$14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide

[IanMacdonald]

For a levelheaded assessment of both the unmentionable climate thingy and renewables, see our website:

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/climate

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/co2maths

https://iwrconsultancy.co.uk/science/renewables_projections.htm

The figures taken from ourworldindata.org are perhaps the most damning, indicating that at a best-case entimate the current world roadmap to renewables, relying principally as it does on wind turbines and solar PV, would take over a thousand years to complete, and cost 1800 times as much as the entire Apollo project. 

-anyone who doubts these figures can go to the original site, where the sources are quoted. Note also that this is a best case estimate, and does not take into account items such as battery or pumped hydro energy storage, just the generating capacity. The actual cost might be a lot higher.

Basically, whether or not CC is a problem, we need to look for a different replacement for fossil fuels. Because, wind and solar will not work.

The sensible options are to use shale gas in the short term, since this about halves CO2 output, and is relatively clean. In the longer term, thorium or fusion are really the only sensible options. Thing is, the Greens may decry fusion development as overly expensive, but it is an absolutely tiny cost compared to that of going 100% wind and solar.

[george80]

Well here they're going to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040 apparently.

Good chance I won't be around to see it but I'll bey my arse that gets revised when all the green hype fails to stack up. Of course that will be the fault of all the non believers and the world will still be here despite the panic claims " that we need to do something now" that still won't be done.

The Whole EV thing is another commercial profiteering load of BS to me.
Lets face it, it's the biggest most profitable thing to happen to the motor industry since it was created.  From their POV, who cares if it works or not? They will sell milions of new cars, used but perfectly good ones will be discarded and then when people realise  that the things aren't so smooth because the roads are still rough, there are still traffic jams, parking has still got harder to find and everything else is the same except refueling now takes 20 Min at least instead of 5 ( can you imagine how many women will be at the side of the road with flat batteries given they can't spend 5 Min to fill up now??) , they will go back to the IC vehicles that the manufacturers will get to sell again well within the previous life cycle they had before.

Probably loads of money to be grabbed from gubbermints for development programs and other subsidies. 

It's no wonder they are Pushing EV's for all they are worth.  Like saving the planet and Safety, riding on the back of a noble cause is the most profitable and defensible way to make huge money there is.

I do see a potential good money earner I can do in my retirement though.
Emergency charge Vehicle for EV's .  I reckon a small 1 ton truck with a 50 Kw Genny on the back that is on call to give these stopped electrics a charge.
Could price it  higher than a tow truck because no need to have them towed AND then charged, you can get yourself home and isn't that the goal of 99% of people that " break down" ?
To reduce costs...... errr, appease the green religion members, I'll run the truck and the genny on Veg oil as I have been doing my own vehicle for years.
I strongly suspect that when stopped by the side of the road, the most die heard of these environmentalists would care if you stood there feeding Puppies and kittens into a Mincer to power the genny as long as they could drive home.

The green dedication in my repeated experience suffers a distinct lack of loyalty from the loudest of whingers when the chips are down.

Maybe for my own self satisfaction, I should have the generator steam powered and make THEM shovel the coal into the boiler!   

Whole world's going to change in the next 30 years and it's not going to be pretty and it's not because of AGW, if that even exists, but commercial and political idiocy. I'm moving to the sticks and will have to go full mad max I reckon

I agree.

Corruption and ulterior profitable motives aren't even attempted to be hidden now.  People have just come to accept it and carry on like the sheeple they have been trained to be.
I am so over the whole globull warming thing I'm loosing my temper with it.
Whether it is real or not, the way the green cult preach the ridiculous solutions is an insult because even blind freddy can see they do far more harm than good.

They want the ideal but refuse to accept any level of co operation with what is feasible and practical.
I often wonder how bought and sold a lot of these groups are and if there is any money being paid by groups they denounce to make stupid claims and suggestions to turn people off the whole green ideal.
then again, I have seen what they did when they got some political power so I don't think they need to be paid to action stupid ideals and screw things up.  the South Australian grid is shining example of what happens when you let the green idealist's put their ideas into practice. en ideals out of the blue but the cult followers are hell bent on converting everyone to their religion at every opportunity.

I moved to a small acreage 19 Months ago. A main thing for me coming out to the edge and having plenty of land and bearing in mind self sufficiency when looking at places was exactly to have some independence.  Like most things I do, at the time it was more a cost saving thing but I now see that other influences may make the decision even wiser.

I don't think you can hide from the world however but certainly the ability to have ones own water, power and grow a little food is a heck of a lot better than living in a concrete box where you have no assets and are fighting with everyone else for everything.
Human behavior goes funny when things go wrong.

I remember some years back where I lived there was one of the rare blackouts. Lightening blew the crap out of a local sub station. was about 12 hours with no power, A very long outage by any measure I could remember since a kid.
I happily went and got one of my small gennys thinking this won't be long and the bigger ones were buried and I ran some leads to lights, TV etc and we happily carried on. BBQ Mrs was planning the next night got brought forward so we sat out the back in comfort and made the most of the time.

