something is very wrong.
As with all cults, follow the money and you will find the real promoters of the climate religion.
Then you get nutters. My favorite is Milk is prostitution.
193
Good On you and your husband Annie,
Normally I would like to keep the Climate Debate outside the religious domain. However the alarmists have no such compunction. Our catholic priest is a Warming Alarmist and he works Climate Change into his sermons fairly regularly. I find I can listen without performing histrionics displayed in your church, although I might occasionally let out a barely audible groan.
Pope Francis has in my opinion made a huge mistake by committing himself and the Catholic Church to the Climate Science Consensus. He can hardly say that he did not know about Pope Pius VII and Galileo, but he has gone down exactly the same path.
240
Pope Francis is outspoken against material poverty but his encyclical on CC™ is antipathetic to the only known empirically proven solution viz. cheap reliable electricity.
He speaks of wealth redistribution, i.e. socialism, which has never been applied voluntarily, hence Edenhofer, Figueres and their so-called Paris Accord.
The Catholic Church would be better leading by example.
I’m old enough to remember when sermons were delivered railing against state socialism aka atheistic communism.
The Catholic Church in those days was so agitated about it that its clergy assisted many of the most notorious war criminals escape justice after WW2, just because they were anti-communists.
50
You need to remember that his background is Argentina.
40
This is the unthreaded. So.
Way way back in 1971, Don Barwick, one of the great men of Australian agriculture, a farmer who was on The Australian Wheat Board, was explaining to us that we could get a viable price for grain sorghum, and what we had to do to get it. He explained the principles of marketing grain, and one of the things you had to do was study your competition.
Firstly, we are in the southern hemisphere, and the big markets are in the north. This gave advantages by producing in their “off” season. Then who are our competitors in the south? South Africa, who had the capacity to produce but were fully occupied marketing in their region, and South America, a very different story. He then told this yarn.
They say that when God made the world he made South America last. The angels, beavering away all week, had by this time got pretty good at it. When they looked back on the job they said to God, “Lord, Lord, we haven’t been fair to the rest of the world in giving South America all this magnificent country, endless plains with forty feet of soil, and mighty rivers running through them”.
“Don’t you worry about that”, said the Lord. “Just wait till you see the people I give it”.
Sadly that “joke” could now be applied to Australia.
20
You have an admirable husband, Annie, thoughtful and a brave man of principle. More power to him.
He (and you) may find this not only interesting but useful, if you haven’t already.
90
I’ll look at that later today. Thanks Sophocles.
31
Your husband is up there with Israel Falou.
There are not too many brave Christians these days.
The world needs them. The truth has always been hard to take and will continue to be.
For 2000+ years brave Christians have been ridiculed and insulted, but have won through, simply by continuing to be Christians.
153
I read today on the front page of “The “Australian” that Taylors Wines has thrown its support behind Israel Folau saying: “Rugby is inclusive for everyone” and “We will continue to support the sport of rugby and the Wallabies”.
In appreciation I have just come back from my local wine store with a carton of Taylors Jaraman Shiraz 2015. A top drop.
https://www.taylorswines.com.au/jaraman#
71
Taking one for the team Sam? 🙂
51
We all do our bit.
However, after the ARU’s appalling treatment of the Western Force, I’m doing it for Taylors.
30
Christians who believe in man made climate change have no faith in the work of their creator.
132
Its just a multi-faith thing isnt it?
43
They do overestimate the power of man.
10
They seem to want to worship the creation rather than it’s creator.
00
Stand by for some exciting news in your letter box Annie! I just got a flyer/update on Cathy McGowans activities (local independent MP for the Indi electorate for others). Apparently we are going to have a totally renewable Indi some time in the not too distant future! Who knew?
41
Oh my! There’s some excitement. Hmmm.
We no longer go into the local shop, luckily we were allocated a PO box in the nearest town, so will we get the flyer? My OH was co-opted onto the regress group committee and accepted in the hopes of keeping an eye on their out-of-control ideas and activities. Ha! He often doesn’t get told of meetings and has never yet been sent the minutes. There they are, trying to force a community house onto us, made in our old, lovely little school, and trying to set up a micro-grid! Yeah, right, with all the fog we get until lunchtime and sometimes beyond in the winter, yet they advertise it as ‘independence’ from the grid. Pull the other one.
61
Checked PO box…no flyer from Cathy (actually, we like Cathy). I am very disappointed not to find out how we’ll be ‘renewable’. Well, we are, earthworms, dust, ash….whatever!
00
Well, no flyer anywhere in town?! Not at the PO, not at the Shire office, not at at the newsagency. So where did yours actually originate I wonder? WUWT one might ask?
00
Just a general distribution from Captain Chuckles at the PO/shop (or rather the nice lady that is there Thursdays)
10
Perhaps he cribbed it from the Standard of 4th April? I just rescued it from the old paper lining the basket where I kept some pears I’d picked.
There is a very nice lady there on Wed morning and Thurs morning and the other nice one is back on Wed afternoon after a break. I have popped in to say hello to them when I know Chuckles isn’t there. I do sometimes see one of the ladies in the supermarket in town. Our daughter used to work there; you probably know her! There used to be another nice lady working with her.
Anyway, back to the Shire ‘Pie-in-the-sky’ or ‘Cloud-Cuckoo-Land’…there is a thrilling meeting in town at the RSL Hall, 28th April, 2 until 4.30pm. Will you be able to bear to go to it?!
00
From else where\when shadowcole says: Apr17,18:6:25
Proper GALLOWS need be constructed over active VOLCANO! No need worry of Obumer’s cheep Chinese rope!! OTOH La Guillotine? How entertaining!
All the best!-will-
41
While we temporally accept that GOD ist Omnipotent; (why not?) What of dis Omnipresence? Is that not but US-NSA? Do not attribute to demonstrated elected ignorance; that be attributed to GOD; who acually learns at each gigglarity mistake, (look wad you yust stepped in). Why else did Omnipotent GOD create fine single malt Scotch?
All the best!-will-
31
time cube has the answer
42
Interesting articles from E.M. Smith
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/in-praise-of-michael-smith/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/ill-believe-the-fbi-is-clean-when-hillary-is-indicted-for-this/
Discussion around a former PM (the one who promised not to introduce a Carbon Tax).
60
17 Apr Updated 18 Apr: Bundaberg News Mail: UPDATE: Main high-voltage line damaged in power outage
by Sarah Steger and Ashley Clark
UPDATE 7.10AM: THE CAUSE of a major power outage, which left thousands of homes in the dark last night, is still unknown.
Ergon Energy spokesman Rod Rehbein said the total number of customers affected was about 25,000, supplied from the South Bundaberg, Bundaberg Central and Bargara substations.
There were reports over 30,000 customers had been affected by the outage, but Mr Rehbein said investigations concluded that not to be the case.
“The extra 8000 or so in Outage Finder last night was a duplicate outage and these customers were already included as part of the South Bundaberg/Bargara outage,” he said.
Ergon Energy crews spent hours trying to resolve the issue, which started at approximately 6.45pm
“The damage occurred to pole top equipment on the main high-voltage (66kV) line in Burrum St, near the rail underpass,” Mr Rehbein said.
“The cause of the damage is not known at this stage.”
The Bundaberg CBD was eerily dark last night, with many businesses losing power.
Traffic lights were down across the region and residential streets were pitch black.
