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YBAF
18th Jan 2016, 01:02 PM
An interesting article about the cost to Australian industry of the global warming nonsense.

"Many have been conditioned by absurdities like the sun and wind is free so how can using this energy be adding to costs and their eyes glaze over when confronted by hard data demonstrating the renewals cost three times as much as fossil fuel alternatives. Doubtless, public servants will advise them that if energy costs account for 12 per cent of product costs and the energy price increases by 20 per cent then cost increases are less than 3 per cent and easily absorbed. Such arguments fail to recognise that it is the residual profit that drives business decisions and the 3 per cent is perhaps three tenths of profits, or a 30 per cent reduction in the owners’ income.
The result of the developed world imposing penalties on its energy costs is an acceleration of the relative growth in China, India and other countries that would not countenance anything but token measures to price carbon."


Reaping the carbon policy harvest | Catallaxy Files (http://catallaxyfiles.com/2016/01/18/reaping-the-carbon-policy-harvest/)

Master Splinter
18th Jan 2016, 08:05 PM
Don't worry, it's all moot anyway.

If our energy use continues to increase at the rate that it's been increasing over the last 300+ years, in just another 300 years we'll need to cover every square centimetre of land surface area with solar panels, and in a mere 1,350 years we'll need to use the full power output of the sun.

However, waste heat from our energy use will raise the surface temperature of the planet to 100 degrees C in about 450 years, so I'd start investing in very good air conditioning technology.

Galactic-Scale Energy | Do the Math (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/)

jhovel
19th Jan 2016, 01:28 AM
unless of course mother nature/ Gaia/ God/ Allah/... lets something like transmissible bird flu / ebola/ .... loose and reduces the world population back to that of 300 years ago. then we (those of us left) will have plenty of energy to spare and the global warming will revert too.....

It all depend which doomsday theory you subscribe to.

Michael G
19th Jan 2016, 07:08 AM
I see carbon abatement as much like insurance - you may not know if or when you will need it and you may not know what will trigger the need but it is sensible to have in case something does happen.
Of course, as Joe suggests there could be a pandemic in the meantime, the good thing is that those denying global warming will be the first to be knocked off - after all if you don't believe in prudent precautions against the possibility of GW, it would be hypercritical to indulge in such things as health insurance and vaccination or for that matter rely on community resources established in case of need (hospitals, emergency services and the like).
These days in business we call it risk management.

Michael

RayG
19th Jan 2016, 01:00 PM
An interesting article about the cost to Australian industry of the global warming nonsense.

"Many have been conditioned by absurdities like the sun and wind is free so how can using this energy be adding to costs and their eyes glaze over when confronted by hard data demonstrating the renewals cost three times as much as fossil fuel alternatives. Doubtless, public servants will advise them that if energy costs account for 12 per cent of product costs and the energy price increases by 20 per cent then cost increases are less than 3 per cent and easily absorbed. Such arguments fail to recognise that it is the residual profit that drives business decisions and the 3 per cent is perhaps three tenths of profits, or a 30 per cent reduction in the owners’ income.
The result of the developed world imposing penalties on its energy costs is an acceleration of the relative growth in China, India and other countries that would not countenance anything but token measures to price carbon."


Reaping the carbon policy harvest | Catallaxy Files (http://catallaxyfiles.com/2016/01/18/reaping-the-carbon-policy-harvest/)


Interesting article, but I'd like to know how they calculated the Australian 2015 Average Electricity cost as $US0.49 /kWh figure from, I'm paying ~$US0.20 per kWh, ($A0.267) which is less than half what they say is the Australian Average

http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2016/01/electricity-prices.png

I call BS on their average Australian electricity cost.

YBAF
19th Jan 2016, 03:24 PM
I see there is some discussion about the 'average' Oz price over at the Cat.

I guess we'll see what they work out. :wink:

Master Splinter
19th Jan 2016, 07:24 PM
The bulk of of the increases in electricity prices has been due to suppliers 'gold plating' their supply networks, to the tune of $75 billion over the last 10 years - How the networks blew Australia's cheap energy advantage : Renew Economy (http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/how-the-networks-blew-australias-cheap-energy-advantage-24310)

And the Canberra household retail price is just a tad under 18 cents/kilowatt. The ACT government is on track to have 60% renewables by next year (250 megawatts) and 100% by 2025, so it doesn't look like it's hitting our bottom line at all. The other notably cheap state power wise is Tasmania, which is already 87% renewable... so the doom and gloom story does not stack up, especially not with numbers pulled out out of the air!

YBAF
19th Jan 2016, 08:14 PM
The bulk of of the increases in electricity prices has been due to suppliers 'gold plating' their supply networks, to the tune of $75 billion over the last 10 years - How the networks blew Australia's cheap energy advantage : Renew Economy (http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/how-the-networks-blew-australias-cheap-energy-advantage-24310)


"gold plating" So who wrote the report linked too... ? Suggest further research there about the conflict of interest.

