JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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I’ll repeat this over from another thread but there’s a childcare centre in Melbourne that have done away with Santa this year and now have the Sustainability Pirate ! So the kids no longer get a toy they get a piece of organically grown Kale for (the festive season).
81
how many have santa?
10
Santa has been put in the safe room and is no longer active.
For his own good, of course.
AKK
10
David Bellamy who was a very popular presenter of botany and science on the BBC has just died.
He was dropped by the BBC like a hot potato for calling CAGW poppycock, but continued to encourage conservation through his website.
(No wonder DA keeps to the party line.)
The BBC reported his death last night, and did say then that he called AGW poppycock, but this morning it was reported that called global warming/climate change poppycock.
It is a wonder they even mentioned his scepticism.
170
sad. he will be vindicated. may he rest in peace.
30
that’s sad. I have a signed copy of Botanic Man apropos of nothing much. Met him at a trust dinner.
20
The friend of mine that recently had solar panels installed has just received his bill , due to changing retailers it was a two month bill but will go to monthly from now .
The bill was for $127 credit .
Living a hermits existence and using under 2kw per day pays off apparently, he just asked me about batteries and I said you’re joking aren’t you .
80
A credit note would be a more accurate term. His investment makes it harder for grid scale intermittents to produce and claim their LGCs.
60
Say, you know those ancient technology old clunker coal fired power plants that just cannot be relied upon to deliver reliable electrical power as they are always off line. There are 15 of them spread across the only three States still with coal fired power. All up there are 48 separate Unite with a total nameplate of 23000MW, and if you read the media, you’d be lucky if half of them are working, if that, they are just so unreliable.
In the Spring just gone, they closed those Units down on a rotational basis to do maintenance on them (as they always do in the Spring and Autumn) so they are ready for the big power consuming days of Summer, and at one stage during the Spring, there were 14 of those Units off line, you know because they are useless and unreliable.
So, now that Summer is upon again these ancient and useless coal fired Units are showing their unreliability, as expected by green urgers and their media reporters.
Of the 48 Units at those 15 plants in three States, only five of them are off line, one in NSW, and two each in Vic and Qld. Five Units, and that takes out 2180MW.
Last night 6.30PM. Rooftop solar and solar power plants all gone to bed, and wind power below average.
Coal fired power was delivering 18400MW from those remaining 43 Units, and that was at a Capacity Factor of 89%. Coal fired power at that time was delivering 73% of all the power being consumed.
At that same time wind power was delivering around 2200MW so, it was about the average of 30% Capacity Factor, so of the 3500 separate Units (the individual wind towers themselves) 2350 of those Units were stationary, off line, stopped, delivering zero power.
Now, you tell me which is the power source that cannot be relied upon.
Tony.
(Please insert open and close sarcasm where you think it fits)
190
Good point Tony, see #7 if you want to see change
20
I see coal is doing the heavy lifting in WA, Victoria, NSW and Queensland at the moment, as a High-Pressure weather system rolls over the continent. It will be a disaster if we didn’t have those coal-fired power stations.
70
Evening all,
About 3 weeks ago I sent a letter off to The Land (NSW’s weekly agricultural newspaper) and, having given up hope when it didn’t appear last week, I was given a very pleasant surprise when I found it in today’s edition. It had been changed, mainly to update the references to dates.
And I was particularly pleased that the words ” constantly re-charging fire bombs ” remained untouched.
The letter, as published, follows: (Preview shows that The Land’s paragraph indentation has got lost..)
…
It was great to read in a recent edition several articles describing the role of high fuel levels in the intensity and rate of spread of bushfires (The Land November 21, pages 5 & 6).
This contrasts markedly with an editorial in November 23 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald where neither fuel loads nor National Parks were mentioned.
It said: “The pall of smoke obscuring Sydney is a grim reminder that the impact of climate change is pervasive and all-too real.
The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and increased agricultural production did not cause the bushfires or the protracted drought affecting Australia. But they have caused global warming which has, in turn, exacerbated the scale.”
The one I had been watching most closely, the closest to me, was the “Gospers Mountain” fire which has grown to 185,980 ha as I drafted this letter.
What wasn’t mentioned in either SMH or ABC is that mountain is in the Wollemi National Park.
Nor was it mentioned that the fire jumped the Putty Road which is still closed, and had burnt a lot of Yengo National Park. And Parr Nature Reserve.
The National Parks have been managed in such a way as to be constantly re-charging fire bombs in our state, threatening lives, livestock and wildlife as well as property and livelihoods.
A new approach is required, but it should at least incorporate the techniques Aboriginal peoples implemented from lessons learnt over their thousands of years here.
Dave Beach
Cooyal
…
160
Good work David. You wouldn’t have got that within cooee of the LAND a couple of years ago when Fairfax had it. The new owner has made an impact.
Do they still have the same warmie weather man that wants to fight every letter like yours?
50
Thanks beowulf,
I can’t answer your question about the weather man, as I’d abandoned The Land for some time while Fairfax had it, and got used to looking at on line sites for my weather forecasts as my internet capability slowly improved over the years. I’m watching for rain of course, but also wind speed and direction, partly for fire watching, partly for smoke haze, and partly to guide my spraying regime. The Land’s weekly forecast is too coarse.
I thought I’d detected a change when it changed ownership and decided to test it. Am now getting it each week and finding interesting articles allowing some real debate. Will be interested to see what, if any reaction there is to my letter. And how soon.
Cheers
Dave B
40
If that change flows over to Qld Country Life as well it might become better than “a very expensive way to get a crossword puzzle”
10
No Time – Mondo Rock (1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tND3ZpHrCFU
40
Tony,
Forget the unreliability of coal or gas. Climate change “IS” real.
We need to seek alternative energy.
One that I have found is the Guardian magazine.
I have a pile of Guardian magazines stockpiled beside my home. I use them as an energy source If there is an outage. I roll one up, place it in my fireplace, cook, stay warm and have a light source.
We don’t need to invest in solar or wind if we have a renewable energy source like the Guardian magazine.
This resource is available to us all and gets published once a week. It costs $97.50 a quarter. As a result of using the guardian magazine as an energy source, my energy bill is 80% lower.
See the light, convert and get a Guardian subscription. When you get your weekly magazine, burn it for you energy needs. It is cheaper than investing in solar and wind and more reliable than coal and gas.
90
When you get your weekly magazine, burn it for you energy needs
Sorry WX, Gruniad does not sell enough copies to even provide power to light a bus shelter.
And without owning a parrot, what other use would there be.
41
that explains the up spike in guardian sales.
30
Parrot sales are up?
20
A couple of years ago it was reported that pensioners in the UK who couldn’t afford power were buying up Mills & Boon epics from op shops at 20 for £1 and using them as fuel to stave off hypothermia. Apparently one Mills & Boon burns for some time.
40
That amount of dung compacted into a small size will be like a briquette.
20
In the lastest ECMWF run the record Jetstream forecasts continue, within both hemispheres. The main change that has occurred is that the highest speeds are now all back at a normal 34,000 feet altitude within both hemispheres. The flow depth remains swollen.
The above record or near record levels of jet-flow are now concentrated in the north Atlantic (normally east of Japan) while in the southern hemisphere the strongest winds are mostly south or SW of Australia plus SW of Africa. The southern hemisphere’s wind speed during the first 1/3rd of summer remain much more elevated than normal. It suggests the mid-latitude mid-level remains cooler than usual.
Incidentally, the southern icesheet continues to see forecasts down as low as -38 C into the third week of Summer.
Northern Hemisphere:
20th Dec 2019 – N Atlantic 34,000 ft 366 km/h
https://i.ibb.co/kQsrmz0/20th-Dec-2019-12-12-N-Atlantic-34-000-ft-366-kmh.png
18th Dec 2019 – N Atlantic 34,000 ft and 360 km/h
https://i.ibb.co/DgLhpKY/18th-Dec-2019-12-12-N-Atlantic-34-000-ft-360-kmh.png
Southern Hemisphere:
19th Dec 2019 – Tasman Sea 34,000 ft and 358 km/h
https://i.ibb.co/fCTvhVw/19th-Dec-2019-12-12-Tasman-Sea-34-000-ft-358-kmh.png
17th Dec 2019 – S Atlantic 34,000 ft and 362 km/h
https://i.ibb.co/kxSs0Fg/17th-Dec-2019-12-12-S-Atlantic-34-000-ft-362-kmh.png
__
All the above are displaying equal to or else above the Feb 2019 record of 358 km/h.
80
To illustrate how unusual this situation is, here’s the North and Southern Atlantic, zoomed-out, and both are displaying record jets speeds at 34,000 ft – simultaneously!
Take note how little different the appearance is between the north and south hemispheres.
https://i.ibb.co/Fxq4ryG/18th-Dec-2019-12-12-Big-Picture-N-and-S-at-34-000-ft.png
The southern hemisphere in summer should be moving much slower, and to have shrunken by now to a much smaller wind-field area than seen within the northern hemisphere’s Winter – but it hasn’t happened this year. The southern speeds are up instead, the southern jets are ‘swollen’ deeper and much faster than they should be.
This still looks like an early-Spring jetstream pattern within the Southern Hemisphere. And instead of getting weaker, the southern sub-tropical jet flow has effectively gotten stronger.
The high mid-latitude middle-atmosphere region should be warming up, and thus slowing down the jet right now, but it’s apparently remaining cool, or else these wind-speeds could not be accelerated to this degree within the pressure-differences between the mid-level Lows and Highs. The isobars have gotten closer, rather than further apart.