A video posted to the Bundaberg’s 93.9 Hitz FM Facebook page showed the view from The Hummock Lookout and a large blue flash of light occurring before most of the town was plunged into darkness.
VIDEO: 10secs
10.10pm | POWER has been restored to those residents who were victims of a pass blackout on Tuesday night.
The power was out for more than three hours as Ergon Energy worked to repair the faults at four of its five sub-stations in the area…
7.40pm | ERGON Energy sub-stations at Bargara, Bundaberg Central, Bundaberg East and Bundaberg South are out, with Bundaberg West the only facility still operational…
https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/breaking-power-outages-throughout-bundy/3389827/
20
772 injuries. Even gold miners in godforsaken African nations would blush with those safety figures.
20
17 Apr: CBC “The National”: Tesla suspends Model 3 production as Elon Musk seeks ‘path out of hell’
Jonathon Gatehouse
Tesla Motors has halted production of its troubled Model 3 electric car as the company looks for a way to use fewer machines — and more humans — in their assembly.
The temporary shutdown of the assembly line at the company’s massive plant in Fremont, Calif., comes just a few days after founder and CEO Elon Musk suggested that his attempts to create the world’s most technologically advanced car plant had been ill thought out…
TWEET: 14 Apr: Elon Musk: Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.
More than 500,000 people have put down $1,000 deposits on the car.
But the company has repeatedly missed its current production target of 2,500 vehicles a week, and shows little sign of being able to ramp up to its next goal of 5,000 a week by the beginning of July.
In an attempt to turn things around, Musk personally took control of the factory floor in early April and has been more or less living there, sleeping on a couch in an adjacent conference room.
The plant, which employs about 10,000 people and makes a variety of Tesla cars, is one of the most advanced in the world. And the line for the Model 3 is even more cutting edge, making use of robots in almost every aspect of assembly.
But that has created more problems (LINK) than it has solved…
In an interview and factory tour with CBS News last week (LINK), Musk admitted that the situation at the plant was “worse than I thought.”
“We put too much new tech in the Model 3 all at once,” he said, citing a “crazy, complex” network of conveyor belts in the factory.
But he expressed confidence that the issues will soon be resolved.
“At this point I feel like I have a clear understanding of the path out of hell.”
Musk’s attempts to remake the factory on the fly are not sitting well with his employees, however.
According to one report, workers have been told to take vacation during this four- to five-day shutdown, or treat it as unpaid leave.
And recently, there have been complaints that safety is being sacrificed in the drive for efficiencies. Last year, Tesla recorded 722 injuries at the plant, with workers cut by machinery, run over by forklifts, electrocuted and burned in various incidents.
A report by the Center for Investigative Journalism found that the plant’s rate of serious injuries was 30 per cent worse than the industry average in past years, and raised questions about whether a recent improvement was in fact due to less diligent tracking.
The Center said that workers blame Musk for creating an unsafe culture, suggesting that safety features like beeping forklifts, yellow caution tape and warning signs had been removed because the CEO doesn’t like them.
Tesla has called the claims “completely false,” and says they are the product of an ongoing drive to unionize the plant.
If Musk tires of nosy media and worker complaints, he does have another option.
Today the Chinese government announced that it is lifting foreign ownership restrictions on automobile plants.
The change is widely perceived as being a direct result of lobbying by Musk, and there is an expectation that Tesla will open a new Chinese plant by the end of this year.
Tonight on The National:It’s been a rough ride for Tesla recently, with issues ranging from production problems to a shareholder lawsuit. The company is burning through cash and piling up debt, but Tesla’s true believers remain undaunted. CBC’s Aaron Saltzman looks at whether that faith is misguided.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/the-national-today-newsletter-hague-pot-yemen-un-tesla-1.4621265
30
Nothing wrong with Elon that a further $6 billion from Oh Bummer couldn’t fix.
40
“In an attempt to turn things around, Musk personally took control of the factory floor in early April and has been more or less living there, sleeping on a couch in an adjacent conference room.”
One can only imagine how much the productivity of engineers and technologists was enhanced by having a salesman looking over their shoulder and second guessing them.
61
Just as an aside on engineers/salesmen – when I was an aeronautical mass properties engineer, working on a new executive jet, I was forever having arguments with Sales department, who were continually trying to sell a configuration that wouldn’t balance (ie, take-off or landing problems). I finally wrote one of my early computer programs to do the calculations, and told the salesman “The COMPUTER says you can’t do that!”. In those days (1970’s), it worked!
30
“MSM: Eleven Minute Friendly Interview with Climate Skeptic Ian Plimer”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/16/msm-eleven-minute-friendly-interview-with-climate-skeptic-ian-plimer/
51
Ian discloses his extremely damaged logic where he says nuclear power has no emissions.
Nuclear power is one of the worst when it comes to emissions of highly toxic chemicals and the mobilisation of heavy metals when the nuclear fuel is extracted from the ore and during late chemical processing.
All sources of energy cause ’emissions’ of one chemical or another. It is a matter of assessing all emissions of all energy sources and going from there.
54
Nobody talks about (or wants to talk about) emissions/pollutions for renewables and EVs at the source. His talk just showed the same end point bias.
41
The latest in naming
““Climate restoration” is the “New Coke” of climate alarmism”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/17/climate-restoration-is-the-new-coke-of-climate-alarmism/
20
From comments
“Irritable climate syndrome…”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/17/climate-restoration-is-the-new-coke-of-climate-alarmism/#comment-2792366
10
can’t recall seeing this posted before:
21 Mar: SMH: Tesla claims it’s being shortchanged for providing power too quickly
By Cole Latimer
Tesla claims it has not been paid for more than a third of the electricity its batteries have generated in South Australia because they are providing it too fast to be counted.
The Tesla batteries have been providing back-up energy when generators fail or fall short. This is known as Frequency Controlled Ancillary Services. The energy market operator breaks down response time into six seconds, one minute and five minutes for power to be provided into the grid.
But batteries can take less than 200 milliseconds to provide energy back into the grid, so any power sent between 200 milliseconds and six seconds is too fast to register.
“Tesla estimates that the Hornsdale Power Reserve battery has delivered 30 to 40 per cent of its services to frequency markets without being paid due to existing AEMO technical specifications being written based on fossil fuel generation assets,” Tesla said.
“Current standards compensate batteries for their capacity based on fossil generator response rates, despite the ability to provide a faster ramp time.
“This makes it difficult for the full value of fast-responding technologies to be recognised in the current contingency FCAS markets.”…
It is often during times when FCAS is used that there are huge spikes in electricity prices, such as when Victoria hit $10,152 a megawatt hour and South Australia reached $13,400 a megawatt hour. During these periods the batteries help drive down prices by providing cheap, immediate energy…
Tesla was unable to provide a dollar figure for this loss at the time of publishing.
AEMO was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing…READ ON
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/tesla-claims-it-s-being-shortchanged-for-providing-power-too-quickly-20180321-p4z5hw.html
50
pat:
This has been posted before. The short answer is that the Hornsdale battery isn’t signed up for frequency stabilisation.
The longer answer is that Musk signed up for this, so why is he entitled to change the contract? In any case his comments illustrate how useless the battery is. If it can’t supply even 6 seconds of power then why did it get built? (Apart from a gullible Premier trying to win the election).
