What Carbon

[medhead]

Medhead can you please restate what you're after.

.

Apparently you're a smart person. I think basic read comprehension should allow anyone to understand. I can't state it any simpler than I already have. Perhaps instead of trying to confuse the issue with irrelevance focus on what I've actually written. That might help you.

 

[RAM]

Increased consumption and production from coal.

Need to put it into context.

"Data from the National Electricity Market, which covers about 80 per cent of Australia's population, shows that emissions from the sector rose by about 1 million tonnes, or 0.8 per cent, at an annualised rate last month compared with June. ...That is the biggest two-month increase since the end of 2006, and came as a result of an increase in overall demand and a rise in the share of coal-fired power in the market"

It is policy in Australia NOT to annualise within year data (unlike the US which annualises monthly data releases). The ABS does not annualise, State & Federal Treasuries don't but people seeking a headline have been known to (politicians, spin Drs, NGOs, journos etc).

So a 2 month rate was annualised to create a 0.8% increase. This means the actual increase was 0.1329%, or quoted to 1 decimal place 0.1%.

Now as the 0.8 was quoted to 1 dp it could have been 0.75000001% say, or an actual increase of 0.1246%. The analyst in me suspects the lower bound but still is a 0.1% increase newsworthy?

Next note that it was a the biggest 'two month' increase, not monthly increase? Why was that I wonder? Why torture the numbers to get an article?

If you look into the coal-fired maintenance schedules you get the 80% of the answer. Due to the warmer start to winter some maintenance was brought forward and then the cold snap in August brought those units back into production. It was nothing to do with the carbon tax - coincidence not causation.

BTW the change the previous Federal Govt (ALP & Greens) made to domestic gas pricing has ensured the amount of gas fired generation is in decline vs coal. Many countries around the world continue the previous Australian policy of having gas produced domestically and consumed within the country NOT at the prevailing world spot price. This is why the Australian Domestic gas price rose in the teens as of 1.7.14 and its price will increase by at least 50% in total with the next two annual increments.

 

[drron]

Has there been any actual evidence about this?

And if so, where is the corresponding rush of industries back into Australia on the back of Carbon Tax abolition.

Bit expensive to restart an Aluminium smelter.
Then prices are still going to rise due to the effects of the RET-both direct and indirect.
As more power comes from renewables the base load power stations become unprofitable but you do still need base load power stations so the price of that power rises unless you have lots of hydro power hence dams or nuclear power.
This problem is now happenning in Germany and Denmark which has the highest proportion of power from wind has the highest electricity prices in Europe.As well as putting wind farms in National Parks.

 

[RAM]

Apparently you're a smart person. I think basic reading comprehension should allow anyone to understand. I can't state it any simpler than I already have. Perhaps instead of trying to confuse the issue with irrelevance irrelevant focus on what I've actually written. That might help you.

Did you mean to type (see correction above)?

In the interests of responding accurately, surely in the amount of space taken to say 'no I won't clarify' you could have?

 

[RAM]

Bit expensive to restart an Aluminium smelter.
- Much more expensive to shut one down and decommission.
- Al smelters made more money selling their long term power contracts back to suppliers or wholesalers (at tax payers expense btw) than they had by operating over the last few years prior to shut down. Did you know that the major Australian Gold producers made more money out of interest rate arbitrage than gold production from the late 80s to late 90s?

Then prices are still going to rise due to the effects of the RET-both direct and indirect.
- No, not true.
- The RET is costing homes in Australia anywhere between $180/yr and $310/yr (see my earlier posts from a couple of State treasuries eg : NSW and 60 cent feed-in-tariffs) for a number of years to come.
- Claims that in the future this 'renewable' capacity will be cheaper than coal, gas etc production - is a non-argument. If it does indeed become cheaper (ie: economical) then companies will build it.

As more power comes from renewables the base load power stations become unprofitable but you do still need base load power stations so the price of that power rises unless you have lots of hydro power hence dams or nuclear power.

- Not correct.
- Australia's hydro generators are "Peaking" generators not "Base-load". See the Snowy Mountains Hydro annual report. They drain their reservoirs when prices spike to generate power and pump the water back up to the reservoir at night when prices are lowest.
- By definition a base-load power station is profitable at times of low prices - that's why they are built for that purpose.

This problem is now happening in Germany and Denmark which has the highest proportion of power from wind has the highest electricity prices in Europe.As well as putting wind farms in National Parks.

- Part correct - and part due to cessation of subsidies to renewables.

Well actually (see above)....

 

[RAM]

Yeah ok then. Shame your posts haven't supported this claim. My favourite is your apparent view that we should just keep polluting because someone else is polluting. I have no idea of my IQ, but even I can see the advantages of leading rather than following. You might be happy to have a mediocre Australia that is third choir member in the back row on the left. I'm not because that is a betrayal of this country's history.

I have asked previously for people who claim my view is (see above) to provide the exact words in ANY of my posts where I say that?

Curiously - nobody has and nobody will because I have NEVER stated that.

What I do point out is that shutting down business in Australia, costing jobs etc and seeing that production commence in other countries with low or no pollution controls is madness.

How can increasing net pollution be a good outcome?

Did you research the information I provided on Ajinimoto shifting its production of Soy Sauce from Japan to western China. That is a poster case if ever there was one.

 

[Moody]

Apparently in the top 10 ever recorded in Australia.

My mother always told me that self praise is no recommendation, and BTW - I think we need a "B" sample here.

 

[RAM]

[h=3]Have a look at this article, not from a newspaper but the American Chemical Society. Unfortunately, on the ground in China virtually nothing has changed since this article - local party officials have all the power and all the pay-offs. A large number of the Chinese offenders are PLA operated plants.[/h][h=3]About C&EN[/h] Chemical & Engineering News is a weekly magazine published by the American Chemical Society. C&EN editors and reporters based in Europe, the U.S., and Asia cover science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education, and employment aspects of the chemistry field.


So in 2005 the Chinese Govt admitted to over 1,400 different peasant protests a week. NGOs and journalists no longer wishing to operate in China put the real figure at many times that number. For 'peasants' to protest sees them risk often at best broken bones, confiscation of land/homes to at worst execution.
[h=3]http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8339china.html[/h][h=1]Tempers Flare In China September 26, 2005[/h] [h=2]Throughout the countryside, farmers demand improved environmental controls, but change is slow in coming[/h][h=3]Peasant protests are a growing phenomenon in China. Li Lianjiang, an associate professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University, is an authority on Chinese peasant protests. He says that whereas a few years ago, excessive and arbitrary taxation was the peasants' main complaint, illegal land seizures and pollution are becoming the main sources of contention. There were 74,000 protests in China last year, according to official statistics. By comparison, Li says, in 1993 there were 10,000 occurrences of such "public incidents," as authorities prefer to call them.[/h]For now, companies in China still enjoy considerable leeway if they wish to pollute. In her 2004 book on the Chinese environment, "The River Runs Black," Elizabeth C. Economy notes that Chinese national environmental laws are vague and open to interpretation by local officials. Citizens who wish to sue polluters thus face considerable difficulty in showing that they have a case.
An additional problem is the decentralization of Chinese environmental watchdogs. China's top environmental authority, the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), lacks power. And it's not clear that SEPA will be able to increase its influence in the near future. SEPA has little authority over the thousands--11,000 in all, according to Economy--of environmental protection bureaus at the provincial, municipal, township, and village levels in China. While these agencies theoretically uphold national standards, they tend to operate in ways that best suit the local government they are attached to. They are aided by the vagueness of national regulations.

[h=3][/h]In recent years, Huo has been paying most attention to what he calls the "cancer village," Huang Meng Ying. He tries to bring medical relief to the villagers while anticipating that the problem will spread. "The water is black, the food is poisoned--how could more people not get sick?" he asks.

According to Huo, the main culprit for the pollution is the Lianhua Group, China's largest producer of monosodium glutamate, which employs several thousand workers in the upstream city of Xiangcheng. The group was fined about $1.2 million in 2003 for illegal emissions, despite being majority owned by the government of Xiangcheng.
If the pollution were not enough, Lianhua is scorned by the Chinese financial community. In November 2003, Xinhua Far East China Ratings downgraded the long-term debt of Lianhua, claiming that its "internal governance and internal control deviate significantly from the average market norm." Xinhua was basing its opinion on a report prepared by a team of government auditors.
One of Lianhua's monosodium glutamate plants is a joint venture owned 51% by the Japanese firm Ajinomoto. In faxed answers to questions from C&EN, Ajinomoto declined to explain why it chose Lianhua as its partner back in the early 1990s. But Ajinomoto hardly stands by the Chinese firm. It insists that all cases of pollution are its partner's doing and points out that the capacity of the joint venture is smaller than that of Lianhua's wholly owned plants at the site.

Ajinomoto further claims that the Lianhua-Ajinomoto venture operates under the strict environmental controls of the local and central governments and is subject to internal audits conducted by Ajinomoto's Shanghai office. Ajinomoto adds that effluent from its plant is treated by its own facilities before release. Yet the Henan joint venture is the only one of Ajinomoto's 95 subsidiaries worldwide to be excluded from the company's 2004 corporate and social responsibility report. And, unlike other Ajinomoto subsidiaries, the venture in Henan is not the object of independent audits.

Back in Shenqiu, Huo is dismayed that Ajinomoto could claim that its effluent is separate from Lianhua's. His on-site observations indicate that the Ajinomoto venture is integrated into Lianhua's operations.

 

[Pushka]

Still waiting.

 

[RAM]

My mother always told me that self praise is no recommendation, and BTW - I think we need a "B" sample here.

My mother always taught me to be polite and courteous, and to answer a question honestly when asked.

Was she wrong?

 

[Moody]

Moody for one last time-I am a sceptic not a denialist.I have stated my position many times.Yes AGW is happening.
Yes CO2 warms the atmosphere.

We are in agreement there.

How much warming is due to man's CO2 emissions.I and others have no idea.

I think "no idea" is stretching the truth. "No absolute proof" I would be happy with, but I have seen no credible explanation that recent global warming has nothing to do with human activity.

The point I was making with the last link was that the NASA modelling is one of the major ones accepted by the IPCC.If predictions made by that modelling are totally wrong should not the model be questioned?

As the 2009 article pointed out, this particular prediction (that natural cycles were masking underlying warming) was at odds with the IPCC report. I will emphasise again (though why I have to is frustrating) that the IPCC is an inter-governmental body that coalesces a mass of mostly peer-reviewed scientific papers. There will always be contributions on the fringe that get cut, contributers who claim the science is wrong, and some governments that are possibly pursuing an agenda.

In fact there are nearly as many commentators who claim that the IPCC reports are overly optimistic, as complain that they are being chicken little.

The predictions made by the IPCC models back in 1998 have only a 3% chance of being right with the current warming pause.What is it about Bell curves?

Which predictions and in what time-frame are you claiming they will almost certainly be wrong?

And my APS link-at least 2 Nobel Laureates in Physics quit the APS when they made the statement that the evidence for man made warming was proven.Are they then denialists and liars.

No - they were apparently annoyed that the APS considered the evidence of AGW overwhelming, rather than taking the IPCC line that it is not proven ... just very, very likely. Good on them for standing by their pure maths ideals, but this is important why?

Besides Moody it is not all about you.This thread was meant for discussion.There are others who may think about the points I have raised.No one though will ever change your mind.

I do think about the points you raise, and even click most of the links. The bizarre thing is that most of them don't actually back up your arguments.

 

[OATEK]

My mother always told me that self praise is no recommendation, and BTW - I think we need a "B" sample here.

Not sure what the IQ measurement has to do with your arguments, unless you are saying that you find it hard to talk to people who you consider beneath your standard. Some of the most useless people I have ever met had very high IQs, and lots of letters after their name. Mind you some of the most useful were similarly qualified, and one of them probably saved my life at one point. I also have met people who I regard as very much in touch with reality who don't know what their IQ measurement is and have never sought formal qualifications. Just saying IQ is not everything.

From my reading the to-ing and fro-ing here seems to revolve around several key issues, one of which is the politicisation of the IPCC results and some of the pro-AGW leaders, and also the fact that so may predictions from the last decade have not born fruit as yet in this one. They are excellent discussions to have and I am enjoying the various links given from both sides.

My own view is that to say that AGW is not necessarily the only or biggest factor in the global warming/cooling debate is not to say that those two phenomenon do not exist. It is more about whether a focus on AGW has meant that we have not seen the big picture. It seems to me that the term "denier" is thrown around very loosely when it could apply equally to both sides of the debate at times. I am personally of the view, as I said earlier in the thread, that increasing populations of people and livestock, and the growth of industrial pursuits must add to climate changes. However, I am not convinced as yet that at any point in the various cycles of warming and cooling we can say whether AGW is the primary catalyst, or one of several including natural phenomenon and how much contribution AGW makes overall.

Where someone says to deny AGW means that we my not be prepared for the consequences, others will say that to deny the possibility of a mini-ice age or major eruption (eg as per 1600s) is to do likewise. I remain to be convinced by the evidence that either is correct, or in fact other natural cycles might not come in to play. So that is why I enjoy looking at the various references posted, but I have become very weary of the rhetoric at times, especially when it is directed at some contributors I have come to regard as good people and worth listening to, and who offer honest views even though from time to time I don't agree with them. It seems to me that some useful discussion points are being lost when the name calling and other insults overshadow the posts.

P.S. Takes cover ...

 

[RAM]

Has there been any actual evidence about this?

And if so, where is the corresponding rush of industries back into Australia on the back of Carbon Tax abolition.

When you shut down a plant rather than mothball it there is a big difference.

If a company is operating on a margin of one or two percent then the Carbon Tax can have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

It was not the only reason but it can have been the final determining factor. As I have pointed out the cost of treating waste products in many 3rd world countries is ZERO, or near zero due to bribes/pay-offs being made.

When an aluminum pot line is shut down it goes solid. The entire pot line has to be replaced and that encompasses demolishing the entire structure and replacing it. In NZ, some years back, their drought was so bad that the hydro power supply deliberately was cut off from the Al smelters. They received compensation from the Govt to replace the pot lines.

The cost of building plant & equipment is now 50% higher than in the United States for example.

There has been much published about the cost blow-outs on all of the gas projects (both onshore and off-shore) due to Australia's cost structure and this has seen several projects mothballed or additional expansion curtailed (which perversely is probably in Aust's best interests).

To get the approvals even for a brown-field's expansion takes years in Australia. Some of the delay is definitely warranted - such as examination of production life-cycle by-products however other delays are purely rent-seeking by bureaucracy.

 

[amaroo]

My mother always told me that self praise is no recommendation, and BTW - I think we need a "B" sample here.

Classic! You ask RAM a Q ... he provides the answer ... you don't like it - so you continue to dish him.

This thread would be a dead-set bore without you.....keep up the good work

 

[medhead]

I have asked previously for people who claim my view is (see above) to provide the exact words in ANY of my posts where I say that?

Curiously - nobody has and nobody will because I have NEVER stated that.

What I do point out is that shutting down business in Australia, costing jobs etc and seeing that production commence in other countries with low or no pollution controls is madness.

How can increasing net pollution be a good outcome?

Did you research the information I provided on Ajinimoto shifting its production of Soy Sauce from Japan to western China. That is a poster case if ever there was one.

And I have provide a direct quote of you saying exactly that. As with now you response was abuse. That doesn't change the fact that I have quoted you directly saying exactly that.

I guess you'll try some spelling and grammar correct to distract from the fact that you have been caught out. Wow! My spelling was wrong. If that's the best you have then my point stands.

Wonder if your IQ can spot the next deliberate mistake. Not to mention that your correction is wrong. You are presenting irrelevance I can only guess to distract from my point.

 

[RAM]

Isn't it wonderful that pensioners can now afford to turn their heaters back on!

When I went to A&E in late July 1985 at PoW there was a large poster up on one of the walls aimed at the elderly/pensioners. It said;

"Put on a sweater - its better and cheaper than a heater!".

How on earth did Abbott manage to put it up?

The other one was "Using an electric blanket through winter costs less than a cup of coffee!"

Such propaganda.

 

[amaroo]

When warming is actually - cooling... Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

Bureau of Meteorology ‘adding mistakes’ with data modelling

SOME of Australia’s long-term temperature records may contain faults introduced by the Bureau of Meteorology’s computer modelling, according to a widely published expert.

David Stockwell said a full audit of the BoM national data set was needed after the bureau confirmed that statistical tests, rather than direct evidence, were the “primary” justification for making changes.

Dr Stockwell has a PhD in ecosystems dynamics from ANU and has been recognised by the US government as “outstanding” in his academic field.

His published works include a peer-reviewed paper analysing faults in the bureau’s earlier High Quality Data temperature records that were subsequently replaced by the current ACORN-SAT.

Dr Stockwell has called for a full audit of ACORN-SAT homogenisation after analysing records from Deniliquin in the Riverina region of NSW where homogenisation of raw data for minimum temperatures had turned a 0.7C cooling trend into a warming trend of 1C over a *century.

The bureau said it did not want to discuss the Deniliquin findings because it had not produced the graphics, but it did not dispute the findings or that all of the information used had come from the BoM database.

Faced with a string of examples of where the temperature trend had been changed after computer analysis, the bureau has defended its homogenisation process.

 

[whatmeworry]

Don't know if anybody added this link.

99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming: new study

99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming: new study

 

[JohnK]

With Polyjuice, anyone can be anyone...

I had to google that term. I never followed the Harry Potter movies.

Is it just me or is this thread just going round in circles?

 

[Durin's Bane]

Our taxes paid for this clown:

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian