Weekend Unthreaded

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184 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

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    Serp

    There’s more to come.

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      Yonniestone

      Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives.

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        Roy Hogue

        Remarkable philosophical positions there. Kinda says it all in one pair of statements that say, wherever you are, there you are, sorta thing.

        I needed something to kick off my weekend. 😉

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        Graeme No.3

        Another day, another claim by Frydenberg that electricity prices will come down.
        Explain to me how getting rid of most of the cheapest method of generation and replacing it with the most expensive methods will lead to a drop in cost.
        And that’s without the simultaneous shutdown of coal fired generators last month which led to an increase in the wholesale price in NSW to over $220 per MWh, from the usual rate roughly the cost of renewables (yes, I know they get double that under the RET). What will force windfarms to operate when unprofitable and lower the wholesale cost? All they have to do is not run until the whoesale cost goes up to whatever level they like and then bid at that rate.
        So for example,
        It costs them $95 (including capital costs) to operate
        They currently sell at $90 but get $85 from the RET certificate, so net profit $80 (and net cost to the public of $180).
        With no RET certificates they aren’t going to sell anymore at $90 and a loss; what price do you think they will be interested in selling at? Anyone remember ENRON?

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          Robber

          Frydenberg is a fraud – he has blamed retailers, networks, state governments, everyone but the Turnbull government.

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            PeterS

            Takes after Turnbull. At least the ALP is open and honest for what they stand for. The LNP today is a party committing blatant fraud on the public with regard to their energy policies. They say one thing and do the exact opposite. The ALP say one thing and mean it. SO which one has more credibility? The ALP of course; not that I would ever vote for them – not in a million years. So one begs the real question why vote for LNP? One really has to be dishonest with him/herself to do so if one doesn’t believe in the CAGW nonsense and that renewables is the way to go.

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            yarpos

            Power costs are certain to come down, absotively commencing just after the next election. Just trust them 🙂

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          Graeme No.3

          One can also work out what is going to happen from the SNOWY MOUNTAINS 2 scheme, when they claim that $40 will be the cost of storage with 80% delivery. (Assuming that the scheme comes in on time and on budget). So $40 dollars would cover the cost of 20% storage loss i.e. they hope to buy ‘cheaply’ at $160 and sell at $200 (or higher).
          That provides a very good return for the intermittent generators (almost as good as $95 wholesale + $85 RET certificate) and Snowjob 2 makes money also. The only people who might complain are the consumers who will see their cost go up from $103.60 (Wholesale $95 + cost last year of renewables approx. $8.60) to $200 wholesale i.e. not quite double.

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            Hanrahan

            I’m much more positive about Snowy II than thou. I see it as a boon for thermal generators, guaranteeing them a positive price, enabling them to run more gen sets the way they were designed to run – flat out. I have no idea on economics but at least it wouldn’t be both expensive AND destructive to a stable grid the way unreliables are. If they insist on wasting billions better it be there than windmills.

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          Hanrahan

          The big cost for wind is the capital cost, not running cost. Keeping a windmill idle does nothing to recover the capital so they will run them as long as the price is above their marginal cost which would be lower than that of a thermal plant. THAT is the danger: Once built they destroy the orderly market.

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            Graeme No.3

            Hanrahan:

            True but run them at marginal cost only and you will quickly go bankrupt. Take the case of 3 wind farms which can supply more than is needed once the wind starts to blow. If all 3 try to grab the market their selling price must fall lower and lower.
            Now take the hypothetical case of only 2 starting up, leaving a shortage. The price goes up so the third one gets a price above the profitable point (and because of perculiarities in our bidding system so do the other wind farms) and the excess supply results in the backup generation being cut. Purely accidental you know, Eh What!

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            • #
              Ted O'Brien.

              Windmills don’t have a “marginal cost”!

              For starters, they are not operating in a free market!

              The marginal supply from these windmills is driving up the cost of fossil fuelled supply.

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      • #
        RicDre

        “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives.”

        I read those words and could hear Macdonald Carey saying them.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwOi-wgkWLg

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    TdeF

    Incredible story of Climate Change from Breitbart where the Berkerly City Council declares Climate Change/Global Warming a greater disaster than WW2.

    In all this, the connection between CO2 and warming is not proven at all. As I have said for years, the connection between car output and CO2 levels does not exist. There is almost no fossil fuel CO2 in the air. After thirty years of massive spending to reduce CO2, the effect on CO2 has been zero which incidentally also proves there is no connection.

    If the rise in CO2 is not man made but perfectly natural variation as is quite obvious now, why are we building windmills and blowing up power stations?

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      Dave in the States

      Social engineering. You can’t tax natural variation. But you can tax co2. You can’t proscribe how other people must their lives with natural variation. But if you convince people that how they live their lives affects the climate then you can convince them to give up their freedoms and turn it into a new religion, complete with guilt, penance, indulgences. This new religion has all the hallmarks of suppressing the rights of individual for the good the group.

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        TdeF

        I suppose it has been the dream of every government to tax the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat and what we say. All these dreams have come true with Global Warming. Any tax is justified by the need to save humanity, the environment, the Great Barrier reef, Polar bears. I even read today that there are a hundred species in the DMZ between North and South Korea in their safe space, so I guess the story is that the war should continue to save the animals? Global Warming, the one big religion where capitalism and communism and the Pope have common ground.

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          sophocles

          I suppose it has been the dream of every government …

          It appears to be the dream of an “overarching” organisation to re-establish itself as a global government: the UN. It’s a product of “diplomats” who dream of real power, and who see themselves as the “natural government.”

          We owe the concepts of personal freedom, to live as we wish to live, and to retain the rights to the fruits of our own labour gifted to us by the ancient of peoples of “The Books” -the Hebrew Torah, the Christian Bible and the Islamic Koran. These concepts grew out of the oppressive and repressive “City States,” the Client Kings and their peoples who were rounded up by force into the ancient Empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. Someone or someones see themselves as their replacements: “Someone has to be in Charge” and we know who.

          I tripped over and watched this video called The Bible’s Buried Secrets from National Geographic. It’s about modern archeology’s piecing together what might have “really happened,” in the Middle East from 1200 BCE to more recent times. It resonated with the present developing “power grab” we are seeing.

          It’s a couple of hours long but it “made me much to think.” I won’t spoil it, but do recommend it. I would be interested in your thoughts if you do watch it.

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          Latus Dextro

          I suppose it has been the dream of every government to tax the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat and what we say. All these dreams have come true with Global Warming.

          “All these dreams have come true with Globalism Warming.”

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        In a democracy you can disagree with a group and while you will be at odds and unpopular with that group you both are protected under a constitution to hold those views of your own free will, this is the huge difference between the democratic/republic and Marxist based political systems.

        My favourite liberty quote is from the Areopagitica by John Milton :

        “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

        Without this simple concept the possibility of free a society does not exist, but again nothing simple is easy.

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      yarpos

      To quote young contestants on quiz shows with zero history knowledge , WW2 was probably before their time and they have zero concept of context and scale beyond the movies. Therefore they are almost certainly talking bovine excrement. But its CAGW so the truth doesnt matter.

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    Roger

    “For the first time a major political party has gone into an election with an anti-green platform and won big time. Specifically the Conservative Party platform for the Ontario election on 7th June promised

    This means no carbon tax or cap-and-trade schemes.
    Stop sweetheart deals by scrapping the Green Energy Act.”

    That quote is from an article at WUWT which goes on to talk about how the Australian climate has been a “a paragon of stability” over the last 40 years, describing it as “The Land that Global Warming Forgot.”.

    Interesting reading and observations in it.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/15/the-land-that-global-warming-forgot/

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    • #
      yarpos

      If you are looking for proof that Canadians are smarter than Australians there it is.

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    • #
      PeterS

      In theory then our ACP should win every seat they place a candidate. If not it yet again supports my contnetion Australian voters are by and large non-thinkers, couldn’t care less or just plan dumb.

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      • #
        sophocles

        I’m going to very carefully neither agree nor disagree with your statement PeterS. As a New Zealander, I will reserve my opinion and not be drawn.

        🙂

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        There is much to be said for the theory that if you are not a socialist when young you have no heart — you know the rest.

        I have two lefty sons who are old enough to know better. No. 1 and his lady never watch any news, they get their politics from twitter, their phones are always “just there”. The other is dead serious when he says Trump is a bigger criminal than Clinton. Leftism is a mind eating virus.

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      Yonniestone

      I love the MSM reaction to Trumps recent Whitehouse lawn Fox News interview where they criticise Trumps nice comments on Kim Jong Un’s personality, really? the leader of the free world gets the leader of the most guarded country to a peace talk and hours later they expect him to slag off about him when he’s safe at home on a global news network, what part of PEACE don’t these clowns get!

