Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

[SirRumpole]

So a very uneven distribution of weather in Australia at the moment. I keep hearing about the "drought" but there's no sign of that in Tas at the moment indeed it's persistently wet (though not so much in Hobart itself).

Lucky you.

Send some up to Central NSW please.

 

[Tisme]

Meanwhile in Tasmania, which is not that far from the fires in NSW, flow rates in the River Derwent have peaked at over 30 million litres per minute.

In rough terms that's enough water coming down in one day to supply Sydney for a month. All going out to sea......

The Pieman, Mersey-Forth, Lake Margaret, Trevallyn and Derwent hydro catchments have all spilled water despite running the associated power stations flat out 24/7 and most of those are still spilling right now. There's a pretty high chance the King scheme will spill within the next few weeks also, the only ones that are sure not to spill being Lake Gordon, Great Lake / Arthurs Lakes and Lake Echo.

So a very uneven distribution of weather in Australia at the moment. I keep hearing about the "drought" but there's no sign of that in Tas at the moment indeed it's persistently wet (though not so much in Hobart itself).

Yes the persistent rain days in SE QLD spoiled the preferred dry winter that is an envy of the world...my lawn didn't go crusty brown at all!

I blame China and their insatiable capitalist greed for stuffing up our winter, but so far our spring is perfect as usual.

 

[Smurf1976]

I thought about putting this in the energy thread but I think here's more appropriate.

In short if we view SA, Vic and Tas collectively then there's solar, wind and hydro going to waste due to lack of demand for power and transmission from Vic to NSW already running at maximum. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, it's been raining in the hydro catchments, consumption is down = over supply. Electricity at the wholesale level is also worthless at the moment, indeed the price has been negative.

The coal-fired generators have ramped down but are still running so as to avoid shutting down. Can't do that because just a few hours from now they'll be needing to run flat out during the evening peak demand which also happens to be at a time when there's no solar generation.

Then in Vic and SA at 11pm rather a lot of water heaters will turn on all about the same time with that power being supplied from fossil fuels in practice. In Tas they're on right now but not in the others.

So apart from ideas of big infrastructure like batteries or pumped hydro there's also a gain to be had by changing how consumers use energy.

In Vic they've already spent serious $ on smart meters but failed to take advantage of any actual "smart" function to switch water heating loads on and off. So we end up with electricity trading at negative prices, solar farms shut down and so on then a few hours later we're ramping up gas turbines to heat water. Switching remotely and operating at times when it makes sense, which has no impact on consumers since the water is simply stored for later use anyway, would make far more sense.

SA and Tas don't have that infrastructure in place but simply choosing appropriate times to operate things like off-peak water heaters is an imperfect but overall not bad workaround. Technically that's dead easy, just change the time settings, but suffice to say there's a lot of institutional barriers in the way for both Vic and SA. In Tas virtually all off-peak loads already include supply during the afternoon so that box is already ticked.

So there's potential for emissions savings and costs savings that are going to waste here and it's technically dead easy to do it with no losers whatsoever unless you count burning less fossil fuels and saving money as a loss.

 

[SirRumpole]

So there's potential for emissions savings and costs savings that are going to waste here and it's technically dead easy to do it with no losers whatsoever unless you count burning less fossil fuels and saving money as a loss.

Are the State and Federal governments and energy regulators aware of this or is it just too much of a fiddly detail to bother their giant brains with ?

 

[luutzu]

I thought about putting this in the energy thread but I think here's more appropriate.

In short if we view SA, Vic and Tas collectively then there's solar, wind and hydro going to waste due to lack of demand for power and transmission from Vic to NSW already running at maximum. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, it's been raining in the hydro catchments, consumption is down = over supply. Electricity at the wholesale level is also worthless at the moment, indeed the price has been negative.

The coal-fired generators have ramped down but are still running so as to avoid shutting down. Can't do that because just a few hours from now they'll be needing to run flat out during the evening peak demand which also happens to be at a time when there's no solar generation.

Then in Vic and SA at 11pm rather a lot of water heaters will turn on all about the same time with that power being supplied from fossil fuels in practice. In Tas they're on right now but not in the others.

So apart from ideas of big infrastructure like batteries or pumped hydro there's also a gain to be had by changing how consumers use energy.

In Vic they've already spent serious $ on smart meters but failed to take advantage of any actual "smart" function to switch water heating loads on and off. So we end up with electricity trading at negative prices, solar farms shut down and so on then a few hours later we're ramping up gas turbines to heat water. Switching remotely and operating at times when it makes sense, which has no impact on consumers since the water is simply stored for later use anyway, would make far more sense.

SA and Tas don't have that infrastructure in place but simply choosing appropriate times to operate things like off-peak water heaters is an imperfect but overall not bad workaround. Technically that's dead easy, just change the time settings, but suffice to say there's a lot of institutional barriers in the way for both Vic and SA. In Tas virtually all off-peak loads already include supply during the afternoon so that box is already ticked.

So there's potential for emissions savings and costs savings that are going to waste here and it's technically dead easy to do it with no losers whatsoever unless you count burning less fossil fuels and saving money as a loss.

From management perspective, the "smart" meters are just to get rid of meter readers. i.e. reduce cost on themselves.

The other bid about saving consumers money and stuff... that's someone else's problem. There will actually be less revenue if your great ideas were implemented Smurf. So that's smart but isn't smart smart.

 

[explod]

For the "unstoppable" on first count over 1000 people dead after sudden floods in India today.

On current general news.

 

[Smurf1976]

Are the State and Federal governments and energy regulators aware of this or is it just too much of a fiddly detail to bother their giant brains with ?

It's the kind of thing they'll "know" about a decade after they should have known if that makes sense. Not because nobody tried to tell them but because it's just too far a departure from the status quo to be readily accepted. There's a lot of "human factors" stuff there - an inability to accept that something which has been the case for longer than they've been alive isn't the case anymore.

Looking at the past 24 hours, Queensland, SA and WA all experienced their minimum electrical loads on centralised generation during the early afternoon and small scale (rooftop) solar is the reason for that. It's an even bigger issue when you factor in that some of the centralised generation is now itself solar in the form of big solar farms which, of course, work when it's sunny. Factor those in and you can add NSW to the list along with Qld, SA and WA.

So it's a here and now issue in some states and one that will come in due course to the others. Say "off-peak electricity" and everyone thinks of sometime when most people are sleeping and historically that has been true but we've now reached the point where the lowest demands are being seen early of an afternoon. Then just a few hours later we're flat out burning fossil fuels as demand comes up of an evening (as it has always done) and the sun goes down.

So it's an electrical thing but it's also a climate thing. I've posted it here as it's an example of institutional inertia in getting things done to gain some "easy" wins with emissions reduction. It's just crazy to have solar, wind, hydro or for that matter even the more efficient fossil fuel plants being underutilized when there are things which could be time shifted to make good use of it which we're presently doing at a different time with higher emissions.

There's some low hanging fruit going rotten on the tree here whilst our politicians argue about what sort of ladders to use to reach the top. Grab the easy stuff first in my view.

Same with anything really. It's just silly to not be taking the cheap and easy ways to cut emissions and adapt to climate change whilst spending so much time arguing over things which are far more difficult anyway.

 

[Smurf1976]

The current temperature in my dining room is 43 degrees.

The cat is lying flat on its back, legs stretched out, thinking it's all rather nice.

I think I've put enough wood on the fire already.....

PS - That's not a joke, the thermometer does actually say 43. So if you're going to light a fire then you may as well do it properly, right?

 

[Knobby22]

The current temperature in my dining room is 43 degrees.

The cat is lying flat on its back, legs stretched out, thinking it's all rather nice.

I think I've put enough wood on the fire already.....

PS - That's not a joke, the thermometer does actually say 43. So if you're going to light a fire then you may as well do it properly, right?

You must be sitting around in hour undies[emoji1]

 

[Knobby22]

You must be sitting around in your undies[emoji1]

Correction

 

[Smurf1976]

The cat's naked actually. Always is though apart from normal fur.

It's down to 34 degrees now. Oddly feels a bit chilly after 43.

 

[SirRumpole]

The cat's naked actually. Always is though apart from normal fur.

It's down to 34 degrees now. Oddly feels a bit chilly after 43.

So get it up to 46 and see if your aircon still works.

 

[explod]

The current temperature in my dining room is 43 degrees.

The cat is lying flat on its back, legs stretched out, thinking it's all rather nice.

I think I've put enough wood on the fire already.....

PS - That's not a joke, the thermometer does actually say 43. So if you're going to light a fire then you may as well do it properly, right?

Prep is everything.
Your posts are most appreciated and informative.

In fact it is beyond correction and unstoppable.

Join my party, happy to shout anyone anytime. But sorry that no one will be left in the future to remember our fkn brilliance.

But its on at my place anytime, Frankston

 

[Tisme]

Walking home half an hour ago I can smell rain coming.. my guess a wet weekend... usual expectation if it comes to pass.

 

[Smurf1976]

So get it up to 46 and see if your aircon still works.

I can confirm that the cat didn’t spontaneously combust or anything like that and is now eating.

Cats are actually fireproof I think. Sits way too close to the fire but it doesn’t seem to cause any issues.

Fireproof cats may be valuable in a warmer world......

 

[cynic]

...

Fireproof cats may be valuable in a warmer world......

Doubtless that will be ...

 

[moXJO]

.

Cats are actually fireproof I think. Sits way too close to the fire but it doesn’t seem to cause any issues.

Fireproof cats may be valuable in a warmer world......

I had a cat that would sit too close to the fire and start to burn. Instead of getting up to move he would hiss and growl at the fire. I would physically have to pick him up and move him.

 

[Smurf1976]

I had a cat that would sit too close to the fire and start to burn. Instead of getting up to move he would hiss and growl at the fire. I would physically have to pick him up and move him.

Had a dog set himself alight once.

Dog backed up to the kero heater in the garage which was used as a workshop, poked his tail through onto the burner and caught fire. First I realised was the stink and I think the dog realised there was a problem about the same moment.

Thankfully the dog remained calm whilst I extinguished his tail. Didn't seem to be any skin burns thankfully - had him checked by the vet just to be sure.

Suffice to say the dog took considerably more care around the heater after that. Wasn't frightened of it as such, still sat in front of it, but kept his tail out of the burner. Plus I modified the guard in front of the burner just to make sure it was dog proof.

PS - nothing stinks quite like burning dog hair.

 

[orr]

Crude oil was once refined and the gasoline/petrol was burnt as a waste product(to volatile) for the age.
When electricities wholesale price is zero or negative but avaliable at times, as it is now. It's just a little to volatile for it's current circumstances.
Any sizeable pumped hydro plans in train for Tasmanias existing dam network?

 

[explod]

Take unprecedented action or bear the consequences, says eminent scientist and advisor

By David Spratt and Ian Dunlop

“Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”

Those are the challenging words from Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, for twenty years the head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and a senior advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union. In the foreword to a new report, Schellnhuber says the issue now "is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of analysis may become useless”.

The report, What Lies Beneath: The understatement of existential climate risk, is released today by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration.


https://www.climatecodered.org/2018/08/take-unprecedented-action-or-bear.html