Thursday Open Thread

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195 comments to Thursday Open Thread

  • #
    el gordo

    Ita sends 300 ABC staff to Parramatta instead of Bourke.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      They will just catch the new metro back home to Ultimo – but will ask for foreign posting loading and time off for being sent to Outer Siberia

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      BBC hit by mass boycott as viewers flock to Andrew Neil’s GB News and cancel TV licences

      AVID fans of GB News have hailed Britain’s newest TV channel and vowed to continue their boycott of the Beeb as they seek information from alternative sources.

      After the channel launched on Sunday it has been making waves on the box as well as social media as viewers welcome another set of voices to comment on the most pressing issues of today. Some followers have taken to Twitter to reveal they no longer wish to tune into the BBC to find what is going on in the UK and the world.

      Instead, they pledged, they would continue their boycott of the public service broadcaster, with some saying their reporting of “woke stories” was the reason behind their decision.

      One tweet which was “liked” by more than 7,500 Twitter accounts read: “Raise your hand if you haven’t watched BBC News for 48 hours.”

      The message received a flurry of tweets in response from people saying they decided long ago to switch off the Beeb.

      One said: “I switched BBC News off a long time ago. A one-way feed with absolutely no balance. Delivering fear-mongering with facts, figures, context and perspective totally lacking.”

      Another man admitted he hadn’t watched the Beeb since 2016, in the wake of the EU referendum.

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      • #
        Annie

        Excellent. There are some companies who are boycotting GB News, like IKEA; well, go woke, go broke!

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          It gets better Annie….in what appears full Communist mode, is the the Whtehouse encouraging members of familes to snitch on each other?

          You cant make this stuff up…”percieved” = “I feel” ( aka feelings )

          https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/u-s-citizens-encouraged-to-snitch-on-those-perceived-to-be-radicalizing/

          “President Joe Biden’s administration has a plan for Americans to report their politically radicalized family, friends and co-workers to the government so that we can all be safe from domestic terrorism.

          “On June 15, the White House released a fact sheet detailing Biden’s national strategy for dealing with domestic terrorism, which it described as “the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today.”

          ……………
          “Citing the Department of Homeland Security’s “If you see something, say something” campaign to stop radical Islamic terrorism, the official noted:

          ““This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence.”

          But…..in the marxist push for domination of langhuage, are “offenseive” words classified as “violence”?

          And who defines “radicalization”?

          Now we see the full Marxist hysterical push to create a nation of informers…like Cuba….or North Korea….

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        • #
          tonyb

          Several of the companies have recanted after a backlash and the Co-op made a good tweet citing other points of view need to be heard.

          St Ives where the G7 was held has seen its infection rate rise from 20 to 550 cases per hundred thousand but no doubt all the world leaders and their entourage self isolated on their return home

          50

      • #
        beowulf

        To give some more detail on GB News, the new independent UK news service scored a major hit on its first night (Sunday 12/6) despite poor sound quality and fuzzy picture issues. Bear in mind that it is running on a shoestring budget compared to its competitors, but it still needs to get its technical act together pronto. Viewer ratings were as follows:

        GB News — 336,000
        BBC news — 100,000
        SKY news — 46,000

        The viewer demographics were: 57% male/43% female; 52% 65 years or older.
        Some of its popularity can be attributed to the temporary curiosity factor, but it is still a good start for free speech.

        Its logo: “We are proud to be the UK’s news channel” and its statement of intent:“We tackle the issues that matter across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, not just the nation’s metropolitan centres” have triggered the lefties and their networks. They are expected to try to use vexatious complaints to OFCOM — the media watchdog — to attack GBN at every opportunity.

        Just before its launch GBN had complained that the BBC was already trying to knobble it by seeking to deny GBN access to the pool news clip service shared amongst the networks whereby they borrow news footage off each other.

        Leftist activists have already forced at least 4 major advertisers to pull their ads from GBN whilst other advertisers are holding their nerve.
        https://mahyartousi.co.uk/2021/06/17/co-op-silences-woke-mob-as-it-hits-back-at-gb-news-boycott-demands/

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        • #
          shortie of greenbank

          I’d probably like LotusEaters run by Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad to continue to expand into having some proper news services in the future as well. He seems to find skilled people who fit the conservative-libertarian ideals quite well and report with good emotion and humour.

          10

  • #
    Ronin

    That’s out west to a city girl.

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  • #
    el gordo

    Energy Zones get financial support from Premier Gladys to ‘expedite’ and ‘smooth’ the way.

    ‘The Berejiklian government will spend an extra $380 million to help expedite investment into the state’s five renewable energy zones and smooth the way for an increase in solar, wind and storage projects.’ (SMH)

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  • #
    Strop

    Finding Porites: The Old Corals With Our Climate History

    Dr Jennifer Marohasy’s new documentary Finding Porites: The Old Corals With Our Climate History, which tracks Jennifer’s expedition to determine whether the corals are dead or alive.

    https://youtu.be/ZENS9xyK1a8
    run time 22 min

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    • #
      RicDre

      Good news for Australia’s Barrier Reef you’ll likely not hear about in the media

      Dr. Peter Ridd writes on his Facebook page:

      In 2016, there was a major bleaching event in the northern section of the Reef.

      There were doom headlines around the world and Prof Hughes, who led the monitoring of the coral, famously tweeted“I showed the results of the aerial surveys of bleaching on the GBR to my students. And then we wept”

      It is time to stop crying.

      The worst affected area for that event, around Lizard Island where coral cover halved, has now totally recovered. It only took 5 years.

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/15/good-news-for-australias-barrier-reef-youll-likely-not-hear-about-in-the-media/

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      • #
        Richard Owen No.3

        Actually I wonder whether we shouldn’t be celebrating the important anniversary coming up in December this year.
        It will be the 50 year anniversary of The Death of the Great Barrier Reef as reported to be coming ‘real soon’ in 1971 in the Sydney Morning Herald (then a well respected newspaper).

        I suggest we organise a competition for the “best” prediction of doom, although obviously none have been correct.
        The “winner” could be declared the “doomsayer of the year” or possibly awarded the Hysterical Gretta medal.
        I am not sure if the Government will contribute any money (on top of the academic grants wasted annually) but perhaps Mrs. Turnbull could spare a bit from that $400 million.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        I am cheered by the pic at the top of that WUWT article. I am somewhat sceptical of the “as good as ever” claims because I know what the GBR was like before the COT outbreaks – it was very much like that picture.

        It is hard corals that give reefs their beauty and diversity of life and they are slower to recover than the soft corals.

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      • #
        Dennis

        Who would have thought that a living coral reef has life cycles and rebirth.

        sarc.

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        • #
          GlenM

          It comes down to the blind ignorance of the masses. No observation skills and no brains. Hang on.. am I talking about the media and our politicians?
          Es

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  • #
    Lance

    This encapsulates woke progressive/liberals. Nobody cares about what they say.

    https://rumble.com/vil8sn-hysterical-new-music-video-roasts-woke-libs.html

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  • #

    Callide B Unit One is back on line, the first one to come back, after almost 23 days.

    At 4.40, it wound up slowly, and is now rolling along delivering 160MW of its 350MW Nameplate.

    Incidentally, the Total Nameplate for ALL Australian coal fired power plants is 23,000MW.

    Four plants in Queensland, with 6 Units are SuperCritical, and those six Units have a Nameplate of 2880MW, so 12.5% of all the Nameplate.

    EVERY other plant is SubCritical.

    The levels of technology for coal fired power are:

    SubCritical – Critical – SuperCritical – UltraSuperCritical – Advanced UltraSuperCritical

    So, 88% of Australia’s coal fired power is 70s/80s technology, with a Thermal Efficiency of 34%.