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Well Trudeau did that

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        Latus Dextro

        what part of PEACE don’t these clowns get!

        The part that makes them completely irrelevant.
        DJT was damned either way; de rigueur for the presstitutes, like “climate change” … aka. cover all the bases.

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          Another Ian

          I’m having trouble with a welder warranty atm.

          The only things Unimig haven’t blamed so far is Donald Trump and their welder

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          • #
            Yonniestone

            When I was fabricating 4 years ago Unimig were considered ok for certain applications but wasn’t as good as older brands for reliability, they got popular mostly for their lower price (fair enough) and good marketing, all big brands are made in china but I’d think quality control is a big factor in reliability.

            Don’t give up though as all welders sold in Aus have to comply with performance and safety standards, any business that is too tight to honour their promises should receive the difficult weld position of “vertical up butt”

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        Hanrahan

        It seems as if they expected Trump to say “You are a murderous bar steward with a terrible human rights record and I am the leader of the free, virtuous world. Now let’s talk peace”.

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      PeterS

      Recent events have shown the left and in particular the Democrats hate peace and want war. It’s amazing how anyone would now even contemplate voting for the Democrats next time. One would have to be a an enemy of the US and want to bring it down. Then again that’s the left in general all over.

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      You want consistency?

      This is what Pres. Trump had to say about NoKo 20 years ago:

      https://www.facebook.com/raheemkassam/videos/785099035032766/

      Hit “not now” on the blocker.

      Trump knows which way is up.

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  • #
    Mark M

    At first they came for the plastic bags and I didn’t say anything because I believed them when they said I must give them up to ‘save the planet’ …

    Then they came for the small-medium retailers …

    Plastic bag ban: WA retailers will not be fined until 2019

    He said compliance officers would enforce the ban.

    Only from January 1, 2019, will they face fines of $5000 if they’re still circulating plastic bags of less than 35 microns …”

    https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/environment/plastic-bag-ban-wa-retailers-will-not-be-fined-until-2019-ng-b88866396z

    ABC’s War on Waste Fact:

    “As an example, if polypropylene bags (those green bags that you can buy at the supermarket) are only used 52 times then their impact on global warming is actually greater than that of single-use plastic bags.

    How many uses should you be getting out of reusable bags?

    The study from Dr Verghese puts the figure at 104 — that’s weekly for two years.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-24/war-on-waste-what-bags-to-use/8528350

    ~ ~ ~
    ICYMI: Cat discovers refraction …

    https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/8qpp2k/shes_discovered_refraction/

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    • #
      Mark M

      The cost of a squad of people to enforce the ban in Australia would help pay for a better garbage collection in the 3rd world countries where it is known all the plastic pollution originates:

      2018: Stemming the Plastic Tide: 10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans –

      “The Yangtze alone pours up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons into the Yellow Sea”

      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/

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      • #

        Loony plastic bag ban starts in Queensland 1 July, some stores by 20 June. Maybe I’ll help by handing out free singlet bags outside? I have a stockpile of about 400. On the other hand, there might be SJWs around so I’ll employ one of my sons (Class 1 Security Provider).

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          Another Ian

          IIRC Jennifer Marohasy had a series on plastic bags around the early 2000’s. Back when the spectacular failure of Ireland’s then plastic bag policy was at its height.

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      • #
        Dennis

        How about Central Australia desert country and a rubbish dump complete with a gas fired furnace to reduce the volume with a railway line from existing lines to carry the garbage?

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        Dennis

        I read an article in which the author wrote about walking alone a beach in Thailand and watching fishermen haul in their net, removing the fish they had caught and plastic bags and containers that they threw on the sand ready to be washed out to sea again.

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          toorightmate

          Tony Abbot put that plastic there Just ask the ABC or dear Nikki Savva (who has no savvy).

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Now that the Left have won the war against cheap and convient energy they are starting the war against cheap and convenient plastic.

      It’s all about destroying all that’s good about Western Civilisation and degrading the quality of life.

      And with plastic bags, there’s no evidence ever been provided that there is a problem. As pointed out above most plastic in the oceans originates in Third World countries that use rivers as garbage dumps. In civilised countries people dispose of their rubbish correctly.

      Like AGW there is no demonstrated problem that needs solving.

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        PeterS

        It goes much deeper than that. The left have such a hatred of the Western culture they want to destroy it even if it means the economy collapses as it will eventually of the LNP or ALP continue to run government.

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      Hanrahan

      OK, smoking is a dying habit but the filters, flicked out of car windows, ground into the footpath and hosed into the gutter are far more likely to end up in waterways than plastic straws, the vast majority of which would be binned in the retail outlet that provided them and never do so.

      I have looked for hard evidence of this “sea of plastic” that we are told about, including looking in Notices To Mariners and have found none. As described it would be a hazard to shipping through blocking of cooling so should be noted.

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      • #
        Latus Dextro

        Smoking is more heavily demonised than CO2 and is highly susceptible to reporting bias in either direction, by smokers (under reported) and by health professionals and anti-smoking zealots (over reported). Demonising second hand smoking has been a key objective in the war on smokers and their personal choice.

        One should also be careful to define ‘smoking’ and its topography … the topography of smoking is quite critical … And these days, somehow smoking a ‘joint’ doesn’t count as ‘smoking’? Really?

        It is as it stands, smoking is a red flag on society, bearing in mind the Nazis tried to stamp it out beneath their jackboots but couldn’t, particularly when things were going badly.
        So exactly what part of personal choice isn’t understood? And don’t start citing policy-based evidence. Some of the strongest evidence that refutes any significant effect of second hand smoking lies here: a prospective cohort study covering 39 years.

        Objective: To measure the relation between environmental tobacco smoke, as estimated by smoking in spouses, and long term mortality from tobacco related disease.

        Design: Prospective cohort study covering 39 years.

        Setting: Adult population of California, United States.

        Participants: 118 094 adults enrolled in late 1959 in the American Cancer Society cancer prevention study (CPS I), who were followed until 1998. Particular focus is on the 35 561 never smokers who had a spouse in the study with known smoking habits.

        Conclusions: The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.

        Enstrom & Kabat, BMJ VOLUME 326, 17 MAY 2003

        So, lets move along to demonising alcohol. After all the war on saturated fats failed. And why not, since the societal, economic and health consequences dwarf tobacco.
        Oh I forgot, no votes to be found there ….. yet.

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  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    The White House Press Corps would make a good gaggle of football Hooligans.
    But it’s hard to take them seriously.

    There are few professions other than politics where you can say one thing, do another, then say you did something other than
    that, but believe something different still, and claim to be elected because of the strong positions you take.

    I cannot conceive of myself, videotaped making claim, saying to a newsperson who has the tape “I never said that”.
    But in today’s world, that seems to be OK for both the pols and the media types, as they race to be the profession in which we
    hold the least confidence.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Richard Ilfeld said:

      … as they race to be the profession in which we hold the least confidence.

      Is it a race when they’re neck and neck, or is there no competition between them?
      That’s just what they do best…

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      yarpos

      I dont see them as different professions, they are symbiotic parta of the same monster.

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      • #
        sophocles

        Yours seem to be mostly bankers and lawyers. Ummm, hmm, so are ours. No, no, we have a few farmers (ret’d.) in there … and umm, a Sustainable Business Management Consultant (1), (I still haven’t satisfactorily decoded that title) and Ummm … bother.

        I think you’re right, yarpos 🙂

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        • #
          Annie

          A mixture of multi-headed hydra joined to a multi-tentacled ‘thing’….polyped? (Like an octopus, only more so). You try to fight one bit and another rears up or another tentacle tries to strangle you. The stuff of nightmares, only it’s what we are really contending with…evil, because it is anti the common good of us all.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Priceless IMO

    “Climate science – the only science that depends on the data hiding some where”

    “climate science” has turned into a parody of itself….the only science that depends on the data hiding some where

    Hiding in the deep ocean….ocean floor sinking…..land sinking under Greenland….land sinking under Antarctica…..ice sheets melting on the bottom….on and on

    …always somewhere that no one can get to it…and always something that has to be made up”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/06/16/y2kyoto-an-open-letter-to-the-geological-society/#comment-1123004

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Another Ian:

      My favorite was the Icelander who said “I hope NASA doesn’t adjust the 1904 temperatures (Iceland) any lower or all my grandparents will freeze to death before my parents are born.”