What it is being used for is time-shifting the wind farm output from when there is a glut (low prices) to when the wind isn’t supplying much (so high prices). In terms of supplying the grid it is useless, but it makes money, unlike other Musk ideas.
80
Graeme No.3 –
must have missed it. thanks for the additional info.
20
I didnt think Tesla owned or operated the Hornsdale battery facility.
They were just the equipment supplier and tech support,
So why would they have any comment on the financial operation or returns ??
I call bull sh1t on the story !
31
Have you seen the contract the SA Labor enviro-fascists signed with the carpetbagger?
30
it seems odd to me. has the contract been made public?
50
Precisely.
30
We now know WHY it was never made public, it was bought on the never never.
A dollar down and a dollar a week. LOL
Besides, frequency control doesn’t need millisecond response times, at least it didn’t. I’ve been talking to the control room operator with freq control and he would adjust the taps [a hydro plant] in a casual manner, and this guy took his job seriously. There just wasn’t that degree of urgency.
20
Tesla Battery = Hornsdale Power Reserve.
Owned and operated by NEOEN
Hornsdale powerreserve .com
10
Think you are right Chad. IIRC, another company is involved in managing the battery usage, which is split into two systems. I think one system is tied to the Hornsdale wind farm while the other systems provides the fast backup.
10
One could argue that Paypal and SpaceX werent such bad ideas , not travelling to well with anything vehicular. Will be interesting to see what happens, its rare to see such a nest of financial, regulatory, legal issues all in one place. Definite case study material.
20
So… what we are saying is the Musk didn’t read the fine print?
Might be out on a limb here, but maybe if Wunderkind had spent more time surrounding himself with switched on employees and less playing with flamethrowers or twitting April Fools jokes he might have picked up on this earlier.
Musk needs to work out if he wants to be a successful kid who can afford a sports car or a proper force in business. Simply telling the world that you have a Grand Vision and that you have a wacky sense of humour only cuts it for so long.
20
Interesting, with having to match frequencies of 50hz, 20ms per cycle to an accuracy of a few %, so better than 1ms, the speed of modern electronics cannot keep up with the output of the batteries. My earth leakage protection system will shut in 20ms from a tiny imbalance but a $100M battery does not know when it is being used? Pull the other leg.
The I thought SA government bought the thing outright, at least $60M. It does not generate electricity, so why should people pay to get their own power back? It is a battery.
30
I thought also it was going to be charged by the windmills, fundamentally for power they could not otherwise sell at the moment it was generated. This was wasted power, useless power. Still it earned LGCs even if no one bought it. That’s the beauty of the RET. Generate power anywhere and you get paid double the coal power, in cash. If you sell the power, that’s extra. Great scheme.
Now the good people of South Australia have to pay for the wasted power and are not getting paid for the power when it goes missing.
So cash from South Australians goes to pay windmill owners for power they could not otherwise sell and where the power goes, nobody knows. Is it used, possibly not but now windmill owners get paid for it. Looks like another public ripoff, courtesy of a big battery.
I do not know how long people can be so blatantly robbed and say nothing. Everyone trusts the government. I wouldn’t. Wind is the greatest public ripoff in Australia’s history. Kill the RET and watch the windmill money mills stop turning.
40
It’s grand to watch a satellite fly by,
Especially when it stays up in the sky.
Australians pay a high electric cost,
When coal-fed stations to the grid are lost.
Gas-powered grids can charge a modest rate,
Which, when combined with wind will much inflate.
On climate matters, warmists shun the sun,
And look for faults on Earth, where there are none.
100
I have a novel suggestion to solve the debate. Democracy!
Let those who want renewables pay for them, while those who want coal and gas fired pay for it.
Get rid of the subsidies, targets etc. and let consumers choose what they want to be charged for. No need for new meters, just set rates for renewables and for reliables.
The Greenies will scream blue(?) murder as the inevitable result will be a divergence as more people choose the cheaper reliables option, leaving less people to pay for renewables. Let them have a free “virtue signalling” sign outside their homes saying “I chose Green Energy”.
60
Good idea: Let the Market Truly Decide!
30
They tried that in Canberra some years back. The Green stuff was about 3 cents/kWh more expensive than the regular stuff. Even in Canberra nobody bought it. The Greenies are hypocrites who only like spending your money – not theirs.
60
What is more, when wind and solar are failing to produce anything, let them go without electricity and see what reality is.
11
A nephew lately installed solar on his shop, as the figures looked good with the shop only open in daylight hours.
He said it is remarkable how much the electricity production drops when a cloud goes over the sun.
20
The “World’s Coolest Marathon” you’ve probably never heard of, a 42 km circular run/jog/walk/crawl somewhere near the geographic North Pole held every April –
http://www.npmarathon.com/
Update via their fb farce-spook page yesterday: the race has been completed and competitors are being flown back to Svalbard, along with crew, tents, plastic, trash, tractors, diesel, and alpine marksmen employed to ‘secure’ the area from marauding polar bears. Gives new meaning to the term ‘endangered’ wildlife, huh? But hey, the organisation buys carbon credits to plant trees in South America, so is classified as CarbonNeutral®. Here’s a vid of last year’s race –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq2AS0ktQoI
Not a sandy beach nor a palm tree in sight! No cruise ships nor oil tankers neither; however, lots of ‘adventurers’ dressed in fur-lined coats & gloves & beanies & goggles as the temperature “varied from -30C to -41C windchill during the course of the race.” Oh my codfish – it’s all our fault!!!
Meanwhile, down in the South Island, it’s freezing and snowing and the surf is huge and it’s only April… hoot!
30
Hi Greg
A group of us cycled the Central Otago rail trail (Clyde to Dunedin) last week.
Glorious dry weather, bright sunshine , but freezing cold.
We needed tripple layers of everything, hats, gloves ,pants, socks, erc erc.
Queenstown was 25 deg to start, but that dropped the instant we got on bikes in Arrowtown.
But Incredible countryside and scenery, food, wine, and friendly folk made up for the effort
50
Chad, it sure is an enchanting, beautiful, rugged, yet sometimes brutal, region. I lived close to Arrowtown during the 90s/00s – far enough away from the circus of Queenstown yet close enough to work/play etc., yet when the sun went down behind the hill… brrr! As a back-country 4WD tour guide/driver in the area, I was constantly having pleasurable déjà vu rushes, then I found out my great-grandfather, Bob the Irishman, had run his own horse-&-cart transport business in the area in the 1870/80s. Finally, I could call myself a ‘local’ without having to tell porkies to my guests! And like Bob, I too eventually moved north – still return to snowboard in the winter/spring but I prefer boardshorts and bare feet these days.
Below is a 6-min timelapse vid of the valley and hills you may enjoy, by photographer Trey Ratcliff: 30 Days and 30 Nights in Queenstown. On yer bike! ; ))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPdx33zAbnI
21
That’s a great video…I really enjoyed it. It brought back good memories of our visit there.
11
We stay in Arrowtown when we go to Queenstown, due to that circus thing you speak of. Great fun, but also nice to get away from. South Island anywhere pretty much is a very nice place to be 🙂
21
the little red thumber must be anti NZ, French secret service maybe? cant think of reason to be anti NZ really (well outside a sports ground anyway)
20
Bizarre, isn’t it?
01
one of the other blogs I am on allows you to float the cursor over the up/down vote icons and a list of voters pops up.
11
It would be interesting to know but probably as well not to.
