4 January 2016, New Matilda, Nuclear And Nonsense: An Insider’s Guide On Making Renewables Work. Renewable energy advocate Terry Leach takes up the fight for an inexhaustible power supply. Geoff Russell’s recent New Matilda article ‘Batteries and Bulldust’ makes the argument that renewable energy can’t displace fossil fuels due to the problems of the intermittency of renewable energy and the difficulty of storing electrical energy. Russell compares the stupidity of Germany’s renewable push to France’s wisdom in generating most of their power from nuclear. Obviously, the superior governance, cheaper electricity and lack of inefficient subsidies results in France consistently outperforming Germany economically. Sadly for the French this isn’t true. Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Germans aren’t ‘puddle shallow thinkers’. Problems of intermittency and storage of renewable energy are solvable, and the Germans are doing just that. Despite our current government’s opposition, technological development and entrepreneurship means that Australia is well placed to solve those problems here. Intermittent power Firstly, intermittency. Our electricity network is well equipped to cope with intermittency, as it has been built to cope with intermittency of demand. Demand fluctuates on daily, weekly and seasonal bases. We usually have a large proportion of our production capacity sitting idle, waiting for the high demand and price events that justify their economic existence. Like Europe, we have a continental grid, stretching from North Queensland to the West Coast of South Australia. Excess low cost capacity can be sent interstate, which means that demand, and therefore price, is smoothed. Currently we have cheap coal providing our base load capacity. Coal (like nuclear) can’t be ramped up and down quickly and has always needed to be supplemented by ‘dispatchable’ generation. This has historically been provided by gas and hydro. Read More here
Monthly Archives: January 2016
4 January 2015, Washington Post, Here’s how scientific misinformation, such as climate doubt, spreads through social media. Social media is no doubt a powerful force when it comes to the sharing of information and ideas; the problem is that not every article shared on Facebook or Twitter is true. Misinformation, conspiracy theories and rumors abound on the Internet, helping to propagate and support sentiments such as climate doubt and other forms of environmental and scientific skepticism. Figuring out how such ideas diffuse through social media may be key to scientists and science communicators alike as they look for ways to better reach the public and change the minds of those who reject their information. A study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds new light on the factors that influence the spread of misinformation online. The researchers conclude that the diffusion of content generally takes place within clusters of users known as “echo chambers” — polarized communities that tend to consume the same types of information. For instance, a person who shares a conspiracy theory online is typically connected to a network of other users who also tend to consume and share the same types of conspiracy theories. This structure tends to keep the same ideas circulating within communities of people who already subscribe to them, a phenomenon that both reinforces the worldview within the community and makes members more resistant to information that doesn’t fit with their beliefs. Read More here
3 January 2016, Client Earth, End of business as usual for carbon intensive industry. Scrutiny of carbon intensive companies’ reporting could mean an unprecedented number of complaints to financial regulators from environmental lawyers ClientEarth in 2016. ClientEarth will be poring over annual reports of carbon intensive UK and EU companies and reporting them to the Financial Reporting Council if they are failing to disclose to investors how the post COP21 business outlook could affect their operations. The agreement aims to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, with an ambition for 1.5 degrees. It will have a huge effect on companies in carbon intensive sectors such as energy, mining and utilities. Dave Cooke, Company and Financial lawyer for ClientEarth, said: “The Paris agreement represents a huge change for the world. We are now in a transition to a low carbon economy. Business as usual is no longer an option for carbon intensive companies. “We will be looking at how those carbon intensive companies disclose the risks that they face and where they’re not disclosing them effectively and appropriately we will submit complaints to the regulator to take action.” The move comes amid growing consensus in the business community that climate change is changing the landscape beyond recognition. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, made a major intervention in September, when he identified climate change as one of the biggest risks to economic stability. Read more here
3 January 2016, Climate News Network, Thinking beyond the Age of Fire. Human society without fire is unthinkable. But a new book says we need to think of a world where fire gives way to electricity. In December, in an unprecedented demonstration of international unity, 195 countries adopted the first-ever, universal, legally-binding agreement to take action on climate change. It was a decision that, to be truly effective, requires an obligation to think again, at the most fundamental level, about how humans manage energy and maintain the essential comforts of civilisation. Humans cannot go back to the beginning and start again, but if they had to, Walt Patterson’s new book would be as fundamental a guide to the challenges as any. It doesn’t contain many helpful prescriptions about the most efficient exploitation of the emerging technologies that could deliver renewable energy, or deliver more bang for the megabuck of investment. But that’s not the point. Patterson’s point is that a new start means a fresh attitude, and Electricity vs Fire is as nice a statement of the essential simplicity – and the scale – of the challenge as I have yet seen. Patterson first made his name 45 years ago as an informed critic of the nuclear industry, and as one of the early voices of Friends of the Earth. He starts simply by reducing what humans do to six simple and very easily described physical actions. Read More here