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      el gordo

      The nagging gene is real and I have no idea what god was thinking. After making man in his own image you might think he would give a little thought to the battle of the sexes, its an unholy mess.

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        Annie

        Hang on! We’re not all guilty! 😉

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          Yonniestone

          Says you woman!

          /sarc.

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          el gordo

          Its not gender specific, men also have their appetites, which may in fact be the root cause of the problem.

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          • #
            sophocles

            <smug>
            I wouldn’t know 🙂
            I married in 1984
            I don’t try to remember 1985 …
            I divorced her in 1987.
            I’ve remained single and HAPPY since.
            </smug>

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            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Now there’s a tragedy.

              🙂

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                Annie

                Well, we’ve survived 50+ years, somehow! That’s despite numerous moves, including international ones of which quite a few were consecutive. They always included differing electrical plugs (groan!), tax arrangements, etc. etc. We’re still friends!

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              • #
                sophocles

                Yep.
                All those silly gels out there have missed out on one fantastic guy.
                That’s tragic for them.

                (My present wonderful … (<- lot's of good virtual adjectives in those dots) 🙂 partner of 22 years agrees with that. We have this tiny problem though: she now lives in Christchurch and I'm (still) in Auckland, so I commute with a bit of regular flying.)

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                toorightmate

                Annie now admits she was saved by the plugs and tax dodging.

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              • #
                Annie

                No tax dodging trm, even though we disapprove of where the tax is often wasted. We’ve been very careful to keep in proper touch with the respective tax offices and do the ‘right thing’.
                Ditto plugs. If anything could cause a fall out, it was the sheer exhaustion of every move. The internet has far from eased the business…our move back to Australia was the worst of all, thanks to everything having to be done on the blithering internet! We shipped a car when we first emigrated…that was complicated enough. We shipped another when we returned and the process was an utter nightmare.
                Oh well, we survived it all, so far anyway, and built a house too (or rather, our builder did!).

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    Robber

    The Clean Energy Regulator has recently published “Progress in 2017: Delivering Australia’s 2020 Renewable Energy Target.”
    Among the highlights and lowlights in its 74 pages of bureaucratic banter:
    More than 2000 megawatts of additional renewable energy capacity was installed in 2017, across both the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (1052 megawatts) and Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (1088 megawatts). The surge in investment in 2017 that has continued in early 2018 means there will be enough new capacity to meet, and likely exceed, the 2020 Large-scale Renewable Energy Target of 33,000 gigawatt hours.
    By the end of March 2018, more than 7500 megawatts of projects were operating or firmly announced. (WA and NT are included in the target). This pipeline of projects is 1100 megawatts more than required to meet the target. The current pipeline of projects is 54 per cent wind and 46 per cent solar (that represents a big increase in solar that has only been 16% in prior years).
    The portion of household electricity bills attributable to the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target was $8.13 per quarter for the average household electricity bill in 2017. (obviously ignoring the soaring wholesale and network costs – not their problem).
    Large scale certificates issued in 2017:
    Biomass 2,295,261
    Hydro 3,305,495 (seems not all hydro gets certificates?)
    Solar 719,556
    Wind 11,926,885
    Waste coal mine gas 828,138
    Total 19,075,335
    By the end of 2017, 6535 megawatts of projects had been firmly announced which is sufficient to meet the 2020 target.
    In 2017, 19.1 million large-scale generation certificates were validated (see table above) and we expect this will increase to about 24 million in 2018 and likely around 32 to 34 million in 2019. (Each certificate represents 1 MWhr of generation, so average generation equals 2178 MW each hour gives 19,000 GWhr for the year.)
    In total, there are 711 accredited power stations with combined capacity of 15,286 megawatts. (so that would give a 14% capacity factor but that includes hydro).
    The Clean Energy Regulator publishes the total amount of exemptions approved for each emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) activity – presumably these industries don’t get the cost of the RET added to their electricity bills, but they still suffer from the doubling of the wholesale price.
    Aluminium smelting 24,900,585 MWhr 61.91% of total exeemptions
    Smelting zinc 1,915,639 4.76%
    Manufacture of newsprint 1,318,336 3.28%
    Packaging and industrial paper manufacturing 1,117,782 2.78%
    Aluminium refining 1,109,618 2.76%
    Range of other 40 activities 9,861,148 24.52%
    Total 40,223,108 MWhr 100%
    There are 2.9 million small-scale systems now in Australia, providing 11.4 million megawatt hours of electricity generated or displaced from small systems. (This equates to 1300 MW of average generation each hour from mostly rooftop solar. from 6,500 MW of installed capacity.) Of a sample of small systems inspected, 20% were judged to be substandard.

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      Graeme No.3

      If you’re buying shares my hot tip is any one making diesel or petrol generators.

      What’s that? There all manufactured overseas because of our expensive electricity.

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      TdeF

      I hate this distorted, prejudiced language. What sort of body is the “Clean Energy Regulator“. What’s dirty about carbon dioxide? Invisible. Harmless and the source of all life on earth. Now it’s dirty? Humans are dirty? All life on earth is dirty?

      The “Clean Air Act” was great. Around the world the cities were cleaned. London started to look brand new after the 19th century and WW2. Westminster Abbey looks like it was built yesterday, not a thousand years ago. The air was cleaned.

      Now in the name of “Clean Energy” we have diesel. Cars. Huge engines in South Australia and Tasmania. NO2 like SO2, turns into instant acid, nitric acid. Once again our cities, freestone, marble are threatened by real poisonous, destructive pollution in the name of “Clean Energy” and Nitrous Oxide which is somehow preferable to Carbon Dioxide? Unbelievable, useless, destructive and wrong.

      Repeal the RET (Renewable Energy Act (Electricity) 2000) and this nonsense will stop. What’s renewable about it?

      Get rid of the National Energy Guarantee which blames industrial users for government legislation with million dollar fines. A law which says if we run out of power, the factories will have to shut. Simple. Appalling.

      Get rid of the rebates, the ripoff in the electricity bills, the cash for the mere fact of generating wind power, in addition to the wind power itself. Remove the obligation for your electricity supplier to buy all the wind power they can get, at any price.

      I so hate this distortion of the language.
      Emissions‘ for breathing out.
      Acidification‘ for alkali oceans.
      And ‘Clean Energy‘ for diesel and nitrous oxide.
      Renewables for unserviceable windmills and solar panels.
      Zero emissions for nuclear, when it operates entirely on radioactive emissions.
      Make believe Climate Change for Global Warming. What Climate? Townsville? Adelaide? Darwin? Perth? Where is this Climate Change? Where is the massive sea rise? Show me.

      Endless disconnects, non sequiturs, contradictions. There must be a committee, a workshop to decide on language to put a good vibe on mindless absurdity, government intransigence, mass stup*dity and an abuse of democracy in our case by Malcolm Turnbull’s secret Black Hand cabal with their own, very private agenda. Get power and do what you want.

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        sophocles

        TdeF wrote:

        and Nitrous Oxide which is somehow preferable to Carbon Dioxide?

        Did you mean nitric oxide ( NO )?
        Or were you thinking of Nitrous Acid HNO2?

        You’re not building rockets (of range to reach Canberra) and planning to use nitrous oxide N2O as a propellant, by any chance? 😛

        Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or nitrous,[1] is an oxide of nitrogen with the formula N2O. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slight metallic scent and taste. At elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizer similar to molecular oxygen.

        Refer to Wikipedia’s Nitrous Oxide page.

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      yarpos

      Once again they focus on relatively meaningless intermittent MW , not actually what will be produced. Makes it sound like “the transition” is well under way, instead of in an expensive stall which is much more like reality.

      00

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    • #
      sophocles

      Jay Zwally (Chief Cryospheric Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre) has a new paper about to be published Antarctica is “still” gaining mass.
      His previous paper also flew in the face of the so-called “consensus”

      He notes that “I Know Some Of The Climate Deniers Will Jump On This, But “It Should Not Take Away From The Concern About Climate Warming.” Interesting how he has jumped on the wrong argument but I guess he has to say that considering who employs him.

      50

    • #
      PeterS

      Pretty obvious if one digs only a little into the evidence. So now we see both the ABC and CSIRO misleading big time.

      00

      • #
        sophocles

        So now we see both the ABC and CSIRO misleading big time.

        Oh no! Can’t possibly be! These tunnels into the ice the “warming Southern Ocean” is making are being tracked by satellite. Must be the real thing! Billions of tons … those glaciers are long.
        </sarc>
        Yeah, you’re right. The public might just not notice that Antarctica’s ice cap, like Greenland’s, is land based. The sea ain’t gonna go anywhere. Nor is the ice … & Josef Goebbels might be right.

        00

      • #
        yarpos

        “Pretty obvious if one digs only a little into the evidence”

        Like so much of the AGW/renewables scam. However very few bother or have the critical thinking ability. They just consume and believe the stuff regurgitated my the MSM.

        00

  • #
    el gordo

    The federal council voted overwhelmingly in favour of a Young Liberal bid calling for the, “full privatisation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, except for services into regional areas”.

    This is the right road and would have broad electoral appeal, but the government is asleep.

    90

    • #
      Dennis

      And merge SBS with ABC.

      Why does Australia need multi-language radio broadcasting and television news coverage?

      If “Australians” need to know then use the internet.

      111

      • #
        el gordo

        SBS is irrelevant, but its too hot to touch.

        The organisation has tried to cut back, a few years ago they unloaded the play-out systems, engineering and archiving departments. The 62 people moved on were not sacked, but a cushy public service environment is vastly different to the commercial world (especially play out systems) and it came as a huge shock.

        I support the Young Liberals.

        20

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          I thought of joining the Young Liberals once.

          But I wasn’t eligible.

          30

        • #
          TdeF

          $400Million a year for ‘ehtnic’ radio and television. You can buy an internet radio and listen to any radio channel in the world, in any language. Ethnic television, internet, everything. Free!

          So why are we paying for ethnic media? $8million a week to allow people to not integrate into a white, christian, democratic society where we have the rule of law and British administration and institutions. All anaethema to SBS and their ABC.
          Sell the lot.

          If they are worthwhile, can I please have my money back? Actually the ABC costs me more than Foxtel, but I have no choice. Also Prime and Netflix. With the internet I can see webcams from Venice to Hawaii to Kazan.

          So why am I paying for their ABC and SBS? If they are commercially worthless, fine. It’s not all about who can bid the most of everyone else’s money for Peppa Pig. Its about not living with media who refuse to tell you the truth and call it professional integrity, like JCU and ANU.

          30

          • #
            Dennis

            During the 1990s a Greek speaking Australian told me that he was angry about the foreign politics being played out via SBS foreign language broadcasting radio talk back programmes.

            He said that as a migrant he is proud to now be an Australian, and that politics of the old country forced him to seek a better life here and those who cannot let go should return home.

            20

    • #
      glen Michel

      Overruled by the executive, no doubt. “Friends of ABC” number one is Malcolm.

      60

      • #
        PeterS

        Turnbull supports the ABC in many ways. He’s a fake and dishonest to the core.

        40

        • #
          Dennis

          You reminded me of a picture published when Tony Abbott was PM, the ABC had broadcast material denigrating him and Minister for Communications Turnbull was instructed by Cabinet to advise the ABC MD that the broadcast material was unacceptable.

          That picture showed the Minister with the MD, both grinning, wagging a finger at the MD mocking the required message.

          20

    • #
      Jeff

      People talk about the tradition of the ABC.
      But ABC was originally paid by licence fees –

      until 1973 when they were abolished by the Whitlam Labor government

      Where possible user pays is the fairest,
      especially where private companies have to compete with a government funded company.

      50

      • #
        ROM

        The pre 1973 ABC license fees were compulsory for all households

        They were a form of tax on every family and household raised specifically to fund the ABC of those pre 1973 days.

        That compulsory household license fee system is still used by the BBC today and creates a lot of ill feeling about the BBC in the UK.

        20

        • #
          Jeff

          That compulsory household license fee system is still used by the BBC

          Wrong, if you don’t use the service you can just complete a declaration form and you do not have to pay.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMb-fd_9gpY&t=335s

          License fees in Australia were charged to households that used a TV (TV license) or Radio (Radio license)

          10

        • #
          Jeff

          That compulsory household license fee system is still used by the BBC

          Wrong, if you don’t use the service you can just complete a declaration form and you do not have to pay.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMb-fd_9gpY&t=335s

          License fees in Australia were charged to households that used a TV (TV license) or Radio (Radio license)

          00

          • #
            Annie

            There are still cases of people being hounded by BBC licence van detectors even though they have no tv at all.

            01

            • #
              Jeff

              Anyway I am not advocating the BBC license system for us.
              TVNZ (Television New Zealand) is fully commercially funded, but still state owned.
              There are several options without the need for mainly taxpayer funded.

              00

            • #
              Jeff

              Anyway I am not advocating the BBC license system for us.
              TVNZ (Television New Zealand) is fully commercially funded, but still state owned.
              There are several options without the need for mainly taxpayer funded.

              00

      • #
        sophocles

        Where possible user pays is the fairest,

        … when the user has been accurately and correctly identified. That is often not the case and a plausible but incorrect user can end up paying. That is not fair.

        Roads are good example.

        10

        • #
          Jeff

          Roads are good example.

          A taxpayer that does not use a motor vehicle does not have to subsidise one that does
          according to figures like these.

          Annual costs of motor vehicle use in Australia
          Item $million
          Road construction and maintenance 14,100

          Revenue
          Petrol and diesel excise (net of rebates) 10,300
          GST on fuel and vehicles 5,000
          Vehicle registration fees 3,500
          Insurance premiums 12,100
          Tolls 2,000
          Other revenue 2,400

          10

      • #
        yarpos

        ABC should be either a subscription service (online and/or a red hot channel on Foxtel) or go commercial (advertising greenpeace and tumeric latte suppliers)

        10

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  • #
    TdeF

    Andrew White in the Australian “A group of 100 of Australia’s biggest energy users will be required to shoulder responsibility for ensuring the security of the national energy market by contracting their own back-up power or agreeing to dial down usage.”a

    So instead of admitting the problem caused entirely by Government laws to force the use of and subsidize all wind and solar available, the government is now blaming the people who use electricity. Over 60% of our power is used by industry, so shut them down and you will not lose votes. Exports, jobs, energy security but people can always serve coffee.

    “The federal government would also back emissions reductions targets in the NEG with new penalties, including a fine of up to $100 million for failing to meet the target.”

    Now that’s a pretty big fine for failing to meet a piece of new legislation to ensure Malcolm Turnbull’s government is not to blame.

    As electricity (specifically at Tomago and Portland) is 90% of the cost of aluminum, you can assume the solution is to force them to generate their own electricity (like Whyalla) or leave the country.

    Blameless politicians. Not their fault. Factories don’t vote. So more unskilled immigration without conditions, booming public service numbers especially in Queensland, cost and wages, ballooning national and state debt and what’s not to like about being ‘progressive’. Especially Turnbull’s Greener than Green government, saving the country and the world from pollution (carbon dioxide).

    Now also Adelaide house prices are lower than Hobart’s. Quelle surprise. Who wants to live in a state with no jobs and where nothing works, traffic lights or people. How soon before SA is 100% public service, living on the WA’s GST?

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    • #
      TdeF

      Always the weasel language “emissions reductions targets in the NEG”, so even the National Energy Guarantee is about Carbon Dioxide reduction. How’s that going? Is South Australia’s CO2 lower? No, not the calculated ’emissions’ but the actual CO2? Of course not! What a silly ABC idea? So divorced from reality that it is all about seeming, posturing, nothing about actually achieving any change in CO2 because they know, the whole world knows CO2 is oblivious to our windmills. Human CO2 is bordering on undetectable.

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  • #
    TdeF

    In the press, the Far Right is a manufactured concept, a group which does not exist. It is manufactured to allege there is a balance to the Far Left, a group which dominates politics in Australia. A totalitarian group which controls the ABC, our universities and school curricula. Worse, they compare people who want free speech to Nazis, when the Nazis were National Socialists and the only difference between Hitler’s policies and Stalin’s were the difference between two single party dictatorships which ran concentration camps.

    So we are told what to think by their ABC. Emissions are the crime, carbon dioxide. Now it seems the herbivores, birds and termiates of Australia are the culprits with their methane and need to go and if we stop eating meat, they will vanish. Somehow then the world will be a better place. How long before an emissions tax on meat?

    80

    • #
      TdeF

      Sorry, I should not have included birds. Most are too small to digest cellulose. Those termite however live on the stuff. They live on dead trees, so trees are the problem. Remove the trees with a tree tax. Replace them with windmills. You know it makes sense.

      60

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Oh no birds are a problem, I think every Green CO2/CH4 zealot should be down the beach sucking the farts out of dead seagulls for the plants sake.

        30

        • #
          Yonniestone

          Plants!, plants need it, I need kelp!

          10

          • #
            Yonniestone

            PLANETS!, worn out the E key on my QWRTY.