    Advanced UltraSuperCritical (A-USC) has a Thermal Efficiency of 49%.

    Each one percent increase in Thermal Efficiency leads to a two percent reduction in CO2 Emissions.

    So, an equivalent 20,120MW of A-USC coal fired power emits 30% less CO2 than our ancient clunkers.

    Australia consumes 204TWH of power a year. A daily average of 23125MW of power is required every hour.

    Coal fired power supplies 134TWH of that total. (67% of that total overall power consumption) At a daily average of 15,500MW per hour.

    Tony.

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    • #
      Richard Owen No.3

      Thanks Tony,
      I thought it was 47% but I’ve corrected my comment in The Australian.

      Using weather dependent generation methods, which with their variable output make it economically impossible for standard methods to continue operating isn’t a way of reducing emissions when the choice is 35-40% efficiency from “Peaking Plants” or yet to be installed storage from batteries, pumped hydro, or “Green hydrogen” which will also be expensive when made with excess renewables.

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      • #
        Hanrahan

        Richard, is that 35-40% efficiency for OC gas turbines or CC ones? They install OC turbines for peaking because they spool up faster and are cheaper to install. The trade 0ff is efficiency.

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        • #
          Richard Owen No.3

          OC gas turbines. They can be run fairly continuously and when so done get greater efficiency (up to 40% with G.E.) and running time. Cycling up and down induces heat stress cracking and much downtime for maintenance.
          Yes, they are faster and cheaper to install, which is one of the reasons for the new plant in NSW to cover for (some) of the loss from Liddell. It seems to be a direct copy of the one already used at Colongra by Snowy Hydro i.e. 4 units about 667MW.
          It would appear that they will use either diesel or natural gas. Diesel presumably for start-up.

          The advantages of Closed Cycle plants is greater efficiency (latest plants 60-62%) hence lower emissions and lower running costs – unless you try and use them for load following to balance wind farms, when they revert to Open Cycle types. CCGTs + wind was tried in Ireland and didn’t work. In Germany wind drove CCGTs out of business; even with 2 newer stations being dismantled and moved elsewhere (Turkey for one). The UK has been trying for years to get companies to build CCGTs and they refuse as they would be uneconomic.
          As for CCGTs in Australia NSW has 2 total 606MW, Qld. 4 plants** total 1334MW, SA has 4 (counting the 4.4MW unit at Cooper’s Brewery) total 842MW, and WA has 4 plants total 1130MW. No CCGTs in Victoria.

          **3 running on coal seam gas.

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      • #
        another ian

        Willis E has a look at

        “Storing Energy” at

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/15/storing-energy/

        “Of course, we wouldn’t need batteries if we didn’t try to depend on unreliable, intermittent sources like solar and wind, but let’s set that question aside for the moment.”

        Interesting graphs and things about lithium availability and mining in comments (IMO)

        00

    • #
      • #
        Hanrahan

        “We need to see a genuine transition plan for workers depending on those industries…….

        Here’s an original thought: Why not keep these people employed where they are and leverage any new jobs off that economic activity?

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        • #
          yarpos

          to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, because the government wants to do what looks good, not what works

          00

      • #

        Have you noticed the ‘very very subtle’ differentiation here, something I noticed on Day one, the evening of the, umm, incident.

        The Government talking head (telling us everything was okay and it’ll be back on line real soon) was very quick to say that the power was removed from ….. 470,000 homes and businesses, sort of giving the impression that power was outed for less than half a million, nothing really.

        Those homes each contain two three people, and those businesses contain five or more people, and those high rise workplaces anything up to hundreds of people.

        So, with virtually all of South East Queensland outed, it’s reasonable enough to assume that around three million people lost power, considering that outage was as far North as Rockhampton and further.

        Tony.

        Population of SEQ is almost 4 million, so I’m probably being conservative with that guess, and power went out from the Border to the Cape.

        100

        • #
          Sambar

          And here in Victoriastan, the power supply company has “apologised” to consumers in the Dandenongs, for getting their reconnection dates wrong.
          After what was described by the deputy premier as “unprecedented” wind damage causing trees to fall over the power line distribution system, it appears that some customers will be without power for up to 4 weeks.

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          • #
            yarpos

            Apparently a couple of hundred power poles arent just lying around, and take a while to produce, deliver and install, and thats just one facet of it all. Quite a mess.

            The Black Spur tourist road above Healesville has been closed for 2 weeks now as hundreds of trees cam down and also damaged the road. The damage in there must be spactacular if they have that many trees down just on the road line.

            30

    • #
      Ronin

      3 out of 4 units is still way better than those windy clunkers, King Island zero renewable.

      60

  • #
  • #
    Ian

    I see the Georgia vote audit didn’t attract much attention here. It must be heartbreaking for all those who backed Trump’s utterly discredited claims of electoral fraud to find out conclusively how he manipulates the truth to serve his own ends.

    https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/historic_first_statewide_audit_of_paper_ballots_upholds_result_of_presidential_race

    https://sos.ga.gov/admin/uploads/11.19_.20_Risk_Limiting_Audit_Report_Memo_1.pdf

    Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the results of the Risk Limiting Audit of Georgia’s presidential contest, which upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast. Due to the tight margin of the race and the principles of risk-limiting audits, this audit was a full manual tally of all votes cast. The audit confirmed that the original machine count accurately portrayed the winner of the election.

    “Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results,” said Secretary Raffensperger. “This is a credit to the hard work of our county and local elections officials who moved quickly to undertake and complete such a momentous task in a short period of time.”

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    • #
      Lance

      Biden allegedly won the State of Georgia by approx 12,000 votes.

      It must be heartbreaking that The State of Georgia cannot account for 18,000 votes. They lost the chain of custody documents for the votes. Under GA law, those votes must be dismissed. Hmmm.

      “Reportedly, the total number of absentee ballots whose chain of custody documents were included among the 385 missing forms was 18,901, which is over 6,000 votes more than the 11,779 vote margin of Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to the official count from NBC News.”

      https://www.westernjournal.com/ga-election-official-admits-chain-custody-docs-missing-2020-election-absentee-ballots-report/

      Maybe Biden did not win the state of Georgia, eh?

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        If you cant account for 18000 votes, the result should be thrown out…

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        • #
          Murray Shaw

          Yes OS, in WA they lost track of some boxes and a new election was called. Should happen in GA.

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          • #

            And in WA, when they lost that ballot box, we had the names and addresses of everyone who voted at that site. We could have just rerun that sole location, but we “had” to redo the whole state.

            The Sports guy (engineer) who won on preferences, ended up losing to a Green.

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      • #
        Klem

        Perhaps but don’t forget, not all of those 18,000 ballots were votes for Biden, some were votes for Hillary Clinton.

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    • #
    • #
      RicDre

      From the document provided, its not clear exactly what is done in a “Risk Limiting Audit” but according to one document I found about a “Risk Limiting Audit”, it is a statistical auditing process, not a recount and in fact it appears that a recount was not done given the last line in the documented says:

      “Because the margin is still less than 0.5%, the President can request a recount after certification of the results. That recount will be conducted by rescanning all paper ballots.”

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I believe the feds were going to turn up to “check” the result in Arizona…..

        But….( and this really is quite a healthy response… )

        https://dailyangle.com/articles/state-senator-threatens-biden-ag-with-jail-over-election-meddling

        “Attorney General Merrick Garland late last week issued a threat to states that are adopting new rules and regulations intended to assure the integrity of U.S. elections. Some of those states even have begun audits of the 2020 results to see what problems there were then.

        “Garland said, according to a report in the Washington Examiner, he’s beefing up the number of lawyers in his Civil Rights Division to investigate voter rights.

        “”We are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access, and where we see violations, we will not hesitate to act,” he promised.

        “However, one state senator in Arizona, where the state senate is just about finished with an audit of all 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County, took offense.

        “”You will not touch Arizona ballots or machines unless you want to spend time in an Arizona prison,” said state Sen. Wendy Rogers. “Maybe you should focus on stopping terrorism…”

        The Justice Department is one of the most corrupt institutions in the USA. https://t.co/Jl2pKNpfJR

        “— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) June 11, 2021

        “The U.S. Constitution, in fact, gives state lawmakers authority over state elections.

        “Rogers added that her state will not “tolerate this federal meddling.”

        “The free state of Arizona will not tolerate this federal meddling. https://t.co/1O7ieEEnVR

        “— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) June 11, 2021

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      • #
        Lance

        Correct. They grab a sample of ballots, run it through a vote tabulator twice, and if they get the same “count”, then the “audit” is deemed accurate.

        In a forensic audit, ballots are “hand counted”, signatures and addresses are verified, ballots with missing information are not counted (ie, no address, no signature, invalid address ), and in the case of Arizona, ballots that appear to be on unofficial paper or with machine marked choices ( not hand marked with a pen ) or mail in ballots without any creases or folds, are segregated for investigation, as are the several boxes of blank ballots found intermixed with actual ballots.

        A forensic audit is the “real deal”. A “Risk Limiting Audit” is a political way to say “Hey, we had an Audit, Trust the results we say happened, and look at how much time and money we saved”.

        20

    • #
      Lance

      Yes, lets do have a current look at those “unfounded claims”.

      https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/06/17/ballot-problems-persist-in-atlanta-georgia-missing-ballots-missing-logs-duplicated-ballot-scans-and-worse/

      “It appears specific lots of ballots -all favoring Joe Biden- were counted multiple times….Additionally, fraudulent ballots created on non secure paper, which appear to have been made on copy machines, is another issue…. There are seven targeted voter regions where similar ballot issues and statistical impossibilities have been identified nationwide: Fulton County, Georgia; Wayne County, Michigan; Maricopa County, Arizona; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Clark County, Nevada; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Madison, Wisconsin.”

      Looking bad for Slow Joe, eh? No wonder Democrat election officials and ballot counting employees are hiring criminal defense attorneys.

      30

  • #
    Simon

    The Victorian government has declared a state energy emergency after the Yallourn power station and coal mine was damaged in recent flooding.
    Last month, the Callide coal-fired power station exploded. These fossil fuel generators don’t seem to be very reliable.
    Fortunately Australia has reliable and renewable distributed solar and wind power generation.

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    • #
      Annie

      Oh really?! You are so funny Simon. I live in Nth Central Victoria and we have exactly no sun and no wind! Just so reliable, aren’t they? NOT.

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      • #
        Annie

        If the wind turbines aren’t producing any electricity, presumably they are actually consuming some in order to prevent warping? Even better. NOT.

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          A rotating synchronous condenser?

          Or just a dead weight?

          I’d suggest a dead weight. Not sure if the power electronics of the bird shredders can control power flow back and forth, I’d suggest not….otherwise that would turn them into fans…

          How far do you think a blade would be flung if the speed control malfunctioned and it oversped and came apart?

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        • #
          another ian

          Annie

          See the link at #6.1.2

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Pretty much the same here in north east Victoriastan, if you were relying on solar or wind over the last 4 -5 days you would be in trouble .

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        • #
          Ronin

          King Island power 13:55, 100% diesel no wind or solar.

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        • #
          RickWill

          SE Melbourne has averaged 1.5hours/day of full sunshine equivalent for the last 10 days. That is down by 35% on the same days last year.

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          • #
            shortie of greenbank

            I was in the army in the early 90s north of Melbourne. I could count about 10 days total where the sun shone from late april until late July that year. I came back a couple of weeks later for a 2 week exercise and the sun finally came out on the last day as we were leaving. I don’t remember it being all that windy either.

            I took note of it since I come from QLD and our winters are quite sunny by comparison (and we get really strong westerly winds kicking up in July-Aug up here as well at times).

            10

      • #
        another ian

        Annie

        Evidence that the saying “Look before you leap” has been woked?

        00

    • #
      Lance

      Simon, do yourself a favour and read up on reactive power and grid frequency requirements.

      In the coming months, Australia will get an education in AC Power Systems.

      Solar and Wind provide Watts. Not VARs. Nor do Solar and Wind provide frequency stabilization.

      SA has the lights on because of their interconnector, not because wind and solar provide sufficient, dispatchable, power at voltage and at frequency. SA “leaches” off of the synchronous thermal and hydro power in order to stabilize their grid.

      Seriously. Do try and get some kind of education in grid level AC power systems.

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      • #
        PeterS

        Children can’t understand basic maths and physics these days so how can they understand grid level AC power systems? Not a chance.

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      • #
        Simon

        Heard of a transformer?
        My point is that you need multiple distributed sources for a robust electricity grid. A small number of large coal-fired power stations are risky and inefficient, but Jo never seems to mention this.

        04

        • #
          yarpos

          You have just confirmed everything Lance said in that statement

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        • #
          Lance

          What happens when a 3000 HP across the line start motor is energized on your robust grid of distributed micro generators that can’t provide reactive power? FYI, that’s an 18 MW instantaneous load.

          Tell me how you handle that. I’ll wait.

          Grid scale isn’t a bunch of LED lights and some ceiling fans, Simon. Magical thinking isn’t brilliant, it is ignorant. Grid scale power requires true, real, power and reactive power because the load has resistive, inductive, and capacitive, components, ie: Impedence.

          My supposition is that you have no knowledge of AC Power systems. That’s the real problem.

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          The only reason you NEED multiple sources is for redundancy. Murphy lives and things like flooding of the Yallorn mine will happen occasionally.

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    • #
      Chad

      Simon
      June 17, 2021 at 12:01 pm · Reply
      The Victorian government has declared a state energy emergency after the Yallourn power station and coal mine was damaged in recent flooding.

      Check your facts Simon.!
      There is NO damage to the power station or the coal mine.
      The station is running at reduced capacity to conserve coal supplies whilst the supply from the mine is halted for safety reasons..the potential of flooding….from the close by Morewell river which is threatening to burst its banks and flood the mine working area.
      The emergency is related to the damage to the distribution network caused by last weeks storms.

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    • #
      Ronin

      The ‘renewable’ part of that must refer to the fact that they have to be replaced or ‘renewed’ every 15 -20 years or so.

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      • #
        Dennis

        Put into perspective, a coal fired power station has an accountable working life of fifty years but well maintained could continue to eighty years or longer.

        So renewable wind turbines renewed every around 20 years installed and then replaced twice to achieve fifty years and then sixty years.

        Cost of new equipment, dismantling the old equipment, repairing or replacing the foundations, dumping the old equipment which is a cost, and downtime while the removal and replacement takes place.

        Cost effective, getting cheaper?

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      • #
        PeterS

        Whenever I see the term “renewed” the movie Logan’s Run comes to my mind. “If you are strong, you win renewal.” The emissions reduction agenda is really all about shutting down Western civilisation by a thousand cuts. We are somewhere around half way through the “cuts” so much more to go. I wonder if the masses will wake up before it’s too late.

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    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      I hope you keep posting Simon. So counterfactual and willing to draw the most outrageous inference without any supporting evidence.

      You and a few others here remind me of Lot’s Wife at Monash Uni all those years ago. You also remind me why I steered clear of those involved with Lot’s Wife. Just batsh*t crazy the lot of them.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Simon, I’m not sure if you are here to make us laugh or you are such a dunce. If our coal fired power stations were all to go then this nation would end up in complete chaos and the masses will go out of their way looking for the culprits to bring them to justice and punish them. Many will escape by fleeing overseas but enough should be caught to make an example of them to the rest of the anti-coal dunces.

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      • #
        PeterS

        I’ll rephrase what I said to make it even more to the point.

        If our coal fired power stations were as unreliable as renewables this nation would end up in complete chaos and the masses will go out of their way looking for the culprits to bring them to justice and punish them. Many will escape by fleeing overseas but enough should be caught to make an example of them to the rest of the anti-coal dunces.

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    • #
      TedM

      Nothing to do with the power station at all. Just the mine.

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    • #
      wal1957

      These fossil fuel generators don’t seem to be very reliable.
      Fortunately Australia has reliable and renewable distributed solar and wind power generation.

      Yet another blatant.
      Trolling such as this displays the ignorance of the poster.

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      • #
        wal1957

        These fossil fuel generators don’t seem to be very reliable.
        Fortunately Australia has reliable and renewable distributed solar and wind power generation.

        Yet another blatant lie.
        Trolling such as this displays the ignorance of the poster.

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    • #
      Mal

      What stupid logic

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    • #
      yarpos

      thats funny stuff Simon

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    • #
      Lance

      Simon, you are mistaking “having intermittent power generation that does not produce or absorb reactive power and is not dispatchable, and does not provide frequency stabilization” for “having dispatchable, reliable, baseload generation, that can produce or absorb reactive power and provide frequency stabilization”.

      Each type of generation has a Capacity Factor: The ratio of an actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the maximum possible electrical energy output over that period. Nuclear has the highest capacity factor of any other energy source—producing reliable, carbon-free power more than 92% of the time in 2016. That’s nearly twice as reliable as a coal (48%) or natural gas (57%) plant and almost 3 times more often than wind (35%) and solar (25%) plants.

      Primary generation provides true power and reactive power, therefore apparent power. It provides the grid frequency standard within +/- 0.1%. It is rampable, both up and down to some degree. Primary generation is synchronized with other primary generators, thereby electrically coupling the inertia of the turbine and alternator with other primary generators thereby providing protection from instantaneous transient loads and stabilizing grid frequency.

      Topping plants, be they gas turbines, diesel generators, or hydroelectric plants, are used to shave off temporary load peaks of up to a few hours. They must synchronize with the primary generation before being coupled to the grid in parallel. They are rated for Prime (Utility) or Standby (emergency) service. Prime units can run 24/7 at some high % of maximum capacity while Standby units rarely are rated for more than 4 hours at full load and must be significantly derated to run prime service in order not to overheat the alternator or prematurely age the driving engine.

      Wind and solar do not provide voltage or frequency support. Their inverters synchronize with the primary grid frequency and inject Real power into the grid within the allowable voltage tolerances. They have low capacity factors and unpredictable power outputs which both destabilize the baseload primary generators.

      “Having Wind and Solar” does not mean you have a functional or reliable grid. It only means they can provide additional real/true power into the grid, provided the primary generators can ramp down enough, fast enough, to accept the random injections of power and then ramp up again when the intermittent power drops off. It is a delicate balancing act.

      The connected load is whatever is connected to the grid. Primary generation follows the load. Every other generation follows the primary generators. There is a limit to how much perturbation can be allowed without making the primary generators inefficient or the overall grid unstable.

      Failing to understand these things is why many people think all power sources are equivalent. They are not. Power must be provide When needed, at Frequency, at Voltage, otherwise the grid will spiral into overvoltage, undervoltage cascading collapse, or frequency induced cascading collapse, followed by area blackouts and, if unable to recover, complete grid collapse. All of these unfortunate outcomes occur in a few seconds to perhaps 20 minutes. That is why it is unwise to “poke the bear”, because recovery from grid collapse one of the greatest economic, social, and engineering, nightmares that can be conceptualized, short of major open warfare.

      I’m not yelling at you. I’m trying to make sure you have a basic working concept of how this works and the price that must be paid for being wrong. After today, I’m going to assume you have understood and absorbed all of these things and that they inform your statements. Good luck.

      60

  • #
    Serp

    The misery for Victorians has taken a turn for the worse with emergency measures being invoked on account of the Yallourn coal mine crisis.

    80

  • #
    Br0adie

    Covid & its cure now neck and neck in the race to the death in Australia.

    Latest TGA report 303 dead after taking experimental therapy.

    310 dead with Covid19.

    You have to feel sorry for the 303 as they achieved in 4 months what took Covid19 over a year to accomplish.
    Might be because they appear to have been younger than majority of the 310 who died, mostly in the Victorian Aged Care system.

    Those 303 reported mortality were until 13th June so they may have already taken the lead. So based on the last TGA report 6th June that is 31 people in a week.
    I am only reporting the numbers provided by the TGA and they provide explanations as to why these numbers occur and the therapy is necessary for the health of Australians.

    130

    • #
      shortie of greenbank

      Meanwhile the entire history of ivermectin has reported 32 people ‘potentially’ dying from something related to the drug.

      81

    • #
      Chad

      Br0adie
      June 17, 2021 at 12:35 pm · Reply
      Covid & its cure now neck and neck in the race to the death in Australia.

      Latest TGA report 303 dead after taking experimental therapy.

      310 dead with Covid19.

      ? What is this data referring to ?
      There have been over 900 deaths attributed to Covid in Australia !

      40

      • #
        Broadie

        ? What is this data referring to ?
        There have been over 900 deaths attributed to Covid in Australia !

        You are correct Chad.

        I made a complete mess of that post and apologize for my mistake.

        There is no ‘but’.

        The only significance is that there was 31 more deaths in the reporting period of 7 days and 303 reported deaths after having the vaccine.

        21

      • #
        MP

        It was 102 deaths for the same time period last year. 910 deaths to date and only one this year.

        Only wrong in the scale of things, time will tell as winter progresses. The vaccine is not taking the summer off.

        10

    • #
      PeterS

      They claim that some of the deaths would have happened anyway even if they didn’t receive the vaccine. What they don’t say but they should is the same can be said about the reported deaths due to the virus itself. The stats all around are pretty much useless without an in-depth study of the real causes of the deaths.

      110

      • #
        Broadie

        I did my best to check that PeterS. The results are wisely held from our consumption for 90 days. (I hope they are taking them seriously)
        The result up to the 16th March comparing the Flu vax type vaccines to the Pfizer was 0 deaths to 14 deaths for the same period using their reporting system. I could not tell how many doses of each were administered in that period which is the very same problem I had with the positive Covid19 tests. More tests = more chance of finding something. More jabs = more chance of an adverse reaction.

        20

    • #
      yarpos

      Interesting how in this case they make a point of discussing the the dying of vs dying with issue, plus the underlying health “they were going to die anyway” stuff. Not like when beating the Covid drum , everyone went into the Covid column. They can be rational; when it suits them.

      50

    • #
      PTR

      I think that you have misread the report.
      The last sentence states: “For reports of death other than TTS, our review of cases and analysis of reporting patterns does not suggest that the vaccine caused these deaths.” There have only been 2 deaths attributed to TTS.

      11

      • #
        Broadie

        PTR
        Does your research show that the Thrombosis is the only potential side effect of the ‘Novel’ medical procedure?
        What exactly were the symptoms of a SARS-CoV-2 infection so we can exclude any other deaths?

        10

      • #
        shortie of greenbank

        We could see weekly, monthly etc deaths by ’cause’ in the UK data. what would be clearly seen in all other causes drop for a ever so slightly increase in total deaths when wu-flu was included. this made the number not all that statistically significantly higher than the 2018 numbers with 2019 being quite low (this can lead to a ‘dry tinder’ effect in populations, Sweden had a very low mortality 2019 for example following a slightly high 2018 as well).

        People are going to die, the real issue is how young. with an average age of death somewhere around 83 years old will we see a similar age of death for those taking experimental vaccines?

        10

  • #
    Chris

    From the Epoch Times. 17/6/21

    Commonsense at last.

    The Australian Government has opened up 80,000 square kilometres (30,000 square miles) of coastal waters for oil and gas exploration amid a shortage of supplies on the nation’s two key commodities.

    Industry stakeholders will be expected to bid for exploration rights in a total of 21 areas off the coasts of Western Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania—part of the 2021 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release unveiled this past week

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/australia-ushers-in-new-oil-gas-exploration-amid-shortfall-concerns_3860796.html?

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    • #
      el gordo

      This is good news for economic and strategic reasons.

      62

    • #
      Dennis

      Meanwhile known deposits of oil and gas on state lands remain locked away because of the stupidity of woke politicians.

      130

      • #
        el gordo

        The politicians are listening to the people, the voting public, we don’t want fracking or oil drilling in our pristine environments. The agrarian socialists are prepared to shut the gate.

        Go offshore, its a politically correct smart move.

        214

  • #
    Rocket Rod

    New Discovery Shows Human Cells Can Write RNA Sequences Into DNA – Challenges Central Principle in Biology

    In a discovery that challenges long-held dogma in biology, researchers show that mammalian cells can convert RNA sequences back into DNA, a feat more common in viruses than eukaryotic cells.

    https://scitechdaily.com/new-discovery-shows-human-cells-can-write-rna-sequences-into-dna-challenges-central-principle-in-biology/amp/

    Roll up for those vaccines, suckers….oh but the science says…we’re not as smart as we think we are…

    70

    • #
      shortie of greenbank

      I wonder if the Darkhorse podcast would tackle that question in more detail with this discovery? It has been interesting watch them change their opinions on the vaccines over the past several months.

      00

      • #
        R.B.

        The ABC understands the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation will today raise the recommended age for the AstraZeneca vaccine to as high as 60

        10

  • #
    shortie of greenbank

    unfunny leftie comedian Friendly Jordies ‘producer’ was violently arrested by NSW Police at his home after he confronted NSW Deputy Premier Barilaro over sueing Jordies.

    Certainly no cause for violence by the police and what makes matters even worse for the NSW government is that they used the anti-terrorist squad for this… they could have just used the anti-soy squad of two unfit barely fit in their car seats detectives really.

    ABC take on it … https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-14/friendlyjordies-producer-charged-for-stalking-john-barilaro/100213126

    Don’t mention that Jordies is also of italian heritage, not that it should matter really.

    40

    • #
      Ronin

      Never heard of the clown.

      41

      • #
        shortie of greenbank

        not really missing much a pro-labor comedian, I thought their policies were the humour?

        30

      • #
        yarpos

        like a long list of “big in Sydney” personalities

        30

        • #
          shortie of greenbank

          They still don’t deserve to be treated like that. If we are to complain about the treatment of anti-lockdown protestors etc we should also expect the same support for people to say things we may not like, or find all that funny either.

          10

          • #
            yarpos

            treated like what? we weren’t there and the only thing presented was an ABC report which you wouldn’t rely on to be factual.

            10

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘The Covid-19 coronavirus likely ‘evolved’ in a lab to make it more infectious, a former head of America’s Centres for Disease Control has sensationally claimed.’ (Daily Telegraph)

    31

  • #
    dinn, rob

    6-15-21 infections Sars2
    Argentina 21.3/289.3= 7.4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/argentina
    ……………………………….…………
    Iraq 5/61.9= 8.1% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iraq
    ………………………………………………
    South Africa 6.6/76.6= 8.6% increase/day ave. last 2 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa
    ……………………………………..…
    Indonesia 9.9/105.3= 9.4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/indonesia
    ………………………………………….
    Malaysia 5/66.6= 7.5% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/malaysia
    ……………………………………………
    Russia 14.2/271.7= 5.2% increase/day ave, last 2 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia/
    ………………………………………………..
    USA 11.5/5166= .2% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    ………………………………………………………..
    India 62.6/857= 7.3% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india
    ………………………………………………………….
    Brazil 60.6/1052= 5.8% increase/day ave. last 4 days https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/
    ………………………………………………………………….

    01

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Nice to know it appears the elderly are classifed as “disposable”…….come and get yer blood clots….

    /sarc

    Is it just me or does it seem a bit ‘off’?

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/atagi-to-change-astrazeneca-age-rules-covid-vaccine/100222464

    “AstraZeneca COVID vaccine use recommended for over-60s only following ATAGI meeting

    “The AstraZeneca vaccine will now only be recommended for use in people aged 60 and over, after the federal government accepted new advice from the country’s vaccine experts.

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  • #
    Robber

    Some new modelling from the CSIRO in an 80 page report:
    Renewables still cheapest power.
    “Solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind continue to be the cheapest sources of new electricity generation capacity in Australia, even when the integration costs of renewables are included.”
    Lots of assumptions and projections about future costs.
    For example:
    Economic life: coal 30 years, wind & solar 25 years.
    Capacity factor: coal 60-80%; wind 35-44%; solar 19-32%
    Levelised costs (for new plant): coal 40-80% load: $90-120/MWhr; gas $70-110/MWhr; standalone wind $50-60/MWhr; standalone solar $50-70/MWhr (but $20-40 by 2050); wind & solar combined with “integration costs” $50-70/MWhr

    50

    • #
      PeterS

      CSIRO comparing apples with oranges again. To make renewables produce as much reliable and available power as coal or nuclear the cost would be much higher in comparison. Countries like China, India and Japan don’t believe in the lie that renewables are cheaper.

      80

      • #
        Chad

        It doesnt matter what the wholesale or “generation cost”. is, as it is only a fraction of the final cost to the end user once the network, distribution , service, margins, etc etc….are added
        Suddenly that 5-9 c/kWh becomes 25 – 35c/kwh
        The Service Provider’s profit margin is far greater than the generation cost !
        But , yes they should include the costs for storage or backup into the Wind and solar costings

        50

    • #
      Richard Owen No.3

      Robber:

      those figures are ludicrous. Coal plants last longer than 30 years, esp. with maintenance. And up-grades can be lower cost as a lot of machinery is still there. And where can they find wind farms working after 25 years?; in the UK they were re-furbishing them after 9 years and if they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) they were often abandoned after 15 years.
      And those capacity figures? Coal usually 80-93%. Wind at 35-44% ????? Even the Albany wind farm in possibly the best location in Australia got 31-33%. (turbines on gently sloping peninsula, up ~100metres, across the prevailing wind direction coming from the southern Indian ocean).
      The 13 OFF-Shore Danish wind farms in the North Sea averaged 35.1%, the 6 Belgium ones averaged 35.2% as did the 13 German ones. The best were the 33 British ones which averaged 37.9% yet 8 of those were lower than those limits. And solar at 19-32% Tell them they’re dreaming or are they spruiking cheap solar panels on TV? 17% when fresh and losing 1% every year (for top cells, cheaper cells (amorphous of thin layer) are more likely to be 10-12%. One of my neighbours had to replace their solar cells after 9 years, and the other has just up-graded (all new panels) after 11 years.

      100

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Agreed Richard. Tony has given a figure of 29% CF for Australian wind power which I believe is more accurate.

        10

    • #
      Ronin

      All done via models no doubt.

      40

    • #
      Ronin

      Should be coal 50 + years, wind and solar 15 – 20 years.

      50

    • #
      yarpos

      I can torture a spreadsheet with the best of them. What answer would you like??

      00

  • #
    • #
      Strop

      Reading 70% of the article I thought, “this is pretty good of the ABC to print this info. Maybe there’s some hope for them yet”. But, then the last section:

      Future could be even drier

      South-west Australia is already in the midst of a drying trend considered to be one of the strongest impacts of climate change globally.

      Rainfall in the region has declined by more than 20 per cent since the 1970s.

      The researchers say given the tree ring study shows megadroughts can occur in the region even without the drying impact of climate change, the future for south-west Australia’s water resources could be even more severe.

      20

      • #
        Len

        Not this year. Well and truly above average this year

        10

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Eh? Every time I go “down south” the farm dams are full and the livestock are grazing contentedly on lush green grass. If some SW towns don’t have adequate water, that’s their fault for refusing to build more dams in their native forests. The folks down there want it both ways – they want to keep their beautiful areas to themselves, but also want either the government or tourists to pay for everything. Definitely “Wait Awhile” country.

        20

      • #
        el gordo

        SWWA was droughty, but that should be alleviated over the coming decade.

        00

  • #
    el gordo

    ASIO has brought an end to China/Australia cooperation in climate research.

    ‘Axel Timmerman, who heads the IBS Centre for Climate Physics in Korea’s Pusan University, said CSHOR’s work was cutting-edge and addressed the fundamental mechanisms of climate change, including how a warming world will generate more frequent powerful El Nino events in the Pacific.’ (SMH)

    What he should have said is that more El Nino will generate more heat in the system,

    52

  • #
    David Maddison

    A disgusting social trend of today is the heavy promotion by the Left of transgenderism, especially among children.

    For the Leftist parent, nothing will make them more proud than having a transgender child, it’s like having an exotic pet.

    The biological consequences are extreme and permanent.

    Also, free speech cannot alter this trend in many jurisdictions because in places like Vicdanistan it’s been made illegal for professionals to suggest to transgender victims that they might in fact be of their birth gender.

    100

    • #
      shortie of greenbank

      reminds me of the episode of absolutely fabulous when the mother thought her daughter was going to have a ‘mixed race’ child….. and yes the left are that shallow.

      70

    • #
      Ronin

      Being ‘non-binary’ is the latest buzzword.
      Very much doubt if they even know what it means.

      40

  • #
    robert rosicka

    In case there was any doubt as to the ABC agenda and real charter they have just revealed their true nature in this latest dribble and pack of lies , extinction rebellion has been elevated to greatness and revered .
    I’m pretty sure it’s the ABC scaring little kids .

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-17/climate-change-deniers-are-a-threat-to-our-children/11518138?utm_campaign=news-article-share-control&utm_content=facebook&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web&fbclid=IwAR3M1m4QXGtmwIZaSPpFC9sdJeAMYO6SJmsg1jpBUal9qrKEDLAMsPZ4KsQ

    20

  • #
    Strop

    Australia now raising the age for the AZ vaccine to 60+. But say go ahead with the second jab if you survived the first.

    Oh, great. Just a couple of days after I got it aged 52. Only another 3 weeks before I know whether it’s safe for me to get the second jab. 😉

    30

  • #
    tom0mason

    An interesting piece of solar news from NASA’s researchers that David Evans might wish to view at https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2021/06/16/solar-wind-temperature-mystery/ and links to a article at https://phys.org/news/2021-06-total-solar-eclipses-nasa-ace.html .

    “The temperature at the sources of the solar wind in the corona is almost constant throughout a solar cycle,” said Shadia Habbal, a solar researcher at the University of Hawaii who led the study. “This finding is unexpected because coronal structures are driven by changes in the distribution of magnetized plasmas in the corona, which vary so much throughout the 11-year magnetic solar cycle.”

    The new findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, are helping scientists better understand the solar wind, which is a key component of space weather that can impact electronics hardware and astronaut activities in space. The results could also help scientists understand a longstanding solar mystery: how the corona gets to be over a million degrees hotter than lower atmospheric layers.

    [my bold]

    30

    • #
      RicDre

      “The results could also help scientists understand a longstanding solar mystery: how the corona gets to be over a million degrees hotter than lower atmospheric layers.”

      Its probably caused by too much CO2 in the corona (medium confidence).

      40

  • #
    David Maddison

    An op ed from the author of a new book.


    Clean Energy Exploitations: Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy

    The newly released book “Clean Energy Exploitations” helps citizens attain a better understanding that just for the opportunity to generate intermittent electricity dependent on favorable weather conditions, the wealthier and healthier countries like Germany, Australia, Britain, and the U.S. continue exploiting the most vulnerable people and environments globally.

    Asians and Africans, many of them children from the poorer and less healthy countries, are being enslaved and are dying in mines and factories to obtain the exotic minerals and metals required for the green energy technologies for the construction of EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines.

    The same less-developed countries that control the supply chains for the materials to support the current electrification movement of wealthier nations, are mining for these materials in countries with virtually non-existent environmental regulations. This lack of oversight inflicts humanity atrocities and environmental degradation to the local landscape beyond comprehension.

    While at least 80 percent of humanity, or more than 6 billion in this world are living on less than $10 a day, and billions living with little to no access to electricity, American politicians and mainstream environmentalists are pursuing the most expensive ways to generate intermittent electricity.

    To meet the needs of roughly 2.7 billion in China and India, mostly poor people, those countries have over half (1,363) of the world’s coal power plants (2,449). Together they are in the process of building 284 new ones. Whatever emission reductions the U.S., European Union, and western-aligned nations believe they are achieving by using solar panels and wind turbines for electricity is negated by 3rd-world, vulnerable populations reliance on coal-fired power plants.

    The poorer and less healthy countries, like China, India, and Africa, are desperately in need of affordable, reliable, and continuously uninterruptible electricity for their billions of residents. Until clean energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrogen can meet the five electricity standards of being abundant, affordable, reliable, scalable, and flexible they are nothing more than niche forms of intermittent electricity. Under current technological constraints they are not anywhere near to meeting the five standards of reliable electricity.

    We can easily observe the world’s poorest countries to see what lifestyles are like without the thousands of products from oil derivatives that benefit the richer countries. In those poorer countries there are 11 million children in the world dying every year. Those fatalities are from the preventable causes of diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth as many developing countries have no, or minimal, access to those products from oil derivatives enjoyed by the wealthy and healthy countries.

    In the richer and wealthier countries, the inventions of the automobile, airplane, and the use of petroleum in the early 1900’s led us into the Industrial Revolution and winning World Wars I and II. The healthier and wealthier countries of today now have more than 6,000 products manufactured from petroleum derivatives that did not exist a few hundred years ago. Those products have resulted in the increase in longevity projections and virtually eliminated weather related fatalities.

    How dare we, in the healthier and wealthier countries, insist that we should limit poor countries future access to fossil fuels? Cheap, reliable, accessible power, and products from fossil fuels are lifesaving, and one of the best ways out of poverty.

    In “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping citizens understand the environmental and humanity abuses that support “clean” energy” aims for readers to learn there is a worldwide abundance of fossil fuels in virtually every country, but the minerals and metals for a “green” society are limited to human rights abusers such as China, Russia, the Congo and lithium triangle in South America.

