The EU this week: Germany gives up on hard targets, Turkey plans 80 coal stations, EU dithers on Paris.

The current state of play in the EU, thanks to the GWPF: The Germans have quietly given up on their own hard climate targets. They have 30% renewables, the most expensive electrons in the world, and their emissions are about the same as five years ago. The EU, climate champion, can’t even agree among the member states about how to ratify the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile the Turks are planning to build 80 new coal fired power stations (eighty!) and are subsidizing them up the kazoo. Turkey wants to use its low grade lignite deposits instead of Russian gas. After the recent purges, no one wants to criticize Erdogan, plus the energy minister happens to be President Erdogans son-in-law.

The E.U.’s over-arching ambitions,
To change climate by cutting emissions,
Is a pointless own-goal,
When others use coal,
As they please,and with no inhibitions.

— Ruairi

Greens are angry that Germany dropped real targets in Climate Action Plan — call new plan a “Toothless-tiger-skin-rug”:

[CleanEnergyWire] The final version of the German Environment Ministry’s Climate Action Plan has been published. But concrete targets included in previous drafts have been removed, prompting the Green Party to describe the document as an “admission of government failure”.

The Climate Action Plan was announced at the Paris Climate Summit as a framework for how Germany was to reach its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050.

Germany is already struggling to meet its 2020 climate targets, and is under additional pressure after Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year.

But the Green Party and environmental organisations said the Climate Action Plan has lost all power as a blueprint for decarbonising Germany.

“Hendrick’s Climate Action Plan started as a tiger, but turned out to be a toothless tiger-skin rug,” said Green parliamentarians Bärbel Höhn and Oliver Krischer.

Germany increased power production from renewables to over 30 percent in 2015, yet overall CO2 emissions, as well as emissions from the power and transport sector, have stagnated or increased slightly over the last five years.

The EU is running at full Gigacrat speed — the velocity of bureaucrats in a vacuum:

The inability of the EU’s member states to agree on an effort-sharing deal could delay the ratification of the Paris Agreement until late 2017. This would see the climate deal enter into force without the world’s biggest economic bloc.

MEP Ian Duncan accidentally gives half the gameplan away:

For Scottish Conservative MEP Ian Duncan, the rapporteur on carbon market reform, enough is enough. “Climate action is not just about nice words and handshakes,” he said.

Of course, it’s also about the money.

It is now very possible that the Paris Agreement could enter into force without the ratification of the EU, which would be a major political defeat for the bloc. For the deal to apply, it must be ratified by at least 55% of signatory countries representing 55% of global CO2 emissions.

What  kind of  “major political defeat” would this be —  Will the EU miss out on winning the Most Virtuous Global Citizen of 2016?

Turkey has 25 coal fired stations, wants another 80:

Not quite the energy revolution the Greens had in mind:

Turkey plans to build as many as 80 new coal plants in the next few years, on top of 25 that already exist, belching an extra 200m tonnes of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere each year.

Under the new plan, any project deemed a “strategic investment” can be exempted from corporate taxes, tariffs, stoppages, and the duty to carry out environmental risk assessments, or even permitting applications.

Coal operators could be leased state lands for free, receive a 50% discount on electricity bills, and pocket state funding for wage subsidies, insurance premiums and interest on investment loans.

The government is also offering a guaranteed €0.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh) coal-generated electricity price and commitment to buy 6bn kWh’s of coal-generated electricity annually.

–The Guardian

 Germany has 40GW of solar power, sunny Turkey has 0.3GW. Like the Greens, the Turks want to reduce the influence of fossil fuels from Russia. Unlike the Greens, they want to use their own fossil fuels to do it. Apparently solar is not such a strategic investment then.

 

9 out of 10 based on 53 ratings

177 comments to The EU this week: Germany gives up on hard targets, Turkey plans 80 coal stations, EU dithers on Paris.

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    The trend being described is that of re-carbonisation of the process of electricity generation; not that it was ever “decarbonised” in the first place in any meaningful way.

    Being more than a little cynical about politicians I hope that Turkeys apparently enlightened plan is based on good planning rather than the usual.

    Does Turkeys President and/or his son in law have substantial interests in the lignite reserves: surely not, politicians are all honest, straight up people working for the good of the nation.

    KK

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    • #
      Richard Barnett

      It appears both German and Thurkish plans are good for the people and the later is definitely good for the new Turkish lignite power stations at €50/MWh.

      40

  • #
    tom0mason

    So Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year.

    Unlike the other country mentioned, Chancellor Angela Merkel does know die Türkei when she sees one.

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    • #
      tom0mason

      I give up!
      A darn simple thing to do and I re-edited it incorrectly.

      Take 2…

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      So “Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year.

      Unlike the other country mentioned, Chancellor Angela Merkel does not know ‘die Türkei’ when she sees one.

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      Oh forget it!

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    • #
      Graham Richards

      How can Merkel fly like a (German) eagle when she’s surrounded by Turkeys?

      90

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Slowly, the cold light of reality is dawning on the power and control obsessed elite. Their bought and paid for climate scientists have been discovered not to be able to control the global climate. Not even with their costly simulations, reports, conventions, publications, pronouncements, press releases, and the like.

    No matter what words they use, nor how they define them, nor how much they homogenize the sparsely accumulated weather data, nor what international agreements are made, the climate does what it does when it does. It will do it without regard for any of the above. Doing more of the same will only get more of the same. Faking it won’t work, doesn’t work, and never has worked.

    If man happens to be in the way, the best he can do is accept his fate, move, or hide in a hole in the ground. Alternatively, he can continue with technological civilization, the creation of wealth, and then build the necessary infrastructure to insulate him from whatever the climate tries to do to him.

    When you are at war with reality, as the power and control obsessed elite are, you WILL lose. You can appear to be winning but at the cost of huge sacrifices of people, wealth, liberty, general quality of life, and continuance of technological civilization. Eventually the grand plan will collapse when there is nothing else left to sacrifice. It’s either that or get real and stop trying to fake it.

    It has always been thus and always will be.

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    • #

      But on the other hand, Australia will lead the world in ‘decarbonising’ its power generation. South Australia is the leading light (pun intended) in renewable energy, with Victoria hot on their heels, banning of all on-shore oil, gas, etc drilling and with plans to close down all coal fired power stations. I’m not sure what the other states are doing, perhaps sitting back and waiting to see how well it goes for Victoria.

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      • #
        Ursus Augustus

        Tasmania is decades ahead of them all with something like 100% hydro with a dash of wind and a gas backup which rarely gets used. The downside is the cable across Bass Strait over which they flog their ‘carbon free’ hydro power and set themselves up for a drought bite on the bum. The distorting factor is of course subsidised ‘renewables’ such as wind and to a lesser degree big solar which in reality are grotesquely over capitailes, ludicrously inefficient and utterly unreliable.

        What we really need is more efficient cities with higher population desity (medium and NOT high density), more local businesses rather than drive to shopping malls, more viable public transport, and more people getting about on foot or bikes in a relaxed manner which will rip the guts out of energy consumption across the board and make everything more viable.

        This lunacy regarding so called renewables is just nuts.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        I wonder where SA will get is power when Vic closes it coal fired power stations?

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    • #

      i.e. Mother Nature does not do politics.

      130

    • #
      Binny

      Climate ‘action’ is a luxury item – A bit like a $1000/plate charity dinner, a fashionable place to be seen … if you can afford it.

      100

      • #
        Another Ian

        Luxury but probably not much charity either –

        Jeremy Clarkson “The Cheshire charity rip-off”

        70

      • #
        AndyG55

        And 1st class tax-payer funded seats to the next climate boondoggle in some luxury venue.

        81

      • #
        AndyG55

        “if you can afford it.”

        NO.

        Its if you can find some tax funded green scheme to pay it for you.

        Very few of the AGW bletheren would EVER dig into their own pocket.