My understanding about this so-called "gold plating" were the massive power fluctuations of the wind and solar power 'feeding' backwards and forwards through the lines required major upgrades to the power lines and associated equipment. Then there's the massive cost of keeping a coal fired power station on fully manned and fully fueled 'standby' for when the wind don't blow or sun dont shine. If he's around the forum, the retired power station 'throttle operator' now home machinist/small engine builder, might comment further :)

The economic basket case that is Tasmania has hydro power which is the main constant 'renewable' power source of the 87% quoted. Every time I fly over the windmill power systems of Northern Tasy I'm lucky if I see 10% of the units rotating. So much for that 'renewable'.

YBAF
19th Jan 2016, 08:21 PM
Here's a link to the current and historical wind output available around Oz:

Wind Energy in Australia | Aneroid (http://energy.anero.id.au/wind-energy/)

At this moment South East Oz wind power is practicly nil. :duh:

Master Splinter
19th Jan 2016, 09:48 PM
Well, if you want something with less perceived bias, you could start with the Senate Enquiry into Energex:
Senate inquiry to investigate gold plating of electricity networks and rising household costs - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-02/senate-inquiry-to-probe-'gold-plating'-of-electricity-networks/5786578)

To quote from the Enquiry findings:
"2.58 The first allegation the committee will address is the evidence regarding the modelling of the cost of debt. The committee's first interim report discussed the perverse incentives currently enshrined in the process by which the maximum allowable revenue for a network business is determined, including how network businesses appear to 'game' the regulator.

2.59 The committee notes that, since the current framework was introduced, the AER has never agreed to a WACC that network businesses have initially proposed.

Despite this, stakeholders are concerned that the network businesses benefit from the current method for considering revenue proposals, as businesses can 'frame the discussion' by submitting detailed regulatory proposals containing proposed revenues that are higher than what the regulator can accept.

The AER must effectively disprove the business's original proposal by determining an alternative WACC based on a hypothetical benchmark of an efficient business. The regulator must do this while being inundated with information and documents during the revenue determination process."

I can't see any mention of beefing up the lines because of 'back feeding of power' being put forward by Energex; but then again, I only skimmed the content.

And follow it with: Energex and Ergon 'must accept' Queensland Government directive not appeal AER decision - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/energex-ergon-not-to-appeal-aer-decision/6895342)

YBAF
20th Jan 2016, 09:11 PM
Well, if you want something with less perceived bias, you could start with the Senate Enquiry into Energex:
Senate inquiry to investigate gold plating of electricity networks and rising household costs - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-02/senate-inquiry-to-probe-'gold-plating'-of-electricity-networks/5786578)

To quote from the Enquiry findings:
"2.58 The first allegation the committee will address is...


...And follow it with: Energex and Ergon 'must accept' Queensland Government directive not appeal AER decision - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-29/energex-ergon-not-to-appeal-aer-decision/6895342)

"allegation" ? ...an allegation from some green senators! No bias there :U

What did they work out in the end ?

And a labor government directs the government owned power entitys not to challenge a decision... Hmmmmmm.........

YBAF
20th Jan 2016, 09:20 PM
Meanwhile, over in Germany...

"By now we have all learned that wind and solar energy are highly volatile sources, and thus massively strain the power grids they get fed into once a certain scale is reached. This is now especially the case in Germany, a country that has, in an uncontrolled manner, aggressively installed wind and solar energy over the past decade.Little wonder the German government stepped in and recently scaled back the subsidies.
But the recent government action has come too late. Yesterday Germany’s flagship daily ... posted a DPA news release on the mounting woes of the German Energiewende (transition to renewable energies). It begins with:

In 2015 grid operators had to intervene in the power grid like never before in order to prevent the lights in Germany from going out. The bill will be picked up by the consumer.”
During windy days, wind turbines often produce too much energy, energy that no one needs, and grid operators such as Tennet in turn force wind parks to close down to keep the grid from melting down. However, the grid operators still have to pay these shut down wind farms for the power that would have been produced. As more wind power comes online, wind park operators are forced to shut down more and more often, but with pay. The result – more costs for the grid operator. These costs from payments for unproduced electricity of course get passed along to the consumers..."

German Renewable Energy Woes Mount: Costly Battle Against Blackouts …”More Expensive Than Ever Before”! (http://notrickszone.com/2016/01/18/german-renewable-energy-woes-mount-costly-battle-against-blackouts-more-expensive-than-ever-before/#sthash.X9xjLOzp.dpbs)

bob ward
20th Jan 2016, 10:29 PM
I'm ambivalent about the whole global warming thing.

Is human activity causing global warming? Probably, but we won't know for sure for another 500 years. But always remember that the earth's temperature is entirely hostage to the sun's output, very minor variations in that will entirely negate the effects of any of human activity.

Can Australia do anything to reduce global warming? NO! Australia could sink beneath the waves tomorrow and it will not make one scrap of difference to global warming. Our politicians are twisting themselves into knots over this for nothing.

To me the really big problem we have as a species, and you never hear any of the global warming warriors ever mention this, is that there are just too many of us. In 1900 there were around 2 billion people on the planet. 110 years later give or take there are 7 billion people. Does anyone else see a problem here? Would we be discussing global warming if the world population was still 2 billion?

Master Splinter
21st Jan 2016, 09:14 PM
YBAF, if you actually read the reports (there are two of them, and incredibly dull reading they are too) you'd find the allegation came from a whistleblower from inside Energex, and the enquiry referred the matter to the Queensland government (as Energex is a quasi Qld govt entity), hence the link to the article where the Qld government essentially told Energex to 'pull their head in' and make efficiency improvements rather than increasing power prices to cover their business practices.

As far as biased sources go, you keep using climate change denier blogs (who can't even seem to do simple research and/or the maths to correctly work out a somewhat correct average price for Australian electricity*), so you're not exactly arguing from a position of authority or accuracy on that. Pot, kettle, black and so on.

Personally, I'd be a bit more trusting of the outcome of a senate enquiry (even under a Tony "Take me back to the 50's" Abbot government) than some random internet blog by someone whose qualifications may be no more than being an authority in their own mind; if anything, I'd expect the senate enquiry to have been under pressure to completely exonerate Energex, given Abbot's well known dislike of renewable energy... they were not being called the COALition for nothing).

With Germany, renewable sources have been taken up with great enthusiasm there (renewable sources provided a peak of 78% (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/28/graph-of-the-day-wind-power-sets-new-record-as-abbott-renews-turbine-attack/) of all of Germany's domestic power in the middle of last year, compared to Australia's current highest output of 15%) , so I would not be surprised if the equivalent of the national grid had been caught flat-footed.

In fact the original article says this: "The expansion of electricity networks lags behind the boom in renewable afterwards on" (google translation). Their infrastructure build out has not been as fast as the uptake of renewables.

When it comes to paying for unused power output from wind farms, that's a commercial (or political) decision, so it's either "we made a bad commercial decision because we never expected it to happen" or "that's what the government told us to do" so it's really not an argument against renewable energy.

See also this article on why Germany's power prices keep falling: Why do Germany’s Electricity Prices Keep Falling? - Bloomberg Business (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-25/why-do-germany-s-electricity-prices-keep-falling-) (Hint - t's because of all the renewable sources coming online... but that's Bloomberg, so I suppose they are a biased leftist greenie organisation too).

But if you really have an objection to renewables, I suppose you could disconnect yourself from the grid and just use a diesel generator. You could have yourself a kind of 'anti-commune'! I'd fully expect that to be much cheaper than running on renewables, too.


*well, I suppose they could have found the most expensive tariff of the most expensive supplier at the most expensive time of day with the most expensive 'you've used X kwh over your agreement, you now pay more' rate and just used that instead of an average. Now where have I heard of that before? Oh, that sounds a lot like how Energex worked out the cost of finance for it's pricing model!

YBAF
21st Jan 2016, 11:17 PM
YBAF, if you actually read the reports (there are two of them, and incredibly dull reading they are too) you'd find the allegation came from a whistleblower from inside Energex, and the enquiry referred the matter to the Queensland government (as Energex is a quasi Qld govt entity), hence the link to the article where the Qld government essentially told Energex to 'pull their head in' and make efficiency improvements rather than increasing power prices to cover their business practices...


"a whistleblower" ? Hmmm... And here's me thinking Energex, a government entity, were tasked with ensuring reliable power and the cost recovery of delivery. If you read the various Energex reports available on line, you too can be a "whistle blower". I'm thinking more and more this so-called "whistle blower" were just a set up to hide the green power farce.

Lets have a look-see at a quote from Energex:

"...The Queensland Government SBS was established to promote the installation of SolarPhotovoltaic (PV) by Queensland households and to encourage these customers to exportexcess energy to the grid through the payment of a Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). Since theintroduction of the SBS, the growth in customer uptake of residential Solar Photovoltaic (PV)generators in Queensland has significantly exceeded expectations and is now having asignificant impact on network charges which have to account for the cost of these payments..."

"Significant impact on network charges..." from the horses mouth. Have a read of the link and see just what the QLD Government has directed re cost recovery. There's nothing about "pulling their head in"

https://www.energex.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/157687/2014-15-Statement-of-expected-price-trends.pdf

YBAF
22nd Jan 2016, 12:01 AM
...As far as biased sources go, you keep using climate change denier blogs (who can't even seem to do simple research and/or the maths to correctly work out a somewhat correct average price for Australian electricity*), so you're not exactly arguing from a position of authority or accuracy on that. Pot, kettle, black and so on.

