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Come get your free money, any cause worldwide PM Trudeau of Canada has opened the borrowing spigot on any cause to get Canadian Cash.
The drawback to the Canadian Citizens is that he is also raising our Carbon Taxes on all fossil fuels by 30%.
The Canadian Provincial politicians are starting to speak about how Trudeau has unlimited borrowing resources through the Bank of Canada while the Provinces have to borrow on top of this economic devastation this lockdowns have created.
‘A police dog will be sent to the Hong Kong government’s animal quarantine centre for further examination after becoming the force’s first canine member to test positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, according to a source.’ (SCMP)
It’s just been reported that the American Medical Association (AMA) has rescinded its ruling on the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). It now says it’s OK for the medical profession to make use of the treatment (along with Azithromycin, Zinc and Vit D3).
Over 200,000 citizens of the USA have died so far due to Covid-19. How many of these lives could have been saved if the AMA (American) had not played politics with people’s lives. By my calculation it could have saved some 120,000 lives in the USA by recommending the prescription of HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin + Vit D3.
First do no harm. That is now a joke on the professional bodies in the medical field.
They are incompetent and demonstrate again why scepticism is so important.
In. the 1980s NSW Labor treasurer Ken Booth was asked by a journalist: “But what if the government becomes bankrupt?”
His reply: “It’s not possible for a government to be bankrupt.”
NSW was saved from that policy by the election of the Greiner government. Victoria, South Australia and Western Austalia were not so lucky, as their ALP governments plunged them into deep recession.
For your interest. We lived in an isolated location. Our local storekeeper/fuel merchant went to Victoria and purchased a late model fuel truck for about the cost of the special wiring that fuel trucks are required to have. They then used that truck for many years to keep us in fuel at city prices.
Never forget. When the only way you can make a profit is out of somebody else’s losses, everybody is in trouble.
Certainly in the case of WA and Victoria, the ALP Governments followed long periods of pretty ordinary conservative rule … where the foundations of all the troubles were laid down.
The SA case was different – the ALP oversaw (or failed to oversee) the collapse of the South Australian State Bank – but even in that case, the fault didn’t really lie with the ALP – it was the bank opting for high-risk investment strategies.
“this economic devastation this lockdowns have created.”
No doubt economic devastation happens with the lockdown tool in the wrong hands. Used well however like the result of the right wing government lockdown that quickly eliminated the virus in combination with other strategies to stop the spread in Tasmania.
“The latest ABS figures show Tasmania experienced strong growth of 5.5% in the September quarter as we recover and rebuild from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the highest state final demand quarterly growth seen in 18 years, in seasonally adjusted terms.”
“hotels, cafes and restaurants saw a massive increase of 86.1% in spending”
“The ABS also noted that there was a 36.2% rise in health, reflecting the return of elective health services.” https://www.miragenews.com/tasmania-s-economy-outpaces-nation/
yarpos
“quarterly growth” So not more than the “215 days” or more back to the “middle” of elimination lockdown.
Another quote from that link.
“Despite the Opposition’s relentless negativity and their focus on recession and talking our economy down, this data confirms that Tasmania is not in recession and never has been in 2020 which has been a very challenging time for economies around the world.”
The big gain quoted was from restaurants, not the timber industry.
And why is it that politicians love to quote the “bounce back”, is it perhaps something to do with the fact that the economy was so crushed that any recovery would seem massive when measured from that base?
Then take away jobseeker and jobkeeper inputs and ask; what truly happened?
But don’t worry, we should be able to clear that Jobby debt in say ten years or at least quantitatively ease it out of significance.
It’s tragic that in 2020 our politicians survive on media hype and pay no attention to the basic issues of the community.
Out of the blue we get a real debate on climate change.
‘Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has thrown his support behind a proposed inquiry that will grill financial regulators and banks over plans to pull back on lending or insuring mining projects because of climate change.
‘Big banks including the ANZ, which has ruled out financing any new coal mines or coal-fired power stations and asked its biggest clients to provide plans to decarbonise, are expected to be hauled in front of the parliamentary probe to be chaired by Coalition climate sceptic George Christensen.’ (SMH)
Mr Christensen should ask the ANZ where their data centres are, and what is the fuel mix of the grid that serves them. Perhaps they would like to leap to the front of the “decarbonising” line?
The Member for the Federal seat of Warringah, Zali Steggall, has introduced a bill into parliament entitled Climate Change Bill 2020. This bill is based on false premises and the consequences from it being passed are absolutely dire.
– Where the Act is Wrong in Science
including
The record for Fort Denison shows some interesting things. The level now is lower than it was in 1914 when the record started. The recent peak was in 2006 at the end of the Modern Warm Period. Sea level at Fort Denison has been falling since. From the record kept by the Bureau of Meteorology, the maximum recorded level was 2.4o metres at 1 pm on 25th May, 1974, which is now 46 years ago. And Australians are supposed to believe that a dangerous sea level rise is in prospect from global warming? And that they should thrash the economy, and set themselves up for invasion, in the anticipation of it?
Sea levels have fallen 1200 mm in the last 2,000 years and given that in the long term view we are approaching the next glaciation, we, as a civilisation have better things to worry about than Global Warming.
The last five years has seen intense winters in the northern hemisphere which likely signal the end of this current interglacial.
Recent cold snaps and the 1.2 metre sea level drop tell us that ice is being deposited on the poles at a faster rate than losses seen in calving.
The strange thing is that the CAGW meme has been able to survive despite the fact that there is absolutely no possibility that human origin CO2 can cause global warming.
The catastrophic situations in Britain, enslaved by the EEU, and the USA with its uncertain democratic processes are glaring markers of concern.
The truth is out there somewhere and they’re trying to hide it.
The CAGW ideological bent seem to alternate between rising sea levels causing Pacific islands to drown to Polar bears under threat in the Arctic .
Although any flood or fire is also a sure sign we must repent our CO2 sins .
And if there’s any need doubt their ABC’s commitment to the cause this propaganda piece is hilarious about the Arctic.
What they don’t say is that the Arctic was relatively warm throughout the ice age and not encased in ice, so I’m calling this contemporary situation a global cooling signal.
Twenty-five thousand years ago at the last glacial maximum there were massive ice fields across North America such that even down to New York the ice was almost a mile deep.
It’s hard to imagine the adjacent Arctic region being “relatively warm”.
Can you explain your comment in a bit more detail, because it is hard to reconcile your “relatively warm Arctic” with the well documented melt history of North America just below it.
By contrast the Australian continent down South did not have similar deep ice fields: did you mean to say Antarctica?
I’m not sure how your two points are linked: what has the one got to do with the other?
Polar bear bones were accidentally unearthed by two construction workers in 1991 at Tysfjord, about 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. They were found to be at least 42,000 years old, which means that the area wasn’t under a mile of ice throughout the 80,000 year ice age.
There were Interstadials and its possible that wild life saw a window of opportunity at different times, certainly worth further sleuthing.
A meandering jet stream drags polar winds south to the midlatitudes, where snow and ice gradually build up.
It does not help a debate when someone starts fiddleing with the facts.
That “Richardson Post” article was a poor attempt to argue a case.
EG.. the Sea Level…
The record for Fort Denison shows some interesting things. The level now is lower than it was in 1914 when the record started. The recent peak was in 2006 at the end of the Modern Warm Period. Sea level at Fort Denison has been falling since.
To refer to “outlier” Peak data points, is pathetic,..especially when the chart he posted as a reference clearly states the rate of rise ..of the mean…as 0.5mm/yr !
He could have simply made the point that the “trend” over the past 7 years has reversed compared to the previous history .
That type of “false argument” immediately weakens any other points he raises.
PS …. Z Steggall is a liability to society,..but those fools in Warringah voted her in, ..so they should be made to suffer any policy she dreams up !
KK..
I get that 50mm in 100 yrs is trivial, and more relevently, that for the past 7+ years it is actually dropping,….
…but i was just making the point that Richardson was being a dick trying to prove something by picking the obvious outlyer data points, which any Alarmist could use to poke a hole in his comments..
Double dumb, also to post the chart to draw attention to your dumbness !
If sea levels are rising then all those expensive houses near the water will be flooded. I suggest the government start levying the owners every year to build a Zali fund to meet future disaster.
G 3….
If you know Warringah you will also know that few of the top end properties,..or even “water front” properties, are anywhere near sea level.
The electorate area is some of the highest in Sydney….Cremorne, Mossman North head, Manly, etc etc. are all rock. Plateau based areas where even a “waterfront” house is several meters above tide levels.
