JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
What would the average surface temperature of the Earth be without greenhouse gasses. The IPCC claim 255K.
The average surface temperature of the moon is 197.3K. I am very confident that the earth would be very close to this temperature without an atmosphere.
This paper gives solid mathematics on the reasons for the IPCC error:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4447774/
The paper attempts to make allowance for the energy storage inherent in Earth’s oceans but if there were no greenhouse gasses then it would follow all the surface water on Earth had disappeared as well.
72
Implying that ice at -18 degrees C doesn’t generate any water vapour is it, the IPCC claim? On past form they’re probably wrong…
50
I get more sense out of Alice in Wonderland than I do from IPCC reports.
92
So? It’s only about 0.04% of the atmosphere, not all of it. Plus the massive amount of water 370 x the gases. It is the greenhouse gas. The others are largely transparent except some patches in the infra red. Also we are on a molten ball of liquid rock where the moon is frozen, so the earth would have a surface temperature even without the sun.
71
CO2 probably has little or close to zero effect. That’s why the hot spot was invented. No one believes CO2 has any effect on its own.
122
My thoughts exactly Tdef , the earths molten core has to have an effect on temp somewhere .
61
It is a relatively small amount of heat (91.6 mW/m2) compared to solar.
After all the poles stay deep frozen.
40
Thanks for that George.
My comment about it was way in excess.
KK
10
They tend to ignore the adiabatic lapse rate too.
No atmosphere = no surface temperature of any gas as there is none! Only the heat generated by the solar radiation in the rock of the planets surface.
Mercury +400C on the Sun side -195C on the dark side. Hmm thats a big range, so that must be warming..
The rocky surface heats up and radiates AND conducts to the surrounding rock.
‘The IPCC claim 255K.’ This claim is false. NASA only use it to prop up their false theory to support globull warming.
The SB law is due to FLUX from a black body, only, and is the radiation photon density, NOT heat.
61
Global Waming effects on Lake Michigan, courtesy Roy Spencer.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/chicago-cold-550×367.jpg
51
Thanks Rick,
I wondered where the estimated average temperature of the Moon came from since I have looked on the web for this figure before. I think it is derived in the paper.
The paper concludes:
They show a graph of lunar surface temperatures at the Moon’s equator with a mean temperature of 213C. That seems to be derived from Diviner satellite measurements. They acknowledge the probable contribution of the Oceans and Atmosphere in hozizontal heat transports but do not try to quantify them. They also assert that atmospheric pressure raises the heat storage effect.
It seems, if they are correct, that all the SB calculations about the Greenhouse Effect on Earth are a load of bollocks.
What we need to know is the difference between an atmosphere with no CO2 and our atmosphere. That is the fundamental puzzle.
Hertzberg, Schreuder and Siddons, here explain the heat storage effect, using the same data and shows how heat storage raises the average temperature on the Moon.
http://ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf
80
Whoops,
This should have been a response to Rick Will at #1.
20
Thanks for the summary Peter.
They mention the dreaded “infrared back radiation” which worries me but on the positive it seems to understand that the S_B equation has been used wrongly and unexpectedly.
I have a vague and possibly inaccurate memory of core energy of Earth equating to about 4 watts/m squared.
The moon wouldn’t have this internal energy.
KK
31
Check, a million times check.
“wrongly and inexpertly”
31
As shown above the figure is not 4 but about 0.0916 w/m2.
00
I believe the earth without atmosphere is pure sci-fi. Does it mean no water? You cant ASSUME anything therefore you CANT show mathematically or otherwise WHAT the planet would be like.
40
Yes, too many what ifs.
31
Strictly, the S-B equation only applies to surfaces in a vacuum. Prof Hottell found a relation that could be applied to gases eg from a flame in a furnace. This is based on volume and not sutface area and includes a path length and partial pressures of radiating gas and an emissivity fsctor. The absortivity or emissivity of CO2 at a temperature of around 280K is clode to zero so CO2 contributes nothing to atmosperic tempersture or temperatures near the surface.
40
Peter
There is fundamental research being carried out. As far as I know Michael Mishchenko is the only atmospheric scientist who has a the fundamental physics of EMR energy transfer. I do not know exactly how his work is being applied to instrumentation but some interesting insights in this paper:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/mmishchenko/publications/2015_Polarimetry.pdf
By examining the polarisation of an electro-magnetic wave it is possible to determine the scattering and the resultant energy transfer through clouds and aerosols. This should enable determination of actual energy transfer rather than relying on application of the S-B equation for a black body as is the usual method.
I am keen to follow his work to see how it carries forward into measuring instruments. Getting down to basic physics gives such powerful insights. There may be existing data that gives new insights by applying this analysis.
With regard to the average temperature of the moon, the Diviner data provides at least 0.5 degree grid information. The paper I linked to shows that even the small thermal inertia of the moon surface dramatically increases the average surface temperature.
The main point of that paper is that arriving at 33C contribution of so-called greenhouse gasses is so flawed it is ridiculous. For example, if Earths surface was a perfect conductor so the global surface temperature was constant then the solar constant of 1388W/sq,m and emissivity of 0.92 for the oceans gives surface temperature of 285K. Given that the ocean temperature vary over a small range this is a more realistic model of the Earth than some fictitious radiating surface 5km above the surface receiving only 80% of the area adjusted solar constant flux.
40
Causes me to think about Will Janoschka…….silence is not golden….
10
What a month it has been for electricity generators. So what, a few unplanned shutdowns and brownouts are
goodfantastic for the generators.Average wholesale prices for January:
NSW 116.32 $/MWhr
QLD 93.41
SA 245.90
TAS 144.87
VIC 255.12
Compare that with prices for 2018/19 FY YTD:
90.68 81.63 114.41 75.23 111.88
All rolling in $$$ at our expense. A new fairer system is needed NOW!!
140
According to the Australian yesterday the additional electricity cost for Victoria and SA over the two hot days of Monday/Tuesday was $1.1billion. That was just for the electricity at $14,000/MWh. That actual cost must have been higher because on Tuesday AEMO responded promptly by cutting power to business and domestic consumers to ease the load, which cut prices promptly. But business loss, which is not yet known, has to be factored in.
151
Looks worse if you just look at the prices during the $14,500,00 mega sale .
60
At these prices, some people must have been disconnecting from the grid and running generators as it would cost less. It might be a good selling point for generator sales. Perhaps have an automatic changeover switch that changes once the grid price gets too high.
50
Auto start backup generators now being advertised on TV Someone sees an opportunity.
20
At the consumer level there is no timely price feedback. My bill this month will still be 30c a kWh and any financial impact will further down the track. If it was more tightly connected we would probably get a bigger outcry.
10
We need constant reminders, thanks Robber.
This scheme was designed and implemented by politicians who think that voters are stupid.
Vote accordingly.
72
Won’t work because there are far too many stupid voters.
50
Incredible daily price for 24 Jan (I guess someone has already listed them)
SA 3359.82 RRP 5303.3 PEAK RRP
VIC 3377.97 RRP 5331.69 PEAK RRP
https://aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#average-price-table
RATE NSW QLD SA TAS VIC
RRP PEAK RRP RRP PEAK RRP RRP PEAK RRP RRP PEAK RRP RRP PEAK RRP
2019/01/24 104.02 116.63 100.05 110.45 3359.82 5303.3 107.88 89.12 3377.97 5331.69
2019/01/25 149.52 188.38 123.24 148.98 549.98 761.7 185.03 167.79 752.99 1074.9
40
The AEMO dashboard is a good resource. I’ve done up a set of charts from their monthly historical files which show price and demand from 1999, so to see the prices in context:
http://redcentresoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/AEMO_Demand_and_Price_by_State.xlsx
http://redcentresoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/AEMO_Demand_and_Price_All_States.xlsx
I did likewise for the UK grid (supply sources):
http://redcentresoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/GridwatchUK_Demand_and_Supply.xlsx
40
Not working for the iPad Dale but I like what you’ve done .
00
Thanks for the data Dale. That’s a great historical record of electricity demand and price by State.
What immediately surprised me is how much demand has dropped as prices have doubled.
In 10 years, NSW has gone from 8960 MW to 8000 MW, Vic from 5950 to 4950 MW, SA from 1500 to 1300 MW, Tas 1185 to 1145 MW.
However Qld has increased from 5940 to 6240 MW.
Is that due less industry, or more efficiency?
10
Companies are reluctant to build new generation capacity while our governments are talking of entering the market themselves to bring down prices.
The govt has to be “all in” by nationalizing mains electrical energy or be “all out” and leave the market to look after itself. Higher prices will cause more generators to be built and prices will then settle.
Govt threats of haphazardly entering the market or subsidizing won’t cause more generators to appear and it could go the other way.
20
It’s called market manipulation.
The beneficiaries, besides the polli who gets to keep his seat, are a bit better hidden.
10
I guess I am naive.
I usually see things as evidence of stupidity rather than nefarious intent.
10
Hi robl,
If the government had created a genuine market, there would be competition and sensible prices.
What we have been given is a system that can be manipulated and gamed and is so crazily not a market, that every household in Australia is paying AUD$1,000 annually in excess of the true market value of our purchase.
Even when you allow the cost of putting up wind turbines and rooftop solar and farmed solar “infrastructure” as the necessary show point, there is probably still a cool billion or two in gamed profit.
This shakedown is proof that we have lost control of our government.
Where do we go from here when both major parties are keen to keep extending our sham electricity system?
If Audrey being at the helm doesn’t ring alarm bells we are in big trouble.
KK
10
Interesting example.
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/wa-taxpayers-foot-huge-bill-for-botched-power-project-ng-469ee6522576a7be3007efb11b156095
10
The Cooling Power of a Thunderstorm
Yesterday in Melbourne we had a dramatic example of the cooling power of a Thunderstorm.
It was hot 37-38C by the afternoon. There was high cirrus cloud about. By 2pm cumulus were forming at about 10,000ft. Above that the balloon flight data showed that once clouds started to form at 10,000ft they would rapidly grow up to 35,000ft due to temperature profile of the atmosphere and the latent heat of evaporating water.
And indeed at about 4:30pm the sky darkened as large Cumulo-Nimbus started to form. Within half an hour, widespread lightning started followed by rain. The temperature dropped 10C in half an hour.
Such rapid temperature drops are fairly common in Melbourne due to cold fronts, but they are always accompanied by a change of wind direction and wind speed as the cooler frontal air pushes in from the South West.
In this case there was no change in wind direction or speed, just the cooling of rain and the shady umbrella of all that cloud.
Time, Temp, Humidity, Wind direction, Wind speed (kph):
2:00pm 37.0, 29, NNW, 20
2:30, 37.3, 21, N, 22
3:00, 36.9, 23, N, 22
3:30, 37.0, 24, NNE, 22
4:00, 36.5, 25, N, 26
4:30, 36.0, 24, NNE, 19
5:00, 25.6, 69, N, 26
5:30, 25.1, 70, N, 17.
Measurements courtesy the Bureau of Meteorology at Viewbank.
110
I should have included the cooling effect of evaporation with the rain.
Note how the humidity jumps up at the same time as the temperature falls.
10
The north is having the first BIG WET for many years. I can’t remember heavy rain from a monsoonal trough, not a cyclone, since ’98 although it probably happened. Our dam failed to fill for the last six years, now they have the radial gates open to prevent possible flooding.
The excitement will be for the fishers, the barra season opens midday tomorrow. Barra live in both estuaries and fresh water lagoons but they don’t breed in the fresh. When the floods come those fish head downstream and can be seen crossing the road in a few inches of water. Our bait & tackle shops will have a big weekend. 🙂
100
The barra got a reprieve in Townsville at least, there is too much water mixed in with the fish and you would be nuts to get close to the river flooding as it is,
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-01/townsville-as-flooding-emergency-continues-man-missing/10768656
00
I’m not sure if it is the BoM or the local paper calling this big wet “unprecedented” but I agree with them. Townsville has never seen rain like this. The dam is 193% full but they won’t open the gates further until after the morning’s high tide. That dam had a lot of money spent on it some years ago, money proving to be well spent.
The bright side is that there is has been rain in the west and it has been bluddy dry there.
10
The saga continues, our dam is now @ 210% capacity and Sun Water is trying to juggle the flood gates to release the water while minimising flooding. Not an easy task. BoM speaks of another 4 days of this, heaven forbid!
In case anyone wonders I’m way above flood levels and I’ve got a solid block fence keeping any rock slides out. I’m OK.
20
Dear Diary:
It’s still raining and BoM now promises some wind.
00
The AAA want’s a road usage tax to replace the 41.2c petrol tax.
The EV owners won’t like that, having to pay the same taxes as the battler in a Falcodore.
81
Hope they tax cyclists as well !
91
Suggest the AAA should look at the unfairly placed 16c/l impost on diesel when utilised by passenger cars.
I understand the impost on heavy vehicles/transport vehicles as a contribution due to their impact on roads (axle loadings etc).
However diesel car users have no more impact than EVs, hybrids and petrol cars.
The 16 c is already being returned to off-road diesel users why shouldn’t it also be returned to diesel car users?
60
Royal commission into the Murray Darling set up by Weatherdill reckons ” climate change ” is the problem .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-01-31/murray-darling-basin-royal-commission-report-says-system-is-sick/10766786
Or is that just the ABC .
51
I don’t think the SA government has released the report here in SA.
So where has the ABC got it’s information from ?
60
From the best sources , white crow and Rosella as per usual .
Trying to mitigate for Climate Change Signals when the longest drought we know about was over 20 years in length would be a mugs game and the only way you could do that was to abandon every town and farming enterprise on the Darling just for starters and in a big drought would achieve nothing anyway .
Only way to ensure water on the Darling or Murrumbidgee is Dams and I’m not sure there is anywhere suitable for the Darling so then we go to plan B and pump it from further north or west .
60
The Minindee system about halfway down the Darling is the main flow control for the lower part of the River.
Pump the water from further west? there is none. Pump it from the North? Cotton farmers have already captured most of it.
46
How can you comment from such a position of ignorance?
“Cotton farmers have already captured most of it.”
Rubbish.
Firstly, cotton is just a plant, 100% organic (as in living, not mineral) and cotton farmers are all just farmers, producing beef, wheat, soybeans, chickpeas, barley and corn as well as cotton. Cotton is grown because it produces the best $ per litre, otherwise something else would be grown. If you hate the cotton grower, remember your clothing choices are few – wool or hair (expensive, and requires dead animals), or mineral (crude oil) – nylon etc. You could use hemp, the favourite of the lunatic left, but hemp is a toxic tannin polluter of the worst kind during processing, and hemp uses more water than cotton to grow. And nobody wants it. (watermelons explode here).
Secondly, define “most” of it. You must mean more than half at least. How much water is captured? 1% of the rainfall. 1%!! That is not “most”.
In broad terms, irrigation farmers produce 50% of all agricultural produce (food and fibre) in Australia, from 1% of total rainfall, and 2% of total area farmed. If you really want to profess hatred for cotton growers in this manner, throw out all your food and do not replace it, then you will have some credibility.
82
Now that’s what I would label as a total fabrication. From the cotton industry itself
“Water use efficiency in the cotton industry. The largest volume of irrigation water was applied to cotton, which used 2,851 gigalitres, or 26% of the national irrigation total for the year (11,060 gigalitres) (source: ABS Water Use on Australian Farms 2010-11). 566,000 hectares were planted to cotton in 2010-11″
Given that most of the cotton is on the upper Darling, and I was talking about only the Darling, the amount extracted (26% of the total) would be very high % of the available flow.
Toss in the well documented illegal harvesting, and the capture of surface flows the total goes even higher.
so where did your figures come from?
40
The problem is Peter, that eventually when you say something that might be true, people who have dealt with you in the past and been dissed and abused look at your record.
Your record doesn’t tell them that this comment has use. In fact your record suggests that they would be wasting their time reading it.
KK
22
Let google earth be your friend. It is 2,293 KM from L. Argyle to Bourke, a convenient spot on the Darling.
And the Burdekin river is the only one in NQ which could supply enough water to make a difference, reliably, and Hells Gate would be the best option because it can drain west without needing to be pumped over the range.Thats about 1,400 KM to Bourke. But why send the water south? Why not use it close to source and irrigate the black soil plains? [that’s what they are called]
00
Yep, roughly 4.5 times the length of the goldfields pipline. Ergo you would need 32 pumping stations, and could expect to lose around 4 million kiloliters a year in leaks, breaks etc.
The word pipedream sums it up
21
C’mon Pete! where is your sense of the possible? 32 subsidized wind mills takes care of the pumping, plant crops where the leaks are (or stop using Chinese steel) and you have a working project.
11
What is Argyle dry Fitz ? I believe there are plans for a dam at Hells Gate .
12
You failed Australian geography,
21
That depends on wether or not the Argyle is west of the Murray Darling basin and Hells Gate is to the North of the Murray Darling Basin .
Sorry just realised your anti Dam aren’t you .
12
If you really want to be pedantic North West , but pumping water to the top of the catchment would benefit the whole system providing new dams were built to the north , north west .
Pumping the water is another matter given the distance required but CY O’Connor managed a smaller scale feat many many years ago .
Droughts and floods are normal in this country so why not harvest one to mitigate the other .
42
The only reference to the Argyle I can see is the dam at the heart of the Ord river scheme, 15,000 k’s away. The Hells Gate project is near Townsville, also a freakin long way away.
In the early ’80s there was a push to abandon everything west of the Darling, as it made no economic sense. The denizens of Broken Hill put up such a fight, even though the mining there was being scaled down, that it was abandoned. By the way, Broken hill also gets its water from the Darling system
20
It’s a dream Robert, the benefits are marginal (unless you are the chinese owner of Cubbie).
10
Not a dream at all but an engineering challenge , all possible .
As for the morality of farming on the upper reaches of the Darling , I will leave that one for the theological society to argue .
The amount of water that falls up north most years just gets flushed out to sea , why not where possible divert it and pump it inland .
01
15000 kms away Fitz? and you are slagging other people about failing geography? Classic
20
took the coast road
01
Lake Argyle is our best bet to drought proof the MDB.
A single pipe line, branching out as it nears the NSW / Qld borders, should do the trick.
As they have spent $13 billion so far without success, perhaps $3 billion for this water pipe is not excessive.
Now I’m going to be politically incorrect by saying Lake Mungo should be filled as a tourist attraction, to show what the place looked like during the ice age.
This water will cost, but fortunately its only required during drought.
10
To overcome the internal friction for the water in the pipe, you will need to place booster pumps along the way. for example, at the Kalgoorlie pipeline. The distance was compounded by the height the water had to be lifted. To rise the almost 400 metres (1,300 ft) in altitude, issues with friction meant that the ‘head’ of 800 metres (2,600 ft) had to be achieved. O’Connor had eight pumping stations which pumped the water to the next of the receiving tanks in his plans.
Leakages were noted early by the early 1930s, 1,700,000 kilolitres (370,000,000 imp gal) of water per year – a quarter of the total volume of water being pumped from Mundaring Weir – was leaking from the pipeline.
As I said it is economic craziness
41
The technology has vastly improved, so there won’t be any leaking pipes. For those areas that need pumping facilities, a wind farm or solar farm nearby should be able to handle it.
Along the length we could direct water to newly built dams for new cities, connected by very fast rail.
A tender process will be required, which Beijing should win.
12
I think your extrapolation of the early Goldfields Pipeline issues to modern system is quite wrong Peter. For a start, some of the original Goldfields pumping stations have gone as the modern ones are more efficient. Secondly, the original pipeline leaked because some sections were made of wooden staves bound with iron hoops and tar covered. When in Phoenix, I noted that their water came via canal from the Colarado River, a long way away. And I still believe that water could be obtained from our north via either a pipeline or a lined canal. If we can run a gas pipeline 1400 kms for only $400m in one year, surely a long distance water pipeline is not that difficult or expensive.
40
Water diversion via canals (China model) would be more expensive and travelling across a Martian like landscape might pose problems, but I’m not averse to the idea in principle.
00
On the costings, a ball park figure for a single pipeline, 200 kilometres would cost #350 million.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-02-07/plan-to-pipe-water-from-lake-argyle-to-flora-valley-station/8234824
00
Wow, $350m for only 200 km. Wonder why it’s so expensive. Also I note from the same article local opposition to any form of dams on the Fitzroy river.
10
Environmental impact statement preparation and court battles….
10
Its only 2319 kilometres from Lake Argyle to Bourke, money well spent if it comes in under three billion dollars.
10
Oh what an easy target Cubbie Station is, they are as evil as Monsanto. 🙁
From their website:
11
From the cotton industry
“Water use efficiency in the cotton industry. The largest volume of irrigation water was applied to cotton, which used 2,851 gigalitres, or 26% of the national irrigation total for the year (11,060 gigalitres) (source: ABS Water Use on Australian Farms 2010-11). 566,000 hectares were planted to cotton in 2010-11″
Given that most of the cotton is on the upper Darling, and I was talking about only the Darling, the amount extracted (26% of the total) would be very high % of the available flow.
Toss in the well documented illegal harvesting, and the capture of surface flows the total goes even higher.
Not a mention of Cubbie there.
Now for your bit in Bold. Cubbie Station’s average entitlement is 0.25 of 1% of the total average Murray flow.
Now either Cubbie is much bigger than I thought but to stretch down to the Murray is just preposterous
33
But Cubbie is not on the Darling, and it is fair to speak of the Murray flows because it is the Murray they are trying to save,
Have you evidence of illegal harvesting?
How does the south OWN water that falls in Qld?
20
Hanrahan – they are using the Murray to minimise the extraction percentage as you should have figured out.
Here is a handy table https://www.mdba.gov.au/managing-water/water-storage
As to Illegal harvesting
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nsw-country-hour/water-theft-guilty-plea/10555174
As to who owns the water
Wikipedia has a good summary of water rights
but in general. Water falling on your property is yours. Water in a river is owned by the state. In the Murray-Darling basin it is a Federal issue, managed by the plan
11
The MDB authority has spent $13 billion and they have been busy, everything is geared up to take water from Lake Argyle.
http://www.agriculture.gov.au/water/mdb/programs/basin-wide/ofiep
Stealing water shouldn’t be a crime, people do stupid things out of desperation.
11
Cost benefit for a pipeline from the north / north west would easily favour the pipeline .
I knew greenies were anti dam but pumping water from an existing dam hurts what exactly Fitz .
10
Private enterprise pumped mining slurry from Lawn hill to Karumba without too many problems .
10
Fitz has been silenced, victory is ours.
02
For all Brexit fans, here’s a quote:
“The petition demanded free trade and an end to protective tariffs. The Prime Minister, who (falsely) claimed to be in favour of free trade, blocked the petition. [ the PM ] argued speciously, that complicated restrictions made it difficult to repeal protectionist laws.”
Does that sound like anyone we know? Actually it refers to PM Lord Liverpool and moves to repeal the Corn Laws in 1820.
Nothing gets better in politics without the odd intervening revolution and the rattle of the guillotine to re-set the clock ready for the beginning of a new decline towards the following revolution.
70
Oh dear, everyone’s porkulent Ozzie hero is at it again.
Clive Palmer is gonna have another law suit on his hands. The Palmer Party’s use of the “we’re not gonna cop it” advertising theme was done without paying any royalties to its composers, Twisted Sister, who are suing, saying that being associated with Clive is a bad look for them. I can well believe it. Clive is counter-suing claiming that his theme song is actually based on “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”.
30
I heard that tonight and doubted changing “take” to “cop” would cut the mustard legally.
20
Link
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/clive-palmer-link-is-a-bad-look-singer/ar-BBSVtHt?ocid=spartandhp
10
00
00
I really haven’t got much to say.
60
You’re too modest.
Are you a lukewarm skeptic or a cool skeptic?
30
Bad stutter.
50
Indaily the online Adelaide based daily ‘paper’ has a big article about this Royal Commission..
he was appointed at the request of the former labor government which lost office last march.
It seems that the Royal Commissioner instead of investigating and reporting as best he can on the abuses and issues in the MDBC, in the past and especially in the period before his appointment in November 2017, has decided to attack the new minister for water in the Liberal South Australian government…Who has been in office only since March.
Effectively he has ensured his report will be ignored and locked away in a dusty attic..
He also seems to be under the illusion that a recently elected minister of the SA government is accountable to him a non elected Royal Commissioner blow in from Sydney.
We live in bizarre times !
31
An unthreaded well here goes again, my wife’s son last week passed away at 39 years old due to a suspected drug overdose, for all those progressive types that think Pill testing is a such a socially responsible idea and placing a preventative burden on our hospital system is a right I would like to wish the same fate upon you.
70
Very sad, sorry to hear that.
40
We live in difficult times at the moment.
Give thanks for the life that was and work towards healing.
Strength.
Keith.
41
I’m truly sorry to hear that. Drugs are a curse on humanity.
30
Devastating news Yonnie , our thoughts are with you .
10
An awful thing to happen Yonnie.
11
If everyone will promise not to die laughing here’s a true story unfolding where I live right now.
We have a community forum useful for all sorts of community concerns. Typically I see requests for help finding a missing cat; requests for a referral for a good tradesman and so on.
Now imagine my surprise when I saw this pop up.
And this prompted one of the longest “discussions” I’ve ever seen. And not least of my surprises is that everyone is being moved to the Green Energy Alliance unless they opt out. I immediately called the given number and opted out, only to be told that it was almost too late. But I was finally promised I was out and given, if you can believe this, an opt out confirmation number to prove that I am still just an Edison customer. They are very serious about having you in, not out.
Which brings up the next question. How was I notified of the switch, certainly not in my Edison bill. No, the notice was sent separately with no indication that it was anything to do with my electricity service. I wonder how many will be blindsided when their first bill arrives and it’s from someone the never heard of. If I wanted a good definition of dishonest business practices I would pick this.
But there’s more and a very lengthy back-and-forth has happened during which (you know me) I have patiently called attention to the way such schemes have gone when tried elsewhere. Some people understand and I’ve received more thanks for my effort than for anything else I’ve said in all the previous time this forum has been running. But the diehard most vocal readers are not moved, do not care to look at examples and remain intransigent.
I don’t want to get too long so I’ll end with some links.
Things offered as proof mind you, not just evidence but proof of climate change and other links (GEA = Green Energy Alliance):
NASA
EPA
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Local area guide about GEA
Edison’s own “Green Power” rate struicture
GEA’s FAQ
Who will bet even a dime against me that rates will not go up both for GPA and Edison customs. After all, isn’t that the intent in the first place, to price us out of electricity while making the power brokers rich? It’s as big a fraud as green has been anywhere else.
80
Jo,
Thank you for the email support you provided. I know you put in prodigiou amounts of time and energy just to keep your blog running and I had a long debate with myself before I decided to ask for your help.
I wish I could say it was a more productive effort but at least it got your name and blog in front of people who would never see it otherwise.
Roy
20
Roy i think being effectively forced unto a contract without your approval may consistute coercion. As such, entering a legal arrangement without your express agreement should make it illegal. Check with a lawyer of course, but just my thoughts. ..
00
Steve,
I think it’s even worse than that. It’s a deceptive business practices which is already illegal. But in 2019 how much chance is there of getting any action on it.
A lie by omission or subterfuge is still just a lie.
00
It’s a sad world Roy when our so called democracies are run as profit making businesses to benefit individuals in the government.
21
The saddest thing of all is that we humans never learned the lesson from the fact that we have 2 eyes and 2 ears but only 1 mouth. I know that’s frazzled and worn out metaphor but it still means something.
Our current world demonstrates it nicely with the young now pushing for untenable social change and generally trying to run things while more time spent with the intent of learning from history could avoid repeating the rise and fall of nations and no end of trouble we would never have to go through again.
We have conquered technology to the point where I can fly across the pole from LAX to London in about 10 hours in an airplane so sophisticated that once lined up on the runway it could be told to fly the plan in its computer, take off, fly to London, land on the appropriate runway, stop and sit there waiting for the touch of human hands again and do it in zero visibility all the way. Yet we have not conquered ourselves.
If you’re old enough to remember Pogo Possum, today he would say, “We have met the enemy and he is still us.”
The only examples of green energy from anywhere in the world are abject failures.
40
Roy, buy a gun.
In years to come i think you will need it. Being able to place a red dot centre of mass and follow through may be necessary in the future to protect your family when things go to pot, will be necessary unfortunately.
i dont take such matters lightly….
00
When things really go to pot you better be able to use iron sights, to the extent you actually take sighted shots.
00
Steve,
Think about this for a while. Suppose I have a food supply that will last a year and the gun necessary to defend it. Can I also count on sanitation services working? Bad bet, not to mention what else I’ll need, like gasoline.
In any case it will soon be noticed that I’m doing well while others are not and I might defend myself against one or two but eventually it will become a mob that will overwhelm me.
I cannot see how a gun helps when the ultimate collapse comes.
30
We’ve got to be smarter than that. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
The deadbeats who blocked our streets in the 1960s and1970s have been running our country for the last thirty years. If things get really desperate, follow their lead. Block their streets.
20
Roy this sort of Garbage should always be voluntary opt in , never compulsory.
10
Yet again he speaks so much common sense only to make everyone else look so stupid and dumbfounded.
Nigel Farage: No Deal Brexit is better than the backstop
60
31 Jan: PerthNow: Dark ages: Hospital in blackout emergency
from The Daily Telegraph
As a valued reader of The Daily Telegraph, here is an exclusive look at tomorrow’s front and back pages tonight.
Ben English, Editor
• A Sydney hospital had to rely on its last line of defence — battery power — to keep patients alive yesterday as a major blackout blamed on overgrown weeds at a substation took out power to 45,000 homes and businesses. There were reports of chaotic scenes inside Prince of Wales Private Hospital in Randwick as it took a full minute for backup generator power to kick in when the electricity went off at 11.26am. The Daily Telegraph can also reveal high level crisis talks were held two weeks ago to consider asking households to cut their power use or face rolling blackouts because a heatwave had caused a spike in demand and shortfall in supply…
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/nsw/dark-ages-hospital-in-blackout-emergency-ng-b090dd8213dcfe5d346bea707e90568d
Overgrown weeds spark blackouts, forcing lifesaving hospital …
Daily Telegraph-2 hours ago
Sydney’s eastern suburbs were plunged into chaos yesterday when a one-hour power blackout left several of the state’s largest hospitals…
70
31 Jan: SMH: Power restored after massive outage in eastern suburbs leaves thousands in the dark
By Rachel Clun, Cole Latimer & Laura Chung
Homes and businesses in suburbs including Double Bay, Edgecliff and Bondi Junction lost power at 11.26am, forcing shops to close, disrupting council services and leaving hospitals relying on backup generators for essential services.
By 12.20pm power was restored to 10,000 customers around the Double Bay area, and an Ausgrid spokeswoman said crews restored power to the remaining 35,000 by 12.37pm.
The blackout was felt widely, affecting the Sydney Children’s Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick.
A spokeswoman for Prince of Wales said the hospital’s backup generator kicked in immediately so no essential services were affected.
Shops including Aldi and Coles at Eastgate Bondi Junction were forced to close for an hour when retail systems went down…
At least 23 traffic lights were blacked out through Maroubra, Randwick, Clovelly, Kensington, Coogee, Bondi and Double Bay during the power outage.
Traffic signal crews were deployed with generators to manage the situation, a Transport Management Centre spokeswoman said, and motorists were advised to exercise caution…
The Ausgrid spokeswoman said an investigation found the outage was caused by a fault in an underground cable entering the Double Bay substation.
Affected areas included parts of Randwick, Bondi Junction, Bondi, Kensington, Waverley, Double Bay, Woollahra, Bronte, Bellevue Hill, Clovelly, Coogee, Rose Bay, Queens Park, Edgecliff, Point Piper, Paddington, Tamarama, Bondi Beach and surrounds…
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/massive-power-outage-in-sydney-s-eastern-suburbs-leaves-thousands-in-the-dark-20190131-p50urm.html
Updated 30 Jan: SMH: As temperatures soar, NSW faces tight power conditions
By Cole Latimer & Peter Hannam
AGL’s Liddell power station, in NSW’s Hunter Valley and Origin’s Eraring power station on Lake Macquarie were both suffering broken generators on Wednesday, taking approximately 1300 megawatts of supply out of the system…
While the Australian Energy Market Operator is not expecting any loss of power, it has forecast a lack of back-up power reserves of around 200 megawatts on Thursday.
Despite AEMO cancelling a potential shortage of reserves on Wednesday, the breakdowns were still forecast to drive up wholesale power prices on the day to more than $14,000 a megawatt hour in NSW and Victoria from midday until 7pm, as well as briefly spiking up to $14,000 in South Australia towards the end of the day…
While electricity demand is expected to reach a peak of about 13,456 megawatts on Wednesday and just under 14,000 on Thursday, those totals are still well below the NSW all-time high of 14,764, reached in the summer of 2010/11…
***Rooftop solar, though, will act to keep customers from tapping the grid for power, masking the full electricity demand, Dylan McConnell, from Melbourne University’s Climate & Energy College, said…
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/as-temperatures-soar-nsw-faces-power-shortages-on-wednesday-thursday-20190130-p50uhd.html
50
30 JaN: DutchNews: Electric car subsidies largely benefit ‘rich’ Tesla and Jaguar drivers
Around half the government fund to stimulate people to drive electric cars has ended up in the hands of ‘rich Tesla and Jaguar drivers’, the Volkskrant (LINK) said on Wednesday.
Last year, the government said it would fund tax breaks totaling €700m for electric car drivers. But almost half the 25,000 electric cars bought in the Netherlands in 2018 were Teslas and Jaguars with a price tag of €80,000 to €120,000, the paper said…
The paper bases its claims on answers to MPs’ questions given by tax minister Menno Snel in parliament on Tuesday evening…
This means that CDA leader Sybrand Buma’s comments that ‘prosecco-drinking Tesla drivers’ have profited from the tax break at the ‘expense of the ordinary man in the street’ are largely true, the paper said.
It points out that the subsidies for electric cars are mainly funded by higher taxes paid by petrol and diesel car owners.
The government had assumed 11,000 electric cars would be bought in 2018, with an average price of €43,000. Instead, 25,000 were bought for an average of €63,000 each.
This, the paper says, means the subsidy scheme has overrun its budget by ‘a couple of hundred million euros’…
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/01/electric-car-subsidies-largely-benefit-rich-tesla-and-jaguar-drivers/
40
I’m dreamin, but refer my post #7
10
Victoria State Govt: Take2 Victoria’s Climate Change Pledge
Join thousands of Victorians already fighting climate change with TAKE2
Pledge to act now and help keep the temperature rise to under two degrees…
(SCOLL THROUGH FOUNDING PARTNERS)
(AT BOTTOM)
Sustainability Vic:
A high efficiency air conditioner will save energy & cost less to run ❄️ By choosing a system that is the right size for your home, you can avoid paying for energy you don’t need.
https://pledge.take2.vic.gov.au/
40
VIDEO: 7min39sec: 30 Jan: ABC 7.30 Report: Why Australia’s electricity network struggles with blackouts
After last week’s blackouts in Victoria, questions are being asked about the long-term reliability of the national electricity grid. And there are warnings that New South Wales could be at risk of similar power shortfalls over coming days.
Transcript:
…DANIEL ANDREWS, VIC PREMIER: While units were falling over in our coal fired power stations renewable energy was going strong last Friday.
We’re investing in renewable energy because we know the reliability of our old privatised coal fired power stations, is uncertain.
AUDREY ZIBELMAN: Suddenly during that one hour that we ended up having to load shed, the wind
dropped unexpectedly to 350 megawatts.
Had we not lost the wind during that hour, we would not have had to be in the load shed again…
ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Supply to the national electricity grid has tightened, since South Australia’s only coal fired power station was shut down in 2016.
A year later Victoria’s 1,600 megawatt coal fired Hazelwood power station closed.
SARAH MCNAMARA, AUS ENERGY COUNCIL: No coal’s not to blame for what happened on Friday…we don’t quite have enough generation in the system at the moment, particularly in Victoria…
ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: On the day of the blackouts, brown coal generated around 42 per cent of Victoria’s needs. About 23 per cent came from gas generation. 16 per cent was from hydro. 9.5 per cent from wind and almost 4 per cent from rooftop solar…
AUDREY ZIBELMAN: Customers are very concerned about the price of energy and if we procure that level of reserves, if we buy too much, the concern is then customers have to pay for them even if they’re not used…
TONY WOOD: As the solar was falling away, the wind was falling away as well. In that case they did have back-up available in diesel generators, they were called upon, they ran for a couple of hours and it got them through that peak period of demand…
ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: With demand so high across South Australia and Victoria, the wholesale price of electricity skyrocketed from a few hundred dollars a megawatt hour, to the maximum allowable price of 14,5000.
The sustained high prices triggered a rare move by AEMO to impose a cap. The costs will eventually filter through to customers…
AUDREY ZIBELMAN: It’s not a question of coal or resource that AEMO’s technology agnostic.
The type of resource we would want, is a resource that can respond very quickly, that doesn’t need to be on all the time but can be on for a couple of hours…
HELEN NEYLAND: The electricity bills have more than doubled. We’re trying to manufacture things here in Australia. We don’t want to go offshore. It’s just crippling.
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/why-australias-electricity-network-struggles-with/10764774
50
An appalling situation when decent hardworking people are served by academic/political/activists like the one imported from the U.S. who is head of our “electricity” system.
Our Democracy has been hijacked.
KK
61
Renewables can’t load follow and you can’t guarantee any given day to be windy or sunny .
Before the last three coal generators were shut we had plenty of power and prices were low , now they’re telling us that never happened and extra generation to cover extreme days would cost more .
60
Dan: “While units were falling over in our coal fired power stations renewable energy was going strong last Friday.”
Uh huh.
Then Audrey says: “. . . the wind dropped unexpectedly to 350 megawatts. Had we not lost the wind during that hour, we would not have had to be in the load shed . . .”
And if your auntie had goolies Audrey, she’d be your uncle.
And had the pair of you not shut down Hazelwood you would not have had to load-shed. This must be the first time in recorded human history when wind fluctuated and dropped.
70
Seriously, people should be buying guns now….the Communists mean to crash our country, and it will get ugly.
Clueless people will say owning a firearm for self defence us not a reason ( including govts ) but self defence us perfectly acceptable. Only the Leftists who want people disarmed are scared of sane and decent people owning guns.
21
Its more than a bit depressing that dear leader Dan is so stupid that he compares renewables with coal fired plants and thinks he is buying equivalent reliable power.
Spend a couple billion on renewables, spend a couple of billion on a HELE plant. Measure the actual power delivered over a year, measure the % of time the investments are delivering over 90% of nameplate.
Come back and talk to me about reliability and availability.
The truth is the reliability argument is BS, this is pure ideology and AGW alarmist zeal.
41
I forget who said this, but it is so true of renewables and the war against CO2 :
““There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
70
Peter Ducker. However, what war? Many hundreds of new coal fired power stations are being being built and to be built over the near future. So if anything the war has been lost many times over by the alarmists. It’s really only Australia and perhaps a few other nations that is pretending there is still a war against CO2.
81
Message for PM Morrison. Pull your finger out and declare the war on CO2 is no more.
110
If he doesn’t you can be sure he’s working with or for Audrey and her boss.
61
where’s solar?
31 Jan: Bloomberg: When Does the Windy City Lose Wind Power? During a Polar Vortex
By Chris Martin; With assistance by Brian K Sullivan, and Naureen S Malik
Turbines often idled during deep freezes to prevent damage
Reduction in wind output boosts fuel burns as prices climb
The wind farms erected across the central U.S. over the past decade were supposed to provide cheap power during the blustery winter months. But they were never designed for cold like this.
As a life-threatening freeze brought temperatures that may reach all-time record lows in the Chicago area Thursday morning, heating demand surged and power suppliers were forced to start up older coal and natural gas facilities that only operate on an as-needed basis. One of the reasons why is that wind-power generation has plummeted.
“It’s just too cold for a lot of wind farms,” Adam Jordan, director of power analytics at Genscape Inc., said in an interview. “They can get damaged in weather like this.”…
With a deep freeze like this one, wind-farm operators may have to hit the brakes as ice builds up on blades and to prevent lubricated bearings from seizing up and stiffened fiberglass blades from cracking…
The situation highlights a weakness of renewable power, the fastest-growing part of the U.S. generation mix…
For now, coal is temporarily supplying about half the electricity needs in the two grids that serve most of the affected region — the Southwest Power Pool and Midcontinent Independent System Operator. Normally, coal and wind supply roughly the same amount, about a third of the total power mix.
Two companies — DTE Energy Co. in Detroit and Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. — have asked customers to turn down their thermostats to take pressure off systems struggling to meet demand.
Xcel, which gets almost a fifth of the energy on its system from wind, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about its wind-farm operations. NextEra Energy Inc., the largest U.S. renewable-energy provider, and Invenergy LLC, a Chicago-based independent power producer with wind farms in the region, also didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment after regular business hours.
Wind generation on Wednesday afternoon was less than half its annual average in the Southwest Power Pool, the grid operator from North Dakota to Oklahoma.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-30/when-does-the-windy-city-lose-wind-power-during-a-polar-vortex
40
Modern politics is madness, piled on top of greed and all driven by self interest.
The USA is way ahead of Australia in the number of derelict wind turbine sites littering their country but stupidity knows no bounds and construction continues.
I have trouble believing that there is so much malevolence in the world.
KK
52
pat:
There are plenty of reasons why wind turbines won’t work in cold weather (or hot either) but fibreglass blades stiffening in the cold isn’t one of them. Fibreglass huts used to be supplied for use in Antarctica for many years (usually coloured red for some reason).
Having the lubrication fail or ice build up on the blades are more likely, even though a lot of blades produced lately have de-icing built in, but that wouldn’t work in extreme conditions as are prevailing there.
I wonder how much electricity those turbines are dragging from the grid as they try to keep rotating (and probably) heating the lubricating oil and keeping the electronics warm (batteries fail in freezing temps)?
20
It appears the “Climate Change” is going to become “Climate Disruption”.
This, one supposes, makes it more ‘legitimate’ to identify individual events as
harbingers of ‘carbon’ created doom.
In the US we are in the midst of a cold spell. It is, of course, the most extreme ever,
and is caused by fossil fuels. We are assured of this by the same folks who told us, not
that long ago, that our children wouldn’t know what snow was.
The science might be a bit more compelling if it were predictive. I don’t seem to find many references
in a quick search to ‘global warming will cause extreme cold’ that were predictive….just post facto rationales.
Cold does not debunk global warming. Heat reinforces it. Hurricanes reinforce it. Tornadoes reinforce it. Earthquakes reinforce it.
Bee colony collapse reinforces it. Coral bleaching reinforces it.
Behold the magic molecule.
Believe the witch doctors.
Leave your coal in the ground.
Send the virgins up the volcano.
Send us all your money to squander.
We are the green and magnificent OZ.
There are some days when it’s just too hard to try to reason with these people.
And maybe it’s just me, but the other ideas that seem to be fellow travelers with
climate change are becoming increasingly extreme and unattractive.
These aren’t just well meaning people volunteering for a day of beach cleanup who have been duped
by global warming pseudo science and are trying to so the right thing — some are nasty pieces of work
seemingly driven by hate.
I get the feeling that they have given up on trying to change my behaviour &
simply want to eliminate me altogether.
Contemplating a grid failure during conditions as they are currently in the American midwest turns a power
glitch into a megadeath event.
71
Richard,
A great outline.
Evil stalks, and it is hard to imagine the ugliness that drives modern politics.
As you say: lives are on the line in your country and those politicians who constantly project and spew about human rights are nowhere to be found.
I am now a firm believer in Resurrection.
Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Pol Pot are with us again.
The pushback via Brexit and Trumpit and Yellow Vests is there but finding it hard to overcome the last forty years of social manipulation.
KK
51
30 Jan: TimesOfIndia: Arctic cold blast impacting north India’s winter: Met
by Amit Bhattacharya
NEW DELHI: The long and chilly winter in north India this year could be linked to cold blasts from the Arctic region that have been spilling southwards since late December due to the breakdown of a wind circulation called the polar vortex, Indian Met officials said.
As north India continues to reel under severe cold, with the temperature dropping to -1.1 degrees Celsius in Churu, Rajasthan on Tuesday, an official in the India Meteorological Department said the sustained chill over the region appears to be linked to the polar vortex breaking up — an event that has brought freezing spells in Europe and is currently unleashing severe snowstorms in the US.
“The cold from the Arctic has been spilling southwards into Europe and US due to the weakening of westerly currents. This seems to pushing western disturbances more southwards than normal towards northern India. In effect, this is transmitting the cold from southern Europe into north India,” said D Sivananda Pai, head of IMD’s long range forecasting.
Western disturbances (WDs) are pulses of low pressure winds that travel westwards from in and around Mediterranean region, bringing cold, moist winds that either hit the Himalayas — impacting northern India — or blow over to the north.
This January, seven WDs have hit north India as opposed to the normal of four to six. “These weather disturbances have been impacting the region every three-four days this month,” said B P Yadav, head of IMD’s Regional Meteorological Centre here…
The last WD of January has now hit north India, and its impact will be felt on Wednesday and Thursday.
“Snowfall is expected across the western Himalayan region — J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand — and the northern plains are likely to get rain with hail in some areas,” said Yadav…
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/arctic-cold-blast-impacting-north-indias-winter-met/articleshow/67748314.cms
20
***just one brief mention of wind and solar! better than nothing given it’s FakeNewsWaPo:
30 Jan: WaPo: The Energy 202: Polar vortex tests gas and electric systems in Midwest, Mid-Atlantic
By Dino Grandoni
As millions of residents in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic hunker down amid historically bitter temperatures, the cold is testing the very energy systems meant to keep their lights on and homes warm during the brutal winter weather…
Not only are residents demanding more heat and electricity while staying indoors, the icy and windy weather is straining generating stations, power lines and other infrastructure that deliver that power…
Just as snowflakes are varied, winter weather can weaken power generation in a number of ways. Cold can shutter coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants.
***Ice can grid wind turbines to a halt. Snow can incapacitate solar panels…
Earlier in President Trump’s administration, however, the Energy Department also pitched a more controversial proposal to keep electricity flowing during cold snaps. The department said such polar vortices are reasons to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants.
Perry said that only those two types of power generation could assure grid reliability because they, unlike gas and renewable energy generators, could keep a 90-day supply of fuel on site. But critics of the plan saw it as a ham-handed effort to prop up Trump’s political allies in the coal business.
The independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ended up agreeing with those naysayers. In a binding decision last year, all five of its commissioners, including four appointed by Trump, rejected the Trump administration’s plan…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/01/31/the-energy-202-polar-vortex-tests-gas-and-electric-systems-in-midwest-mid-atlantic/5c5211321b326b29c3778d29/
31 Jan: Fox News: The politics of the Polar Vortex – It’s fossil fuels that are keeping Americans warm this week
by Rob Henneke
The only real defense against Winter Storm Jayden is fossil fuels—the source of the vast majority of electricity that Americans will need to stay warm. Pie-in-the-sky talk about renewable energy won’t warm hearths and hearts during this storm, because the sun isn’t shining all the time and the wind capacity simply isn’t there…READ ON
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/the-politics-of-the-polar-vortex-its-fossil-fuels-that-are-keeping-americans-warm-this-week
30
28 Jan: Forbes: California Is Approaching $4 Gasoline, But It Has Only Itself To Blame
by Ellen R. Wald, Senior contributor
(Ellen R. Wald, Ph.D. is a historian and consultant on energy and geopolitics. She is the author of Saudi, Inc., president of Transversal Consulting & a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council)
California’s stringent environmental regulations have isolated it from the larger gasoline market
Gasoline prices in Los Angeles are nearing the psychologically significant $4 per gallon mark. The media are reporting that the increase is due to rising oil prices, which they blame on OPEC’s policies and President Trump’s new sanctions on the Iranian oil industry. It is true that global oil prices are higher. The international oil benchmark, Brent, is now over $80 per barrel, but this is not the reason why gasoline prices in Los Angeles and around California are the highest in the nation…
California consistently has some of the highest gasoline prices in the the United States, and a newly instituted 12 cent per gallon gasoline tax isn’t helping. California also has some of the most stringent regulations for its gasoline in the nation. In practice, this means very few refineries are willing to produce gasoline for that state.
For many years, California also required that summer-blend gasoline — which is more expensive to produce and contains extra additives designed to reduce air pollution in the summer — be used all year round. So, while gasoline prices typically fall in September across the United States as stations switch to the cheaper winter blend, Californians were left paying higher prices. In 2012, around the time gasoline prices were breaking records, Governor Jerry Brown changed the regulations to permit winter-blend gasoline to be sold in California in an attempt to bring down rising gasoline prices. Still, both the summer and winter blends of gasoline used in California are more expensive to produce than those used in any other state.
California’s stringent environmental regulations have isolated it from the larger gasoline market. This, in turn, has pushed up prices for consumers even more. For example, transportation costs for refineries and service stations are higher because California has no interstate pipelines. Any gasoline that is produced by refineries outside of California for use in California must be transported by truck or ship – both of which are more expensive. (Coincidentally, trucking and shipping gasoline also have larger carbon footprints)…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2018/09/28/california-is-approaching-4-gasoline-but-it-has-only-itself-to-blame/#271b2c401a7a
30
lol.
31 Jan: Axios: Exclusive: Ocasio-Cortez, Markey to unveil Green New Deal bill
by Amy Harder
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are set to unveil legislation laying out a “Green New Deal” as soon as next week, Axios has learned.
Driving the news: A spokeswoman for Markey confirmed the offices are working on legislation, but said there is no final text and timing isn’t final yet for next week. A request to Ocasio-Cortez’s office wasn’t immediately returned. Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, also said legislation is due as soon as Wednesday or Thursday of next week. The youth-led group has been at the forefront of the Green New Deal movement.
The big picture: The Green New Deal is a set of vague, but broad progressive policy goals seeking to transform the economy in the name of fighting climate change…
Details: It’s unclear to what extent the proposal will adhere to a draft legislative document circulating that describes the policy, which dates back to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign website.
•That document includes a goal of 100% renewable electricity within 10 years (up from 17% today), a federal jobs guarantee for people working in the low-carbon transition, and universal healthcare…
https://www.axios.com/green-new-deal-ocasio-cortez-markey-0d47bdbc-1180-4eb5-b010-6ed60f943cd4.html
20
Extremely courageous move by Markey, hitching his wagon to Ocassio. It is hard to believe that could be a career enhancing move.
10
the most shameful CAGW study ever?
30 Jan: CNN: Climate change could hurt babies’ hearts, study says
By Jen Christensen
Heat and pregnancy do not mix. High temps don’t just make a pregnant woman uncomfortable, the heat can actually hurt the health of her baby — and with climate change, this will probably become a bigger problem.
A study (LINK) in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Heart Association found that a larger number of babies will probably be born with congenital heart defects between 2025 and 2035 due to their mothers’ exposure to higher temperatures, triggered by climate change, while pregnant. This especially holds true for moms who were pregnant through spring or summer. Climate change could result in as many as 7,000 additional cases of congenital heart defects in the United States over an 11-year period, according to the study…
It’s unclear what the link is between high temperatures and congenital heart problems…
(Study author Dr. Shao Lin, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Albany): “Although this study is preliminary, it would be prudent for women in the early weeks of pregnancy to avoid heat extremes similar to the advice given to persons with cardiovascular and pulmonary disease during heat spells.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/climate-change-congenital-heart-defects-study/index.html
20
Authors hope to be retired by 2025.
20
behind paywall:
31 Jan: UK Times: Farmers clash with Richard Bruton over target to reduce emissions
by Aaron Rogan
The climate action minister Richard Bruton and members of the Irish Farmers’ Association clashed yesterday as the minister attended the lobby group’s annual meeting to seek support for a drastic cut in carbon emissions.
Joe Healy, the IFA president, and delegates were critical of past government policies and plans aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the sector.
After nearly an hour of questions and critical comments, the minister told the meeting: “You can’t say no to every policy tool that is being developed.”
One delegate warned Mr Bruton that IFA members would not accept targets on reducing emissions if any area of farming had to be curtailed. Mr Bruton said that this was not logical as implementing any policy had to have an objective of a certain reduction in emissions…
50
First you deliberately blind yourself, then you demand others to follow.
This could be one of those silly Irish jokes but sadly it applies to the whole world.
KK
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Scott Adams’ Dilbert cartoon [https://outlook.live.com/mail/deeplink?popoutv2=1] for today (31 January 2019 California time) reminds me of something. I can’t put my finger on exactly what. Maybe someone can help me.
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I tried pasting the above URL into my browser and it didn’t work. Try this link: https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-01-31?utm_source=dilbert.com/newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=brand-loyalty&utm_content=strip-image
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Brilliant cartoon and so accurate
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My old boss used to say, when councilling my younger outraged self, “settle down, dont confuse the three year plan with reality and what we really might do”
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Jan 1, 1982 headlines for Williston ND newspaper, “Grand Forks & Fargo wind chills -98F”
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Is there no end to the nonesense academics will write about climate change?
Newspapers across the world are reporting a UCL study, today, which ascribes the little ice age in the 15/16th century to genocide in North and South America.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/american-colonisation-americas-climate-change-little-ice-age-death-forests-university-college-london-a8756771.html
Just when you think you’ve reached peak insanity…
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Angus
“Just when you think you’ve reached peak insanity…”
It will probably be exceeded by next week
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The Australian today reports …
GetUp’s links to ‘independents’
JAMIE WALKER, JARED OWENS
GetUp has developed a “spine’’ of connections to independents who will run as Liberal-lite candidates in the federal election.
Ignore the above at your peril, GetUp was hosted into Australia by the Australian Workers Union when Bill Shorten was a senior executive, he was later appointed a Director. The union movement still donates to GetUp and according to the GetUp disclosure of donations (they reserve the right to not disclose them all) millions of dollars from unions.
Union controlled Labor associates GetUp are also on side with a Mr.Turnbull and the Liberal Party left Black Hand Faction that from 2009 joined the Black Hand mob to get Mr.Abbott via “relentless negativity” campaigns to try and block him from taking the leadership from Turnbull who took it from Dr.Nelson after the PM Howard retired. Turnbull has a long held ambition to get rid of the conservative side of the Liberal Party and the National Party. He wants to replace the unofficial two-party system of government with a single unassailable alliance party consisting of his faction and union controlled Labor and their Green partners in politics.
During the final period of high school Turnbull was developing his political agenda which includes replacing the Australian Constitution to remove the checks and balances that left side politicians apparently believe gets in their way. So they as a cooperative impose international UN based treaties without conducting referendum, ignoring constitutional law because they do agree with the new world order plan. Socialism masquerading as environmentalism, globalism. It’s what President Trump is combating to Make America Great Again.
To achieve the changes to our society Turnbull wants to convert the Commonwealth of Australia, Federation of States, into a republic. An excuse to change the Constitution and Westminster System of Government (with some US System added). He and his republican movement comrades pretend that Australia must be free of UK and Monarch rule over us, a new Flag, a new Constitution. But they ignore the fact that during the 1930s the British Parliament’s Act removed most of the Monarch’s powers and influence and in the 1980s the Australia Act completed the downgrading to ceremonial purposes only. The highest court is now the High Court of Australia, no appeals to the Privy Council in Great Britain anymore. The Australian Flag is history, from where the first colonisers came from on the First Fleet, where this land is positioned below the stars and a star for each of the States of the Federation.
There will be a federal election held soon and Turnbull related independents masquerading as “Liberal lite” safe alternatives for voters in electorates where the original real Liberals are located as MPs are being promoted. GetUp is backing them and recently Bill Shorten the Labor Leader indicated that Labor would give these pretenders preferences. In the Abbott held Electorate of Warringah there are now two “independents” standing for election, one a former Turnbull advisor when he was the PM and the other, an international skiing champion has Green Tim Flannery as her advisor. One of the platforms both women are standing on is “climate change” and the premise that Abbott is not doing enough to save the planet. Apparently this will be alleged against all of the real Liberal MPs targeted, but much more.
It is clear that there is a get rid of the real Liberal MPs campaign underway with Abbott and Dutton top of the list. If the campaign succeeds and the alliance party is formed that would be an enormous victory for the socialist globalist comrades who Christopher Monckton warned were out to get PM Abbott and the PM of Canada Harper, both being sceptics and unwilling to cooperate with IPCC man-made global warming caused by carbon dioxide hoax.
Please alert as many voters as possible, avoid independents and place Independent last, Labor above, Greens above, and then Liberal-National candidate above.
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I understand the problem but am not going to put Laba or Libls first. Will try to sift through the independents.
Good outline. We have to fight.
KK
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Fair enough Keith but be very careful, the Labor Party using the Independent tag for their sleeper candidates started in NSW as far as I am aware. Labor Cabinet Minister Eddie Obeid I understand was the organiser and the money passed down through an “Independent” State MLA Richard Torbay who resigned suddenly and left Parliament after he was named as a person of interest to the NSW ICAC. Obeid is of course now a prisoner in a NSW Gaol.
Two State MLA, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott moved from NSW Parliament to Canberra as MPs, they both continued to support Labor. Windsor’s cousin Bruce Hawker was PM Rudd’s favourite Spin Doctor. The behind the scenes support included electioneering material paid for via Labor MP accounts, and in the NSW Electorate of Lyne Oakeshott was provided with the old Labor campaign bus repainted in his campaign colours and message. The objective is to place a friendly candidate into safe Liberal-National seats as an Independent and then direct Labor and Green preferences to that Independent, while the Independent claims to be a conservative. In the present day “sensible right” Liberal Lite and or progressive right. After fooling voters into supporting the “Independent”, if they secure the seat they are then effectively on the Labor Green side of politics but concealed. The Turnbull Party is now in the game, beware.
I suspect that there will be others not so easy to identify as left side of politics sleepers.
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Apologies, Beginning with: “Ignore the above at your peril …” are my comments.
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From student days at Sydney Grammar School (Great Private School, non-government) through Sydney University student (Bachelor of Laws) period right through to 2018 the website below contains a timeline of history with references and links to support the information.
Readers will discover many clues as to what the man plans to achieve and what he has been involved in along the way …
https://web.archive.org/web/20180804162425/http://stopturnbull.com/
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Angus Taylor, Minister for Energy, article in The Australian today:
Reliability, affordability must be the key focus of electricity sector.
But then he criticizes Labor rather than specifically describing the steps he is taking to reduce electricity prices now.
What he should be doing immediately is to stop the profiteering by the generators. During January, the AEMO pricing mechanisms delivered a bonanza to the generators. While consumers suffered, generators did not share in the pain, rather they were all given bonuses for their unreliability. In Victoria, the wholesale price averaged 25 cents/kWhr ($254/MWhr) compared to 6.2 cents/kWhr in January 2017 before Hazelwood closed. Stop the rorts now.
He does report two initiatives, but provides no indication of the benefits:
“At the end of last year, we passed the Retailer Reliability Obligation through a recalcitrant COAG. Historically, the big energy retailers have not been accountable for keeping up supply of electricity to keep the lights on. That will now change. They will have a direct obligation to ensure there is enough power available to meet their customers’ needs”.
“In parallel, the government has taken the decision to underwrite new generation into the system. We have received 66 submissions, often containing multiple projects in development; and while not all of these are shovel ready, many are well advanced. They extend across all of the National Electricity Market, with a balanced mix of fuel sources including coal, gas and hydro. Early analysis indicates that the strongest interest was in gas, with projects and sites identified in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Pumped hydro sites were identified across the National Electricity Market and a range of coal projects have been proposed in our largest states.”
So maybe prices might come down in five years time? But meanwhile Labor is still going to promote 40-50% renewable targets with intermittent wind/solar. Net result – more and more duplicate investment and higher electricity prices. Meanwhile Premier Andrews gets away with glib comments about the reliability of renewables. “No one should underestimate our commitment to investing in the technology that is proven … that is all about the future,” he said. “We’re going to keep pushing ahead with the Victorian renewable energy target, with more wind, solar and battery storage.”
Stop the rorts now.
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How do they get away with it!
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Because they can, they are not challenged by the MSM/ABC more often than not.
What happened to professional journalism, with apologies to the few professionals doing their best.
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JoNova surge of readership
I just noticed on the Dashboard that JoNOva has a big surge of readership at the moment. Reader numbers have been 120-140 at a time.
What is more a lot of readers are gong to this page;
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/forgotten-history-50-degrees-everywhere-right-across-australia-in-the-1800s/?fbclid=IwAR2D8cv4563bENuOH8qqLJj04Xa-pwVZaB4-wQTyMLM2BDBfHHHfaMrdlzs
That make me think that the readers are coming from another site which has linked the article. Either that or the Dashboard in unreliable.
Good to see JoNova reaching a widening audience and particularly an article that undermines the credibility of the BOM climate change crusaders.
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They are still coming! 150 readers just now. Most readers less than 2 minutes. Nearly all taking a look at “Forgotten History”
It looks as if someone has posted something on facebook, which has gone viral.
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I hope the visitors enjoy that page/link and check out more of the informative JoNova pages.
They should also check out the comments and discussions about each subject.
Enjoy!
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AH! but how many politikians read this site?
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“Unbelievable.
Julie Bishop is in China to tell the Hong Kong business community that the Liberal Party is divided on climate change.
She’ll also let her Chinese friends know that she thinks the LNP should do a deal with Labor to agree a bipartisan position on climate/energy policy.
Why not just sign up to The Greens or GetUp and make it official Julie?”
Michael Smith News
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The Weekend Australian cartoon is good;
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/johannes-leak-cartoons/image-gallery/2403b703a84c4deb3bbc4247796b447f
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