            20

            • #
              sophocles

              Change your keyboard software layout to dvorak and in a month’s time you won’t notice the difference. Apparently, that’s about how long it takes to convert. Then you’ll find you’ll be typing faster … by about 30% +

              That key (the qwerty ‘e’ key) in dvorak is the “> .” key 🙂
              You can print off a layout chart from Introducing the dvorak keyboard at Marcus Brooks website.

              (Useless) Technical help free of charge 🙂

              10

    • #
      TdeF

      I am still appalled at the article in the Australian where a uranium miner argued for nuclear power on the basis that nuclear power had zero emissions. How far has this gone, this nonsense of CO2 being exclusively synonomous ’emissions’? Emissions free nuclear power. This is madness.

      30

      • #
        TdeF

        While I am a supporter of nuclear power, in Australia we don’t need it. To argue that CO2 was harmful, an all life on earth threatening gas and that nuclear power is fundamentally zero emissions is only possible in this climate of unreal science. To hear it from Turnbull’s ministry is utter deceit. The borrowed billions we are spending shutting down Australia is criminal. Turnbull is now far more extreme than either Gillard or Rudd and considerably more damaging. His only argument is now that Shorten is worse. How tragic.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          And when Labor switches leaders just before the election as they did in 1983.

          Waffles face would make a good picture – the day reality dawned. Have to be that day as he would be unlikely to show his face after a 60 seat hiding.

          40

          • #
            Dennis

            Would the swap new leader be the self admitted in a book about his life, discussed with him on ABC 7.30 Report, Italian citizen by birthright Albanese?

            Who relies on his father not having been identified on his birth certificate to escape Section 44 investigation by the High Court.

            Signatory to a 2017 Parliamentary Declaration regarding citizenship relating to the Section 44 investigations.

            20

      • #
        RickWill

        “Emissions” is often used officially to mean “atmospheric CO2 produced from burning fossil fuel”. It is embedded in regulations.

        In engineering terms the word emissions to describes what comes out of the stack of a fossil fuel burner is used correctly. On the other hand emissions is also used as a synonym for pollution.

        I expect you are confusing the terms emissions and pollution.

        There has been ongoing debate whether CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuel is a pollutant. I think the USA EPA did not succeed in having it labelled a pollutant so that means they cannot regulate its release.

        21

        • #
          TdeF

          I am confusing nothing. It is deceitful language, as I explain elsewhere. Emissions in this context is used deceitfullly.

          Everything which comes out of anything is an ’emission’ but by sheer repetition it is clearly short for dangerous, polluting, dirty emissions and very specific to Carbon Dioxide. So specific that people can claim that nuclear power has zero emissions!

          Consider the RET Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act (2000 and amendments). The framers of the Act define the terms so as to prevent using the words carbon (no mention) or fossil (one mention) and tax (no mention), all so that no one reading it realises it is the world’s biggest Carbon Tax. This is sheer deceit in legislation. To say it was designed to destroy all power generation by fossil fuel by taxing it out of existence would be a fair summary. What is hard to believe is that this was framed as a good thing for the country and introduced by the Howard government.

          Now the National Energy Guarantee has appeared to ensure electricity for voters is not touched by windmills by fining the 100 biggest users of electricity $1Million for every ‘offence’ when the windmills stop. Why am I thinking our politicians are barking mad, bordering on evil?

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          • #
            Dennis

            I understand that following the Howard Government signing of the UN IPCC Kyoto Agreement (they did not ratify it) and establishment of a government department to oversee reduction of “Greenhouse Gas Emissions” many initiatives were considered and implemented.

            One of them was a “trial basis” 3 per cent Renewable Energy project. That was turned into the Renewable Energy Target of 23 per cent by the Labor Government that took office in November 2007. Not long ago former PM Howard commented that the trial should never have been extended and 23 per cent targeted.

            The Abbott Government attempted to abolish the RET and subsidies but were blocked by the Senate where the 23 per cent RET was reinforced.

            10

          • #
            Serp

            Scoundrels spotted the breach Howard created with that legislation and the smart money men built their investment vehicles and sat back waiting for it to happen and it had to happen because both Rudd and Turnbull evangelised the AGW dogma (from which so much cash flows –is that what Gore told Clive Palmer?).

            00

      • #
        PeterS

        Using nuclear energy would be a good thing only if we wanted to produce weapons grade material, which would also require a nuclear reprocessing plant to separate Pu-239 from the Uranium “waste”. Otherwise, it’s better to stick to coal since it’s cheaper.

        20

        • #
          sophocles

          Wny?

          Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors (LFTR —known as Lifter) do NOT create Pu-239, can burn whatever fuel they use down to non-radioactive ash—which means:
          1. fuel waiting for reprocessing does not need to wait, it can be used by a LFTR immediately
          2. no reprocessing plants necessary.
          3. a fraction of the cost to build and run than the standard LWPR (light water pressurized reactor.

          See Kirk Sorensen’s presentation(s).

          10

          • #
            sophocles

            The LFTR does not produce Weapons capable/grade material.

            10

          • #
            Hanrahan

            I’ve heard all the good things about LFTR and hope they are all true but the principle has been known for many years. What’s holding it back?

            The only thing I recall is the metallurgy involved with high pressure salt, but they seem to have overcome that with focused solar towers.

            00

            • #
              sophocles

              What’s holding it back?

              The first LFTR was proof of concept. It was kept going for a while to sort out and try to solve some of its problems such as short life for the pipes circulating the molten salt. It was shelved over the Cold War: weapons grade material is produced in the high pressure water cooled breeder reactors, so guess what was researched and built? The LFTR has a different series of chemical and nuclear reactions, which do not produce weapons grade metals, so guess what project was sidelined?

              It was a few years ago the nuclear engineers revisited the LFTR design. China asked for and received all the documentation and they see big market opportunities. They are further (furiously) researching it themselves with an eye to lots and lots of patents.

              Several startups in North America are working furiously to get their designs through certification. That’s probably the last hurdle before going into production.

              Terrestrial Energy (Canada) is still working through its certification, has been for the last three years, I think, and hopes to be completed soon—end of 2019 IIRC. Then they’ll be able to produce.

              I haven’t looked closely at the others … yet.

              Certification seems to be a multi-headed hydra, it’s quite an involved process as you can see here and here. The sidebars show other steps and requirements, some of which may be reactor dependent.

              The liquid fuel is very corrosive. The LFTR reactors are designed as “commodity” modular (replaceable) reactors with a short life of about seven years to work around/with this property. Then a new reactor is trucked in connected up and started up, while the old is shutdown, disconnected and trucked out for recycling. So each iteration has to be cheap to make it worthwhile. It’s my guess that this may complicate the certification.

              Don’t hold your breath, but the first LFTRs won’t be far away.

              10

  • #
    RickWill

    This link details the proposed requirements of the new Australian energy guarantee:
    http://coagenergycouncil.gov.au/sites/prod.energycouncil/files/publications/documents/Energy%20Security%20Board%20Overview%20of%20the%20National%20Energy%20Guarantee.pdf

    The main points are not particularly complicated:

    * The Energy Security Board has proposed a reliability and emissions guarantee that requires retailers to meet both reliability and emissions targets.

    • The guarantee will encourage much-needed investment in the electricity sector. More electricity supply will put downward pressure on prices, leading to a reduction in residential bills in the order of $100-115 per annum over the 2020-2030 period.

    • The guarantee requires electricity retailers and some large customers to contract with or directly invest in energy resources to supply an amount of dispatchable energy in each region of the national electricity market while also meeting a specified emissions level for all the electricity they buy.

    • Retailers will deliver the guarantee using a mix of technology, generation, storage and demand response so that reliability and emissions reduction outcomes can be achieved at the best price for consumers.

    • Preliminary analysis suggests that the power mix would include around 28-36% renewables (including hydro and solar pv). Intermittent renewables may make up about 18-24% with dispatchable resources providing the remainder.

    The retailers can include actual rooftop PV as their contribution to the CO2 reduction but not any used behind the meter. The regional requirement probably means SA will need more dispatchable generation as it is reliant on Victoria to meet the full demand at present. AEMO will set the requirements for the amount of dispatachble after 2020. Each large user and retailer will be required to ensure they have contracted the right mix. Not sure if retailers will actually “contract” their rooftop connections.

    It is nice to see the term intermittent use in the requirements as that acknowledges the key weakness with ambient generation. The word intermittent irked Giles, which means its significance has not gone unnoticed:
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/esb-adds-some-meat-to-skeleton-of-do-nothing-neg-23595/

    Reliability won’t be triggered because the ESB now admits there is no reliability problem. “Despite this (addition of “intermittent” wind and solar, the current reliability standard is still not forecast to be breached,” it says.

    Intermittent is far more appropriate than the misnomer “renewable”. It takes some of the gloss off ambient sources as describing them more accurately is the start of getting some sense back into the grid supply.

    AEMO has officially used the term intermittent since 2016 however the dashboard still displays it as semi-scheduled.

    I get the impression the “more electricity supply” in the second requirement only refers to dispatchable. But I expect a lot of that will be the lowest possible capital cost because the NEG will not make the grid a better place for coal generators. Even 18 – 24% market share for intermittents is highly disruptive for coal. There will probably be some debate over the dispatchability of the concentrated solar generator but that is still years away.

    20

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Rick I was wanting your opinion on Landfill/Waste energy generation?, our local Council is dealing with a private investor for a waste energy facility in a new industrial zone, in this article Generating community discussion on waste to energy in Ballarat the details are not clear on what process is being used rather speculation from a well known CAGW zealot suggesting bio-mass, incineration, gas capture.

      10

      • #
        RickWill

        Landfill sites produce mainly methane gas through the decomposition of the waste materials. Generators tap into the gas and feed it to a turbine or ICE capable of running on natural gas. It would be regarded as dispatachable.

        As far as I know the technology in use now relies on natural decay of old landfills. I think there are developing proposals to do more conditioning of the waste to enhance and better control the gas recovery. Some parts of the world are really short on landfill sites.

        When you think about it a big blue bin full of paper, plastic, glass and cardboard that is collected fortnightly has a lot of energy. The paper and cardboard has been recycled by Visy very efficiently but the others are now a problem. I am not sure if the glass is still pulled out. Then there are the things that go into the rubbish bin on a weekly basis. Most of that is figuratively ripe for methane production. Old land fills are typically capped to exclude water that is required for the water gas reaction but there have been some notable issues where capping has not been fully effective.
        https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/cranbourne-residents-win-millions-in-gas-leak-compo/news-story/288b45f169fb8eb17e30cf5b9a63a051?sv=60f0a350197bcd406b131cfca27c465c

        10

    • #
      sophocles

      That saving of “$100” to “$115” looks to be about 8%-8.5% of a year’s worth of power for the average household. One month.

      How much would it really be?
      Chicken feed or significant?

      00

      • #
        Robber

        To get that saving from a reduction in wholesale prices would mean a 20% reduction – from $70 in Qld and $90 in Vic back to $56-72 – highly unlikely. Oh for the good old days way back in 2015 when prices were $40-50/MWhr after the carbon tax was removed by Tony Abbott.

        10

    • #
      Robber

      “More electricity supply will put downward pressure on prices, leading to a reduction in residential bills in the order of $100-115 per annum over the 2020-2030 period.”
      True, but given the investors in the sector will not over-invest, why will surplus capacity ever exist? All that is coming is shutdowns of coal stations, replaced by a mix of intermittents with gas or pumped hydro as backup – added costs = higher prices.

      20

      • #
        RickWill

        I think diesel will figure significantly in the new mix. New dispatchable power will be the lowest cost that is compatible with intermittents. That is most likely diesel because it has the lowest capital cost but the actual operating time could be quite small so not penalised by the high cost of fuel.

        I can see that businesses like the big supermarkets will get value from their standby gen sets. Certainly Telstra will be looking to get its batteries and generators classed as dispatachable.

        I cannot see any price reduction. There is still more intermittent generation required to meet the 2020 target and every bit of that requires dispatachable back-up, which will be gas and diesel. Coal will continue to be squeezed out because of its slow start and ramp rates.

        To get 24% market share from ambient sources there would need to be about 30GW of wind and solar. So on a windy day in September 5 years from now the whole grid could be supplied from just ambient sources for an hour or two. Both Germany and the UK are at that stage.

        For coal to figure there would need to be a contracting arrangement that tied to scheduling requirement to curtail wind output above some maximum level to preserve base load. I cannot see that happening because the wind is still viewed as very low marginal cost. And if that is put in place the actual price of ambient energy skyrockets because it has less output to recover the capital cost.

        00

  • #
    James Murphy

    Use the power of numbers to show that your pet is psychic, and can predict the World Cup winners.

    Well, actually, its an interesting idea started by an Australian former maths-teacher, now a mathematics communicator via a diverse range of media. If I had a pet, or something able to resemble a pet, I’d do it, just for entertainment.

    here’s a video on it
    https://youtu.be/tQiiaFE1e-Y

    Here’s the website
    https://psychic-pets.com

    10

  • #
    sophocles

    There’s “fear and trembling” about the economy in NZ right now with falling Business Confidence in recent (2018) surveys.

    Measuring Business Confidence is itself something of a confidence trick. I decided this some years ago after Don Brash was predicting an imminent recession because of low business confidence in January 2006. NZ’s economy was cooking nicely, before, during and after that speech, well away from “teetering on the edge” as he claimed.

    The predicted Crash? Well, yes, there was one: a biggy in October 2008. A global crash which started in Wall Street, NY, USA. It affected the world, not just NZ.

    Now it’s 2018 and Business Confidence is heading downhill again, “ Trending Down” in Market Speak, so we must be in good/improving times. This must be another example of “unexpected consequences.” Times are good and BC is falling. Maybe it’s a case of “heck! Times are good … it can’t last!

    The other side of the coin is that BC is always high when times are tough/rough/tight. Is that a case of “Gee, times are tough … they’ve got to improve!.”

    Dunno.

    10

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Given that New Zealand has a former President of the International Union of Socialist Youth as its Prime Minister, it should come as no surprise that business confidence is “trending down”.

      I always thought Kiwis were smarter than that.

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      • #
        Dennis

        And she is a former staffer for NZ Prime Minister Helen Clarke (Socialist) and later UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (Christian Socialist).

        20

      • #
        sophocles

        Your prejudices are showing, Sceptical Sam. Zip them up, there’s a good lad.

        “Business Confidence” always “Trends Down” when the economy is running well. Nothing to do with Socialism. Nor who is, nor what is the Prime Minister. This one’s pregnant and that’s not having any effect at all. The only PM who panicked was Don Brash but then he’s a mis-educated economist.

        Perhaps you should read my post again? I didn’t think my meaning was that abstruse …

        10

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Zip them up

          Zip up?

          Now you’re sounding like a socialist, wanting to tell people to hold there tongues.

          I read what you had to say. It’s bollocks.

          Maybe you’d like to read mine:

          https://www.aei.org/publication/why-socialism-always-fails/

          NZ is on the downward curve that always arrives with socialist governments.

          10

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            BTW: their.

            00

          • #
            sophocles

            I will remember to avoid any and every attempt at humour in addressing you in future.

            I read yours and it’s bollocks. If it had been titled “Why Communism Doesn’t Work,” I might have been sympathetic but it wasn’t and I’m not. It is very superficial because it continues the American conflation and confusion of Socialism with Communism, which Prof Perry continues. Just because the Communists called themselves “Socialists” does not mean that they were, because they weren’t. They were Marxists and their states were Marxist tyrannies. Yes, there’s a difference.

            Marx wrote “Das Kapital” over three volumes, letting all his prejudices hang out in Vol 1. It wasn’t until Vol. 3 that Marx and Engels started to “get it right” but they had already published “The Communist Manifesto”, which was based almost solely on Vol.1. The so-called “Socialist,” actually Marxist, states, and leading Marxists like Lenin, also did not go beyond Vol 1, so of course they all got it wrong.

            It seems you have made the same mistake. You could try reading this essay (it’s a long one but IMHO, worth reading in full) then consider that almost everything we’ve been fed since the end of WW2 has been corrupted to some extent, not just politics, Climate Science, etc., but economics too, including so-called Capitalism.

            Josef Goebbels was right about the Big Lie; we have been handed many. Perry is merely advancing the American economic and political thesis warts, errors, corruption and all.

            Thou shalt not suffer “Socialists” nor “Socialism” to live and we say who “Socialists” are and what “Socialism” is.

            In the meantime, until you can disprove me, I stand by what I said.

            00

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              In the meantime, until you can disprove me, I stand by what I said.

              A revisionist can never be convinced he’s wrong. However, the evidence is against you. Business confidence is a well-established lead indicator of future macro-economic activity.

              Recessions are generally preceded-accompanied by a significant deterioration in confidence. Hit the “Max” button of the dataset you linked to and see the chart of changes since 1971. let’s look at those figures of yours:

              New Zealand’s most recent recession commenced with the March 2008 quarter and ended with the June 2009 quarter. If you go to the confidence figures you linked to in your initial nonsense, you’ll see that confidence had turned down in 2007, before that recession took hold. Helen Clarke, another great socialist failure, was subsequently chucked out in November of 2008.