Next morning pretty early my elderly neighbour is at the door. I did a lot for this old Italian lady with things around the house and she was like a grandmother to my kids.  She asked if I had power back on yet? I said no and she said she saw I was the only place with lights last night, how come? I teld her about my junk coming in useful and I had a generator. She asked about teh fridges and freezer and I said  they were plugged in and running fine.

This seemed to upset her and she said it wasn't " Fair" I had power and she did not and seems to get annoyed.  Before I could even say if the power was out I'd get out another genny and take this one up to her, She demanded that if power wasn't back on by lunchtime " I would have to put the wire to her house so she could watch TV and do things because it wasn't fair I have power and she did not."  Forget about essentials like the fridge, She thought she had a right to watch TV and do the washing. 
This neighbour was not next door, she was 3 doors up so it was not a simple matter of running a lead 30ft to her.

This wasn't a please or could you? It was an indignant  demand.  I was less worried about that than I was interested in the behavior change.  Even days later when the power came back on and she came down to Politely as usual ask me for a favour for something else, the demand that if the power went out again I HAD to give her some was still very strong.
Of course the mention of buying her own generator quickly changed that subject as did mention of any money she would need to spend.  When I was trying to fix something it was always : What for you muck around with this, just buy new one. " When something of hers broke, she didn't even like buying the parts for me to fix it let alone buying a whole new unit even when that is what I would have done.  :0)

I have seen people mention this on the net before when they are in storm damaged areas.  A guy on a DIY forum I talk to some years back had such an outage and fired up his well prepared generator only to have a neighbour come over and demand he conect his house so he could run his AC because it was hot. When the guy explained that the genny wasn't big enough for that the guy became aggressive even though they had basically been friend outside being neighbors before and the guy had encouraged him to get a genny  but the neighbour dismissed it. 

The guy with the genny felt bad and thought he could wire a breaker up so the neighbour could only take  a limited amount  and if he tried to run his AC it would trip.  He went and saw the neighbour and explained again and the neighbour was basically of the position that if you won't help me " Properly" you can go jump.
 Guy never had anything to do with that neighbour again and rightfully so.

I know I'd be right with one neighbour, he has his own gennys for camping but I'd happily share with him anyway. He is a tinkerer as well and I wouldn't even have to tell him not to run the AC.... although with what I'm looking to put together atm, probably not a worry for us both to run our Ducted.

The others, who knows? Couple I wouldn't be surprised to get demands from.  But Like my mate, there is always the breaker that would trip and probably make them think it wasn't worth while and not worry. All but the one next door would be out of reach anyway  and No one is going to be taking away the 4-500 Kg lumps that will be bolted to the garage floor.

Might also have a Ton of old fashioned, out of fashion lead acid battery's by then as well.

[wasyoungonce]

Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.

This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tautech]

Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.

This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !

George's rants are right on the money and there's nothing damaging about using renewables to power the grid....they just won't be enough for future needs and population growth.
So if the greenies really want to do their bit they can bring back the lost art of candle making and ride push bikes wherever they go.

Living in once what was a real rural address where my dad remembers getting power in 1935 and how it changed his family's life there is no way we want to return to the simpler ways.....the occasional power network outages we still experience are a gentle reminder of the importance of power to the masses. Once you experience life outside an urban environment and it's inherently reliable reticulated underground services you will gain another appreciation of the things city folk take for granted.

I like George have some options to take the pain away from unexpected outages (in NZ's case mostly storm line damage), a 6.5KW genset so to provide refrigeration and water and TV's that run from 12V inverters, gas cooking and lighting etc so we can pretty much carry on regardless while our neighbors live in darkness.

The greenies would also throw up their hands in horror when our local linesco did a major upgrade here some years back and asked us what trees they could remove to protect their new network investment. Pop and I said to cut anything and everything in their way down !
I'll keep my power in any storm thanks while the greenies can huddle around their candles and whale oil kerosene lamps.

Power to the masses is the most important development mankind has ever seen and must be maintained and enhanced.
Mankind mission critical, period !

[george80]

Righo then. You are one of those people quite obviously....

Cool story George but it’s difficult deciphering all the rubbish you wrote has anything related to the topic.

I'll bet it is difficult with pure green blinkers on to try and decipher anything let alone try to undermine what I said, which is clearly something you don't like.

In the week or so I have been reading here, talking about off topic is laughable, especially when any thread on any forum is ALWAYS side tracked by the Co2 whingers and green zealots.
They never consider environmental bleatings are off topic to the subject of power supply and generation do they?

The fact remains please point out factually why the renewables are damaging or degrading to the SA power grid.

First of all, please show with detail and precision where I said they were damaging the SA Grid?
I think you need to again take the green defensive blinkers off and pay attention to comprehension of what WAS written so you don't make laughable straw man arguments out of things no one even mentioned. 

This’ll be interesting. Please facts only not hype nor hate just the facts. 

Unlike your own question / response I take it? 

Oh, just want to say hot wiring houses with power I do hope you’re qualified and the houses have rated grid isolators !

Oh, you are one of those as well!   

Not sure what that has to do with the topic, obviously nothing, but you felt you had to try and put in another disparaging comment to make yourself feel better.  Some Might say to criticism of someone for being off topic and then posting a completely off topic comment themselves was very hypocritical but, whatever. Fortunately I am not offended or concerned in any way. that would take a level of respect and regard for the comment I simply  do not have.... And pretty certainly, never will

I have no idea where you got the idea I was hot wireing House'S but I suspect it was just another failure of comprehension on your part in the rush to try and post something to make yourself feel better and sound authoritarian at someone elses Expense even if you were completely wrong. Never Mind.

If you are talking about the rooftop isolators that have caused more fires and damage than they have saved, then no, I don't have any and wouldn't ever think of having them either. Last I read, at least 2 state fire brigades said they would not allow them on any of their premises either. I think I'll go with their position on that rather than a Bunch of rules that are in many way conflicting anyway.

Respectfully, in future before trying to put people down, I suggest you address what is written and not let failures of comprehension make you look foolish or delusions of superiority undermine your credibility.   

[wasyoungonce]

So no facts.....except drivel....ok then


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[george80]

So if the greenies really want to do their bit they can bring back the lost art of candle making and ride push bikes wherever they go.

I'm not sure candle making would be acceptable in the green zealots View.  They emit soot and Co2 so at very least would need to be fitted with a cat converter. Wax comes from bees or tallow so they would probably not be happy about taking the bees wax and we all know where they stand on farming live stock, we are all supposed to become veggitarians so that would have to be out.
Of course if they did make candles they would be using at very least 80% Fossil fuel for electric or natural gas which they have issues with as well.

Riding bikes I believe is OK. That is the ONLY type of personal transport that meets the agendas of their Cult..... Until they want to go interstate for a protest or a Yurt construction seminar. Then its straigt to the airport  for them, even if they are catching the cheap last flight out after protesting airport noise and the construction of a 2nd airport.

"Living in once what was a real rural address where my dad remembers getting power in 1935 and how it changed his family's life there is no way we want to return to the simpler ways"

My grandmother who raised me used to tell me about when power came to her town which is now a surburban City, the largest outside the CBD.  She was the local " Beauty Queen at the time and was a centre of attention for all the celebrations at the time. She used to often tell me about lamp posts we would walk by between home and the town and how they were the first ones electricaly lkit and could even tell me which one the Mayor of the time stood under when he flicked the switch.... even though they had been on for almost a month testing the things.  :0)

She had the cutting from teh local paper of the event with her on the Dias when the great accomplishment was made.
She later told me about how the house my grandfather and her Bought years later just down the road from the first lights had one power outlet in every single room! Quite a modern thing in those days.
Something I cursed as a young man for there only being so few.  Due to the old wiring, we had the place re wired later on and I insisted on there being at least 2 power outlets in the bedrooms and one outlet on every wall in the rest of the place.

I like George have some options to take the pain away from unexpected outages (in NZ's case mostly storm line damage), a 6.5KW genset so to provide refrigeration and water and TV's that run from 12V inverters, gas cooking and lighting etc so we can pretty much carry on regardless while our neighbors live in darkness.

   

Oh No! Don't tell me you are hotwiring houses too!   

I have seen any vids on YT about  gensets for houses in the US. I think that is mainly due to bad weather storm Damage but they seem a fairly normal thing.  I suspect they will become far more popular here too.
I am already reading about a lot of people wanting to upgrade their solar inverters to ones that will work when the grid is out and how many people have become upset because they do have solar but have only just found out when everyone else has no power, they don't either.

I think they will sell a lot of batteries to those with too much money who will want to keep the power on no matter what.
There is also a lot of talk in the power circles about everyone having their own batteries which the grid operators can control to feed power back when they need it. Typical.

They want to limit the amount of power people can put back to the grid for the real reason they see home solar as a revenue loss but want the same people with solar to bail them out of the shit they create for themselves because they won't put money into infrastructure which will lower their  offensive profits.

I was also reading some articles about wind here in Oz. it's is producing on average a whopping 7% of it's installed capacity.
Whith the SA and Vic power crisis the other week it managed a dissapointing 20% of it's projected generation but somehow the power shortage problem was caused by coal stations that had been closed down and the operators saying they would never be run again being hastily pulled out of retirement and a couple of them fell over but still delivered more than the all the renewables  at the time.

I believe that Local/ Private solar could help the grid a LOT.  If it were encouraged and reasonable feedin tarrifs paid, at least 50% of what is charged, then it may be possible to mett the majority of generation a lot of the time and actually offset some of the CO2 the green deciples whine about.

Unfortunately that's not good enough for them.  ALL Ff has to go, tomorrow, and it's not acceptable to turn down the coal or gas generators  and ramp them up when needed.  The green worshippers say that plants can't be turned up and down which is Bullchit. they always have been. Granted they won't ramp up in 5 Minutes but they are already working on models and predictions withing in the grid management NOW so having an idea how much power you are going to need and when is an everyday practice rather than an impossibility.