Even if SL is rising a 50mm/yr, those properties will rot before they get wet !
… Maybe in a few hundred years, Manly surf club may be a little closer to the ocean ?
Well I haven’t undertaken any proper study, but the other old Aussie’s observations of Fort Denison don’t match mine. He cites the BOM. I got mine from NOAA. And NOAA is queer enough.
When this alarmism started, the measure of their impending catastrophe was to be in rapidly rising sea levels, which would give us 50 million climate refugees by when was it, 2005 or a bit later, as their homelands were swamped by the rising seas. It just didn’t even start to happen
I took to citing the Sydney tide gauge, which showed a remarkably steady low rate of rise, 0.65mm/year since 1886. Two and a half inches/century. which gives no credence to their claims.
Then in 2010 NOAA stopped publishing the Sydney record on their front page chart. It just terminates there, and still does today as I checked. But there have been fiddles. A few years ago I saw that chart with a squiggle in that gap with suggested a much sharper rate of rise. It wasn’t actually connected to 2010, and later disappeared. More recently I saw the 2010 chart extended to the present, with a bit of an uptick, and a declaration that the rate of rise is now 0.75mm/year. But even that extension attracts attention for the wrong reason, because the last stroke of the chart takes a sharp downtick to the average line.
In the meantime. I searched at various times for info on Fort Denison, and at one time found what I believed to be a new government website on which it stated that the tide gauge is cleaned and recalibrated monthly. Recalibrated??? Against what? I was shocked, and drew attention to this. The statement became calibrated monthly, which could mean something useful or might not.
Wow, what has got into Josh’s mind to oppose “Climate Change Risk” policy? Maybe he’s finally starting to appreciate the amount of economic damage that these policies cause.
‘The government’s decision to support such an inquiry has raised eyebrows of several inner-city Liberal MPs in Sydney and Melbourne, who would not comment on the record on Tuesday ahead of a ministerial reshuffle this week.’
‘A contentious probe into banks and insurers black-listing fossil fuel projects could be widened after several Coalition MPs went into damage control over the proposal.’ (SMH)
Cat 5 T.C. ‘Yasa’ circling off Fiji,
iceberg circling South Georgia Island,
Jupiter & Saturn circling in syzygy,
26 degrees Celsius & sunny here…
sounds like *summer* to me!
* what was once known as ‘the wet season’ or ‘cyclone season’ is today breathlessly accused of being ‘proof of climate crisis’ and ‘action’ needs to be taken NOW! Or as some folk write, NWO!
Reminds me of that cult classic 1975 film, One Flu Over The Covid’s Nest, with Nurse Ratched, except in 2020, cyber/media lobotomies were perfected causing patients (inmates?) to obediently line up for their vaxxxine medication… except for Big Chief.
what was once known as ‘the wet season’ or ‘cyclone season’ is today breathlessly accused of being ‘proof of climate crisis’ and ‘action’ needs to be taken NOW!
We had ten years in tropical Darwin in the 1990s and 33°-34° was considered a really hot day … now they are reaching 35°-36° fairly frequently. It must be awful.
I still have two colleagues there who work as landscape gardeners – they have really noticed how the weather has become steadily hotter, especially in the rural hinterland.
There is a revolution coming in geothermal energy. How big it will be and how fast it can grow remains to be seen, but the revolutionary technology is here now.
We already know about the new technology by name fracking. But that is fracking for oil and gas, the energy revolution we are already living on, that the greens hate. The geothermal revolution is fracking for heat.
Here is the technical bit. The Earth’s crust we live on is just a thin film wrapped around an 8,000 mile diameter molten ball. In some places under the deep ocean this crust is estimated to be just 3 miles or so thick. It is somewhat thicker under the continents but the point remains; it gets hot fast as you drill down into the crust. That heat is geothermal energy.
We have used geothermal energy to make electricity for a long time, but only in tiny amounts. California does the most in the US and its entire generating capacity is about the size of a single large coal fired power plant, about 3000 MW. The whole world is said to just have a minuscule 15,000 MW.
The obstacle to doing more has been that useful energy sources are hard to find. You need a confined reservoir of hot water in fractured crust rock. The reservoir size, location and temperature of the water are all determined by nature. Suitable sites have been very few.
Now all of this has suddenly changed. With hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) we can make these geothermal reservoirs where we want them, the size we want them, and where the heat is the temperature we want, especially very hot. This includes the so-called “supercritical” water at 400 degrees C, which is now used in the most advanced power-plants.
It is like the difference between living on wild edibles, if and when you find them, and farming. Fracking for heat is literally a whole new world. Of course there are still pesky things like cost, feasibility and regulation, but the principal is clear; the technology of revolutionary thermal energy has arrived.
The greens are in a bit of a bind here. Geothermal juice looks like the ideal renewable. Unlike wind and solar, geothermal electricity is constantly available and it is not a land hog. But the greens despise fracking and have labeled it evil. Some States and even whole Countries have banned fracking for oil and gas. Whether this applies to fracking for heat remains to be seen, since the fracturing processes are rather different.
How this dichotomy will play out is anybody’s guess. As they say here in the mountains: “What goes around, comes around.” That is, don’t start trouble lest it bite you someplace soft. The greens desperately need geothermal fracking, they just don’t know it yet.
The US Energy Department has a Geothermal Technologies Office and they are understandably optimistic. They project something like 60,000 MW of advanced geothermal juice capacity by 2050. Mind you this is still small, given that our present generating capacity is around a million MW.
The amount of geothermal generating capacity installed by 2050 could be much larger, for one simple reason. It is probably the only way to make wind and solar work. A number of analysts, including me, have pointed out that electricity storage on the scale needed to power America with intermittent renewables is impossible. But many States have mandated a high level of renewables, even 100% in extreme cases.
This makes geothermal the perfect renewable, because its power can be available whenever the intermittent generators cannot provide the power we need. The more power we want from renewables, the more geothermal capacity we will need. It is that simple. We could be talking about many hundreds of thousands of MW. If the technology works cost wise it might actually be better than unreliable, land grabbing renewables.
Happily there is a massive frenzy of geothermal research going on, much of it aimed at reducing the obvious obstacles. Searching the engineering and scientific literature for the last five years on the word combination “geothermal” and “research” yields over 100,000 technical articles. That is a lot of research.
So there it is. Geothermal energy is potentially the second fracking revolution. No question the heat is there, thanks to the big molten ball we call Earth. And now we suddenly have the technology to create the infrastructure needed to tap into it. How practical it is, and how acceptable, still remains to be seen. Interesting times lie ahead.
David,…
Is this any different to the “EGS “…Enhaned Geothermal System….. that has been in use since the ‘70’s ?…
IE, from Wiki…
The first EGS effort — then termed Hot Dry Rock — took place at Fenton Hill, New Mexico with a project run by the federal Los Alamos Laboratory.[14] It was the first attempt to make a deep, full-scale EGS reservoir.
A brief review seems to show that the proceedure has a troublesome track record , with several projects being abandoned after initial trials for reasons ranging from Economic viability , to initiation of earthquakes ??
Even Australia threw money at this back in 2007 ( Cooper Basin , 25MW ) but also abandoned after initial production proved uneconomic., and the company switched to Wind Power development ?
But maybe you are talking about somethin completely different ??
They project something like 60,000 MW of advanced geothermal juice capacity by 2050.
This cannot save the renewables industry. Thais capacity will not power the EV fleet if ICEs are banned.
Not only but also: If geothermal plants are to be used solely to smooth wind/solar outputs the actual costs of this technology must be added into the cost/mWh of of renewable power, not cost-shifted to some other technology. What I am saying is that if geo works it should be run efficiently to maximise benefit to the grid, not used as a bandaid for other technologies.
Potentially (in theory ?)….EGS Geothermal could suooly more than enough power for all Australia,s needs for thousands of years!
The single development plant at Paralunga SA alone has potential for 13 GW of electrical generation..but Wind &Solar have attracted most of the RE development funding and investors away…so the project is stalled….Deep well drilling is expensive and time consuming !
Geothermal has recieved hardly any of the multi billion dollar “Clean Energy Fund”
there are other sites and projects with much greater potential, also suffering from lack of Federal or private funding.
1.0% of Australia’s Geothermal potential is equivalent to 12,000 times our electrical consumption
and remember , Geothermal is the only RE generation source that can supply continuously !
it is a true “Base Load” substitute .using mostly current proven technology and equipment.
Except it doesn’t supply continuously, even in NZ. Even in Rotorua the plant has to drill new shafts and also throttle back production t maintain the Geysers for the tourists.
“Enen in NZ”…?
NZ has many GT plants, some 60+ years old !…
I dont know the details of specific plants, or how they are operated to meet demand,…..but from the published output data, most of them have CF rates above 80%, and several above 90%.
.. That is “ continuous supply” in most peoples definition of power generation
Indeed, my point is that it would take hundreds of thousands of MW to make renewables work just in the US. The 60kMW study was done by the Geothermal Office in DOE’s renewables shop. They are not about to admit that wind and solar need help.
Hanrahan says wisely “If geothermal plants are to be used solely to smooth wind/solar outputs the actual costs of this technology must be added into the cost/mWh of of renewable power, not cost-shifted to some other technology. What I am saying is that if geo works it should be run efficiently to maximise benefit to the grid, not used as a bandaid for other technologies.”
However, I am now also using a CNO (cost no object) scenario, because that is what we see unfolding. Our energy systems are being taken over by a social movement (along with a lot of other things besides energy). Here in the US the utilities have jumped on the green CNO wagon because they make a fortune. The more they spend, the more they make and reliability no longer matters.
My hope is actually that fracked geothermal destabilizes the renewables fad.
Here’s a case of attacking the messenger rather than the message
Smartmatic have sent legal notices to Fox News, One America News, and Newsmax saying they “helped spread false and defamatory claims that are not supported by real evidence and could easily have been debunked with basic research” and are asking for full retractions on their reports.
They have NOT launched libel proceedings towards the accusers (Guiliani, Powell etc), themselves which all smacks of further cover-up. What a farce this election continues to be.
It must be a fun/enlightening time to work at the Aus, and be at editorial meetings. The weekend edition had an article from Bob Carr, lovingly fondling the ‘Paris Accord’. You know that treaty, where if everybody did what they say they would do, they would solve 1% of the problem scientists say we have. Then there was a top of the page, headlined article, in the business section, where Perry Williams breathlessly summarized a CSIRO analysis, saying the wind and solar are the go, being now cheaper than carbon based/nuclear options, even at 100% of the network. Then on the back page of the business section Terry McCrann dumped on the same analysis from a great height. “Dodgy? Dishonest? Disgraceful? Pathetic?” It turns out that it is only in the small print that the analysis mentions their way of reaching these conclusions. All that is required is to work out the total costs of going 100% green, then slap on a carbon tax, high enough to make coal/gas more expensive, ($275/$390 a ton in 2050), e voila, renewables are the cheapest! You have to give them balls for keeping a straight face.
On a lighter note, a couple of lovely quotes from WUWT comments – “China’s leader, Xi must marvel at how easy it is to dupe (or buy off) Western politicians. No wonder he thinks he ought to be running the whole world. He’s surrounded by idiots.”
“As a Brit, I can attest that the BBC has its’ head so far up its’ own climate change backside, you can no longer determine the colour of its’ socks.”
2019-nCoV joins the four coronaviruses now circulating in people. “I can imagine a scenario where this becomes a fifth endemic human coronavirus,” said Stephen Morse of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, an epidemiologist and expert on emerging infectious diseases. “We don’t pay much attention to them because they’re so mundane,” especially compared to seasonal flu.
Although little-known outside health care and virology circles, the current four “are already part of the winter-spring seasonal landscape of respiratory disease,” Adalja said. Two of them, OC43 and 229E, were discovered in the 1960s but had circulated in cows and bats, respectively, for centuries. The others, HKU1 and NL63, were discovered after the 2003-2004 SARS outbreak, also after circulating in animals. It’s not known how long they’d existed in people before scientists noticed, but since they jumped from animals to people before the era of virology, it isn’t known whether that initial jump triggered widespread disease. https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/
Aussie Resources Minister: UN Climate Emergency Demand an “Inconsequential “Grand Statement”
With Australia isolated on climate change, Resources Minister Keith Pitt has dismissed a global warming statement from the United Nations secretary-general.
Australia’s resources minister has castigated a climate change warning from the United Nations secretary-general as an inconsequential “grand statement”.
AS you read this, think of the Largest consumers of electrical power. There are five States on the grid, but two of them, South Australia, (6.4%) and Tasmania (5.3%) are such small consumers, that they can get by with fiddling around at the edges with renewables, (S.A. wind and Tas Hydro) and in the overall scheme of things are at the margin of power generation and consumption, as it all happens in the big three States.
So we have those big three States consuming 88.3% of all generated power, 180TWH a year. (or even 180,000,000,000KWH for those who have a small (average) rooftop solar power system delivering around 12KWH a day.)
Imagine you are a left leaning State Premier, with a left leaning Energy Minister.
Imagine the Kudos you will get if you just tell the people that to reach ‘Carbon Neutral’, you will closing down those filthy disgusting ancient coal fired power plants. Now there’s that State Premier’s job locked up for as long as you want to stay in the job.
So, umm, why hasn’t that happened then? Oh, and of far more importance, if not now, straight away, then ….. how soon will that be happening then?
That 88.3% of the grid is not a bunch of households with panels on the roof, and all that is needed is more panels on more roofs.
No, it’s serious power consumers, power consumers which CANNOT be powered by a few more panels on a few more roofs. It’s whole Cities with myriads of high rise buildings, It’s commerce, the shops you use. It’s schools, it’s hospitals, it’s well, night time. It’s workplaces, it’s industry, it’s, well, it’s everything really.
And of major importance it’s an average 25,500MW EVERY HOUR of every day, and now consider this, 18,000MW to just keep the Country ticking over while all of us are sound asleep, and realistically, not ….. personally using one watt of power.
That’s serious power consumption, and it requires some serious power generation, and that has to be there all the time.
So no, State Premiers and their Energy Ministers will NOT be turning off those coal fired power plants any time soon, at least until they have new plants which CAN deliver that sort of power, and here in Australia, that will be, hey, surprise surprise, new coal fired power plants.
Nothing else can deliver those levels of power which are required absolutely. You can’t just arbitrarily say ….. let’s make economies on power consumption, as economies of that scale, say, tens of thousands of MegaWatts are impossible.
So, no matter what you are told by talking head politicians of any political persuasion, they will not be closing down those critical coal fired plants any time soon.
Now then, consider New South Wales, which wants to close down that ancient old clunker at Liddell. NSW consumes 35.8% of all the Country’s power. The State is a nett importer of power, as 8% of all its power (5,800GWH) is imported from the two States it borders on, Victoria and Queensland, and of that 5800GWH, three quarters of it comes from Qld, all of it coal fired power as is the power also imported from Victoria. Incidentally that yearly total of 5800GWH of just imported power is one third of South Australia’s yearly consumption.
Liddel delivers (around) 7500GWH a year to the NSW grid. So, when Liddell closes that’s extra power needed to be found from somewhere, serious 24/7 power, as that’s what Liddell currently delivers.
And Queensland, well, it is a nett exporter of power, all of it to NSW and all of it coal fired power. 88% of all the generated power in Queensland is coal fired power, and one finding from the recent (mid 20 teens) 50% Renewables Inquiry was that …. NO coal fired plants will be closed in the foreseeable future. Oh, and that coal fired power exported to NSW does not count as emissions in Qld, as the power is consumed in NSW, and that was told to me by an Inquiry panel member face to face.
If they can artfully say that with a straight face, you can get an inkling as to what ‘Carbon Neutral’ will actually mean, more weasel words from mealy mouthed hypocrites who will NOT tell the truth about power generation.
People wonder why I am so confident that there is a long future for coal fired power. It always comes back to that 18000MW Base Load, the minimum daily power consumption across Australia. That 18000MW per day equates to 153,000GWH of power consumed in a year.
Those four renewables, wind, solar plants and rooftop solar and hydro currently deliver 53,000GWH a year.
Some time soon, a politician will umm and ahh as he or she attempts to explain why those coal fired plants will not be closing any time soon. It will happen, and that time is now getting closer.
The 3 ways of generating enough reliable supply for a grid in Australia are coal or gas fired (as CCGT) or nuclear. Out politicians have, mostly, stopped drilling for gas and have banned nuclear outright. Then some, like Mat Kean in NSW want to shut down coal fired. I can only assume that either he expects to leave politics shortly or that he is very, very stupid.
The problem is that too many like him cannot grasp reality and will delay any up-grading of reliable generation until it is too late to prevent major black outs.
Some time soon, a politician will umm and ahh as he or she attempts to explain why those coal fired plants will not be closing any time soon. It will happen, and that time is now getting closer.
(B)
The problem is that too many like him cannot grasp reality and will delay any up-grading of reliable generation until it is too late to prevent major black outs.
(C) Naah! Look, let’s leave that task of telling the public for someone else years from now, you know, after I’ve retired on my protected parliamentary superannuation.
Wow putting that figure of 180TWH and converting it to KWH is something I’ve never thought of and doesn’t that make solar stand out as being irrelevant.
Climate Activist Aussie Politicians Leap to Rescue Vital Coal Power Plants
That hilarious moment when coal haters realise their necks are on the block if the power grid fails repeatedly during Summer heatwaves.
Australia proposes revenue top-up scheme to keep Alcoa Portland smelter open
MELBOURNE/BENGALURU (Reuters) – In a push to keep Alcoa Corp’s Portland aluminium smelter open, Australia’s government has offered to ensure the smelter earns at least A$76.8 million ($57.9 million) through June 2025 for reducing its power usage and helping to prevent blackouts.
No law enforcement agency in any country is currently investigating the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.
A joint investigation between Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, has discovered voluminous telecom and travel data that implicates Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning of the prominent Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Moreover, the August 2020 poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk appears to have happened after years of surveillance, which began in 2017 shortly after Navalny first announced his intention to run for president of Russia. Throughout 2017, and again in 2019 and 2020, FSB operatives from a clandestine unit specialized in working with poisonous substances shadowed Navalny during his trips across Russia, traveling alongside him on more than 30 overlapping flights to the same destinations. It is also possible there were earlier attempts to poison Navalny, including one in the Western Russian city of Kaliningrad only a month before the near-fatal Novichok poisoning in Siberia.
Alexey Alexandrov (39), Ivan Osipov (44) – both medical doctors – and Vladimir Panyaev (40). These three were supported and supervised by at least five more FSB operatives, some of whom also traveled to Omsk, where Navalny had been hospitalized. Members of the unit communicated with one another throughout the trip, with sudden peaks of communication just before the poisoning as well as during the night-time hours (Moscow time) when Navalny left his hotel and headed to the Tomsk airport. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/
It interests me how critical we are of the human rights abuses levelled at China. What about the human rights abuses of Big Pharma all over the world when they are happier to see thousands die of Covid rather than let hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin plus zinc be considered and promoted as cures. Could it possibly be that they get in the way of the trillions that they’ll make with their medications and vaccines? Nah. Money couldn’t possibly be that powerful. Could it?
ANY treatment will be deliberately suppressed because if a cheap, effective treatment were found the $gazilions flowing into big pharma to develop a vaccination under “Operation Warp Speed” and the subsequent rivers of gold into the coffers of successful developers would be put at risk.
Then there is the political gamesmanship: Every death can be hung around Trump’s neck like an albatross. thousands of deaths are simply collateral damage, like Obama droning a wedding party.
“Since the mid-80s the Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the entire world — a phenomenon the vast majority of scientists agree is the direct result of human-induced climate change.”
This claim is made in an online ABC article today, entitled “The Vanishing Arctic”.
I would contact the ABC and ask for the source of that claim, but I know they would simply obfuscate and lie.
This claim reminds me of Glacier Girl, a P 38, part of a lost squadron which landed, intact, on a Greenland glacier. They know the exact sate, 15 July 1942, and of course the know the depth of the ice – zero feet.
50 years later she was extracted from under 300 ft of ice. These real life examples of thing NOT changing are ignored by alarmists.
Another fact is that 70 years ago I lived in a low lying suburb where king tides came up the gutter in front of the house. Dad put some cinders in the back yard to keep it dry. Every one still lives there, happy in the knowledge that occasionally they will get salt water in the streets. No levees have been built, real estate is still on the high side because it is an otherwise a desirable suburb.
I have a well ordered sleep pattern: I sleep when I can’t stay awake and I’m awake when I can’t sleep. So I checked out this site in the wee hours and while this thread was open there were no comments at the time but some bright spark had already scored the thread 1:10. WHY???
87% of Australian dermatologists are Vit D3 deficient. Who’s surprised?
Dr Holick, in an address in Denmark, showed a pic of an Australian dermatologist fully clothed, hat, jap-flap and sunscreen on his face. Tested for D3 he was deficient as were 87% of his colleagues.
Slip, slap, slop, like so many well-meaning campaigns is a disaster.
They are calling it severe weather, technically its not an ECL, but looking ahead they expect a strong cyclone season.
‘Recent severe weather is a sign of what is to come this summer, the Bureau of Meteorology says, with the predicted La Niña event to reach a “similar strength” to the system that brought Cyclone Yasi and major flooding to Queensland nearly a decade ago.’ (Weatherzone)
I think that they were buried under snow, must have become a glacier since one of the b17s was also found but the forces exerted on it had damaged it beyond salvage. It’s said the location of another plane has been identified recently, deep in the ice.
‘Over the decades, the ever-shifting ice sheets of Greenland buried the aircraft, known as the Lost Squadron, under between 250 and 300 feet of ice. Fifty years later, in 1992, one of the P-38s was extracted from the ice and restored to flying condition: the infamous Glacier Girl.’ (Popular Mechanics)
“We present one of the first hints of detecting an exoplanet in the radio realm,” said Jake D Turner, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell who helped lead the study.
“The signal is from the Tau Boötes system, which contains a binary star and an exoplanet. We make the case for an emission by the planet itself. From the strength and polarization of the radio signal and the planet’s magnetic field, it is compatible with theoretical predictions.”
…
The researchers detected the bursts using a radio telescope in the Netherlands. They found signals coming from a star system that is a host to a kind of planet known as a hot Jupiter – large and gaseous like our neighbour, but much closer to its sun.
… The signal is still weak and unconfirmed, however.
I don’t know what is actually causing these radio waves to come from that planet, but the simplest stereotypical explanation is lightning bolts in that planet’s atmosphere. High charge current raises gas temperature, thermal energy boosts electron orbits and ejects some of them making a plasma, potential equalizes so current dies off, plasma condenses, electrons crash back to the old levels and release the borrowed energy as electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies. That’s also how earthly lightning strikes are detected at long range.
That’s the most likely way this extra-solar planet functions as an extraterrestrial radio like Jupiter does.
Come get your free money, any cause worldwide PM Trudeau of Canada has opened the borrowing spigot on any cause to get Canadian Cash.
The drawback to the Canadian Citizens is that he is also raising our Carbon Taxes on all fossil fuels by 30%.
The Canadian Provincial politicians are starting to speak about how Trudeau has unlimited borrowing resources through the Bank of Canada while the Provinces have to borrow on top of this economic devastation this lockdowns have created.
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‘A police dog will be sent to the Hong Kong government’s animal quarantine centre for further examination after becoming the force’s first canine member to test positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, according to a source.’ (SCMP)
30
Hydroxychloroquine comes good.
Hmmm. Maybe that puppy needed to be on HCQ?
It’s just been reported that the American Medical Association (AMA) has rescinded its ruling on the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). It now says it’s OK for the medical profession to make use of the treatment (along with Azithromycin, Zinc and Vit D3).
Over 200,000 citizens of the USA have died so far due to Covid-19. How many of these lives could have been saved if the AMA (American) had not played politics with people’s lives. By my calculation it could have saved some 120,000 lives in the USA by recommending the prescription of HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin + Vit D3.
First do no harm. That is now a joke on the professional bodies in the medical field.
They are incompetent and demonstrate again why scepticism is so important.
The decision can be found here:
https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2020-10/nov20-handbook-addendum.pdf
You’ll need to scroll down to Resolution: 509 of November 2020. It’s about 18 pages down.
Now, who were those wackers here who were also playing the political game on HCQ?
Hang your head in shame.
Tides of Mudgee below at 18.0 is on the money:
https://joannenova.com.au/2020/12/tuesday-open-thread-37/#comment-2388549
40
In. the 1980s NSW Labor treasurer Ken Booth was asked by a journalist: “But what if the government becomes bankrupt?”
His reply: “It’s not possible for a government to be bankrupt.”
NSW was saved from that policy by the election of the Greiner government. Victoria, South Australia and Western Austalia were not so lucky, as their ALP governments plunged them into deep recession.
For your interest. We lived in an isolated location. Our local storekeeper/fuel merchant went to Victoria and purchased a late model fuel truck for about the cost of the special wiring that fuel trucks are required to have. They then used that truck for many years to keep us in fuel at city prices.
Never forget. When the only way you can make a profit is out of somebody else’s losses, everybody is in trouble.
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Yet a zero sum game is the way the leftists view everything which is why capitalism is anathema to them.
20
Certainly in the case of WA and Victoria, the ALP Governments followed long periods of pretty ordinary conservative rule … where the foundations of all the troubles were laid down.
The SA case was different – the ALP oversaw (or failed to oversee) the collapse of the South Australian State Bank – but even in that case, the fault didn’t really lie with the ALP – it was the bank opting for high-risk investment strategies.
10
“this economic devastation this lockdowns have created.”
No doubt economic devastation happens with the lockdown tool in the wrong hands. Used well however like the result of the right wing government lockdown that quickly eliminated the virus in combination with other strategies to stop the spread in Tasmania.
215 days without community spread.
https://www.covid19data.com.au/states-and-territories
10
statements like “hotels, cafes and restaurants saw a massive increase of 86.1% in spending” have no meaning with a reference point.
86% compared to same time last year , impressive
86% compared to the middle of the lockdown period, probably not great at all
90
yarpos
“quarterly growth” So not more than the “215 days” or more back to the “middle” of elimination lockdown.
Another quote from that link.
11
Did Tasmania have an economy to start with?
The big gain quoted was from restaurants, not the timber industry.
And why is it that politicians love to quote the “bounce back”, is it perhaps something to do with the fact that the economy was so crushed that any recovery would seem massive when measured from that base?
Then take away jobseeker and jobkeeper inputs and ask; what truly happened?
But don’t worry, we should be able to clear that Jobby debt in say ten years or at least quantitatively ease it out of significance.
It’s tragic that in 2020 our politicians survive on media hype and pay no attention to the basic issues of the community.
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“basic issues of the community.”
Like not letting a bio-weapon run rampant?
22
Danger, danger.
00
Out of the blue we get a real debate on climate change.
‘Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has thrown his support behind a proposed inquiry that will grill financial regulators and banks over plans to pull back on lending or insuring mining projects because of climate change.
‘Big banks including the ANZ, which has ruled out financing any new coal mines or coal-fired power stations and asked its biggest clients to provide plans to decarbonise, are expected to be hauled in front of the parliamentary probe to be chaired by Coalition climate sceptic George Christensen.’ (SMH)
190
Mr Christensen should ask the ANZ where their data centres are, and what is the fuel mix of the grid that serves them. Perhaps they would like to leap to the front of the “decarbonising” line?
140
🙂 But give them some candles before they “transition”.
50
No more tallow for candles. They are banning sheep, too!
30
A friend gives us a bees wax candle every year at Christmas.
10
Previously Posted on another thread – excellent summation
Climate Change Act of Treason
The Member for the Federal seat of Warringah, Zali Steggall, has introduced a bill into parliament entitled Climate Change Bill 2020. This bill is based on false premises and the consequences from it being passed are absolutely dire.
– Where the Act is Wrong in Science
including
The record for Fort Denison shows some interesting things. The level now is lower than it was in 1914 when the record started. The recent peak was in 2006 at the end of the Modern Warm Period. Sea level at Fort Denison has been falling since. From the record kept by the Bureau of Meteorology, the maximum recorded level was 2.4o metres at 1 pm on 25th May, 1974, which is now 46 years ago. And Australians are supposed to believe that a dangerous sea level rise is in prospect from global warming? And that they should thrash the economy, and set themselves up for invasion, in the anticipation of it?
141
Sea levels have fallen 1200 mm in the last 2,000 years and given that in the long term view we are approaching the next glaciation, we, as a civilisation have better things to worry about than Global Warming.
The last five years has seen intense winters in the northern hemisphere which likely signal the end of this current interglacial.
Recent cold snaps and the 1.2 metre sea level drop tell us that ice is being deposited on the poles at a faster rate than losses seen in calving.
The strange thing is that the CAGW meme has been able to survive despite the fact that there is absolutely no possibility that human origin CO2 can cause global warming.
The catastrophic situations in Britain, enslaved by the EEU, and the USA with its uncertain democratic processes are glaring markers of concern.
The truth is out there somewhere and they’re trying to hide it.
KK
140
The CAGW ideological bent seem to alternate between rising sea levels causing Pacific islands to drown to Polar bears under threat in the Arctic .
Although any flood or fire is also a sure sign we must repent our CO2 sins .
And if there’s any need doubt their ABC’s commitment to the cause this propaganda piece is hilarious about the Arctic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-16/arctic-sea-ice-dramatic-transformation-as-seen-by-satellites/12961584?nw=0
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What they don’t say is that the Arctic was relatively warm throughout the ice age and not encased in ice, so I’m calling this contemporary situation a global cooling signal.
10
Probably more evidence for cooling than warming especially if you get rid of homogenised data .
20
Twenty-five thousand years ago at the last glacial maximum there were massive ice fields across North America such that even down to New York the ice was almost a mile deep.
It’s hard to imagine the adjacent Arctic region being “relatively warm”.
Can you explain your comment in a bit more detail, because it is hard to reconcile your “relatively warm Arctic” with the well documented melt history of North America just below it.
By contrast the Australian continent down South did not have similar deep ice fields: did you mean to say Antarctica?
I’m not sure how your two points are linked: what has the one got to do with the other?
10
Polar bear bones were accidentally unearthed by two construction workers in 1991 at Tysfjord, about 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. They were found to be at least 42,000 years old, which means that the area wasn’t under a mile of ice throughout the 80,000 year ice age.
There were Interstadials and its possible that wild life saw a window of opportunity at different times, certainly worth further sleuthing.
A meandering jet stream drags polar winds south to the midlatitudes, where snow and ice gradually build up.
10
This recent paper confirms that the area was a ‘hotspot’ at the LGM.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379120303267?dgcid=rss_sd_all
00
It does not help a debate when someone starts fiddleing with the facts.
That “Richardson Post” article was a poor attempt to argue a case.
EG.. the Sea Level…
To refer to “outlier” Peak data points, is pathetic,..especially when the chart he posted as a reference clearly states the rate of rise ..of the mean…as 0.5mm/yr !
He could have simply made the point that the “trend” over the past 7 years has reversed compared to the previous history .
That type of “false argument” immediately weakens any other points he raises.
PS …. Z Steggall is a liability to society,..but those fools in Warringah voted her in, ..so they should be made to suffer any policy she dreams up !
82
If, as you say, the mean sea level rise over the last century has been 0.5 mm/yr the seas have had an overall rise of 50mm.
This means that over the last 2,000 years the oceans have fallen 1200 mm and in the last 100 years been able to bounce back 50 mm. I’m impressed.
Only 1150 mm to go to return to where we were at the time of Pontius Pilate.
Obviously it doesn’t help with the debate when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
50
KK..
I get that 50mm in 100 yrs is trivial, and more relevently, that for the past 7+ years it is actually dropping,….
…but i was just making the point that Richardson was being a dick trying to prove something by picking the obvious outlyer data points, which any Alarmist could use to poke a hole in his comments..
Double dumb, also to post the chart to draw attention to your dumbness !
20
Chad:
If sea levels are rising then all those expensive houses near the water will be flooded. I suggest the government start levying the owners every year to build a Zali fund to meet future disaster.
20
G 3….
If you know Warringah you will also know that few of the top end properties,..or even “water front” properties, are anywhere near sea level.
The electorate area is some of the highest in Sydney….Cremorne, Mossman North head, Manly, etc etc. are all rock. Plateau based areas where even a “waterfront” house is several meters above tide levels.
Even if SL is rising a 50mm/yr, those properties will rot before they get wet !
… Maybe in a few hundred years, Manly surf club may be a little closer to the ocean ?
20
A step up from the Mad Monk though 🙂
19
Well I haven’t undertaken any proper study, but the other old Aussie’s observations of Fort Denison don’t match mine. He cites the BOM. I got mine from NOAA. And NOAA is queer enough.
When this alarmism started, the measure of their impending catastrophe was to be in rapidly rising sea levels, which would give us 50 million climate refugees by when was it, 2005 or a bit later, as their homelands were swamped by the rising seas. It just didn’t even start to happen
I took to citing the Sydney tide gauge, which showed a remarkably steady low rate of rise, 0.65mm/year since 1886. Two and a half inches/century. which gives no credence to their claims.
Then in 2010 NOAA stopped publishing the Sydney record on their front page chart. It just terminates there, and still does today as I checked. But there have been fiddles. A few years ago I saw that chart with a squiggle in that gap with suggested a much sharper rate of rise. It wasn’t actually connected to 2010, and later disappeared. More recently I saw the 2010 chart extended to the present, with a bit of an uptick, and a declaration that the rate of rise is now 0.75mm/year. But even that extension attracts attention for the wrong reason, because the last stroke of the chart takes a sharp downtick to the average line.