        80

      • #
        tom0mason

        “Climate ‘action’ is a luxury item”

        And like all luxury items they only have the arbitrary value that people put on them.

        71

    • #
      Analitik

      Indeed. Unfortunately, the renewables lobby persists in peddling their “solution” for our energy requirements

      I linked to an excellent article on the Euan Mearns site in the “depressed believers” thread about the futility of decarbonisation and yet a notorious renewables advocate has come along and polluted the discussion with the usual fanciful notions of wind farms and PV. The true believers will not be swayed by logic nor by facts.

      And on RenewEconomy, the guff continues as well

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  • #
    oeman50

    I would say the EU is running at “Ludicrous Speed.” (h/t to Spaceballs)

    80

  • #
    Ruairi

    The E.U.’s over-arching ambitions,
    To change climate by cutting emissions,
    Is a pointless own-goal,
    When others use coal,
    As they please,and with no inhibitions.

    460

  • #
    Dave in the States

    This is what happens when green fantasies collide with reality.

    100

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Gigacrat speed — the velocity of bureaucratic memoranda in a vacuum

    Defined as the maximum safe speed of memoranda referral in Whitehall, it was originally measured in furlongs per fortnight, which is the metric used to describe the average standard walking speed of an Official Government Messenger, allowing time for the frequent mandatory tea breaks.

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    • #
      RobK

      Lately, this definition relies heavily on bureaucratic relativism to firm up the regulatory ether. 🙂

      70

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Quite so.

        There was a time when they tried to replace the Messengers with some horrible contraption that relied on pipes containing a vacuum. I believe is was some American idea, from a company called Lampson, or some such. You put your missive in a container, and put the container in a tube, and it got whisked away to who knows where. They had them in the cheaper department stores, I understand, to handle the money. Better than cash registers I suppose, but they still did not have the personal touch. Anyway, a high level meeting of bureaucrats decided to rid of the thing, and brought the Messengers back. Good thing too. How can you get the gossip from some machine that is designed to be vacuous.

        90

        • #
          Yonniestone

          That’d be a Pneumatic Tube system, invented by William Murdoch this idea was applied to many other interesting ventures…much like the climate industry it works by sucking and puling at the same time.

          80

          • #
            Analitik

            I loved them in the movie “Brazil”, along with the magnifying screens

            40

          • #
            Olaf Koenders

            LOL.. Nice one Yonnie.

            Green and grabbermint stupidity could also be measured in gigatons. It would be a large figure in excess of the dollarwaste number I suspect.

            51

          • #
            Ted O'Brien.

            I remember those in the big city stores. But I think I have seen them recently in Woolworths supermarkets.

            30

        • #
          Richard Barnett

          Still in use at drive up motor banks and drive up pharmacies, delivers their payments at the speed of pneumatics.

          20

    • #

      Yes, liked this statement Jo, “Gigacrat speed — the velocity of bureaucrats in a vacuum” It explains what Turncoat has been doing for the last year

      70

  • #
    RobK

    The irrational and arbitrary experimental energy policies of mostly western governments is undermining social, economic, industrial and political cohesion predisposing those states to further desperation, weakness and possible subversion. Sound energy policy is a fundamental pillar of social and economic aptitude. Messing with it is perilous and risks rendering those states impotent.

    80

    • #
      Another Ian

      RobK

      Not helped by what passes as “news” as per Chiefio’s take

      https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/chop-twist-4-wall-per-rt-and-nbc/

      40

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … predisposing those states to further desperation, weakness and possible subversion … rendering those states impotent

      Isn’t that the point?

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      • #
        RobK

        I suspect it is.

        80

      • #

        It seems to me the Insane Left (today’s utterly radical Left, in the USA, as opposed to what they used to be) wants to build up the UN as a predominant, and Western, world power, to counter the upwardly-mobilizing Chinese, the Russians, etc.. They are looking to win the Left vs. Right war NOW, by hook or crook, so they can enter the long-prophesied, long-foreseen West vs. East war in a superior position.

        What they really don’t get is that the Left vs. Right war, of the last 50 years or so, has driven them insane, and they can’t distinguish between good and bad in ANYthing anymore (I’m still ticked off about the light bulbs, for example). That, and they all devoutly believe that a blatant lie is better than a clear truth any day of the week. (I’m not being partisan; I voted for Democrats for President of the USA for 28 years straight, from 1976 through 2004. Obama changed all that.)

        100

        • #

          Harry, unfortunately here in Australia the terms left and right are being misused. The socialist,and communists who make up the left accuse the right of being racists and fascist like A. H*tl*r forgetting that he was also a socialist (the party stands for National Socialists) who made a pact with the communist dictator of USSR and is recorded in literature that they agreed they were similar and had similar aims. The true divide should be between socialist-centralists (the far end with dictators ruling) and free enterprise direct voting democrats (the far end with all adult residents voting on every piece of legislation with vetoing recall on every parliamentarian and public servant as occurs to a large extent in some parts of Switzerland) Some people regard the latter as libertarians.
          In my political stance I hate dictators, dislike central government and central taxing, prefer free enterprise, and would like to have direct democracy as in Switzerland. Australia and I read also USA are moving away from democracy.

          60

        • #
          Ted O'Brien.

          Harry, I never saw the “Insane Left” here as in any way countering the Chinese and Russians. They were and are tools of the Soviet union and the Chinese communists. Educated and funded, even in the days of the Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain.

          They were always insane, brain damaged, inebriated, stoned or whatever. They can’t distinguish good and bad because they don’t acknowledge any good.

          And yes, in their view the truth is anything they can persuade you to believe that will increase their power over you.

          And I too am ticked off, as you say, about the prohibition of chlorinated hydrocarbons, 2,4,5,T, chlorofluorocarbons, and your light bulbs, (we still have them), because all those prohibitions are highly suspect. While the evidence for the prohibition was less than conclusive, it was for sure and certain that each of those prohibitions generated huge profits for major firms who owned patents on alternative products. I also throw in there the prohibition on asbestos, which is a marvellous product. It is certainly possible to use asbestos while avoiding the exposure that causes the problems we have experienced.

          30

  • #

    Science shows that non-condensing ghg (including CO2) have no significant effect on climate. Water vapor, the only ghg which condenses, is one of the three climate drivers.

    The average amount of time that passes between when a molecule of CO2 absorbs a photon until it emits one (the relaxation time) is about 10 microseconds. Heat is conducted in the atmosphere by collisions between molecules. The average time between collisions of molecules in the atmosphere at sea level conditions is less than 0.0002 microseconds.

    Thus it is about 50,000 times more likely that a collision will occur (thermal conduction) than a photon will be emitted. The process of a molecule absorbing the energy in a photon and conducting the energy to other molecules is thermalization. Thermalized energy carries no identity of the molecule that absorbed it.

    Thermalization explains why CO2 has no significant effect on climate.

    Water vapor has been increasing since it has been measured world wide (1988). If human activity is contributing to global warming (or countering global cooling) it is because of contribution to increase in water vapor (mostly from irrigation and burning hydrogen rich fossil fuels). Of course increased water vapor causes the planet to warm which further increases water vapor so there is a cumulative effect.

    Changing from coal to natural gas increases water vapor.
    http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com

    120

    • #
      climateskeptic

      I’m convinced, some random nobody writes a thought bubble on his own blog that completely changes years of accepted physics. Talk about clutching at straws and gullibility.

      523

      • #
        AndyG55

        “completely changes years of accepted physics”

        Its called scientific advance, you know, GAINING KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING.

        You and your fellow climate worriers should try it some time.

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        • #
          climateskeptic

          Its called scientific advance, you know, GAINING KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING.

          No, its called personal opinion in a blog.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            You keep showing your total inability to comprehend basic scientific/molecular facts. 🙂

            100

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Climatesketic (sic)

            Can you please explain to me, why and how an opinion expressed on a blog, by somebody who you just happen to have never heard of, is ipso facto incorrect?

            Considering history, nobody had heard of Christopher Columbus, prior to his circumnavigation of the Earth. So by your logic, the earth currently remains flat!

            You have obviously not studied the history of science, for if you had, you would not be embarassing yourself in front of those who have.

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            • #
              climateskeptic

              So you are calling Columbus a “Scientist”. Hahahah, what claptrap. Its not me that’s posting embarrassing nonsense.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Oh yes it is.. all you produce is HILARIOUSLY embarrassing nonsense.

                With absolute zero to back it up except EMPTY rhetoric.

                EVERYONE is laughing at your clown-like ineptitude 🙂

                60

              • #
                tom0mason

                climateskeptic
                By what metric have you formed this opinion that Columbus was not a scientist or even scientific?

                Have you limited you thinking to believe only those that are publicly honored with the label scientist can be scientific?
                Surely someone setting out to prove a theory that man could sail in the wrong direction to find India because the world is spherical, and attempting it, is being scientific, if not being a true scientists.

                Your definition of science and scientists appears to want to make the whole realm of scientific investigations smaller, limited, and introverted. That description of science is hogwash!

                80

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              No, I am saying that Columbus was a person who discovered, or proved, something about the real world, that wasn’t previously accepted.

              Some people would say that was the definition of a scientist.

              You, on the other hand seem to have a very narrow definiton of what science is, and means. On this blog, we tend to talk about Physics, and Chemistry, and Climatology, and Meteorology. You ignore that and talk about “Climate Science” as being different to the other four “physical sciences”, which implies that it is, in fact, a branch of Political Science.

              Now, in true scientific process, I invite you to demonstrate how, and why, my observations are not correct.

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              RW. Was that thing about Columbus some sort of test?

              31

            • #
              Ted O'Brien.

              Rereke! Rereke! Rereke!

              Why did they not record it in the history books when Columbus circumnavigated the Earth?

              But yes, in his day, Columbus certainly was a scientist.

              60

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            I am still waiting for you to explain to me, why and how an opinion expressed on a blog, by somebody who you just happen to have never heard of, is ipso facto incorrect?

            You seem to assume that the medium of publication somehow has a bearing on the difference between truth and fantacy. Are you really that shallow a person?

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Scientific and physical facts were always an anathema to you, weren’t they, septic.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Trolls often use the ad hom “Thought bubble” when attempting to diminish open reasoning, while forgetting 100% of technology came from such ideas.

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        • #
          climateskeptic

          So I’ll be looking for Dan’s name in this year Nobel Physics prize then or is it just Noddy science?

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          • #
            Glen Michel

            Since it isn’t Carbon(sic) other causes that may or may not affect climate are on the cards son.Probably a melange of things big and small.In short the science is not settled.Yet.

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            • #
              climateskeptic

              So you will have something to back this “opinion” of your up then?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                You have never once had anything to back up your opinion.

                Just EMPTY baseless rhetoric.. your stock in trade.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                Unlike you Noddy I’m not making any claims so I don’t need to back them up. I just accept what the scientific experts in the field say, not unpublished opinion from a”Licensed mechanical engineer” that only write in blogs. You are making the extraordinary claims, you need to back it up with more than just a pinched graph or a thought bubble. Write a paper, get it published and then you can be taken for more that just a “random with an inflated opinion”

                Get back to me when you have something

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Empty post again from CS

                And apparently ZERO ability to research to find out that the original post is actually measured FACT.

                Now off you go, CS, and do some basic research…if you can.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “I just accept “

                Arts student? Humanities? One of the “social studies” group?

                No scientist “just accepts”.

                “You are making the extraordinary claims”

                Feel free to produce that paper that proves that CO2 causes warming in an open convective atmosphere.

                Any time you are ready…. 🙂

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              • #
                Mark D.

                not unpublished opinion from a”Licensed mechanical engineer” that only write in blogs.

                More silly than Sillyfilly (and that is something of a feat).

                CS, by precisely what criteria do you select your Authorities? Pal relationship? How much grant or government money they receive?

                Your laughable position that only “published” = science is, well, LAUGHABLE. Keep it up would you? It makes it pretty easy to pick out the stupid in a crowd.

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              • #
                Mark D.

                And By the way, I don’t know Dan P. but I’d trust him to engineer something that actually works before I’d trust anything an anonymous troll said. Speaking of actually working, how are those climate models doing?

                Sheesh you can spot a SkScience troll a mile away. A House of militant confirmation bias that blog is. None so blind….. etc.

                60

            • #
              tom0mason

              Professor Wood.

              60

          • #
            AndyG55

            So you haven’t bothered learning anything, are totally willing to admit it.

            The absorption/relaxation time and the collision time are known scientific quantities..

            All you have to do is develop the basic capability to research them….. or not. 🙂

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          • #
            tom0mason

            Winning prizes is not the pinnacle of science.
            Being correct, whether acknowledge by others or not, is all that is required.

            Science is about discovering the truth in nature and logically describing it.

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      • #
        handjive

        I’m convinced, some random nobody writes a thought bubble on his own blog that completely changes years of accepted physics.
        ~ ~ ~
        Then again, you’re convinced the end is nigh.

        New study suggests we might have spotted a fifth force of nature
        The Universe just keeps getting stranger.
        . . .
        Like the Climate Apocalypse, the 5th force of nature has yet to be confirmed.

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        • #
          climateskeptic

          New study suggests we might have spotted a fifth force of nature

          I case you cant spot the difference, one is peer reviewed and the other Noddy blog science. I’ll leave you to work out which is which.

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          • #
            handjive

            “I case you cant spot the difference, one is peer reviewed and the other Noddy blog science. I’ll leave you to work out which is which.”

            How’d I go?

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            • #
              climateskeptic

              As expected,woeful, you only appear to able to find blogs

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And obviously, you are flat chat even managing that.

                EMPTY !!!

                83

              • #
                AndyG55

                Why are you so, so scared of science and data, CS?

                93

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Hahaha, mate I publish or co-author a dozen paper a year while you sit around and nod. When I was in Potsdam, Germany in June/July I had a good look around and even with the billions they spend on renewable, they have no Current Account Deficit, no unemployment and still have a better standard of living and higher wages than we do. They actually make things and export them, not just dirt. They have taken in 1 million refugees and still support the moribund economies of southern Europe.

                You don’t have a clue.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Potsdam.. so you are a paid-up climate TROUGHER.

                …. and lots of PAL-reviewed non-science, I bet.

                Explains your obvious inability to do basic research.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                And arts/social studies papers… don’t really count toward climate science.

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              • #
                el gordo

                ‘They actually make things and export them, not just dirt.’

                We have intellectual assets too.

                There was an expectation that German business confidence was on the up and up but it ‘has fallen unexpectedly after the UK Brexit vote, according to a closely watched survey.’

                BBC

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                It appears that climate skeptic [sic] has outed himself.

                … mate I publish or co-author a dozen paper a year …

                That is one per month. Not much empirical research going on there, is there?

                A media search on the frequency of authorship should give us a name, or a set of names. We can also check the visitor records at the Potsdam Institute (unless of course climateskeptic [sic] was only a tourist, which, if true, raises the question, “Who co-authored his two papers for June and July?”).

                He also is no economist, nor is he knowledgeable about EU political realities. If he were, he would not say, “with the billions they spend on renewable, they have no Current Account Deficit, no unemployment and still have a better standard of living and higher wages than we do.” Instead, he would would see that it was internal EU propaganda, in the face of Brexit, and mutterings in Scandinavia to follow suit.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                RW, I doubt very much he was visiting the Potsdam Institute, or anything to do with real science.

                More likely some arts or humanities/feelings/psycho type gathering.

                Do they have basket weaving conferences?

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              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                Do they have basket weaving conferences?

                I have no idea. But I guess he could co-author a monthly basket weaving “paper”.

                At least that would sound more truthful than claiming to write, and presumably publish, one scientific paper every month of the year.

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              • #
                Yonniestone

                “They have taken in 1 million refugees” and how’s that working out then? LOL!

                If they keep increasing that number I’ll guarantee pretending to alter earths climate with bureaucracy and asshat technologies will be the least of their problems, have you ever heard of the Darwin Awards?

                Sorry I can’t stop laughing at one of the most absurd troll comments in a long while, you should have stayed in this Germanic utopia of freedom and tolerance and walked around wearing a Kippah, i’m sure nothing untoward would happen. LOL!

                91

              • #
                AndyG55

                ” I publish or co-author a dozen paper”

                How many rolls of toilet paper did you use ??

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              • #

                Germany has a four-pronged approach to industrial success: brown coal, black coal, Russian oil and Russian gas. Oh, and those nukes they haven’t shut down yet. Plus all those renewables which are actually burnables.

                Burn enough stuff and its amazing how many grimy solar panels you can afford as green decor, even at 50+ degrees north.

                90

              • #
                Not that Bob

                “It’s a blog!”

                True. On the two occasions (so far) that you have made that statement, the links provided were to blog postings.

                Each post commented upon (and provided a link to) a peer reviewed paper.

                A somewhat desultry approach to research not to have noticed that.

                Or perhaps you did, and decided that delivering a considered critique of the science underpinning each paper was beyond you.

                In which case, carry on chattering.

                40

            • #
              handjive

              Quote climateskeptic: “Hahaha, mate I publish or co-author a dozen paper a year while you sit around and nod.”

              Yet you woefully fail to link one.

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          • #
            tom0mason

            climateskeptic,

            Blog can, and some are, scientific.

            Please go ahead and prove that wrong!

            61

            • #
              handjive

              When you can’t debate the science, you attack the source.

              Pathetic.

              It is identified as the genetic fallacy:

              “Judging something good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it comes.”

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              Rereke Whakaaro

              The reliance on, “the peer reviewed literature”, and the process to be gone through, is solely for the benefit of the publisher of the dead-tree version.

              In the age of the internet, private secure blogs can be used to publish research and findings that can then be reviewed and commented upon, by other people in the field who have been authorised access. A paper can always be published in the traditional media later, if its contents are shown to be of more general interest in other fields of research.

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                AndyG55

                Blog posts are read and analysed by FAR MORE peers than would ever read most peer-review literature.

                That is why “climate science™” is taking such a battering.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                The 97% paper was peer reviewed yet was proven junk on many scientific and non-scientific blogs.

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          • #
            Another Ian

            The company kept – Rahmstorf rings a bell

            http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/

            50

          • #
            tom0mason

            climateskeptic,

            “I case you cant spot the difference, one is peer reviewed and the other Noddy blog science. ”

            By this I understand you believe that science only happens through peer review. This is WRONG. Just look at all the scientific blogs that have correctly debunked the 97% scientific consensus peer reviewed paper. We all now know that paper was and is junk and not science. Still it passed peer review!

            Science happen when people find and accurately describe an aspect of nature.
            The means of communications is irrelevant! Validation, verification, and falsification is relevant.

            You blather on about the problem science has with electronic communications propagating science and opinion in varied proportions because the scientific establishment has not updated itself to properly use this medium to best effect. That is their (the science establishment’s) problem, not science per se.

            Science as a subject may well be communicated by any means known to man. All that is required is to show an advancement of knowledge, or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific methods.
            Whether a wax cylinder, or a 3d video, or a peer reviewed paper is used as the means of communication is immaterial. Who and why anyone acknowledges the experimenter’s reasoning, methods, and outcomes is up to them. If the experimenter is scientific in their methodology then they are a scientist and performing a scientific experiment.

            Peer review is only a mechanism to attempt to vet papers entering the established science system by ensuring they conform to certain rules. As such it is becoming dated and increasingly inefficient, with more failures occurring. (See Retraction Watch, in particular http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/02/weve-seen-computer-generated-fake-papers-get-published-now-we-have-computer-generated-fake-peer-reviews/#more-43822).

            Also note a peer reviewed paper does not, in itself, mean that the reviewed paper is worthy or scientific. It only means that the paper satisfies the review process, a process embedded in consensus opinion of those who are considered by the establishment as ‘scientist’ or not. What the established science regime wants is irrelevant to the progress of science. Discovering through verified and validated observation and experiment is all that is required.

            Ultimately time will tell if any paper is truly worthy or scientific.

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        • #
          el gordo

          We are only a step away from traveling at light speed and overcoming the tyranny of distance.

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      • #

        Are you that self confessed “clown” Cook by any chance?

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    • #
      ianl8888

      Water vapor has been increasing since it has been measured world wide (1988) …

      I’ve been looking for a reliable measurement of this for quite some time. The report I’ve been using is over 5 years old now, and showed no such increase, although it is arguably the most critical piece of empirical evidence that can be measured. So I approached your reference “globalclimatedrivers” with expectation.

      Yet the critical graph, Figure 3 left hand graph, records Total Precipitable Water (y-axis) as kg/m^2, ie mass per square metre for a 3-dimensional characteristic …

      Rhubarb !!

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      • #
        RobK

        Ian,
        ” Noun: precipitation
        |pri,si-pu’tey-shun|
        The quantity of water falling to earth at a specific place within a specified period of time • the storm brought several inches of precipitation”
        The common measure of precipitation in inches or millimetres. This is the depth of water over a given measured area, therefore it implies a volume. Given that water density varies, a measure of mass/surface area seems reasonable.

        30

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          The quantity of water falling to earth at a specific place within a specified period of time

          That is interesting.

          I was taught that it was the mass of water condensing around nuclii, within a given volume of air.

          Given that a droplet of condensed water also forms a nuclii, it reaches the point where the weight of a droplet can no longer be suspended within an atmosphere, at a given air pressure, and thus falls to ground.

          Mind you, that was a long time ago, and it may have changed with the new science of climate. But I fail to see how your definition can explain clouds.

          30

          • #
            RobK

            RW,
            The definition is from wordweb dictionary only to define a common meaning. The point I was trying to make is that in the context of the article a mass of water precipitatable over the surface of the globe is not necessarily an invalid unit, a total mass may have sufficed to indicate an increase, since the area of the earth would be pretty constant I imagine.
            I make no comment on the rest of the article other than I think it’s correct to say water is able to transfer heat energy to the upper atmosphere in vast quantities because latent heat of vaporization can absorb heat from the earth’s surface, radiate the heat higher in the atmosphere on condensation then travel back to the earth’s surface as precipitation…and do it all over again in a way that CO2 cannot.

            30

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              Ah, having reread what we both wrote, I now realise that I got the wrong end of the stick, regarding your conversation with Ianl8888. My apologies for interrupting.

              40

            • #

              Precipitable water supposedly is the total atmospheric columnar H20 in all 5 phases in g/cm². Such averages 2.4 – 2.7g/cm². Enough for about 8 days of precipitation! Most of the atmosphere is simply to cold for this much H2O to remain as WV. How much airborne water colloid is unknown, most us still invisible, but still has lost a large amount of latent heat via EMR to space! In order to remain airborne, this colloid is re-evaporated via insolation generally in the morning but continuously somewhere. Haze burn off anyone?
              This airborne transfer of insolation to vast area condensation without precipitation and the EMR exit flux generated, seems never to be considered by your wonderful Climate Clowns. They must pull their UCAR radiative budget from the turlet each day! Grand Incompetence!

              40

              • #
                RobK

                Thanks for elaborating Will.
                Are you willing to give an opinion/comment on Dan’s argument in comment#9, as that is more in your field than mine.