“Why is it so?“
100
“Why is it so?“
Off the top of my head it appears to be a global cooling signal.
When we were talking about this recently I took it over to Climate Etc and spoke to Ellison, a fairly erudite character, but he didn’t know the answer and nobody else made any suggestions. Ellison wanted to know the source of the links, could you help me out?
This is still your scoop, but it’ll be wise to get confirmation and possibly a critique before going public.
60
The data is the usual 12-hourly ECMWF model run release displayed in Windy, using my own custom-made color overlay. The lower colors of the overlay are official Beaufort Scale (see wiki page for the Beaufort color legend), which then transitions to standard Saffir-Simpson Scale for the 5 Hurricane categories but which continues up to 400 km/hr, to fully capture the normal wind speed range of the jetstream.
80
Okay thanks for that.
20
I’d post the settings for the overlay setting but it’s about 17 pages of graphics code even at 8-point font, but if someone wants to check it I can probably email it to them.
20
The sun having a sabbatical would explain it, when all this happened before and it got cold no one was measuring it.
10
I think this link will show what I see.
There is a low in the Coral Sea which could be an early cyclone and lows in a trough across the north of the country. The patterns are real messy.
We have had over a week of hot weather in the tropics [it has been hotter elsewhere, I know] and years ago we would have said “With this heat a cyclone is brewing”. Althea and Tracy were Christmas blows. Please let me be wrong.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-222.67,-21.26,1884/loc=119.215,-31.760
20
I hope you’re right but that’s a very long shot. Still 1010 hPa there. SST is only 27 deg so it’s barely over the cyclone formation threshold temp. There is a rainband there parallel to the PNG coast but no circulation in it as yet.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Centre is showing “no suspect areas” for the greater Pacific and Indian oceans. The other cyclone blogs are silent on any potential activity in the Coral Sea area.
00
With all these total normal fires, I note that local RFS volunteers around our area have been on call of 115 day in a row. They have pagers which sound exactly the same as those meal alert disks handed out in pubs and clubs. Every time a meal triggered one of these at the bowlo last night, half the crowd reflexively frowned, and touched their belts. The strain is showing, as not only the RFS volunteers, but their families, work and social life is going down the drain. Also they are turning to crowdfunding to for things like meals, as the normal sources are tapped out. As I said 115 days. And as those who have worked on the firelines will tell you, the fires are controlled, they are not out. One has had 80 megalitres pumped onto it from a nearby water treatment plant – no joy so far. Rain, some weeks if we are lucky we’ll get a millilitre. I believe I can personally id the pilots of the floatplanes and the choppers which have been working around here., being close to another treatment plant and a lake.
This is not normal, it is not just extreme, it is catastrophic. But what do we see – millions to stop the god botherers getting bothered themselves, platitudes, if not outright denial from our governments. And on this site, ignorance.
Did I mention the 115 days.
Srsly – you have no idea.
But keep up the Ad Homs, as that is all you have, certainly not intelligence or compassion.
216
You.
Yes I’m talking to You.
You have a big mouth, telling everyone else they are wrong.
Unfortunately the time you have spent here on this blog tells us something very telling.
That’s why it’s referred to as telling.
You Are Not Standing By And Supporting The People Near You.
That’s obvious. You are Using Them.
You. Big. Hypo. Krit.
AKK
121
‘This is not normal, it is not just extreme, it is catastrophic.’
People shouldn’t live in fire prone areas, we all have higher insurance bills because of extreme bushfire conditions caused by natural weather. Word around the traps suggest that 80% of the fires were lit by humans.
Do you think a meandering jet stream maybe the problem?
61
Oh, so you should decide where people live? When did you become world dictator? People should live exactly where they want to live and be able to manage their own land however they will for fire safety. It’s the woke masses trying to tell landowners what they can and can’t do that has caused the bushfire disaster.
70
Right, then how about cutting down all gumtrees within a ten kilometre radius of every habitable dwelling?
10
Totally dumbfounded.
Maybe you’ve been hanging around “sir” too long.
KK
01
Thinking of the Canberra bushfire in 2003.
‘The McLeod Inquiry concluded the fires “might have been contained had they been attacked more aggressively in the 24 or so hours after they broke out.”
‘But the eucalypt forests had been desiccated by years of drought and once the fires took hold, they were impossible to contain.’ ABC
30
“how about cutting down all gumtrees within a ten kilometre radius of every habitable dwelling?”
?
00
Sadly, the poor old RFS is a shadow of its former capability since the big fat white shirt bureaucrats got hold of it 20 years ago. The old farmers who used to run it during my 25 year active tenure as crew leader, Captain, and Group Captain, always said “you fight fire with water in winter, and with matches in summer.” Pity the old practical knowledge has been lost. Still largely composed of volunteers, the budget expenditure has been going through the roof the last decade with pointless water bombing and fire retardant applications, and the practical effectiveness has gone down due to naive strategies. The National Spark and Wildfire Service has also had a motto change suggested – “Reap what you sow..”
70
The problem appears to be another gravy train, by ignoring prevention the government ends up pouring billions into fire fighting which is just what the unions and public sector fire bosses want.
Reorient the gravy train at prevention, give money for fuel management and restart logging, then we might see some improvement.
100
… ‘give money for fuel management and restart logging …’
This should definitely be the focus.
40
Are you not recruiting more volunteers to join your RFS teams?
It would relieve the pressure on you guys.
30
Many area do not have volunteers, so in that sense we are always recruiting.
There are even fewer Volos who can afford to take significant periods away from work, and in long seasons, we burn through them very quickly, How does a farmer with stock to feed and water, take a week off?
There are many aspects to any discussion on volunteering, but the obvious conclusion is that across much of rural, fewer people are putting up there hands.
20
“across much of rural, fewer people are putting up there hands”
I suspect volunteering is inversely proportional to level of bureaucracy
10
(Sigh).
Under a State of Emergency, (Section 44 of the Act) the Operational Costs of fighting fires including all meals and water for firefighters are paid for out of the NSW Government’s Emergency Fund.
We are ALL on call, 365 days per year.
We ALL react and check our pagers when they go off – or we think they have.
……. and yes, some of us live in an environment that will burn for 6 months of the year in dry seasons. Mostly it doesn’t, because we have the access and limited fuels that permit us to put fires out. But lacking those, and with continued ignition points, that is what we face.
Just because the idea is new to you is no reason why the rest of us should panic.
50
So when was the state of emergency declared?
Srsly pig ignorant
24
Yep pig ignorant is your meme, PF
Intellectual back luck in your every post.
[Fair warning to everyone, it’s my job to enforce Jo’s rules on everyone. Attacks on the person will get my attention no matter who does it and I will snip accordingly.
I will leave this as a warning because Peter invited it.] AZ
30
“So when was the state of emergency declared?”
Nov 12. Seems you didn’t even know that.
DOH !!!
So hard to fight fires in windy drought conditions in clogged, fuel-laden un-accessible National Parks.
The greenie agenda has a lot to answer for. !
31
S44 is declared when fire is deemed to be beyond the resources of the individual District or Team (group of Districts as the RFS defines them)
It’s a judgement based partly on Operational criteria and partly on Management criteria..
30
So PF, to avert the next natural catastrophe, you will be out clearing bush and accept the greenie fines that get laden on you. Right ?
The drought is because of cold water above and below
The fluky winds are because of low solar activity causing a jet stream wobble.
Intensity is because of extreme fuel loads due to the greenie agenda
This bushfire catastrophe that you and your greenie ilk have played a major role in causing through your thoughtless agendas, will shame you for the rest of your life
You know that, and are trying any pathetic rationalisation to get around the facts.
52
‘The fluky winds are because of low solar activity causing a jet stream wobble.’
Correct, according to NASA ‘as we enter the solar minimum, our wispy atmosphere shrinks.
‘When the atmosphere contracts, the jets start to meander. The meandering happens because there is a space problem; the same jet stream is jammed into less volume within a shrunken atmosphere; hence the jet streams kink. The cloud levels are slightly but measurably lower as well.’
wuwt
20
A note on the use of aircraft on fires.
I had a seat at the table when the Aviation Section of the NSWRFS drew up the first Standard Operation Procedures for aircraft use by the RFS.
In the first paragraph we made it clear that Aircraft do not put out fires..
They are a very useful tool when used appropriately, but they cannot extinguish fires .
Water drops only wet the fuel for 15-20 minutes on very hot, dry days. they cannot kick over logs to extinguish the undersides. They cannot does hollows.
Nor can aircraft even operate under the most extreme conditions .
So the idea that aircraft represent some kind of ultimate solution is a myth peddled by politicians trying to be virtuous with Other People’s Money…… and propagated by media fixated on Big Dramas. Both of which are believed by the gullible.
So no….. throwing lots of aircraft at fires was never going to put them out. That requires grubby firefighters with hoses, on the ground. If we can’t get to it – because of terrain, timber and lack of fire trails – then it ain’t going to happen.
Aaaaaaaand the fact that the aircraft are flying at all, means that the conditions are not “unprecedented “. Under the worst of conditions, the aircraft are grounded.
80
“denial from our governments”
The real deniers are those that close their eyes to the extraordinary fuel load built up over the last many years.
The greenie agenda has created a fuel load that just needed a normal Australian drought to ignite it.
It built a bonfire, just waiting to be lit.
That agenda has one heck of a lot to answer for, and must be overcome so that sensible clearing practices be re-adopted.
51
“certainly not intelligence or compassion”
PF conveys neither of these, just a deep desire for attention.
His life is one of intellectual misfortune.
So much so, that he is provable wrong on basically every point he tries to make.
And as for his pseudo-compassion, its a great act PF, but you are fooling only yourself.
10
Would that 115 days be back to the start of the peat fire near the airport? (Lindfield Park Road, 910ha, ‘under control’ according to “Fires near me”,just now?) I thought that was fully contained, but still going underground, hence the need to pump effluent as the major source of water needed to flood it. Those sort of fires are also difficult to extinguish, but don’t require great manpower unless they break out. True?
As for compassion, I’ve not seen any evidence of lack of compassion, or of lack of respect for our firies on this site. Our anger is towards the people who have allowed, even enforced, the build up of fuels in official firebombs close to farms and settlements. Mainly called National Parks.
Dave B
30
I see you’ve gotten hold of a mirror then.
Tony.
130
Fitz,
You mentioned that your local RFS members have been on call for 115 days. are they lazy? I only ask because my brother and niece are RFS members and they are on call for 365 days of the year, every year.
I suggest that if your local RFS members only make themselves available for one third of the year. You can replace them and stop the climate caused, catastrophic bushfires yourself.
Think of the medals and prestige you will attain.
You may save a life or be awarded an AFSM or an AO. Maybe Greta will bestow those medals on you. Wow that could be the first time in your life that you have any credibility.
Stay strong.
It is hard being a first responder putting your life at risk before others. Do you think you are up for the task? Surprise me, save a life.
60
Ignorance again – being on call here means no drinking, no travelling, no weekends away. If you are on call 365 days a year like that then you are a saint
25
“Ignorance again.”
PF titles his own posts.
00
Sorry, Fitz, but you are applying the wrong standard or the wrong language….. possibly because you are the ignorant one, here.
On call, for a volunteer does not mean sitting at the ashes/Station waiting for something to happen. Nor does it mean that we can’t have a drink or two at the end of the day.
It means being ready to drop tools and walk away from work – or whatever else we are doing – within reason.
You’d be surprised how many of us don’t take holidays during the season.
41
Mr Fitz, the PM says these bushfires have nothing to do with global warming. Do you disagree?
” … any suggestion that the actions of any state or any nation with a contribution to global emissions of that order is directly linked to any weather event, whether here in Australia or anywhere else in the world, is just simply not true”.
50
How could these fires be from global (what ever)? AU is only guilty of a very small portion of the global carbon “problem”. It would be insane (or insanity) that would blame recent AU forest events on global climate.
Fitz, bend the math to prove the above is not reasonable. Otherwise STFU!
20
“Nominations Open For ‘The World’s Greatest Climate Hypocrite’ Competition”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/12/nominations-open-for-the-worlds-greatest-climate-hypocrite-competition/
00
“Pacific Glaciers Redux”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/12/pacific-glaciers-redux/
00
“BOM Hiding The Heat In Australia”
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/12/bom-hiding-the-heat-in-australia/
00
Oh look, more trees found under glaciers.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/12/12/3000-year-old-trees-excavated-under-icelandic-glacier/#comments
Must be a hardly tree to grow under such conditions 😉
71
As the Earth dipped into the colder periods of the Roman WP, Medieval WP and the current Modern Slightly Warm Period, with freezing interludes during the Dark Ages and the LIA.
Those 3 warmer period after the Neoglaciation that formed many of todays glaciers have been times of much human progress and development.
Those colder periods of much human despair.
Why the greenie agenda has chosen to hold back human progress during the current slightly warm period , is a question that may never have a rational, coherent answer.
71
School Strike for Climate:
“Right now, the youth of Australia aren’t being listened to by our government even though the impacts of the climate crisis are here now.
Us students have long lives ahead of us and we don’t wish this to be the new normal, but if sufficient action is not taken it may well be the reality.”
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ban-australia-from-using-kyoto-credits-from-passing-the-paris-agreement
Whoa! Wait. What?
Australian students behind in maths, reading and science, PISA education study shows
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-03/australia-education-results-maths-reading-science-getting-worse/11760880
Anyone see problem here?
60
I’m following the UK election result, and I have located a reasonably good site. (I suppose The Guardian is covering it, but I do have some principles and The Guardian is one place I’m not keen on visiting anyway)
The site I have is at the BBC and it looks OK to me.
UK Election Results Live
Exit polls say Boris may be on track for the biggest Conservative win since Margaret Thatcher, and Labour its worst result since 1934.
Actual vote counting started at 9AM (Australian Eastern Standard Time) and it’s 9.15 now here in Queensland.
Tony.
60
I’m following as well. Looks like Labour and Corbyn have run their game and the People have had enough.
The US would much rather deal directly with UK rather than the EU crowd. Bi-Lateral trade is much easier than satisfying a multitude of whiners.
I, for one, hope for a Sovereign and Independent UK, not beholding to the EU.
However things turn out, the People of UK have spoken. That’s how it ought to be.
40
Voter turnout might be worth looking at as well.
Incidentally, and with respect to Brexit and voter turnout, and how some say that not many actually voted, it was the highest voter turnout in more than 20 years.
The last highest voter turnout was for the last John Major win (Conservative who took over from Margaret Thatcher) and that was in 1992, when turnout was 77%.
Even when Tony Blair (Labour) won his first election in 1997, voter turnout was only 71%.
From there, it was all lower than that for the following five general elections with the last one just getting back to 68% from a low of 59%, the second Blair win.
The turnout for Brexit was 72%, the highest voter turnout in 24 years for any vote in the UK.
If Boris wins what those exit polls have suggested, it will give him an even larger Majority than that first Blair win, and the largest majority since WW2. If Boris gets that result, I wonder how many media outlets would be game enough to refer to it with the word …..‘Landslide’.
Tony.
50
9.49 (Oz EST) and first results coming in.
Tony.
20
If true, which really hope is so.,
… it proves that UK subjects want to be subjects of the UK, not of Brussels.
and that UK subjects do actually have some common sense ! 🙂
20
Boris will win with a big majority, the only question is how big the majority will be .
00
“Boris Johnson is on course for the biggest Tory landslide since Margaret Thatcher tonight – after the exit polls tipped the Tories to win a whopping 368 seats.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10541284/election-exit-poll-boris-johnson-on-course-for-a-majority-as-polls-predict-tory-win/
“Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn will be facing deafening calls to finally quit as Labour leader after failing to win a second general election in a row – and taking the party to its worst result in 40 years.”
UK Pound Up 2% in anticipation.
Hmm. Better late, than never. 🙂
50
Sterling UP.
Sterling gained as much as 3% to $1.35 – its highest level since May last year – on hopes that a big majority would remove uncertainty over Brexit.
The pound also jumped to a three-and-a-half-year high against the euro.
20
“A “landslide”, a complete “wipe-out”, a “massive victory” appears looming for Boris Johnson and the conservative party in the U.K. if exit polls are accurate……. These blowout results guarantee a faster Brexit from the European Union and the leftist labor party in the U.K. has been crushed. Conservatives look to have picked up 50 seats and Labor has lost 71 seats; the Scottish National Party (SNP) has picked up 20.
The “Remainers” in the U.K. have been decimated, and the voters who want to “Leave” the EU have fueled a massive victory for Boris Johnson. Liberal heads are blown-out, bigly.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/12/12/wakey-wakey-exit-polls-show-landslide-conservative-boris-johnson-win-in-u-k-elections-open-discussion-thread/#more-178514
Corbyn is out. Apparently, Socialism and subservience to the EU must have rightly angered enough people that they loudly proclaim “Can You Hear Me Now?”
60
We can only hope the results are as big as the exit polls suggest or bigger , time the hard left socialist green latte sippers were handed a reality check .
50
I dream of a world in which Socialists and Greens have to live with their failures, ignominy and shame under bright light and lots of attention.
Go Brittania! Reclaim your Independence.
I cannot fathom a World without that unique, indomitable, creative, productive, prosperous, inventive, and Independent Britain.
This is Your Hour, my UK Friends.
60
While it’s good news, at this point I can’t see the Tories or the UK shaking off the green virus or curtailing renewables. Powerful forces are profiting too much from the scam. Places like the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Science are practically ground zero of alarmist policy.
60
Zane last I looked the Greens won only one seat but as we know the green menace infiltrates Labor completely and creeps into the conservative parties .
Also the bureaucracy are mainly green and this is where they really have stranglehold.
20
hot one, this: 12-12-2019 interview on video:
Roger Robinon: “But they can live with that because ZTE (ban) was reversed. They’re planning to reverse Huawei (ban). They’re trying to get even Megvii off of the (banned) entity list—artificial intelligence. So they can work it. I’ll tell you what they can’t afford to see the light of day: the money, the US capital markets. Because that’s where they live or die.”
Roger Robinon: “Do we really believe that if they (American investors) knew that their investment dollars were going into the perpetrators of these abuses that are threatening the lives of not just their families, but their communities, their cities, their states, their country, I think they’d be outraged. Now how many of them are there? 150 million are holding “bad actor” Chinese stocks and bonds today. Millions and scores of millions more are holding Russian sanctioned companies and sovereign bonds. CalPERS owns $460 million, I believe, in Russian sovereign bonds. Well wait a minute. What’s a sovereign bond? It’s ‘I the Russian government give you a piece of paper with a maturity date and an interest rate on it and you give me scores of millions of dollars or more.’ And what do I (Putin or CCP) do with that money? Well, it’s discretionary cash. I could do anything I want with it. I can undermine further Eastern Ukraine. I can build up my military presence in Syria. I can fund that latest supersonic cruise missile (that is) nuclear-tipped. I can build that new generation ballistic missile submarine.” https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-u-s-capital-is-the-lifeline-of-the-chinese-communist-party-roger-robinson-interview_3172994.html
……
you might enjoy https://balance10.blogspot.com/2019/12/meet-xiang-xin-and-his-wife-kung-ching.html
20
The Australian had a story yesterday suggesting some big coal generators could shut down fairly soon, and that the grid would then shift from being 70% coal electricity to around 30%. The virtue signalling is strong. Coupled with population growth in the big cities especially Melbourne and Sydney, what this will do for reliability of supply is a good question. One politicians seem to be dodging. Solar and wind are green pleasers but can’t really do baseload power, can they? That leaves only natural gas to step up and secure the grid. There is talk of one or two LNG terminals being built south of Melbourne, in the Westernport area. AGL is one name mentioned. It won’t be cheap electricity, but we the public may soon need to be grateful for any reliable power at all, at whatever price AGL and the like choose to charge.
10
So, then, let’s unpack this.
70% equals an hourly rate throughout the year of 16000MW.
So 30% equals an hourly rate of 6800MW from coal fired power.
ALL renewables in total equal an average of 5100MW.
So now, coal fired plus all renewables equals 12000MW. (note here that this doesn’t even reach the minimum base Load of 18000MW)
So all they need to find to make up AVERAGE consumption is 11700MW, so say 12000MW.
Good luck with that.
However, let’s look at peak power which is regularly over 28000MW and for most of the two Months of Summer, and two Months of Winter is over 30000MW.
That Winter and Summer peak is around 6.30PM, so no solar from either of the two sources. So, that knocks all renewables back to 3400MW, All wind plus all Hydro.
3400MW plus (all coal) 6800MW comes in at 10200MW, around ….. 20,000MW SHORT of what is actually required absolutely for those peaks.
So, the end result is this.
If that coal fired total is to go back to 30% ….. there will be NO grid, NO power at all.
Those coal fired plants need to be replaced with power plants that can generate the required amount of power needed to support the grid.
That’s the story that needs to be told to the people.
Tony.
80
The coal plants will shut if it becomes uneconomic for the owners (AGL, etc) to maintain and operate them. Capital expenditures need to be approved well in advance at senior level. Possibly they are trying to scare governments into providing some taxpayer subsidies. The key factor as I see it is the renewables have first dibs on selling their power into the grid. They get their cash and then they slink off and say sayonara when the wind stops blowing or the sun goes down, as it tends to do. Nobody is going to invest $5 billion in a new power plant facing this kind of a rigged market without certainty of a return on investment that makes financial sense. I take on board all your points about the absolute necessity, at present, of keeping the existing coal generators performing. But at least for the privately owned utilities, the decision to close them or not will be made for hard headed commercial reasons. Money. And if that cripples the grid, so be it. This seems to be the end point the pollies and greenies are witlessly marching toward. The only viable strategy will then be to back up wind and solar with CCGT plants running on gas, piped or LNG, even though coal is a far cheaper feedstock in Australia. From AGL’s murmurings, this may be what they are planning at least in Victoria.
At present, I see no solution to the green idiocy.
If things get really hopeless in future, many enterprises will need to invest in diesel generators, like in Africa…
Time will tell, I guess.
10
Simple market economics Zane…
Once you start shutting coal down, then the will be supply shortages , especially winter and after sundown.
That will automatically drive up wholesale market prices significantly, and that will make the coal plants more financially attractive again
Further, a fully depreciated coal plant is unlikely to be uneconomical, unless some fool imposes a rediculous carbon tax !
20
If the mothballed coal plants have been replaced by new natural gas generators, it is unlikely they will be restarted, IMO.
00
ABC uses Einstein to prove globull warming .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-12-13/time-to-stop-lying-to-our-children-about-physics/11789858
10
ABC article about Einsteinian physics – CO2 causes a heat blanket around Earth.
Ahhh…so easy to trap the masses with that one.
Right and wrong simultaneously.
Don’t forget to factor in time!
Trapping heat for 1/10,000 sec doesn’t really count now does it.
61
Come on it wouldn’t be the ABC if it included all the relevant facts facts now would it ?
31
The heat blanket is a myth.
31
can you elaborate on this?
What if the heat (as you call it) was released in a different direction?
01
even if CO2 did get a chance to re-radiate, its energy can only be detected with a device cooled by liquid nitrogen, thus forcing a negative energy flux
It has basically no energy at all.
But it does not get a chance to re-radiate, not until some 11km altitude.
And given that the mean free path of that tiny weak sliver of frequency at atmospheric pressure is some 10m, do you really think any of it is going to trap energy?
Just say “DOH!” to yourself, GA. !!
20
Basically CO2 molecules (and other greenhouse gasses) absorb long wave radiation at specific wave number windows. This energy can be transferred either by collision with another benign molecule (say N2 as the dominant atmospheric gas) or by radiating the excess energy. But an excited N2 molecule can pass that energy to other molecules by collision until that avenue tends to balance out. The time taken between excitation and radiation is immaterial because this does not heat the atmosphere. Rather the radiated long wave radiation can go in any direction but after a few interactions will eventually either escape to space or get back down to Earth. Over decades measurements of long wave radiation at the ground have shown an increase while outgoing long-wave radiation at the top of the atmosphere has increased at the wavelengths of greenhouse gasses. No models, no activist arm waving from the depths of an armchair. Simple empirical measurement. The result is that the surface of the Earth heats up, more infrared is radiated and a new balance is achieved, until there is another change to greenhouse gas partial pressures.
10
Oops, That should be outgoing long-wave radiation at the top of the atmosphere has decreased a
20
One more thing. Their feelings are easily hurt and you might get called names… especially “little”
00
Hello Brian,
Confusing, because you seem to have described a thermodynamics impossibility.
“Simple empirical measurement.”
Could I give a well accepted measurement;
It is quite routine at the moment for peak temperature to be 23°C but mysteriously overnight the temperature drops to 17°C.
Accordingly, if the Sun failed to rise the next morning I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the temperature had dropped by at least 12C° to about 5°C.
CO2 “spreading heat in all directions” from a starting temperature of Minus 40°C cannot influence Earth’s temperature where I am at 17°C.
CO2 pushing out low virtue IR from altitude back to Earth isn’t real.
KK
10
Keith… this stuff is routinely measured. The data is there. You can’t explain it with your majic photons
03
geez you wont be popular with certain people. There are people here who think that nothing happens unless at higher latitudes and that the radiation can’t be emitted in the direction of something at higher energy. These people have done lots of research (shh).
Here is a guy in 1948 measuring CO2 emissions in a regular lab https://science.sciencemag.org/content/107/2767/48
Here is a link to a wiki article about Near IR sppectroscopy using room temp detectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-infrared_spectroscopy
For a few hundred dollars and without liquid nitrogen, you too can walk around measuring CO2. A guy named Watts has one of these
Here is a science rich paper explaining it all if you want to spend millions of dollars on the highest tech equipment. Pretty sure this observatory is not 11km above sea level https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022285203003230
03
LOL, dig deeper GA
and elsewhere
Say DOH! to yourself again, GA.
30
Umm as some people might say. You need to do better readings
01
Or know what you are actually measuring. 😉
Too much science for you, GA.
10
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a spectroscopic method that uses the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum (from 780 nm to 2500 nm). “
The ASD handheld spectrometers are full-range covering the full spectrum and wavelength range of 350 – 2500 nm.
The strongest absorption bands of CO2 are those at 15μm and 4.3μm with a narrow band at 10μm, all of which are outside the range of hand held NIRS spectroscopes.
Basic maths, seems GA is yet to learn.
00
Also a very narrow band at 2.7μm, just outside the instrument range.
All up, they comprise only 8% of available blackbody surface radiation, and the broad band at around 15μm is equivalent to a temperature of some -80ºC and any radiation at that frequency absorbs to extinction at atmospheric density in some 10m, and contains very little energy.
The whole back-radiation warming meme is a total farce of anti-physics.
00
“The BEST and worst of ACORN-SATv2 Tmins”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/12/the-best-and-worst-of-acorn-satv2-tmins/
20
There is no way that Bom haven’t done some creative accounting , I live about 50 kilometres from Rutherglen and have been to Halls creek three times in the last six years , the Bureau is a joke .
10
“Y2Kyoto: Tidalgate”
Link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/12/12/y2kyoto-tidalgate/
“Alarmist scientists have been caught red-handed tampering with raw data in order to exaggerate sea level rise.”
20
High temps (44 C to 46 C) with very light wind for a few days within SA, VIC and NSW, from Tuesday the 17th Dec, until about the 20th. And there’s middle and upper level cloud during the same period. That mix could get interesting.
30
Jennifer Morahasy has been busy looking into the Bom and some early records that were deleted .
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2017/02/australias-hottest-day-record-ever-deleted/?fbclid=IwAR0bpGaN8Lk5NVIBaXdRBo7Mew0Zr5C5XOO1vS0sb21ms70wo11q0YXMNIg
00
Surprised that this max temp was only 125F. One very hot day out on the Nullarbor, took a 127F max thermometer out to an electronics site where I was having problems stabilising its operation in the heat. The thermometer shot to the top and stayed there, so had to remove it to prevent damage. And that wasn’t the hottest building that I had to work in.
10