In the meantime. I searched at various times for info on Fort Denison, and at one time found what I believed to be a new government website on which it stated that the tide gauge is cleaned and recalibrated monthly. Recalibrated??? Against what? I was shocked, and drew attention to this. The statement became calibrated monthly, which could mean something useful or might not.
Here is that NOAA chart:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.shtml?stnid=680-140
30
Ted is calibrated the new homogenised?
20
Good Sydney sea level data and analysis here..
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/why-are-australian-sea-levels-rising/
00
When is Zali moving to the Blue Mountains to escape “The Threat”? Bets, anyone? Mine is NIMLOTOMG (Not in my lifetime or that of my grandchildren).
50
Eric is onto it.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/15/climate-activist-aussie-politicians-leap-to-rescue-a-vital-coal-power-plants/
20
Wow, what has got into Josh’s mind to oppose “Climate Change Risk” policy? Maybe he’s finally starting to appreciate the amount of economic damage that these policies cause.
There could be hope for my local member, yet…
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/frydenberg-backs-probe-into-banks-not-lending-due-to-climate-risks-20201215-p56noo.html
30
Much amusement.
‘The government’s decision to support such an inquiry has raised eyebrows of several inner-city Liberal MPs in Sydney and Melbourne, who would not comment on the record on Tuesday ahead of a ministerial reshuffle this week.’
10
‘A contentious probe into banks and insurers black-listing fossil fuel projects could be widened after several Coalition MPs went into damage control over the proposal.’ (SMH)
00
Cat 5 T.C. ‘Yasa’ circling off Fiji,
iceberg circling South Georgia Island,
Jupiter & Saturn circling in syzygy,
26 degrees Celsius & sunny here…
sounds like *summer* to me!
* what was once known as ‘the wet season’ or ‘cyclone season’ is today breathlessly accused of being ‘proof of climate crisis’ and ‘action’ needs to be taken NOW! Or as some folk write, NWO!
Reminds me of that cult classic 1975 film, One Flu Over The Covid’s Nest, with Nurse Ratched, except in 2020, cyber/media lobotomies were perfected causing patients (inmates?) to obediently line up for their vaxxxine medication… except for Big Chief.
30
We had ten years in tropical Darwin in the 1990s and 33°-34° was considered a really hot day … now they are reaching 35°-36° fairly frequently. It must be awful.
I still have two colleagues there who work as landscape gardeners – they have really noticed how the weather has become steadily hotter, especially in the rural hinterland.
01
But the Data doesnt lie .. (well not until the BOM get to fiddle with it !)
Records for darwin are plentifulmax temps of 38-38 C are regular…as they were back in the ‘90s
And much earlier.
The record is 41 C back in the 1890s
https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/Australia/NT/Darwin/extreme-annual-darwin-high-temperature.php
10
Worth a look . . . . from Ice Age Farmer . . . .
‘The Cyberpandemic has Begun – SolarWinds + FireEye – Anything can happen now’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe3y-OdNSsw&feature=emb_logo
20
Be it storms or cyclones I’m always amazed when they just seem to hit the same time as a king tide or unusually high tide .
30
The geothermal energy revolution
By David Wojick
There is a revolution coming in geothermal energy. How big it will be and how fast it can grow remains to be seen, but the revolutionary technology is here now.
We already know about the new technology by name fracking. But that is fracking for oil and gas, the energy revolution we are already living on, that the greens hate. The geothermal revolution is fracking for heat.
Here is the technical bit. The Earth’s crust we live on is just a thin film wrapped around an 8,000 mile diameter molten ball. In some places under the deep ocean this crust is estimated to be just 3 miles or so thick. It is somewhat thicker under the continents but the point remains; it gets hot fast as you drill down into the crust. That heat is geothermal energy.
We have used geothermal energy to make electricity for a long time, but only in tiny amounts. California does the most in the US and its entire generating capacity is about the size of a single large coal fired power plant, about 3000 MW. The whole world is said to just have a minuscule 15,000 MW.
The obstacle to doing more has been that useful energy sources are hard to find. You need a confined reservoir of hot water in fractured crust rock. The reservoir size, location and temperature of the water are all determined by nature. Suitable sites have been very few.
Now all of this has suddenly changed. With hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) we can make these geothermal reservoirs where we want them, the size we want them, and where the heat is the temperature we want, especially very hot. This includes the so-called “supercritical” water at 400 degrees C, which is now used in the most advanced power-plants.
It is like the difference between living on wild edibles, if and when you find them, and farming. Fracking for heat is literally a whole new world. Of course there are still pesky things like cost, feasibility and regulation, but the principal is clear; the technology of revolutionary thermal energy has arrived.
The greens are in a bit of a bind here. Geothermal juice looks like the ideal renewable. Unlike wind and solar, geothermal electricity is constantly available and it is not a land hog. But the greens despise fracking and have labeled it evil. Some States and even whole Countries have banned fracking for oil and gas. Whether this applies to fracking for heat remains to be seen, since the fracturing processes are rather different.
How this dichotomy will play out is anybody’s guess. As they say here in the mountains: “What goes around, comes around.” That is, don’t start trouble lest it bite you someplace soft. The greens desperately need geothermal fracking, they just don’t know it yet.
The US Energy Department has a Geothermal Technologies Office and they are understandably optimistic. They project something like 60,000 MW of advanced geothermal juice capacity by 2050. Mind you this is still small, given that our present generating capacity is around a million MW.
The amount of geothermal generating capacity installed by 2050 could be much larger, for one simple reason. It is probably the only way to make wind and solar work. A number of analysts, including me, have pointed out that electricity storage on the scale needed to power America with intermittent renewables is impossible. But many States have mandated a high level of renewables, even 100% in extreme cases.
This makes geothermal the perfect renewable, because its power can be available whenever the intermittent generators cannot provide the power we need. The more power we want from renewables, the more geothermal capacity we will need. It is that simple. We could be talking about many hundreds of thousands of MW. If the technology works cost wise it might actually be better than unreliable, land grabbing renewables.
Happily there is a massive frenzy of geothermal research going on, much of it aimed at reducing the obvious obstacles. Searching the engineering and scientific literature for the last five years on the word combination “geothermal” and “research” yields over 100,000 technical articles. That is a lot of research.
So there it is. Geothermal energy is potentially the second fracking revolution. No question the heat is there, thanks to the big molten ball we call Earth. And now we suddenly have the technology to create the infrastructure needed to tap into it. How practical it is, and how acceptable, still remains to be seen. Interesting times lie ahead.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/12/14/the-geothermal-energy-revolution/
Please share this. Fracked geothermal may destabilize the renewables industry.
David
21
David,…
Is this any different to the “EGS “…Enhaned Geothermal System….. that has been in use since the ‘70’s ?…
IE, from Wiki…
A brief review seems to show that the proceedure has a troublesome track record , with several projects being abandoned after initial trials for reasons ranging from Economic viability , to initiation of earthquakes ??
Even Australia threw money at this back in 2007 ( Cooper Basin , 25MW ) but also abandoned after initial production proved uneconomic., and the company switched to Wind Power development ?
But maybe you are talking about somethin completely different ??
10
A good summary..
https://youtu.be/-Ss_wHCS1Aw
00
It is still called EGS but with modern fracking technology.
10
[Duplicate]
00
This cannot save the renewables industry. Thais capacity will not power the EV fleet if ICEs are banned.
Not only but also: If geothermal plants are to be used solely to smooth wind/solar outputs the actual costs of this technology must be added into the cost/mWh of of renewable power, not cost-shifted to some other technology. What I am saying is that if geo works it should be run efficiently to maximise benefit to the grid, not used as a bandaid for other technologies.
30
Potentially (in theory ?)….EGS Geothermal could suooly more than enough power for all Australia,s needs for thousands of years!
The single development plant at Paralunga SA alone has potential for 13 GW of electrical generation..but Wind &Solar have attracted most of the RE development funding and investors away…so the project is stalled….Deep well drilling is expensive and time consuming !
Geothermal has recieved hardly any of the multi billion dollar “Clean Energy Fund”
there are other sites and projects with much greater potential, also suffering from lack of Federal or private funding.
1.0% of Australia’s Geothermal potential is equivalent to 12,000 times our electrical consumption
and remember , Geothermal is the only RE generation source that can supply continuously !
it is a true “Base Load” substitute .using mostly current proven technology and equipment.
10
Except it doesn’t supply continuously, even in NZ. Even in Rotorua the plant has to drill new shafts and also throttle back production t maintain the Geysers for the tourists.
20
“Enen in NZ”…?
NZ has many GT plants, some 60+ years old !…
I dont know the details of specific plants, or how they are operated to meet demand,…..but from the published output data, most of them have CF rates above 80%, and several above 90%.
.. That is “ continuous supply” in most peoples definition of power generation
11
This explains the issues at Rotorua…
https://nzgeothermal.org.nz/nz_geo_fields/rotorua-geothermal-system/
20
Indeed, my point is that it would take hundreds of thousands of MW to make renewables work just in the US. The 60kMW study was done by the Geothermal Office in DOE’s renewables shop. They are not about to admit that wind and solar need help.
10
Hanrahan says wisely “If geothermal plants are to be used solely to smooth wind/solar outputs the actual costs of this technology must be added into the cost/mWh of of renewable power, not cost-shifted to some other technology. What I am saying is that if geo works it should be run efficiently to maximise benefit to the grid, not used as a bandaid for other technologies.”
However, I am now also using a CNO (cost no object) scenario, because that is what we see unfolding. Our energy systems are being taken over by a social movement (along with a lot of other things besides energy). Here in the US the utilities have jumped on the green CNO wagon because they make a fortune. The more they spend, the more they make and reliability no longer matters.
My hope is actually that fracked geothermal destabilizes the renewables fad.
10
the fiber-optic step-up of the world; etc. https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-fiber-optic-step-up-of-world-etc.html
more election fraud testimony
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/12/more-election-fraud-testimony.html
30
Here’s a case of attacking the messenger rather than the message
Smartmatic have sent legal notices to Fox News, One America News, and Newsmax saying they “helped spread false and defamatory claims that are not supported by real evidence and could easily have been debunked with basic research” and are asking for full retractions on their reports.
They have NOT launched libel proceedings towards the accusers (Guiliani, Powell etc), themselves which all smacks of further cover-up. What a farce this election continues to be.
Voting technology company sends legal notices to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets over ‘disinformation campaign’
60
It must be a fun/enlightening time to work at the Aus, and be at editorial meetings. The weekend edition had an article from Bob Carr, lovingly fondling the ‘Paris Accord’. You know that treaty, where if everybody did what they say they would do, they would solve 1% of the problem scientists say we have. Then there was a top of the page, headlined article, in the business section, where Perry Williams breathlessly summarized a CSIRO analysis, saying the wind and solar are the go, being now cheaper than carbon based/nuclear options, even at 100% of the network. Then on the back page of the business section Terry McCrann dumped on the same analysis from a great height. “Dodgy? Dishonest? Disgraceful? Pathetic?” It turns out that it is only in the small print that the analysis mentions their way of reaching these conclusions. All that is required is to work out the total costs of going 100% green, then slap on a carbon tax, high enough to make coal/gas more expensive, ($275/$390 a ton in 2050), e voila, renewables are the cheapest! You have to give them balls for keeping a straight face.
On a lighter note, a couple of lovely quotes from WUWT comments – “China’s leader, Xi must marvel at how easy it is to dupe (or buy off) Western politicians. No wonder he thinks he ought to be running the whole world. He’s surrounded by idiots.”
“As a Brit, I can attest that the BBC has its’ head so far up its’ own climate change backside, you can no longer determine the colour of its’ socks.”
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virus increase/day rates
Brazil 37/701= 5.3% increase/day last 5 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/
…………………………
Russia 27/500= 5.4% increase/day last 2 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia
……………………….
India 24/320= 7.5% increase/day last 2 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india
…………………………………
Germany 20/340= 5.9% increase/day last 2 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany
…………………………………………
USA 200/6560= 3% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us
……………………………………………….I
Iran 7.6/232.5= 3.3% increase/day last 2 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran
……………………………………..
Indonesia 5.5/88= 6.2% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/indonesia
……………………………………………………
Turkey 29/192= 15% increase/day last 2 days ave. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/turkey
…………..
infected with COVID-19 in Yichang, Hubei Province: a total of 200 patients confirmed with COVID-19 in a designated hospital in Yichang from Jan 30 to Feb 8, 2020 were investigated retrospectively. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_QoGAgtWoMkJ:https://biomedres.us/fulltexts/BJSTR.MS.ID.
004459.php+&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
On Feb. 5, 2020 Wuhan now reported 10,117 cases in total https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_February_2020
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2019-nCoV joins the four coronaviruses now circulating in people. “I can imagine a scenario where this becomes a fifth endemic human coronavirus,” said Stephen Morse of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, an epidemiologist and expert on emerging infectious diseases. “We don’t pay much attention to them because they’re so mundane,” especially compared to seasonal flu.
Although little-known outside health care and virology circles, the current four “are already part of the winter-spring seasonal landscape of respiratory disease,” Adalja said. Two of them, OC43 and 229E, were discovered in the 1960s but had circulated in cows and bats, respectively, for centuries. The others, HKU1 and NL63, were discovered after the 2003-2004 SARS outbreak, also after circulating in animals. It’s not known how long they’d existed in people before scientists noticed, but since they jumped from animals to people before the era of virology, it isn’t known whether that initial jump triggered widespread disease. https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/
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Aussie Resources Minister: UN Climate Emergency Demand an “Inconsequential “Grand Statement”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/15/aussie-resources-minister-un-climate-emergency-demand-an-inconsequential-grand-statement/
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AS you read this, think of the Largest consumers of electrical power. There are five States on the grid, but two of them, South Australia, (6.4%) and Tasmania (5.3%) are such small consumers, that they can get by with fiddling around at the edges with renewables, (S.A. wind and Tas Hydro) and in the overall scheme of things are at the margin of power generation and consumption, as it all happens in the big three States.
So we have those big three States consuming 88.3% of all generated power, 180TWH a year. (or even 180,000,000,000KWH for those who have a small (average) rooftop solar power system delivering around 12KWH a day.)
Imagine you are a left leaning State Premier, with a left leaning Energy Minister.
Imagine the Kudos you will get if you just tell the people that to reach ‘Carbon Neutral’, you will closing down those filthy disgusting ancient coal fired power plants. Now there’s that State Premier’s job locked up for as long as you want to stay in the job.
So, umm, why hasn’t that happened then? Oh, and of far more importance, if not now, straight away, then ….. how soon will that be happening then?
That 88.3% of the grid is not a bunch of households with panels on the roof, and all that is needed is more panels on more roofs.
No, it’s serious power consumers, power consumers which CANNOT be powered by a few more panels on a few more roofs. It’s whole Cities with myriads of high rise buildings, It’s commerce, the shops you use. It’s schools, it’s hospitals, it’s well, night time. It’s workplaces, it’s industry, it’s, well, it’s everything really.
And of major importance it’s an average 25,500MW EVERY HOUR of every day, and now consider this, 18,000MW to just keep the Country ticking over while all of us are sound asleep, and realistically, not ….. personally using one watt of power.
That’s serious power consumption, and it requires some serious power generation, and that has to be there all the time.
So no, State Premiers and their Energy Ministers will NOT be turning off those coal fired power plants any time soon, at least until they have new plants which CAN deliver that sort of power, and here in Australia, that will be, hey, surprise surprise, new coal fired power plants.
Nothing else can deliver those levels of power which are required absolutely. You can’t just arbitrarily say ….. let’s make economies on power consumption, as economies of that scale, say, tens of thousands of MegaWatts are impossible.
So, no matter what you are told by talking head politicians of any political persuasion, they will not be closing down those critical coal fired plants any time soon.
Now then, consider New South Wales, which wants to close down that ancient old clunker at Liddell. NSW consumes 35.8% of all the Country’s power. The State is a nett importer of power, as 8% of all its power (5,800GWH) is imported from the two States it borders on, Victoria and Queensland, and of that 5800GWH, three quarters of it comes from Qld, all of it coal fired power as is the power also imported from Victoria. Incidentally that yearly total of 5800GWH of just imported power is one third of South Australia’s yearly consumption.
Liddel delivers (around) 7500GWH a year to the NSW grid. So, when Liddell closes that’s extra power needed to be found from somewhere, serious 24/7 power, as that’s what Liddell currently delivers.
And Queensland, well, it is a nett exporter of power, all of it to NSW and all of it coal fired power. 88% of all the generated power in Queensland is coal fired power, and one finding from the recent (mid 20 teens) 50% Renewables Inquiry was that …. NO coal fired plants will be closed in the foreseeable future. Oh, and that coal fired power exported to NSW does not count as emissions in Qld, as the power is consumed in NSW, and that was told to me by an Inquiry panel member face to face.
If they can artfully say that with a straight face, you can get an inkling as to what ‘Carbon Neutral’ will actually mean, more weasel words from mealy mouthed hypocrites who will NOT tell the truth about power generation.
People wonder why I am so confident that there is a long future for coal fired power. It always comes back to that 18000MW Base Load, the minimum daily power consumption across Australia. That 18000MW per day equates to 153,000GWH of power consumed in a year.
Those four renewables, wind, solar plants and rooftop solar and hydro currently deliver 53,000GWH a year.
Some time soon, a politician will umm and ahh as he or she attempts to explain why those coal fired plants will not be closing any time soon. It will happen, and that time is now getting closer.
Tony.
140
Quite right Tony.
The 3 ways of generating enough reliable supply for a grid in Australia are coal or gas fired (as CCGT) or nuclear. Out politicians have, mostly, stopped drilling for gas and have banned nuclear outright. Then some, like Mat Kean in NSW want to shut down coal fired. I can only assume that either he expects to leave politics shortly or that he is very, very stupid.
The problem is that too many like him cannot grasp reality and will delay any up-grading of reliable generation until it is too late to prevent major black outs.
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(A)
(B)
(C) Naah! Look, let’s leave that task of telling the public for someone else years from now, you know, after I’ve retired on my protected parliamentary superannuation.
Tony.
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Wow putting that figure of 180TWH and converting it to KWH is something I’ve never thought of and doesn’t that make solar stand out as being irrelevant.
20
Ah, but what of those demanding that we increase our population via immigration? Will the new arrivals bring their own generators?
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Climate Activist Aussie Politicians Leap to Rescue Vital Coal Power Plants
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/15/climate-activist-aussie-politicians-leap-to-rescue-a-vital-coal-power-plants/
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No law enforcement agency in any country is currently investigating the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.
A joint investigation between Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, has discovered voluminous telecom and travel data that implicates Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning of the prominent Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Moreover, the August 2020 poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk appears to have happened after years of surveillance, which began in 2017 shortly after Navalny first announced his intention to run for president of Russia. Throughout 2017, and again in 2019 and 2020, FSB operatives from a clandestine unit specialized in working with poisonous substances shadowed Navalny during his trips across Russia, traveling alongside him on more than 30 overlapping flights to the same destinations. It is also possible there were earlier attempts to poison Navalny, including one in the Western Russian city of Kaliningrad only a month before the near-fatal Novichok poisoning in Siberia.
Alexey Alexandrov (39), Ivan Osipov (44) – both medical doctors – and Vladimir Panyaev (40). These three were supported and supervised by at least five more FSB operatives, some of whom also traveled to Omsk, where Navalny had been hospitalized. Members of the unit communicated with one another throughout the trip, with sudden peaks of communication just before the poisoning as well as during the night-time hours (Moscow time) when Navalny left his hotel and headed to the Tomsk airport.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/
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It interests me how critical we are of the human rights abuses levelled at China. What about the human rights abuses of Big Pharma all over the world when they are happier to see thousands die of Covid rather than let hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin plus zinc be considered and promoted as cures. Could it possibly be that they get in the way of the trillions that they’ll make with their medications and vaccines? Nah. Money couldn’t possibly be that powerful. Could it?
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Ingrate! Pharma Lawyer Family & Co are thinking purely of Granny, and the children, and don’t forget the children’s children, and the planet…
Always thinking of their planet: Plan It, Profit!™
twisted humour / off
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ANY treatment will be deliberately suppressed because if a cheap, effective treatment were found the $gazilions flowing into big pharma to develop a vaccination under “Operation Warp Speed” and the subsequent rivers of gold into the coffers of successful developers would be put at risk.
Then there is the political gamesmanship: Every death can be hung around Trump’s neck like an albatross. thousands of deaths are simply collateral damage, like Obama droning a wedding party.
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[Duplicate]
00
“Since the mid-80s the Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the entire world — a phenomenon the vast majority of scientists agree is the direct result of human-induced climate change.”
This claim is made in an online ABC article today, entitled “The Vanishing Arctic”.
I would contact the ABC and ask for the source of that claim, but I know they would simply obfuscate and lie.
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This claim reminds me of Glacier Girl, a P 38, part of a lost squadron which landed, intact, on a Greenland glacier. They know the exact sate, 15 July 1942, and of course the know the depth of the ice – zero feet.
50 years later she was extracted from under 300 ft of ice. These real life examples of thing NOT changing are ignored by alarmists.
Another fact is that 70 years ago I lived in a low lying suburb where king tides came up the gutter in front of the house. Dad put some cinders in the back yard to keep it dry. Every one still lives there, happy in the knowledge that occasionally they will get salt water in the streets. No levees have been built, real estate is still on the high side because it is an otherwise a desirable suburb.
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A fascinating story.
Were the three planes covered with ice and snow or did they sink down.
Or didn’t anyone check?
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I have a well ordered sleep pattern: I sleep when I can’t stay awake and I’m awake when I can’t sleep. So I checked out this site in the wee hours and while this thread was open there were no comments at the time but some bright spark had already scored the thread 1:10. WHY???
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Curiouser and Curiouser…
– Bill Barr steps down
-BREAKING: Attorney Phill Kline and IT Expert J.R. Carlson Presser Wednesday Exposing Mark Zuckerberg’s Dark Money Cash for Chaos
– Breaking: Pentagon Imposes Emergency Shutdown of Its Secret Internet Protocol Router Network – Handles Classified Information Up to the Secret Level
– BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Owners of SolarWinds Have Links to Obama, the Clintons, China, Hong Kong and the US Election Process
In context with Executive Order 1348
00
87% of Australian dermatologists are Vit D3 deficient. Who’s surprised?
Dr Holick, in an address in Denmark, showed a pic of an Australian dermatologist fully clothed, hat, jap-flap and sunscreen on his face. Tested for D3 he was deficient as were 87% of his colleagues.
Slip, slap, slop, like so many well-meaning campaigns is a disaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuWC2d0mTbo
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So we can’t blame CO2 for east coast lows ?
https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/Impacts-of-climate-change/East-Coast-Lows/Past-East-Coast-Lows?fbclid=IwAR2qV0f2ZFs-kur0PpQg-6dHb8kQxXIuEcYyDNKIcpMnUpgdfdbKRbcekkg
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They are calling it severe weather, technically its not an ECL, but looking ahead they expect a strong cyclone season.
‘Recent severe weather is a sign of what is to come this summer, the Bureau of Meteorology says, with the predicted La Niña event to reach a “similar strength” to the system that brought Cyclone Yasi and major flooding to Queensland nearly a decade ago.’ (Weatherzone)
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I think that they were buried under snow, must have become a glacier since one of the b17s was also found but the forces exerted on it had damaged it beyond salvage. It’s said the location of another plane has been identified recently, deep in the ice.
20
‘Over the decades, the ever-shifting ice sheets of Greenland buried the aircraft, known as the Lost Squadron, under between 250 and 300 feet of ice. Fifty years later, in 1992, one of the P-38s was extracted from the ice and restored to flying condition: the infamous Glacier Girl.’ (Popular Mechanics)
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For those that like the Bob Ross show but not Democrats .
https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1F8v5FgKuvrKENMnhKdvmQDeTRtubf6fKbXwnGXtcFDeUZwFfnmVBZujA&v=iVbtfk4XnEg&feature=youtu.be
00
### Excellent. !
Particularly like the…”How to Paint like a Biden “
10
WUWT goes on a war footing.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/16/wuwt-big-changes-returning-to-a-war-footing-on-climate/
00
If this ten year old coal fired power station in WA is supposedly worthless I’ll buy it for $100 !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-17/bluewaters-coal-fired-power-station-written-off-books/12990532
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ET Radio.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/space/planet-radio-signal-solar-system-b1775433.html
I don’t know what is actually causing these radio waves to come from that planet, but the simplest stereotypical explanation is lightning bolts in that planet’s atmosphere. High charge current raises gas temperature, thermal energy boosts electron orbits and ejects some of them making a plasma, potential equalizes so current dies off, plasma condenses, electrons crash back to the old levels and release the borrowed energy as electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies. That’s also how earthly lightning strikes are detected at long range.
That’s the most likely way this extra-solar planet functions as an extraterrestrial radio like Jupiter does.
00