                30

              • #
                RobK

                Will,
                Wouldn’t 2.7g/cm*2 be approximately 27mm of rain, or am I missing something?

                20

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      G’day Dan,
      An interesting post, but you talk of 3 “climate drivers” without mentioning the other two. What are they in your view, and what is your definition of a “climate driver” please?
      Cheers,
      Dave B

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      • #

        Dave – Short story is the summary at the blog:
        “Thermalization explains why atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has no significant effect on climate. Reported average global temperature (AGT) since before 1900 is accurately (98% match with measured trend) explained by a combination of ocean cycles, sunspot number anomaly time-integral and increased atmospheric water vapor.”

        Details, analysis and references are in the rest of the blog at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com

        20

  • #
    handjive

    From Candles to Computers

    – Bringing electricity to China’s Jing Jan village.

    Girl from poor village forced to study by candlelight because there was no electricity until coal-fired power arrived.

    Takeaway facts:

    – China is expected to add 175 GW of new coal-fired electricity generation by 2020.

    – This capacity increase equates to one new 600 megawatt coal plant every week.
    ~ ~ ~
    Green village to be bulldozed and mined for lignite in Germany’s quest for non-nuclear fuel

    Proschim is just one of a cluster of east German villages and farms set to make way for new lignite mines.

    The fossil fuel is intended to “bridge” a widening energy gap resulting from the closure of Germany’s nuclear power plants.

    80

    • #
      RobK

      Germany’s fabricated moral dilemmas relating to energy policy highlight THE IRON LAW OF REGULATION

      “There is no form of market failure, however egregious, which is not eventually made worse by the political interventions intended to fix it” — Original source unknown

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  • #
    TdeF

    The total failure of the world to warm let alone rapidly is having an effect. The failure of cities to drown. The failure of the ecological disasters. The polar bears, the ice, the drowning islands and beaches. The ordinary Germans, the voting public no longer believe the stories. Why would they? The hottest ever stories are fading with the end of another ordinary summer.

    The EU and UN can talk up the Climate disaster as much as they like, but the ordinary voter no longer believes. The Climate Rapture did not happen and the windmills mean nothing. Turkey senses the change and despite the desperation to join the EU, will go its own way to get independence from Russian gas.

    Also recognized is that the doubly vilified lignite is just as good as anything else. Despite the fantasy that it is the ‘most polluting’, the actual CO2 output per kw is in practice quite comparable to blacker coal. These 80 new power stations are with the dreaded brown coal, so that fantasy is over too.

    Germany has fallen. The Greens are in retreat. The summer is over.

    As Winston Churchill said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” I wonder if Flannery has paid off his mortgage on his waterside beach house at the mouth of the Hawkesbury? The capital value should grow quickly, the Day after Tomorrow.

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    • #
      Another Ian

      TdeF

      Following up on your snark hunt references in the previous thread – have you met the map for that?

      “He had brought a large map representing the sea,
      without the least vestige of land:
      And the crew were most pleased when they found
      it to be
      A map they could all understand
      “What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
      Tropics, Zones nd Meridian Lines?”
      So the Bellman would cry, and the Crew would reply
      “They are merely conventional signs:”.

      “Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes”
      But we’ve got our brave captain to thank”,
      So the crew would protest”that he’s brought us the best –
      A perfect and absolute blank!”

      Basis for the CO2 one?

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      • #
        TdeF

        Perhaps Malcolm Turnbull’s game plan for his new agile government? That is when he is not handing over $300,000,000 to help people cope with living in Paradise?

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  • #
  • #

    “Gigacrat speed — the velocity of bureaucrats in a vacuum”

    crap/second sounds more like an appropriate unit for measurement of bureaucracies.

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    handjive

    Between 2016 and 2026, Germany will need 100,000 more engineers in electrotechnology, electronics, and computer technology than will graduate from that nation’s universities and technical colleges.

    http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/tech-careers/germanys-engineering-gap-increasing-fast-with-rise-of-new-technologies

    Yet, most of the refugees Merle has let in are functionally illiterate.

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    • #

      handjive mention this: (my bolding here)

      Between 2016 and 2026, Germany will need 100,000 more engineers in electrotechnology, electronics, and computer technology than will graduate from that nation’s universities and technical colleges.

      Yeah, and you seriously wonder if any of them will actually be any good, you know, actually able to distinguish between real electrical power and pretend electrical power.

      I wonder at all the electrical engineers here in Australia who are not mentioning in any public sphere about anything associated with this new announcement of 12 new large scale (what?) Solar power plants.

      Twelve of them. Count ’em up.

      Comes in at a monumentally huge Nameplate of 480MW.

      480MW. Astonishingly humungous large scale plants. The Federal Government is chucking in $96 Million to kick it off, and the Queensland Government is also chucking in a wad of cash for the 6 of them in Queensland to also help kick them off too.

      $96 Million seed dollars.

      They’ll generate enough power to, as the ABC quotes:

      providing enough energy to power 150,000 average Australian homes.

      That total YEARLY power generated by these TWELVE new solar plants is generated by Bayswater in, umm, dare I even mention it ….. 20 days!

      Where’s all the electrical engineers laughing this down in the media.

      Too scared is my bet!

      What’s the point training up engineers, ….. anywhere on Earth if they will willingly fall for this.

      Tony.

      By the way, that 150,000 homes thing. That’s based on the total average yearly consumption (24/7/365) of the average Australian home. These solar plants will only generate power (real power) between 10AM and 3PM. Pity the average home requires its power for the full 24 hours of every day, eh!

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      • #
        Analitik

        One of my university colleagues is now working at the AEMO and they are politically constrained in what they can publicly state on renewables. But if you read their publications properly, it’s quite obvious that renewables are more trouble than they are worth.

        Look at all the out clauses in the AEMO FUTURE POWER SYSTEM SECURITY PROGRAM report summary. They clearly see the issues in South Australia but are distancing themselves from any responsibility for the coming grid crash.
        https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/~/-/media/823E457AEA5E43BE83DDD56767126BF2.ashx

        South Australia’s increasing reliance on the Heywood Interconnector, which connects the region to the rest of the NEM. South Australia’s level of non-synchronous generation also means that its power system is more susceptible to rapid changes in frequency, and to larger frequency deviations following a separation event. This makes power system operations for South Australia very different to most of the international experience.

        To date, AEMO has not identified NEM-wide challenges or challenges that are apparent all the time.

        Reading the body of the report, Section 4, will show you the AEMO has analysed South Australia as the special (basket) case that it is with the critical reliance on an interconnector (Heywood) following the loss of synchronous inertia with the closure of its last coal plant (Northern). South Australia is also singled out for discussion in regards to MANAGING EXTREME POWER SYSTEM CONDITIONS (section 5) and plus comparison vs other states for PV and non-synchronous penetration in section 6.

        The TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS (section 8) evaluation of possible solution to strengthen the grids vs disruptive events clearly shows that aside from more traditional synchronous generators, there are no solutions.

        Why all the discussion about frequency control? Because generators MUST be synchronised to produce a usable grid signal and large sudden frequency shifts will cause generators to fall out of synchronisation due to the inertia of the rotors. Unsynchronised generators cannot supply power and this will lead to a cascading effect until protection isolates the portion of the affected grid or all genertors become unsynced and the grid is blacked out.

        In the case of South Australia, the loss of the Heywood interconnector is seen as the most likely cause of an underfrequency event. An additional issue is that the amount of domestic PV reduces demand during the daylight periods and this lowers the effect of demand shedding (selective blackouts) making increasing the likelyhood of a total grid grid collapse. The other possibility with the loss of the Heywood interconnector is an overfrequency event due to high wind farm and PV production being in excess of demand – the contigency plan being developed will be to trip out non-synchronous generators (wind farms) prior to synchonrous generators to give the grid some chance of staying up since the non-synchronous generators that have been deployed cannot regulate reactive power.
        It’s all nicely spelled out in the AEMO February 2016 UPDATE TO RENEWABLE ENERGY INTEGRATION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

        In the event of a non-credible separation of SA from the remainder of the NEM, there is an increasing risk that the current AUFLS scheme in SA will be unable to maintain SA frequency within the FOS. Studies have confirmed this risk is material when there is concurrent occurrence of low operational consumption, high import from Victoria, low power system inertia in SA (less than four–five synchronous generating units operating), and high rooftop PV generation (greater than 480 MW).

        Due to increasing levels of rooftop PV embedded within the distribution system which will be shed as part of the AUFLS scheme, up to an additional 75% of the underlying consumption will be shed at times of high rooftop PV generation, compared to periods when rooftop PV is not generating through the current AUFLS scheme design, in order to deliver the required level of load reduction at a system level to restore frequency balance.

        https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/-/media/CACEB2122362436DAC2CDD6E8D3E70D0.ashx

        The engineers at the AEMO, AER and utilities are not laughing.

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        • #

          Some of you may wonder why this Frequency thing is ….. SO important, and it relates to Maths. (the adding together of each individual sine wave output of each generator)

          If all generators are in synchronisation with every other Generator the Amplitudes of each generator add together perfectly. (maximum amount, and in this case, I’ll use the total power as the reference)

          If all are in sync, then the maximums add directly to each other to give a total for all of them online.

          (Theoretically) If even one is out of sync with all the others, then, even though at the same frequency (50Hz in Australia) then even though the out of sync generator has its own maximum value, then it actually subtracts from the overall total amplitude of the MAIN supply, instead of adding perfectly to it, when you add together the resultant sine waves of all of them in total.

          So, even if the total output of all generators online is enough to cover the consumption, the total supply could actually be less than consumption, resulting in what could be a cascading loss of generators, and blackouts, and that happens in seconds as they all go down, and takes an awful long time to get back up again.

          Now, imagine 500 plus wind towers (just in South Australia here) and many many thousand tiny little grid connected rooftop solar Inverters, all of them having to be in ABSOLUTE perfect frequency with the existing grid supply.

          Tony.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            If you have two sin waves out by 45 degrees, you get a single sin wave with an amplitude of 1.85 times the originals

            Adding waves off slightly different frequencies, you get “beats” which can absolutely destroy sensitive electronic equipment.

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            • #
              tom0mason

              “Adding waves off slightly different frequencies, you get “beats” which can absolutely destroy sensitive electronic equipment.”

              True but you can not put a generator on the grid when running at the wrong speed. If you try the grid, having the bigger current capability, will turn you generator to a motor running very inefficiently at grid frequency.
              Excess current will flow through the generator winding, and if they do not melt, explode or catch fire they will be saved by the wiring acting as a fuse first.

              10

          • #
            Analitik

            The wind turbines and solar PV inverters can sync just fine with the grid – that is not an issue at all.

            The issue is that the 50Hz sine wave needs to be there in the first place before they can “contribute” to the grid supply. While in theory, you could produce this signal electronically (eg thyristor generated output from a HVDC link or battery bank), in practice you need to have high inertia (big a$$) synchronous generators to proved a stable signal though all the grid loadings before the renewables can synch in. Once this is done, renewables can maintain the grid signal (that’s what it is – a VERY low harmonics 50Hz signal) but they cannot provide it in the first place.

            It’s possible that the Heywood interconnector, maybe in conjucntion with MurrayLink, could provide it for the wind farms in the eastern part of South Australia if that was islanded off from the main South Australian grid but I wouldn’t bet on it as a means of black starting South Australia.

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          • #
            tom0mason

            Of course Tony, you have simplified by only looking at single phase system, actual grids are 3 phase. That is to say effectively 3 generators with 3 sine wave outputs, and each 120° displaced from the other. In other words they are equally displaced in phase (and time) from each other (3×120°=360°).

            Now we have a slightly different set of conditions for the grid.

            1. All generators must be at the same voltage.
            2. All generators must be at the same frequency.
            3. All generators must be at the same phase.
            4. All generators have be at the same phase rotation.

            The forth requirement is that the generator must track or follow the grid phase rotation.
            e.g. The grid may peak its voltage sinewave first on phase A, then phase B, then phase C. The generator sinewave outputs must peak in the same order A, B, C. (Sometime generator do not due to the way they were wound).

            A three phase generator set must join the grid with the least disruption. To do this the generator must be at the same voltage, phase, and phase rotation when connecting to the grid. After that the generator becomes a component of the grid, load-sharing the demanded consumer load.

            So our grid system must supply a stable frequency, phase, and voltage with current available to meet the demand at all times 24/7. Failure of frequency, or phase, or voltage, or current will imperil the grid and all connected consumers.

            The grid system basically a balancing job where the generator plant is always trying to meet consumer demand.

            Or at lease that is how it used to be.

            Bring in windfarms and solar.

            Now ‘the maintainers of the grid’ balances the variable customers’ demand, on one side, and variable output generators on the other, and somehow keep it all stable.

            50

    • #
      climateskeptic

      …are functionally illiterate.

      What you mean like people who are unable to tell the difference between a blog and science?

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Yawn.. Another CS EMPTY post!

        82

      • #
        el gordo

        ‘… unable to tell the difference between a blog and science?’

        Not quite.

        ‘Functional illiteracy is reading and writing skills that are inadequate to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.’ wiki

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      • #
        tom0mason

        climateskeptic,

        You say that as if they are mutually exclusive, you are wrong, they are not.

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        • #
          ROM

          Hmm!

          climateskeptic / skeptical science;

          Been in Potsdam , Shellenhuber’s centre of the most distorted and corrupted alarmist climate science in all of Germany and in all of Europe.

          Honesty about claims involving climate science is not a consideration at all when the SkS insiders are in full flight as we have seen many times in the past.

          So writes a paper a month [ ? ] An occasional spot in the Guardian is likely to be counted as a paper here. See above!

          Qualifications amount to about the level of a two week climate communication course at Queensland University.

          Prime characteristic; An empty vessel makes the most noise as we are currently seeing when climateskeptic bangs on.

          Ah well! Some mothers do have them unfortunately!

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  • #

    Germany pulled off the great trick of reducing emissions during a major economic slump. The fact that it has been expanding coal power (and hasn’t shut its nukes) seems lost on those who want to see it as a pin-up for Big Green. (I suppose there’s always Norway, super-rich through oil, gas and cutting down trees, which off-shores everything naughty, even its toxic waste which goes to Sweden.)

    There have been German Empires of one sort of another for well over a millennium. The best of a bad lot were run by blokes called Fred, which kind of says it all, and they weren’t all that functional or durable. I reckon the EU rates among the crummiest.

    And this latest crummy German Empire, which already runs co-ordinated military missions of its members, wants its own army. Considering how well it’s used its “soft power”, it’s anyone guess guess what it would do with “hard power” – but the words “Germany” and “France” might give clues.

    Now I wonder where the EU can draw on large numbers of military age males who don’t have much better things to do with their time…

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  • #
    pat

    9 Sept: [VIDEO]: DailyCaller: Christian Datoc: Bill Clinton Mocks ‘The Coal People’ In West Virginia, Kentucky For Supporting Trump
    “We all know how [Hillary’s] opponent has done well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky,” the former president told the crowd at the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum. “The coal people don’t like any of us [Democrats] anymore.”…
    Clinton added that “they all voted for me. I won twice, and they did well.”
    “They blame the president when the sun doesn’t come up in the morning now.”…
    2,370 COMMENTS AS OF POSTING COMMENT
    http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/09/bill-clinton-mocks-the-coal-people-in-west-virginia-kentucky-for-supporting-trump-video/

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  • #
    el gordo

    Forcing Germans to become vegetarians would have been the last straw … The Draft Policy.

    ——

    The initial draft has been so strongly watered down that klimaretter writes that there is “not much of it left“. Gone are:

    * the requirement to end coal power

    * any mention of taxes on fossil and heating fuels

    * duties on building heating systems

    * requirements for reducing the consumption of meat

    – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.SHJlSklU.dpuf

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    • #
      el gordo

      Beijing is a different kettle of fish.

      ‘The Chinese government has outlined a plan to reduce its citizens’ meat consumption by 50%, in a move that climate campaigners hope will provide major heft in the effort to avoid runaway global warming.’

      Guardian

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      • #
        Dennis

        And nothing to do with a growing middle class of consumers demanding beef and now a worldwide beef shortage?

        80

      • #
        tom0mason

        Umm,

        No doubt the hagfish and hatchetfish of the media will hatch barbelled arguments as to why everyone should scale back on meat.

        40

  • #
    pat

    9 Sept: WSJ: U.S. Agencies Order Dakota Access Pipeline Work Halted After Judge Rules It Can Proceed
    Army Corps of Engineers said it wouldn’t authorize construction until after reassessing previous approvals
    By Kris Maher and Alison Sider
    The unusual move by three federal agencies immediately followed a federal judge’s ruling denying an injunction sought by the tribe. The judge said the Dakota Access Pipeline would be able to proceed…
    U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in a 58-page opinion issued Friday that he wouldn’t grant an injunction sought by the tribe because he didn’t agree that the federal government failed to consult with the tribe as required by law and that the pipeline would cause irreparable harm to the tribe’s heritage.
    He said the Army Corps documented dozens of attempts to consult with the tribe from the fall of 2014 through the spring of 2016. These included at least three site visits to Lake Oahe to assess any potential effects on historical properties, according to the judge…
    Brigham McCown, who once led the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the federal agencies’ move looked like political capitulation to pressure from activists, who have homed in on energy infrastructure as a way to challenge fossil fuel development.
    “To me this clearly looks to be political involvement in a process that has already played out through the courts,” he said…
    Last month, 31 environmental groups asked the president in a letter to intervene again and repeal the permits for the pipeline. The pipeline’s backers, meanwhile, say it will reduce the potential for accidents by cutting the amount of crude oil that travels by train…
    The pipeline has attracted a range of opponents, from environmental groups and landowners to celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein…
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-rules-3-8-billion-dakota-access-pipeline-can-proceed-1473450128
    FIRST COMMENT:
    Suneel Mahajan: And I thought retroactive cancellations of legally obtained permits only happened in Banana Republics.
    SECOND COMMENT: JOHN VOLK: Reminds me of Tom Wolfe’s 1970 book “Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers.,” Indian-style. Maybe Susan Sarandon and Jill Stein will host a cocktail party and invite Eddie Murphy’s prison poet, Tyrone Greene (“Kill my landlord, kill my landlord….”) No doubt Warren Buffet is behind all of this.

    9 Sept: SeekingAlpha: Carl Surran: U.S. blocks Dakota pipeline construction after court allows it to proceed
    (PLENTY OF WARREN BUFFET IN THE COMMENTS)
    http://seekingalpha.com/news/3208010-u-s-blocks-dakota-pipeline-construction-court-allows-proceed

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    ROM

    In line with Jo’s headline piece and the way in which the Climate Change Alarmist meme is disintegrating now at a rapidly accelerating rate, particularly in its stronghold in western Europe, my own thinking for better or worse, is running along the following lines.

    There are at least three factors leading to the accelerating disintegration of the climate alarmist meme.

    1 / Disillusion with renewable energy and the severe damage it is inflicting on the society and european environment

    2 / Plus rising awareness by the European public to the astonishing levels of public officialdom corruption directly arising related to the renewable energy industry’s brown paper bag psychology and its increasing and now being publicly revealed standover and thuggish behaviour towards ordinary citizens who dare to oppose any new renewable energy installations in their locality.
    And the permeating of renewable energy corruptive practices right down and through and now being uncovered publicly, amongst the political class right on down to the local level, local government.

    3 / The rise of right wing parties through out Europe as a direct consequence of the overweening arrogance and dismissive condescension of the EU commission and its leaders such as Junkers.
    [ I was surprised to discover that the European Union of today only formally came into existence on November 1st 1993
    There were other various formal European wide agreements over time since about 1954 all leading to what was supposed to be a fully integrated European nation but which won’t now happen for at least another couple of generations, thanks to the EU’s own misuse and lack of understanding on changing national cultural memes that have been in existence some time for centuries past. ]

    Plus the EU’s complete inability and its casual approach [ until too late,] diplomatically and practically and bureaucratically towards the unrestricted mass inflow of middle east refugees but also a very large number of North Africans who are not refugees at all but are merely unskilled, generally unwanted economic carpet baggers riding on the European’s support for genuine refugees coming out of the Middle East killing fields.

    Brexit was the major indicator and a right tending political indicator at that, of the political and disintegration malaise of the EU that is now spreading across all of the EU nations .

    With the recent and continuing rise of the right wing political parties in just about every EU member nation, the resistance and contempt for the hard Green left’s politically based drive to renewable energy based on the supposed climate change meme which itself is the base for the anticipated by the European left of increased political, economic and social power to the point of domination, is both a danger and an anathema to the new and growing right wing political parties and their supporters.

    So the hard left green’s global warming / climate change meme [ they own that meme outright now and that brings a lot more political right tending hackles into play ] plus all its connations and flow down effects needs to be and must be reversed from the political right’s point of view.

    To stay in power, the centre left and centre right have to be both seen to be moving to short circuit the political rights increasing influence when it points out the horrible price Europeans are beginning to pay socially and economically and for many, individually, for what is still a completely unproven, modelled only climate change hypothesis that is yet to be proven scientifically.

    4 / Then there is that rarely discussed generational shift and change .
    Where a new generation has different values and different aims and different goals for their lives than the generations that are passing their used by date.
    And some of the younger ones have never experienced hardship but are now beginning to realise what it might cost them in their future hopes and dreams if the hard green left ideology and its utterly impractical to the point of stupidity, energy aims are allowed to gain the upper political hand.

    Interestingly a lot of the Brexit support came from those who knew the independent Britain of old, had gone right through the EU experience and on weighing up the alternatives came down strongly for Britain once again being Britain, a major world nation in its own right and not a vassal state of the EU run by an arrogant and condescending Elite in Brussels.
    Hence Brexit.

    With the Brexit and a new British PM, the green left’s / wealthy right voting carpet bagging, subsidy hoover’s domination of the British energy scene is coming to an end as the political right in the UK using the Brexit vote as its mandate for change begins to dismantle the elaborate, convoluted and extremely inefficient and costly renewable energy’s bureaucratically controlled economic and financial and subsidy structures.
    ———
    Some time ago I mentioned here on Jo’s blog the parrallels between Adizes Corporate Life Cycle and the trajectory of the global warming / climate change alarmist meme since it first came into existence back in the mid 1980’s shortly before Hansen and a couple of collaborators deliberately and very, very dishonestly connived to convince a number of American Senators to fall into line with Hansen’s own personal climate alarmist beliefs which were completely unproven in science and still have to be and are waiting to be proven if ever, nearly 30 years later.

    If one considers the various stages in the Corporate Life Cycle with a little imagination and some flexibility in the Corporation orientated interpretations of the terminology then it becomes apparent that the alarmist global warming / climate change meme and its entire immense political and financial and subsidy dependent structures are all well on the the Corporate Life Cycle downhill run to eventual oblivion.

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      Roy Hogue

      And some of the younger ones have never experienced hardship but are now beginning to realise what it might cost them in their future hopes and dreams if the hard green left ideology and its utterly impractical to the point of stupidity, energy aims are allowed to gain the upper political hand.

