Speaker: There's a word for that ...
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NZ's just as bad. We continue to run coal and gas fired power plants because of the naive belief that nuclear energy = bad.
Well not quite as bad (far from it really). We generate only about 30% of our power from coal and gas where as Australia generates over 90% (the large bulk of which is coal). It doesn't help that modern Australia is addicted to air conditioning which hoovers up huge amounts of power. A direct comparison makes Australia look even worse. They have about a 50,000 MW generating capacity from coal, we only have about 1500 MW.
However we really have to stop patting ourselves on the back about how much better we are at renewable electricity production than Australia is (or anyone else) as CO2 doesn't stay within a country's borders.The whole nuclear power thing makes much better sense in Australia (for one thing, they are sitting on huge reserves of uranium).
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I've never really got the "wind farms are ugly" objection. Aren't they usually built on fairly uninteresting, sparse hillsides?
I like the cartoon in Kyle's link.
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On the subject of nuclear power, one of Australia's leading climate scientists has put himself fully behind inetegral fast reactors, mainly because Australia is so disgustingly dependent on very dirty coal for its energy.
I think some caution is warranted, because these are a largely unproven technology, and thus their viability is unknown.
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Oh, and on the subject of the hacked emails - almost everything that has been said about them in the mainstream media is false. They are taken so far out of context that the back-story that explains why is non-existent. It takes only a few seconds to make a claim, but a lot more to prove that the claim is false.
For example, one of the subjects raised is how a few scientists discussed discrediting the journal Climate Research. This was because one of the senior editors in the journal took a paper with very obvious flaws (such that it would have been a bad look for an undergraduate, let alone a publishing scientist) that had been rejected by the peer reviewers and pointed out to the author and the senior editor, and published it anyway. Six members of the editorial board resigned in protest. The move had nothing to do with surpressing science, but was about taking action against people who quite deliberately take moves to undermine rigourous science.
But that's simply more than can be explained in the five second soundbites that this email saga was designed to provide.
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Regarding facts for deniers, try the basics.
Our moon is -233 C in the shade, and +123 C in the sun, -55 C on average. Our atmosphere, and the darker surface, makes us about 65 C warmer on average than the moon, and 33 C of that warming is because of the greenhouse gases.
CO2 is a part of that, not as big as water vapour (you know how it gets real cold at night under a big high pressure zone, that's a lack of water vapour and other gases holding the heat in), but still important because it doesn't cycles in and out like rain, it just stays up there for tens of thousands of years.
There is no way around that. The atmosphere keeps us warm, some gases do it much better than others, and some gases stay up there much longer than others. CO2 does all of them pretty well.
The world burns billions of tons of carbon each year as oil, gas, and coal, and that all makes CO2. Over a century of that growing all the time we've added just one part in ten thousand to the atmosphere, but that's still about half again the original amount of CO2, and worth about another 1 degree, over the 33 C total greenhouse effect, in the 65 C total atmospheric and surface effect.
They measure that with satellites, it's true, it really is warmer.
Small change, right, but it turns out just a couple degree average change is enough to melt a lot of the ice (the heat goes up more at the cold parts of the world), change the ocean currents and weather patterns, change where the rain falls, change the seasons by a week or two, make the big storms a bit bigger, and all sorts of things that turn out to be pretty rough if they happen too fast.
We might add another 1 C every 20 years at this rate, and that's /way/ too fast, especially as most of the change is over the ice and snow, up to 8 C in places already.Hell, the CO2 is even making the oceans slightly more acidic, maybe enough to kill a lot of the plankton that feeds all the fish already (they're really delicate). It's bad stuff, when you burn off too many billion tonness of it every year.
4 billion tonnes a year might be OK. 30 billion's not, and we're at 30. We just need to cut back.
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Project Aqua was the wrong plan and in the wrong place. More power production should be established closer to end-users.
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My favourite climate science website is Open Mind. It's worth a look for the graphs which apply statistical techniques to data, which do a very good job of showing how some of the major claims being made by so-called skeptics are completely untenable at best.
I first became properly aware of climate change as a serious issue in the late 1990s. I can't believe that the same arguments are being had, over, and over, and over again, a decade later.
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We could reduce our power and energy consumption dramatically if we were to progressively institute minimum standards for things like cars, lightbulbs, houses, and appliances.
Oh wait, I think we tried to do that....
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Ah, it's not the sea-level rise, the world is sinking!
Not /everything/ is climate change. Coral atolls only exist because they're on a sinking plate (all oceanic plates sink as they spread out from the central ridge, getting denser as they age), and storm surges will be markedly worse on any atoll that has suffered reef damage, and that can slow the rate that sand can build up over time.
But when all the tides come further ashore over time, it's /also/ because the mean sea level is slightly higher than it used to be, 20cm or so over the last century, IIRC, and getting faster. On a flat beach, that can mean a lot of extra land swallowed up. When your whole island is a flat beach that only just keeps pace with a couple cm per century level of natural sinking, that's terminal.
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I can't believe that the same arguments are being had, over, and over, and over again, a decade later.
Climate change from coal burning was first predicted in the 1880's, it's pretty basic science. Back then they just didn't imagine anyone would burn coal quite this quickly.
Regardless, they're not genuine arguments, it's just plain old fashioned denial. People who are hurting others simply do not want to know if it is possible for them to avoid seeing it. It's the smokers, not the cigarette makers, the obese people, not the poison food.
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As Phil Scadden points out in his recent analysis ofenergy use (not just electricity all energy) in New Zealand it's not the elecricity we use that's the problem; it's all about our vehicle addictions. By far the majority of our energy consumption is fuel and we can't fix that with windfarms as beautiful as they are.
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By far the majority of our energy consumption is fuel and we can't fix that with windfarms as beautiful as they are.
We can however fix it with zero emissions vehicles.
I have one, and it costs me almost nothing to run. Already 35% of all trips are made by zero emissions vehicle in Copenhagen, and they're moving quite rapidly towards 50%.
The technology is there, we just need Governments to get out of the way and stop their extreme levels of subsidy (to the tune of billions per year) to polluting vehicles.
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Totally agree George but look out for the screams of "nanny state PC gone mad" if there's any kind of regulation or disincentive from the govt regarding people's right to fill the suburban streets with their SUVs
not to mention the resistance to increased density housing and metropolitan urban limits
and the current govt's utter contempt for walkers, cyclists and public transport - we need support to get out of our cars (via infrastructure) and somehow I don't think Stephen Joyce is the man to see that happen
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and the current govt's utter contempt for walkers, cyclists and public transport - we need support to get out of our cars (via infrastructure) and somehow I don't think Stephen Joyce is the man to see that happen
I don't see anyone in Parliament who could make it happen, actually. I try not to engage with New Zealand's responses to climate change anymore, because I think that the issue is so damned hopeless. As always, the barrier to change is people's attitudes, rather than technical difficulties. In New Zealand the major attitudinal problem is that the great majority of New Zealanders think of themselves as better than most of the rest of the world, and therefore less in need of bold or dramatic action. Contrary to Helen Clark's egotistical puffery, New Zealand does not lead the world in environmental issues. We're stuck about where we were in the early 1990s, when we were bequested the legacy of a bold Labour Government (with Clark and Palmer doing a lot of this legwork) and a National Government that cemented these policies into orthodoxy. Since then we've stagnated and even gone backwards in many places.
I actually think that places where the pollution is much more visible and thus embedded in the consciousness of the public and decision makers, are going to leapfrog New Zealand on at least some responses.
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Project Aqua was the wrong plan and in the wrong place. More power production should be established closer to end-users.
Perhaps David Haywood (if I remember this is his area of expertise) can answer why we're not being encouraged to put small windmills on our properties more. I know there was a failed attempt to subsidise solar water heating, is that a more efficient use of money than mini windmills and batteries?
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I'll believe nuclear power is a good idea when nuclear plants:
- carry insurance for the full risk of their operations (most countries with nuclear power exempt them from this requirement)
- make full provision for lifetime waste disposal costs
- make full provision for decommissioningIf you do that, they suddenly become uneconomic. Not to mention that nuclear power is inherently uneconomic in NZ, for the technical reasons above.
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Perhaps David Haywood (if I remember this is his area of expertise) can answer why we're not being encouraged to put small windmills on our properties more. I know there was a failed attempt to subsidise solar water heating, is that a more efficient use of money than mini windmills and batteries?
I'm no expert on this matter, but my understanding is that small windmills tend to be very inefficient, when compared to large ones. This is partly a function of their size, partly due to the fact that they are not usually well sited (places with consistent, strong winds do not tend to be where you put houses), and with the technology used for conversion (again less efficient). Many such turbines have more energy used in their construction than they generate in a typical lifetime.
Bigger is generally better.
They can be useful where other energy is impractical and lines are impossible, expensive or cause too much loss (eg boats, back-country houses).
As I understand it, solar panels don't suffer as badly from these constraints, but again the home-sized ones tend to be less efficient (but not as radically so).
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Kyle: check the costs and the necessary distance from the house for a worthwhile sized windmill. For most people it's not going to work out -- payback period is over decades, assuming zero maintenance.
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Project Aqua was the wrong plan and in the wrong place. More power production should be established closer to end-users.
Ok, where's your evidence for that statement?
The proposed Aqua system was going to be close to the existing HVDC link across the Cook Strait to the Hutt Valley. HVDC links lose 3% per 1000km, so losses over the 610km transmission distance would be about 2%.
Which means that 520MW of generation on the Waitaki would be equivalent to 510MW in the Hutt. Negligible, really.
We *can* get to 100% renewables and on to replace transport and static uses of fossil fuel. It's a matter of political will - we need to progress all viable renewable generation projects.
Sure, we'll lose landscape value. The alternative is submerged cities, crop failure and species extinction. Not to mention running out of fossil fuels anyway. You choose.
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Well, this chap was in our very local newspaper recently.
Unfortunately, the main article is not online, but apparently his grid electricity consumption is now zero, and he has made a small profit ($11) selling electricity back to the energy company.
Unfortunately, he may not be granted planning permission for a permanent turbine. Apparently, the neighbours think the blades are 'too shiny'.
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Totally agree George but look out for the screams of "nanny state PC gone mad" if there's any kind of regulation or disincentive from the govt regarding people's right to fill the suburban streets with their SUVs
Why not ping them with ACC hikes instead of bikers? SUV's are the new tobacco.
I actually think that places where the pollution is much more visible and thus embedded in the consciousness of the public and decision makers, are going to leapfrog New Zealand on at least some responses.
So we'll need to find the Crafarms of motoring, and energy wastage in general for that matter.
Actually, there already is a Crafarms of both the above...
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The proposed Aqua system was going to be close to the existing HVDC link across the Cook Strait to the Hutt Valley.
wasn't Project Aqua going to be a dam on the Lower Waitaki not anywhere near the Cook Strait cable......
Why not ping them with ACC hikes instead of bikers? SUV's are the new tobacco
would be lovely - if only my support for no blame ACC didn't override my support for astromonically taxing SUV owners....
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Many such turbines have more energy used in their construction than they generate in a typical lifetime.
That would be surprising. How much energy does it take to produce a wind turbine?
payback period is over decades
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Wind turbines have become a lot cheaper recently. Siting is certainly an issue, and home generation generally not feasible, but the cost-to-recovery times have come down considerably.
At the same time, power prices are not likely to stay constant over a decade; and most people who contemplate wind generation are not in a position to buy power from the grid without (often extreme) additional costs.
Water heating is the low-hanging fruit. Houses tend to be sited out of the wind, with some tendency to maximise sun. Solar water-heating avoids (mostly) the losses generally inherent in transforming one form of energy into another (thermal energy from the sun heats the water directly).
Solar panels are also getting a lot cheaper, and will probably become something of a given in new houses, one day. But storage is a limitation. Lead-acid batteries aren't very environmentally friendly either. -
Some more info on the Devonport wind turbine, including a small photo, here (scroll down to the 5th August entry).
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You missed out that the baby boomers had free university education ...
Bastards.
<g> I had to work really hard to cut my stream of vitriol down in terms of content and anger... I still feel bad I ranted on for so long...!
So I cut out / down on education, the public transport network, manipulation of the way health dollars are spent, the distortions in alcohol duty (sherry!), smacking... the list got so long. All the various rambling justifications in various religious world-views are a series in their own right!
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