Weekend Unthreaded

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333 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #
    RobK

    China is rationalizing, creating two massive specialist coal producers with their over capacity in production.
    China is building a lot of coal power stations around the world and at home. Some brutal logic in that.
    https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11228-State-investment-giant-dropping-coal-hides-reality
    Sample:
    “According to Zeng, the state is not trying to cut back on coal, but to concentrate coal assets in specialised firms. Any centrally owned SOEs which are not focused on coal or electricity will gradually be withdrawing from these sectors.

    A government documentindicates that mergers and restructurings will be used to increase the average size and vertical integration of coal firms, with the aim of creating internationally competitive coal conglomerates, each with output of 100 million tonnes a year or more.

    Shenhua Coal and CNCG are set to be the largest beneficiaries, with a virtual duopoly on Chinese coal resources. And with more coal mines at their disposal, output may increase. According to a survey by the China Coal Industry Association, coal firms expect output to increase by about 100 million tonnes in 2019.

    SOEs such as SDIC pulling out of the sector has left more room for the coal heavyweights.”
    RTWT.

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    • #
      PeterS

      China’s plan is obvious given their desire to build many more coal and nuclear power stations. We on the other hand have embarked on a road of self-destruction thanks to the gullible voters who keep voting LNP or ALP+Greens. Both major parties are hell bent on reducing emissions for no real benefit other than to make an elect group of people even more rich. In time the penny will drop and most people will wake up to reality but more likely than not it will be too late to avoid a crash and burn. History repeats.

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      • #
        mal

        The Labor and Greens should be renamed as FAN (F–K Australia Now) Party

        Or alternately

        NSV (New South Venezuela) coalition

        No Matter what ever way you look at it, they will destroy Australia economically

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        • #
          Latus Dextro

          No Matter what ever way you look at it, they will destroy Australia economically

          Yep, and Australian economic destruction simply must keep pace with the destruction by the Left of Australian social fabric and cultural mores.
          Australian primary school drops Mother’s Day to make celebration ‘as inclusive as possible’

          Parents were sent a letter by the principal explaining the move as an act of cultural prudence. I sincerely hope that this change in name will show that we as a community recognize that our families are not made up of any particular combination of people and that we no longer subscribe to a binary world.”

          “Cultural prudence,” “binary world” my rrse. Straight out of the Alinsky play book. Control the language you control the people.

          The rainbow inmates are running your asylum.

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          • #
            Yonniestone

            Ridiculous insanity, the day a same gender couple can rub uglies and produce offspring then fine, until then get a grip people.

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          • #
            sophocles

            Your political parties seem to be like a couple of fleas on the tail of a dog fighting over who is going to drive …

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          • #
            Bill in Oz

            I wonder if they consulted the kids MOTHERS ?

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          • #
            Latus Dextro

            The answer to this struck me later.
            Somewhat akin to the Parklands School in Birmingham UK, the ideal solution would be to send round the local Imam.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Speaking of out there…..the Socialist utopia of the A.C.T. recognizes animals as “sentinent beings”.

            But – have fido on a non-guvvy approved doggie restraint in your car, and hand over $16,000…..yes – that is the correct figure.

            https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-13/canberra-animal-laws-fine-owners-who-dont-exercise-dogs/11106158?WT.ac=statenews_act

            Um….excessive …..much?

            While no one condones any form of cruelty to any animal, I get the sense they care more about animals than humans…..

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            • #
              Latus Dextro

              Yep. We can agree about that. The neo-Marxist Greens care more about animals than humans. Afterall, humans are a curse upon the face of Gaia. Anything done to the land or exhaled on the breath is defined by the UNFCCC as “climate change.”

              This will only end in murderous bloodshed and tears and it is obvious, blindingly so, who will win.
              After that, the 1848 doctrine of Marx & Engels will be expunged from the political discourse — forever, as indeed will the rainbow cult and its sickening gender dysphoria powered identity politics, cultural Marxism and dependent political correctness. It may well have politically correct Christians, Western politicians, and faux-academics in its thrall, but the Mozzies won’t stand for it, no siree, not at all. And in the neo-Leftist eyes, the mozzies are well up the hierarchy of the oppressed, victimised and discriminated. That locks the Left into Catch 22. LOL^1000

              Then finally we may return to rational discourse, prosperity, liberty and a future redolent with hope.

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    • #
      Travis T. Jones

      Investment deals emerging from China’s belt and road summit at the end of April showed continued support for controversial coal projects, despite leaders’ green rhetoric:

      Multiple coal deals emerge from China’s ‘green’ investment summit

      https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/04/29/multiple-coal-deals-emerge-chinas-green-investment-summit/

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  • #
    Kinky Keith

    Next weekend is voting time and I’m perplexed.

    Choices available remind me of that old Clint Eastwood movie:

    “The Hoods, The Bad and The Ugly.

    Good luck Australia, we’ve got a hellova climb back.

    KK

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Good luck Australia, we’ve got a hellova climb back.

      If I can do nothing else I can say good luck Australia along with you, Keith. Stand tall and never give up the fight. No mater how hard they try they can never take your self respect from you. They can never control your thinking. You can give those things up but they can’t take them and sometimes those things are the only source of courage and determination.

      You need one other thing, your sense of humor.

      I don’t think I needed to tell anyone these things but all I can do from here is some encouragement.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Thanks Roy, an inspiring message.

        Re humour. Yesterday morning after a walk and coffee with some friends I stopped on the way home at a prepolling booth with maybe 8 groups handing out how to vote info. I spoke to most of them about “the troubles” as exemplified by the global warming scam and although they didn’t want to hear it, generally took it well.
        There were a. Couple of really decent, sensible guys working for Australian Conservatives and another group concerned that our constitution had been hijacked.

        Fun

        KK

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          A good time, a good laugh, a good cup of coffee, a bull throwing session with friends…you were richer this morning than much of the world, nearly all the world if I’m to believe the news I see every day.

          You know, I nearly put sense of humor first because without it the others are tougher. But then I thought, no, you can’t get by on a sense of humor alone so mention it last. Anyway, all I know is that over the years a sense of humor counted for a whole lot.

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          • #
            Kinky Keith

            But Roy, while I was engaging the Greens, Laba, Libl, and Eco Parti supporters they missed giving how to vote pamphlets to prospective voters. When I later pointed this out they were only mildly amused.

            Fun.

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          • #

            Roy, I remember reading about some Aussies battling their way through some thick jungle in the Solomon Islands during the war. It was hosing down and they were up to their hips in water. As darkness fell it was obvious that they’d have to camp where they were so they supported themselves with vines hanging from above so that they might get some sleep.

            Out of the darkness came a voice.

            “Hey, Blu.”

            “Yeah?”

            “I think the drought’s broken.”

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    • #
      PeterS

      Yes it will be a great litmus test for how aware we Australians are. Not long to find out the result of the test. I suppose masses of boat people are eagerly waiting for the result too.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        As a litmus test the HOR paper will stay green and the Senate paper will turn red, either way the solution will be acidic.

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    • #
      PeterW

      Appreciate the good wishes.

      Unfortunately, I think that things will get worse before they get better. We have a generation that has never faced any form of privation or major existential threat, and so believe that they are immune from the consequences of national decisions.

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    • #
      Another Ian

      Or the Mad Magazine take on that as Italian spaghetti western

      “The Good, the Bad and the Garlic”

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      • #
        MudCrab

        Amusing tangent with this film.

        Golden Eyes (Van Cleef) kills 3 people onscreen in this movie.

        Blondie (Eastwood), the Good, kills a LOT more.

        I blame Arch Stanton.

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  • #
  • #

    I came across this video the other day and it reminds me of the global warming we’ve been having lately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml7EhBllzeQ. Just go to the 14:30 min mark, unless you like looking at rocks.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    Keeping watch

    “System Cracking Warez – A Conference Video”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/system-cracking-warez-a-conference-video/

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  • #
    • #
      Another Ian

      And comments!

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    • #
    • #
      tom0mason

      And the professionals will ‘love’ this strike!

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    • #
      MudCrab

      I saw this getting mocked on another website.

      The big take away was the person who pointed out the gross stupidity of having generations of women stand up and say ‘We are more than baby factories, We are more than providers of sex, We can stand beside you as equals’, only to have this third string tv actress come out and boldly state it is all about the sex after all.

      (let’s be honest, her biggest movie was Commando. Everything else has been downhill.)

      There is also the implication here that for men sex is fun times, but for women it is a service and a duty they provide, again completely slapping the face of the generations of women who have argued that is should be socially acceptable for women to also seek pleasure in their lives.

      Only to correction, but I might suggest that our failed actress here has a little bit of a ‘Woman Problem’.

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    *THE HAIRCUT*

    Blessed are those that can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.

    One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you, I’m doing community service this week.’

    The florist was pleased and left the shop.

    When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

    Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you, I’m doing community service this week.’ The cop was happy and left the shop.

    The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a ‘thank you ‘ card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

    Then a MP came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill , the barber again replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.’ The MP was very happy and left the shop

    The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen MPs lined up waiting for a free haircut.

    And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.

    *As Margaret Thatcher said: Both politicians and nappies need to be changed often and for the same reason!*

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      That’s delightful satire, as they say, a keeper.

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    • #
      The Depraved and MOST Deplorable Vlad the Impaler

      Hi Rod,

      If I may, I would suggest an “edit” to your parable.

      I read through it, and was enjoying it immensely, until I came to the part about the “MP”. Now, I understand that in your parlance (I’m on the other side of the Big Pond from you, and the other side of the Little Pond, from the UK), an “MP” is a “Member of Parliament”. My first thought about “MP” was ‘Military Police’. I’m not sure what one calls the Crown’s armed forces military police, but it did cause momentary confusion for this ol’ boy.

      I’d send an “LOL” except that “LOL” does not mean ‘lots of love’, or so I’ve been told … … …

      10

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    NZ farmers who made mistake of going along with global warming zealotry now pay the price.

    The only way to meet C02 targets is to cull stock.

    In other words, put themselves out of business.

    Australian farmers need to smarten up & fight hard against the green left & their fr@ud.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2019/05/frustratingly-cruel-farmer-fury-grows-over-government-s-climate-change-plans.html

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      It should now be obvious that the UN is powered by Communism.

      Communism seeks the destruction of private property rights, and the complete destruction of the middle class. This us why power is going up in price – no power, no industry, no employment.

      The lie of Climate Change is now a clear and present danger to Democracy, and needs to be treated as such.

      And….seen on the Hume this morning, on the back of a corporate company long haultruck hauling glass today , words to the effect of out of control gas prices will destroy 200,000 aussie jobs. Nuff said.

      Time for NZ to get some of the aussie political contaigon and change PMs….

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      • #
        sophocles

        Time for NZ to get some of the aussie political contaigon and change PMs….

        Not likely with the UN Secretary General visiting Wellington at the moment, and polishing the halos of his favourite Gullibles.
        There must be something big and bad waiting in the wings … 🙁

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Yes, no doubt handing out Order of Lenin awards…..

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        • #
          glen Michel

          Is there any “global warming” in NZ ?

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          • #
            Latus Dextro

            Nix.
            But plenty of phartingly stupid emissions from politicians, particularly those who display a penchant for hijab wearing and virtue signalling that also require the services of an equine orthodontist.

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          • #
            sophocles

            glen Michel asked @ # 8.1.1.2:

            s there any “global warming” in NZ ?

            It depends on who you wish to believe. NIWA says “yes” and claims 0.9°C of warming and de Freitas, Dedekin and Brill say no, NZ has not warmed at all.

            In this 2015 paper de Freitas (now deceased but then at Auckland University), Dedekind and Brill rigorously applied a protocol for selecting weather stations designed by Dr. Jim Salinger (of NIWA, I think … a few years earlier — see the paper for more details) and which, so far as I know, NIWA never used. According to our heroes fresh analysis of NIWA’s data, with careful application of the Salinger Protocol, there has been zero warming in NZ for over a hundred years. Check the paper for yourself (see link above) — it’s a good read.

            In my opinion, NIWA (National Institute for Water and Atmospheric research) has problems with reality similar to those of the Australian BOM as you can see here. They should be known as the National Idiots of Water and Atmospheric Pseudoscience, being true “believers” in the CAGW propaganda, making them guilty of an outrageous abuse of my taxes.

            Salinger hasn’t done his own credibility any favours either. Over the summer of 2012, the North Island of NZ had a drought. On National Television, Little Jim* drew his intellectual shotgun, loaded it and proceeded to blow the foot/feet of his credibility off with the pronouncement “get used to it: drought is the new normal.” Needless to say, precipitation soon returned to its true normal and has been that way ever since. Drought? Where?

            * for the origins of Little Jim, see Spike Milligan’s Goon Shows [1950s]. I understand Little Jim claimed close kinship with the Famous Eccles.

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      • #
        el gordo

        It should now be obvious that the UN is powered by fascists.

        There, fixed.

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        • #
          PeterW

          For the common man, the difference is indistinguishable.

          The results are the same, only the slogans vary.

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        • #
          Latus Dextro

          A tired polemic were there ever one. The Left hide that at all costs.
          Fascism is akin to Marxism.
          Check out that dirty little National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
          Giovanni Gentile, the father of Fascism, close friend and disciple of Marx.
          The Left hate that.
          But Wikipedia label Nazism as “far-right.” LOL^1×10^6
          Must be ‘right’ then.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Mussolini’s father was an important Italian socialist and Benito learnt the trade from him. The turning point came after he was wounded in 1917, during WW1, he then denounced socialism and embraced nationalism.

            He later founded the fascist movement which opposed egalitarianism and class conflict. In his mind it was “revolutionary nationalism” transcending class lines.

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            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Same thing as communism really…..smash the establishment, equality for all blah blah rant rave….

              A friend spotted in Canberra a public mural/space where people can write on a huge public chalk board.

              It was celebrating International Womens Week, but it had a dozen raised clenched fists in the classic demented Socialist salute.

              Kids were walking past this….

              Look Mum….we’re in East Germany…..

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              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Same thing as communism really… ‘

                Fascists are against equality and there is no need for class conflict, China is a prime example of the genre.

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            • #
              sophocles

              Aaaah: but he did manage to make the trains run on time! The Italians still remember it so it must have been quite a feat.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      T.T.Jones & OS, and not only: Dr Jane Goodall explained “what she’d like to do with people who deny the reality of climate change. ‘Let’s go out to the Antarctica where the sea-ice is melting faster than anybody ever expected, and let’s put them on the sea-ice and leave them there and see what happens’.”

      https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/audio/jane-goodalls-strong-words-for-climate-change-deniers/

      First, Slur David Attenbollocks goes senile then ‘Doctor’ Jane Chump loses the plot too. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath? Whatever happened to the crucial, yet inconveniently missing, prefix ‘anthropogenic’ or ‘man-made’? Maybe it’s simply an editorial faux-pas or grammatical error, as the article continues –

      “She is speaking ahead of her New Zealand later this month, with shows in Wellington and Auckland”. Complete jabberwocky.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Well, appears there is no room to misunderstand the greenist mindset….

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      • #
        Bobl

        Irony abounds given west Antarctic melting requires energy of more than 50 times that available from AGW.

        Hate it when people can’t do primary level math.

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      • #
        Latus Dextro

        Isn’t neo-Marxist globalist desperation fun to watch?

        10

    • #
      Latus Dextro

      NZ farmers who made mistake of going along with global warming zealotry now pay the price.

      Appeasement and mealy mouthed platitudinous agreement gets you no where. It never did, ever. If you don’t know your history you’ll just be stupid and uneducated enough to repeat its mistakes.

      While NZ used to be a practical, resourceful God fearing nation with limited freedom, it has lost its free speech, been hijacked by its globalist sycophantic politicians, brainwashed by its globalist Leftist media, hoodwinked by its virtue-signalling faux academics and teachers, throttled by its elitist bureaucrats, enslaved by the corporatist globalists, and secularised by its rainbow clergy.
      In short, it’s screwed, much like its cousin Australia.

      But …

      If I can pick this, so can thousands upon thousands of others.

      40

  • #
    Another Ian

    “Should Morrison do a Keating and promise to pass Shorten’s lunacy in the Senate”

    https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2019/05/should-morrison-do-a-keating-and-promise-to-pass-shortens-lunacy-in-the-senate.html

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      For all their, and their friends in the media, claims about an inevitable Labor victory, Labor have announced further giveaways in the last 3 days. They seem to be panicking and leads one to think that their own polls show a drop in support.
      I move in the wrong circles as I haven’t found anyone in this electorate who would vote for Labor, but plenty who will vote for the “Independent”. Labor’s tactic of arranging supposed independents may backfire, as they could take votes from Labor also and not all their preferences would flow back to Labor. They may not win those marginal seats.

      If he doesn’t win the election, then sheer delight as Shorten either resigns or better tries to stay on in the face of a party revolt. If the Liberals lose then Morrison will probably go, as is traditional, though his efforts in bringing the party close may indicate to wiser heads the benefits of continuity.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        If ever a leader has been shown wanting it’s Shorten during this campaign. I see a faint hope for the libs.

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      • #
        Bill in Oz

        A vote for Sharkie
        Here in Mayo
        Is a vote for the
        Greenist Labor Alliance
        I was last year of Sharkie’s
        Campaign team
        Not this time
        I woke up !

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  • #
    el gordo

    Further to the conversation on the previous thread about the AMO, this may clarify.

    https://theconversation.com/the-atlantic-is-entering-a-cool-phase-that-will-change-the-worlds-weather-42497

    They know nothing so I’ve got my money on Ian Wilson’s internal dynamic as a clear and unequivocal explanation.

    Is there anyone here with a different explanation?

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      E G I have no idea if this is the ways things ork.
      But if so we can expect to see
      Hordes of boat people refugees from
      Over populated West African countries bordering the Sahel
      Which is going to get much drier !
      Bugger !

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      • #
        el gordo

        There are other oscillations in play and with help from a cool sun, its hypothetical.

        If we focussed on Luna it might be possible to forecast better.

        ‘The Moon moderates Earth’s wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate over billions of years.’ NASA

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Thing of the past, hottest year. Evah, Update:

    [Global Warming] removal on the Gotthard Pass, 2 May 2019

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji7U7yO5UCE&feature=youtu.be

    We’re gonna need a bigger snow removal machine.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Oh! My! Goofyfoot! Switzerland’s doing it tough this spring, buried under all those metres (feets!!!) of gugu-gaga warmy-powder snow-thingy stuff. Surely windmills and shiny mirrors (toxic silly panels) would clear that deep deep snow CO₂ pollution much quicker and more sustainably than rich old young white men driving diesel-powered snow-blowers… bless their cotton thermal merino wool socks!

      7 May: “Although the ski season continues to wind down as we move in to May, mother-nature doesn’t seem to have got the memo. Very cold temperatures, for the time of the year, have occurred in much of Europe over the past week and lots of fresh snow too”.

      https://www.snow-forecast.com/overviews/tips_full

      “Swiss ski areas still report the deepest bases in the Alps with Engelberg (15/670cm) (open to the end of the month) and Andermatt (0/600cm) (where the Gemsstock area is open at weekends for the next few weeks) both having snow lying more than six metres/20ft deep. Engelberg reported the most with 50cm of fresh. Both areas have also reported heavy snow over the weekend. The third Swiss area that’s still open, and indeed endeavours to open its ski slopes every day of the year, is Zermatt (0/230cm)”.

      It’s worse than they thought – much worse – it’s a total failure.

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        Latus Dextro

        Part of the reason why the AGW polemic has hit screeching desperation is that they know it’s truly over. None of their vaunted predictions is within a parsec of the observable truth. That hackneyed old Trojan horse, the climatism charade, is unravelling day by day as indeed is the “settled” politics.
        Net zero carbon by 20 something. What a depraved farce and transparent grab for enduring, unquestionable power. It was always so unbelievably stupid, and those that believed it more so.

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        • #
          Latus Dextro

          Latus Dextro #11.1.1
          Your comment is awaiting moderation.
          May 13, 2019 at 4:34 pm · Reply

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          • #
            Hanrahan

            You didn’t mention “fr@ud” did you?

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            • #
              Latus Dextro

              Nope. I’ve wised up to that, along with korrruptt, Naasi, Hista, etc etc
              Free speach is long ded in Osstraliar and Zealand Nova.

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘….the systematic repression of religious and ethnic minority groups ….’

      The authorities had trouble with terrorists, so to avoid further problems they decided to turns religious zealots into fully fledged Chinese citizens.

      A majority have accepted that life for their children will be better with an education, learning the language and studying science is preferable to rote learning fables.

      If there are any other bleeding hearts out there, forget it, the West is exposed to terrorism because they believe in the right to worship god, no matter what the carnage.

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      • #
        dinn, rob

        ho! Once upon a time there was a gutless mouse
        who worshipped ever at some demon’s altar,
        hence he was sure to lose the house,
        his shirt, mind, fellows and falter falter falter

        HO! EVERYONE SEE THIS:

        el gordo
        November 11, 2018 at 11:10 am
        …. “training” and “boarding schools” where residents receive vocational, legal and language training as well as “de-extremisation education”.
        Australia needs to set up these boarding schools. http://joannenova.com.au/2018/11/weekend-unthreaded-235/

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      • #
        el gordo

        “Whilst the Uyghur population makes up only 1.5 percent of the Chinese population, they account for 21 percent of all arrests,” she said.

        I hear you, its atrocious, we have the same problem in Australia.

        You may be unaware that a particular group, only 3% of the population, make up 28% of people incarcerated.

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        • #
          Latus Dextro

          Similar in New Zealand.
          There is a group claiming some 10% of the population give or take that have achieved an impressive 80% of the prison population.
          Mind you, ethnicity is not subject to any scrutiny or objective evaluation, it is as it is claimed, and therefore it is always a fundamentally unreliable statistic, soon to be the potential destination of statistics regarding gender.
          Could be more, particularly as there exists substantial positive discrimination and pecuniary interest.

          00

  • #
    pat

    you would think this would make theirABC turn CAGW sceptic:

    11 May: Breitbart: Pope Urges Young People to Hear the ‘Anguished Plea of the Earth’
    by Thomas D. Williams Ph.d
    Pope Francis has told young economists and entrepreneurs that the world needs a different kind of economy, “one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.”

    In a letter (LINK) to young business people for an upcoming event titled “Economy of Francesco,” named for Saint Francis of Assisi, the pope declared that “the safeguarding of the environment cannot be divorced from ensuring justice for the poor and finding answers to the structural problems of the global economy.”
    “We need to correct models of growth incapable of guaranteeing respect for the environment,” he said…
    https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/05/11/pope-urges-young-people-hear-anguished-plea-earth/

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      Bill in Oz

      Bugger frankie boy !
      The Catholic church
      Does not have my ear
      On Matters spiritual
      Or Material

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      Latus Dextro

      George Bergoglio is a Leftist globalist fraud, a peddler of one-World religion snake-oil and the person who opened the UN General Assembly in September 2015 that launched the “Transformational 2030 Agenda.” He needs no further introduction.
      He is devoted to the rainbow cult and trapped in a Catch-22 scenario.
      He can’t deal with the p-edos and p-ederasts for fear he’ll be called out as h-omophobic.
      It’s the kind of dreadful bind only Leftists experience.

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  • #
    pat

    11 May: FoxNews: Illinois residents could be charged $1,000 a year to own an electric vehicle under new legislation
    By David Aaro
    Electric car owners in Illinois could take a large hit to their bank accounts after lawmakers proposed an extreme hike in registration fees for electronic vehicles in the state.
    The proposal would raise the annual registration fee to $1,000, more than 57 times the current amount of $17.50.
    Illinois officials believe the legislation will raise $2.4 billion for future projects, the major one being roadway improvement, according to the Chicago Tribune (LINK)…

    The bill would also make things more expensive for residents who drive non-electric cars. The state’s gas tax would go up 19 cents to 44 cents a gallon, fees for driver’s licenses would double and the registration fee for non-electric vehicles would go up nearly 50% from $98 to $148…

    “It’s outrageous,” Tesla owner Nicoletta Skarlatos, 56, told the Chicago Tribune. “I thought Illinois was progressive and would want to encourage EV (electric vehicle) ownership.”
    The reason for the extreme hikes are that electric vehicles don’t provide the state any gas tax revenue. Electric vehicle companies Tesla and Rivian say they’re against the legislation…READ ON
    https://www.foxnews.com/auto/illinois-1000-electric-vehicle-legislation

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    • #
      RickWill

      Imagine the registration fee to recoup the network cost of public MW charging stations and multi-kW household charging points.

      80

    • #
      RickWill

      Tesla are now charging 42c/kWh at their charging stations. So a vehicle using 12kWh per 100k will have a fuel cost of $45 to get from Melbourne to Sydney. That cost is free of any fuel excise.

      A medium size diesel or petrol vehicle will cost about $80 in fuel for the same trip. Included in that is $22 in excise. So without that specific tax, the cost of fuel would be down to $58 for the trip.

      With Shorten promising to increase the RET, we know grid power prices will get a significant boost. So any potential saving in fuel cost that an EV currently has will be rapidly eroded. Annual EV registration will need to be about $500 more than an ICE vehicle to cover the missed fuel excise.

      It is good to see Illinois is spreading costs more fairly. How many jurisdictions will follow?

      170

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        I remember the sage advice “Never stand between a State Premier and a big bag of money”.

        80

      • #
        Bobl

        You reckon you can haul nearly 2 Tonnes of EV 100 km on just 12 kwh including the great divide? The more realistic truth is that EV mileage is around 30 kWh per 100 km and at 46c per kWh a Brisbane to Sydney trip costs $124 against a diesel I30 which can do the same trip for around $45.

        80

        • #
          Latus Dextro

          In the cold and the dark, the deterioration in performance and duration is spectacular.

          10

    • #
      Latus Dextro

      Obvious as hell and predicted here years ago.
      Of course the trick cars will wind up paying their way and carrying the proxy of the hefty burden of liquid fuel taxes.
      That’s when the fun really starts.
      Politicians may virtue signal and condone de-population, de-industrialisation, destitution and despair, but they never, never relinquish on taxes.

      20

  • #
    pat

    before reading that this insanity emanated from an interview with The Guardian, I thought this sounds like something that emanated from a leading question during an interview with The Guardian:

    11 May: Guardian: Labour weighs up delisting UK firms if they fail to fight climate change
    John McDonnell’s tough message likely to trip City alarm bells as party puts climate battle at heart of agenda
    by Larry Elliott and Richard Partington
    John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said he would consider changing the law if necessary to force UK-listed firms to take adequate steps to fight the “climate emergency” facing the planet.

    In an interview with the Guardian, McDonnell said much of the City was already aware of the need to make faster progress towards a zero-carbon economy, but his proposals were about “weeding out those that are not taking it seriously”.
    “We’ve got to signal now that we’re being serious about tackling climate change. And we’re going to use every lever of government we possibly can to enable that to happen,” he said…READ ON
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/10/labour-delist-uk-firms-failing-to-fight-climate-change-john-mcdonnell

    40

    • #
      Dave in the States

      Such policies are fundamentally against the interests of blue collar workers and the futures of their children. People need to de-list themselves from labor unions and their political apparatus. Such entities are advocating for the green minorities and the elites of society instead of the people they claim to represent.

      20

      • #
        Latus Dextro

        Ahhh well, a borderless World will in theory make it easier to walk to one’s next job.

        10

    • #
      yarpos

      “We’ve got to signal………………..” they certainly do

      10

  • #
  • #
    toorightmate

    What do you do with 10001Mb and 50kph howling winds?
    Well, if you are the Oz BoM you call it Tropical Cyclone “Ann”.
    What a joke!!!!

    162

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      I know from my own
      Personal experience
      That Cyclone Anne’s
      Can cause huge damage

      sarc off !

      82

    • #
      Yonniestone

      I remember Melbourne 1988 when Cyclone Nancy Boy hit, it blew the froth off cappuccinos and messed up a few perms…….terrible.

      132

    • #
      sophocles

      We’ve had a long and great Indian Summer in NZ this year. Now Cyclone Anne, barely out of the Coral Sea, is feeding all the moist air that is raining all over NZ today!

      Mutter mutter mutter.

      Still, the surrounding seas are still pretty warm so there’s a remote chance we might get some more indian summer … just as long as this late Tropical Cyclone season doesn’t mean any of those storms come and visit. I can happily enjoy that lack of attention.

      But the new weather forecast is predicting a return to “normal” temperatures for this time of the year. Time to find the winter woollies, darn it.

      42

    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Everyone here’s scored a one-hit-wonder red-thumber so thought I’d try for one too: “As TC ANN moves closer to the Queensland coast… significant weakening can be expected as it starts interacting with land. Therefore, a gradual weakening trend of TC ANN can be expected during Tuesday”.

      https://www.metservice.com/warnings/tropical-cyclone-activity

      They just don’t make cyclones like they used to! Meanwhile down south it’s snow, freezing snow, then some more snow.

      https://www.metservice.com/skifields/the-remarkables

      71

    • #
      toorightmate

      24 hours later “””Cyclone””” Ann has intensified to 993 and 77kph.
      Everyone in the area from Port Moresby to Darwin to Port Macquarie to Auckland to Port Villa should be on red alert by now.
      Good on ya BoM.

      41

  • #
    pat

    Nine chairman is Peter Costello. Nine – just as CAGW rabid as theirABC & the 9Network (former Fairfax) newspapers:

    VIDEO: 1min59sec: 11 May: 9 News: Exclusive: Poll reveals climate change key issue for more than half of voters
    By Fiona Willan, Political Reporter
    Climate change is a major factor in how more than half of Australians will vote at the upcoming federal election, according to the results of an exclusive poll conducted for Nine News.

    ***And more than two-thirds of voters regard action on climate change as an investment in the future, rather than a cost to the economy…

    PIC: A climate change rally by young people in Sydney last week (AAP) (ANTI CRAIG KELLY/TONY ABBOTT SIGNS; GOVT CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE SIGN)

    A Roy Morgan SMS Survey commissioned by the non-partisan, not-for-profit Australian Futures Project, on behalf of Nine News, asked 1133 Australian adults “Is action on climate change a major factor in your vote?”

    PIC: The survey found women were more likely to consider action on climate change when casting a vote, and two-thirds of voters aged 18 to 24 were concerned about it.

    PIC: Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Labor Senator Kristina Keneally play with Labrador puppies Bill and Beau during a visit to Guide Dogs Victoria in Melbourne, (AAP)

    Sixty-seven percent said it was an investment in the future, while 25.5 percent said it was a cost to the economy.
    Seven and a half percent saw it as an insurance policy…

    See the concerns of voters HERE (LINK)
    https://www.9news.com.au/national/federal-election-climate-chance-voting-issues/f9ffe70f-bd78-449a-8aa6-316aef10ec29

    50

  • #
    David Maddison

    Here is an interesting story about the largest library fire in the history of the United States which few people have heard of. It didn’t make the news because it happened on the same day as the Chernobyl disaster, but a book has been written about it now.

    https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/susan-orlean-library/11079538

    50

  • #
    scaper...

    The warmists are insane!

    By RHYS BLAKELY
    THE TIMES
    12:00AM MAY 12, 2019344 COMMENTS
    The University of Cambridge plans to launch a research facility to explore radical “last-ditch” methods of combating global warming, including a scheme to refreeze the Arctic.

    The Centre for Climate Repair will gauge the feasibility of geo-engineering techniques, which would seek to cool the Earth by deflecting the sun’s energy into space.

    It will also investigate methods of removing carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

    READ NEXT

    WELLBEING
    Celibacy in the #MeToo age
    THE ECONOMIST
    While many of the proposals have been talked about for years, all are unproven and many are likely to be unfeasible.

    However, the centre is being established amid fears that current technologies and policies will not prevent catastrophic climate change.

    The project is being co-ordinated by Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, who argues that the world has little more than a decade to find cheap, large-scale solutions.

    “What we continue to do, what we do that is new, and what we plan to do over the next 10 to 12 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000,” he said.

    Sir David King, then Britain’s chief scientist, visiting Sydney in 2007.
    Sir David King, then Britain’s chief scientist, visiting Sydney in 2007.
    Sir David said that deep and rapid emissions reductions were necessary but that there was already too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and so technologies must be developed to remove it.

    “We have been far too slow to act, so this is a bit of a last-ditch attempt,” he said. “However, it has a very good chance of success, provided we get enough agreement around the world and enough effort behind it. I’m reasonably optimistic that will happen.”

    He added: “What we have to do is speed up the rate of the transition away from fossil fuels, then learn how to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere much more quickly and then repair the climate — that’s refreezing the Arctic and possibly the Antarctic.”

    One of the ideas would involve spraying salt water high into the atmosphere in the polar regions.

    This, in theory, would form salt particles that would “whiten” existing clouds, which would then reflect more heat back into space. Another proposal involves “greening” areas of the ocean by promoting the growth of plankton, which could remove carbon dioxide from the air.

    There are fears that such techniques could do more harm than good by disrupting ecosystems in unpredictable ways.

    There are also concerns that investing in geo-engineering lifts the pressure on politicians to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

    Scientists say that all options must be on the table.

    Emily Shuckburgh, who is expected to lead the centre, said: “When considering how to tackle a problem as complex and urgent as climate change, we need to look at the widest range of ideas and to investigate radical innovations such as those proposed by Sir David.

    “In assessing such ideas we need to explore all aspects, including the technological advances required, the potential unintended consequences and side-effects, the costs, the rules and regulations that would be needed, as well as the public acceptability.”

    The University of Cambridge said the centre was a proposal at this stage. If it goes forward as expected it will be part of the Carbon Neutral Futures Initiative, established this month at Cambridge and led by Dr Shuckburgh.

    In October, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that unprecedented changes would have to be made to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

    The panel said that countries needed to cut carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, with additional steep cuts in other potent greenhouse gases such as methane.

    A poll by YouGov found that a majority of Britons would be happy to reduce their consumption of resources to slow or halt climate change. One in three preferred an approach that relies on technology to counter climate change.

    Rhys Blakely, Times science correspondent, comments: Refreezing the Arctic would involve pumping sea water into the atmosphere through very fine sieves during the polar summer, possibly using an armada of uncrewed ships.

    This would create a mist. As the water was lost, tiny particles of sodium chloride — salt — would land on clouds and whiten them. A whiter cloud would reflect more sunlight into space, cooling the polar region and slowing sea-level rises.

    “You’re talking about saving the world’s coastline cities and the total cost is quite possibly as low as $US2 billion ($2.8bn) to $US3 billion a year once you’ve got the technology up and running,” said Sir David King, who wants to explore the scheme.

    Other ideas include finding alternative building materials to concrete, which accounts for 8 per cent of CO2 emissions. Sir David wants to look at producing steel using hydrogen-powered furnaces, which could cut the heavy carbon pollution associated with coal-fed blast furnaces.

    Scientists also want to explore adding chemicals to the oceans to encourage vast blooms of phytoplankton. There are areas of the oceans that are already rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, essential fertilising nutrients. The plan would involve adding large amounts of a third crucial micronutrient: iron.

    International marine biologist Callum Roberts inspecting the estuaries of Queensland’s Keppel Bay in 2013. Picture: Vanessa Hunter
    International marine biologist Callum Roberts inspecting the estuaries of Queensland’s Keppel Bay in 2013. Picture: Vanessa Hunter
    “The idea is that these blooms of phytoplankton will take up carbon dioxide, producing oxygen as well, as a nice by-product,” Callum Roberts, a marine conservation biologist of the University of York, said.

    “That will lock the carbon away into organic matter, some of which would hopefully find its way into the deep sea and be put out of harm’s way for thousands of years,’’ Professor Roberts said.

    “There’s a willingness now to consider ideas that would have been dismissed 10 years ago.”

    The Times

    From The Australian.

    111

    • #
      Greebo

      Meddling with things not understood is a recipe for absolute disaster. And boy, they definitely do not understand.

      230

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        U of Cambridge appear to have had a very Don Quixote idea…..

        I wonder if thier ship will get stuck in the ice too?

        20

    • #
      David Maddison

      Lord Monckton described David King as “scientifically illiterate”.

      https://youtu.be/NG0WcjGHkEw

      193

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Dave:

        either that or a liar, and I think the latter. His repeated claims that the Earth was warmer than it had ever been for
        the last 5,000 years
        the last 10,000 years,
        the last 500,000 years and
        the last 5 million years
        could be so easily found to be nonsense that the media must be considered (at best) negligent for repeating them.

        191

      • #
        Independent_George

        The Monckton blaster appears to have gone underground of late. I would think the mother country could do with his help at the minute.

        00

        • #
          sophocles

          He’s still fighting!

          Email the Swiss Federal Police and complain about the IPCC/FCCC chicanery and cozenage. (He uses the f-@-d word …). Help him nail the tricksters.
          Details and addresses in the video! 🙂

          10

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      And The Emperor has New Clothes: aren’t they great.

      And The Emperor has New Clothes: aren’t they great.

      And The Emperor has New Clothes: aren’t they great.

      And The Emperor has New Clothes: aren’t they great.

      Now in progressive 2019: not even the voice of a child. Indeed children have lost their innocence to the mob and cry loudest:

      “And The Emperor has New Clothes: aren’t they great”.

      Gretta lives!

      141

      • #
        John Robertson

        Keith Nails it.
        Who knew the cautionary tales,would become training manuals for the fools and bandits?
        We who cannot comprehend “the Science” of The Cult of Calamitous Climate are reacted to exactly as per form.
        Shorten just blew it,he was not supposed to say that himself,that is what Pollies have pet Presstitutes for.