              There was also a 1976/78 recessionary period in NZ. Again, have a look at your confidence figures preceding that episode. Yep. They turned down (just after they’d struggled up from the 1974 low – achieved by another Labour socialist government, which was chucked out in 1975).

              The 2017 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 23 September 2017. A socialist government was installed. In the following month (October) the confidence measure turned negative. No surprises there. Hold on to your hats NZ. There’s likely a business downturn coming your way very soon – if not a recession – courtesy of another socialist government.

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                sophocles

                You’re so right about revisionists. Look in a mirror.

                I’ve lived through every recession which has occurred in NZ since WW2. Robert Muldoon was both PM and Minister of Finance for a National (Conservative Government. The only internal recession was created by him. See below. The rest were all imported as Wall St imploded. The two in the early 1970s were caused by the two Oil Shocks.

                All other recessions (and some of your dates are wrong but I can’t be bothered correcting you, were all either imported or caused by outside factors.

                1. Helen Clark (L) causing the 2008 implosion? Risible.
                2. The Dot Com crash in 1999 caused by her election success? Risible.
                3. The 1990-1991 global recession caused by David Lange’s (PM) and Roger Douglas’ Labour government? Risible.

                (Douglas threw off all the economic shackles as demanded by the World Bank and the 1990-1991 recessing caused by the 1989 Wall St crash took down the whole world. Caused by Labour? If all the economic reforms were so great how come that recession was so deep?
                Caused by Socialism? Risible.

                4. The 1975.1976 recession? Under Robert Muldoon (National)? That was the second Oil Shock, Muldoon successfully extended the recession to 1984 when he was chucked out by his Wage-Price Freeze.

                5. The 1972 recession? The first Oil Shock. (Global) Kirk’s Labour govt was elected a month later. They caused it?

                Risible.

                6. The 1966-67 recession? Robert Muldoon was Minister of Finance in the Holyoak/Marshall National governments. Caused by “Socialists?” Risible.

                If your dates of recessions from your Business Confidence “method” are different from mine, then you are wrong.

                Next?

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                sophocles

                The next economic recession will be c, 2026 with recession 2027-2028.

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              sophocles

              I missed the 1981 recession. It was global but NZ was so deep inside Muldoon’s Wage Price Freeze, so we never noticed.

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    David Maddison

    I once thought the excellent policies and performance of Donald J. Trump would be an influence and inspiration for other Western leaders but sadly the rest of the West mostly remain in full self-destruct mode, at an accelerating pace.

    The Left are just too far embedded and there are at least two generations of fully dumbed down voters.

    It was truly a miracle, Divinely influenced some would say, that Trump won the election. It wasn’t the plan of the elites for him to win despite their best efforts at vote rigging and Obama’s “motor votors” (which enabled illegal immigrants to get driver licenses which in many stayed was all the ID you needed to register to vote).

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      David Maddison

      * states not stayed!

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      RickWill

      South Australia and Ontario are recent examples where rabid green is being given a dose of reality. Germany also has a less rabid green government that is beginning to look realistically at ambient generation.

      Meanwhile the snow season in Australia is delivering as good as ever:
      https://au.news.yahoo.com/australias-south-east-shiver-cold-snap-weekend-004056131.html

      Australia’s ski resorts are enjoying one of the best early-season snowfalls in years as a series of cold fronts sweep over the alps

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        Annie

        There was snow in Marysville overnight according to some of our parishioners. It was sleeting as we drove along the Marysville/Buxton Road so I expect that there has been a goodly snowfall at Lake Mountain.
        We’ve had a lot of rain and now having brief sunny spells. Everywhere is sodden! The dog (a border collie) is covered with mud!
        I must have a look at the ski resort webcams…

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    toorightmate

    Not much in the “””mainstream media””” about the FBI emails.
    I am now really pleased that Trump defeated Hillary Scumbag against all odds.

    However, the “””mainstream media””” dis seem to think that Robert Deniro was pretty funny. If someone had said the same about Oh Bummer, it would have been portrayed as treason.

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    pat

    big CAGW MSM scare story on baobab trees in Africa during the week, so a little background here:

    13 Jun: Guardian: Climate change is wiping out the baobab, Africa’s ‘tree of life’

    Baobab tree deaths linked to climate change
    CNN – 12 Jun 2018

    11 Jun: Phys.org: ‘Shocking’ die-off of Africa’s oldest baobabs: study

    Nature: The demise of the largest and oldest african baobabs
    http://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0170-5.epdf?referrer_access_token=WpjEnOL0WjDQIEJOvczK3tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PfCb0fwHOSvF60fdB_TECZFartUn3hwa9iRPi5T4HR_V53jygxkZ-p95jhRU273ADk6s29N0Ma1kLSh7AHicf8IgtJ4C7vCLIeg84HmXHplJD-7i3bN7AtmSZoiu3d2KqqaYOmXJXL50Jp91iaqzmTa5f9nnLSZ_qN50IKVL4HXA2korCck-xTXyTFq1g-ueTtSgyxw_kFNNrfLRB0gIA8cu5C1mD-NDyz8W5Z9I8GaA%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=edition.cnn.com

    1 Jan 2017: Daily News Zimbabwe: Black fungi destroys gian baobab giant-baobab-trees
    by Bernard Chiketo
    COMMENTS:
    Joe Cool: This has been going on for years in the same area, and was widely publicised in the press about 15 years ago at which time it was advised that the de-barking of the trees should be banned. There are a lot of short memories about.

    Wity: …While it is a fact that trees at Nyanyadzi have been affected by the black soot disease, a lot of myths and half truths have been peddled about this disease. Detailed research will show that even trees that have not been debarked or injured by elephants (see Jinga vilage for example, only 20 k from Nysanyadzi) have equal level of infection. Also if one digs archival material at the Forestry Commission they will come across old scientific reports that were done in the 1960s through 1990s where the disease was reported as threatening to wpe out all the trees in Nyanyadzi (the first case was reported in Victoria Falls!) Some of the trees that were found to be heavily infected at Nyanyadzi and Birth enough Bridge (15 km away from Nyanyadzi) in the 1970s have since fully recovered! There is a lot of research that has been done on the baobab tree including in West Africa that dispels a lot of half truths about the black soot disease and I have also done my own bit on the subject as part of my Phd studies. Interesting subject you report on though.
    http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zimsit-m-black-fungi-destroys-giant-baobab-trees/

    NatGeo didn’t fully embrace the scare story:

    11 Jun: National Geographic: Africa’s Oldest Trees Are Dying, and Scientists Are Stumped
    A mysterious killer is claiming the mighty baobab.
    By Nadia Drake
    The culprit behind their deaths is still unknown, though scientists suspect that changing climate is to blame. (By contrast, the oldest tree in Europe is now having a growth spurt.)…

    But since 2005, eight of the 13 oldest trees and five of the six largest have either suffered catastrophic partial collapses or completely fallen down and died. These include well-known trees that have become famous for their size or natural architecture like the Sunland baobab, as well as the sacred Panke baobab, a giant tree in Namibia called Grootboom, and Botswana’s Chapman baobab.
    Though it’s a small data set, the trend is alarming…
    Patrut and colleagues do not think the trees’ deaths are the work of disease, and instead suggest the wave of mortality may be the result of a hotter, drier climate…
    https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/oldest-tress-africa-baobabs-dead-climate-science/

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    pat

    comment in moderation re “Baobab tree deaths linked to climate change”

    followup to comment:

    McDonnel’s piece also appeared on NPR in the US:

    13 Jun: The Namibian: Why are Southern Africa’s Baobab Trees Dying Off?
    by Tim McDonnell
    (Tim McDonnell is a journalist covering the environment, conflict and related issues in sub-Saharan Africa)
    Until late last year, the Platland tree in South Africa, also known as Sunland, was their queen. It was the continent’s biggest baobab, at 33 metres around, 18 metres high and more than 1 000 years old. It had a cavernous central hollow that hosted a fully functional cocktail bar with seating for 15 people.
    Beginning in Spring 2016, the tree started to split apart. By November 2017, it had crumbled completely.
    The bar’s owners blamed rot ***caused by heavy rain and threw a barbeque to honour its passing.
    But if the Platland’s demise was sudden and tragic, it wasn’t unique: A new survey of baobab trees across several countries in southern Africa found that most of the two dozen oldest and most significant trees have died or significantly deteriorated in the last decade…

    Scientists are wondering what’s behind the mysterious die-off — and are looking at climate change as a likely culprit.
    “Such a disastrous decline is very unexpected,” says Adrian Patrut, a chemist at Romania’s Babes – Bolyai University who organised the survey, published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Plants. “It’s a strange feeling, because these are trees which may live for 2 000 years or more, and we see that they’re dying one after another during our lifetime. It’s statistically doubtful.”…

    Patrut says more research is needed to understand the cause of the die-off, but he believes the most likely explanation is climate change.
    “These trees are under pressure by temperature increases and ***drought,” he says…

    Southern Africa — including countries like Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where the trees catalogued by Patrut were found — is already warming faster than the global average. Scientists predict that over the next few decades it will experience some of the continent’s most intense increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall.

    Baobabs, especially old ones, can be more vulnerable to drought than their grizzled appearance might suggest, says David Baum, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But more evidence is needed, he says, to strengthen the link between climate change and the baobab deaths.

    Other factors, including human interference with individual trees (installing a cocktail bar, for example), could also be responsible.
    In any case, Baum said in an email, “it is very likely that human actions, whether by changing the local landscape or altering global climate, have contributed to the death of so many large baobabs”…
    Baum says that many baobab specialists are doubtful of Patrut’s tree dating method, which could underestimate the age of a tree by up to 1,000 years…
    The problem is the tree’s so-called “architecture.” Baobab bark is a favourite snack of elephants and is susceptible to rot. Because of these pressures, some young baobabs become pockmarked with “scars.”
    The common theory, Baum said, is that as the tree slowly grows around these scars, they can become large hollows…

    Diane Mayne, a baobab ecologist who worked with Patrut in South Africa, called his theory a “fantasy” that lacks “a single reference on wood, anatomy, allometry or biomechanics or the hollowing process — despite recent research in these fields.”

    A spokesperson for Nature Plants says the paper followed the journal’s normal review process, which involves peer review by two or three outside experts.
    The architectural debate doesn’t change the finding that so many trees are dying off. But it matters because correctly identifying the oldest part of a tree is a prerequisite for knowing its age…
    https://www.namibian.com.na/68330/read/Why-are-Southern-Africas-Baobab-Trees-Dying-Off

    Twitter: Tim McDonnell, @FulbrightPrgrm @NatGeo Storytelling Fellow in Kenya, Uganda, & Nigeria. Formerly @MotherJones. Rambler. Tucsonan.
    TWEET: 11 Jun: This is a photo of a cocktail bar inside a tree in #SouthAfrica. Baobabs are some of Africa’s oldest and weirdest living things. Why are they starting to die off? https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/11/616085781/why-are-some-of-africas-biggest-baobab-trees-dying-off … Today in @NPR @NPRGoatsandSoda @nature

    first reply: Alex Dropkin: Because we keep putting cocktail bars inside of them.

    response from McDonnell: Fwiw, this particular one died because of rot due to heavy rainfall, not having a bar inside of it per se. other baobabs have hosted shops, a prison, houses, storage barns, and bus shelters, according to Kruger Natl Park…
    https://twitter.com/timmcdonnell/status/1006200599967346688

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    Greg in NZ

    It’s way worserer than anyone funked! -183˚C wind chill at Thredbo, NSW today! That Globalism Warmingism thingy-ism has definitely run away… far, far away (and apparently now eats decimal points for breakfast).

    http://www.mountainwatch.com/australia/thredbo/?v=Snowreports

    This may get updated / corrected as the day goes on; I saved a screenshot for memory’s sake. Yet just for a change, the Bureau of Muntology’s observation records it as -18.3˚C. You can FEEL the change…

    http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.95909.shtml

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    Hanrahan

    Sunday funnies:

    After 10 years, the wife starts to think their child looks a little odd, so
    she decides to do a DNA test. She finds out that the kid is actually from
    completely different parents.

    Wife: Honey, I have something very serious to tell you.

    Husband: What’s up?

    Wife: According to DNA test results, this is not our kid.

    Husband: Well, don’t you remember? When we were leaving the hospital,
    you saw the baby had pooped his diaper. Then you said: Please go change
    the baby, I’ll wait for you here.
    So I went inside, got a clean one and left the messy one there.

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      Hanrahan

      In the spirit of state of origin ;
      Wayne Bennet was having a lemonade with his team in the Brecky Ck Hotel when the bar manager came up to him saying “Sorry Wayne, I’ve got to ask you to leave”. Clearly upset he asked why, he was obviously not drunk, he never drinks.
      “I know” says the barman “but it’s happy hour”.

      Apologies to our O/S friends [and Mexicans] who wouldn’t have a clue what I’m on about.

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      toorightmate

      Not unlike:
      “Two Wongs don’t make a White.”

      But you shouldn’t say things like that, so I wont.

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    Ross

    Question for Jo and David.
    With the GISS temp records showing a declining in average temps in the past two years does that mean you won the bet you had a several years back ? If so well done !!

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    RicDre

    Interesitng article:

    Impact of Physics Parameterization Ordering in a Global Atmosphere Model https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2017MS001067

    If I understand what they are saying correctly, the climate models are so sensitive to the order that sub-grid parameterizations are applied that just changing that order can create spreads in the projections as large as the current spread in the intermodel projections.

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      Kinky Keith

      RIC

      Good point: the ” models ” are a joke and you have found a proof.

      The models were never real.

      In the real world Atmosphere a graph of Temperature shown against CO2 levels plotted daily over a year would Flatline.

      Minor intra day fluctuations may be there but at the end of the year we would be back where we started.

      The World needs more CO2!! 🙂

      KK

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      Kinky Keith

      RIC

      Good point: the ” models ” are a joke and you have found a proof.

      The models were never real.

      In the real world Atmosphere a graph of Temperature shown against CO2 levels plotted daily over a year would Flatline.

      Minor intra day fluctuations may be there but at the end of the year we would be back where we started.

      The World needs more CO2!! 🙂

      KK

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      sophocles

      RicDre said:

      the climate models are so sensitive to the order that sub-grid parameterizations are applied that just changing that order can create spreads in the projections as large as the current spread in the intermodel projections.

      Now you know why there are so many climate model projections. I think they’re done in a spirit of “hit and hope” — maybe one of them might be right. Unlikely, considering they don’t take things like clouds (which have far more effect than CO2) and which are merely “averaged,” into sufficient account. They’re just another parameter “to wiggle the trunk” with.

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    RicDre

    “I think they’re done in a spirit of “hit and hope” — maybe one of them might be right.”

    Well you could determine the right one by:

    1) averaging all of them together and assuming that all of the wrong ones will cancel each other out and the result will be the “right” one.

    2) assuming that the one that gives an answer closest to your preconceived outcome must be the right one.

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    DOC

    It is the predictions of the solar scientists that the sun is having a rest and the planets are due to face a serious cooling within 30years. Politicians have tunnel vision as though the planet has always and will always warm. They are acting on the premise that they can stop 2degrees C warming by the end of another 80years by virtually killing all the major requisite features of a national energy system. The warming scientists a year ago were saying their science could take a millennium to be proven, and, even if the solar people are correct the mechanism of the warming will continue unabated. This implies the cooling period would be inconsequential, of short duration ie it doesn’t matter a damn.

    The worry should not be the temperature, but the effect of temperature on the
    people of the world. Warming has the planet showing greening and increased productivity with CO2. As Lomborg states, we can much more economically adjust to heat than trying to prevent it. The absurdity is to destroy all our governments would have us destroy now and yet still acknowledge it saves the world nothing in warming.

    Cooling on the other hand could be vicous. ~6 billion people to feed now; not 3+B of the ’70s that had the scientists frothing at the mouth in alarm of a predicted cooling that never came. World Crop failures now would be devastating with starvation and food wars. Yet, we sell our farms to people much more powerful than ourselves in cash, people and armaments. We limit land use for agriculture, and we destroy our energy system reliability that is leaving us with little more than costly, inefficient renewables. The federal government has recognized it has no answer to the outcomes through what it has destroyed, except by making big businesses now, that aren’t and have never been in the general energy producing game, responsible for cutting back their use of the grid and finding their own energy supplies in times of high demand – and make sure they don’t transgress the CO2 abatement policies in doing so!

    Everything the government is doing to our power resources, selling and locking up productive land etc, is the antithesis of what we would need in a freeze. Yet there is the scientific prediction of cooling now on the books and within the lifetime frame of many of us, in the lifetime of our politicians even, but no Australian government wants to bother about it. This is totally at odds with the more temperate actions being taken by most governments around the world that still are building many ff plants, and they will be in a much better position to
    cope should this prediction come true than the real mess Australia will be in, and with dire consequences for us due to the time it takes to rebuild our power stations.

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