Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 2
Discussion
TransverseTight said:
Good luck with grassing over this type... 
I think they are more likely to be used as landing pads for personal VTOL craft owned by the farmers after 25 years of ROC payments. ;-) Probably something Telsa are working on
About 250 tonnes of concrete for a typical disturbine iirc. How much CO2 from that? All up front of course with the claimed payback in "carbon" reduction over 25 years. A strange way to "save" the planet.I think they are more likely to be used as landing pads for personal VTOL craft owned by the farmers after 25 years of ROC payments. ;-) Probably something Telsa are working on
For the grass you just import some filler to the site, make an "interesting, artistic mound" for landscaping and let the grass grow.
It has to be that simple and obviously damage free as far as the environment in concerned since I have yet to read of any financial or engineering plans that address the need to recover and land abandoned at the end of a "farm's" life.
As for Tesla ... maybe Musk's team can find a way to make used concrete store energy. The only way I can think of tat the moment is t try to make is a heat sink. One might therefore build housing over the site and supply the properties with ground stored heat ... sort of. Screws the landscape of course but then who cares about that these days? Certainly not the Greens.
Sorry to jump the flow of the thread around.. but I just came across this. You'll recall me going on about grid energy storage making renewables a better option - as long as you batch up the energy and release it in the peak.. well this report just came out produced for Oncor who are a large power distribution company based in Texas (about the size of Western Power distruution in the UK?) . They are looking at the feasibility of installing 5000MW of grid storage capacity. I was getting annoyed with the original article I picked this up from as MW are not a storage unit.... However this is the link to the report not the article which says they'll have 15,000MWh of storage which can be released at up to 5000MW. That's about the same as 5 largish powerstations. Crickey! They assume a 1:3 ratio between "generating" capacity and storage.
http://www.brattle.com/system/news/pdfs/000/000/74...
Reading up on Oncor... they are part of Energy Futures Corp who also own TXU - the energy retailer, and Luminant who are a gneration business(coal + wind). So the whole spectrum. They are saying it looks as if the costs of battery storage will shortly stack up and not only provide a better means of integrating renewables, but a more stable grid and lower costs for consumers by reducing the peak pricing.
Think I really need to start looking at Telsa financials as a serious investment (well at least a small punt). I think cars will become their smaller business compared to grid energy storage! I know for the Gigafactory they plan to split the output 35GWh for cars and 15GWh for stationary. As much as I like the idea of an independent home system, it's usually cheaper to do things at scale. I'm sure grid level storage is no exception. 1 big interconnector and plans with the DNO is a lot cheaper than thousands of individual connections. Likewise a few weeks site surveying and a few months to build. VS Thousands of individual survey visits for single home systems and years to install them all.
http://www.brattle.com/system/news/pdfs/000/000/74...
Reading up on Oncor... they are part of Energy Futures Corp who also own TXU - the energy retailer, and Luminant who are a gneration business(coal + wind). So the whole spectrum. They are saying it looks as if the costs of battery storage will shortly stack up and not only provide a better means of integrating renewables, but a more stable grid and lower costs for consumers by reducing the peak pricing.
Think I really need to start looking at Telsa financials as a serious investment (well at least a small punt). I think cars will become their smaller business compared to grid energy storage! I know for the Gigafactory they plan to split the output 35GWh for cars and 15GWh for stationary. As much as I like the idea of an independent home system, it's usually cheaper to do things at scale. I'm sure grid level storage is no exception. 1 big interconnector and plans with the DNO is a lot cheaper than thousands of individual connections. Likewise a few weeks site surveying and a few months to build. VS Thousands of individual survey visits for single home systems and years to install them all.
turbobloke said:
Not worth the candle so not worth three point seven either (pdf):
http://www.acci.asn.au/Files/Worth-The-Candle---Th...
Or two point three candles (pdf):
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment...
By 2020 UK energy prices will have a higher “green” component than any other major economy if we continue sleepwalking into the nightmare. This was in a gov't BIS report no longer at its previous location.
Subsidies - we've been there before.
Interesting papers. The second one is much better on the detail. http://www.acci.asn.au/Files/Worth-The-Candle---Th...
Or two point three candles (pdf):
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment...
By 2020 UK energy prices will have a higher “green” component than any other major economy if we continue sleepwalking into the nightmare. This was in a gov't BIS report no longer at its previous location.
Subsidies - we've been there before.
What I'm not getting is are they saying Green jobs causes job losses in the power sector, or using their example in Burger restaurants?
If its the first... then that a repeat of all kinds of jobs when something better comes along, whether it's spinning looms, OCR scanning for data entry or low maintenance generation assets.
If it's the second... their arguments about less cash for burger joint building (and hence the jobs) would be rendered obsolete if the cost of producing energy was lower than fossil fuels using renewables. That's an interesting point... as my earlier post about PV now being cheaper than grid electric means it is theoretically possible to have more money available - as long as you have your own generation plant. It makes more sense to stick in on a burger restaurant than a house as at least you'll have peak generation in the lunchtime peak (running the AC).
Either way - I'm thinking jobs is a very 1 dimensional view of "the Economy". There was a C4 debate last week called "How rich are you" or something like that... and the economy isn't just jobs, is return on capital, build up of assets etc. All demonstrated by a big contraption containing tea.
The reports seem to be arguing that by taking public money and using it to subsidise reneweables, then private money won't be available to create new businesses and jobs. I can see the link if they were saying public money wouldn't be available to fund hospitals and education and welfare jobs.. but I don't quite get the link to private business. Unless the argument is the taxes could be cut so there would be more private capital around.
Its interesting to me - as effectively the reports are taking a left wing approach and without saying it in words are stating... the only people getting rich from renewables are the land owners and private investors putting up the capital. But the workers aren't getting a share in the form of jobs.
More reading required... tomorrow. Got to go and stick some more boxes in the loft now.. LOL I was only supposed to be having a quick nose as I finally got my PC back up and running.
Edited by TransverseTight on Tuesday 18th November 22:41
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/11/17/...
Lord Deben has been appointed the government's chief adviser on climate change matters.
The WHAT..??
WIBBLE...
BUT, BUT, BUT...
Lord Deben has been appointed the government's chief adviser on climate change matters.
The WHAT..??
WIBBLE...
BUT, BUT, BUT...
TransverseTight said:
Either way - I'm thinking jobs is a very 1 dimensional view of "the Economy".
People and their reports almost always promise job creation (if looking for government investment) and job losses if trying to survive in adverse times.It is expected but rarely meaningful and unlikely ever to be usefully measurable.
If we are basically in a relatively stable power demand situation and heading towards a "demand management" regime for energy, especially electricity, why on earth would anyone think it a good idea to add headcount to the process to get the same output from another source?
Is it a form of de-skilling so that you employ more people but pay them less and so the books are still balanced? (And would that be a form of population engineering to bring most "workers" down to the lowest possible pay rates?)
If not and the salaries to be paid are viably used as a representation of upward rather than downward social mobility then the implication is that the end product will likely cost more. Potentially a lot more. The Generator companies will be keen to soak up any available money they can get their hands on by any means possible. They know they are the key to Governments have a relatively stable population (politically speaking) to herd and subdue. They will dangle this in front of any politician who can be of use to them. That, after all, was what Enron was all about. Remind me where Enron originated ....
USA hot hot hot scorchio, all 50 States have below freezing temperatures, deaths in NY. Thank Gaia for global warming.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-usa-w...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-usa-w...
GWPF Calls For Halt To UK Low Carbon International Climate Funding
Britain should help poor countries cope, not burden them with costly renewables
The Global Warming Policy Forum is today calling for the UK's new international climate finance contribution to go towards helping developing countries with adaptation measures to increase their resilience, rather than the funds being allocated to low carbon development.