Personally, I'd be a bit more trusting of the outcome of a senate enquiry (even under a Tony "Take me back to the 50's" Abbot government) than some random internet blog by someone whose qualifications may be no more than being an authority in their own mind; if anything, I'd expect the senate enquiry to have been under pressure to completely exonerate Energex, given Abbot's well known dislike of renewable energy... they were not being called the COALition for nothing).

With Germany, renewable sources have been taken up with great enthusiasm there (renewable sources provided a peak of 78% (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/28/graph-of-the-day-wind-power-sets-new-record-as-abbott-renews-turbine-attack/) of all of Germany's domestic power in the middle of last year, compared to Australia's current highest output of 15%) , so I would not be surprised if the equivalent of the national grid had been caught flat-footed.

In fact the original article says this: "The expansion of electricity networks lags behind the boom in renewable afterwards on" (google translation). Their infrastructure build out has not been as fast as the uptake of renewables.

When it comes to paying for unused power output from wind farms, that's a commercial (or political) decision, so it's either "we made a bad commercial decision because we never expected it to happen" or "that's what the government told us to do" so it's really not an argument against renewable energy.

See also this article on why Germany's power prices keep falling: Why do Germany’s Electricity Prices Keep Falling? - Bloomberg Business (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-25/why-do-germany-s-electricity-prices-keep-falling-) (Hint - t's because of all the renewable sources coming online... but that's Bloomberg, so I suppose they are a biased leftist greenie organisation too).

But if you really have an objection to renewables, I suppose you could disconnect yourself from the grid and just use a diesel generator. You could have yourself a kind of 'anti-commune'! I'd fully expect that to be much cheaper than running on renewables, too.


*well, I suppose they could have found the most expensive tariff of the most expensive supplier at the most expensive time of day with the most expensive 'you've used X kwh over your agreement, you now pay more' rate and just used that instead of an average. Now where have I heard of that before? Oh, that sounds a lot like how Energex worked out the cost of finance for it's pricing model!

Every blog etc that I read fully agrees that the climate changes, always has and always will. I'm yet to read of anyone denying the climate changes.

Re the thread starter link, with further investigation I'm not overly happy with the quoted numbers. Still, the thread starter link may very well be a bit 'conservative'.

"WITH GERMANY..." Master Splinter, I suggest you do some research about the differences between wholesale and retail power pricing in Germany. There are times when German wholesale power prices are negative. i.e., the 'consumer' gets paid to take the power. The peoples actual power bills are actualy climbing steeply. There is also the fact of money being drained from eleswhere in the economy to pay for silly green power. The mad hatter himself couldn't dream up a more nonsensical and idiotic power supply system.

Here's some research of the reality of German 'green' power and the effect on industry...

"...a recent analysis found that from 2008 to 2013, Germany incurred $67.6 billion (€52 billion) in net export losses because of its high energy costs, compared to its five leading trade partners. Losses in energy intensive industries accounted for 60 percent of the total losses. This was further highlighted by a recent International Energy Agency report, which stated that the European Union (EU) is expected to lose one-third of its global market share of energy intensive exports over the next two decades due to high energy prices, expensive energy imports of gas and oil, as well as costly domestic subsidies for renewable energy..."

http://www.finadvice.ch/files/germany_lessonslearned_final_071014.pdf

YBAF
22nd Jan 2016, 12:11 AM
Today in Australia our glorious wind power turbines average a total of about 15% of rated potential output power....... wonderful. :doh:

Wind Energy in Australia | Aneroid (http://energy.anero.id.au/wind-energy/)

Master Splinter
22nd Jan 2016, 01:47 AM
Even if anthropomorphic climate change (to single it out from any other type of 'global warming hysteria', in case there is more that I'm not aware of) is not happening, I don't really see a problem with moving away from coal. It's a finite resource, and it's messy.

I also don't have a problem with Australia being a high (relative to say, India or China) energy cost country as we already can't compete on labour costs, and that's typically a much larger component of production costs - and if you automate production, you're not going to be employing as many people anyway, so you have to ask if manufacturing is worth it as an industry segment just to provide employment for a small percentage of the Australian labour force who may otherwise be unemployable.

I guess we'll just have to get by on being a mostly service economy, and those people who formerly worked at exciting and fulfilling jobs such as putting plastic clips into car door trim panels for eight hours a day will have to re-skill as baristas, shop assistants, old folks care workers or even politicians.

Getting back to energy, just as Abbot and Hockey didn't like how wind turbines look (and thought that was a valid point), I don't like how coal fired power stations look, or all the particulates they dump into the atmosphere.

And if someone said to me "Here, have this secondhand Tesla Roadster as a swap for your petrol engined car" I'd hand over the keys to my car so fast they would be in danger of melting from atmospheric friction.