      How selfish can you get? Doesn’t the welfare of the planet trump any personal hopes and dreams? Or are they realizing there’s a cost to being foolish and that cost is far too high to keep going down that road?

      Let’s hope this idea catches on everywhere. Nuts to the climate change worriers. A little “selfishness” might go a long way.

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    ROM

    Off topic;

    And for farmers and may others here in Australia we might, might! just be able to get some idea on what the future weather and the critical seasonal rainfall, a season, a year or more ahead might hold for us if this claim from the Chinese scientists holds up under scientific scrutiny.

    Via the GWPF’.
    —————–
    The impact of solar activity on the 2015/16 El Niño event

    Abstract

    Recent SST and atmospheric circulation anomaly data suggest that the 2015/16 El Niño event is quickly decaying.
    Some researchers have predicted a forthcoming La Niña event in late summer or early fall 2016.

    From the perspective of the modulation of tropical SST by solar activity, the authors studied the evolution of the 2015/16 El Niño event, which occurred right after the 2014 solar peak year.

    Based on statistical and composite analysis, a significant positive correlation was found between sunspot number index and El Niño Modoki index, with a lag of two years.

    A clear evolution of El Niño Modoki events was found within 1–3 years following each solar peak year during the past 126 years, suggesting that anomalously strong solar activity during solar peak periods favors the triggering of an El Niño Modoki event.

    The patterns of seasonal mean SST and wind anomalies since 2014 are more like a mixture of two types of El Niño (i.e., eastern Pacific El Niño and El Niño Modoki), which is similar to the pattern modulated by solar activity during the years following a solar peak.

    Therefore, the El Niño Modoki component in the 2015/16 El Niño event may be a consequence of solar activity, which probably will not decay as quickly as the eastern Pacific El Niño component.
    The positive SST anomaly will probably sustain in the central equatorial Pacific (around the dateline) and the northeastern Pacific along the coast of North America, with a low-intensity level, during the second half of 2016.
    ————–

    Play it again, Sam! [ “Casablanca” ]

    BBC [ 2007 ] ‘No Sun link’ to climate change

    A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun’s output cannot be causing modern-day climate change.

    It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun’s output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

    It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun’s effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

    Writing in the Royal Society’s journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.

    “This should settle the debate,” said Mike Lockwood, from the UK’s Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

    [ more> ]
    &

    This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity
    Dr Piers Forster

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    Roy Hogue

    But the Green Party and environmental organisations said the Climate Action Plan has lost all power as a blueprint for decarbonising Germany.

    Forgive my ignorance but how do you decarbonize a place. Are they expecting to strip the landscape bare of all living things? Can’t they at least come up with a term that makes sense, like say, eliminating human caused carbon dioxide emissions?

    And then there’s the very real question, what do you have left after you manage to decarbonize Germany?

    Curiouser and curiouser.

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      Roy Hogue

      I guess they don’t realize that to stop all CO2 emissions they have to figure out how to get everyone in Germany to stop exhaling. Inhale all you want but don’t exhale.

      Good luck!

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        Roy Hogue

        I expect what they would really like is to simply eliminate nearly everyone on Earth.

        Good luck with that too.

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        • #
          Analitik

          You need to get rid of those uncooperative animals, insects and fungi too

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            I hope those uncooperative animals, insects and fungi are included in, …”strip the landscape bare of all living things.” But you never know in these days of restroom confusion. So I suppose a fungus might decide that today it’s a rock and be missed in the decarbonization.

            We live in very interesting times, at least if you can live with rampant confusion.

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              Analitik

              Ah yes, I should have read you OP more closely. But you have left a gaping exemption – the oceans. All the sea creatures need to be dealt with too (including those nasty corals).

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                True! And I wish them good luck with that also.

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                tom0mason

                Yes. And the plan is to reduce all carbon compounds to elemental graphite form, and spread it all uniformly over the surface of the planet. That should end the problems with CO2 overheating the world.
                Well shouldn’t it?

                🙂

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        • #

          Say, RH, who will then support them in the life style
          to which they are accustomed?

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      Roy Hogue

      I just noticed something. Until this morning I would have said there is no such word as decarbonization, yet here it is. And already Chrome’s spell checker recognizes it along with decarbonize.

      These Google elves are fast. You’ve got to get up earlier than I do to get ahead of them.

      Curiouser and curiouser.

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    JJB MKI

    “Germany is already struggling to meet its 2020 climate targets, and is under additional pressure after Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year.”

    Where does this pressure come from? Many of the more powerful figures in the new UK government are outright, or closet sceptics, which in the context of the climate ‘debate’ seems almost shocking. Outside it though, in the real world, amongst ordinary people, most would struggle to raise an eyebrow. The bottom line is that in the UK, most people either don’t care about the constant barrage of climate doomsday scenarios and weather scares offered up to them on a daily basis, pay lip service to caring so as not to disagree with the BBC whilst being secretly sceptical or disinterested, or have actually bothered looking at the evidence and are outraged at the eye watering costs of attempting to change the weather (which can’t be done) to address an entirely fictitious problem.

    The answer is the pressure comes from a small circle of shrill, malignantly narcissistic bullying activists, mostly indulging their misanthropy- sometimes just lost in a phobia surrounding the uncertainty of nature. These are surrounded by a larger band of insecure workaday metro conformists (with a vastly disproportionate representation in the media) who need to wear their ‘greenery’ as an identity badge. The skill of the inner circle is in Alinsky inspired propaganda, which is now an educational staple in academia, and their modus operandi is using noise to intimidate and exaggerate their size to further their influence.

    This reminds me of the Aztec Death Whistle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePPnz2fTOfo). This instrument would be used by small bands of marauders when attacking their enemy, but still out of site. Several of these together would sound like the angry screams of thousands of invaders, spooking and demoralising their enemies into giving up before the fight. The death whistle has been used to great effect by climate activists – they can use it to put pressure on cowardly unquestioning politicians, intimidate journals and media outlets into giving their press releases more, and more biased coverage then they deserve, into drumming out dissenters, and it is also used to try and create a sense of fear and anxiety in the general public. Thankfully the latter seems less effective than the former, which is just irritating, yet unfortunately has an undue influence on policymakers, particularly if they themselves belong to the outer circle.

    What can be done about this? Hopefully once the death whistle is recognised for what it really is, the sources of the scary noises will eventually be derided rather than feared. Things in the UK seem hopeful – with any luck this will spread to the continent and hopefully across the world.

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    • #
      ianl8888

      Things in the UK seem hopeful …

      On what hard evidence, please ?

      [And I’m sorry that this is so, but avoiding a responsive answer is just copying the tactics of the greenie activists].

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    tom0mason

    “The final version of the German Environment Ministry’s Climate Action Plan has been published.”

    And remarkably Poland is not to be used as leverage in Germany’s compliance with European Emissions Trading System (ETS).

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    Oliver K. Manuel

    As I awaken to reality, I discovered that George Orwell was right when he concluded in 1946 that a new technological matrix of deceit was arising from the ruins of WWII. Although he was dying from tuberculosis, he moved to the Scottish Isle of Jura to start writing NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

    I am not a student of history, but I believe it was the father of the elder President George Bush that designed a plan after WWII for the National Academy of Sciences to construct and maintain a web of deceit by limiting public research funds to “scientists” who willingly joined the “97% scientific consensus” for Standard Models of Reality!

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  • #
    Oliver K. Manuel

    As I awaken to reality, I discovered that George Orwell was right when he concluded in 1946 that a new technological matrix of deceit was arising from the ruins of WWII. Although he was dying from tuberculosis, he moved to the Scottish Isle of Jura to start writing NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

    I am not a student of history, but I believe it was the father of the elder President George Bush that designed a plan after WWII for the National Academy of Sciences to construct and maintain a web of deceit by limiting public research funds to “scientists” who willingly joined the “97% scientific consensus” for Standard Models of Reality!

    30