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Fake News - Global Warming Consensus

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Creative idea Junior. "Just don't mention the war ".

Trouble is who would believe you were "Just fighting pollution?" All the smarties from Donald Trump down would just say " Aw rubbish. We know you. This is all about global warming and we know that is crock of shite. So stuff your program to go to renewables, reduce emissions ectera, ectera. "

Crazy ? Nothing would be too crazy in 2018.
 
Junior said:
This.
Cost? Well renewables already stack up favourably against fossil fuel electricity generation in terms of cost,
Click to expand...

Not having a go at you Junior, but that statement, from what I have read is just repeating the misinformation that the left wing throw around.

From my understanding, 1,000MW of renewables(solar and wind) will cost the same to install as a 1,000MW coal station.
However because renewables are intermittent, you have to install twice as much, so that is 2,000MW, also you have to install three times that in storage capacity so that is 3,000MW of storage.
This is so that you can supply the load while they are producing, plus make extra to put in storage for when the sun goes down or wind drops.
That came from an Alan Finkel report.
So it isn't just replacing like for like, it is going to take years to get the required amount of renewables in, if ever.
 
SP I think you are a long way off the mark with your estimations of the costs of new coal power plants vs alternatives. (And this doesn't factor in the pollution and additional running costs)

All the information at the moment is showing that wind/solar are much cheaper than coal just to build. Storage and intermitancy is another issue but is now recognised with the push for local hydro plants to store power as well as larger battery banks to both store and equalise the system.

I'm sure Smurf can provide more details but there are more than a few reports worth examining.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/domini...ost-effective-fossil-fuels-2020/#1b5e41b24ff2
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/solar-power-cost-decrease-2018-5?r=US&IR=T
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3271101/green-it/solar-power-costs-half-what-coal-costs.html
 
Our approach to addressing climate change is completely wrong. Reducing emission from cars only accounts for 20-30%. Putting everyone on electrical won't solve the problem other than line the pockets of investors.
 

Bas, there you go, you say I'm a long way off the mark, but you don't include the cost of intermitancy or storage.
Which would treble the price of the required renewable installation.

Like I said there is too much misinformation, emotion and politics in the debate.
 

I'm not going to die in a ditch about this SP but I suspect your belief that dealing with intermitancy and storage will treble the price of renewable is many bridges too far.

But in any case the question of levilised cost of electricty production is probably what you are concerened about.

Electricity generation technology cost projections 2017-2050
CSIRO did a very good analysis of this issue for all energy sources last year.
https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP178771&dsid=DS2
 

Why would you only look at the initial cost or installation cost?? That's a key benefit of renewables, very, very low ongoing costs and an infinite fuel source. Initial and ongoing need to be taken into account.
 
Junior said:
Why would you only look at the initial cost or installation cost?? That's a key benefit of renewables, very, very low ongoing costs and an infinite fuel source. Initial and ongoing need to be taken into account.
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I totally agree, my point is, people discuss it as though it is only a matter of will and money,
Whereas the complexity of the problem, especially the closing of dispatchable generation, is fobbed over.
I'm sure everyone wants clean energy, it would be complete madness to not want it.
The problem is the debate is based on the premise, we can just have it now and if you don't agree you are a climate denier, which is complete nonsense.
The reality is, the coal fired stations are going to close, before there is adequate alternatives in place.
That IMO will be unacceptable, therefore the debate should be about realistic alternatives, as we transition to renewables.
Coal, gas and nuclear all need to considered, along with accelerating the installation of renewable technology, but the CC advocates won't accept that.
They just want to argue the emotion, not the technical limitations.
It will be interesting, that is for sure.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...rs-says-alan-finkel-look-at-emission-outcomes

From the article:
Finkel said for Australia that did not mean debating pro- and anti-coal stances but using all available technologies to create the best outcome
It was the recommendation that coal-fired power needed to be largely phased out by 2050, to slow global warming to a rate which could save the Great Barrier Reef from complete decline.

Finkel told Sky the report also said “that we need to look at things like coal-fired power with carbon capture and storage associated with it” and the issue was not as black and white as was being presented.
 

I think you would get value out of what this guy has to say, he is an astronomer and knows a lot about planetary movements.

 
Smurf1976 said:
Thankfully it's also measured at Cape Grim (Tasmania) which is considerably more convenient from an Australian perspective and somewhat cooler than a volcano too.
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Thanks Smurf, you made me look harder, I will do better in future! Smurf is responding to a photo pic I did suggesting measuring C02 inside a CO2 effusing volcano was ridiculous. It did make me look a bit harder and found there was a monitoring station at Cape Grim which measured samples of ice at Law Dome from the Antarctic. "Since industrialisation (typically measured from the mid-18th century), carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by about 40 per cent, based on measurements from Cape Grim and (? it is a monitoring station, not a measuring station) on air samples collected from Antarctic ice at Law Dome." *

More dodgy figures, one from ice samples in the Antarctic and the other from air samples at an active volcano! Not exactly comparing like with like. Maybe it is, both will have higher concentrations of CO2 than a single measuring station in the Alice.
My next response was going to be, get out of the bloody CO2 bowl and go to the Alice. However as it turns out, anywhere on the planet the CO2 will be pretty much the same. They just continue to take samples from the volcano for consistancy sake (fair enough or is it?). They say, who are they?

*https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA/Areas/Assessing-our-climate/Greenhouse-gas-data

Pick this to pieces guys, I am only partially with it, I tripped on a shoelace going up a staircase at a meeting today and smashed into a wall on my nose, teeth, hand, and knee! Blood everywhere! ....and feeling like crap.
 
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The Cape Grim facility monitors the air directly and they record data for all sorts of things not just CO2.

Location was chosen since with typical wind conditions there will be zero local air pollution added so it’s measuring the global background level. Plus the location has the advantages over other possible places of being within reasonable distance of a town, power is available, etc.
 
Thanks Smurf. I am not sure what I said about this, but I am happy to accept that CO2 around the globe is pretty much the same wherever you are. As in once it is in the atmosphere is it pretty much a global layer. (Sorry I am sinking fast with the smash in the face.)
 

The costs there might not include the price (mainly poor) people pay for fossil fuel and its impact on their breathing, housing, health, water etc.
 

Do you factor In the cost of establishing and running a coal mine to feed the coal power station? Because that is an additional cost that can not be avoided, where as the renewables don't require fuel.

It would be dishonest to not factor in the cost of the infrastructure that you need to digging up the never ending fuel supply needed.
 
As I've said, I'm not concerned about cost, money is only figures on a spread sheet the GFC proved that.
I'm concerned about the technical side of the equation.
With regard the post you have highlighted, I was just commenting that there is a propensity, to state the cost of installing renewables.
Just read back through the posts, otherwise I will just be regurgitating what has been said. #100 and #108
 

Not wanting to be pedantic, but at this point in time renewables do require fuel.
To use your second paragraph as an example.

It would be dishonest to not factor in the cost of the infrastructure that you need to digging up the never ending fuel supply needed.

To make batteries?
 
I think the end is here anyway. Anyone noticing the weather has been playing up lately? Oddly enough the weather seems to reflect the global financial markets. It's 3:30am here and it's so HOT! The weather says it's 18C but it feels like it's 30 and so humid.
 
sptrawler said:
money is only figures on a spread sheet the GFC proved that.
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Of broader economic relevance is the concept of "capital".

If I ask someone to show me some oil, copper, coal or sand then all they need to do is get some and show it to me. Getting hold of lumps of pure copper in the suburbs might be difficult but a trip to Bunnings and they'll come back with a length of copper pipe no worries.

If I ask someone to show me sound or light then whilst they can't "show" me sound, they most certainly can demonstrate it to be real simply by speaking.

Likewise the wind proves the existence of air and that it can be smelled and set on fire proves that natural gas exists.

Now can anyone show me some capital? I don't mean some record entry somewhere showing how much someone has, I mean actual capital? Show me some capital. Put it on the table, or in a bucket, or in a gas cylinder or piled up in a field or wherever but show it to me. I want to see some capital.

Now explain to me how whatever you have shown me is in some way limited and valuable in the same way that oil, copper, coal or sand require effort to obtain and are ultimately limited in quantity.

Thinking about that in depth will shed some light on may economic concepts.
 
Pixelperfect said:
I think the end is here anyway. Anyone noticing the weather has been playing up lately?
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I've noticed that warm days with a maximum temperature of 30 or above were far more common this Spring than they were in Spring 2017.

That I have moved from Tasmania to SA during this time may explain it however.
 
The scientific advances on alternative power production are proceeding so fast and becoming way ahead of the old ways. My Son-in-law developed courses at Monash, Clayton for engineers setting up solar panels and is therefore well informed among his peers. The ScoMo's are lost in the wilderness of the donations from the big dudes.

And in my view I feel it's too late now anyway as the increasing weather problems will see us stuffed in a few short years.

Anyway, you know my motto...
 
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