Even if you supplied the grid from domestic PV 120 Days a year, that's a massive 30% saving in emissions right there.
But the green crowd only see one option and that's the complete and utter fantasy of 100% renewables which won't happen while anyone on this blue rock is around if ever.

Pop and I said to cut anything and everything in their way down !
I'll keep my power in any storm thanks while the greenies can huddle around their candles and whale oil kerosene lamps.

I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.

My father had a client about 6 years ago that wanted to get rid of some trees near his house and the council repeatedly denied permission even though their own inspectors said they were a risk and so did several tree people he got in.
During a storm one came down on the house, killing him and severely injuring his wife. She suede the council for several million and won.  Should have also had those that knocked  the trees removal back jailed for criminal negligence.

Power to the masses is the most important development mankind has ever seen and must be maintained and enhanced.
Mankind mission critical, period !

We can't live without it now.
I saw some videos on tech warefare. hacking a Citys computer and control systems brings it to a screaching halt.  Nothing at all works and people go into melt down in as little as 12 hours. When they can't buy food or fuel and there is no water, things get serious fast.

I have several water tanks here. I drain them in rotation but I'll never drain them all.
I don't think any far fetched scenario is beyond impossibility these days.

[george80]

So no facts.....except drivel....ok then


Sent from my iPhone using wankatalk

Yeah well, it would be hard for you to prove something I never said so best you not dig yourself in any deeper 'eh?
I think you have undermined credibility enough already.

[tautech]

I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.

You probably remember the Black Friday fire near Adelaide where the only house left standing in a subdivision was one where the owner illegally cut down all the trees on his property near his house and as a result got reamed by his local shire (council). IIRC he was an epat Kiwi and could well see the fire risk in a place as dry as yours.

One mustn't forget even the shires have green agendas that the bulk of the sheepish population just roll over like puppies and swallow them without protest.
When ppls have this green bent and can push it while in paid employment it's an effort to counter their 'best intentions' but that the public must do before we're overrun by their good  intentions.

[wasyoungonce]

........then again, I have seen what they did when they got some political power so I don't think they need to be paid to action stupid ideals and screw things up.  the South Australian grid is shining example of what happens when you let the green idealist's put their ideas into practice. en ideals out of the blue but the cult followers are hell bent on converting everyone to their religion at every.....

Wow just wow you inferred the SA grid was broken or not ideal because of greens putting their ideals in practice: aka renewables.    I mean really it’s hard to decipher what you are banging on about. 

Then you denied you implied this.   So please tell me how have greenies degraded or damaged the SA grid?





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bd139]

I have put the saw through a ship load of trees since coming here. Not so much because of power line damage, it's underground from the pole here but more from fire and storm damage.  Too may trees too close to the house and within striking distance.  No thanks.
Fines are cheaper and a lot less mucking around than getting permission to remove them, which you won't, so stuff them.

You probably remember the Black Friday fire near Adelaide where the only house left standing in a subdivision was one where the owner illegally cut down all the trees on his property near his house and as a result got reamed by his local shire (council). IIRC he was an epat Kiwi and could well see the fire risk in a place as dry as yours.

One mustn't forget even the shires have green agendas that the bulk of the sheepish population just roll over like puppies and swallow them without protest.
When ppls have this green bent and can push it while in paid employment it's an effort to counter their 'best intentions' but that the public must do before we're overrun by their good  intentions.

I see similar parallels to the idiocy here. I think it’s a pathological case of “anything by committee”, a regular failure mode of the human race. The committee is a committee of poorly contrived opinions rather than research or professional expertise. The opinions are based on what they think people might want to hear thus not affecting their ego.

I actually ran for position as an independent councillor about ten years ago but they didn’t like my rational stance on expenditure. Plus I wasn’t a mason.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

What a great delight this thread's being.
Where's the "Say Thanks x1000" button for george80 please?
Don't stop, keep going please!
 

[station240]

NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.
If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.
An optional additional explanation is:

[IanMacdonald]

When dealing with a politically-charged and propaganda-awash subject like this, it's important to separate facts from hearsay. We've seen how YT videos on magnet motors have had people believing that stuff is real, even up to getting millions of views. If the Internet has taught us one thing, it's that even if something is being repeated ad nauseam all around the World that doesn't necessarily mean it is correct.  Often, it just means that someone with a lot of money is paying for this to be done.

Always check the source of your facts. Follow the money back to who is sponsoring the broadcasting of these facts, because that way you find out what the real motives are. Do your own investigations to see if the claims make sense, or not. If your results aren't even in the same ballpark, then double check them. You may have made an error. If they're still not in the same ballpark though, chances are you have been fed with propaganda.

As Wikipedia says, propaganda will often consist of statements that on the surface seem correct, but which are not a true picture of the actual situation. People with no scientific knowledge  or reasoning ability are easily led astray by such material, into believing nonsense. Nobody would base propaganda on claims that are obviously wrong, because that would be ineffective. It's the claims that sound for all the world like they ought to be correct, but are not, that are the dangerous ones.

The most dangerous, most effective, propaganda is that which immediately fits within the reader's view of how the world ought to be. Solar roadways are a case in point. The power of the propaganda appealing to solar energy supporters is such that even after the concept has been thouroughly disproven as worthless, money is STILL being allocated to fresh installations.

'Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast' - Revelation.  Because, with understanding, comes the power to decide for oneself what is right and what is wrong. -and in science, it's all about the numbers. Not so much what it does, but how much it does.   

[station240]

Always check the source of your facts. Follow the money back to who is sponsoring the broadcasting of these facts, because that way you find out what the real motives are. Do your own investigations to see if the claims make sense, or not. If your results aren't even in the same ballpark, then double check them. You may have made an error. If they're still not in the same ballpark though, chances are you have been fed with propaganda.

To add the mainstream media, especially newspapers, are NOT A CREDIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE.
Simple reasons why:
1. The company takes money from those who want stories published, even obviously untrue ones. If caught, they say "oops we forgot to label it as a sponsored story" (or an opinion piece)
2. The publish press releases from others word for word, no fact checking.
3. Staff cutbacks means there is say 1 hour to write a story, as if anyone can research properly with that little time. Any experts the company had are long gone. So people don't buy the paper as it's trash, so less money, so less staff, so worse stories.
4. Option pieces, waste of perfectly good ink or electricity.

If the only information that agrees with a newspaper article is other newspapers and TV stations, then its junk news.
If anyone wants to know the detailed facts on something, the ONLY CHOICE is to go find a researcher, blog, industry specific news site, youtube expert.
Plenty of different choices, from people who actually take the time to understand what they are talking about.

How about the $14,000 per MW Coal power, and $14,000 per MW Gas power, that exists as some fool thought it was OK to set the maximum wholesale power price to $14,000 per MW ?
An power companies manipulated things so there would be say 1MW less power than needed, thusly everyone's power station got $14k every now and then.
Which by the way SA rarely pays anymore as the Big Battery is doing the job properly and for less money per MW.

[george80]

To add the mainstream media, especially newspapers, are NOT A CREDIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE.

Could not agree more.
I did a stint in the media when I left school. Went to one of the countries largest Disasters, a train derailment.
Was with other Journos asking officials questions to which thy Cited numbers.  Those Numbers were automatically inflated, in this case was dead and injured.  When I poined out what I thought was and error I was told that not everyone was found and the toll would rise.

I pointed out the number the authourites specified were already an "Up to" number and the majority of the rescue had been performed and it would not be feasable for there to be that many left.  I was basicaly told Shut up kid and the story ran.
There never was ( thankfully) the numbers anywhere near what they ran but it was all sensationalism to sell the story.
The Irony was EVERY paper ran inflated numbers so they were all quoting something different and all well above the eventual outcome.

What makes me laugh is every single time I see one of these Globull warming debates it's always a bunch people arguing and linking endless newspaper articles mixed with the odd " Report " from some clearly biased, bought and paid for source.
These people seem to believe that something in the media is inarguable fact and proof of the position they want to push.
The only fact I can deduce for certain is that No one rally knows what the truth is and if they do, it's buried under the load of BS from everyone else busting a gut to make their side of the story the believable one.

We know all about fake news, it's nothing new or that the world is unaware of and "News" has been more along the lines of sensationalism and entertainment for many, many years.  In later years I have seen reports of stories that I was at the scene of and witnessed and the stories ALWAYS have a bias with information either left out or exaggerated to say what the news organization want or the agenda they want to push.

I remember during the Trump election there were all these claims being made about the guy. He was anti this, biased against that and so it went.  A bit of fact checking  revealed he was not against this group at all, in fact this Very large organisation was supporting him and advising their members to do so.  He had not done something else, in fact he had done the complete and utter opposite and the claim could not have been more of a lie. 

These things they were saying were in fact " Common knowledge virtualy every media source had repeated but were demonstrably fake and untrue.

The other thing is that so much news comes from news agencies now like reuters and the like especially when it is from overseas.
You can read 4 Different reports from competing sources and they all say the same thing word for word or are edited to suit the length of the space they want to fill.

Citing a media report of anything and holding it out to be fact is laughable.
Any news article will say exactly what the owners of the source want it to say from whatever hidden or not so hidden agenda they have and that is it.

[IanMacdonald]

Another mechanism by which false view are perpetrated, is censored visitor comments. If a page gets enough comments there are bound to be some for, some against. If the against comments are silently deleted it creates a false impression of public support for the article. The Guardian used to be at that lark for years,  though lately they've stopped allowing comments at all.

[bd139]

I think that was because there are a lot of total loons out there waiting to comment.

[IanMacdonald]

I think that was because there are a lot of total loons out there waiting to comment.