It has been reported that David Cameron will later this week pledge £650m to the Green Climate Fund, which aims to help the developing world deal with climate change.
The Government has already allocated £3.87 billion of taxpayers' money to international climate finance. Since 2011, more than half of this funding has been allocated to low carbon energy development with only around a quarter being used for adaptation purposes.
It is also estimated that of the $35 billion of global international climate aid over the period 2010-2012, less than 15% was allocated to measures helping poor nations to cope with climate change.
Responding to reports of the UK's contribution to the Green Climate Fund, Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the GWPF, said:
"International climate finance for low carbon development is a detrimental use of aid money. The international community should be encouraging the development of the cheapest forms of electricity generation that offer populations in the developing world the best chances of escaping poverty. It is irresponsible to be actively promoting expensive alternatives that have already led to increasing fuel poverty in the UK and the EU."
"We are also concerned about western green investors profiteering from the Green Climate Fund; something that Governments around the world should ensure does not happen.
"The UK's contribution to international climate finance should be targeted at helping the developing world become more resilient instead of making energy more expensive for developing economies."
Notes to Editors
The Green Climate Fund aims to catalyse climate finance from public and private sources, and at the international and national levels, to help the developing world adapt and mitigate climate change.
The UK has already allocated £3.87 billion for international climate finance for the period 2011/12 - 2015/16. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact estimates that 56% has been directed to low carbon development, 27% to adaptation and 7% to forestry from 2011 to Feb 2014].
For the period 2010 - 2012, the World Resources Institute estimates that only $5 billion of international fast start climate finance was allocated to adaptation, compared to a total of $35 billion.
Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Forum
UN Climate Treaty May Fail Over Economic Risks Warns Tony Abbott
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday warned that next year’s landmark climate change summit in Paris will fail if world leaders decide to put cutting carbon emissions ahead of economic growth. “It’s vital that the Paris conference be a success… and for it to be a success, we can’t pursue environmental improvements at the expense of economic progress,” Abbott said. “We can’t reduce emissions in ways which cost jobs because it will fail if that’s what we end up trying to do.”
Jane Aardell, Reuters, 19 November 2014
turbobloke said:
rovermorris999 said:
Presumably we'll be told this is what we can expect 'in a warming world', the BBC's and the Economist's phrase of choice to pop into any weather-related reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637890/Ho...
From the article:
Daily Mail said:
But the rise in heatwaves is no surprise for some, with the State of the Climate 2014 report, compiled by The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, claiming that duration, frequency and intensity of heatwaves have increased across Australia long since the 1950s.
Pablo16v said:
turbobloke said:
rovermorris999 said:
Presumably we'll be told this is what we can expect 'in a warming world', the BBC's and the Economist's phrase of choice to pop into any weather-related reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637890/Ho...
From the article:
Daily Mail said:
But the rise in heatwaves is no surprise for some, with the State of the Climate 2014 report, compiled by The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, claiming that duration, frequency and intensity of heatwaves have increased across Australia long since the 1950s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/18/summer-snow-...
Brendan O'Neil's take on the Oz reaction to sunny days was posted by Chris Watton in January last year and here it is again.
Brendan O'Neil said:
There is something very ugly about the commentary on Australia's heatwave. There's almost a palpable sense of glee among some green-leaning commentators that this coal-exporting, climate-change-denying nation is now being punished with fire. The message seems to be that Aussies deserve this scorching weather; they brought the hotness upon themselves through their temerity, through daring to exploit their country's myriad natural resources and, even worse, daring to question the gospel of climate change.
The casualness with which observers have made a link between Australian people's behaviour and beliefs and the current heatwave, as if alleged moral turpitude makes the weather, is striking. Even before any serious scientist has had time to assess the nature and origins of the heatwave, one of the Guardian's green reporters described the hotness Down Under as further evidence that "global warming is turning the volume of extreme weather up, Spinal Tap-style, to 11". Taking his cue from the Middle Ages, when weather was also frequently given sentience, treated as the punisher of wicked men, the reporter says climate change, and its enabler climate change denial, is "loading the weather dice". It is no coincidence, he says, that "the two nations in which the fringe opinions of so-called climate sceptics have been trumpeted most loudly – the US and Australia – have now been hit by record heatwaves and [superstorms]" – because apparently it is "shouting from sceptics" that prevents "clear political action to curb emissions" and which therefore unleashes yet more floods, storms, and presumably locusts at some point in the future.
In short, "fringe" political outlooks, allegedly cranky views, bring fire upon the earth; hold these views and you are responsible for climatic catastrophe and weather-induced human misery. This is a pretty explicit attempt to demonise and finally delegitimise critical questioning of the politics of climate change, by blaming such questioning for the opening of the heavens or the bulging of the sun in the same way that "witches" in the Middle Ages were blamed for long, icy winters and the failure of crops.
The Guardian's George Monbiot is even more explicit in his linking of Australian people's beliefs with the misfortune that is now afflicting many of them, particularly in Tasmania. His article on the heatwave is almost entirely about the fact that "climate change denial is… a national pastime in Australia", as if what people think and hold to be true directly determines climatic and weather events. He runs through a list of well-known Aussies who are sceptical of the climate-change thesis, and claims their warped views are preventing Australia from facing up to an "existential threat" – man-caused extreme weather.
He also drags Australia's industry and its people's greedy consumerist antics into the frame, claiming climate change-linked heatwaves are not surprising in a country that is "the world's largest exporter of coal" and where people "now burn… slightly more carbon per capita than the citizens of the United States". These antipodean morons must change their whole way of life in response to the heatwave, says Monbiot, and finally get over their bonkers belief that Oz is "a land of opportunity, in which progress is limited only by the rate at which natural resources can be extracted; in which this accelerating extraction leads to the inexorable improvement of the lives of its people".
Here, not only is Monbiot implying that people's beliefs (which are different to his!) and aspirations (for more comfort and wealth) have brought about punishing weather – he is also effectively dragooning the weather to his cause of demonising progress and growth, using natural events as a kind of moral blackmail to say: "Live more meekly or else the fires will keep burning." Green adviser to the royals Jonathon Porritt has gone even further in this regard: he claimed that Australia's terrible bush fires of 2009, which killed 173 people, were a product of Australians' pursuit of "unbridled affluence". He even hoped there would be more such fires, since there will have to be more "shocks to the system" to alert people to the seriousness of climate change, he said, and "from the perspective of our long-term prospects, they need to come as rapidly as possible. And to be as traumatic as possible. Otherwise, politicians and their electorates will rapidly revert to the current mix of non-specific anxiety and inertia." In other words, Aussies require further punishment from the gods of weather if they are to be woken from their selfish stupor.
Across the green blogosphere environmentalists are shrilly insisting that the Oz heatwave is fundamentally being caused by man's immorality – his tampering with natural resources, his pollution, his allegedly warped ideologies. Do these people think this is an original claim, to argue that hot weather is punishment for wicked behaviour? It isn't. In the Book of Revelations, one of the seven Final Judgements upon this wicked is a heatwave: "The sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat." Today, like mad millenarianists, greens insist this revelation is occurring right now, with those who are considered the most wicked in the 21st century – the industrious and the deniers, the anti-green scoundrels and liars – being justly and righteously "scorched with fire".
The casualness with which observers have made a link between Australian people's behaviour and beliefs and the current heatwave, as if alleged moral turpitude makes the weather, is striking. Even before any serious scientist has had time to assess the nature and origins of the heatwave, one of the Guardian's green reporters described the hotness Down Under as further evidence that "global warming is turning the volume of extreme weather up, Spinal Tap-style, to 11". Taking his cue from the Middle Ages, when weather was also frequently given sentience, treated as the punisher of wicked men, the reporter says climate change, and its enabler climate change denial, is "loading the weather dice". It is no coincidence, he says, that "the two nations in which the fringe opinions of so-called climate sceptics have been trumpeted most loudly – the US and Australia – have now been hit by record heatwaves and [superstorms]" – because apparently it is "shouting from sceptics" that prevents "clear political action to curb emissions" and which therefore unleashes yet more floods, storms, and presumably locusts at some point in the future.
In short, "fringe" political outlooks, allegedly cranky views, bring fire upon the earth; hold these views and you are responsible for climatic catastrophe and weather-induced human misery. This is a pretty explicit attempt to demonise and finally delegitimise critical questioning of the politics of climate change, by blaming such questioning for the opening of the heavens or the bulging of the sun in the same way that "witches" in the Middle Ages were blamed for long, icy winters and the failure of crops.
The Guardian's George Monbiot is even more explicit in his linking of Australian people's beliefs with the misfortune that is now afflicting many of them, particularly in Tasmania. His article on the heatwave is almost entirely about the fact that "climate change denial is… a national pastime in Australia", as if what people think and hold to be true directly determines climatic and weather events. He runs through a list of well-known Aussies who are sceptical of the climate-change thesis, and claims their warped views are preventing Australia from facing up to an "existential threat" – man-caused extreme weather.
He also drags Australia's industry and its people's greedy consumerist antics into the frame, claiming climate change-linked heatwaves are not surprising in a country that is "the world's largest exporter of coal" and where people "now burn… slightly more carbon per capita than the citizens of the United States". These antipodean morons must change their whole way of life in response to the heatwave, says Monbiot, and finally get over their bonkers belief that Oz is "a land of opportunity, in which progress is limited only by the rate at which natural resources can be extracted; in which this accelerating extraction leads to the inexorable improvement of the lives of its people".
Here, not only is Monbiot implying that people's beliefs (which are different to his!) and aspirations (for more comfort and wealth) have brought about punishing weather – he is also effectively dragooning the weather to his cause of demonising progress and growth, using natural events as a kind of moral blackmail to say: "Live more meekly or else the fires will keep burning." Green adviser to the royals Jonathon Porritt has gone even further in this regard: he claimed that Australia's terrible bush fires of 2009, which killed 173 people, were a product of Australians' pursuit of "unbridled affluence". He even hoped there would be more such fires, since there will have to be more "shocks to the system" to alert people to the seriousness of climate change, he said, and "from the perspective of our long-term prospects, they need to come as rapidly as possible. And to be as traumatic as possible. Otherwise, politicians and their electorates will rapidly revert to the current mix of non-specific anxiety and inertia." In other words, Aussies require further punishment from the gods of weather if they are to be woken from their selfish stupor.
Across the green blogosphere environmentalists are shrilly insisting that the Oz heatwave is fundamentally being caused by man's immorality – his tampering with natural resources, his pollution, his allegedly warped ideologies. Do these people think this is an original claim, to argue that hot weather is punishment for wicked behaviour? It isn't. In the Book of Revelations, one of the seven Final Judgements upon this wicked is a heatwave: "The sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat." Today, like mad millenarianists, greens insist this revelation is occurring right now, with those who are considered the most wicked in the 21st century – the industrious and the deniers, the anti-green scoundrels and liars – being justly and righteously "scorched with fire".
hidetheelephants said:
It's a wonder the San Andreas fault hasn't been blamed on Climate Change.
They've already got that covered...
According to the BBC, if you spend £6K on house mods (cue demonstration of about £60K worth of insulation, glazing and heat recovery ventilation nonsense) you will be less likely to suffer falls (or was it fools!!!) and burglaries as well as 'saving' half your heating bills. No mention of the fact that you don't save money by being forced to spend lump sums up front, nor are you at any advantage when the whole reason for fitting the green crap is only to offset the rise in bills brought about to pay for all the green crap. Tortuous logic. I think TransverseTights must have been a consultant on that segment.
Beati Dogu said:
I am reminded of the pool table rape scene in 'The Accused' with all the onlookers egging on the perp!Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff