The climate change debate continues.

[willedoo]

23 hours ago, spacesailor said:

  "  Kerry has. I saw today that Germany is back on coal and oil at present as weather conditions have shut down their renewables. "

Told you so. then comes the heavy snow, then Ice, and before you know it the rail, lines are blocked. 

so

No coal either !.

spacesailor

spacey, that's why Nord Stream 2 is so important to the Germans. Just turn on the tap and the gas flows. The Yanks want to stop it so they can supply Germany with shipped LNG at twice the price, and prop up the U.S. shale gas industry. Politics and energy seem to be intertwined.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Looks like power generation outages due to weather isn't restricted to renewables: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-walmart-closes-stores-winter-storms-b1803083.html

 

Yes, I get it is extreme weather rather than the skies clouding over or absence of wind.. but at the moment, there is plenty of wind in Texas (more than the notmal hot air that is blown about).. and there is normally plenty of sun...

 

Ironic, the more extreme weather events that have caused the fossil generators to pack up (and I am guessing it is not the turbines or the furnaces that have packed up) is caused by climate change/warming...

 

 

[old man emu]

6 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-walmart-closes-stores-winter-storms-b1803083.html

From that story:

Judge Lina Hidalgo in Harris County, Texas, described the situation as “dire,” and said that she planned to demand answers from ERCOT about the massive power failure. "Why wasn’t ERCOT prepared? We all knew this weather was coming, so why did they not have electricity ready and stored? 

 

And there you have the explanation of why Trump won Texas.

 

I bet she believes in centrifu

[nomadpete]

Nothing wrong with Judge Lina's statement.

 

The grid needs storage to use on occassions like this.

 

The power companies did their economic risk assessment and decided the initial cost was too high to give a profitable return when things go pear shaped.

 

That's how capitalism works.

 

Besides, building the extra grid reliability might put consumer power bills up by a couple of dollars a year, and then everyone would complain about gold plating the system.

 

PS pumped storage relies on centrifugal force!

Edited February 17, 2021 by nomadpete
sarcasm added

[Yenn]

Nomad. Shame on you Emu baiting should be a crime.

[red750]

I received this thought provoking video by email.

 

[red750]

Another email:

 

GRETA and her Fairy Godmother.

One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world, one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverized with rocks. “What’s this?” she asked.

 

“Pulverized willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother.

 

“What happened to the carpet?” she asked.

 

“The carpet was nylon, which is made from butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response.

 

Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles.

 

“Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.”

 

“Where’s the water?” asked Greta.

 

“Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, ‘Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it”

 

“Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish.

 

“Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?”

There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tires and how ore has to be smelted to a make metal, and that’s tough to do with only electricity as a source of heat, and even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tires and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . .

 

“What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting.

 

"Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “Raw.”

 

“How so, raw?” inquired Greta.

 

“Well, . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up and start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore.

 

“But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta.

 

“Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.”

 

“What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.”

 

“Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing - being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.”

 

This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet.

 

Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesized.

 

[pmccarthy]

All very true and the reason we need to challenge the global warming myth. CO2 is a plant nutrient!

I have seen the argument that the precautionary principle suggest we  act as if global warming is real. But the consequences to the environment of solar+wind are dire.

edit- referring to Red's video

Edited February 18, 2021 by pmccarthy

[willedoo]

11 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Looks like power generation outages due to weather isn't restricted to renewables: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-walmart-closes-stores-winter-storms-b1803083.html

The article didn't say what caused the problem. Did the storm bring down power transmission lines or was it demand outpacing available supply causing the shortages?

[octave]

I don't know of any serious person who suggests that we should just instantly switch from fossil fuels.  The question is whether we conclude that humanity has reached the peak of energy production technology or whether as in the past we are though to newer technologies.  The notion that we are going to shut down coal plants and sit in the dark is nonsense. Most people understand the need to reduce CO2 but I suspect are not willing to suffer hardship.

 

A few years ago some people banged on that  moving towards renewables would lead to less reliability and higher cost but this has not turned out to be true.  Electricity prices have fallen.  Can post a link if you like.    My own power company Powershop just reduced my price by almost 3 cents a KWh and the daily supply charge.   This power company sources its power mainly from renewable 

in terms of renewables being useless from my personal view it seems pretty good. 

 

We use about 4MWh a year and generate from my rooftop solar around 6MWh a year. This leaves a surplus of around 2MWh a year.  Of course the obvious problem is that after sundown we do need to draw from somewhere. At the moment this is the grid but we are considering a battery which would make us independent.  This is not economic at the moment if cheapness is the only question however most purchases are not made purely on economy.   There is the feeling of independence and also of being on the leading edge of exciting change.   Battery technology is progressing rapidly and it wont be long before renewables with storage will be the obvious choice.    

 

Remember when ScoMo scoffed at the Tesla battery is SA likening it to a tourist attraction such as the big banana?    That comment did not age well with it making masses of money and helping to reduce wholesale energy prices.   Since then many grid scale batteries have been commissioned around the world because they make economic sense.  One is to be built down the road from me.

 

Neoen and Tesla get to work on Australia’s biggest battery near Geelong

 

So often scare tactics  are used, "if we don't burn coal we will return to the stone age."   Throughout history technology has, through research and effort become cleaner and more efficient.  There is no reason to believe that we have reach peak efficiency in our energy production methods.   Although I accept the science regarding climate change and I favour  and in fact I am excited by newer cleaner technologies I am certainly not an advocate of going backwards, I love my modern conveniences far too much.

 

 

[onetrack]

Even though I've relied on fossil fuel for my business and income for a very large part of my life, I don't have a problem with generating a lot more renewable power, and reducing the amount of pollution we create by burning fossil fuels. That pollution is just not limited to CO2. It's also very large quantities of carbon particles and other chemicals that affect our lower levels of air quality.

 

Solar panels may be pooh-poohed as being inefficient - but with the vast unpopulated area we have in Australia, with many of the remote regions receiving nearly endless sun, means we alone could generate enough solar power to keep the whole world running.

 

Storage of that solar power generated, is the $64 question of course, but I'm sure we'll see a vast array of different types and modes of storage, before too many years are gone.

I'd be happy to just see fossil fuels relegated to a small portion of our economies, as we're all aware we still need oil and gas in modest amounts. 

 

The fossil fuel "pushers" fail to address the argument that fossil fuels have a very finite life, and the end of oil has been predicted many times.

Even though the end of oil has not come yet, it is well known and understood that the worlds largest oil reserves are now only a small percentage of what they were originally.

The same goes for both coal and natural gas - even the giant NW Shelf gas fields off W.A. are already suffering a decline in surface gas pressure, and they have only been tapped for a little over 35 years.

[spacesailor]

Funny Thing !.

That all the oil we use in our car engine is Dumped.

IT should be recycled like All other Important things. Seven hills NSW Had a used oil recycle depot, that filtered the oil for reuse.

Gone, by other's, wanting a greater share in their depot.

were does Your oil end up ?, mine gets poured over fencing stumps on someone's land.

What a waste !.

spacesailor

[onetrack]

Spacey - It's actually illegal to dump waste oil under Environmental Acts. All the workshops I know, and just about all the farms, put their waste oil into tanks or drums for recycling.

Recycling oil is big business, it's turned into "remanufactured" engine oil, and bunker oil for ships.

 

However, the demand for bunker oil is dropping, as more ships engines are going over to diesel for a cleaner burn.

So I don't know what's going to happen as regards oil recycling when bunker oil demand drops right away to a very low level.

[old man emu]

Crude oil is the initial source for so many chemicals that are converted into other things our society needs, from plastic food wrap to medicines. Since there is a finite amount of crude oil available, it makes sense to recycle oils that have little use for chemical manufacture in order to make available oils for higher purposes. 

 

Prior to the early 19th Century, lubricants for machines were plant based. Grease from the early Egyptian or Roman eras is thought to have been prepared by combining lime with olive oil. The lime saponifies some of the triglyceride that comprises oil to give a calcium grease. In the middle of the 19th century, soaps were intentionally added as thickeners to oils. We know that Castor oil and its derivatives are used in the manufacturing of soaps, lubricants, hydraulic and brake fluids, paints, dyes, coatings, inks, cold resistant plastics, waxes and polishes, nylon, pharmaceuticals and perfumes 

 

The modern oil industry can trace its origins to Baku in 1837, where the first commercial oil refinery was established to distil oil into paraffin (used as lamp and heating oil). This was followed by the first modern oil well in 1846, which reached a depth of 21 metres. At this time, a single oil field in Baku accounted for over 90% of the world’s oil production, mostly going to Persia (now Iran). Commercial oil wells soon followed in Bobrka, Poland (1854), Bucharest, Romania (1857), Ontario, Canada (1858) and Pennsylvania, USA (1859). 

 

So, if we recycle those oils refined from crude oil that are used for lubrication, we can increase the share of this rare resource for the manufacture of better things.

[onetrack]

Oil is also an important feedstock for synthetic clothing material - and the largest percentage of our clothing today is synthetic materials.

[spacesailor]

BUT

My oil over wooden fence posts, is preserving the post that would eventually needed a tree or two to replace them.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

BUT, BUT, the oil is destroying a suitable habitat for a variety or very small organisms who in turn provide nutrients for larger organisms. Have you got something against insect-eating amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals?🤭

[spacesailor]

NO

Only those little  wood eating termites,  Thats the good oil on pouring Used, smelly oil on those bugs.

spacesailor

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

That was informative red, that story about greta back in the stone age. I have used a similar line of argument about   "invasion day" where I honestly think the last thing the Aborigines want is for whites and all their works to go away.

 

But with the greta story, the thing has been taken too far. The planet does have a capacity to dispose of a certain amount of co2 . We have overshot this by a lot, but the correction does not have to put us back into the stone age.

 

Personally, I expect the corrections to be too little and too late, so the younger generations are in for a hard time. Your greta story was the opposite...  too much and too soon. 

[willedoo]

A Russian LNG tanker docked at the Russian Northern Arctic port Sabetta on Friday after a trip through the Northern Sea Route escorted by an ice breaker. The tanker traveled from China and marked the first ever crossing during the month of February. The shipping company is saying there's no more multi year ice left on the route and this trip proves year round shipping is possible.

 

 

 

[spacesailor]

Eastern US,

Would like that ice returned back to the Artic, 

Texas under snow and No water. Because its frozen! .

spacesailor

[Bruce Tuncks]

Yep, its the temperature of the whole planet. Some parts are a lot hotter and some parts are cooler. That's climate change.

[pmccarthy]

Climate is a local phenomenon.you might live in a warm climate or a cold climate. There is no such thing as a global climate.

[spacesailor]

ALAS !.

the whole COLD planet was called

" Snowball Earth " 

NOW

Returning to the warm green planet, were Dinosaurs lived.

spacesailor

[Yenn]

The experts tell us that climate change is happening and the latest seems to be that we will get more and greater cyclones and also more droughts.

Looking at what we are actually having is less cyclones and less serious cyclones. That of course means more drought, so it seems the experts are having two bob each way. It is going to get wetter or it is going to get drier.

All I can see is that the BOM don't seem to know what is happening, they are using outdated methods in updating times.

We used to get regular info about the Southern Oscillation Index years ago. Would have the SOI number read out after the 7pm news. Then they just quietly dropped it, until this year. Big splash, we are in a La Nina year, that will result in a wetter than usual Spring, Summer period. We will need a vast amount of rain before the end of Summer to make that prediction come true as this season is one of the driest we have had for 40 years.

What I find surprising is the constant talk on TV and radio about the massive rainfall in N. Qld. It seems to me that the experts all come from Southern Australia, where a fall of 150mm is a deluge, but in reality 150mm in Tully hardly settles the dust.