No, I think it was because there were more and more analytical posts appearing from people who had studied the subject in depth, and these were getting harder and harder to refute. In fact it was the increasing quality of the posts which posed the problem for them, with some of the posters self-evidently knowing a lot more about the subject than their columnists. Which was making their staff look like fools. So...

Meanwhile, an example of the extent of the propaganda can be seen here:
https://www.climateweekaberdeen.org/resources.html
Notice that whilst it's supposedly about climate action, the real purpose is to convince the public to allow governments and energy companies to fund wind turbines. Possibly with a few solar panels too. But, mostly turbines. So again this is a red herring argument that's being put out. Climate change may be a concern, but that does not mean wind turbines will solve it. All available real evidence is that they will not. 
Other red herrings include promotion of recycling. Yes, most people think recycling is a good idea  but it has nothing to do with climate or wind turbines. Of course, most people won't notice that it is unrelated to the subject matter. 

[bd139]

Fair points. The guardian isn’t exactly known for quality reporting. Some of it is laughable.

[tszaboo]

What a load of ranting bullshit.
Seriously, you are describing the "greens" as some kind of moron hippis. Newsflash, yes, there are idiots in both groups, and they are usually the loudest. Dont believe me? You are aligning yourself with this group of people, you are "one of them".


OK, so now we can maybe act civilized and instead of insulting each other, start a conversation.
First thing is, renewable energy is cheaper. Therefore switching to it makes financial sense.
It makes political sense. Look up the 10 largest oil exporters. 9 out of 10 is a dictatorship (or they fail to adhere human rights in a big way). Every time you fill up your car, you support a dictator.
About storage: Sure, large scale storage is not employed. But why would it be? It is rare, that green output is larger than demand. Once it will be usual, storage will follow. Power to gas can store immense amount of energy, and the engineering behind it is solved. Efficiency doesnt matter, when green energy is just so much cheaper.
And yeah, they will sell a bunch of electric cars, and thats like a doomsday scenario to some. But, you know, after driving an electric car... Its just better. Less moving parts, less service bill, more reliable, and faster. And no, it doesnt take 20 minutes to charge it up. It takes 20 seconds a day. And the car can run the airco for you so you dont have to sit in a cold car with a foggy window on the daily commute. And you know, no NOx, no volatile organic compounds (AKA cancer).
You know, it feels good sometimes to click on that web interface of the solar panel, and see "You saved the equivalent of 16T of coal since installation". That is a literally a train wagon of coal.
So thats the thing about renewable. It is 21 century, and convenient, better for everyone. It feels good that I dont have to go outside to chop wood.

[bd139]

I'm all for idealism but this is where it's going to fall over. Renewables are only cheaper on operational expenditure.  They require massive infrastructure investment that just isn't there. Your electric car introduces more costs:

1. New distribution infrastructure
2. New generation capacity
3. New disposal and recycling infrastructure.

These actually pretty much offset the cost. Not only that, item 2 is a joke at the moment. Where are we going to get 3GW here in the UK by 2040 when it has taken them ten years to fuck up a single non renewable nuclear plant and all the others are near end of life.

I live in a relatively affluent bit of the UK. Tesla ownership is close to highest in Europe here. I see tens of them every day. Parents down the school have them. There are two Tesla dealerships within 10 minutes drive from here. We've got power distribution and voltage sag problems here already. We literally have to rip up every street, substation, distribution substation and the grid to support that load.

It would be better to stick a boiler on the back of your Tesla and start shoveling coal into it.

Me, 100% honestly, I'm buying myself a nice Dawes bicycle and avoiding travelling. Millions of us in service industries should simply just work at home. That's got a better "green outcome" than building a renewable infrastructure.

Social change and carrying on burning fossil fuels is probably better at this point.

[george80]

Seriously, you are describing the "greens" as some kind of moron hippis.
 You are aligning yourself with this group of people, you are "one of them".

Farmers??
Pickup Truck Drivers?
Car show exhibitors??

Ah yes, the hypocrisy of the greenwashed.  Do as we say not as we do.

OK, so now we can maybe act civilized and instead of insulting each other, start a conversation.

By this you mean a flawed green lecture I take it?  OK.

First thing is, renewable energy is cheaper.

Really? Then how come they keep blowing up coal fired power stations here and supposedly putting in more RE but everyones power bill keep going up to point of something like 400% in the last 10 years. That's not exaggeration or analogy, that is verifiable, demostrable FACT!

Even if RE is cheaper as I hear parroted all the time, so what? You think that automaticaly means power will be cheaper to the end user and the power co's won't simply skim the bigger margins?
That's the trouble with the green washed mentality, they fail to understand how business works and think that the movers and shakers that sit on Company boards being paid millions a year have the same greenwashed ideals as they do.
THEY DON'T!

They care about one thing and one thing only and that is PROFIT. The sooner the green do gooders get that through their heads the sooner they may start coming up with realistic and beneficial solution's that will work in the real world.

It makes political sense. Look up the 10 largest oil exporters. 9 out of 10 is a dictatorship (or they fail to adhere human rights in a big way). Every time you fill up your car, you support a dictator.

 

Umm, yeah WRONG.

In any case, why are you now mixing Foreign Politics and green agendas in with a discussion on the Australian grid and it's power supply?  Never miss an opportunity to push the green cause and ram it down everyones throats Right?
Human rights has NOTHING to do with this discussion nor it is a consideration.

I take it you have an electric car because if you don't, that again would make you a hypocrite.

About storage: Sure, large scale storage is not employed. But why would it be?

Ummm, maybe in case you haven't noticed, the sun don't shine all the time and the wind isn't always blowing.  In the idealsic green 100% Re newabull grid, where is the power going to come from at Midnight?

I really wish the green washed whingers would get their story's  and agenda's straight for once. They are always wanting something different and while one lot is sooking about one thing, the other lot are agaist what the first lot say will save the world.
Don't know how many times I have read the green lot going on about more batteries and now we have one saying don't need them.

Can you all at least decide what the hell it is you DO want and tell the others so you at least are all on the same dam page??

Once it will be usual, storage will follow.

Oh so we do need storage now.  But only after we have the RE generation. Hope it don't take long, People will probably get sick of going to bed at sunset.

Power to gas can store immense amount of energy, and the engineering behind it is solved.

Is that like the science of Globull warming is solved.... only the models keep changing when they are proven completely wrong by reality and real world outcomes?

Efficiency doesnt matter, when green energy is just so much cheaper.

Oh dear!
If you sounded a bit less than creditable before, You sound like a right dilettante now!

You should tell the investors or gubbermints you want to build these RE generators that efficiency doesen't matter. Tell the engineers because that will make things so much easier for them as well.  Tell the end customers that because efficency doesent matter, they are paying twice or 3 times what they could be because green energy is so much cheaper.  They might ask cheaper than what and it would be handy to have an answer for that and even better to have a factual one.

There are a lot of things I have noticed that don't matter to the greenwashed. Things like  Reality, laws of physics, practicality, truth, return on investment, reliability, scientific principals and honesty.

And no, it doesnt take 20 minutes to charge it up. It takes 20 seconds a day.

Goes to my last point in the above comment.  And the one about reality, laws of physics, truth, and scientific principals.

Could you please link to anything that indicates a car can be charged up in 20 seconds because otherwise, I call complete and utter bullchit.

And the car can run the airco for you so you dont have to sit in a cold car with a foggy window on the daily commute.

You mean like cars have been able to do for the last 40 Plus years?

And you know, no NOx, no volatile organic compounds (AKA cancer).

What? electric cars are going to wipe out cancer??? Geez, why didn't someone say this in the first place! I'm all for them Now !
Just one question, far as I know there is more than one cause of cancer, how are EV's going to eliminate all those sources as well?

You know, it feels good sometimes to click on that web interface of the solar panel, and see "You saved the equivalent of 16T of coal since installation". That is a literally a train wagon of coal.

Ummm, no it's not but anyway, nothing else much you said has been correct so won't bother about this one.

I like to do the weekly/ Monthly Totals on my inverters and read how much power I generated, divide it by .3 and work out how much money I saved on power bills.  Due for a read this thursday and I expect my saving to be about $1500 on what it would have without panels. That feels REAL good to me.

I will say though, it's fantastic you are saving coal. That is very charitable and kind of you.  From what I can work out by all the noise the green whingers are making, the stuff is about to become extinct at any moment so it's a good job we can save it so it will be around for future generations to see and admire. 

They will be able to see coal mines still happy and healthy and full of coal just as it once was instead of having to go to zoo's or Museums to see it or look at historic Photos.
Too many things in our world have become extinct already and if the efforts of concientious people like yourself can save coal from being added to that list, then the world will be a better place.

So thats the thing about renewable. It is 21 century, and convenient, better for everyone. It feels good that I dont have to go outside to chop wood.

Ummm, I think you should have caught up to the 20th century by now. I was around in then back half of that and never chopped wood and neither did anyone I know. Electricity and gas were around then to save that wood chopping. Matter of fact, they were even banning having wood fires in some parts, Bad for the environment you know.  You should start thinking of future generation and take some environmental responsibility and get yourself a modern stove  and stop polluting like that!

[george80]

I'm all for idealism but this is where it's going to fall over. Renewables are only cheaper on operational expenditure.  They require massive infrastructure investment that just isn't there. Your electric car introduces more costs:

The eve/ green washed proponents continually cook the books and lie by omission if nothing else.
They manipulate numbers like saying it costs $75 to fill an IC but only $20 to fill an EV.
What they purposeful;ly Hide is the IC can take you 800-1000 Km for that $75.  The EV will take you 150. Per Km, Ev's ARE more expensive to run.

1. New distribution infrastructure
2. New generation capacity
3. New disposal and recycling infrastructure.

These actually pretty much offset the cost. Not only that, item 2 is a joke at the moment. Where are we going to get 3GW here in the UK by 2040 when it has taken them ten years to fuck up a single non renewable nuclear plant and all the others are near end of life.

The real costs are always hidden by the green proponents. the will say how it " Only" costs this much to build an XX gw solar farm but will forget the tens/ hundreds of millions to build the transmissions lines to get the power back to where it is wanted or hook back into the main grid..... if the current inter connector can handle it anyway.  They will make out there are no maintence costs and no environmental costs of impact on the surrounding habitat.

They fail to recognise or acknowledge that the power generated is not 24/7 like a coal  plant but available a small part of the time for solar forgetting about bad weather and as for wind, that constantly fails to deliver projected ( overinflated) estimates of power production very regularly.... usually when it's needed most!

The health effects of wind are becoming known but are being argued with Cigarette type science of denial by a massive industry and the connected gubbermints. The public will continue to be lied to until there is too much evidence to deny any longer and the whole debacle comes to light.
Not so long ago we were all assured gas fracking was so safe and friendly too but they ran out of ways to spin that once the evidence got too much and the excuses too thin.

We've got power distribution and voltage sag problems here already. We literally have to rip up every street, substation, distribution substation and the grid to support that load.

Every time I make mention of the huge increase in load on the grid, someone comes along and say it' only some tiny amount of that the grid produces now. That's ironic because what lead to the $14,000 mwh cost was people switching on their Air conditioners. Luck if that would be 2 Kw on average over and above normal demand.  The  grid here went into meltdown and there has even been a lot of talk and planning for what to do if the plantes line up and 3 states have hot weather all at once. The fear is the entire grid could collapse and they are  making sure they think they have a strategy in place to do a " Cold boot" of our entire grid.

This is from people using their IC on a hot day but the green washed are trying to tell us that  a significant chunk of the population sucking down tens of KW each day on average if not in practice ( and who is not going to charge an EV after driving) is not going to put a drain on things when here is oz they are already predicting power shortages in the next 5 years when a few more coal plants are closed down.  Please......!

The next green argument is by then there will be more RE in place.  That would be the 9-3 Solar or the maybe tonight, maybe not wind  ?? Yeah right!!

And the old well worn laughable chestnut, " You can charge your EV from your solar panels. "
That's great, Plenty of sun in most parts of Oz and lots of us have panels already.  Of course lots of people also drive their car to work during the day so going to need a pretty long extension cord.  going to be messy when everyone is driving over each others.
But you can have a battery at home and charge from that.  So that's another $20K for a battery, a loss of 30% round trip efficency if not 50%  and who has enough solar on their roof to provide for the needs of the home as they are used for now and charge a battery to charge a battery?

NOT VERY MANY!

I have never been to the UK but I'm lead to believe the sunshine can be scarce for fairly long periods and I'm guessing the the amount of solar and capacity is not as high there as it is here and many other countries in Europe would be the same.

It would be better to stick a boiler on the back of your Tesla and start shoveling coal into it.

The all up efficiency would probably be better!

Me, 100% honestly, I'm buying myself a nice Dawes bicycle and avoiding travelling. [/quote]

I love traveling around in my veg powered 4WD tank.  Upsets the greenwashed when I say I have a 2 plus ton tank to drive around in and REALLY upsets them when I point out it runs on veg oil and is therefore more enviro friendly  than their  tiny matchbox or fossil fueled EV hypocrisy on wheels.

Social change and carrying on burning fossil fuels is probably better at this point.

Careful!
You'll be shot for talking fact and reality like that!
The REAL priority these days is to be seen to be doing something new and Innovative even if it's a fallacy anything is being achieved.

What the powers that be REALLY want is more consumerism, the sheeple bying new products endlessly. Keeps the money going round... mainly round into the pockets of the wealthy via gubbermint taxes etc. Wether these products and ideas work as they say or not is irrelevant. It's important the sheeple THINK they are doing something for the  environment that's the important thing!

So many of these ideas is see to save the world that are in fact in the big picture WORSE than the old methods but touted as green because the end product may be better than the other, but they never take into account the pile of energy, resources and emissions in making it which as you say, wipes out any benefits and then some. 

it's a bit like saying you have the nicest looking house in the street but the interior is full of garbage you took money for people to dump so you could make the Front look nice from the road. 
I also hear people saying things like " Well we have to do this even if it's not better so we can learn how to make it better in the future generations".

Bullchit!  We have had now for some time computer modeling with very high accuracy. If they can make every new airplane as complex as they are fly right off the bat with very few changes because they knew what it was going to do before they built it, they can predict the outcomes of of other, much simpler problems even better.  No need to build a thing these days to learn. Design it in a computer and you'll be 98% or more the way there straight off.

[bd139]

On your last points I don’t want one up or a finger against the greens. Just a rational mid ground. There’s pollution in major cities to consider as well. I drive an 0.99 litre petrol vehicle for this reason that does 70-80mpg. It’s cheap, it’s safe and it’s extremely reliable (and I can get at least 5x tek 7603’s in it )

And yes there’s not a lot of sun here. You need a lot of panels to break even.