        Of course “The Science” is hard to comprehend as I have never been able to find it.
        No Cult Member can identify it.
        I follow their hand waving and find Opinion pieces, berit of that strange sciency stuff.
        I think we used to call it evidence?
        Or even actual measurement?

        Enjoy your election, if fools and bandits are all you have on the ballot, next time vote None of The Above.

        What might be considered is that your parasites,in seeking more power and wealth through systemic lying, have declared war on the tax paying citizen.
        Policy based evidence manufacturing can only be treason.

        70

    • #
      Annie

      Scaper, they are insane; dangerously so IMO. In the terminolgy of a former PM…they are n*tters.

      92

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      Remember Lord Monckton in Brisbane in 2014?
      He said that he had overheard Sir David King say that “they” will get rid of Stephen Harper and that “they ” will also get rid of Tony Abbott.

      The Internet never forgets.

      70

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      The University of Cambridge plans to launch a research facility to explore radical “last-ditch” methods of combating global warming, including a scheme to refreeze the Arctic.

      These people are totally INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      The arctic is ALREADY freezing!
      How may trillions to they want for this meddling. The Universe will take revenge if they try that. Solar onslaught.

      72

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Actually its geophysically impossible.

        52

      • #
        FarmerDoug2

        Since suns angle at poles is 90 deg there just might be a positive effect. And when the salt precipitates out over the Russian wheat .. .

        62

        • #
          Greg in NZ

          As a weather freak who regularly checks temps/ice/snow in the Arctic & Greenland and Antarctic regions, I accidentally hit a wrong link on DMI’s site and found these anomaly graphs from 1958-2018:

          http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n_anomaly.uk.php

          The winter mean has risen since the 21st century commenced [a modelled 8˚C] while for summer it’s flat as, straightline fever going nowhere, no change, 0˚ anomaly for 60 years – two whole climate cycles – oops!

          The text claims the winter’s “rapid increase in mean temperatures since the beginning of the millennium” is caused by “Arctic Amplification, and it is primarily driven by albedo feedbacks”. But hang on, innit dark (sunless) for all those months of winter?

          10

    • #
      tom0mason

      It’s not like there is no ice at the Arctic …
      https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow.gif

      Quite a lot considering how long it’s been since we’ve left the LIA.
      With only around 1°C warming since the end of the LIA, what are these numbskulls thinking of? Surely we should have the Arctic melting because, according to science, we have log since left the LIA! These eejits want climate stasis at LIA temperatures — what a bunch of plonkers! These dangerous eejits want to destroy the growing seasons, and bring-on mass starvation!

      Prof Sir David King: “What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years. There is no major centre in the world that would be focused on this one big issue,” he told BBC News. This shows the stupidity of these people, there is no way, no certainty, that we can know what climate variations will happen in ‘10,000 years’.
      King’s, Shuckburgh’s, and Wadham’s arrogance and hubris knows no bounds while demanding more money — money to prove they can really screw-up the weather with destructive geoengineer.

      82

  • #
    pat

    10 May: UK Telegraph: UK abandoning coal would be an act of virtue-seeking madness
    by Andy Critchlow
    PIC: chimney/black ‘smoke’
    Britain has almost turned its back on the fuel of the industrial revolution after going its first week since 1882 without needing coal for power generation…
    Subsidised renewable projects such as wind farms and solar parks have partly made this transition possible. However, without natural gas-fired turbines providing vital baseload, the lights would go out…

    However, coal still has some useful advantages as an emergency backstop to ensure Britain’s economy has reliable supplies of affordable electricity during periods of extraordinary peak high demand. Wind turbines are kind to the planet but are unreliable without the ability to store power on an industrial scale. Awkward spikes in electricity consumption could also become more frequent if electric vehicles become a primary source of personal passenger transport in the future…
    Coal still has an important role still to play in powering global growth and providing electricity for a population expected to reach almost 10 billion people by 2050…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/05/10/uk-abandoning-coal-would-act-virtue-seeking-madness/

    10 May: Bloomberg: U.K. Poised to Back Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Target for 2050
    By Alex Morales and Jess Shankleman
    PIC: chimneys/black ‘smoke’
    Britons would have to fly less, eat less meat, use clean cars
    The U.K. government is preparing to announce plans to slash fossil fuel emissions to zero by 2050, an effort to fight climate change that would change the way Britons heat their homes and the cars they drive, officials familiar with the situation said.

    An announcement embracing the so-called net zero emissions target is likely in the next two months, according to the officials, who declined to be named discussing plans that haven’t yet been finalized…
    The Committee on Climate Change said Britons need to fly less, drive electric cars, eat little meat and turn their home thermostats down to 19 degrees Celsius (66 Fahrenheit)…READ ON
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-09/u-k-poised-to-back-net-zero-greenhouse-gas-target-for-2050

    50

    • #
      pat

      10 May: BBC: Europe ‘takes too much of Earth resources’
      By Roger Harrabin
      It says Europeans emit too much carbon, eat too much food, use large amounts of timber and occupy too much built space.
      The report for the green group WWF and the Global Footprint Network says Europeans contribute disproportionately (LINK) to depleting resources.
      The UK government says it is leading the world in trying to reduce the impact of Europe on the planet.

      But the report says that if everyone in the world had the same environmental impact as the average EU resident, 10 May would be the date by which humans would have used as much from nature as the planet can annually renew.
      That’s why the groups name 10 May as EU Earth Overshoot Day…READ ON
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48215453

      ***East Europe? Germany, Italy?
      MSM isn’t reporting full list of those countries who aren’t on board, but Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep & Romania have had vague mentions:

      Updated 11 May: Politico: Europe’s East-West divide is back, this time over climate policy
      There’s growing pressure to set a ‘net zero’ emissions goal by 2050, but not all EU countries are on board.
      By Kalina Oroschakoff; Rym Momtaz contributed reporting from Paris
      Climate policy is splitting the EU…
      “We are heading towards climate breakdown … Some governments are starting to take this threat seriously. But the ***German, ***Italian and Polish governments still have their heads firmly in the sand,” said Sebastian Mang, from Greenpeace EU…
      Germany and Central European countries opposed a binding time frame, according to a diplomat at the summit…
      https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-protest-europe-policy/

      40

      • #
        Annie

        I wonder how much space Roger Harrabin occupies, how much he ‘earns’, how much he travel, in what sort of vehicle? I cannot imagine that he lives in a tiny terrace house in a poorer part of a city and relies on what public transport is available.

        20

  • #

    Again we heard during the week that rooftop solar power is eating away at coal fired power, and that during those periods of high solar power generation , the middle of the day, that coal fired power is shutting down and losing money hand over fist. We get sucked into actually believing it, because we are being told by those in authority, and even entities who are power generation related.

    But is it really true?

    Is coal fired power being forced to ease back or even shut down during those periods of high solar power generation?

    I can tell you that they aren’t, but hey, that’s just Tony saying it, and, well, he would say that wouldn’t he?

    So, then what would the actual data tell us. That surely would show something like that, eh. All we would need do is take the data from now, and perhaps go back and check what it was like five years ago, before rooftop solar power started its ‘boom’.

    Lets’ check a recent day, May 9th 2019.

    Rooftop Solar power – time of power generation 6.30AM till 6PM – Average generation 1620MW per hour and a Peak of 3080MW. (from a Nameplate of more than 8000MW+) Because the hours of insolation (6.30AM to 6PM) are the key here, the total generated power comes in at 18.72GWH.

    During those same hours of generation (6.30AM to 6PM) ALL 48 coal fired power Units generated an average of 15036MW per hour.

    Now go back five years to the same day 9th May 2014.

    During those same hours of generation (6.30AM to 6PM) ALL 48 coal fired power Units (the same ones as from 2019) generated an average of 15237MW per hour. That’s only 200MW more, only 1.3% more.

    So, on May 9th 2019, coal fired power delivered 200MW per hour less than in 2014, with 1620MW per hour of rooftop solar.

    It doesn’t look like coal fired plants are dramatically falling back, or shutting down to me.

    Okay, let’s then check a day of really good solar power, middle of Summer, not much overacast or cloud, so good insolation, and for a lot longer in hours as well, more daylight in Summer.

    Monday January 14th 2019.

    Rooftop Solar power – time of power generation 5.30AM till 7.30PM (so two and a half more hours than the May 9th day) – Average generation 2510MW per hour and a Peak of 4730MW. (also from a Nameplate of more than 8000MW+) Because the hours of insolation (5.30AM to 7.30PM) are the key here, the total generated power comes in at 36.48GWH. (almost double the May 9th total)

    During those same hours of generation (5.30AM to 7.30PM) ALL 48 coal fired power Units generated an average of 18554MW per hour.

    Now, here I can only go back four years to the same day January 14th 2015, still with a lot less rooftop solar than now, and still before the boom in rooftop installations started.

    During those same hours of generation (5.30AM to 7.30PM) ALL 48 coal fired power Units (the same ones as from 2019) generated an average of 17520MW per hour. So that’s 1030MW LESS in 2015 than now, with an awful lot more rooftop solar in place, and rooftop solar delivering 2510MW per hour.

    At that time, Northern power plant in SouthAus and Hazelwood in Victoria were still in operation, so lets add them onto the total for Coal fired power, and that brings the total for coal fired power up to an hourly average of 18820MW, so now coal fired power on this day in January 2015 only generated 270MW more than on January 14th 2019, with rooftop solar power at an average of 2510MW per hour.

    It still doesn’t look to me that coal fired power is easing back at all, and in fact taking just those still existing 48 Units in place, they are generating more now than years ago.

    So, why is that?

    The nature of rooftop solar is that it only exists in the residential sector, and ALL that power is consumed in that sector, be it by the homes with the panels or nearby homes only, not getting out of the suburb where it is generated, and not back into the wider grid for overall consumption in other areas of consumption. Keep in mind here that this is millions of tiny installations (by comparison) and spread across the whole Country.

    Now while power consumption has remained similar to what it has been for a long while now, that is due to efficiencies made in consumption cancelling out the extra consumption added across the years. That early AM Base Load has remained at a yearly average of 18000MW for almost a decade now. The peaks are similar also, and the averages across the day are also similar.

    So, while Residential consumption may have fallen somewhat, and not by much as more homes go in, that consumption in the sectors of most power usage (Commerce and Industry) have risen, hence consumption remains (relatively) stable.

    And, as all rooftop solar is used in that residential sector, then the rise in the other sectors means that REAL power generation, (coal fired power) has risen to cover that extra in that wider area of overall consumption.

    So, rooftop solar power is NOT having any effect whatsoever on coal fired power, be it across the whole 24 hour day (for the 365 day year) or during those hours when rooftop solar is generating its power, be that when it is at its best in Summer, or now, nearing Winter, or even averaged across the whole year.

    Coal fired power will do what it always has done, no matter how much rooftop solar power is in place.

    This isn’t my just saying that.

    The Data bears it out.

    Tony.

    380

    • #
      Robert Swan

      Good comment, but MW per hour?

      30

      • #

        Robert,

        I take readings every hour across that time period of generation, add them together, and then divide the total by the number of readings, to give an average total MW per hour, and then I can multiply that average by the hours of generation, in this case 14 hrs, divide by 1000, and that gives me the total generated power in GWH.

        So for January 14th 2019, that gives a total generated power from those 48 coal fired Units of (18554 X 14 divided by 1000) 259.56GWH, during just those same hours of rooftop power generation. (5.30AM till 7.30PM)

        For Rooftop solar on that same day, 35.14GWH. (so, coal fired power generated 7.5 times what rooftop solar did during that time period)

        Keep in mind that this is only for the time of rooftop solar generation, because across that whole day, coal fired power generated a total of 430.56GWH, so almost 12 times that of rooftop solar.

        Tony.

        130

        • #
          Robert Swan

          Tony,

          Thanks for the reply. I’m afraid I still don’t find the units appealing.

          If you’ve generated 5000MWH over 10 hours, you’ve been generating an average of 500MW. Perhaps during that period, the lowest power was 50MW and the highest was 700MW, and some time during that period the generation was ramping up at 100MW per hour. And that’s what MW per hour means to me: a rate of change of output.

          Robert.

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    • #

      Also worth noting here is that this exercise was just for rooftop solar power in isolation, comparing it to coal fired power.

      In that same time, there has been a huge build up of wind power, and virtually ALL commercial solar power plants have gone in since that time as well.

      So, there has been an exponential build up of Nameplate, as well as generated power from these THREE renewable sources of choice, and yet coal fired power is delivering MORE power now than it did years ago.

      Tony.

      160

    • #
      Robber

      More from Tony’a great data compilation:
      Average generation in GW for 2018/19:
      May-Aug Oct-Dec Jan-Mar April
      Coal 17.2; 16.1; 17.2; 15.7
      Gas 1.8; 1.5; 2.5; 1.5
      Hydro 2.5; 1.6; 1.2; 1.2
      Wind 1.8; 1.6; 1.6; 1.7
      Solar 1.0; 1.5; 1.7; 1.4
      Total 24.3; 22.3; 24.2; 21.5
      Yep, just as well we still have enough coal, gas and hydro for when the wind doesn’t shine and the sun isn’t shining.
      Peak coal delivers over 20 GW, gas 7 GW, and hydro 5 GW.
      Wind varies from 0.2-4.0 GW and solar 0.0-6.5 GW, but essentially useless at meeting peak demands.

      80

      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Robber this would be better written up as percentages.

        Tony, have you written up a post giving the percentages from each source over those quarters ?

        bill

        22

        • #
          Robber

          Coal 70.8%; 72.2%; 71.1%; 73.0%
          Today, a low demand weekend day, Bayswater delivering 1.9 GW, that alone more than all wind. Liddell due to close delivering 1.0 GW, Eraring 2.6 GW, while in Vic Loy Yang B 0.5 GW, Loy Yang A 2.2 GW, and Yallourn 1.5 GW. This afternoon solar delivering 3.6 GW, but soon fading away as the evening peak demand appears, to be supplied by reliables, not ruinables.

          70

      • #
        joseph

        Just a little correction. 🙂


        . . . . for when the wind doesn’t shine and the sun isn’t blowing.

        50

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Tony the ideologically blinded
      ‘Renewocrats’
      Don’t care what the facts are.
      They only want to push their
      Unreliable
      And expensive
      bits players.
      And to do this they LIE.

      41

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Sir David wants to look at producing steel using hydrogen-powered furnaces, which could cut the heavy carbon pollution associated with coal-fed blast furnaces.

    Can anyone really be that much of a ignoramous? Apparently so.

    It takes far more energy to create the hydrogen than you can get from it. In the process, more CO2 will be produced than from using coal to make the coke that is the primary source of energy for blast furnaces. This even if the energy could be provided by windmills and solar cells.

    Added to that absurdity, the windmills or solar cells cannot generate enough energy to make themselves let alone enough extra to power a blast furnace. So the more they try to avoid making CO2, the more CO2 they make.

    I suspect using nuclear energy to create his precious hydrogen to be unthinkable. The vast quantities of hydrogen required will pose a huge problem of storage and transport that also won’t enter into what passes for his thinking.

    Sid David’s bottom line is most likely that he thinks up the creative new thoughts. Then the lowly and despised engineers of the world are to use magic to give him his impossibilities and contradictions immediately for free. When they fail,out comes the boots on necks, knives to throats, whips on backs, gulags, death marches, and gallows because they refuse to be cooperative.

    This brutal end need not happen. Somehow we must make the Sir Dave types of the world irrelevant. Considering the history of man and government, I have difficulty being optimistic.

    The best solution I have come up with is to stop feeding them. Hang on for a month or so and they will be eating each other.

    151

    • #
      Bruce J

      Not really an ignoramus, only a demonstration of a lack of basic education. A blast furnace does not use coke to just provide heat, but the carbon is essential to produce iron by removing the oxygen from the ore and oxidising the carbon. Take away the coke and a blast furnace cannot produce iron.

      40

      • #
        sophocles

        He is supposed to be a chemist. How can a chemist not know anything about the chemistry of steel production?

        10

    • #
      Lance

      Actually, Ignoramus is fair play. Intellectually lazy, confirmation bias infected, willfully technologically illiterate and malignantly narcissistic also come to mind.

      That said, Sir David has not apprised himself of available research. Hydrogen is ultimately useful for exactly 2 end purposes: Feedstock for synthetic liquid hydrocarbons and feedstock for ammonia production. All other applications require more energy to execute than the hydrogen contains. By a factor of 100% to 200%. Only an abject idiot would theorize that H2 has any utility in energy infrastructures of any practical use.

      A fairly definitive analysis of H2 is at : https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf

      Perhaps Sir David might enjoy reading it.

      40

  • #
    pat

    9 May: Moscow Times: Russia’s Nuclear Power Exports are Booming
    Rosatom has been using nuclear power plants as a way of cementing ties with its fellow emerging markets.
    By Ben Aris for bne IntelliNews
    Russia’s state-owned agency Rosatom is on a tear. The company operates 35 nuclear power stations in Russia that produce 28 gigawatts (GW) of power, and it is actively exporting its nuclear technology to countries around the world…

    In recent years Rosatom has completed the construction of six nuclear power reactors in India, Iran and China and it has another nine reactors under construction in Turkey, Belarus, India, Bangladesh and China. Rosatom confirmed to bne IntelliNews that it has a total of 19 more “firmly planned” projects and an additional 14 “proposed” projects, almost all in emerging markets around the world…READ ON
    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/05/09/russias-nuclear-power-exports-are-booming-a65533

    40

  • #
    pat

    ***Australia is on the same path:

    10 May: Bloomberg: Europe’s Biggest Economy Is Worrying About Blackouts
    By Vanessa Dezem
    Analysts in Germany are concerned about supply security
    Nation will close 17 gigawatts of nuclear and coal by 2022
    “I am really insecure on the security of supply,” Tobias Federico, managing director of consultant Energy Brainpool, which has advised the German government and RWE AG, said at a Montel conference in Dusseldorf. “Specially for 2022 it is an issue. I am concerned about the winter of that year. It takes five years to build a power plant and ***we don’t have that time anymore.”
    In January, the nation’s Coal Commission recommended Germany to reduce its coal capacity from 43 gigawatts in 2017 to 30 gigawatts in 2022. And the exit should be completed by 2038. Today, coal and nuclear account for about half of the electricity generation…

    nvestments in clean energy in Germany dropped by 31% to $10.6 billion in 2018 from a year earlier, according to BloombergNEF.
    But even if new capacity is added, mainly wind parks in the north, the grid needs upgrading to ship the electricity to the main consuming areas in the south.
    “We see security of supply in 2023 endangered in Germany with the recommendations of coal commission,” said Konstantin Lenz, a business developer at Wattsight, a Norwegian energy consultant. “And politicians are not really aware of that challenge. There is no time to install batteries or new gas power plants.”…
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-10/germany-risks-blackouts-next-decade-with-speedy-coal-exit

    40

    • #
      RickWill

      Rolling blackouts in a Europerean winter will breed many pragmatists. Gas fuelled generators could be done in 6 months with sufficient will. Diesels even faster providing there is no mining boom.

      10

  • #
    pat

    the lunacy continues, courtesy of the FakeNewsMSM:

    10 May: Guardian: AFP: Irish parliament declares climate emergency
    Greta Thunberg says Dublin decision to follow British MPs’ lead is ‘great news’
    “Great news from Ireland!! Who is next?” she tweeted…
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/10/irish-parliament-declares-climate-emergency

    20

    • #
      pat

      note headline leaves out “media surge”:

      10 May: CarbonBrief: Guest post: Polls reveal surge in concern in UK about climate change
      by Leo Barasi
      (Leo Barasi is the author of The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism and blogs at Noise of the crowd)
      Climate change has been unusually prominent in the UK media over recent weeks – ***and this is mirrored by a noticeable increase in climate “concern” in the polls…
      Data presented by Carbon Brief (***LINK) and the University of Colorado (LINK) both found that the media mentioned “climate change” more in April than it did in almost any previous month…
      https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-rolls-reveal-surge-in-concern-in-uk-about-climate-change

      ***TWEET: Carbon Brief:
      Animation: Mentions of “climate change” in UK media over past decade.
      April 2019 at near-record levels due to coverage of @ExtinctionR protests, @GretaThunberg visit and @BBCOne Attenborough film.
      ***Only surpassed – just – by Dec 2009 when COP15 summit took place in Copenhagen.
      1 May 2019
      13 COMMENTS
      https://twitter.com/CarbonBrief/status/1123571071951757312

      30

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      What the hell is the appeal of an obviously mentally disturbed teenager? Probably heredity because her father claims “my daughter can see carbon dioxide”.
      Anyone following the advice of this unfortunate child should be disqualified from office immediately as unfit.

      100

  • #
    Peter C

    NO FREE SPEECH FOR CONSERVATIVES

    My pathetic efforts to spread awareness of the Australian Conservatives have been ruthlessly suppressed. I put up 15 corflute posters last week. By today all but one had been removed, mostly likely by the Greenshirts.

    No alternative views are allowed.

    I was allocated another 10 signs, so these have gone up over the past few hours. This time I climbed a ladder and put them up on power poles. I hope they last until election day.

    163

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Admire your efforts Peter but a you know the MSM has a blanket ban on any coverage whatsoever of any conservative voice existing in this country.

      Take comfort in the fact after the impending Labor/Greens disaster people will be looking very hard at politics like AC to restore some sanity.

      102

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Which electorate are you Peter ?
      There has been a corflute war here in Mayo in SA
      Mostly it is between the the Greens and the Liberals
      TI have seen no Conservative party corflutes at all
      In Mt barker

      41

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Bill,

        no problem in Woodside, or as far as I can see down Onkaparinga Road to Verdun. The problem is that the Liberals have been attaching their candidate’s picture (corflute) next to the Conservative party ones.

        40

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          NO ACP corflutes to be seen in Mt Barker
          So far.

          I should make a correction to my comment above
          The corflute war was was between Rebekha Sharkie Greenists
          And the Liberals.
          Why ?
          Well Rebekha Sharkie is a ‘Greens lite’ party person
          NOT a ‘Centre’ type person at all.
          Despite her party name tag
          “Center Aliance”
          Anne Bourne the endorsed
          Greens candidate is running
          Completely ‘dead’

          31

          • #
            Bill in Oz

            And so is the 23 year old
            Saskia Gerhardy
            The endorsed
            Labor party candidate.
            They are both running dead’
            What does this mean ?
            It means a vote for Rebekha Sharkie
            A vote for the Labor Green Alliance.
            And a return to the chaos of 2007-2013 !
            Bugger, bugger ,bugger !

            41

        • #
          Len

          Who was the newspaper agent in Woodside who used to go out to the Army Camp in the mornings to sell papers? This was in the late 1960s.I think his surname was Collins.

          10

    • #
      philthegeek

      This time I climbed a ladder and put them up on power poles.

      The OHS manual recommends paintball guns to deal with that. 🙂

      47

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Hello Mainstream Media!

    Why aren’t you showing us these gigantic anti-Macron YellowVests marches happening in France today?

    https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1127238564981481479

    110

    • #
      Kneel

      Fair go – it’s only been every weekend for 6 months. More violence than in Venezuela, but in Venezuela it’s a “popular uprising” while in France, it’s merely “civil disobedience”.
      We need to immediately invade France to assist the people reclaim their democracy!
      On to the next (6th?) republic for France!

      20

  • #
    pat

    8 May: Deutsche Welle: EU Commission president candidates clash on climate change, migration
    Germany’s Manfred Weber and the Netherlands’ Frans Timmermans hope to succeed EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In a debate aired on German TV, the two discussed climate change, taxes, terrorism and migration.
    by law/se (dpa, AFP, Reuters)
    The European elections will be held from May 23-26. According to recent polls, the European People’s Party, a bloc of conservative parties to which Weber belongs, is likely to remain the strongest party in the next parliament with 24%, while the Social Democrats would keep their share of the vote at 20%.

    Ambitious climate goals
    Timmermans accused the EPP of being “dinosaurs” when it comes to climate change…
    Weber denied the charge, saying that the EPP “is ambitious” in combattng climate change, adding that his focus would be on lobbying other continents such as China, the United States and Latin America to join the fight…
    Social Democrat Timmermans said he wants to make climate protection a top priority. He argued not only for a CO2 tax but also for a kerosene tax to offset the tax advantage for climate-damaging air travel.
    Weber also agreed that the unequal tax treatment of rail, car and air travel must be ended.

    Timmermans also said the voting age should be lowered to 16 because “young people know what they want; teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg also knows what she wants.”…
    https://www.dw.com/en/eu-commission-president-candidates-clash-on-climate-change-migration/a-48646042

    20

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    Is it really a good idea to bring the Thylacine back from extinction?
    Or has the University of Melbourne become tired of beating the global warming drum and are searching for new ways to raid government coffers?

    70

  • #

    So, I heard an interesting interview during the week, can’t remember where, but it was from an electrical engineer, and he mentioned the ‘absurdity’ of the electric vehicle thing currently doing the political rounds.

    He mentioned Apartment buildings, those large communities of a number of homes in the one ‘complex’, and then actual suburbs.

    He first mentioned that for the chargers to of any substance, they would need to be three phase, so in nearly every case, it would not be a case of just plugging the car into the existing power outlets, that proverbial ‘hole in the wall’. So, virtually every home would need to be rewired for that three phase power, and he said that was no cheap thing, as the starting price would currently be around $7500, and if something like this comes into play, he said that would rise and he said pretty much significantly rise too, as electrical contractors, umm, cashed in.

    With respect to apartment buildings they are currently wired to support the apartments, and the electrical power required by them is average power for a home multiplied by number of apartments, plus a percentage, and the idea of rewiring them for all that extra for separate chargers could actually not be done.

    Then he mentioned suburbs, as a whole, and how most of them are designed to carry a certain load for all that is currently in that suburb, and adding a significant number of chargers is actually out of the question, as the sub station for that suburb is designed for a certain load plus a percentage, and most suburbs are already close to that, so any significant restructure of that load by adding a lot of extra car charging three phase power would necessitate the virtual replacement of the sub station.

    When asked where the extra power would come from, he just said not from wind or solar, and rooftop solar is out of the question, even if the home had batteries.

    So, it looks to me like the thought bubble of electric vehicles in any number is hamstrung by those pretty major problems.

    Think also of when it happens, that recharging process.

    Get home from work, and plug the car in, multiplied by hundreds of thousands, and right at the already large evening peak, and you can see right there what that might result in.

    Isn’t it funny how the harsh reality of real engineering principles don’t even enter into it when a politician has a thought 0rgasm.

    Tony.

    300

    • #
      pat

      TonyfromOz –

      I’ve heard or read Beyhad Jafari of the Electric Vehicle Council say you only need the wiring done, so it wouldn’t add more than a couple of hundred to the cost of a new home, whatever.

      good luck trying to find anything clear and precise in the following pieces (HINT: YOU WON’T):

      2 May: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Why does media fall for Angus Taylor’s ridiculous scare campaigns?
      On the front page of the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, for instance, was a complete crock of a story suggesting that billions of dollars would need to be spent on all new homes, ensuring that they all had three-phase power and EV charging stations. “Hidden Chargers: ALP electric car plan to hit housing”, it cried.
      As the Electric Vehicle Council, a new body bringing together utilities, car manufacturers and others suggested, the idea of a “housing tax is completely ludicrous…

      “This ‘housing tax’ line is a contender for the silliest scare tactic yet, perhaps even sillier than the Prime Minister predicting “the end of the weekend.” (You can read more on that in Bridie Schmidt’s report in our EV-focused website, The Driven (/***LINK)…
      https://reneweconomy.com.au/why-does-media-fall-for-angus-taylors-ridiculous-scare-campaigns-62387/

      ***2 May: TheDriveN: Bridie Schmidt: “Truly ludicrous”: EV Council angered by Angus Taylor’s “housing tax” lie
      The EVC’s Behyad Jafari on Thursday issued a statement saying that the claims published in Murdoch media, that billions would need to be spent installing three-phase capacity on all new houses to deal with EV charging stations was the silliest claim yet, and “truly ludicrous.”…

      In addition to ensuring all new and refurbished buildings are able to accommodate at-home or at-work vehicle charging at a minimal cost, the policy would in fact save people money in the long run, says Jafari.
      “Making sure new buildings are future-proofed and able to charge vehicles efficiently is common sense given that everyone – including the Liberal Party – acknowledges that a mass transition to EVs is coming. The costs are minimal at build.
      “By contrast doing nothing would be the costly option, because it would ensure that people would be forced to pay more later to upgrade retrospectively.”
      https://thedriven.io/2019/05/02/truly-ludicrous-ev-council-angered-by-angus-taylors-housing-tax-lie/

      8 Apr: TheDriveN: Bridie Schmidt: Coalition hits bottom of barrel with fake news campaign against electric cars
      “Electric cars will take eight to nine hours overnight,” the Liberals say.
      Mostly, yes, about 90 per cent of all charging will take place at home – during the day, or night. And the issue is?
      At home, a “trickle” cable that you simply plug in to your powerpoint charges at a rate of 2-3kW and up to 7kW if you install a specially designed “wall charger”…
      https://thedriven.io/2019/04/08/coalition-hits-bottom-of-barrel-with-fake-news-campaign-against-electric-cars/

      40

      • #
        pat

        I can’t paste the url, but find this from the heading. Jafari mentions the ***$200 wiring:

        TRANSCRIPT PARLIAMENT OF VICTORI
        STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE ECONOMY AND INFRASTRUCTURE
        Inquiry into electric vehicles
        Melbourne — 8 November 2017
        Mr JAFARI — Sure. In terms of publicly available infrastructure, it has been very low both in terms of those available on interregional routes and those available inside of city areas — things like supermarkets and shopping centres and the rest. We have about 340 locations across Australia. What we should have is about one per every five to seven drivers. But again this is an area where we have what the early movers look like versus where governments step in to provide that infrastructure. Increasingly now we are seeing quite a lot of interest from the private sector to provide that infrastructure. More than anything else they are looking for certainty — when will there be support for the broader market uptake?

        Then there are the other important components around providing people with charging inside their homes, recognising Australians on average drive about 30 kilometres a day. Yes, on weekends and holidays they may drive further, but for the average daily commute — 99 per cent of trips that are occurring — that is ensuring that things like all new buildings are at least future-ready for charging infrastructure. So the difference between futureproofing a development for charging infrastructure is the difference of around ***$200 to put a wire in the right place, for instance, compared potentially to up to $10,000 to knock down concrete, re-dig trenches or rewire entire portions of apartment buildings. So the disparity in cost is quite large, and this is an area that we can start looking at providing appropriate standards for today.

        31

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      ‘they would need to be three phase, ‘ They have to be to supply the 100s kW to do any fast charge. 100A @ 400V (3ph side) 40kW (min).
      House hold supply dont reach that power often. EV motors suck ALLOT of amps! You have to get equivalent of same horsepower as a petrol engine for same size vehicle, roughly.
      This outfit is in Brisbane.
      https://www.tritium.com.au/cardealership?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9_jenOCV4gIV0g0rCh0AsQTAEAAYAyAAEgJwEfD_BwE
      50KW DC FAST CHARGER , thats a small one.

      61

      • #
        yarpos

        I think it ( if “it” actually comes to pass at any scale) will be a lot like the NBN. The wealthy or those that claim it as a business expense with have fibre to the home and a fast charger. The other 80-90% will have their good enough Internet and an outside/parking spot GPO.

        My carport has a double GPO and a 15A outlet in the power board, but I dont have EV plans. Perhaps I can rent out the space?

        40

    • #
      Lance

      There is a reason for the 3 phase reference from your EE mate.

      Residential grids are generally single phase systems. They were designed for residential loads of perhaps 10 kVA per home, maximum.

      One cannot simply “dump” an additional 50 kVA on each residential feeder without completely replacing the secondary distribution system, pole mounted “pot” transformers or pad mount transformers, AND the feeder leg into the residence, AND the residential distribution panel. Never mind that the area substation would have to be increased in capacity by a factor of 5 to 7 as well as the switchgear. AND the primary distribution has limitations as well. This might take 5 to 10 years to accomplish, even if people were willing to pay for it. Such things as labor force and equipment limitations come to mind.

      It would not be far off to say that each home would need to pay some $10,000 to $15,000 each to pay for the upgrades so they might “quick charge” their EV. So, unless everyone is financially on-board with this scenario, “quick charging” is a nonsense idea for most areas. Unless, of course, the unreliables crowd “gives” it away with another taxpayer subsidy. Somebody has to pay.

      As the KDee song says, “Gas,Grass, Cash, or @ss, Nobody Rides for Free”.

      90

      • #

        This is where I think that politicians are culpable, not for proposing this as policy, but for not taking ALL the advice they can get about it from people who actually DO KNOW what is involved, so that they don’t end up looking like gooses when it can’t be done, for all the reasons that Lance has mentioned.

        Why they are culpable is that their followers will now blindly believe ‘verbatim’ what that politician has said, without having even the most minimal, if any understanding of the engineering involved with something like this.

        Then, as soon as someone does rationally explain what is involved, those followers who believed their Leader when he proposed it, will say that these reasons are in fact just ‘made up’, not to tell the truth of the matter, but made up because they are from the opposite side of the political fence of the leader who makes the proposal, and nothing to do at all with how correct they are.

        And even if there might be the slightest element of doubt that ‘gets in’ then, to that believer, it’s something that will easily be solved.

        I fully understand that the general public has no concept at all of the electrical principles and engineering involved here, and that’s why it’s the fault of the leader who proposes it, or all his sycophants behind him nodding their heads and cheering him on. That leader has a responsibility to tak FULL advice on the matter before he makes the proposal in the first place.

        Tony.

        30

  • #
    pat

    heard Max Keiser on RT today talking to stock broker/commentator, Peter Schiff. Keiser says viewer wants to know why Schiff isn’t keen on technology – bitcoin, wind, solar – and Schiff said people think he ignores Bitcoin because he knows nothing about it, but he ignores it because he knows a lot about it. said those buying into it are the ones who know nothing about it.

    I thought you could say the same for wind and solar advocates.

    Schiff mentioned it would take a third of the world’s energy to enable verification of crypto miners or whatever. Max said not so, because bitcoin uses 70% renewable energy.

    7 May: Coindesk: Bitcoin miners send message at Fidelity; we run on clean energy, not dirty coal
    Bitcoin miners made the case for their industry as a driver of clean energy adoption, rather than the ecological disaster depicted by critics, at Fidelity’s Mining Summit Friday.
    The venue for the daylong event was as notable as the talks. The Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, an R&D division that has dabbled in bitcoin mining, hosted the conference at the financial services giant’s global headquarters in Boston. Fidelity has embraced the crypto markets more than most incumbents…

    Miners are constantly searching for cheaper energy, and this is why they will be a catalyst for renewable power development in the near future, said John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna. His company is building a large wind power generating farm in Morocco: the primary consumer of that energy will be Soluna’s miners, but the rest will go to the country’s electricity grid, Belizaire said.
    “Bitcoin is at the center of the next great infrastructure that we’ve never seen before. We’re going to go to places that have incredible renewable energy sites,” he said, predicting that the industry’s image will change as a result…

    The widespread notion that “bitcoin is mainly mined with dirty Chinese coal” is not true, said Chris Bendiksen, the head of CoinShares research department…
    Miners are located mostly in mountainous regions with big rivers and a high share of renewable power in the overall energy mix, CoinShares found: 48 percent of all global mining happens in the Chinese province of Sichuan where renewable energy is prevalent (90 percent of the overall energy mix), and 12 percent takes in other parts of China that together get around half of their energy from renewables…
    None of this is to say protecting the environment is bitcoin miners’ top motivation. “They probably don’t care at all,” Bendiksen said. However, mining bitcoin on fossil fuels is just too expensive…
    https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-miners-send-message-at-fidelity-we-run-on-clean-energy-not-dirty-coal

    30

    • #
      pat

      clearly Max was exaggerating when he said bitcoin was running on 70% RE:

      18 Apr: Greenbiz: 4 ways to counter blockchain’s energy consumption pitfall
      by Kayla Matthews
      Discussions of that downside typically center on the electricity consumption used for cryptocurrency mining — which uses almost as much energy per year as Ireland. It also doesn’t help that cryptocurrency miners invest in more powerful and resource-dependent computer equipment to succeed compared to their peers.
      However, analysts suggest several ways to solve the blockchain energy problem. Here are four:
      1. Move away from the proof-of-work validation method…ETC

      2. Use blockchain to spur energy-efficient transportation methods
      Blockchain-based, peer-to-peer platforms exist to help people find private charging stations for their electric cars. One example is Share & Charge. It leverages the Ethereum blockchain to connect drivers with charging points ETC…

      4. Focus on sustainable ways to mine bitcoin
      Fortunately, efforts are underway, such as an initiative by Cryptosolartech in Spain, to mine bitcoin with solar or wind energy ETC…
      https://www.greenbiz.com/article/4-ways-counter-blockchains-energy-consumption-pitfall

      30

    • #
      Serp

      A gem Pat. Coindesk is a world apart. Thanks.

      20

  • #
    DonS

    Hi Jo

    In a post during the week you wrote:

    (extinction) Trends in indigenous controlled lands are only less now because prehistoric indigenous people wiped out the mega fauna years ago. The trends just reached an equilibrium.

    Where is your evidence for this causal link between disappearance of mega fauna and early human societies? Don’t tell me you fell for the Tim Flannery Future eaters bull!

    I would refer you to Dr Ross D. E. MacPhee’s recent book titled End of the Megafauna: The fate of the world’s hugest, fiercest and strangest animals. This excellent work will give you a better perspective on the extinction events of the past and the multitude of possible actual causes that have nothing to do with people eating every big thing they saw.

    Sorry if I sound a bit harsh but as a someone who studied Palaeontology at M.Sc level I find it constantly disturbing that there is a casual acceptance of the Green left meme that evil humans kill and destroy everything they find. It is not just climate science that has been effected by this garbage so please be sceptical of all supposed accepted “truths”.

    Happy Mothers Day:)

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      I thought I seen an article about mega fauna bones being excavated with cut marks on them a few years ago .
      Personally I believe there was a variety of reasons for the mega fauna extinction but the number one culprit likely to be a colder drier climate .

      00

  • #
    Hanrahan

    Another week, it just gets worse for Boeing.

    It seems they never really understood the MCAS themselves, or at the very least they have made conflicting statements for a year before the Lion Air crash and ever since. They knew of problems ages ago but company culture must have prevented these concerns getting the priority they deserved.

    Industry “experts” speak of a billion $ payout to families but to my inexpert legal mind “punitive damages” could multiply because this was entirely preventable. It was bad design that some KNEW was bad but no-one bothered to spend the dollars and time to fix it. I have no idea what recourse customer airlines have but they are bleeding.

    Trouble is search engines allow Joe Six-pack to read up on past quality control failures in Boing. It is enlightening.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      “Boing”??

      Trouble is the planes don’t go “boing, boing” when they hit the ground.

      40

    • #
      Lionell Griffith

      It is nothing but incompetent managers being more worried about their quarterly bonus rather than the quality of their product and the safety of their customers.

      It is rather like the situation within the Shuttle Challenger catastrophe in the US. Engineers desperately tried to stop the launch. Their managers overruled them saying that the O rings had only burned half way through on the last launch so there was a 50% safety factor. I suspect the managers got promoted with an increase in salaries and bonuses while the engineers got fired for not being “good team players”. Mean while a crew died because the O ring WAS the safety factor and being burned meant the crew wasn’t safe.

      I know what it takes to create life critical software which, if it has a bug or ignored issue, someone or many someones can die. You have to go way beyond merely meeting requirements. Every possible failure mode must be dealt with correctly. Even the ones you don’t know about or haven’t thought about.

      Hence, if your staying alive depends upon software, worry and worry a lot. Encounter the first untested bug or undealt with incident, your ability to continue living will be seriously impaired or terminated!

      Since pilots no longer fly airplanes but only give suggestions to software, I no longer fly. Nor do I consider autonomous vehicles even close to being safe. A computer doesn’t care if it lives or dies. Most humans do. That is a difference that makes all the difference in the world. That is if you want to stay alive.

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        That is so true about critical software.

        One pilot wrote that the whole Boing saga is fatally flawed. Its the top management, as it mostly always is in these cases. He said the 737MAX is a fatally flawed design (bee tinkered with to save money) it want throwing away totally. Id say to Boing, scrap the lot, take the losses, start again.
        Wondering if Boing has spent too much of their trillions in defense money from the MIC on military aerospace rather than fixing the civil side of the business.

        50

        • #
          Hanrahan

          Not even Airbus would want the Max thrown in the bin. They need an orderly market and the consumers to maintain confidence in the industry as a whole. The Max will fry again but it will need other “grandfathered” sub-opitmal design features to be corrected, such as paper check lists. There was never any time to find the page on “runaway stabiliser trim”.

          Airbus has been years ahead of Boeing on “intelligent” automation and Boeing fans used this as a selling point: If it ain’t Boeing I ain’t going. Well Airbus has not had a crash clearly identified as a “plane overrides pilot” problem. There have been doubts though. Airbus is also years ahead of Boeing in the use of composites and they have not failed in use. A tail separating was caused by “over vigorous” use of the rudder in wake turbulence. Accident investigation showed that the structural strength exceed design criteria..

          Even with these two accidents, statistically, flying has never been safer. I love flying but hate cattle class and can’t afford the upgrade.

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          • #
            Lionell Griffith

            Statistics won’t protect you when the automation in the vehicle you are riding encounters an uncorrected bug or undealt with circumstance.

            Even rather trivial software cannot be totally tested. Even the action of correcting known bugs will insert new bugs in the software. Hence, ALL software that does anything more than display “Hello World” contains bugs and will encounter undealt with circumstances. It looks to me that statistically you are dead!

            50

            • #
              theRealUniverse

              anything more than display “Hello World” contains bugs and will encounter undealt with circumstances..
              I think we can all agree that Microsoft has learned that lesson a trillion times over.

              00

          • #
            Peter C

            Well Airbus has not had a crash clearly identified as a “plane overrides pilot” problem.

            Not sure about that!
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

            Maybe plane did not override pilot, but the computer gave incorrect info to the pilot, which caused the plane to dive into the ocean.

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            • #
              yarpos

              The pilot insisted on control inputs that resulted in them going down, it didnt get there by itself.

              30

            • #
              Hanrahan

              I carefully chose the words “clearly defined” because of AF 447. That was eventually put down to pilot disorientation so they didn’t trust their instruments. I accept that is disputed hence my choice of words.

              There is no doubt these two Max crashes were due to design faults, taking a small problem and blowing it up to be deadly.

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          • #
            Lionell Griffith

            Accident investigation showed that the structural strength exceed design criteria.

            That is a software bug or undealt with circumstance! An error in the design criteria is what caused the failure. It did not take into account structural strength limits sufficiently so as to accommodate an adequately broad range of circumstances.

            That the designer didn’t think of it is no excuse. Especially if he was simply following orders from on high. Orders from managers who are more concerned about their quarterly bonuses than about the quality of their product and the safety of their customers.

            Been there and fought this for over 50 years as a professional software engineer. My starting assumption is that all managers are idiots who are not to be trusted to make ANY technical decisions that pertain to product quality or safety. I can’t count the times I have pulled them out of the fires they themselves set. Rarely did I get as much as a Thank You for doing it.

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            • #
              Hanrahan

              Was the Titanic sinking a software bug?

              30

              • #
                Graeme No.3

                I am sure someone would blame it on Global Warming.

                10

              • #
                Lionell Griffith

                More of a wetware bug of false expectations. The marketing said it was unsinkable. We all know that a useful definition for marketing is lies piled upon misdirection supported by empty prose having nothing to do with reality.

                In the real world stuff happens. Sometimes the worst possible stuff. Forget to take that into account the result can be catastrophic.

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              • #
                theRealUniverse

                There wasnt much code around to tell them whether it would sink or not in 1912..

                00

            • #
              Hanrahan

              Help me out here. You say that if a pilot can abuse his controls and break the plane, that is a software bug which, presumably, needs more software to prevent. But first you said you no longer fly because there is too much software on the plane. 🙁

              20

              • #
                Lionell Griffith

                Remember? The software is not just the code.

                00

              • #
                yarpos

                If I wanted to I can abuse the controls and break a fly by cable plane. Surely at some stage you do expect the last line of defence, the pilot, to be skillful and know how to fly the aircraft. An expectation sadly unmet in some cases, and it should be sad brilliantly done in others. Human frailty I suppose.

                20

            • #
              Lionell Griffith

              There was a lot of marketing blather. That is part of the software.

              The Application (Marketing 101): Reality is irrelevant. Perception is everything. Sell the sizzle! Promise anything but deliver what you have. Convince the buyer that he got what he wanted all along. Go public and sell out before your customers sue the shirt off your back. Take a long vacation in the South Pacific until everyone forgets what you promised. Then repeat.

              Not all marketing is that bad but a lot of it is. Especially when selling government programs.

              10

          • #
            Graeme#4

            I have to disagree with you H. I believe that Airbus HAS had a major software issue, when a Qantas A330 started to implement rapid ascents and descents all by itself over Exmouth, with sufficient force to drive somebody’s head up into an overhead locker. Seems that a rogue 1-of-3 computer took over control, when control should have passed to the other two working computers. Did you read the ex-Qantas pilot’s report on this?

            40

      • #
        Hanrahan

        It wasn’t a software bug in that there was a code error. It was a physical design fault that could/should have been seen by any coding illiterate pilot spending time to study the problem. A “software fix” will not get the plane back flying. For example, the only way to switch off MCAS was to isolate power to the stabiliser jack. Two problems, that also isolates the pilot’s stab switches on the control yolk, and manually correcting excessive nose down trim is too slow at the best of times at such low altitude AND it is near impossible for the copilot physically to operate at all when the airframe is under stress and at high speed.

        Among the stories doing the rounds is one that says engineers were indeed sacked for questioning Boeing’s self-certification diligence. The civil liability cases will be revealing.

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        • #
          Lionell Griffith

          The software includes not only code, but the code documentation, the requirements documents, the code design, the user interface design and implementation, the training manuals, and the training process itself. If ANY of these things contain bugs or undealt with circumstances, it is a fundamental flaw in the software.

          That you, as a mere coder, are following the directions of others does not excuse you of culpability for ANY bug in ANY part of the system. If you touch it, YOU are responsible! The only way not to be responsible is to not be involved.

          THAT is the reality based nature of life critical software. What you think, need, feel, or want is totally irrelevant.

          40

          • #
            Hanrahan

            The software designers could not have made a failsafe system, they were not given enough inputs. GIGO. They could always raise a red flag but that may have meant termination. I believe this happened within the organisation. But I’m no expert and you are a super-sceptic so let’s agree to disagree.

            40

            • #
              Lionell Griffith

              I agree that you are not an expert. You should be asking questions rather than making assertions based upon unfounded assumptions or lack of experience.

              The fact is, the so called designers are responsible for identifying missing or inaccurate requirements. Especially if it is a life critical situation. In that case it should be taken to the point of being fired or being allowed to resign. That is if they value human life. If they didn’t, they should not have been employed as a design engineer in the first place.

              It is their prime number one responsibility to assure the safety of the product they are designing. Be it a bridge, airplane, or child’s toy. If management doesn’t agree, they should find other employment. I have done it. Apparently you haven’t.

              30

              • #
                Hanrahan

                I agree that you are not an expert.

                What was the last aircraft you designed? You are no expert either.

                30

              • #
                Lionell Griffith

                I have designed aircraft avionic software displays and had to deal with the human factors of that effort. It was associated with NASA experimental aircraft and space craft. As a consequence, I had to acquire a great deal of knowledge of how they worked and what was necessary to fly them.

                I personally worked with over nine hardware in the loop simulators and learned how to “fly” them. It was in this environment that I developed my ideas about what software is and what was required to deliver a safe life critical package.

                So yes, I am an expert in the topic at hand.

                10

              • #
                Kneel

                “The fact is, the so called designers are responsible for identifying missing or inaccurate requirements.”

                Even non-critical software is usually badly thought out by the coders – I told one software engineer his code was crap. This was code destined for customers to run on their PC. Even though non-critical, IMO such code should always assume the (l)user is BOTH a complete moron (ie, will do things you never thought anyone would, like turning on two mutually exclusive options) AND an evil genius (knows the entire design and is deliberately trying to break your code). Therefore, you should assume that everything from the user is wrong until you can prove it correct (or at least, “reasonable”). For critical code, remove the “reasonable” part and don’t do anything unless you have the same readings from more than 1 sensor saying the same thing – preferably, sensors that are designed, built and installed by different people, group and company.
                Although to be fair, the software guy was an embedded systems coder to start with…

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Hi Lionel and Hanrahan,

                First, I suspect that neither of you were involved in this disaster.

                Second, you are both approaching the same problem from slightly different points of view.

                Third, it was human error, either in the programming or pilot training or the physical disconnect mechanism available to the pilot.

                It should not have put the pilots in the situation they eventually found themselves.

                Management seems to have overridden technical imperatives in the way that is common these days.

                It wasn’t Human Error, more like Human Arrogance.

                KK

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        • #
          Richard Ilfeld

          The MCAS was designed to make the plane ‘feel’ like other 737’s. Because of CG changes, under high power near stall conditions the feel was quite difference, particularly the nose-up (or nose down)force. Te MCAS was designed to counter this, so that a pilot trained on the older 737 could fly the newer plane with the same training & technique. Had it been certified as a new design, with the different training regime, the MCAS would have been unnecessary and the traditional stick-shaker would probably have sufficed.
          None of this makes the aircraft intrinsically unsafe.
          Trim lock, requiring power reduction to recover with auto trim off using the manual system, is not unique to the Max.
          While a larger, longer range, more efficient one-aisle aircraft done with clean sheet would not retain all the particular compromises of the original 737 design (one would want to eliminate the tail strikes), the Max is well within the range of flight characteristics and compromises normal to commercial airliners.

          Botching the logic behind creating the MCAS in the first place, and implementing it badly, and letting cost concerns and customer demands compromise pilot training are all possible systemic flaws to worry about….
          these do not make the Max an unsafe airplane.

          To repeat: under FAA rules it would have been possible to certify the Max as a new type, with its uniques characteristics and its own training regime. With this certification, the MCAS would have been unnecessary, and most probably not installed. But companies with pilots certified to fly 737’s would have had to get their pilots a new (and expensive) type certification before flying the Max.

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          • #
            Lionell Griffith

            But companies with pilots certified to fly 737′s would have had to get their pilots a new (and expensive) type certification before flying the Max.

            That too is a bug in the system. Managers more concerned about their quarterly bonuses than they are about the quality and safety of their product and the lives of their customers.

            In my opinion, they are NOT to be excused.

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            • #
              Lionell Griffith

              There is a principle known as Vicarious Liability. Meaning if you should have known and could have done something about it, you assume a large portion of the potential liability of of a negative event.

              The managers are the responsible experts in charge but their customers are not. Their customers relied upon the managers and their willfully unexercised expertise. Much to the detriment of the customers.

              The managers should have known, likely did, but chose to do nothing about it even though they could have. Bingo – they are liable.

              30

              • #
                Richard Ilfeld

                If aviation safety were an absolute, we could not fly; if auto safety were an absolute, we could not drive….etc. There is an intrinsic risk to flying. It is very low in the commercial world. We accept a much higher risk when we drive because (of the illusion that)we are in control.
                Some are not happy with the risk flying presents, and do not fly. We generally don’t laugh at them.
                Some of us who fly have quite varied limits. I’ll fly Southwest. I would not fly Aeroflot, or any company that put a 200 hour pilot in the right seat. I once was willing to fly instruments in a light plane. I am not any more.
                If the two accidents that are happened are the end of the matter (with the subsequent changes), in the next couple of years the 737 MAX will be in the mainstream in terms of Boeing-on-quality-carriers safety.
                As I read the 737 trim runaway checklist, the final accident report in both cases will cite pilot error as a contributing factor. There will also be design and training errors cited.
                I suspect the court will assign liability based on reliance on a single instrument when two were available, not annunciating instrument disagreement, changing system performance without AD level notification of customers, and inadequate training. The Company is likely to bear the brunt; with respect to the FAA one branch of govt will defer to the other.
                The tort lawyers may well win hundreds of millions on these grounds. But I doubt they will go so far as to assign specific liability unless there was fraud involved in any of the causes, which has not yet been shows. The evolution of the MCAS was pretty public, and there were contemporary pilot complaints and company responses indicating evolution. The fatalities preceded problem resolution, and escalated the situation to a crisis, but did not, in my opinion show bad faith on anyone’s part. Bad systems, bad process, bad bureaucracy, yes.

                Would airbags on airliner potentially save lives? Yes. Would strict weather regulations prohibiting flight in areas where there were thunderstorms? Yes. So would a number of other items. But, for viable commercial flight, we accept compromise. Or exercise our choice to take the train.

                However, since I could easily be 180 degrees wrong, I’m waiting for both the final accident reports, and the trial. And I’m prepared that after these, reasonable people may disagree on cause, blame, and liability.

                There is one thing, I think, we might agree on, and that is ICAO rules for pilot qualifications,
                and on the accuracy and required use of certification simulators. 200 hours experience and “ipad” certification don’t seem adequate to me.

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              • #
                Hanrahan

                The managers should have known, likely did definitely did know, but chose to do nothing about it even though they could have. Bingo – they are liable.

                Now we agree. And it will lead to massive punitive damages claims.

                10

  • #
    Another Ian

    The Pointman’s 2017 update of his 2012 look at solar power

    “Solaris two.”

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/solaris-two/

    The 2012 version is here

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/the-sun-is-setting-on-solar-power-the-moneys-gone-and-nobodys-asking-any-questions/

    More things BS didn’t read

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    https://www.metservice.com/mountain/fiordland-national-park

    Fiordland, NZ – snow tonight, snow tomorrow, snow for the rest of the week with -10˚C wind chill on the passes. According to Greta & Co™ THIS is what happens when NO ACTION is taken to tackle fight throw away gazillions on Shysters’ Snake-oil (satisfaction UN-guaranteed). Sane people call it autumn weather, a change in the seasons, if you will.

    Got lucky and caught the last ferry off Waiheke Island (work) this afternoon before they were all cancelled (due to a good northerly blowing and a 1-2 metre swell/chop rolling through the channel) caused by mann-made gobull wormink the front roaring ahead of above-mentioned cold snow-storm down south. Apart from a few bug-eyed day-trippers, most of us locals were hootin ‘n’ hollerin as we rocked ‘n’ rolled and pitched ‘n’ surfed our way back to the mainland… thanks to evil fossil fuels liquid carbon sunshine and a skipper who knew what he was doing. Land ahoy!

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    • #
      Peter C

      I am glad that you made it.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Good ol Auckland weather strikes again mate! Well done. Yep bet its freezing. Better send some to Jacinda. 😀

      10

      • #
        Greg in NZ

        She’s skipped off overseas for a little Paris in the Spring with Micro-man Macron to sort out the evil interwebs, doncha know. After being blessed by her fellow Socialist International president – some Portuguese fella at the top of the UN heap – she and her entourage boarded a carbon-spewing fossil fuel-powered plane for a European spring-break. Shame about that junior Beast from the East which is about to chill things down somewhat this week in Euro-ville (more snow for the Alps).

        Hi✝ler Climate Youth! “The UN Secretary-General has issued a monumental challenge to New Zealand youth: defeat climate change and ensure technology is used as a force for good”. Yep, heard that somewhere before. “Antonio Guterres visits a Muslim country during Ramadan every year and decided to come to New Zealand” huh??? “It is absolutely unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is used to boost hurricanes, is used to spread drought, to spread heatwaves, to bleach corals or to make glaciers recede” huh???

        https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/389107/un-secretary-general-lays-down-challenge-for-nz-youth

        Cheers re your thoughts, gentlemen, ’twas but another lovely day on the salty brine of life (although our other driver was stranded for the night and had to stay with friends). Not cold at all here, although down south there’s been snow and a buddy texted amped about the 9-metre swell (30 ft) set to arrive overnight…

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  • #
    Peter C

    The Miracle of Free Market Capitalism

    Drop A Handful of free Men on a Rock and Watch it Blossum.
    https://www.pickeringpost.com/2019/05/11/drop-a-handful-of-free-men-on-a-rock-and-watch-it-blossom/

    Worth the short read.

    40

  • #
    pat

    I don’t know a single person who thinks this is a climate change election:

    12 May: Guardian: Adam Morton: The climate change election: where do the parties stand on the environment?
    With the global and local environment at crisis point, Australians have a clear choice at Saturday’s election. Here are the parties’ key policies
    This has been called the climate change election, and with good reason: concern about the climate and environment has never been greater…
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/the-climate-change-election-where-do-the-parties-stand-on-the-environment

    30

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Ah, I dunno Pat,
      I had to put the Greens last because of climate change…
      Cheers
      Dave B

      60

  • #
    pat

    12 May: NewsNationIndia: AFP: Economic model ‘transformation’ needed: UN climate envoy
    A dramatic transformation of the global economic model will be necessary if the world truly wants to tackle the problem of climate change
    GENEVA: A dramatic transformation of the global economic model will be necessary if the world truly wants to tackle the problem of climate change, a top UN envoy said. “We need bold actions,” insisted Luis Alfonso de Alba, who was appointed late last year to prepare an ambitious climate summit in New York in September.
    In an interview with AFP in Geneva Friday, he stressed that climate change should not be merely considered an environmental problem.
    “We are talking about a transformation of the economic model that is going to be needed to achieve the results we need,” he said…

    “It is evident that private financing will be indispensable to move from the billions to the trillions that are going to be needed,” he said.
    Fighting climate change he said, “is an issue that requires a transformation of the way we consume, the way we produce.” “This is not a process in which we can aim at a gradual increase of the ambitions. We need some drastic changes.”…

    The UN climate envoy also hailed the work done by youth activists like Swedish teen ***Greta Thunberg, and said young people would have an important part to play at the meeting.
    “We want them to be part of the solution, and not only take note of their very obviously… justified anger because of lack of action,” he said.
    https://www.newsnation.in/science-news/economic-model-transformation-needed-un-climate-envoy-article-223805.html

    ***safest bet right now? Greta will win the Nobel Peace Prize.

    12 May: Deutsche Welle: Climate change: UN chief Guterres decries ‘fading’ global efforts
    Political efforts to cool climate change are “fading” as things get worse, UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned. He’s visiting New Zealand en route to South Pacific islands likely to be inundated by rising sea levels.
    by ipj/amp (AP, AFP, Reuters)
    “The paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading,” said the UN secretary general.
    “Climate change is running faster than what we are … the last four years have been the hottest registered,” he said, adding that political inadequacy was evident “everywhere.”…

    On Friday, Luis Alfonso de Alba, the top UN envoy entrusted with preparing September’s summit, called for a “drastic” rethink of the global economic model…
    Trillions of dollars in private funding would be “indispensable,” he added…
    https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-un-chief-guterres-decries-fading-global-efforts/a-48706722

    10

  • #
    pat

    sad.

    12 May: BBC: ‘Tragedy’ as 300 yaks starve trapped by snow in India
    At least 300 yaks have starved to death near India’s border with China after getting trapped by heavy snowfall…
    The yaks had been trapped since December. Authorities had tried to drop food to the animals by helicopter but were pushed back by poor weather…
    While between 10 and 15 yaks usually die each year, this year’s toll is the highest on record.

    Efforts are under way to reach up to 50 yaks still trapped in the area “that need immediate attention”, Mr Yadav said.
    Yak owners would receive compensation of 30,000 rupees ($430) per yak, with a maximum of three yaks per family…
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48242765

    12 May: Accuweather: Winterlike weather pattern to grip Northeast, breed snow in spots through early week
    By Kyle Elliott
    Mother’s Day will turn out to be a washout in much of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England, with rain and drizzle accompanying temperatures more typical of mid-March than the middle of May…
    Some of the higher, mountainous terrain in northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, is even forecast to pick up some snow…

    11 May: UK Express: BBC Weather: ‘BEAST’ storm system to WHIP across Europe bringing HEAVY RAIN and snow
    BBC WEATHER has warned a “beast” storm system is set to sweep across the continent bringing heavy rain and some snow to the continent on Sunday and into next week
    by Darren Hunt
    BBC Weather forecaster Susan Powell said central Europe would feel the brunt of the turbulent weather conditions, as she branded the weather system a “beast”…
    Moving into Monday, the BBC Weather forecaster said: “Look at that low stalled across central Europe, having a real knock-on effect on the temperatures across much of Italy and the Balkans…

    30

  • #
    pat

    how kind:

    12 May: 9 News: AAP: Greens proposal ‘to cut SA power prices’
    The Greens have proposed to re-regulate the energy sector in a bid to reduce electricity bills for South Australians.
    The proposal also aims to boost investment in renewables and establish a public energy provider.
    SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Greens have a plan to make renewable power affordable for everyone…

    Under the plan, a $1.2 billion solar fund will provide grants to landlords to install solar panels on their properties.
    Renters could save up to $890 per year on energy costs.
    The plan also looks to offer storage incentives for families to add battery storage to solar panels, under a $2.2 billion scheme.
    “We want to turbocharge our renewable energy production with storage options for families and small businesses.”
    https://www.9news.com.au/national/greens-proposal-to-cut-sa-power-prices/978dc06b-f971-42d9-bf84-5125fdf10fa8

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    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Well bugger me !

      If the greens win the election
      I’ll put in my application
      For solar panels & battery
      courtesy of government.

      I wonder how many stupid idiots
      There are who will vote Green
      To get the panels & battery !
      ummm ?

      40

  • #

    Biogeddon/Insectogeddon

    Two FANTASTIC articles that reveal the most recent UN fraud-involving-the-environment

    The first is from Donna LaFramboise and is about a clone of the IPCC called IPBES

    https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/05/06/ipcc-clone-predicts-doom/

    Her article reveals the political process of construction of the propaganda-pretending-to-science that is the UN report, and shows how the politicians openly admit that they alter the “science”

    The second is from an unnamed author, but it is a transcript of a recent BBC Radio 4 broadcast that reveals that the predictions of Death! Death! Total Death! in the UN report are based on THREE studies.

    https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/2019/20190428_ml

    If you read these you really will have a good grasp of the science and politics behind “BioGeddon”

    40

  • #
    pat

    12 May: EconomicTimesIndia: Coal here to stay despite India’s ambitious goals for renewable energy
    India wants to move towards cleaner energy sources, but cost and other factors make it a tall task.
    By G Seetharaman
    oal-fired plants generate 72% of India’s electricity. This, combined with the growth of coal-consuming industrial sectors like steel, is why the solid fuel source will continue to be integral to India’s economy in the next couple of decades…

    ***“There are scenarios where the share of coal can even increase,” says Rahul Tongia, a fellow with Brookings India, a think tank. One such scenario is if India falls well short of its ambitious targets in renewable energy…

    Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director of JSW Steel, says with India’s coking coal requirement more than tripling to 180 million tonnes (MT) by 2030, our reliance on imports will continue…
    Aluminum is another sector that uses coal for its energy needs; 40% of its production cost goes into generating power
    CRISIL expects the plant load factor (PLF) of thermal power plants to increase from 61% in 2017-18 to 72% in 2022-2023 in response to demand for electricity growing at around 6.5% annually

    Coal-fired plants generated 72% of India’s electricity in 2018-19, according to the Central Electricity Authority.
    Till battery technologies to store solar power improve and become cost-effective, the country’s peak electricity demand will have to be met by thermal power, especially as the outlook for hydel and nuclear power is not all that rosy…

    If the Indian economy is to continue to grow at 7%, the rise in electricity demand from industry and households cannot be met by wishing away coal-fired power, especially not till renewable energy becomes a reliable and affordable alternative to thermal power…
    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/india-will-not-be-able-to-achieve-its-renewable-energy-targets-anytime-soon/articleshow/69286279.cms

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Just seen on faceache a letter from the AEC to Edward Kelly C/o the Glenrowan pub .
    Looks genuine but makes you wonder if there’s any funny business going on .
    Unfortunately it’s post that can’t be copied .

    20

    • #
      ivan

      robert, all you have to do is take a screen grab of those un-copyable posts, display it in a graphics program and copy that – at least that is what I do using OS/2.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Link for the photo

        https://ibb.co/C2jgRrX

        00

        • #
          ivan

          I have the text off that but think it is more effective as the picture of the envelope (a case of a picture telling a thousand words).

          10

      • #
        OldGreyGuy

        > at least that is what I do using OS/2.

        I take my hat off to you sir. I have to admit that I am an old hand with various Unix/Linux/MacOS platforms but I have not seen anyone using OS/2 since sometime in the 1990s.

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        • #
          ivan

          I might be considered an oddity but I am not the only one using OS/2. Before I retired I had clients that were running computer controlled machine tools on OS/2, they might stop when the physical machinery wears out in about 25 years time.

          Myself, I have it running on AMD Ryzen processor based boxes with everything working except USB 3.0 but that is being worked on. My OS/2 server gets shut down once a year just to clean the dust out, the workstation I’m typing this on has been up for 109 days and 00 hours – not bad for an ‘old’ operating system.

          10

  • #
    Another Ian

    As it is around election time:-

    “THE SUPERSALESMAN

    Slicker’n deer guts on a doorstep!
    Smooth as a filly’s nose!
    Here in this jug’s a miracle drug
    So new that nobody knows!

    Feed it inject it or plant it
    Stick it under an ear.
    Pick any breed, results guaranteed,
    The data’s perfectly clear.

    It’s good for foot rot in gophers,
    Chafing on buffalo thighs,
    Horses with corns, Angus with horns
    And girls with fire in their eyes!

    Goats with a bad disposition,
    Lovers losing their spark,
    Turpentined cats, blindfolded bats
    And dogs that forgot how to bark!

    Friends. Are you troubled with aphids?
    Kids all down with the flu?
    Cattle won’t gain? Needing more rain?
    I’ll tellya what this’ll do;

    Kill all the weeds in your garden,
    Patch up your innertube,
    Leaven your bread, stiffen your thread
    And work out your Rubik’s cube!

    Give you more miles per gallon,
    Relieve your gastric distress,
    If that ain’t enough, this wonderful stuff
    Eats barbecue stains off your dress!

    I see you don’t quite believe me!
    The best I saved for last
    Pay me the cash then quick as a flash!
    See? Oh, I went too fast

    Okay, let’s do it again.
    Watch and you’ll understand.
    Safe and improved, it gently removes
    A five dollar bill from your hand!”

    Baxter Black, “Coyote Cowboy Poetry

    In the book there is a drawing of a bottle labeled “Snake Oil” along side this

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “Delingpole: Viva Brexit! Nigel Farage Totally Destroys BBC’s Andrew Marr”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/05/12/farage-destroys-marr-shows-brexit-party-is-unstoppable/

    60

  • #
    Another Ian

    Hmmm!

    “Creating A Nation Of Kaczynskis? The C.I.A., The Left, & The Frankfurt School”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/creating-a-nation-of-kaczynskis-the-c-i-a-the-left-the-frankfurt-school/

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  • #
  • #
    Another Ian

    For more than a decade, NOAA weather model would create “bogus-canes” or forecast hurricanes that never would occur … in long-range or 1-2 weeks in future.

    Sadly … the new FV3-GFS model upgrade coming in mid-June is up to old tricks. pic.twitter.com/Myy9AViFmN

    — Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) May 12, 2019″

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/05/12/the-sound-of-settled-science-45/

    00

  • #
    pat

    12 May: India Times: Bird Species That Went Extinct 136,000 Years Ago Reappears On Indian Ocean Island
    by KC Archana
    The Aldabra white-throated rail that’s found in an atoll in the Indian Ocean, has effectively evolved into existence twice after first going extinct some 136,000 years ago…
    Aldabra atoll is located between Madagascar and the Seychelles (PIC).

    The white-throated rail is a persistent coloniser of isolated islands. They go through frequent population explosions and migrate in great numbers from Madagascar.
    According to the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (LINK), this chicken-sized bird species’ reemergence is a phenomenon called iterative evolution.
    VIDEO

    Iterative evolution has been observed in many animals, such as sea cows, ammonites, and sea turtles.
    https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/environment/bird-species-that-went-extinct-136-000-years-ago-reappears-on-indian-ocean-island-367079.html

    10

  • #
    pat

    behind paywall:

    Adani hit by ‘secret’ review of mine plan
    The Australian – 8h ago
    Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine has been hit by further delays, with the … The request for additional information was sent despite the Department of…

    read all the following:

    13 May: Star1027 Cairns: Adani Draws A Line In The Sand
    Adani Mining is calling on the Queensland Government to stop shifting the goal posts Queensland’s Department of Environment and Science (DES) is seeking to further delay finalisation of the Carmichael project’s Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan (GDEMP), by once again engaging in a secretive and non-transparent additional review process.
    This is at odds with the department’s previous commitments and smacks of the type of tactics it has employed to delay and frustrate sign-off of the Black-Throated Finch Management Plan.

    Advice provided by DES officials on Friday suggests the department now intends to renege on its February commitment to no further reviews and has instead shifted the goalposts once again and requested another round of information and assessment from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, despite previously ruling this out…READ ALL
    https://www.star1027.com.au/news/local-news/98392-adani-draws-a-line-in-the-sand

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  • #
    pat

    for starters, I foresee some problems for the elderly and their pets. read all:

    13 May: ABC: Canberra pet owners to be fined if they don’t exercise their dogs as laws recognise animals as ‘sentient beings’
    By Elise Scott, Tahlia Roy and Niki Burnside
    Pet owners who keep their dogs locked up and do not allow them to exercise for longer than one day could face a fine of up to $4,000 under sweeping changes that enshrine animal feelings into ACT law.
    Under the bill, confinement is judged on the dog’s size, age and physical condition.

    And anyone found confining a dog for longer than 24 hours would have to provide two hours of exercise or pay the fine.
    Under the proposed laws the ACT would become the first jurisdiction in the country to recognise animals as “sentient beings” — the idea that animals are able to feel and perceive the world…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-13/canberra-animal-laws-fine-owners-who-dont-exercise-dogs/11106158

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      What an excellent idea. Threats of fines will force the elderly to hire moonlighting public servants to exercise their pets.
      The only problem I fore see is where do you draw a line as to who is a sentient being. Still the exercise will be good for both.

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  • #
    pat

    behind paywall – ***letter from ex-BBC CAGW gatekeeper, Richard Black:

    12 May: UK Times: Letter: Zero carbon will be good for economy
    Dominic Lawson says a target of zero carbon emissions will result in industry fleeing the country (“Zero-carbon mania is just so much hot air”, Comment, last week). The same was said when parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. Since then the UK has slashed carbon emissions by almost a third while the economy has grown; employment stands at record levels; and energy bills have grown smaller(???).

    Achieving a net-zero economy will not be straightforward. But the evidence shows it is achievable, affordable and popular.
    ***Richard Black, director, Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, London SE1

    (NEXT LETTER) Batteries charge ahead
    Lawson is right to say the UK contributes a tiny portion of world carbon emissions, but he is wrong to suggest that measures to reduce the use of…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/73b46fde-73fd-11e9-ae5e-b136d5a8a7fe

    i’ve seen excerpts of 2 more letters from the above page, also criticising Lawson. one from John MacMillan states, in part: “In Canada and Scotland new battery prototypes raise the prospect of ironing out the fluctuations in solar and wind that make these unreliable energy sources. The effect will be to reduce our bills as well as cut emissions.”

    12 May: UK Times: There’s no need to sacrifice growth to save the planet
    by David Smith
    It is hard to get away from climate change these days. Most people would agree that it is a bigger issue, certainly for the long term, than the one that has been unnecessarily preoccupying us for the past three years. Parliament has trouble agreeing on much, but it has this month declared “a climate emergency”. The Environment Agency warns that entire communities may have to be moved because of flooding and coastal erosion…

    A report on Thursday from the Institute for Public Policy Research’s Centre for Economic Justice declared that because of “environmental breakdown”, “our current economic model is fundamentally unsustainable”. Is it? …
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1fa5d230-73f7-11e9-ae5e-b136d5a8a7fe

    Smith goes on to quote the Climate Change Council claiming UK could be a low-carbon climate leader, but it could be more problematic for countries in a different stage of economic and industrial development from Britain.

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    12 May: UK Times: Comment: David Quinn: Scare stories won’t help us save the planet
    Unfounded claims about species extinction won’t affect environmental policy, especially if ministers prefer virtue-signalling
    Ireland has declared a “climate emergency” at the suggestion of Fianna Fail’s Timmy Dooley, becoming only the second country in the world to do so after Britain. It came by way of an amendment to the Oireachtas report on climate action which was accepted by both the government and opposition parties without a vote. There were only six TDs present at the time.
    So there was no debate and even less interest. As a piece of virtue-signalling, the declaration is absolutely first rate…

    That means massively ramping up our efforts to reduce carbon emissions. It means huge carbon taxes. It means higher heating bills and a war on cars. It means a drastic reduction in beef and dairy farming. It means a huge reduction in foreign holidays, given that air travel is a big cause of carbon emissions. It means massively increased investment in renewable energy…
    But is that really what Fianna Fail wants, or even believes? What about the government? Are politicians who have declared this emergency personally leading by example? Will they be giving up air travel or turning vegan? Doubtful. Maybe the answer is to appoint Thanos as environment minister…

    9 May: The Journal, Ireland: Ireland just became the second country to declare a climate emergency after a ‘strange’ Dáil vote
    Earlier this week, the Green Party moved a Dáil motion to declare a climate emergency after the UK did the same earlier this month.
    Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said tonight’s declaration came under somewhat “unusual circumstances” after he moved the Fianna Fáil motion in the Dáil without any of the party’s TDs being present in the chamber…
    READ COMMENTS
    https://www.thejournal.ie/climate-emergency-dail-vote-4627748-May2019/

    10 May: Irish Times: Ireland still needs to use fossil fuels despite climate emergency pledge
    Fossil fuels are essential part of transition to decarbonisation, says Bruton
    by Kevin O’Sullivan
    Continued use of fossil fuels, notably gas, will be necessary in Ireland in spite of the declaration of a climate emergency by unanimous approval of the Dáil, according to Minister for Climate Action Richard Bruton.
    “Fossil fuels are an essential part of the transition [to decarbonisation]. We are not in a position now to talk about ceasing fossil fuel exploration,” he said on Friday…

    (Green Party leader Eamon Ryan) said it was an unfortunate way to agree the motion “without any of the amendment’s proposers being present”…
    Fianna Fáil’s climate action spokesman Timmy Dooley explained his absence when his amendment was accepted by both Government and Opposition parties without a vote. Spokespeople from the main political parties had been present in the chamber as had he at the beginning of the debate, but he left to attend a meeting, meaning only six TDs were present when the amendment was passed…
    Dr Tara Shine of Change by Degrees said the vote was symbolic, but symbolism mattered…
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/ireland-still-needs-to-use-fossil-fuels-despite-climate-emergency-pledge-1.3887823

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    • #
      Maptram

      Often there are calls for people to eat less as the production of food emits CO2 and wasted food emits greenhouse gases.

      But we don’t see any calls for people to give up alcohol.

      Yeast converts sugar to alcohol and emits CO2. CO2 is also used and therefore emitted in sparkling wines, cider and most beers. CO2 is also emitted in the production of glass for bottles and cans and for the transport of raw materials and products.

      And there is a difference between food and alcohol, we need food.

      “Are politicians who have declared this emergency personally leading by example? Will they be giving up air travel or turning vegan?”
      The same applies to alcohol

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        I find it absurd they only talk (rubbish) about CO2 emitters, NEVER about absorbers of which there are more, including the oceans emitter and absorber by far the biggest.

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    12 May: UK Times: Gas boilers are on the way out — what are the greenest alternatives?
    Plus, tried and tested energy-efficient appliances
    by Martina Lees
    PIC: Greta Thunberg
    You might not have glued yourself to a landmark in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, but one day many of us will have to do something even more radical: rip out our gas boilers. The government’s official advisers on climate change say almost all homes — 85% of which currently use gas — need low-carbon heating by 2050…The chancellor has proposed a ban on gas boilers in all new-build homes from 2025, but the far bigger challenge is how to wean 24m existing homes off their gas heating…

    Electric heating it is still far more costly to run, at an average of 14p per kWh, as opposed to 4p for gas. That’s why current rules contradict the committee’s proposals: energy performance certificates (EPCs), which you need before you can let or sell your home, rate electric heating as much worse than gas combi boilers…
    An electric combi boiler, which instantly heats mains water for taps and central heating, would suit a one-bedroom flat; for anything bigger, you’d need to add a cylinder and perhaps a second boiler…
    In order for every home to have one, UK electricity generation would have to treble, experts say. Heat pumps typically cost between £7,000 and £9,000…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gas-boilers-are-on-the-way-out-what-are-the-greenest-alternatives-msckmcfcn

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    pat

    12 May: Herald Scotland: Boiling Point: What to do about the gas and other home carbon issues
    By Vicky Allan
    A big question, then, is what does that mean for the gas boiler? Where do the millions of these across the country fit into a Scotland with a target of zero net carbon by 2045? Eighty per cent of our Scottish homes are heated by gas. The majority of new-builds are still being constructed with gas boilers…
    Electricity in Scotland is increasingly being generated by renewables, and by 2032 it’s predicted to be largely decarbonised. Nevertheless, many still see great potential in hydrogen, particularly given it could provide a solution to the fluctuating nature of renewables, and in a UKCC committee report published last autumn, the gas was touted as part of the answer. This is partly because, in the UK, we have one of the best gas grids in the world. Yu observes: “We’ve got a good gas network, why don’t we decarbonise the gas network?…

    The problem, however, with hydrogen is that there are still various technical challenges to surmount, as well as financial issues, in that appliances will have to be replaced by new hydrogen-friendly cookers and boilers, which are not yet available. There is also the issue of how hydrogen is produced. If it’s from methane…READ ON
    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17634249.boiling-point-what-to-do-about-the-gas-and-other-home-carbon-issues/

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    12 May: UK Times: Drivers plugging into an electric future will need a lot of chargers
    As petrol and diesel cars are phased out, we need to invest ***£100bn by 2030 to support their replacement — who is going to pay for it all?
    by Rachel Millard
    Any owners of electric cars among the 280,000 population of the East Yorkshire city share about 20 public charging points. Among the dreaming spires of Oxford, however, there are 108 for the university city’s 160,000 residents…
    Experts at the advisory firm KPMG believe about £100bn of investment will be required before 2030 if the UK is to hit projections of about 20m-30m electric cars on the road as soon as 2040. National Grid, the FTSE 100 electricity and gas network, believes there could be far more than that – potentially up to 36m – more than the entire number of cars now in use. Today there are about 620,000 hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric cars in the UK, a fraction of the 34.9m vehicles on the road. They make up about 6% of total sales, but ownership is increasing…

    Graeme Cooper, a National Grid executive responsible for electric vehicle infrastructure, said time is running out. The Committee on Climate Change, an advisory body to the government, wants between 30% and 70% of cars to be electric by 2030. “That’s less than 11 years. We need to think really logically now about the infrastructure, so we stand half a chance of making it towards this future.”…

    Ministers also need to work out how to attract investors who will be willing to pump cash into the network of huge batteries that will likely be needed to store renewable electricity generated by wind and solar, so it can be deployed when required. This is a further challenge to National Grid…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/98501c8e-7408-11e9-ae5e-b136d5a8a7fe

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    pat

    time will tell. one poll re Farage’s Brexit Party was done for Guardian’s sister paper, Observer:

    12 May: Daily Mail: Theresa May on track for the worst General Election result in Tory Party history – as Brexit Party is predicted to win more votes than Labour and Conservatives COMBINED in European elections, polls say
    •The Brexit Party is slated to win 34% of the vote in upcoming European elections
    •Labour is on 21% and the Tories are predicted to win just 11% of the vote
    •The data, from Opinium, also puts Labour first on 28% for a General Election
    •This is ahead of Conservatives on 22%, with the Brexit Party third on 21%
    •A separate poll puts the Brexit Party ahead of the Tories in a general election
    •ComRes survey puts Labour on 27%, Brexit Party on 20% and Tories on 19%
    •This would be the worst result in history for the Conservative Party
    By Joel Adams and Henry Martin
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7018477/Poll-Brexit-Party-win-votes-Labour-Conservatives-COMBINED-European-elections.html

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Not sure if it’s been mentioned but the guy who asked Bill Shorten the question about high income earner tax relief which ended up hurting Shorten has been sacked and it looks like he was sacked because he put Shorten under pressure .
    Just now hearing he has been reinstated after the media ran hot on the issue .
    What a disgusting example of what happens if you cross the Labor party .

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      pat

      robert rosicka – read all:

      13 May: Daily Mail: Tradie and father-of-three, 49, is suspended from his job after asking Bill Shorten a question about tax breaks while enjoying a work barbecue
      The contents of his desk were packed up and sent to his house last week, but on Friday – after media began to make inquiries – the man was told his suspension had been lifted and he could return to work.
      By that time, he had taken another short-term job elsewhere.
      A spokesperson for Gladstone Ports Corporation said the man had been suspended, but did not comment as to why the contents of his desk were sent to his home…

      ‘The individual, a subcontractor not a Gladstone Ports Corporation employee, was not in a position to speak with any knowledge or authority on behalf of the organisation,’ a statement released by the company said.
      ‘GPC has a stakeholder and media engagement policy for the appropriate spokesperson for GPC.’
      In a later statement, the corporation said the man was ‘still employed by the contractor and carrying out work for their employer’…

      There is no suggestion Mr Shorten or the Labor Party were in any way involved with the engineer’s suspension.
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7021167/Tradie-suspended-asking-Bill-Shorten-tax-cuts-high-income-earners.html#comments

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  • #
    el gordo

    What the….? The PM comes out of the closet.

    “We have saved the Great Barrier Reef – well done to Greg Hunt particularly on his work when he was environment minister – taking it off the endangered list,” Scott Morrison said.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      It was probably never in danger anyway.

      50

      • #
        Hanrahan

        Have you ever seen it? It has been in mortal dander, possibly still is.

        20

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          I think it has survived a few of natures big ones, like ice-ages, reversals and others for a few millennia.

          40

          • #
            Hanrahan

            So you have never seen it, have no idea what it once was. Trust me, I first swam it 60 years ago and what we have today is a shadow of it’s splendour then. That’s the problem, few alive today know what it was once like.

            I once swam on on of the Ribbon Reefs, way north of any agriculture and literally could not find any hard coral. That is almost total devastation.

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            • #
              el gordo

              Its recovered and looks pristine.

              ‘To the north of Cairns and Port Douglas lies a 120 km ‘string’ of 10 individuals coral reefs that collectively are called ‘The Ribbon Reefs’. Well beyond the reach of the day boats, the Ribbon Reefs remote location and Green ‘No Take’ zoning, is home to some of the best dive sites on the Great Barrier Reef.’

              Spirit of Freedom.com

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              • #
                Hanrahan

                The Ribbons ARE NOT out of reach of the COT. In the eighties I was up there in a game boat and I can assure you they had been devastated. I was crying in my goggles at the barren landscape with just a few soft corals to be seen.

                Guys!!! None of us believe the CO2 story but that doesn’t mean that nothing alarmists mention is at risk. The GBR is in mortal danger. I remember what a healthy reef looks like and that is NOT what I saw last time I swam it. If it hasn’t recovered much in 40 years I see no prospect of a magical recovery in the last ten.

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              • #
                Hanrahan

                EG Did you swim the reef in the 60’s? I did.

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  • #
    el gordo

    Greg Jericho at the Guardian gets something right.

    ‘With a week to go a lot can happen, but the ALP looks confident and the Liberal party has essentially become Morrison on his lonesome scrambling around the country while everyone else in the party looks after their own seat and tries not to be contaminated by the prospective loss.’

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    pat

    best analysis of the Mueller Report to date:

    Youtube: 40min02sec: Life, Liberty & Levin Fox News 5/12/19
    (with John C. Eastman, American law professor and constitutional law scholar. He is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service, and former Dean at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53KGlaibIxM

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    pat

    28 Mar: Heritage Org: Stephen Moore: How the first “Green New Deal” flopped
    By every objective criteria confirmed by every independent investigation, the avalanche of green dollars in Obama’s first term was a colossal waste of money…
    In all, Obama (and George W. Bush before him) spent some $100 billion on giveaways to wind and solar power producers, electric cars and for weatherizing homes and buildings. It was arguably one of the largest corporate welfare experiments in American history, enriching an industry and its investors…

    The most infamous of these was, of course, Solyndra, the solar energy company that received $530 million of taxpayer handouts…
    That was the similar fate for dozens of other companies including the Department of Energy’s half-billion dollar bet on the showcase electric car company Fisker — which also went belly up…

    What about the grandiose promise of retraining Americans who lose their jobs due to the Green New Deal? Under the Obama administration, the feds allocated $500 million for “green” worker training. This was supposed to train 124,893 people, but in 2012 the Labor Department Inspector General found the program only trained 52,762 (42 percent of the target), and only 8,035 actually got jobs (10 percent of the target). No wonder coal miners, truck drivers and oil and gas employees aren’t thrilled about losing their jobs.

    There was much more green fr**d and waste uncovered, but the bottom line was this: After more than $100 billion spent on the first Green New Deal, by 2016 only about 1 percent American energy was coming from solar energy. Less than 2 percent of cars on the road were electric vehicles…
    https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-the-first-green-new-deal-flopped

    30 Sept 2011: Daily Mail: Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law is given $737m of taxpayers’ money to build giant solar power plant in middle of the desert
    •Obama administration approved $1bn in green energy loans days after failed Solyndra project due to be completed
    •$737m handed to Crescent Dunes project in Tonopah, Nevada, for 110-megawatt desert solar power plant
    •Investors include firm Minority leader’s brother-in-law and major Solyndra stakeholder
    •Republicans warn Energy Department is ‘rushing’ $5bn in loans ahead of Friday deadline
    By John Stevens
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043282/Nancy-Pelosis-brother-law-given-loan-bigger-Solyndra-solar-plant.html

    Wikipedia: Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project
    Under a power purchase agreement (PPA) between SolarReserve and NV Energy, all power generated by the Crescent Dunes project in the next 25 years will be sold to Nevada Power Company for $0.135 per kilowatt-hour.
    In late September, 2011, Tonopah Solar Energy received a $737 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)…
    Crescent Dunes began operation in September 2015, but went off-line in October 2016 due to a leak in a molten salt tank. It returned to operation in July 2017. While its average monthly production was expected to exceed 40,000 MWh, as of October 2018 it only exceeded half of that value during 8 months…CHART
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project

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    • #

      Crescent Dunes began operation in September 2015, but went off-line in October 2016 due to a leak in a molten salt tank. It returned to operation in July 2017. While its average monthly production was expected to exceed 40,000 MWh, as of October 2018 it only exceeded half of that value during 8 months…CHART

      This is well worth looking at on a number of fronts. This is the classic Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant. (solar thermal, and not panels)

      Note the Nameplate here, just 110MW, and that’s about the maximum they can get out of the generator, restricted by the amount of steam which can be ‘produced’ to drive the turbine, which in turn drives the generator.

      Note also it has heat diversion so that the plant can operate after the Sun has set. The problem with this heat diversion is that because some of the heat is diverted to storage, then that (quite significantly) lowers the heat available in the first place to drive that turbine, hence just 110MW Nameplate, and this is the problem with ALL of these types of CSP plants.

      Now, here, well worth noting is they have the generated power output for a full calendar year, here 2018, and that is the figure on the right of that horizontal line of columns, and it’s 195810MWH.

      That total gives this plant a yearly operational Capacity Factor (CF) of 20.31%, so not even as good as wind power.

      Even that best Month there, June at the height of the Northern Summer, that total generated power was 33,387MWH, and that’s at a CF for that Month of 42.2%, for the best it can do. Extrapolate that down to time, and that’s only 10 hours a day, during mid Summer, ….. and that’s at its best.

      Perhaps now it has the bugs sorted out, so this January’s total is what it should be close to under normal operation. That Mid Winter Monthly total is at a CF of 16.3%, or in equivalent hours, just under four hours of power delivery a day, even with storage.

      The cost was just under $US1 Billion, for what is basically an effective equivalent Nameplate of just 22MW. (20% of 110MW)

      I’m not against these types of plant for any political purpose. I’m against them because they are for all intents and purposes, useless as deliverers of power, and it is patently obvious can NEVER replace coal fired power, and they tell you that these are the way of the future because they have storage for times outside of daylight, and really, they aren’t that at all. Useless and expensive.

      Tony.

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        pat

        TonyfromOz –

        what do you make of Morocco’s Noor? I can never understand what it’s really generating:

        Wikipedia: Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (also called Noor Power Station)
        It is the world’s largest solar thermal power plant. The entire Solar Project is planned to produce 580 MW at peak when finished and is being built in three phases and in four parts. The total project is expected to cost $9 billion…
        (FROM RIGHTHAND COLUMN)
        Nameplate capacity
        160 MW (Noor I)
        200 MW (Noor II)
        150 MW (Noor III)[2]
        510 MW (total)

        Annual net output
        370 GWh (Noor I)
        600 GWh (Noor II)
        500 GWh (Noor III)
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station

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        • #
          Robber

          So annual net output from Noor is 1470 GWhr. That’s an average generation of 100 MW from a “nameplate” of 510 MW, so capacity factor of 20%.
          Cost $9 billion – WHAT??? In Morocco, and occupies 6,000 acres.
          Hazelwood could be rebuilt for $3 billion and deliver 1600 MW at a capacity factor of 95% reliably.

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        • #
          Peter C

          Water consumption for the Ouarzazate Noor complex is estimated at 2.5 to 3 million m3 per year for one wet- cooling project (Noor I) and two dry – cooling projects (Noor II and III), due to the need to clean the reflectors regularly.[7]….The design uses wet cooling and the need to regularly clean the reflectors means that the water use is high – 1.7 million m3 per year or 4.6 liters per kWh.[11] Water usage is more than double the water usage of a wet cooled coal power station and 23 times the water use per kWh of a dry cooled coal power station,[12

          That is a lot of water use for a desert country. How come? Why would they do that?

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  • #
    PeterS

    When we have a party called the Science Party standing for climate change anti-science we know with absolute certainty that we now live in an Orwellian society where the meaning of words are the exact opposite of what they are meant to be. I have received in the mail box today an how to vote pamphlet from them. Needles to say it went straight to the rubbish bin – mind you not the recycle bin. It doesn’t deserve even that little respect.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      A year or two ago that recycled pamphlet would have been “recycled” in China.

      Along with their general waste.

      KK

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    • #
      Adaminaby Angler

      Likewise, matey. Right where the scoundrels belong!

      The sooner these faux “environmentalists” are [SNIP], the better.

      [Don’t make that kind of suggestion]ED

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      • #
        Ghibli Levante

        Are you suggesting these people [SNIP. Close enough that it gets moderated. That kind of comment is not welcome here] ED

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    • #
      Peter C

      Science Party?

      I have not seen that. Are they in NSW?

      10

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    The TV add for the ‘Crimate election’ is , of course as expected, full of total lies. This is the hottest year ever, ice is melting everywhere, we HAVE to act!..etc etc.
    How many sheeples will that influence (brain wash) to vote Labor/Green..

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Never hear much about coldest evahhhhhh do we ?

    http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/cool-at-the-core-of-the-country/529706

    Wonder what it really was before being adjusted up .

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    27 Apr: WSJ: PG&E’s Radical Plan to Prevent Wildfires: Shut Down the Power Grid
    by Russell Gold and Katherine Blunt
    When dangerously high winds arise this year, the utility says it will black out fire-prone areas that are home to 5.4 million people
    PG&E Corp. can’t prevent its power lines from sparking the kinds of wildfires that have killed scores of Californians. So instead, it plans to pull the plug on a giant swath of the state’s population.

    No U.S. utility has ever blacked out so many people on purpose. PG&E says it could knock out power to as much as an eighth of the state’s population for as long as five days when dangerously high winds arise. Communities likely to get shut off worry PG&E will put people in danger, especially the sick and elderly,…
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-es-radical-plan-to-prevent-wildfires-shut-down-the-power-grid-11556337671

    Bloomberg today turns the story into an ad for solar:

    12 May: Bloomberg: California May Go Dark This Summer, and Most Aren’t Ready
    By Mark Chediak and Brian Eckhouse; With assistance by Romy Varghese
    PG&E plans to cut power on windy days to avoid sparking fires
    ‘I’m worried,’ governor says, fearing week-long blackouts
    The plan by PG&E Corp. comes after the bankrupt utility said a transmission line that snapped in windy weather probably started last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history. While the plan may end one problem, it creates another as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts.

    Some residents are turning to other power sources, a boon for home battery systems marketed by Sunrun Inc., Tesla Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc. But the numbers of those systems in use are relatively small when compared with PG&E’s 5.4 million customers. Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom said he’s budgeting $75 million to help communities deal with the threat…

    The utility also plans to set up dozens of so-called “resiliency centers,” Johnson said by telephone, where backup generators can be brought in to run essential services…
    At the same time, the prospect of power outages is driving up interest in solar-battery combinations, said Sunrun Chief Executive Officer Lynn Jurich in an interview this week…READ ON
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-12/california-may-go-dark-this-summer-and-most-aren-t-ready

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    Another Ian

    This came up at SDA a while back

    “Dr. Mengele — call your office.

    During the panel discussion, the endocrinologist detailed the dangers of medically treating children who are confused about their gender and showcased video clips of doctors Ilana Sherer and Johanna Olson-Kennedy, both of whom medically treat “transgender” children. […]

    Gender-confused teen girls as young as 13, Laidlaw warned, are having their breasts removed via mastectomy procedures, and boys the age of 17 are developing penises the developmental age of a nine-year-old’s or losing sexual sensation all together due to hormone blockers. Laidlaw cited TLC’s “I am Jazz” star Jazz Jennings as such an example. Jazz, who is male-to-female transgender, has reportedly never experienced sexual sensations or orgasms because of puberty-blocking drugs, the endocrinologist said.

    “Under the nebulous concept of ‘gender identity,’ children as young as 8 are receiving injections for gender transition treatment,” explained Laidlaw, according to The Christian Post report. “The phrase was defined in a recent court case as a person’s ‘core internal sense’ of their own gender and that it was the ‘primary factor’ in determining their sex, not biology,” he added, noting that this information is false.”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/04/05/i-napoleon-48/

    I heard a bit of Allan Jones on radio this afternoon and it sounds that something like this is another “undeclared” in BS Bill’s program.

    Apparently more on the show that Allan and Peta Credlin do – tonight I think

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    pat

    ***for starters, what about the $18bn or whatever in fuel excise the Govt gets each year?

    13 May: RenewEconomy: Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and ***$29 billion in Australia
    by Michael Mazengarb
    (Before joining RenewEconomy, Michael worked in the renewable energy sector for more than a decade)
    New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy.
    The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5 per cent of combined global GDP.

    China leads all countries in the level of subsidies provided to fossil fuels, which the IMF report estimated to total $1.4 trillion in 2015. The United States followed with $649 billion in subsidies, Russia with $551 billion and the EU with $289 billion…
    The under-pricing of fossil fuels, particularly coal, was found to be the largest source of effective subsidy…READ ON
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/

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    pat

    13 May: AFR: US solar plant constructor dives into Australia’s boom
    by Angela Macdonald-Smith
    US solar farm builder Signal Energy, a new entrant to the crowded Australian sector, has set up an Australian headquarters in Sydney after winning two construction contracts for major projects in western NSW, with the aim of building out its business across the country.
    Tennessee-based Signal secured the contract to build the 175-megawatt Finley solar farm from ESCO Pacific and John Laing, with construction due to be complete by July. The $170 million project, located between Deniliquin and Albury, has a contract to supply renewable energy and green certificates to BlueScope Steel for seven years.

    Signal also won a contract from Edify Energy and Octopus Investments to build the 333MW Darlington Point solar project south of Griffith in the NSW shire of Murrumbidgee. That $450 million project will supply power to Delta Electricity.
    Signal secured both contracts together with Canadian Solar…
    Rystad Energy puts Australia’s pipeline of large-scale renewable energy and storage projects at more than 100GW…
    Meanwhile, last month’s move by giant German wind turbine maker Senvion to place itself into insolvency has raised issues for some projects…READ ON
    https://www.afr.com/business/energy/solar-energy/us-solar-plant-constructor-dives-into-australia-s-boom-20190503-p51jwi

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    • #
      RickWill

      All private investment based on farming subsidies (transfer payment from those unable to generate their own electricity)

      All this new investment chasing a ROI and no reduction in dispatchable generation. If you have not yet worked it out – ELECTRICITY PRICES CERTAIN TO RISE.

      Today, the Herald Sun informed us that Dan had upped Ausnets land tax as a means of recouping the gift to Alcoa to keep Portland running. The AER rules allow Ausnet to recoup these costs. Again, in case you had not worked it out – ELECTRICITY PRICES IN VICTORIA CERTAIN TO RISE.

      Although I would like to see Cory Bernardi running the show, it will be hilarious watching Bill trying to grapple with why electricity prices maintain their ascending trajectory despite his efforts to add zero fuel cost intermittent.
      https://www.corybernardi.com

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    pat

    13 May: Adelaide Advertiser: Sanjeev Gupta gets the green light for its $350m Cultana Solar farm
    THE $350 million Cultana Solar Farm at Whyalla – part of Sanjeev Gupta’s $US1 billion renewable energy plan for the Upper Spencer Gulf – has won development approval…

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Funny how quick you can get a bird fryer approved but a coal mine not so much .

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      I read of a concentrated solar array in Spain, about the same deg N as Adelaide is S, and in winter they were hard pressed to keep their salt molten, let alone generating steam. Sorry no link, ages ago.

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    • #
      ivan

      Is that another member of the Gupta family that is tangled in the South African government corruption scandal and Jacob Zuma – not the best people to be doing business with on a government level.

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    I’m heartened by the response on faceache to the chief of the UN and that nutter PM from new Zealand and their climate love in .

    Overwhelming response is spread between agenda 21 and what climate change !

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  • #
    el gordo

    ‘Of course, if the bookie in New England and national odds translate to reality, Barnaby will be returned as an MP in a seriously reduced Coalition. What he would do then is anyone’s guess. Roll McCormack for starters probably, just for fun.’

    Independent Australia

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  • #
    Adaminaby Angler

    If the urban elite gets anywhere near my property or lifestyle if/after Labor wins – [snip]. Luckily, “electric cars” are unheard-of here in the Snowy Monaro regional shire; our youth drive proper cars, not electric TOYS…there’s a reason why internal conbustion ultimately replaced EV back in the early 1900’s! EV came BEFORE internal combustion (i.e. older), so is THEM (greenies) who are the “luddites”.

    The countrymen of this nation, shall forever prevail; not the crooked elite.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Thank you for that bit of reassurance.
      Been feeling a bit down the last few weeks over the direction our public discourse has taken.
      Just knowing that others feel under threat suggests that together we may be able to push back, without weapons, and turn our country around.
      That’s the positive bit.
      The unpleasant background is that Brexit is more like Constipatit and the Yellow Vests of Paris don’t seem to have moved the French Elite too much.

      Here’s hoping we have a good election outcome which for me would be laba last, equal with Greens, and Libls with Scott Turn, sorry, Morrison able to form government with a substantial Australian Conservatives block.

      We live in exciting times.

      KK

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      • #
        beowulf

        I think you’re being too pessimistic KK.

        The Yellow Vests’ activities have stopped Macron in his tracks and totally thwarted his Euro-Globalist expansion program. He is hanging on by his fingernails and powerless to do anything about it. He may not have given ground, but have no doubt, Macron has become a lame duck president. His best mate Mutti Merkel is fading fast. Le Pen is leading the French polls, while there are growing demands for Macron to stand down.

        On the Brexit front Farage’s new Brexit Party is now storming ahead in the polls with the latest putting it at 34%, ahead of Labour on 21% and the Tories on a measly 11% for the upcoming EU elections in about 2 weeks. In the House of Commons seat coming up for a by-election, the Brexit Party is currently running second to Labour (in a Labour seat) after only being in existence for about a month.

        The Tories and Labour have just taken a major drubbing in the Local Elections (Tories lost over 1,300 seats without the Brexit Party even running in the elections) and look like taking an even bigger drubbing in the EU elections. These losses are starting to sink into the brains of the traitorous MPs who were elected to deliver Brexit then promptly did all they could to stop it. Loss of seats is now a very real possibility. Farage is not just rocking the boat, he is close to sinking it. All of these elections are seen as de facto referenda on Brexit or the lack of same. May is set to flog her dead horse of a fake Brexit deal in parliament one more time, probably this week, when it is expected to be trashed again for the 4th time.

        Macron has said he will refuse any further extensions to the Brexit Article 50 deadline, which theoretically means that Brexit would take place on Halloween, barring further tricks. This will probably mean that the Remainers in parliament will try to revoke Brexit altogether before the new leave date if they can, or else WTO will happen by default.

        Bubbling away in the background are 2 court cases against Theresa May’s 2 initial extensions. The first is a strong case according to a retired senior judge of the Court of Appeal and several prominent QCs. If it is upheld then Britain already Brexited on 23rd March as originally stipulated and all the machinations since then are null and void.

        Meanwhile the EU looks like being swamped by anti-globalist parties from throughout Europe that will shake up the old fogies in Brussels. Juncker is due to retire too. Rebellious freedom is breaking out throughout Europe.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Thanks Beowulf,

          I haven’t watched TV in 3 years so your news comes as a complete surprise to me.

          Sounds great, so great that next time I visit Wollombi I’ll have an extra beer to celebrate.

          I resent that my household has to pay an extra $1,000 every year to the snake oil salesmen who are erecting totally useless wind and solar plants, in isolated areas, that will never be properly decommissioned in 10 years time when they get to the end of their lifespan.

          Good news but it’s still happening around us.

          KK

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    • #
      yarpos

      Things have changed since the 1800s, I am sure you will see many drifting down from the ACT

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    pat

    in a quick break from cricket & tennis, I just heard Paul Murray on Sky Australia having a laugh about this poll:

    13 May: Guardian: Higgins polling suggests Greens could take seat from Liberals in upset
    Exclusive: Poll puts Jason Ball in lead on two-party preferred calculation, even though Greens’ primary vote is one point behind Labor
    by Katharine Murphy
    An interview poll of 400 respondents in Higgins ***undertaken for the Greens by Environmental Research & Counsel puts Ball in the lead on the two-party preferred calculation, even though the Greens’ primary vote is one point behind Labor…

    The poll suggests 70% of respondents rated climate change as either extremely important or very important to them in this election contest, and 83% expressed negative views about in-fighting within the Liberal party…
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/13/higgins-polling-suggests-greens-could-take-seat-from-liberals-in-upset

    ***how can Murpharoo write this without mocking the poll? as for “Environmental Research & Counsel”, all I see online is their ABN registration!

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    pat

    11 May: BBC: Climate change ‘may curb growth in UK flying’
    By Roger Harrabin
    The advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recently said the UK’s planned increase in aviation would need to be curbed to restrict CO2.
    Now a senior civil servant has told a green group that means ministers may have to review aviation strategy.
    The group says climate concern is so high the decision on Heathrow expansion should be brought back to Parliament…
    In a letter to a tiny pressure group Plan B, the Department for Transport (DfT) aviation head Caroline Low said: “It may be necessary to consider the CCC’s recommended policy approach for aviation.”…

    ***Prof Kevin Anderson, from Manchester University, told BBC News that curbing the growth in aviation would be politically possible because, in his opinion, most flights are taken by the rich.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48233548

    ***Harrabin doesn’t actually quote the “good” Professor. ridiculous.

    all the usual suspects on Plan B’s twitter page:

    Twitter: Plan B, Charity taking legal action against the British Government to secure a safe climate future for people and planet
    https://twitter.com/planb_earth?lang=en

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    pat

    how Orwellian:

    13 May: Reuters: U.N. modernizes guidance for greenhouse emission estimates
    by Nina Chestney in London
    A United Nations climate change panel updated on Monday guidelines for governments to estimate greenhouse gas emissions so the most up-to-date scientific research is included…
    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the new 2019 guidelines built on 2006 methodologies by updating gaps and out-of-date science. They include new technologies and emissions sources across the energy, industrial processes, waste, agriculture and forestry sectors.

    “The 2019 Refinement provides an updated and sound scientific basis for supporting the preparation and continuous improvement of national greenhouse gas inventories,” said Kiyoto Tanabe, co-chair of the IPCC task force which prepared the report.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-ipcc-emissions/un-modernizes-guidance-for-greenhouse-emission-estimates-idUSKCN1SJ01H

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    pat

    UK Times is all in:

    behind paywall:

    13 May: UK Times Editorial: The Times view on the fight against air pollution: Electric Shock
    If Britain is serious about improving the quality of its air then the single most important step is to accelerate the switch from petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles to electric cars. The Times launched a campaign last week that highlighted how far this country has fallen behind others in tackling air pollution, which official data predicts will be responsible for 2.4 million new cases of disease by 2035. We have called for a Clean Air Act, including a ban on sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles from 2030 rather than 2040…

    13 May: UK Times: Britain can become an electric vehicle country by 2030
    by ***Bridget Rosewell
    After 100 years of incremental change, we are on the cusp of a revolution on our roads. The age of the internal combustion engine is being consigned to history, but all too slowly. Today vehicles contribute to 80 per cent of air pollution breaches in the UK.
    The Times’s Clean Air For All campaign is a welcome rallying cry for action. The manifesto demand that sales of new diesel and petrol cars should be banned by 2030 is the right target and it can be achieved…
    Electric vehicles (EVs) are going mainstream…

    READ ALL WORSTALL’S PIECE:

    13 May: ContinentalTelegraph: Tim Worstall: Our Rulers Are Grossly Deluded About Electric Cars By 2030
    We have a statement in The Times of a gross delusion. The idea that the country can or could be ready for the mass adoption of electric cars by 2030. It’s simply not going to happen, it can’t…
    And here’s our problem. That above isn’t from some fool performing the difficult task of outidioting Caroline Lucas. This is from:

    – ***Bridget Rosewell is commissioner at the National Infrastructure Commission and chairwoman of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency –

    It’s from one of our rulers, one of the people specifically and directly concerned with this particular issue…READ ALL
    https://continentaltelegraph.com/climate-change/our-rulers-are-grossly-deluded-about-electric-cars-by-2030/

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    pat

    read all:

    11 May: Reuters: Brazil’s Bolsonaro fires ‘militant’ head of climate change action group
    by Jake Spring
    Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro fired the head of a government-backed climate forum, after the group organized states to work around the right-wing federal government’s ambiguous positions on climate change.
    The Brazil Forum for Climate Change was created by Bolsonaro’s predecessor, Michel Temer, to formulate the country’s plan to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change…

    Temer appointed Alfredo Sirkis to lead the forum. Sirkis, who describes himself as a “militant environmentalist,” is a co-founder of the country’s Green Party and a former congressman, as well as a former guerilla fighter who fought against Brazil’s military dictatorship.
    Sirkis told Reuters he was fired on Friday. He said the firing was probably related to the forum’s initiative to organize 12 Brazilian states to create a council on climate change that would act independently from the federal government…
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment/brazils-bolsonaro-fires-militant-head-of-climate-change-action-group-idUSKCN1SG2BT

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    • #
      David Wojick

      The Sirkus circus? Sorry, could not stop myself. Re Wheeler, it would be ironic if EPA took the lead on fielding the Happer committee of skeptics. Anything is possible at this point, including nothing happening.

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    pat

    read all for Myron Ebell/William Happer segments:

    10 May: Scientific American: Trump Administration Might “Re-Examine” Climate Modeling
    Environmental advocates are troubled by statements EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler made at a gathering of environment ministers
    By Jean Chemnick
    EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler used an overseas gathering of environment ministers this week to hint that the United States might overhaul the way it uses climate data and modeling. Five days after his assertion was included in an official document from the Group of Seven meeting in Metz, France, it remains unclear if Wheeler revealed a potential policy to reexamine climate modeling…

    But Wheeler added something new that’s raising concern among some environmentalists that the United States might be formally questioning climate science inside federal agencies.
    “The United States reaffirms its commitment to re-examine comprehensive modeling that best reflects the actual state of climate science in order to inform its policy-making decisions, including comparing actual monitored climate data against the modeled climate trajectories on an on-going basis,” says the U.S. portion of the communiqué…READ ALL
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-administration-might-re-examine-climate-modeling/

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  • #
    pat

    13 May: Daily Mail: Critics blame solar farms for high electricity bills as it emerges owners earn more money from taxpayer-funded handouts than selling energy
    •Ten of UK’s biggest solar farms pocketed £3million plus in eco subsidies last year
    •Total cost of providing subsidies to renewables market is estimated at £7billion
    •The plants were encouraged to get off the ground with generous handouts
    By Colin Fernandez Environment Correspondent
    Britain’s biggest solar farms get more money in taxpayer subsidies than they make from selling the electricity they produce.
    The plants were encouraged to get off the ground with generous handouts, funded from ‘green taxes’ on fuel bills.
    Now many of them make the majority of their cash from the subsidies.
    LIST
    But critics say the system, which often guarantees the handouts for 15 or 20 years, has been way too generous and skewed the energy market – leading to bigger household electricity bills.
    Dr John Constable, director of charity Renewable Energy Foundation, which publishes data on the energy sector, said: ‘The legacy entitlements are costing consumers dearly and will continue to do so for many years to come…READ ON
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7021119/Solar-farms-millions-taxpayer-handouts-make-selling-electricity.html

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  • #
    pat

    complete BS:

    12 May: Scientific American Blog: Hot Planet: Global Warming: How Hot, Exactly, Is it Going to Get?
    The latest climate models are giving disturbing answers
    By Kate Marvel
    Imagine spending your whole career working on a question to which you don’t want to know the answer. We know that greenhouse gas emissions can and do warm the planet, but we don’t know one very basic thing: how hot, exactly, is it going to get?…
    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/global-warming-how-hot-exactly-is-it-going-to-get/

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    Tdef

    In Singapore. Reading The National. An Emirates newspaper. A whole article on CO2. Full of the usual non science. “New CO2 conttols can curb Global Warming”. Written by visiting Professor of Science Robert Masters of Aston Iniversity, Birmingham, UK. Who is he? At least he says trees help. Otherwise a science free opinion piece.

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    Carbon500

    The UK’s ‘Mail on Sunday’ newspaper (May 12th) has issued an invitation on page 2.
    Readers are asked to send details of a scandal that the Mail on Sunday should investigate.
    Contact: news@mailonsunday.co.uk and include a contact telephone number. If you wish, write to The Mail on Sunday, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT
    There shouldn’t be a lack of climate scandals to suggest, and yes, I’ve sent my idea in. This newspaper has published articles critical of the climate change saga over the years (The Guardian it ain’t) – so go for it, bloggers!

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    • #
      Annie

      Do you think the new editor is open to that? I have an inkling that things have changed a bit lately 🙁

      10

      • #
        Annie

        Well done on your choice though Crakar. 🙂

        10

      • #
        Carbon500

        Re. the Mail on Sunday – I thought it worth a try, Annie. I imagine that most editors have an eye on their circulation figures, and won’t print anything that might lose them readers. Given that the climate hysteria seems to have reached new heights as demonstrated by the UK government caving in to the Extinction Rebellion rabble, the Mail on Sunday might not wish to rock the boat.
        A sad day if that’s so.

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  • #
    David Wojick

    Here is my latest fun piece, in defense of my fellow old white guys:
    https://www.cfact.org/2019/05/10/are-the-oldest-and-wisest-obsolete/

    Disclosure: the editors toned it his down a bit, quite a bit actually.o

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      Kinky Keith

      Good David but you’ve copped a lot of stick there from the Social Justice worriers.
      🙂

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  • #
    Slithers

    Hi Gentle people,
    Many decades ago I was called to a site where a serious stouch about:
    It’s the Computer, No It’s your software, no its…..
    It took me just minutes to find a clue, and half an hour to discover a MINUS sign where there should have been a PLUS sign in the clients software.
    Now read this about computers and Human life and responsibility.

    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-ive-become-very-isolated-the-aftermath-of-near-doomed-qf72/ar-AABsGce?ocid=spartanntp

    10