    Under President Biden’s plan to rid American lifestyles and economies of fossil fuels, such a plan would ground the military, space program, and Air Force 1. It would also mothball the huge energy demands of airlines, cruise ships and merchant ships, as well as eliminate the medical industry, electronics industry, and the communications industry that are totally reliant on the thousands of products made from petroleum derivatives.

    Biden’s climate plan puts a major focus on electrifying everything, from intermittent wind and solar to power the grid, to the banning of gas-powered vehicles, which means a crushing change for American lifestyles and economies. The unintended consequences of reliance on wind, solar, and EV batteries, is that they only generate electricity, and intermittent electricity at best as they are weather dependent to perform.

    Biden and other EV enthusiasts have yet to accept the fact that there may not be enough of the “green” exotic minerals and metals in the world to build billions of EV and utility-scale batteries. They only need to review the paper by Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, that shows replacing just the United Kingdom’s 32 million light duty vehicles (of the 1.42 billion cars in operation worldwide) with next-generation EVs would require huge quantities of materials to manufacture 32 million EV batteries: such as lithium, cobalt, copper, and neodymium.

    Energy is more than just electricity. Electricity by itself cannot support the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, trucking infrastructures, and space program. Nor can electricity alone, and especially that generated solely from intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar, provide the thousands of products from petroleum that were virtually non-existent before 1900 that are essential to our medical industry, electronics, communications, transportation infrastructure, our electricity generation, our cooling, heating, manufacturing, and agriculture—indeed, virtually every aspect of our daily lives and lifestyles. Without a barrel of crude oil, we would not have the COVID-19 vaccines and been able to conquer the pandemic.

    With China having total domination of the supply chain of the exotic minerals and metals for “clean” electricity, every single EV battery, windmill, and solar panel is money for Communist China. In addition, the world is paying no attention to the environmental degradation and humanity atrocities occurring in China, the Congo, Russia, and large swaths of South America during the mining for these “green” exotic minerals and metals.

    None of the world’s prominent politicians, environmental groups, or billionaire backers have condemned less-developed countries degradation of landscapes from mining, or the use of enslaved labor to mine for these minerals and metals to support the green movements of wealthier and healthier countries.

    https://www.eurasiareview.com/14062021-clean-energy-exploitations-oped/

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Remember the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope?

    It should have been built in Australia but for reasons of political correctness it was decided to build it in politically unstable Africa.

    But how many people know Australia had the opportunity to host an additional part of the LIGO gravitational wave observatory here?

    Gillard was PM at that time.

    From Wikipedia:

    The LIGO-Australia plan was approved by LIGO’s US funding agency, the National Science Foundation, contingent on the understanding that it involved no increase in LIGO’s total budget. The cost of building, operating and staffing the interferometer would have rested entirely with the Australian government. After a year-long effort, the LIGO Laboratory reluctantly acknowledged that the proposed relocation of an Advanced LIGO detector to Australia was not to occur. The Australian government had committed itself to a balanced budget and this precluded any new starts in science. The deadline for a response from Australia passed on 1 October 2011.

    The proposal was then moved to India, where the Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations obtained government support and is constructing LIGO-India. India is not quite as good a location as Australia, but provides most of the benefit.

    90

    • #
      Bruce

      Does anyone remember the OTRAG fiasco.

      A joint venture with the European OTRAG space company in the 1970s / 80’s.

      They proposed to build “spaceports” in several countries, including Australia. The preferred option here was North Queensland. There’s your first clue.

      However,the entire exercise was killed off by a co-ordinated campaign by the usual suspects.

      This set back Australia’s serious participation in the space caper by forty years, at least.

      Interesting story that was heavily political in nature.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Demented President Imposter Biden wasn’t meant to read the bit that stated…

    “As usual they gave me a list of people I’m going to call on…”

    https://youtu.be/B2XeGjddVZY

    His handlers had given him a list of the most pathetically sycophantic of the already sycophantic press corps.

    80

  • #
    • #
      Kalm Keith

      It’s nearly an hour long and after the first ten minutes I gave up.
      What’s the secret.

      00

      • #
        Truthseeker

        You have to watch the whole video. Millions of people have died and trillions of dollars of damage done so that the drug companies can make billions of dollars.

        10

  • #
    David Maddison

    The name of this YouTuber is “Man in America” and here he talks about the housing crisis in America which seems to be much the same as we have in Australia.

    https://youtu.be/-CESSiPk6qs

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Biden says Putin doesn’t want a ‘Cold War’ & strips off in bizarre speech after referring to Russian as President Trump.

    https://www.the-sun.com/news/3094978/joe-biden-refers-putin-president-trump-blunder/

    The Trump Derangement Syndrome is strong in what little is left of the “mind” of the US “President”.

    80

  • #
    Hanrahan

    Any gold bugs out there?

    I feel your pain, off US$120 this month.

    20

    • #
      PTR

      Ha! you should have put it in Latrobe Financial. They pay good interest under the circumstances, and have been around for more than 50 years. Ah, and I have no financial interest in them.

      00

    • #
      yarpos

      Just like shares, the only price that matters is the price when you sell. Everything else imaginary losses and gains.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Very funny:

    Mark Dice said that President Trump “lives rent-free inside the heads of all Democrats” i.e. they are so obsessed with him, even now, he is constantly on their minds.

    50

  • #
    greggg

    Is the COVID Vaccine the Mark of the Beast?
    ‘In chapter 13 of Revelation, some controlling force, like a world dictator, is predicted. This is where we get the name ‘Beast.’ The number of this Beast is 666, if you wonder where that came from. We are told that the Beast will control people everywhere with something called a ‘Mark.’
    It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.’

    https://opentheword.org/2021/05/30/is-covid-vaccine-the-mark-of-the-beast/

    10

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    CHRIS

    I continually laugh at the use of the term ” renewable energy”. Aside from wood and water, there is no such thing. The demented ALP/Green/Extinction Rebellion Triumverate do not realise that…surprise surprise… Solar panels, wind turbines and giant batteries are NOT made out of thin air. I would love to be alive when the world’s supply of lithium, paladium and tantalum runs out. Then the new world Zombies will not be able to communicate (LOL).

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      yarpos

      Agree re the term “renewables”

      The other stuff assumes that todays technology is the only technology and nothing else will evolve, given even just the last 200 years that is a very big assumption.

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    David Maddison

    The wind and sun might be “free” when they are present but the cost of collecting them is high and they are intermittent.

    Just ask any yacht owner about the high cost of collecting wind.

    Plus, mice keep getting caught in mouse traps because they don’t understand why the cheese is “free”.

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    David Maddison

    It’s only a matter of time before President Imposter Biden makes a gaffevso shocking that even the legacy media will honesty report it.

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      Dave in the States

      Don’t hold your breath. They have already demonstrated they will cover for him. At least for now. That is until he no longer is useful. Then they will throw him under the bus faster than you can blink. The problem for them is that Kommie Harris is screwing up badly. She may be as unpopular as H Clinton before the year is out.

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    David Maddison

    Australia was stupid thinking we could just survive on exporting rocks since manufacturing is no longer a viable option due to expensive “renewable” energy, excessive regulation, etc.. Now the Chicomms will likely soon be buying rocks elsewhere… And Australians will still expect a luxury lifestyle without actually producing anything except soy latte coffees from the local barista, apparently our only growth industry.

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/mega-mining-project-that-could-cripple-australia/news-story/3c987ede1f5d0d06c24aed974596756d

    Among the emerald green mountains of West Africa, a mega mine with a complicated past is threatening to unravel Australia’s winning streak on natural resources.