If the Germans don't like their government's energy policies, they can always kick them out at the next election. But since the drive towards renewable power started with their 1991 Renewable Energy Sources Act, it might be that most of the popular parties support it, which implies strong public support.

Perhaps they just liked the idea of shutting down a number of nuclear power plants and not building new ones.

But that's for the Germans to decide, so I don't really see why it's important in a thread about energy in Australia, which has much better access to renewables such as sunlight and wind than Germany does.

I always like to take the NIMBY approach; if I had to have my house hard up against the chainlink fence around a power station car park (like The Simpsons' house in several episodes), what sort of power station would I prefer that to be?

I'd prefer to rub shoulders with solar, wind, nuclear (both fission and if it ever becomes viable, fusion) and even tidal power generation; and where I am now puts me at the sort of distance I like from coal burning power plants - in another state entirely.

My concerns would be that with solar, they might do something smelly, like farm cows under panels that are raised off the ground; with wind...well, it might mean living in an exposed windy location, and with tidal, that would imply salty sea air and lots of opportunities for rust. Can't really think of any downsides to nuclear, though, except the buildings might not look very nice.

Getting back to Tasmania - yes, I can quite see the folly of locating wind turbines in a region of the world where the prevailing winds are described as 'The Roaring Forties'.

You would really think they'd do more site testing than simply sticking a wet finger in the air and saying, 'Yarr, she be windy here today, lads; lets set 'em up'.

They probably never even thought to ask meteorologists about historical wind patterns, let alone doing the math for a cost benefit analysis or preparing business plans! You should probably write to them and offer your expertise in wind farm location - "You'd be better off locating it on another continent entirely, as we don't want any of that wind around here".

It's a good thing that they didn't rely on the roaring forties for power in the age of sail; the ships would have never got anywhere!

jhovel
22nd Jan 2016, 01:49 AM
On the news today: 2015 was the warmest year EVER (on record).... why are you using the term "hysteria" in your title again?

On another note, since I read German as fluently as English, I had a read of the original German sources referenced (and a few actually authoritative ones rather than just the daily press). A lot seems to have been modified in translation.... the word 'hysteria' comes to mind indeed - but in the opposite direction. The actual picture is MUCH more complicated than described in the daily press. Germany is only a big player because of its size/population/GDP. The baltic states are MUCH further down the track with renewables.
However, the BIG issue is that the whole of Europe is actually interconnected and electricity is traded in 15minute blocks across the whole of Europe by traders - not generators or wholesalers or retailers! So a wholesaler in Greece might buy a few hours from a trader who has access to some cheap energy in Portugal, say because its a public holiday there. That energy then gets transmitted across Europe to Greece - on a very high voltage line that was built to supply national energy from one part of each country traversed to another. The transmission capacity is at or over the limit a lot of the time because of that! Of course they are way behind in infrastructure building. It takes decades to build that sort of long distance 'electricity autobahn' on top of the regional distribution. When the design capacity of a line is exceeded, it warms up and increases resistance. So the power arriving is less than the powere purchased - and therefore more expensive per unit.
Add to that the very active public initiatives against building high voltage transmission lines across the landscape, the only other option is underground. The cost of underground high voltage lines is in the order of 4 to 14 times the cost of overhead lines. Guess who pays for that?
None of this has ANYTHING to do with renwables AT ALL. It has to do with interconnecting countries so that load sharing can happen at a big scale.
Now this is where renewables come in: they actually help contain the cost: Europe is now just two time zones. But the sun doesn't care - it shines in Letvia a lot ealier than in Spain. The wind across the atlantic happens at a different time of day than the wind in the baltic sea or up the slopes of the Ural mountains. Once the expensive infastructure is in place, then these natural sources allow nuclear and coal fired generators to run more efficiently and continuously - and less of them overall, without the huge powere fluctualtions currently expensive to manage with gas generation (fast start and stop). It just happened that all those decisions were made at the same time. And subsidising the start up of solar and wind investment by the private sector has a much faster effect than building billions of Euros wirth of powerlines....
Despite all of that, the average European blackout total in 2014 was just 13 minutes - including planned short term blackouts for maintenance. Pretty bloody good I think.

By the way, rated output of wind and solar generation 'farms' is normally in the order of 15% ANYWHERE in the world. That is because they can be actively managed to balance load distribution and sharing INSTANTLY. You can just swith them off. A coal fired powerstation takes two days to switch off and four days to start up again. However, the wind farms' plated capacity is available when it is needed on top of a baseload generation. Same with solar. That's why most of us don't get paid much for our feed in any more. Because it might have to be ditched rather than sold.
This subject is VERY complicated - that's why the press has such a field day - in any direction. The data can easily be used to show a plausible case for or against a cause. All it takes is a gullible public not to check the 'facts' presented.... like the Australian cost of a kW in comparison to the rest of the world, and allow someone to push a barrow by simply doubling the number.....

Master Splinter
22nd Jan 2016, 02:15 AM
Today in Australia our glorious wind power turbines average a total of about 15% of rated potential output power....... wonderful. :doh:


Yeah, it's almost like they have no idea how to locate them so they will produce an average of 30-35% of their rated power.

Obviously there is no-one with any knowledge involved in the location decisions. I smell a fortune to be made by someone who knows how to read historical wind data from the Bureau of Meteorology! I bet they never even looked at it!

BobL
22nd Jan 2016, 11:23 AM
When a subject gets complicated everyone can find something within the subject matter to sustain their often conspiratorial arguments. In fact it has been shown that very few individuals seek to get at the truth, instead they continually seek information and supporters to support their position, initially established without having all the facts. This is why racism and sexism continues to thrive. It takes something along the lines of a "religious conversion"to change ones mind on deeply held views, which does not happen all that often.

On one of the world's most complicated subjects like global warming, no single person, not even an Einstein, will ever be in a position to have all the facts and knowledge to arrive at at a individually fully informed independent decision. This is why I don't believe (usually inexpert) individuals views on the matter. It's very difficult (especially for people who think they know or are capable of) knowing everything to take this on board ,but the sheer complexity of global warming requires large teams of experts in the field to even start to come to grips with the situation. The way it stands the most fully organised group of people with the greatest expertise and the level of organization required that are systemically tackling global warming is the IPCC. The experts on the IPCC and its subcommittees are informed enough to know that any individual expert's point of view is near worthless and only their combined points of view amounts to something.
Everyone else is just farting around at the edges.

Of course just like every one else this is just my point of view :)

YBAF
22nd Jan 2016, 04:58 PM
...On another note, since I read German as fluently as English, I had a read of the original German sources referenced (and a few actually authoritative ones rather than just the daily press). A lot seems to have been modified in translation....

Please do give us an example.
In the years I've been referencing/quoting ​'No Tricks Zone' I'm yet to hear of this "modification"

jhovel
22nd Jan 2016, 09:38 PM
Sorry, I'm afraif I couldn't be bothered. You clearly hold a strong view and are unlikely to listen without argument. So I see no point.
Suffice it to say that both language and context of the English text you referred to does not match the German original in lots of areas.

Bob's summary of the complexity is a very good one. Read it and believe it.

My post of JUST the complexity of European renewable energy issues gives a hint at how complicated the topic is.
To call this discussion 'hysterical' beggers belief. You either believe the experts summary written in language for intelligent lay people to understand - or you dismiss these experts as charlatans. You will be in the minority who is smiled about. There is no middle ground I can see. You either pick science or conspiracy theory or faith - your call.....

YBAF
23rd Jan 2016, 12:59 PM
Sorry, I'm afraif I couldn't be bothered. You clearly hold a strong view and are unlikely to listen without argument. So I see no point.
Suffice it to say that both language and context of the English text you referred to does not match the German original in lots of areas.

Bob's summary of the complexity is a very good one. Read it and believe it.

My post of JUST the complexity of European renewable energy issues gives a hint at how complicated the topic is.
To call this discussion 'hysterical' beggers belief. You either believe the experts summary written in language for intelligent lay people to understand - or you dismiss these experts as charlatans. You will be in the minority who is smiled about. There is no middle ground I can see. You either pick science or conspiracy theory or faith - your call.....

Hmmm... I see.

An important detail with 'No Tricks Zone' (NTZ) is the original German source article is quoted in most cases. I see many German news services offer 'other' language versions. And I note that everyone knows that there are things like google translate available so non German speakers can check for themselves. There is also the comments section available to all at NTZ so if someone dont like the translation you can say as much. I'm yet to see a critiqe of the translations though I've seen many posts to the NTZ site attacking the NTZ point of veiw, or selection of quote.

Knowing all of the above, and seeing no counter evidence to support the allegation of 'modification', I think we can say the translation of the NTZ article was fairly correct.


NoTricksZone: "Not here to worship what is known, but to question it" – Jacob Bronowski. Climate news from Germany in English – by Pierre L. Gosselin (http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.u5AYSwRZ.89Mjgwat.dpbs)

Oldneweng
23rd Jan 2016, 02:10 PM
Based on my limited experience of Google Translate, I would not trust it to translate door opening directions. :D


There is also the comments section available to all at NTZ so if someone dont like the translation you can say as much. I'm yet to see a critiqe of the translations though I've seen many posts to the NTZ site attacking the NTZ point of veiw, or selection of quote.

Knowing all of the above, and seeing no counter evidence to support the allegation of 'modification', I think we can say the translation of the NTZ article was fairly correct.

I don't quite understand this. Who would dislike the translation? Non-German speakers? They would not know it was wrong. German speakers? They would not look at the translation.

One German speaker has just provided counter evidence I believe.


Suffice it to say that both language and context of the English text you referred to does not match the German original in lots of areas.


Seems easy to me. The only criteque you have seen is negative. That would be 100% against.

My opinion is one of a feeling we need to do much more to protect this world of ours, of which we are temporary custodians of, but the details are too complex for me to have a more precise knowledge. Are we damaging the Earth? Yes! Should we damage the Earth? If someone lent you a house to stay in would you trash it? Too many people would. That is what humans are like.

Dean

YBAF
23rd Jan 2016, 02:33 PM
...I don't quite understand this. Who would dislike the translation? Non-German speakers? They would not know it was wrong. German speakers? They would not look at the translation.

One German speaker has just provided counter evidence I believe.



Then lets see the evidence.

I note that the discusion in comments at the link is quiet 'robust'. And yet, I do not see any mention of problems with the translation.

Perhaps those with claims relating to the translation should post a comment at NTZ.

German Renewable Energy Woes Mount: Costly Battle Against Blackouts …”More Expensive Than Ever Before”! (http://notrickszone.com/2016/01/18/german-renewable-energy-woes-mount-costly-battle-against-blackouts-more-expensive-than-ever-before/#sthash.X9xjLOzp.d84KaOBf.dpbs)

Master Splinter
23rd Jan 2016, 06:09 PM
Getting back to the thread starter (silly, I know), here's another graph of electricity cost from the very same source (for the graph below that's • Electricity prices worldwide 2015 | Statistic (http://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/) ) used by that cattlelaxative* blog.

It tells a quite a different story from the one written about the graph shown in the blog post.

I can't reconcile the two as you have to be a paid member to see the actual data and methodology behind the graph that the cattlelaxative blog quoted in their graph, so I can't access any any information about how that particular custom data set was created.

But the freely available data from the very same source tells an entirely different story about Australian electricity costs to the one the blog is talking about:

360592

From that, it doesn't seem that Germany's high energy costs are having any major effect on its economic performance - Germany is the world’s strongest economy - Quartz (http://qz.com/586547/germany-is-the-worlds-strongest-economy/)

The point in the cattlelaxative narrative for Australia: "Enforced use of high cost renewable energy undermines what should be the cheapest electricity in the world" is now disproved, as we seem to have reasonably cheap power internationally (cheaper even that Rah! Rah! Capitalism is Great! Free Market! USA! USA! Hoo-ah!), and while some of the subsequent points in this thread (Germany has very high electricity costs because of grid build-outs to increase renewable energy use) are valid, this high cost does not seem to have much of an effect on the actual economic performance of Germany - further disproving the "renewables harm the economy" position posited in the thread starter.



*calling it that as it smells of BS.

YBAF
23rd Jan 2016, 09:08 PM
Getting back to the thread starter (silly, I know), here's another graph of electricity cost from the very same source (for the graph below that's • Electricity prices worldwide 2015 | Statistic (http://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/) ) used by that cattlelaxative* blog.

It tells a quite a different story from the one written about the graph shown in the blog post.

I can't reconcile the two as you have to be a paid member to see the actual data and methodology behind the graph that the cattlelaxative blog quoted in their graph, so I can't access any any information about how that particular custom data set was created.

But the freely available data from the very same source tells an entirely different story about Australian electricity costs to the one the blog is talking about:

...

From that, it doesn't seem that Germany's high energy costs are having any major effect on its economic performance - Germany is the world’s strongest economy - Quartz (http://qz.com/586547/germany-is-the-worlds-strongest-economy/)



I had a quick look-see at the Quartz link. Didn't take more then a second to discount it as a credible source. Germany has taken in over one million mostly male refugees in the last year alone. I do not see the dramatic spike in the unemployment rates quoted by the 'Quartz' graph. Nor do I see any mention of the one in five tax free short hour micro jobs that hide much under-employment. (google it)

I think we can round up Germanys woes by noting its debt as a % of GDP is twice that of Australia and will start to escalate now with its unsustainable power for industry and dramaticly raised number of mouths at the taxpayer funded government teat. The 'remains of the day' for the once great German economy.

Just another result of the escalating German power costs fiasco...

""According to the German flagship news magazine, citing the federal Bundesnetzagentur (German Network Agency), more than 350,000 households saw their power get switched off in 2014. Spiegel blames the “Energiewende” (transition to renewable energy), writing in its sub-title:
The social problems of the Energiewende are growing: Last year more households than ever saw their power get switched off. The reason is the rising price of electricity.”..."

Socially Explosive …More Than 1 Million German Households Had Power Shut Off Over Past Three Years! (http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/16/socially-explosive-more-than-1-million-german-households-had-power-shut-off-over-past-three-years/#sthash.PI1OWr77.BOQrYCoN.dpbs)

Oldneweng
23rd Jan 2016, 09:16 PM
Knowing all of the above, and seeing no counter evidence to support the allegation of 'modification', I think we can say the translation of the NTZ article was fairly correct.


This statement demonstrates a funny idea of logic in 2 ways. Modification is a funny way to say Google Translate is not very accurate, and you cannot claim something is correct just because nobody has said anything to the contrary. Regardless of whether anybody complains about it or not, it is only correct if it is correct. A lack of comments about it being incorrect are totally inconsequential to the facts.

Dean

YBAF
23rd Jan 2016, 09:33 PM
When a subject gets complicated everyone can find something within the subject matter to sustain their often conspiratorial arguments. In fact it has been shown that very few individuals seek to get at the truth, instead they continually seek information and supporters to support their position, initially established without having all the facts. This is why racism and sexism continues to thrive. It takes something along the lines of a "religious conversion"to change ones mind on deeply held views, which does not happen all that often.

On one of the world's most complicated subjects like global warming, no single person, not even an Einstein, will ever be in a position to have all the facts and knowledge to arrive at at a individually fully informed independent decision. This is why I don't believe (usually inexpert) individuals views on the matter. It's very difficult (especially for people who think they know or are capable of) knowing everything to take this on board ,but the sheer complexity of global warming requires large teams of experts in the field to even start to come to grips with the situation. The way it stands the most fully organised group of people with the greatest expertise and the level of organization required that are systemically tackling global warming is the IPCC. The experts on the IPCC and its subcommittees are informed enough to know that any individual expert's point of view is near worthless and only their combined points of view amounts to something.
Everyone else is just farting around at the edges.
...


BobL, I dont think you understand just how the IPCC works. Or perhaps yer just pulling everyones leg.:)

Anyway, an easy start to understanding the reality of the IPCC is here:

"...the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release a new Summary for Policymakers at a press conference. We’ll be told that that document highlights the key findings of the 30 new chapters that represent the Working Group 2 section of the IPCC’s latest climate assessment.

Richard Tol, who specializes in the economics of climate change, has asked that his name be removed from the Summary. Rather than representing an even-handed analysis, he thinks it emphasizes doom and gloom. Among the individuals whose name will remain is the Australian marine biologist, Ove Hoegh-Gulberg.
The fact that he has spent his career cashing cheques from Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was no impediment to him participating in the latest IPCC assessment. The geniuses there decided he wasn’t merely lead author material, but that he deserved to be placed in charge of a chapter. Its called The Ocean..."

The WWF Activist in Charge at the IPCC | Big Picture News, Informed Analysis (http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/03/30/the-wwf-activist-in-charge-at-the-ipcc/)

Master Splinter
24th Jan 2016, 11:11 AM
I'm sorry that I used facts to explain why you are wrong.

Yes, the link I provided references data from Deutsche Bundesbank (Germany's RBA equivalent), the IMF (google it), and EuroStat (you can probably guess what that is from the name) so I can see why you'd dismiss their data out of hand.

It is well known[citation needed] that all these types of national or supra-national agencies are all part of the great conspiracy that is being masterminded by (tick all that apply or supply your own):

[ ] Big Pharma
[ ] People who want our guns
[ ] Jet fuel can't melt steel beams
[ ] The people who faked the moon landing
[ ] The Illuminati
[ ] Flying Saucer People
[ ] Reptilian Aliens from another dimension
[ ] Reptilian Aliens from another dimension who are controlled by demons from yet another dimension;

But I’m not surprised - conspiratorial ideation seems to be common in people who have problems with the idea of anthropomorphic global warming. (see - The involvement of conspiracist ideation in science denial (http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyrecfury.html) ) (sorry, that's more peer reviewed research instead of just random blog postings by people with opinions).

But I'd be interested to know which countries you would say are 'economic hero' countries - countries that Australia/Germany should follow, and at what point the debt/gdp ratio switches from being 'good' to 'bad'?

Do you also want to consider where the country is in its net international investment position?

There are plenty of basket case economies with very low (sub 20%) debt to GDP ratios; often this low ratio is because they are considered a massive sovereign risk and no-one in their right mind would loan them money.

Hunch
24th Jan 2016, 11:29 AM
Surely it's flying binghi....like a dog with a bone...


Yeah, it's almost like they have no idea how to locate them so they will produce an average of 30-35% of their rated power.

Obviously there is no-one with any knowledge involved in the location decisions. I smell a fortune to be made by someone who knows how to read historical wind data from the Bureau of Meteorology! I bet they never even looked at it!

Idiot, doncha know, according to the blogs...and some Quadrant reading senators, BOM are in on this 'ere AGW gravy train, manipulating temperature data and undoubtedly wind too. :p

Probably need something like a Woody Allen orgasmatron, with a soylent green outcome to fix the problem. :D

Big Shed
24th Jan 2016, 12:39 PM
I think the time has come to put yet another global warming "debate" to bed.

Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys.