Other key stories below: GE Invests in Spanish Solar Plant with Storage
China Solar Subsidy Storm Heads to Europe
Solarworld AG is preparing an anti-dumping suit against Chinese firms operating in the EU, following a $1 billion action the German company launched in the US earlier this month.
The move reflects mounting concern in Europe and America about subsidised Chinese firms flooding the market with solar PV panels at artificially low cost.
Solarworld AG argues that China’s $30 billion of subsidies to its solar power companies violates global trade rules and constitute an unfair form of retailing below cost price or “dumping.”
“We have dumping files in the European Photovoltaics market as well as in the US market and this is a case, of course, for the European Union,” Milan Nitzschke, a Solarworld AG spokesman told EurActiv by telephone from Bonn.
“Our Chinese competitors are going to Greece and telling people: ‘You can buy our products and solar modules and we are here with the Chinese bank of construction and they will give you the money for that,’” Nitzschke explained.
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“This is unfair competition. It is state money or loans borrowed for projects in Europe with the condition that the customers have to buy Chinese products.”
The firm is still investigating several remedial courses of action in Europe to counter a perceived long-term strategy of forcing competitors out of business, and then fixing retail prices for Chinese firms from a monopoly position.
BP gets new Gulf drilling permit
The Interior Department on Wednesday announced it has granted BP its first deepwater drilling permit since last year’s oil spill.
The permit awarded by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is for an exploratory well in the Keathley Canyon map area, located about 246 miles south of Lafayette, La.
The granting of the permit is the latest sign that the British oil giant is climbing back from the political abyss. The embattled company’s political action committee is almost on pace to match what it donated at the federal level during the 2008 presidential election cycle. Between March and August, BP’s PAC made more than $50,000 in federal-level campaign contributions, ranking it among the cycle’s more generous donors.
Interior last week approved BP’s Gulf of Mexico exploration plan; the permitted well was one of those included in that plan.
“BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year,” BSEE Director Michael Bromwich said in a statement. “In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements.”
The well would be in waters 6,034 feet deep, which is deeper than the company’s doomed 5,000-foot Macondo well that ruptured and sparked a fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and led to the biggest spill in U.S. maritime history.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) blasted the decision to issue the permit before BP paid fines stemming from last year’s spill. “The fact that BP is getting a permit to drill without yet paying a single cent in fines is a disappointment, and does not serve as an effective lesson of deterrence for oil and gas companies,” Markey, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement.
Earth-observing satellite boosted into orbit to start dual weather, climate change mission
After a years-long delay, an Earth-observing satellite blasted into space early Friday on a dual mission to improve weather forecasts and monitor climate change.
A Delta 2 rocket carrying the NASA satellite lifted off shortly before 3 a.m. from the central California coast. The satellite was boosted into an orbit 500 miles above Earth about an hour after launch.
NASA invited a small group of Twitter followers to watch the pre-dawn launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The satellite joins a fleet already circling the planet, collecting information about the atmosphere, oceans and land. The latest — about the size of a small SUV — is more advanced. It carries four new instruments capable of making more precise observations.
Tim Dunn, a launch director for NASA, said in streaming commentary on the agency’s website that the flight “went terrific” and there “is a lot of celebration in control room right now.”
Oil spill claims czar: Shrimpers’ pain continues
The administrator of the $20 billion fund set up by BP to compensate individuals and businesses hurt by last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill said Thursday new rules are being formulated to make payouts more generous for hard-hit shrimpers.
Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg told a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing he hopes to announce the rules within two weeks.
He agreed with concerns from shrimpers that the length and extent of damage they have suffered because of the April 2010 disaster has been more significant than first thought.
“I think we’ve got to do better for the shrimpers,” Feinberg said.
Feinberg remains under fire for the slow pace of payments and for denying many claims. Eighteen months after the spill, the fund has paid $5.5 billion to 213,408 claimants. More than 300,000 other claimants have been denied compensation. Feinberg agreed in July to a Justice Department audit. He said at the hearing the audit hasn’t started. A Justice spokesman said in a statement the agency is receiving input from officials along the Gulf and the audit is expected to start before the end of the year.
GE Energy Financial Services announced today it and German fund KGAL are jointly investing EUR111.1 million in a 50-megawatt parabolic trough concentrated solar power plant using molten salt energy storage in Torre de Miguel Sesmero, Badajoz, Spain.
The GE unit and KGAL agreed to invest structured equity in Extresol II, developed by Spain-based ACS, Europe’s largest developer, builder and operator of solar thermal power plants. Additional financial details were not disclosed. ACS has built more than EUR2 billion worth of concentrated solar power facilities with molten salt storage in Spain. An ACS subsidiary, Cobra, finished construction of Extresol II in Dec. 2010 and provides operations and maintenance services to the plant.
“This transaction complements our growing European renewables portfolio and brings with it a different technology — concentrated solar power with salt storage — working with strong local partners,” said Andrew Marsden, a managing director and European leader at GE Energy Financial Services. “Such investments also support ecomagination, GE’s business strategy to create value for customers by solving energy, efficiency and water challenges.”
World Bank approves $250 mln for S.Africa’s Eskom
The World Bank on Thursday approved $250 million in funding for South African power utility Eskom to develop a wind and solar plant as part of a push to boost sources of clean energy.
The World Bank said the funding through its Clean Technology Fund will finance a 100-megawatt solar power plant in Upington in the Northern Cape province and a 100-megawatt wind power project at Sere, north of Cape Town.
“The loan will help Eskom to implement two of the largest renewable energy projects ever attempted on the African continent,” the bank said in a statement.
Eskom, a major supplier of energy to South Africa and neighboring countries, is keen to reduce its carbon footprint.
The state-owned utility is spending billions of dollars to build and upgrade existing coal-fired power plants to meet immediate energy needs, and wants to diversify the energy mix toward cleaner sources of energy.
Clean energy in California: On its own sunny path
Jerry Brown started talking about solar power in the 1970s, when he was California’s governor for the first time. He was lampooned for it, but the vision gradually became attractive in a state that is naturally sunny and, especially along the coastline, cares about the environment. So in 2006, under a Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, California set a goal to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This year Mr Brown, governor once again, signed the last bits of that goal into law. And this month the state’s air-quality regulators unanimously voted to adopt its most controversial but crucial component: a cap-and-trade system.
More complex and less elegant (but politically easier) than a simple carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system limits the emissions of dirty industries and puts a price on their remaining pollution so that market forces, in theory, provide an incentive for reductions. In California’s case, starting in 2013 the government will “cap” the amount of gases (such as carbon dioxide) that industry may emit, and gradually lower that cap. It will also issue permits to companies for their carbon allowance. Firms that reduce their emissions faster than the cap decreases may sell (“trade”) their permits and make money. Firms that pollute beyond their quota must buy credits.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
SUMMIT COUNTY — Some seaweed communities around Australia have become increasingly subtropical and many temperate species have retreated south towards the Australian south coast, according to new research — yet another sign that global warming is affecting nearly all the Earth’s ecoystems.
“Our findings add an important piece in the puzzle that is determining the global impacts of climate change,” said Thomas Wernberg of the University of Western Australia.
The study, reported online Oct. 27 in Current Biology, is based on herbarium records collected in Australia since the 1940s. The study helps to fill an important gap in understanding about the impact that global warming is having on the oceans, the researchers said.
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/10/28/global-warming-changing-australian-seaweed-communities/
W.T.F.
Romney Flips To Denial: ‘We Don’t Know What’s Causing Climate Change’
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/10/28/355736/romney-flips-to-denial-we-dont-know-whats-causing-climate-change/
The anti science agenda from the GOP is so trustworthy
Who is “We”? Romney and who????
And, while not directly about this story, the Daily Show has nailed it on Mittens and having the ability to be as rock steady in his political beliefs as a jello mold in an earthquake.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-27-2011/indecision-2012—scared-mittless
Thank you Patrick, made me laugh and that’s probably the best one can do in light of this stupidity
You’re welcome Prok! You deserve a laugh. You and Colo. Bob have been doing a bang up job of news gathering on weather front.
Quotes For The Day
“I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing,” – Mitt Romney, June 3, 2011.
“My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us,” – Mitt Romney, October 27.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/10/quotes.html
This one is out there, but very interesting, just because of the possibilities, nonetheless.
Today an apparatus targeted to produce 1MW is being tested in Italy prior to handoff to a customer. It uses a process that is not cold fusion but something similar. Targeted power production compared to power used is 6:1.
Initial reports are positive.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/10/e-day-thread-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-plant-tested-by-first-customer/
Explanation of the technology:
http://www.e-catworld.com/what-is-the-e-cat/
Best to be very skeptical, but if it’s for real it would change the world. AP reporter is on site.
The test was apparently successful with the customer purchasing the plant.
As an FYI, the customer’s employees were running the reactor (not the scientists that created and built it). Continuos output of 470Kw during the test was measured.
As an FYI, no radioactive byproducts are produced by the technology (it uses Hydrogen and Nickel changing the NIckel into Copper along with the release of excess energy).
Time will be needed to get more clarification on what just went on (can’t help but be skeptical about this) and replication etc., but it appears, possibly, something future changing just happened today in Italy.
Except that the “customer” is secret, no outsiders were allowed to make any input or output measurements and the startup generator, still connected, ran for the entirety of the test period.
This is, at best, a qualified success. Until Rossi does a fully open test with independent measuring of input and output power and disconnnected from any generator or exterior power sources, let’s maintain at least some skepticism.
Already known for its brief adult existence—a mayfly commonly dies within hours of becoming airborne—the insect’s life cycle is being accelerated by rising temperatures, according to findings from a river immortalized by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler.
A five-year study on the River Dove in northern England found that Ephemera danica—a species known simply as the mayfly or green drake—is reaching maturity in one year instead of two.
This switch to a one-year life cycle “started after 2007 and was almost complete by 2011,” said Nick Everall of Aquascience, the environmental services contractor that carried out the study.
Mayflies spend most of their lives as aquatic larvae or nymphs, yet the period it takes before they emerge en masse as winged adults can vary significantly.
In the case of the study population, Everall links the insects’ dramatically accelerated development to rising water temperatures caused by climate change. Average river temperatures in the Dove catchment area have risen about 1ºC in the past 20 years, while average summer river temperatures have climbed by one to two degrees Celsius, the researcher noted.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111026-mayflies-climate-change/
Question ……
What do Australia’s seaweed , and British Mayflies have in common ?
Answer ……..
Neither listen to American AM Talk Radio.
Sounds, to me, like they’re paid up members of the Great International Watermelon Conspiracy to destroy the Beauty that is Market Capitalism. They hate ‘our’ Freedom, the insect swine!
That’s pretty scary, the decreased generation time of the Mayfly, going from two years down to one.
That’s one of the things that happened with the bark beetle infestation, I read somewhere. Beetles switched from two generations per year to three, and started killing their hosts, and the next thing we know millions of acres of trees are dead.
Here’s what one 2008 paper modeling this bark beetle problem said:
“Across the southwestern USA, the potential number of beetle generations per year ranged
from 1–3 under historical climate, an increase of 2–4 under the minimal warming scenario and 3–5 under the greatest warming scenario.”
Ouch.
What do Mayfly larvae eat?
http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/10380-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-energy-trap.html
Take away our cars and most of us would be hard pressed to reorganize to provide for the essentials of life.
The Energy Trap study found cases in which more than 50 percent of a family’s income was going into paying for and fueling the car.
What is most alarming is that 30 years ago the spike in gasoline led to a 12 percent reduction in the demand for gasoline as consumers drove less, switched to smaller cars, and sort of adhered to the 55 mph speed limit that had been put in place to save gasoline.
It is now more than three years since the $4+ price spike of 2008 and demand has only fallen some 3 percent.
The different responses are part, I would say, of a general denialist atmosphere on the Right, fomented by the Kochtopus and other dangerous invertebrates and marinated in talk-back radio, Fox News group-think and general MSM complicity and service to economic power where the Tea Party tendency really imagine that reality is a construct that they can order about by alternately ignoring at it or yelling at it. In Australia we have numerous similar imbecilities, involving a sort of ‘magical thinking’ where disasters can simply be ignored or denied away. We will go on mining billions of tons of coal for export, for ‘generations’ but, miraculously, our tiny 5% reduction in emissions is sufficient to address the problem. Irrigators, just escaped from the near-death experience of lengthy and deep drought, now not only reject returning water to the river ecosystems, but are furiously opposed to other irrigators selling their ‘water entitlements’ to the Federal Government. And on and on it goes ad dementium.
PM -
The best example of the energy density of gasoline :
Put one gallon of gas in your car, and drive it till you run out.
Now push it back to where you started.
The last number I saw said that 7 of these huge factory plantations are under water.
Bangkok is 40% of Thai GDP. Over 14,000 factories flooded before Bangkok came under threat.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called for fresh ideas to stem the country’s worst floods since 1942.
“The crisis we’re facing today is the most critical natural disaster that ever happened in Thai history,” she told reporters today
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-27/bangkok-braces-for-evacuations-as-high-tide-worsens-thai-floods.html
‘The most critical natural disaster that ever happened in Thai history’…so far.
Seriously, check this out, from Thailand’s neighbor
Cambodia flash floods trap nearly 200 tourists in historic temple
http://wireupdate.com/news/cambodia-flash-floods-trap-nearly-200-tourists-in-historic-temple.html
Angkor Wat lies 5.5 km north of the modern town of Siem Reap
Angkor Wat (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត) is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. It is the world’s largest religious building
It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country’s prime attraction for visitors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat
Climate change ended Angkor – report
http://www.theage.com.au/news/travel/climate-change-ended-angkor/2007/03/14/1173722551013.html
Angkor Wat doomed by drought, floods, suggests tree ring study
“Angkor droughts were of a duration and severity that would have impacted the sprawling city’s water supply and agricultural productivity, while high-magnitude monsoon years damaged its water control infrastructure.”
The “hydraulic city”, center of the Khmer empire from the 9th to the 15th Century, was built of impressive temples standing amid nearly 400 square miles of canals and reservoirs called “baray”, according to a 2009 Journal of Environmental Management study.
Many of those canals and baray appear silted up by drought, says the PNAS paper, which left them wide open for flooding from the intense monsoons of the early 15th century. “Much like the Classic Maya cities in Mesoamerica in the period of their ninth century ‘collapse’ and the implicated climate crisis, Angkor declined from a level of high complexity and regional hegemony after the droughts of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries,” says the study. ” The temple of Angkor Wat itself, however, survived as a Buddhist monastery to the present day.”
A 2005 Journal of Archaeological Science study found that a typical Angkor temple may have taken more than a century to build.
While some scholars suggest that trade interests led to the capital moving to Phnom Penh in the mega-monsoon era, the study concludes, “decades of weakened summer monsoon rainfall, punctuated by abrupt and extreme wet episodes that likely brought severe flooding that damaged flood-control infrastructure, must now be considered an additional, important, and significant stressor occurring during a period of decline. Interrelated infrastructural, economic, and geopolitical stresses had made Angkor vulnerable to climate change and limited its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.”
This audio slideshow features the researchers at work:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/03/tree-rings-suggest-angkor-wat-done-in-by-drought-/1
The study and current observation suggest, that the severity from the climate change which ended the Angkor Wat civilization is similar to today’s.
I believe Angkor also suffered from growing too big, and from widespread deforestation to build dwellings. It’s huge irrigation system and the aquaculture practised in the natural and man-made water-courses were a marvel, but they simply went too far, just like us.
SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA (BNO NEWS) — Nearly 200 tourists were airlifted from a historic northwestern Cambodian temple after flash floods trapped them inside, local media reported Friday. Dozens have been killed in the flooding.
Rapid flash floods trapped 183 tourists from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, and Japan at the popular and historic Banteay Srei temple on Thursday, which is located in the city of Siem Reap
Mong Vuthy, Banteay Srei district chief said helicopters and boats had to be deployed to the touristic site, which lies some 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the Angkor Wat temple complex, to rescue the trapped tourists.
Local residents said flood waters began to rise quickly, taking around three hours for the water to reach it peak. In some parts, flood levels were up to 1.5 meters (5 feet). Many villagers and residents in the area were forced to seek higher grounds, climbing rooftops, as the waters kept rising.
Media reports have indicated that over 50 people have died during the floods, including one British tourist.
Officials also noted that around 56,000 hectares (138,379 acres) of rice paddies nationwide are in danger of being destroyed by the waters, with the province of Kampong Thom being considered the most affected area. According to a village chief in the province’s Prasat Sambor district, around 97 percent of the rice paddies in the region would be destroyed if the waters did not decrease in the coming days.
Furthermore, health officials have expressed concern as several evacuees from flooded regions have been suffering from serious symptoms such as diarrhea and colds. Around 5,000 families have been reportedly evacuated from their homes. http://wireupdate.com/news/cambodia-flash-floods-trap-nearly-200-tourists-in-historic-temple.html
VIDEO Siem Reap, Cambodia Flooding, September 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkdxUwUxJNQ
The last number I saw said that 7 of these huge factory plantations are under water.
Bangkok is 40% of Thai GDP. Over 14,000 factories flooded before Bangkok came under threat.
Bangkok has a “king tide” tomorrow.
Weather Station
Bangkok (Don Mueang) (VTBD)
Elevation
39 ft
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=bangkok%2C+thailand
82F feels like 91F
Saturday
chancetstorms Partly cloudy. High of 91°F and humid with a heat index of 102°F. Winds from the NE at 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Saturday Night
nt_chancetstorms Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 73°F and humid. Winds from the North at 5 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Sunday
chancetstorms Clear in the morning, then partly cloudy with a slight chance of a thunderstorm. High of 91°F and humid. Winds from the NE at 5 mph. Chance of rain 20%.
They probably will have to relocate the factories and industrial estates to higher grounds some where. However, the next round of extreme events will probably return within the next 3-7yrs.
Things are already on the edged of unmanageable. We all think that Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands will be the first to succumb, but everyone is vulnerable. We will all be hands on deck from now on…
They probably will have to relocate the factories and industrial estates to higher grounds some where. However, the next round of extreme events will probably return within the next 3-7yrs.
Things are already on the edged of unmanageable. We all think that Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands will be the first to succumb, but everyone is vulnerable. We all will be hands on deck from now on…
Rather than screaming and yelling about dumping and taking China to court, why don’t these governments subsidize their own local products? It’s called ‘competition’. And it has the advantage that it will lower emissions.
After all, sooner or later, that is what all govts will be forced to do at the last minute, and by that time a lot more damage will have been done.
How long is it going to take before we see that the stupid economic model we are following is a major component of our downfall? ME
Yea, I’ve seen this topic before on CP, portrayed as if it’s something bad, which seems strange. Aren’t we urging all governments to subsidize alternative energy? And if the answer has to do with the Chinese government’s motives who cares? We’re involved in 7 wars around the globe, mostly for oil. So complaining about the Chinese subsidizing solar for whatever nationalistic gains seems crazy. Have at it! Let’s get into a price war over solar instead of bloody wars over oil.
Spot on Nosoyyo. As for China’s motives, I am sure that as one of the oldest, most sophisticated cultures on earth, they have no wish to go down with the upstart children who can’t stop fighting in the UN sandpit long enough to see that their playground is disappearing around them.
China cares about the long term cost, not the short one, and has long term strategic plans to match. They play Wei’chi, not chess, and I’ll bet they have worked out that their supremacy is necessary to maintaining any semblance of a living climate, ME
Merrelyn, the Chinese system, as you would expect, follows patterns established long ago in Chinese society. Governance is by a bureaucratic elite, chosen on merit. Where we have an intervening layer of mediocrities called ‘politicians’, who supposedly reflect the ‘popular will’ (but do not, serving the money power instead) the Chinese have the Party. Anyone can join the party and rise according to merit. Popular assent is encapsulated in a modern version of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, ie the Chinese people will support such a dispensation so long as it delivers the goods. Mao said the same thing, that the Chinese would support the Party so long as it served their interests, and when it did not, they would make a new revolution.
The Chinese leadership are technocrats, engineers and scientists, promoted on merit and tested at ever higher levels of responsibility. They can read science AND understand it, and act accordingly. In fact I would say that China going down the renewable path as fast as possible, for profit and global survival, is now just about the only hope left, what with much of the West, the Anglosphere in particular, having gone stark, staring, mad.
nosoyyo, targeting China over solar PV is part and parcel of the growing ‘Get China’ push in the West. China’s rise (by some calculations of purchasing parity prices it is already the world’s largest economy, and even the IMF has it reaching that level by 2014)has the Western global ruling elites rigid with fear and outrage. They have been indoctrinated from youth in the religion of Judeo-Christian Western Civilization’s absolute and eternal superiority to all other cultures, and their own, consequent, superiority as individuals. Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ the New, New Testament for the ‘New American Century’ makes plain that, after the Islamic world has been subjugated, confrontation with China is inevitable. In this country on any day, you can open the press, of both stripes, and find increasingly hysterical anti-Chinese agit-prop everywhere. Indeed, since the posting of Australian media representatives to China in the 1970s, I can recollect no articles actually praising the Chinese system (if only for its efficacy) and precious few that were ‘even-handed’. Just the same relentless monoculture of the mind that is the Western MSM’s stock-in-trade.
I actually think the motivation is economic. I don’t think the economic, political and military elites (one and the same — the 1% or .1%) care about that. They just use the tendency towards jingoism to get support. I think the idea of “Shock Doctrine” is more relevant. The fact that the public thinks about Latin Americans as brown, Russians as commnists and Middle Easterns as Muslim, just helps. Just like the Koch brothers don’t believe the earth is 6,000 years old but use the fundamentalists for their economic/power cause.
But the result is the same. We’re “exceptional” although of course by pretty much any measure, we’re not.
Nosoyyo, the motivation is partly economic because without economic power, you can’t throw your weight around in this world. But look at what they are subsidizing – out of all the possibilities, they have chosen the purest renewables. Doesn’t that tell you something? ME
Merrelyn (I couldn’t reply to you, I guess with this crazy nested system there’s a limit), I wasn’t referring to the Chinese. I was referring to Mulga M’s post about the “Get China” push in the west — so “our” motivation for demonizing them, even for doing something that the world at large needs.
The Chinese recognize the threat of global warming, which is already leaps and bounds above our denying; they have solar on their own roofs; much of the dirty energy they use, and the coal plants they therefore build is for our igadgets and plastic stuff and junk. And in the end they will be one of the biggest sufferers from global warming after having contributed relatively little.
” We’re involved in 7 wars around the globe, mostly for oil. ”
———–
I am 62, my draft number was #38 , 41 years ago. My view about that war, it was fought for drilling rights off the coast of “Indochina”.
And when all was said and done, the French company Elf, “spudded” the first wells off Vietnam. As far as I know, all have been “dry holes”.
They drilled dry holes in Saudi Arabia for 4 years, before the first well came in . That was 1938 . These people have all the money. and they are very tough. Big Tobacco, are a bunch school girls compared to them.
None of us truly grasp the gift that hydrocarbons have given us. We are bathed in them , when we leave the womb, a pair of gloved hands encased in an oil product spank our bottoms.
Tonight , at Dickenson, North Dakota …
There are men sleeping is their cars in the Walmart parking lot. The strippers are making $2,000 a night there. Why ?
OIL.
Jani-Petri Martikainen, in a guest post on Brave New Climate, demonstrates that large scale deployment of wind turbines is most unlikely to result in a reliable power grid.
DB -
That’s if we don’t find an Industrial sized battery .
There are 2 ways to catch the sun.
Heat, and “Juice”.
In Israel, most people heat their shower with the sun. ( The most untold story in solar power in the world. )
“Juice” ….
Those kids in Palo Alto are about peel Houston’s eyeballs if we help them.
Those kids in Palo Alto ……..
They are putting their server farms in Sweden, ….. why ? Because cooling one takes as much power as running one.
Facebook Building Wicked Cool Arctic Server Farm
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/press-here/Facebook-Building-Wicked-Cool-Arctic-Server-Farm-132794323.html
——–
When Jobs made the 1984 ad, a lot of people were watching.
In a modern electric grid, with various inputs, you’d have to ramp up wind energy to about 20% before you’d have serious unreliability issues.
Debra Law of NREL gave a presentation regarding a study of the Western Interconnection at Stanford Univ in Nov 2010 about integration issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL84kpUuIHw
Denmark has a high penetration of wind energy but they do have the advantage of interconnects with other Euro nations. One could make the argument that if Denmark went to war with Germany, they’d have problems with the grid if the Germans disconnected them but there are already ways of compensating or storing some of the excess power.
From the unskeptical conspiracy nuts at WUWT: wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/28/test-of-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-fusion-system-apparently-successful/#more-50166
“While Rossi initially expected to provide streaming video of the test, the customer nixed that because they didn’t want their people on a public video. Rossi also promised hourly updates during the test, but that didn’t happen, nor did I expect it too. In any major customer attending test, you just don’t take time off for that”
From the comments:
“This is a scam but it has shown one interesting thing; that the majority of “sceptics” who post on WUWT aren’t in fact sceptics at all but in reality are credulous believers. This is a sad day for truth.”
“Maybe, just maybe, he WANTS to convey that impression, to cool the interest of potential competitors until he’s lengthened his developmental lead.”
“is easy to replicate and AR knows the only way he can make any money is by keeping it secret.”
“Did you know Pons and Fleischmann were never refuted with science–they were the object of political refutation. Their breakthrough reaction has been replicated thousands of times by researchers in multiple countries”
“Care to place a wager, say, at 1000:1 odds (I say that Rossi is on to something)? I mean, if it’s such a “sure thing” (that’s it’s nothing but the usual perpetual motion scam) in your estimation, what could you lose?”
Crikey!