Monday, February 26, 2018

26 February - JoNova

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Electricity prices fell for forty years in Australia, then renewables came…
Electricity prices declined for forty years. Obviously that had to stop. Here’s is the last 65 years of Australian electricity prices — indexed and adjusted for inflation. During the coal boom, Australian electricity prices declined decade after decade. As renewables and national energy bureaucracies grew, so did the price of electricity. Must be a coincidence… Today all the hard-won masterful eff
Wind farm blades damaged after just a few years at sea — hundreds need repair
Image of offshore wind farms. Baltic Sea Wikimedia | Mariusz Paździora We are trying to collect dilute erratic energy, spread over hundreds of square kilometers in windy, salty, and wet conditions with machines that spin at 330km/hour. What could possibly go wrong? From: “Offshore wind fiasco” at GWPF – The original story in Danish. Ørsted must repair up to 2,000 wind turbine blades because the l
The climate litigation of California councils appears to be caught in a hypocritical death spiral
California councils sue Exxon but Exxon fights back: Will that be Fake Fear or Fake Bonds? ‘Cross Examination Is Going To Be Brutal’: NYU Law Prof Says Climate Change Litigation Is A Loser Some Californian councils launched climate litigation against Exxon because they will be wiped out by floods. But at the same time the same councils issued bonds and forgot to mention that the local area was goi

FEB 24

Weekend Unthreaded
… Rating: 9.4/10 (16 votes cast) Rating: 9.4/ 10 (16 votes cast)

FEB 21

Christopher Booker gets serious about understanding “Groupthink”
We toss the term Groupthink around a lot, but Christopher Booker gets serious about exactly what it is and what it means. He analyzes the “Climate Change” debate through the lens of the original scientific study of Groupthink as published by Irving Janis, a professor of psychology at Yale back in the 1970s. It’s uncanny… Obviously we need to understand it so we can preventlimit it. But Groupthink

FEB 19

Save Liddell Coal: Event Thursday in Singleton with David Archibald 6:30pm
Liddell Coal Plant, NSW. Image: Webaware, Wikimedia UPDATE: 6:30pm for a 6:45 start. AGL has promised to close the Liddell Coal generators early. Why won’t they sell this generator? Perhaps they want to save the planet (Corporate Saints?!), or maybe is it better for business not to have another cheap coal plant competing with their profitable gas and subsidized-renewables generators in Australia?
Midweek Unthreaded
…. Rating: 7.3/10 (15 votes cast) Rating: 7.3/ 10 (15 votes cast)
New climate forcings discovered: Girls Education, Pill, changes weather
Funny how the answer to everything always turns out to be a pet lefty cause? TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE, EDUCATE GIRLS AND GIVE THEM BIRTH CONTROL Robyn George Andrews has a paradigm shaker: if we could just keep girls in school, and give them contraception — droughts, floods and nasty storms will go away. I wonder if condoms are better than the pill for climate control? Andrews seems to think that i

FEB 18

It’s not cold, it’s a “warming hole”
Brought to you by the Theory That Can Never Be Wrong — what’s the opposite of hot? A hole! Next time you are feeling cold you will know you are in a hole instead. Stop digging. h/t Climate Depot Snow-covered beaches? Chilly iguanas? They are part of a mysterious ‘hole’ in global warming BY STUART LEAVENWORTH, February 15, 2018 05:00 AM … “according to a scientific study published this month, the

FEB 17

Weekend Unthreaded
Just another day at a suburban beach in Perth at sunset. See the hordes… Clearly Perth has too many beaches. The weekly wrap: Renewables will have a minor place, As future power for the human race. Renewables can’t make the Vic. grid blossom, Because of debris and a brushtailed possum. Some eco-activists have necks of brass, To shut a pipeline and its flow of gas. The I.P.C.C. leaks a warming sca
‘The Illusion Of Debate’—A History of the Climate Issue: Part 2 (2009 – 2011)
Here’s the long-awaited followup to Part 1: The history of the Climate Debate from 1850 -2008, where history is tragedy reënacted as comedy, adapted for irony and syndicated as sarcasm. By Brad Keyes from Climate Nuremberg (whose motto is Deride And Conquer). — Jo Guest Post by Brad Keyes 2009 Documents liberated in the so-called Climategate leaks don’t show any impropriety on The Scientists’™ pa

FEB 16

How much do we have to pay people to NOT use electricity – up to 30 times more?
To understand the real value of electricity, consider the price at which people will give it up. “Demand Response” is the nice euphemism for a voluntary blackout. At what point do people volunteer to go without? For most of the market, apparently, it’s more than $7500/MWh. If I read this graph correctly, look how fast the prices rise, and how small the response is. For example, in South Australia

FEB 15

Surprise, IPCC draft report leaked, on cue, ready to be milked for another round of press
Six months to go and why waste a perfectly good press opportunity? Hold on to your hat: This draft is almost the same as every other draft ever was. A draft United Nations climate science report contains dire news about the warming of the planet, suggesting it will likely cross the key marker of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of temperature rise in the 2040s, and that this will be

FEB 14

Tim Ball wins — Andrew Weaver case dismissed after 7 years
Great news (though how low is our bar, that it’s “great” that after seven long expensive years Tim Ball can speak freely?). As reported on WUWT: Tim Ball’s free-speech victory over Andrew Weaver – all charges dismissed! Anthony Watts: I got word tonight from David Ball, son of Dr. Tim Ball via Facebook messenger: This morning the judge dismissed all charges in the lawsuit brought against Tim by B
More afraid of Climate Change Yeti than going to jail
“Valve Turners” in action. The Hi-vis vest will help a lot if that gas leaks. The Five “Valve Turners” broke in and turned off valves on the Keystone Pipeline and four other cross-border pipelines — in Washington, Montana and Minnesota. They are in their fifties and sixties and brave enough to risk jail, but not apparently brave enough to read skeptical material that might show that the actions t

FEB 13

Third blackout in Victoria — blame the possums
Australia has a gold plated network, which is why our electricity is so expensive. However we also have gold plated possums: Distributor blames possums for third power outage More than 20,000 homes in Melbourne’s southeast had another night without electricity on Sunday, the third major power outage for Victoria in three weeks. An Ausnet spokeswoman confirmed 23,915 customers were left without po

FEB 12

Midweek Unthreaded
Rating: 7.1/10 (16 votes cast) Rating: 7.1/ 10 (16 votes cast)

FEB 11

EIA estimates for USA in 2050: The Future is Fossil Fuels and Cheap Electricity
What energy transformation? The EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2018 is out. The hard heads at the US Dept of Energy crunched the numbers, assumed technology will improve, and modeled the outcomes. According to their best estimates (and even their “worst” estimates) thirty years from now, the main energy source for the US is natural gas and fossil fuels. Renewables grows from 5% to 14%, but coal, nukes,

FEB 10

Weekend Unthreaded
… Rating: 8.1/10 (30 votes cast) Rating: 8.1/ 10 (30 votes cast)

FEB 09

Climate change creates free real estate in Tuvalu: “climate refugees” can all go home
The Green Blob is going to have to get rid of satellites. Real data is so inconvenient. For years many people called scientists have assumed, like any smart 5 year old would, that islands are fixed blobs of rock and sand that just sit there and sink as oceans rise. Now satellite images show that three quarters of the islands in Tuvalu are growing rather than shrinking. Total land area is up 2.9%.
China and the imaginary EV “market”
With headlines like these, you might think that electric vehicles are competitive: China holds the keys to the electric car revolution - “In the third quarter, global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) soared 63 percent” –Business Insider You might think your nation is way behind: Australia debates value of electric vehicles while China pushes ahead In 2017, 652,000 plug-in battery cars were sold in
Battery acid spills at SA star “Green’ hospital – and blackouts as Doctors operate
…. Complexity has a price Royal Adelaide Hospital, dubbed the “third most expensive building in the world” is doing more to help with global climate control than any other first world hospital. But a few weeks ago some of the planet saving batteries leaked all over the floor. The government has claimed it [Royal Adelaide Hospital] produces half the greenhouse gas emissions of other hospitals. Sha

FEB 07

Panic! Put up a solar panel or tourism will lose $40b in Australia. (Sure, and people “want” cold holidays.)
Another variation of Climate-Panic was unleashed today on hapless tourism operators. The whole entire $40b tourism industry in Australia is at risk apparently. Here are three points the doom-mongers and our “journalists” didn’t think of: People like hot weather holidays. “Climate change” (if it happens) would mean longer beach seasons, more greenery, and coral reefs could spread. Average temperat

FEB 06

Scandal: BoM ignores major site changes at iconic, historic, Sydney Observatory. Sloppy or deliberate?
Australia’s oldest and most iconic site has changed dramatically, but major site changes are not even being recorded. The way the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) treat this site says a lot about the unscientific, shoddy, biased standards it uses at sites everywhere. This was their headquarters. Experts walked past new walls, construction and highways, yet they didn’t record them? Beggars belief. Just

FEB 05

Midweek Unthreaded
…. Rating: 8.8/10 (15 votes cast) Rating: 8.8/ 10 (15 votes cast)
Before climate change: Falling rocks set fire to 10% of land, trigger mini ice age for 1000 years
Another day, another apocalypse. Life in a perfect climate Poor sods. After 90,000 dismal cold years things were finally just warming up when a bunch of comet fragments from a a 62 mile-wide comet, crashed into our atmosphere. It was around 13,000 years ago, and the fireballs started the ultimate black Saturday blaze which converted 10 million square kilometers of wilderness into unauthorized carb

FEB 04

Weekend Unthreaded
… Rating: 9.5/10 (19 votes cast) Rating: 9.5/ 10 (19 votes cast)

FEB 03

The People Versus the Deep State: FBI working as a wing of the Democrats
Everyone is talking about The Nunes memo, possibly because the bigger implications of what it reveals — something like an attempted coup. Explosive. Corruption at the highest level. Big Claims: Bigger than Watergate. Tip of the Iceberg. More Memos to come. This thread covers the most interesting things I’ve read. First up, some very provocative talk. Further down, elected Reps. speaking I presume

FEB 02

AEMC wants input on how to save Australia’s Electricity Grid — Due Monday Feb 6th
AEMC is the Australian Energy Market Commission. It’s “the rule maker for Australian Electricity and gas markets”. They make the National Electricity, Gas, and Energy Retail rules. There are a lot of government bureacracies. AEMC sound more influential than most, and they are asking for consultation, but by Monday. There will be a chance to comment in March, but I know some readers have material
Trump’s State of the Union: Australians may have no idea
Something great is happening in the US Here’s a smattering of US news that isn’t being heard much in Australia. 75% of Americans liked Trump’s speech, and 80% felt proud. Trumps tax reforms means companies are returning to the US for the first time in decades. (How will Australia compete?) In the last month, approval for his tax bill has tripled as people figure out they will get to keep more of t

FEB 01

JCU bans Prof Peter Ridd from criticizing scientific institutions. Defiant, he refuses, fights on!
UPDATE: Funding target reached already. Thank you! I am astonished, very relieved and most importantly incredibly grateful for the support. I would also particularly like to thank Anthony, Jennifer Marohasy, Jo Nova, Willie Soon, Benny Peiser and many others for getting the issue up on blogs and spreading the word. Kind regards, Peter _________________________ JCU is trying (and failing) to gag Pe

JAN 31

Blood moon eclipse
Perth was lucky enough to see a full blood moon eclipse last night (and at a sensible hour). The red color comes as sunlight passes through dust, and became much more obvious once we got half the moon covered. It was also a supermoon and a so-called blue moon (being the second full moon in January). h/t Tom Q. Thanks for the call. Blood Moon, Super Moon, Blue Moon. Photo, Jan 2018 With a differen
Mystery: Australian electricity costs rise six times faster than wages – up another 12%
More bad luck for the renewables industry. Despite providing free energy from the sun and wind, electricity prices keep rising relentlessly, shockingly fast. Even doubling in wholesale costs in South Australia and Victoria. It was supposed to be cheap to collect low-level-energy across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Who knew that subsidized, unreliable energy would induce volatile pr

JAN 30

Midweek Unthreaded
Ideas that don’t belong… Rating: 7.7/10 (26 votes cast) Rating: 7.7/ 10 (26 votes cast)
Eucalyptus trees cope fine with extreme heatwaves, defy climate models, survive 50C temps
What happens to a poor tree when you withhold rain for a whole month, then hit it with four days in a row of 43C temperatures? It was so hot, some of the leaves on these trees got close to 49-50 °C. In at least one gum species in Australia, the answer is “not much”. They suck up lots of water from their deep roots and sweat it out til the heatwave passes. The trees become evaporative coolers “sip

JAN 28

Political Vandals: Victoria, the diesel state, bans, hides, cheap cleaner gas, blames fuses, air conditioners
How much do we hate Lignite Gas? Victoria is suffering the largest rises in wholesale electricity prices in the country, as it sits on large gas fields that it won’t touch. Why — geniuses hope to reduce global droughts and floods and sea level in 2100. Robert Gottleibsen savages the state governments that conducted the renewables experiment without mentioning the real costs or the cheap alternativ
Melbourne: 42,000 homes in dark, no fans left at Kmart. Power outages due to “secret” air conditioners?
Melbourne Skyline at night…Image: Alfred Glickman The temperature reached 38C in Melbourne (100F) on Sunday — something it has probably done most summers since 10,000BC. CitiPower, Powercor and the United Energy spokeswoman Emma Tyner said that as of 9.25pm, about 41,190 homes were without power across those three networks. – Sydney Morning Herald Now why would that be? Ms Tyner puts a lack of su

JAN 26

Trump landmark Davos speech “unleashes hell” on vampire squid, crony, self serving globalists
Trump — speaking Truth to power. Creating 2.4million jobs. The networking parasites will hate it. The full text of his speech at Davos. UPDATE: Worth watching. He is quite the statesman. He could have used the economic success to laud himself, to scorn those who mocked him, but instead he is saying — This is what we’re doing. It’s working brilliantly. You can do it too. He’s talking about how tax
Weekend Unthreaded
Sorry, busy today. Rating: 7.7/10 (27 votes cast) Rating: 7.7/ 10 (27 votes cast)

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