10
Some of us in NZ have been watching South Australia with amazement over recent years with what they were doing on the energy front.
Now it is the Aussie’s turn to watch how NZ gets hammered by the Green wrecking ball machine.
First up the Government (probably instructed indirectly by Greenpeace via our Green Party) have stopped issuing offshore exploration permits for O&G. Like Australia , NZ has huge gas reserves for potential exploitation. Currently it is estimated we have 10-11 years left from productive wells ( the big ones started in the 1970s are coming to the end of their productive lives). Many big industries, like dairy processing, use a lot of gas.
Next on the block is to have a go at farming. They want to put farming into our stupid ETS system. I think I am right in saying no other country treats farming like this with regard ETS schemes.
After that they want to introduce a UK style Climate Act.
70
Japan is building high efficiency coal power stations and (very quietly) & China announced it would build 700 over the next 20 years.
700. Seven. Hundred.
“China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.”
Overall, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, said Urgewald, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal.
The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 per cent.
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-firms-to-build-700-coal-plants
The fleet of new coal plants would make it virtually impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris climate accord.
> “Jacinda Ardern commits New Zealand to zero carbon by 2050”
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/10/20/jacinda-ardern-commits-new-zealand-zero-carbon-2050/
60
Hey Ross,
if I understand correctly the current NZ government is a minority.
Is this considered completely stable? Is there a realistic chance the minor party involved in this marriage might start playing kingmaker with individual policies?
On the other hand, being like South Australia isn’t THAT bad. I mean our beer is still rather drinkable and… ummm… we have one sports stadium… and… a really really expensive hospital…
20
MudCrab
SA is a wonderful place but Weatherall did not help it much.
Yes our current Government is a coalition of 3 parties –Labour (the major party) plus the Greens and NZ First ( which is what I’d call an opportunist group –will pick on “flavour of the month” type policies). Is it stable? Not really as NZ First doesn’t like the Greens at all and yes the two minor partners weld a disproportionate amount power, individually. The policies I have mentioned are all Green party policies and they will get probably get them enacted.
10
South West Airlines B737 suffers uncontained engine failure in the US. Fuselage ruptured and it seems one passenger is dead. Details still sketchy of course.
10
The engine failure was due to global warming and/or fossil fuels.
31
True! It could not have happened without JetA1 fuel.
31
Don’t forget Donald Trump
41
and Tony Abbott.
31
Russians
32
Definitely. Without fossil fuels it would still have been on the ground.
40
Here’s a news report:
http://6abc.com/live-southwest-plane-makes-emergency-landing-at-phl/3356147/
10
Looks like it lost a fan blasé:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbBjwpkWAAAGTux.jpg
10
Poor woman who died. I hope she was unconscious…it must have been a terrifying experience for her if not.
Well done the pilot and crew.
21
She probably was. A likely scenario is that a heavy piece of metal penetrated the skin of the aircraft before busting the inner window panel and then hitting her head. The outer window pane was not broken so being partially sucked out is less likely.
A young successful lady, how sad.
BTW The pilot was the first female F18 pilot in the Navy.
30
The battle with the Leftys seems to be reaching a crescendo.
The lefty Orks are trying to tear down President Trump. Trump is responding with bolts of Tweets which the Orks do not understand but they serve to rally the good troops.
Anti Brexiters are mobilising to turn back Brexit.
Delingpole is responding with up to 2 articles per day, wielding the mighty Pen of Truth.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Jordan Petersen and Robert Tombs have all had sellout tours in Australia over the past few months.
IPA, WUWT, JoNova, Australian Taxpayers Association, Monash Group etc all committed to the battle.
Can we prevail?
60
I’ve seen and heard it many times lately that socialism is dying. Yet for some reason here in Australia it’s thriving. Perhaps we are simply several years behind the rest of the world as usual. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the next federal election. If voters are truly waking up to the evils of the ideologies of the left we should see minor parties like ON and ACP increase dramatically. If not then it means voters are still asleep and need more punishment. What better way than to have ALP+Greens rule for at least one term?
40
My observation is that self interest is winning. Anyone with a cause can get funding if they are in the right circle. Canberra breeds self interest.
The rarefied air of Canberra is a hotbed of Group Think and those in the club can demand whatever resources they need to promote their interests. The lack of attachment to production of things needed to live and prosper are so remote for so many of them that they simply have no idea.
50
Yes that would explain most things that’s happening to us but I would add self-indulgence. It describes the two-party political game in Canberra. While Australia declines the politicians keep playing their games and the voters keep voting them back for more. I just wish enough voters wake up and break the nexus. Sadly I doubt that will happen until things become much worse.
20
I see no evidence of that in fact the opposite. We are allowing a qtr mill immigrants a year, how many will be free market believers? If they were they would not be coming here, they would be doing it at home where there is no regulation and a low IQ population that is not going to present much competition.
10
reminder:
16 Apr: Xinhua: Australia to join global initiative tracking progress on health, climate change
“A group of Australian academics and researchers will collect data from different sources including policy analysis, renewable energy programs, health impacts and disease data,” senior lecturer at the ***University of Sydney’s School of Public Health Zhang Ying told Xinhua…
Hoping to raise awareness of health issues related to climate change among Australian medical professionals, the inaugural Australian report is planned for release in late 2018 and will be updated annually until at least the year 2030.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/16/c_137114634.htm
***Prof Berry, now at University of Sydney:
16 Apr: CarbonBrief: Guest post by Prof Helen Berry: The impact of climate change on mental health is impossible to ignore
(Prof Helen Berry is the inaugural professor of climate change and mental health at the ***University of Sydney)
It is now widely accepted that climate change is one of the world’s leading health risks. From driving up the number of people exposed to heatwaves to increasing the risk of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever, climate change is already causing significant harm.
Similarly, the body of evidence that climate change is increasing the frequency and ferocity of weather-related extremes is increasing year-on-year…
That same neglect is reflected in the research around mental health and climate change. For example, as I show in a paper published in Nature Climate Change last week, a search on the online research database Scopus for studies concerning climate change and mental health yields just 208 publications between 2007 and 2018. And of these, only 29 critically evaluate mental health…
So, what does the available research tell us about the impacts of climate change on mental health?
Overall, the consensus in the scientific literature is that climate change will increase the number of people exposed to extreme events and, therefore, to subsequent psychological problems, such as worry, anxiety, depression, distress, loss, grief, trauma and even suicide.
Heatwaves, for example, are of particular concern. Research across the Australian population shows their impact on mental health is similar to that of unemployment…
The scientific literature shows that severe mental health effects of disasters disproportionately hit vulnerable people – ***particularly women, young people, migrants, people living with a disability, and ethnic minorities…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-impact-climate-change-on-mental-health-impossible-to-ignore
***gosh, who isn’t hit? no prize for guessing.
Jo took on Prof Berry when she wa at Uni of Canberra:
2014: Joannenova: Climate Change could make humans extinct says “expert”
Climate Change could make humans extinct, warns the Sydney Morning Herald…
(excerpt) Helen Berry, associate dean in the faculty of health at the University of Canberra, said while the Earth has been warmer and colder at different points in the planet’s history, the rate of change has never been as fast as it is today.”…ETC
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/04/climate-change-could-make-humans-extinct-says-expert/
University of Sydney: Professor Helen Berry, Professor of Climate Change and Mental Health
School of Public Health
Helen is the inaugural Professor of Climate Change and Mental Health at the University of Sydney. She is a widely-cited psychiatric epidemiologist and expert in how climate change, disasters and social and physical place influence mental health and wellbeing. She advises on national and international research programs and is currently working with the Lancet Countdown to include indicators of mental health from 2018. She is also advising on a major new mental health disaster study of the impact of Cyclone Debbie which made landfall over New South Wales, Australia, in March/April 2017…
ANU Climate Change Institute: Adjunct Professor Helen Berry, ANU Climate Change Institute
ANU College of Science
Professor, University of Canberra
She has won over $6M in research funding, is widely published and has led influential policy-applied research initiatives, for example, into marginalisation in Australia…
Supported by funding from the NHMRC, ARC and other awards, these studies have involved developing, merging and analysing panel and climate data to better understand the causal systemic interrelationships underlying who we are in relation to where and how we live…
In 2008, Professor Berry contributed an influential commissioned report to the Australian Garnaut Review of Climate Change, in which she led a multi-institution review of the likely impacts of climate change on mental health, and is author of a seminal paper on climate change and mental health. In 2009, Helen was recognised with 2nd place in the prestigious Australian national Eureka Prize for ‘outstanding research into the health impacts of climate change’.
In 2013, she was made a Distinguished Alumna of the University of Canberra and in 2014 was a named contributing author in the health chapter of the International Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Report. She was appointed a member of the steering group for the Academy of Science 2014 Think Tank on ‘Climate Change Challenges to Health: Risks and Opportunities’. Also in 2014, she won a Visiting Scholarship to Fudan University, Shanghai, School of Population Health, under their ‘High-End Foreign Experts Recruitment Program’…
20
I gave up sandwiches to save the world…
What is the environmental impact of your lunch-time sandwich?
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/what-is-the-environmental-impact-of-your-lunch-time-sandwich/
20
You replaced them with kale I trust. 🙂
21
Steak and eggs are the new threat according to Jo’s scientist gathering to protest thread.
So, sandwich may be OK, just not a staek and egg one. So many threats, tipping points and rules , its hard to keep up!
41
This Medieval Italian Man Replaced His Amputated Hand With a Weapon
“However, given the advanced healing of the bone, it is clear the man lived for a long time after his hand had been amputated.
“This Longobard male shows a remarkable survival after a forelimb amputation during pre-antibiotic era.
Not only did he adjust very well to his condition, he did so with the use of a culturally-derived device, along with considerable community support,” the team wrote in their paper.
“The survival of this Longobard male testifies to community care, family compassion and a high value given to human life.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/medieval-lombard-man-amputated-arm-knife-prosthesis
40
Could be messy if he had too much wine and had an urge to scratch his nose!
30
Isn’t that how Cap’n Hook got his glass eye!
30
Not a Green community then.
20
How a scientific journal can call this Medieval is a joke since it was a Lombard warrior who died in the 6th century.Lombards took over North Italy after the Goths.
20
A man had his left leg and his left arm amputated.
He’s all right now.
100
Groan!
41
But he is a bit unbalanced.
60
Someone who really studies this stuff should get the CO2 level data this year and overlay the ocean temp falling at the moment. I think this year is having a lower level of CO2 than last year. wouldn’t it be horrible for the climate crazies if atmospheric CO2 dropped but our output still went up. We haven’t got to 411PPM yet and last year around this time it was at 412 PPM.
52
The Klimatariat is aware of the problem and when world temperatures fall they will say we avoided a tipping point.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-carbon-emissions-level-off-even-as-economy-grows/
20
That’s the way it’s happening in Oz generally and SA in particular.
10
Sorry. Stuffed that up.
30
Climate Restoration is now the catch phrase, along with irritable climate syndrome.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/climate-names.png
20
SST around the world is on the slide and haven’t been this cool since 2014, so we can expect more CO2 will be suck into the carbon sinks as the oceans continue to cool.
‘CO2 dropped but our output still went up.’
Ah yes, they will say its clear proof that renewables work
30
Its a sign they are winning the battle against the great satan gas.
31
H.R. says; Apr17,18:19:55
21
H.R. says; Apr17,18:19:55
21
“Master of The Universe” Talk about your resume enhancer!That’s our Wilburine
21
Clearly time cube has gripped you
20
Thrice!
20
thats what it does
20
Sceptical Sam Apr18,18:21:13
“Thrice!”
2·thrice! Cube hath 6 sides in three orthoganal directions! TIME or conjugate FREQUENCY is the 4th orthogonal direction\dimension! To gain but wee understanding REQUIRES non-comutative algebra. This starts with complex numbers with i having value √(-1). Hamilton’s quaternions minimally handle 4-space!
01
you have too many doubts
00
Ted talk about how the need for storage with “modern renewables” is a myth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo8iEL6SqgI
and of course (in my best Gomer Pyle voice) Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! comments disabled.
30
Wise to disable comments when presenters simply throw out false information !
40
I watched the TED talk.
I am unconvinced. Who is tha guy?
10
Try again wjj Secretary Ross is one that is learning, (gets it) of massless ‘space’, with only EMR vector flux to provide transfer of some insolation ‘power flux’. Even the little required for even one representative Schiff fart in yonder SWAMP-DC.
Please consider that Insolation flux is power normalized by orthogonal length² (area). Now power (horsepower) times distance is claimed As academic ‘energy’. But horsepower times distance² is plowed acreage (action, construction) never some academic ‘conserved energy’, or so the fools claim.Just what is Insolation but food?
All the best!-will-
31
In the time cubes thrall you are
10
Gee Aye Apr18,18:23:15
“In the time cubes thrall you are”
OK if that is how you understand Jimie Maxwell’s electromagnetic flux to be generated.
11
Time cube will smite you.
00
”
…A deeper issue is that the irreproducibility crisis has remained largely invisible to the general public and policy makers. That’s a problem given how often the government relies on supposed scientific findings to inform its decisions….
On the contrary! policy makers are not interested in science INFORMING their decisions. They are interested in science SUPPORTING their decisions.
Policy decisions invariably benefit someone, and you can lay odds that that someone has ‘commissioned’ the policy decision, usually through lobbying. All science is there for is to provide a justification…”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/17/how-bad-is-the-governments-science-its-worse-than-we-thought/#comment-2792183
Which has application to this from the Queensland Department of Natural Resources
”
The requirements of the new code are based on scientific advice from the Queensland Herbarium. This advice was recently reviewed by the CSIRO. Read more about the review outcomes on our website.”
Which advice omits to mention about 40 years of published woody vegetation research by Qld Department of Primary Industries.
In keeping, the CSIRO side makes no mention of the considerable number of publications on mulga produced by the (former) CSIRO Rangelands Division.
And around this area
http://pickeringpost.com/story/the-wanton-worship-of-woody-weeds/8212
60
Some more in this vein
“There is nothing wrong with scientists being advocates, but when they fabricate results, or allow their results to be misinterpreted without objecting … they do so at their own peril. Scientiflc credibility becomes a victim when science is used to reinforce an ideological doctrine. Having been both a scientist and an advocate, I have sometimes had to deal with scientiflc results that are not as helpful to an advocacy position as I would have hoped. But I’ve always
presented the results as they came. Win or lose. IVe also always been able to sleep well at night. ”
G.J.W. Webb (2014) “Wildlife conservation: in the belly of the beast” Charles Darwin University Press
40
Can someone provide a refutation for this claim?
Leftists including some warmist medical “professionals” are trying to get certain anaesthetic gases banned, especially gases like desflurane, because they are said to be especially powerfull GHG’s.
This doesn’t pass my BS filter. The amount of these gases present in the atmosphere would be vanishingly small. Just because they can be measured in the atmosphere means nothing because meaurement technology is now extremely sensitive. How could such tiny amounts of gases contribute to “global warming”?
61
See the following reference for one of the many claims.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150407124229.htm
11
Does the Green House Gas Effect even exist?
No one has demonstrated warming by so called “Green House Gases”, neither in the environment nor the laboratory.
72
I fail to see how the medical gases we use can have an impact so significant we must act when far more is being let into the atmosphere from many other things like animal farts in one single day that would swamp what hospitals would produce in probably a year if not a lot more. Really, these people are either scam artists or delusional to the point they need psychological help.
71
In a world full of carbonated beverages, fire extinguishers, welding and dry ice it seems like insanity to go after medical gases, but hey the the whole field is riddled with illogical nut jobs so why not?
40
Not to mention billions of breathing people. I suppose it’s too much to ask for common sense these days.
30
You should know by now that Common Sense ain’t common! 😉
40
Where’s my red thumb?! Grumble grumble 🙁
00
To be fair the bubbles in carbonated drinks and cheap wine, dry ice and fire extinguishers are all CO2 extracted from air originally.
00
Yeah, I heard it on the abc a fortnight or so ago; top marks for effrontery but, given the numbers, a clear fail for plausibility (without any need for a tiresome refutation –yer Gish Gallop comes to mind).
00
Boulder Colorado update to Ted O’Brien’s link – comment #1 above:
17 Apr: BoulderDailyCamera: Boulder spearheads lawsuit seeking damages from ExxonMobil, Suncor over climate change impacts
By Charlie Brennan
EarthRights is working pro bono on the lawsuit, and Boulder County says there will “only be nominal costs” to the local governments, which have devoted salaried staff time to work on the case, but won’t be hiring additional lawyers…
The commissioners’ action was followed a short time later by public comments delivered to a wind-blown audience of supporters and activists — it was dubbed the “Rally for Climate Change and Accountability” — in front of the downtown Boulder County Courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall…
It was stated numerous times during Tuesday’s event that local communities face potentially “hundreds of millions” of dollars in seeking to mitigate climate change — and recover from its damaging impacts — by the middle of this century.
The plaintiffs have picked defendants with deep pockets…
Rebecca Dickson, chair of the Sierra Club-Indian Peaks Group, hailed the legal action as a harbinger of a “new, happier normal.” She added, “I’m really glad about a lawsuit, because Americans understand lawsuits. We sue each other a lot, right?”…
Lawyers for Better Business, in a July 2016 report (LINK), stated that, “Climate litigation will dwarf all other litigation in terms of the number of plaintiffs and the timeframe in which it can happen,” that it is likely to be global “and with much bigger damages than seen with tobacco and asbestos.”
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_31810658/boulder-sues-exxon-suncor-climate-change
industry will rue the day they went along with the CAGW nonsense.
40
17 Apr: World Oil: Bloomberg: Oil Cutoff Threatened as Canada Provinces Feud Over Pipeline
By Kevin Orland and Natalie Obiko Pearson
Canada’s inter-provincial fight over Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline escalated as oil-producing Alberta threatened to cut off fuel shipments to neighboring British Columbia.
Alberta on Monday introduced legislation allowing it to halt exports of oil and gas to B.C., ramping up pressure on the coastal province to drop its opposition to the pipeline expansion. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley made clear she doesn’t expect to have to use the new powers, but wants to make sure the province has every available tool in its fight to ensure the Trans Mountain expansion gets built.
The legislation comes a day after she and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to dissuade B.C. John Horgan from his battle against the C$7.4 billion ($5.9 billion) project.
“Investor confidence, not only in the energy sector, but frankly across our economy, is at stake,” Notley told reporters in Edmonton, Alberta, on Monday. “We are very committed to putting pressure on B.C. to come around and focus on what this pipeline actually means.”
Alberta on Tuesday received the support of neighboring Saskatchewan, Canada’s second-largest oil-producing province. Premier Scott Moe said his government will introduce legislation in the coming days to join Alberta in potentially restricting shipments to B.C.
“If fuel tanks in British Columbia start to run dry because Alberta has turned the taps off, it won’t be Saskatchewan filling them up,” Moe said on Twitter.
A halt to energy shipments would have ripple effects across both provinces. Drivers could face gasoline shortages and soaring prices in B.C., while Canada’s second-busiest airport in Vancouver would face higher jet fuel costs. Alberta’s energy producers would also suffer, losing a key market for their crude and refined products…
Kinder Morgan halted work on the project a week ago and set a May 31 deadline for a resolution to B.C.’s opposition, which includes a court challenge and regulatory hurdles that the province has erected…
The existing Trans Mountain system is a major conduit for both crude oil and refined products heading to B.C. The pipeline can carry about 300,000 bpd, and the expansion at the heart of the inter-provincial dispute would nearly triple that figure to 890,000 bbl…
B.C. households spend an average of C$1,777 on gasoline/year. A ban by Alberta might raise the price at the pump by 30 cents a liter, which could increase the cost of driving a vehicle by about C$500 a year, according to Bryan Yu, deputy chief economist at Central 1 Credit Union in Vancouver…
Kinder Morgan’s existing Trans Mountain pipeline supplies Vancouver and the surrounding region with as much as 60% of its refined products, as well as the area’s only refinery, the 55,000 bpd facility owned by Parkland Fuel. The refinery accounts for a quarter of B.C.’s transportation fuel and “substantially all of the crude oil” it sources comes from Alberta via Trans Mountain. Parkland also supplies 40% of the jet fuel at the Vancouver airport.
B.C. officials have said that cutting off oil shipments would be illegal. Attorney General David Eby said last week that Canada’s constitution forbids provinces from discriminating in the distribution of energy and that B.C. would take the necessary actions to defend itself if Alberta followed through…
Trudeau on Sunday repeated his pledges that the pipeline will get built and said he’d instructed Finance Minister Bill Morneau to start a “formal financial discussion” with Kinder Morgan to hedge the project’s risk. Alberta has previously floated the idea of taking a stake in the project or buying it outright, and Trudeau said on Sunday that he was preparing legislation to underscore federal jurisdiction over the line.
“This project is in the national interest and it must get built,” Notley said…
http://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/4/17/oil-cutoff-threatened-as-canada-provinces-feud-over-pipeline
17 Apr: Toronto Sun: LORNE GUNTER: The motivating factors behind our pipeline crisis
Canada is in the middle of a pipeline crisis because three of the four main actors in this drama need a pipeline but don’t want one. Meanwhile, the fourth actor wants one but doesn’t really need it.
The three politicians in this circus – Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan – are all “greenies” and would rather Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion not be built for environmental reasons.
Yet for one reason or another, all three of them need Trans Mountain (even though Horgan won’t admit his need publicly yet)…READ ON
http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-the-motivating-factors-behind-our-pipeline-crisis
30
Pat
““If fuel tanks in British Columbia start to run dry because Alberta has turned the taps off, it won’t be Saskatchewan filling them up,” Moe said on Twitter.”
IIRC even more from BC who can will go over the US border and fill up where it is cheaper
10
“BREAKING: Mexico Agrees To Pay for Wall – Offering Emergency Deal To Close NAFTA Tariff Loophole…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/17/breaking-mexico-agrees-to-pay-for-wall-offering-emergency-deal-to-close-nafta-tariff-loophole/
Around this area
“The South American invasion of the USA is called off.”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/the-south-american-invasion-of-the-usa-is-called-off/
70
And they said it would never happen , geez I hope the meeting with Kim Jong doesn’t go to good or they will have to give him a Nobel peace prize that’s actually deserved .
30
The “great anonymous they” don’t seem to get much right
20
Don’t worry about the “they”.
We know who they are and where “they” live.
And how “they” vote.
20
”
Whales Prove Climate Change Caused By Ocean Currents”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/whales-prove-climate-change-caused-by-ocean-currents/
20
Some days this might help
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Smh
10
Ok something a bit different, a motorcycle going for a land speed record, so what you say?
How about one running purely on steam power! https://www.bikesales.com.au/editorial/details/busa-to-tackle-steam-speed-record-112174/
From the link:
To that end, the Hayabusa’s standard engine – an in-line four-cylinder powerhouse that produces maximum outputs of close to 200hp and over 150Nm – has been replaced by steam engine, where a paraffin burner heats things up to over 500 degrees Celsius, in turn producing pressures of up to 2000psi.
Steam fueling imagination for over 300 years 🙂
40
There is an engineering company in Maryborough Queensland, Olds Engineering, that still specialises in steam engines and they have been designing, manufacturing and repairing steam engines since the early 1900s. I understand that they reconditioned a mid 1920s US Dobel steam car a while ago for a NSW client.
Olds is the US Oldsmobile motor car family name, also REO trucks being R.E.Olds.
A director of that firm once explained how he and young Olds Family boys converted a petrol engine car, hazy memory but might have been a 1925 Chevrolet, to a steam engine designed for a kerosine fuelled burner to heat the water for steam. It took much less time to get underway from cold than a Stanley Steamer, possibly similar to a Dobel. And he said fuel consumption was fantastic. I forget other than they drove to Sydney and back and consumer one “tin” of fuel, I guess 20 litres but I am not sure.
A Melbourne inventor named Pritchard converted a couple of Ford Falcon cars to steam engine power in the 1970s. They were purchased by Ford Motor Company US.
30
Its a great feat of engineering when the basic idea is still applied to our most productive electrical power generation types after all those years isn’t it?
Iv’e linked this site before its basic but a bit of fun http://www.animatedengines.com/ you can adjust the engine speed yourself and its great for introducing young people to mechanics.
10
Yonnie
Even more agricultural.
A V-twin Bessler loco steam engine into a Waco for the first steam powered man carrying aeroplane. About 1930
20
Iv’e got an urge to build one now LOL, I made a sump oil heater once that drip fed onto a hotplate that was first heated by an LPG burner, once the oil could self ignite you could turn the burner off and just let the oil do the work, it generated a lot of heat and the fuel was free!
20
Also there were steam-powered submarines in the 1930s. Main problem was the slow dive process.
10
Similar to the fart powered ones. “Crew,all together at my command”
10
I assume that all meals on such a submarine consists of legumes so that the crew could reliably generate sufficient “gas” to keep the submarine powered.
10
Big signs around the sub STRICTLY NO SMOKING!
10
How about a Wind-Steam Hybrid Windmill with solar backup as a third option. What the??!!
10
some may recall this CAGW policy scandal:
Wikipedia: Renewable Heat Incentive scandal
The Renewable Heat Incentive scandal (RHI scandal), also referred to as the Cash for Ash scandal, is a political scandal in Northern Ireland that centres on a failed renewable energy incentive scheme that has been reported to potentially cost the public purse almost £500 million.
The plan was overseen by Arlene Foster of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the then-Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, who failed to introduce proper cost controls, allowing the plan to spiral out of control. The scheme worked by paying applicants to use renewable energy. The rate paid was more than the cost of the fuel, however, and thus many applicants were making profits simply by heating their properties…
The affair ultimately caused Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness to resign in protest as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland in January 2017 after ten years in office, citing Foster’s refusal to stand aside from her role while an investigation took place, among other matters.
In the power-sharing government, McGuinness’ resignation also meant that Foster was removed from her role as First Minister, which in turn caused the Executive Office of Northern Ireland to fall…READ ON
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal
for those interested, a Public Inquiry has been taking place:
12 Apr: Irish Times: Press Association: Arlene Foster defends role in energy scandal that led to Stormont collapse
DUP leader says would have taken different decisions if fully informed on flaws in RHI…
The RHI was supposed to incentivise the purchase of eco-friendly wood chip boilers by paying a state subsidy to those signing up to the scheme.
However, a series of fatal flaws left Stormont exposed to a huge overspend, with the scheme paying out more to applicants than it actually cost them to buy the fuel…
This created an impetus to “burn to earn” – a reason the controversy has been dubbed the “cash for ash” scandal…
Arlene Foster: “Clearly, the way in which the RHI scheme has brought us to this place is a matter of deep regret for me politically and personally, because obviously we don’t have government here in Northern Ireland as a result of what happened in December and January 2016 and 2017…
“There will be known unknowns and unknown unknowns but certainly there seems to be a lot of unknown unknowns.
“I wasn’t brought up to date with things that were happening in the background and I regret that. If that had have been brought to my attention things may have been a lot different.”…
Ms Foster told the inquiry the energy brief was among the more complex within her department, and she did not understand all the nuances.
Renewable heat was a European directive that had to be dealt with, she said. “I did rely on my officials in energy to help me to understand all the complexities…
“Of course, state aid looked at the tariffs as well – the European Union which has many people to look at these things.
“There were a lot of checks and balances there to look at these issues.”…
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/arlene-foster-defends-role-in-energy-scandal-that-led-to-stormont-collapse-1.3459800
16 Apr: Irish Examiner: Press Association: Adviser admits he ‘should have dug deeper’ as suggested Arlene Foster wrote blank cheque for scheme
Dr Crawford – adviser to then-enterprise, trade and investment minister Mrs Foster – told the inquiry he had a “lack of knowledge” about renewable energy at the time, adding that he was “very much starting at the foundations”.
Dr Crawford said: “At that time in Northern Ireland there was no industry set up for renewable heat.”
He said this was “a totally new policy”, adding that he was not coming into regular contact with people who had expertise in it…
He said he “probably” took “too much comfort” from the work of expert consultants…
Sir Patrick said that the more Dr Crawford told the inquiry about how he had “no knowledge or expertise”, he said he finds it very difficult to understand why he did not ask to see the Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) report…
Dr Crawford said he does not believe that “any adviser in any department could be expected to be over the detail” of all submissions, but Sir Patrick said: “It’s a question of you learning something. Simple.”…
It was suggested to Dr Crawford that this was an example of a minister signing a “blank cheque”, not knowing what the exact costs were…
17 Apr: Belfast Telegraph: DUP adviser Andrew Crawford apologises for sending internal RHI documents to relative
By Mark Edwards
A former special adviser to DUP leader Arlene Foster has apologised for sending internal documents about the RHI to his cousin.
Dr Andrew Crawford- who was Mrs Foster’s special adviser during her time as minister for the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI)- appeared for the fourth time at the RHI inquiry on Tuesday.
Dr Crawford told the inquiry that his cousin Richard Crawford, a poultry farmer, had asked him for information about the scheme in July 2013 and that he had emailed him an internal document which had not yet been released to the public.
Dr Crawford said: “I shouldn’t have sent them to him. I apologise for it, it was wrong on my behalf. I put that into my second statement [to the inquiry] but I want to put that into the record here today.”…
Mr Crawford said that his cousin installed biomass boilers in his poultry shed 12 months after the internal RHI scheme paper had been shared with him. He said he did not know that the RHI was known as a “lucrative” scheme in agriculture communities at this point in time..
He added: “In no way did Richard get an advantage from this.”
Dr Crawford admitted that he never told Mrs Foster that he had shared the document with his cousin…
The inquiry heard that the first time the issue of cost controls was brought up to Mrs Foster was a submission sent to her on June 26, 2013. The submission was drawn up by external energy consultants Cambridge Economic Policy Associate (CEPA).
The report did not expand on the rationale behind introducing cost controls. Asked whether, at the time, he put any importance on cost controls, Dr Crawford said: “I probably didn’t give it a great deal of importance because this was the first time it was highlighted…
Dr Crawford said that he did not realise the scheme could be manipulated to make a profit
He said: “I didn’t envisage that the scheme would be structured in such a way that it would pay people to…earn as you burn. I just assumed- wrongly now- that there’d be checks in the system that would stop that from happening.”
However, he admitted to the inquiry that he did not understand “exactly what that meant” or how regulations would prevent costs spiralling.
Mrs Foster will resume giving evidence to the enquiry on Wednesday morning
40
Tesla Pulls the plug on Tesla 3
Tesla has stopped production on its already delayed Model 3 sedan and has replaced its automated production robots with human workers.
Excuses are two bob a dozen with carpetbaggers.
“Tesla recently recalled 123,000 Model S vehicles, stating that any of the vehicles built before April 2016 were affected by a power steering issue. Tesla previously recalled 90,000 Model S cars in 2015, and recalled 53,000 Model S and Model X cars in 2017 over a parking brake fault. This latest recall marked the largest recall Tesla has ever initiated. Tesla said in an email to customers that the company had “observed excessive corrosion in the power steering bolts,” but that the problem mainly occurred in colder climates where road salt is commonly used. “If the bolts fail, the driver is still able to steer the car, but increased force is required due to loss or reduction of power assist,” Tesla stated. “This primarily makes the car harder to drive at low speeds and for parallel parking, but does not materially affect control at high speed, where only small steering wheel force is needed.””
Read the rest here:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/04/17/tesla-halts-model-3-production-line-replaces-robots-with-human-workers/
If you’d like to check out what Tesla vehicles have in store for you go here (give it time to load):
http://teslabears.club/t/new-thread-keefs-complaints-with-photographs/107/45
10
And, the stickler’s comment sums it up perfectly:
Love it.
40
Well yes of course. Is far harder to automate clearly defined events in a closed environment, than it is to automate infinite variability of weather, road quality and vehicle/animal/human interactions globally.
10
I don’t have a clue what that means but it’s very modern and could get you directly into a PhD course in Science Communication.
10
I think its would need some gender bias studies and perhaps some intersectionality mentions to make the grade, but it is a good start I have to say.
20
Interesting guidance from Tesla. If your corroded steering bolts fall off you are safer at high speed than low speed. So comforting.
10
thou shalt not develop Brazil, says Greenpeace:
17 Apr: Reuters: Greenpeace says coral at Amazon mouth should bar Total oil drilling
by Marta Nogueira
Scientists aboard a Greenpeace ship have documented the existence of coral in an area off the northern coast of Brazil and plans by French major Total plans to drill for oil should be banned, the environmental organization said on Monday.
Greenpeace said that a coral reef near the mouth of the Amazon extends further than previously thought and its findings would be published soon by the scientific journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
The research could further complicate plans by oil companies to explore an area that some geologists say could hold up to ***14 billion barrels of petroleum, or more than the entire proven reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Now that we know that the Amazon coral overlaps the perimeter of Total’s two blocks, the Brazilian government has no choice but to deny the license for the company to explore for oil in the region,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
Total led a group including Britain’s BP Plc and Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras in buying five exploration blocks in the Foz do Amazonas basin in 2013…As the operator, Total is responsible for applying for environmental licenses…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-greenpeace-total-amazon/greenpeace-says-coral-at-amazon-mouth-should-bar-total-oil-drilling-idUSKBN1HN34D?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
go protest this, Greenpeace:
17 Apr: Reuters: China shale gas output to nearly double over 3 years – consultancy
by Chen Aizhu
China’s shale gas production will likely reach 17 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2020, nearly double the 2017 level, as local oil companies make big progress with drilling technology and cost cutting, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in a note on Tuesday.
Nearly 700 new wells will come onstream between 2018 and 2020 at three key projects – Sinopec’s Fuling, and PetroChina’s Changning-Weiyuan and Zhaotong – all located in the country’s southwest, and at a total cost of $5.5 billion, Woodmac estimated.
The forecast 17 bcm of output in 2020 falls short of Beijing’s goal of 30 bcm, which was slashed by more than half from the government’s initial target set in 2012.
That means the world’s No.3 gas user will need to keep its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at elevated levels. Woodmac has separately forecast China’s LNG imports will increase by a quarter to nearly 49 million tonnes this year, from record highs in 2017.
China produced 9 bcm of shale gas last year, or 6 percent of its total gas output.
“China is eager to materialise its shale gas potential to fuel its massive gasification initiative and support rising demand growth,” said Wood Mackenzie’s Tingyun Yang…
https://uk.reuters.com/article/china-shale-woodmac/china-shale-gas-output-to-nearly-double-over-3-years-consultancy-idUKL3N1RT3TM
10
They’re still banging on about the GBR and how the Reef will never recover from the cooking it got must be time for grant renewal .
10
According to Terry Hughes the first bleaching event evaaah happened in 1998 and if we don’t abide by the Paris agreement and keep warming to under 2 degrees C there will be no more Reef system left .
20
🙂
Sounds like that was when he first opened his eyes.
Talk about the Fall of Rome.
We’re in it. A lost society
20
I am not sure what this proves but its always good to have a hobby.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-robots-ikea/flatpack-fear-no-more-robot-assembles-ikea-chair-frame-idUSKBN1HQ07K
I wonder if it included opening the box it comes in?
30
So it only took three years to program the robot to do a task a human can do in about 30 mins? That’s automation progress? Graeme#4
20
At the NEG meeting Lily D’Ambrosio is saying Victoria is not happy with the overall emissions reduction goal and wants more renewable energy sources mandated. Well, I’m in Victoria and these concepts are way over my head. Nobody has yet demonstrated the iniquity of emissions in any way I can comprehend and anybody can see that renewables is a concoction enriching global financiers. Who is educating this minister?
20
No one by the look of it.
10
Try the new thread Jo is onto it .
00
I have had a few to and fros with said Minister, it is clear her handlers in the department are feeding her the preferred line. Anyone who repeatedly announces to the media that renewables “put downward pressure on prices” is clearly fundamentally clueless.
20
Wentworth Group of concerned scientists …
Here they are, Tom Foolery is there too;
http://wentworthgroup.org/members/
00