Fake News - Global Warming Consensus

[Knobby22]

No matter what the technology it still needs an efficient system of management, organisation, transmission, distribution, retail etc if it is to deliver economical power to consumers.

There's no point building a new coal plant just so we can back off its output during the peaks so as to force open cycle gas turbines on and spike the price.

The Liberal response is to pass laws that can fix prices, force owners to sell generating plant and try to have someone build new generation for baseload by someone who is not one of the present cartel with the use of grants and special encouragement in the form of guaranteed load.

All quite interventionist and socialist and against the standard free market response but as you eloquently point out Smurf, the free market is broken. The Chinese owners have bought a gold mine.

 

[Ann]

There's no point building a new coal plant just so we can back off its output during the peaks so as to force open cycle gas turbines on and spike the price.

Sorry Smurf, I have no idea what you are saying here, care to translate for us? Keep it short, I am dyslexic.

 

[explod]

It is not sudden explod, the temp last year was a double top from 2019. We all know what happens after a double top if you happen to be a chartist. Down baby down....

Climate changes of the current magnitude ( in just over 100 years) has taken many thousands of years in past times.

I have quoted "The Sixth Extinction", a very well researched academic text here on ASF for a number of years now.

 

[Ann]

Climate changes of the current magnitude ( in just over 100 years) has taken many thousands of years in past times.

Correct explod, but I was talking about fluctuating temperatures not fluctuating climate change.
Sort of like a long range weather forcast, not a long range climate forcast. Hard to grasp I know folks, but one is the micro and one is the macro view. I was talking about the micro view. (Clear as mud? I hope not).

 

[Ann]

.........Just picked the big lie........

Thanks basilio, your words inspired another Poster.

 

[explod]

Temperature change is the cause of climate change.

When the meteor hit, the sun was blocked out the temperature dropped, the climate changed and 95% of life disappeared. The same when the massive volcanoes erupted.

 

[basilio]

Well congratulations Ann! That has to be one of the most inspired posters since the
2 + 2 = 5 poster used by Stalin in 1931 to celebrate the success of his 5 year industrialization plan.

It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall at your Christmas dinner when you regale you familiy and son on how effectively you have managed to put right all the lies of Climate Change and consensus on global warming.

But meanwhile. Back to reality...

Major government climate change report contradicts Trump and warns of devastating economic and health impact

Report is dismissed by the White House, with it running counter to Donald Trump's frequent climate change criticisms

• Chris Riotta New York @chrisriotta
• 1 day ago
• 41 comments

Click to follow
The Independent
The US will face devastating economic and health impacts from climate change by the end of the century, a new federal report has warned.

National Climate Assessment outlines the projected impact of global warming in every corner of US society, in a dire warning that is at odds with Donald Trump and his administration’s pro-fossil-fuels agenda.

“With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states,” the report said.

The report, released nearly a month early by a team of 13 federal agencies, called the US Global Change Research Programme, said there is “no convincing alternative explanation” for climate change besides “human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/envir...mpact-government-report-warning-a8649371.html

 

[Ann]

Temperature change is the cause of climate change.

When the meteor hit, the sun was blocked out the temperature dropped, the climate changed and 95% of life disappeared. The same when the massive volcanoes erupted.

Other way around explod, climate change is the cause of temperature change. Climate change appears to be related to the planets doing their orbiting thing. Astrophysicists have known about it for years.
I will upload the graph of Orbiting Planets again, may I stress, this is not a temperature graph but a graph of planetary orbits. They are trying to demonstrate the correlation of planetary orbital rotations with ice ages and warm periods.

 

[Ann]

It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall at your Christmas dinner when you regale you familiy and son on how effectively you have managed to put right all the lies of Climate Change and consensus on global warming.

The subject is boring, no-one wants to talk about it. Global warming fatigue has set in. But thank you for confirming my work is effectively managing to put right all the lies of CC and consensus on GW, that is very heartening, thank you basilio!

 

[explod]

Other way around explod, climate change is the cause of temperature change. Climate change appears to be related to the planets doing their orbiting thing. Astrophysicists have known about it for years.
I will upload the graph of Orbiting Planets again, may I stress, this is not a temperature graph but a graph of planetary orbits. They are trying to demonstrate the correlation of planetary orbital rotations with ice ages and warm periods.
View attachment 90499

Absolute unsubstantiated rubbish.

and ..."change APPEARS to be related"... , you are in Fairy Land.

 

[Ann]

Absolute unsubstantiated rubbish.

and ..."change APPEARS to be related"... , you are in Fairy Land.

you are in Fairy Land.

More like Alice in Wonderland explod!

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

 

[Smurf1976]

Sorry Smurf, I have no idea what you are saying here, care to translate for us? Keep it short, I am dyslexic.

In simple terms as a few dot points:

*Power generation includes a range of plant types with vastly differing technical efficiency and economics. The most efficient plant operating in the National Electricity Market uses less than half as much fuel per unit of output as the least efficient.

*Broadly speaking, higher cost to build = lower cost to operate and vice versa.

*Since demand is highly variable, a least cost approach requires a mix of plant types. High build cost / low operating cost for routine use but cheap to build / expensive to operate still makes sense as backup or to meet short duration and infrequent peaks in demand.

*For technical reasons some plant suffers a major loss of efficiency if operated at low output whereas others suffer only minimal loss. Also some plant types are much easier to stop completely and later restart than others.

Now the problem we have is the owners of low operating cost plant intentionally backing off production, or taking units offline altogether, in order to force the less efficient and higher cost plants to run. That then pushes up the spot price with the end result that all generators, including those who cut production, increase profit.

Hedging contracts may nullify that in the short term but in the long term such contracts will reflect spot prices so they still win eventually.

This situation arises because of competition not in spite of it. A single owner, regardless of whether it's private, a listed company or government, would never contemplate deliberately increasing production costs as that's just silly. It is the outcome of a competitive market however when company A really isn't supposed to be colluding so as to optimise company B's plant operations.

It would thus be easily possible to cut both costs and emissions simply by least cost operation of the existing generation fleet. Nothing new built, nobody put out of a job, just change what's running and when. At most some minor complexity with changing the gas flow in pipelines and making sure the right amount of coal turns up at the right place but nothing's going to be blown up and nobody from some union is going to be bashing on the door worried about job cuts.

My view is that we need an ownership and market structure designed to suit the engineering realities of operating the system. Instead, what we have at the moment is the engineering being twisted to fit within an ownership and market structure which precludes optimal efficiency.

Note that my point is not in any way about government ownership versus private. There's some very capable operators, and some not so capable, in the private sector but I don't have an ideological view there. I do know however that artificial "fake" competition is killing efficiency.

Competition is fake?

Well it is when you realise that huge scale is needed in order to achieve efficiency and in that context AGL, Origin or Energy Australia are by no means "too large" indeed if anything they're a bit too small. So there's a conflict between the economic desire for competition versus the loss of technical and economic efficiency through doing so. Hence competition isn't leading to lower prices, a point that comes as no surprise to those viewing it all from an engineering perspective.

Then there's the reality that, for example, Alinta buys coal with which to generate electricity. Lots of coal, millions of tonnes of the stuff every year in fact. Now who mines and sells them every piece of that coal? Well that would be AGL.

AGL burns lots of gas at Torrens Island whilst nearby Engie burns plenty at Pelican Point too. Follow that pipe to the other end and you won't find AGL or Engie producing gas but you will find Origin.

No secret that there's a lot of financial arrangements between Snowy and rivals.

And so on.

The whole thing just doesn't fit into the mould into which economists and governments keep trying to squash it at huge expense. That's all about industry structure not coal versus solar.

Only after all that is fixed would there be any real point in a taxpayer subsidised power station of any technology be it coal, nuclear, wind, hydro or burnt leaves.

 

[basilio]

Just providing an opportunity to recognise
1) What are the natural and human caused impacts on climate
2) How these interact to create the current temperatures around the world
3) What is the current trajectory of global temperatures .

Coming from the US Global Change Research Program, a team of 13 federal agencies, the Fourth National Climate Assessment was put together with the help of 1,000 people, including 300 leading scientists, roughly half from outside the government.

It's the second of two volumes. The first, released in November 2017, concluded that there is "no convincing alternative explanation" for the changing climate other than "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases."

.

 

[Ann]

In simple terms as a few dot points:

*Power generation includes a range of plant types with vastly differing technical efficiency and economics. The most efficient plant operating in the National Electricity Market uses less than half as much fuel per unit of output as the least efficient.

*Broadly speaking, higher cost to build = lower cost to operate and vice versa.

*Since demand is highly variable, a least cost approach requires a mix of plant types. High build cost / low operating cost for routine use but cheap to build / expensive to operate still makes sense as backup or to meet short duration and infrequent peaks in demand.

*For technical reasons some plant suffers a major loss of efficiency if operated at low output whereas others suffer only minimal loss. Also some plant types are much easier to stop completely and later restart than others.

Now the problem we have is the owners of low operating cost plant intentionally backing off production, or taking units offline altogether, in order to force the less efficient and higher cost plants to run. That then pushes up the spot price with the end result that all generators, including those who cut production, increase profit.

Hedging contracts may nullify that in the short term but in the long term such contracts will reflect spot prices so they still win eventually.

This situation arises because of competition not in spite of it. A single owner, regardless of whether it's private, a listed company or government, would never contemplate deliberately increasing production costs as that's just silly. It is the outcome of a competitive market however when company A really isn't supposed to be colluding so as to optimise company B's plant operations.

It would thus be easily possible to cut both costs and emissions simply by least cost operation of the existing generation fleet. Nothing new built, nobody put out of a job, just change what's running and when. At most some minor complexity with changing the gas flow in pipelines and making sure the right amount of coal turns up at the right place but nothing's going to be blown up and nobody from some union is going to be bashing on the door worried about job cuts.

My view is that we need an ownership and market structure designed to suit the engineering realities of operating the system. Instead, what we have at the moment is the engineering being twisted to fit within an ownership and market structure which precludes optimal efficiency.

Note that my point is not in any way about government ownership versus private. There's some very capable operators, and some not so capable, in the private sector but I don't have an ideological view there. I do know however that artificial "fake" competition is killing efficiency.

Competition is fake?

Well it is when you realise that huge scale is needed in order to achieve efficiency and in that context AGL, Origin or Energy Australia are by no means "too large" indeed if anything they're a bit too small. So there's a conflict between the economic desire for competition versus the loss of technical and economic efficiency through doing so. Hence competition isn't leading to lower prices, a point that comes as no surprise to those viewing it all from an engineering perspective.

Then there's the reality that, for example, Alinta buys coal with which to generate electricity. Lots of coal, millions of tonnes of the stuff every year in fact. Now who mines and sells them every piece of that coal? Well that would be AGL.

AGL burns lots of gas at Torrens Island whilst nearby Engie burns plenty at Pelican Point too. Follow that pipe to the other end and you won't find AGL or Engie producing gas but you will find Origin.

No secret that there's a lot of financial arrangements between Snowy and rivals.

And so on.

The whole thing just doesn't fit into the mould into which economists and governments keep trying to squash it at huge expense. That's all about industry structure not coal versus solar.

Only after all that is fixed would there be any real point in a taxpayer subsidised power station of any technology be it coal, nuclear, wind, hydro or burnt leaves.

Thanks Smurf, that clears it all up for me!
The take-away message for me is it is all too hard and no doubt the politicians think so as well. AGL mining coal? Do they mine under another name?

 

[Darc Knight]

@Ann I respect your intelligence and your contributions in the Stock threads and I like you as a person, but I saw enough holes made in your argument in the other GW thread to make me err on the side of global warming being real.
When we have Governments the World over straining budgets to lessen the future problem it also confirms to me that smarter people than us believe in global warming.
If global warming is a hoax, all we lose is this generation having things a bit tougher. If global warming is real and we don't act, human extinction is the probability. Where there's this much doubt we should err on the side of caution and act now, the consequences are so serious.
I like and respect you Ann, but kudos to @basilio and @explod for "fighting the good fight" in the face of some strong attacks. Cheers.

 

[Ann]

it also confirms to me that smarter people than us believe in global warming.

As you say DK it is a belief system, much like any other belief system.

"Systems. A belief system is a set of mutually supportive beliefs. The beliefs of any such system can be classified as religious, philosophical, political, ideological, or a combination of these."

Note this list does not include scientific.

 

[basilio]

Ann, from a scientific point of view the evidence behind believing humans are causing global warming is overwhelming. To date I am not even sure whether you accept the physical evidence ( temperature measurements, changes in ecosystems, increases in ocean temperatures) that the world is warming exceptionally quickly (regardless of the cause .)

I concur with Darc Knights sentiments.

 

[Ann]

.....I concur with Darc Knights sentiments.

I find that to be expected basilio!

 

[cynic]

Where there's this much doubt we should err on the side of caution and act now, the consequences are so serious.

I trust that all those in agreement with the sentiment expressed in the above excerpt, are now paying regular visits to the confessional.

After all, what consequence could be more serious than the eternal damnation of one's immortal soul?!!

 

[Ann]

So. What does 2 + 2 equal ?

Well that depends who you ask!
(i) The mathematician will typically answer "4"
(ii) the accountant will typically ask: "What would you like it to equal?"
(iii)the climate "scientist" will answer "Everyone (except deniers) knows that the answer is whichever number attests to the reality of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change."

Too good not to keep and I think the answer is 100 minus 3!