    Dubbed the Simandou mine, the massive site in Guinea is one of the largest, highest grade iron ore deposits in the world – having estimated reserves of 2.4 billion tonnes of the stuff beneath the red earth of its exterior.

    The eyes of the world’s biggest importer of iron ore, China, have lit up at the prospect of exploiting the remote site, but it could spell big trouble for nations like Australia which make big money from exporting it.

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      yarpos

      Really depends on how much they can ship annually, and it is in Africa which doesnt bode well for efficiency. I doubt it will cripple Australia or Brazil but will certainly add competition and diversity of supply that the CCP would like (as would any sensible buyer of important imports)

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    David Maddison

    Question about US electrical system.

    Does each individual house have its own pole mounted transformer or are they shared?

    Also, in places with below ground power, where is the transformer placed?

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      Lance

      In residential areas, whether the service is overhead or underground, the transformer is usually a 25 to 50 kVA pot transformer or pad mount transformer that serves, collectively, 4 to 5 homes.

      The average home is assumed to have a 3 to 5 kVA average load and an instantaneous load of about 7.5 kVA ( Air Cons ).

      The transformer is either pole mounted with replaceable trapeze type fuse link on transformer primary, or mounted on a concrete pad with weatherproof enclosure and load side bus bars with separate compartmentalized 7.5 to 15 kV distribution mains connection via serviceable fusible link on primary connection.

      Commercial/Industrial transformers are decidedly different, usually dedicated, sometimes 3 transformers set up as a 3 phase secondary or a 3 phase delta primary and delta secondary with wild neutral or 4 wire grounded Wye secondary.

      The residential service entrance is normally a 240 VAC center tap neutral connection at 200 amps. The service panel is limited by code to no more than 160 amps of installed load, evenly distributed on both 120 volt phase:neutral and across the 240 volt phase:phase connections, in total load. If either phase exceeds 100 amps, the main breaker will trip.

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        Lance

        The transformer size depends on the number of homes connected. I believe the smallest one is 15 kVA, 2 homes gets a 25 kVA, 3 homes gets a 50 kVA and 5 homes gets a 75-100 kVA. They run them a bit hot at max load, but the usual diversity is some 50% so on balance, they are loaded economically. If all they have in the supply chain is 50 and 100 kVA units, they use what they have.

        I can get more definite from a local utility engineer, but this is what I recall from past conversations and designs.

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    Hanrahan

    The McCloskeys were overcharged. In the end they pleaded guilty to misdemeanour charges and forfeited the guns they brandished.

    They keep their firearm licences and any other guns they own AND they keep their law licences. They should not have had to plead to anything, but I can understand why they did.

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      yarpos

      Hope she takes some a firearms handling course, it gave me the creeps watching the video as she swept the back of her husbands head while waving her pistol about.

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    Doc

    Who is pulling the marionette’s strings? Who are the ‘they’ he is so scared of being ‘told off’ by?

    This is the worry.They must be identified.

    Biden is like a person with Alzheimer’s disease. He remembers and lives in his past. This gives him a useful line of ‘thinking’ in terms of how he should address China and Russia. He ‘reassuringly’ appears to have the traditional political thought processes of America re its communist antagonists when he briefly makes comments. He ‘remembers’ ‘green’ but the only other more recent matter he seems to recall is ‘they will tell me off (if I take questions)!’

    WHO ARE ‘THEY’?

    Looking at the reality of what is happening in America, it is doing a 180degree change from traditional political thinking, enforced by the few on the many by misuse of law enforcement, backed by the Courts, many State governors and mayors, and by censorship applied to all conservative fightback in the msm and in the major electronic social media businesses. The federal government looks to scramble the USA borders but refuses to turn up, be seen to see the border mess and defend what it is intentionally doing. It is strait jacketing the US economy by destroying its own independence on fossil fuels while it is allowing Russia to extend its economy by feeding gas to Europe. It attacks US social cohesion enforced by tolerating leftwing riots on any topic. The FBI is reported feeding members and hangers-on into the leaderships of conservative reaction groups, encouraging AND PARTICIPATING in violence as per 6th Jan. and facing no penalty when arrested.

    When will the citizens of the USA – Republicans and Democrats – wake up that somepeople and some groups are taking over their country, taking it into an extreme left orbit and future USA will be nothing like they have known before nor can imagine in the ‘Home of the brave and the free’!

    One day, old Joey will have completed his unrecognised mission of being the sincere US patriot, the veneer for what is happening. He will go down in history as a major villain – not a hero. The next Trump Presidency will have to spend its entire time rooting out those behind all this from all high positions in all walks of life and probably reorder the international affairs of the USA left by their current government. He wont be hampered for 4 years by false accusations of him being in bed with the Russian bear by those that really are. One would imagine it will the complete reverse.

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    OriginalSteve

    New black death for diabetics?

    Cov19 + diabetes + steriods = black fungus

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1451083/black-fungus-latest-delta-variant-news-india-covid-epidemic-coronavirus-virus-mutation-vn

    “Patients are also known to cough blood and suffer chest pains and blurred vision.

    “Experts have been investigating links between Mucormycosis in diabetics and spikes in sugar levels, a known side effect of steroids.

    “Meanwhile, Internal Medicine Specialist Rommel Tickoo has warned mortality rates are high in patients who receive a late diagnosis.

    “Treatment for black fungus is a highly invasive surgery that can leave the patient permanently disfigured.

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    OriginalSteve

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/06/15/a-group-of-parents-sent-their-kids-face-masks-to-a-lab-for-analysis-heres-what-they-found-n2591047

    “Gainesville, FL (June 16, 2021) – A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, concerned about potential harms from masks, submitted six face masks to a lab for analysis. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks, although the test is capable of detecting viruses.

    “The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

    “• Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)

    • Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)

    • Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)

    • Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)

    • Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)

    • Escherichia coli (food poisoning)

    • Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)

    • Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)

    • Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)

    • Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)

    • Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

    “Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

    “The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling by children aged 6 through 11. One was worn by an adult. A t-shirt worn by one of the children at school and unworn masks were tested as controls. No pathogens were found on the controls. Proteins found on the t-shirt, for example, are not pathogenic to humans and are commonly found in hair, skin, and soil.

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    another ian

    Maybe we should have done law degrees?

    “I’ve heard from a friend that Adobe is issuing an edict to all employees:

    ~”Get vaccinated or lose your job”.

    Since when does an employer get to make personal medical decisions for you and demand that you take an Experimental Gene Therapy that is NOT APPROVED by the FDA? (An “emergency use authorization” is NOT a drug approval.)

    Seems to me that a blanket “Everyone get the shot” is “Practicing Medicine Without A Licence”.

    Then demanding proof of vaccination is “invasion of privacy”. ”

    More job opportunities listed at

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/needed-an-employer-back-off-strategy/

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    another ian

    “Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/

    And Chiefio in the next coimment

    “From the NIH no less. Looks like some parts of the Government, at least, are starting to admit that Ivermectin works. ”

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/needed-an-employer-back-off-strategy/#comment-146521

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    another ian

    More by Willis E

    “Bright Green California Dreaming”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/17/bright-green-californian-impossibilities/

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    el gordo

    The UK PM is a tosser.

    ‘During one mildly hilarious moment in London this week, Johnson, who has been entirely clear that he wants Australia to step up its climate policy ambition before Cop26 in Glasgow in November, told reporters breezily that Morrison had already “declared” for net zero by 2050. BoJo flashed a cherubic grin while the Australian prime minister’s face froze in a rictus.’ (Guardian)

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      Peter C

      Declaring zero net emissions is one thing, even if the PM did not do it.
      The important thing is that we don’t actually do anything about it.

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