AGL are reporting that their most polluting coal fired electricity plant(s) is now $186M less profitable due to loss of government funding provided entirely by the carbon tax. Essentially it was funding pollution, not penalising it.
PEr the AFR: http://www.afr.com/p/business/... (paywalled, but the summary say it all)
The carbon tax never did anything due to a ridiculous number of exemptions and pay-back subsidies designed to protect labour voting areas - one of which the above coal fired plant is in.
I'm willing to accept the 35% on face value as it is referenced. I still can't find what the total GW cost of each turbine is according to the paper, nor any method for calculating it.
The main claim the media is making about the paper is the energy return, but that seems to be a very minor aside as opposed to the full environmental impact the paper is actually discussing.
I've just spent my lunch break reading this paper, and I like what he's done as far as calculating the environmental impact. I don't think I've ever seen something like this and wish more was published in the media.
I suck at reading scientific literature though so I can't find where he defined the total energy cost of the wind generators. Could you please tell me which page it's on? I'm looking for the GW number that was used to compare with your quoted GWh number to give a payback time.
I've heard mention multiple times of studies that state driving on a cell phone is more dangerous from a drive competence point of view than driving while under the effects of alcohol,
Now I don't have any facts to back that up and I assume that is low range DUI rather than high end but it definitely rings true for me. This is not an endorsement for pushing the limits on drunk driving by the way, as a non driver I strongly believe everyone should operate any kind of vehicle only while stone cold sober.
Unfortunately that is not the case, The computer gaming demographic may have shifted somewhat in recent years but it's still approximately a window of 5-10 years. In such a small window you can keep making the same mistakes and people that get sick of it are going to be leaving out the top of the age range anyway. There will always be new, young audiences that come in at the bottom.
Best case scenario is you draw a line for yourself and live happy ignoring companies that aren't doing what you want. The overall landscape of the world won't change but you only need to see the parts you like.
Jack booted thugs don't think they are Jack Booted thugs, They're having too much fun wearing cool looking boots.
One of the first mistakes people make is to assume everyone has the same moral code as them and they are then confused when people act against that code. The Jack booted thugs of the world are operating on a completely different level than you and I.
Perhaps the better phrasing is don't talk to police if they come to you first.
Fear of police when they can legitimately help you is foolish, fear of police when you have done something wrong/they think you've done something wrong is reasonable.
You've missed his main point though: in a price driven world, cheaper things have a cheaper cost because they require less resource input. His example may be extreme in it's impact but the general fact is that everything you do is going to have an environmental impact and without being sure of the actual total life cost of a product most people are very likely to make incorrect assumptions about what is "better" for the environment.
Because according to the article the fake egges are cheaper to produce, healthier and actually taste better. Now that all may be marketing BS for a new product but if true is a perfect justification for the things to me.
Also, egg allergy is a thing so if you are manufacturing the eggs you might even be able to do something to remove the allergenic portion, which would be nice.
A lot of the problem with the stories on global warming is that they respond immediately when warming indicators occur but rarely when cooling indicators do, they also rarely if ever publish the later corrections when mistakes are made.
The thing is you are not paying to be insured against pregnancy, you're paying to be insured against medical conditions unspecified. As has already been said, your at risk of pregnancy women are also paying for your risk of prostate cancer.
You need to not look at it as what you are paying for that you don't need but what you are getting cheaper that other people don't need. I'd imagine that it evens out or even comes down favourably on the white middle class over 50 male side of things.
Greenhouse gases' actual impact on climate cannot be definitively shown and the climate sensitivity value is often revised - usually downward. Despite emitting HUGE quantities of C02 over the last 20 years, temperatures have not risen outside of quoted error ranges. 100 years ago, the prediction was for global COOLING, and the more recent (25 years) predictions of warming have been so badly wrong that they have need to be revised down every time they are republished.
When it comes to climate science, there is nothing but uncertainty and fanatically denying that just makes people more dismissive of lay person AGW supporters.
I don't believe there is any moral standing for pirating other than a "screw the arseholes" attitude however the counter argument to the piracy is theft of services is that there is actually no cost to the producer in the piracy "theft" whereas in the case of true theft of services you are depriving the provider of those services of, at the very least, their time.
Now the argument could be made that each creation of a work dilutes the value of that work but in fact when it comes to entertainment the opposite is true - each person that views any given work actually increases it's value and marketability.
Despite the obvious fallacy of comparing the two, he does make a valid point. Every time you see something that discounts global warming impacts EG: Growth of ice in Antarctica increasing. It rapidly gets dismissed as "oh that is just natural variation" but you get the opposite EG: Loss of ice in the Arctic and it is end of the world global warming doom all the way down.
This kind of reporting is really very troublesome for both sides of the argument. Pro-AGW folks get painted as biased alarmists and Anti-AGW folks have any evidence they might use immediately dismissed.
I know enough to know I don't have the truth one way or the other about the whole AGW issue, but I sure as hell can tell when people are putting spin on things and everyone on both sides is doing that.
On the flip side the bigger deceit is ignoring the debate by misrepresenting the consensus. The consensus appears to be "humans have an effect on the environment" but the anti AGW lobbying seems to take that to mean "Humans are causing end of the world levels of climate change"
The debate really is important because humanity are limiting a lot of good power generation options to avoid a catastrophe that might not actually even be catastrophic.
Indonesian, German and French have been mandatory parts of the Australian languages other than English syllabus since I was in high school 16 years ago.
Shifting the focus to more useful languages (IE those spoken in China) can only be a good thing for our future as a nation.
In Australia we have a 0.05 limit on BAC plus a 0 limit on provisional (usually under 21) drivers. 0.08 is the point where you are obviously going to fail at driving. 0.05 is where you think you can do it but more likely than not cannot.
After seeing how friends dealt with the 0 limit on provisional drivers and in light of the fact I don't drive myself, I'd support a 0 limit - it encourages a lot of caution and forethought, particularly the morning after when you can still be drunk and might think it's just a hangover.
Slashdot Mirror
The funny thing: this event is provably NOT caused by ice loss.
http://polarbearscience.com/20...
That page has papers about this occurring in the seventies. Google "Walrus Haulout" and you'll see there is even a name for it.
Damn it, forgot to log in, replying so I can find this post later.
AGL are reporting that their most polluting coal fired electricity plant(s) is now $186M less profitable due to loss of government funding provided entirely by the carbon tax. Essentially it was funding pollution, not penalising it. PEr the AFR: http://www.afr.com/p/business/... (paywalled, but the summary say it all) The carbon tax never did anything due to a ridiculous number of exemptions and pay-back subsidies designed to protect labour voting areas - one of which the above coal fired plant is in.
I'm willing to accept the 35% on face value as it is referenced. I still can't find what the total GW cost of each turbine is according to the paper, nor any method for calculating it.
The main claim the media is making about the paper is the energy return, but that seems to be a very minor aside as opposed to the full environmental impact the paper is actually discussing.
I've just spent my lunch break reading this paper, and I like what he's done as far as calculating the environmental impact. I don't think I've ever seen something like this and wish more was published in the media.
I suck at reading scientific literature though so I can't find where he defined the total energy cost of the wind generators. Could you please tell me which page it's on? I'm looking for the GW number that was used to compare with your quoted GWh number to give a payback time.
I've heard mention multiple times of studies that state driving on a cell phone is more dangerous from a drive competence point of view than driving while under the effects of alcohol,
Now I don't have any facts to back that up and I assume that is low range DUI rather than high end but it definitely rings true for me. This is not an endorsement for pushing the limits on drunk driving by the way, as a non driver I strongly believe everyone should operate any kind of vehicle only while stone cold sober.
Unfortunately that is not the case, The computer gaming demographic may have shifted somewhat in recent years but it's still approximately a window of 5-10 years. In such a small window you can keep making the same mistakes and people that get sick of it are going to be leaving out the top of the age range anyway. There will always be new, young audiences that come in at the bottom.
Best case scenario is you draw a line for yourself and live happy ignoring companies that aren't doing what you want. The overall landscape of the world won't change but you only need to see the parts you like.
Jack booted thugs don't think they are Jack Booted thugs, They're having too much fun wearing cool looking boots.
One of the first mistakes people make is to assume everyone has the same moral code as them and they are then confused when people act against that code. The Jack booted thugs of the world are operating on a completely different level than you and I.
Perhaps the better phrasing is don't talk to police if they come to you first.
Fear of police when they can legitimately help you is foolish, fear of police when you have done something wrong/they think you've done something wrong is reasonable.
You've missed his main point though: in a price driven world, cheaper things have a cheaper cost because they require less resource input. His example may be extreme in it's impact but the general fact is that everything you do is going to have an environmental impact and without being sure of the actual total life cost of a product most people are very likely to make incorrect assumptions about what is "better" for the environment.
What Netflix should do is recoup the cost by charging it back to Comcast customers. Seems perfectly fair to me.
Because according to the article the fake egges are cheaper to produce, healthier and actually taste better. Now that all may be marketing BS for a new product but if true is a perfect justification for the things to me.
Also, egg allergy is a thing so if you are manufacturing the eggs you might even be able to do something to remove the allergenic portion, which would be nice.
Yeah, Apple Computers never did anything in music, they certainly haven't been involved in anything tunes related as far as I can see.
No need to get all frigid about it, he was just joking around.
A lot of the problem with the stories on global warming is that they respond immediately when warming indicators occur but rarely when cooling indicators do, they also rarely if ever publish the later corrections when mistakes are made.
The image that got me thinking the most is this comparison of climate models to reality; the dots and squares are reality: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cmip5-73-models-vs-obs-20n-20s-mt-5-yr-means11.png?w=640&h=480
Another good example is page 102 of: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_FinalDraft_Chapter11.pdf where recent observations are less than the majority of the models that are predicting extreme rise in temperature. That document is from the IPCC.
There are quotes from a climate scientist (sorry I'm not sure which) specifically stating that 17 years without a change in global temperature anomaly would indicate that the models are wrong. We've had 17 years of no change: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/plot/gistemp/from:1997
The thing is you are not paying to be insured against pregnancy, you're paying to be insured against medical conditions unspecified. As has already been said, your at risk of pregnancy women are also paying for your risk of prostate cancer.
You need to not look at it as what you are paying for that you don't need but what you are getting cheaper that other people don't need. I'd imagine that it evens out or even comes down favourably on the white middle class over 50 male side of things.
Greenhouse gases' actual impact on climate cannot be definitively shown and the climate sensitivity value is often revised - usually downward. Despite emitting HUGE quantities of C02 over the last 20 years, temperatures have not risen outside of quoted error ranges. 100 years ago, the prediction was for global COOLING, and the more recent (25 years) predictions of warming have been so badly wrong that they have need to be revised down every time they are republished.
When it comes to climate science, there is nothing but uncertainty and fanatically denying that just makes people more dismissive of lay person AGW supporters.
Actually, the last ice age's results showed that we are dependant on a WARM climate for our survival.
I don't believe there is any moral standing for pirating other than a "screw the arseholes" attitude however the counter argument to the piracy is theft of services is that there is actually no cost to the producer in the piracy "theft" whereas in the case of true theft of services you are depriving the provider of those services of, at the very least, their time.
Now the argument could be made that each creation of a work dilutes the value of that work but in fact when it comes to entertainment the opposite is true - each person that views any given work actually increases it's value and marketability.
Despite the obvious fallacy of comparing the two, he does make a valid point. Every time you see something that discounts global warming impacts EG: Growth of ice in Antarctica increasing. It rapidly gets dismissed as "oh that is just natural variation" but you get the opposite EG: Loss of ice in the Arctic and it is end of the world global warming doom all the way down.
This kind of reporting is really very troublesome for both sides of the argument. Pro-AGW folks get painted as biased alarmists and Anti-AGW folks have any evidence they might use immediately dismissed.
I know enough to know I don't have the truth one way or the other about the whole AGW issue, but I sure as hell can tell when people are putting spin on things and everyone on both sides is doing that.
On the flip side the bigger deceit is ignoring the debate by misrepresenting the consensus. The consensus appears to be "humans have an effect on the environment" but the anti AGW lobbying seems to take that to mean "Humans are causing end of the world levels of climate change"
The debate really is important because humanity are limiting a lot of good power generation options to avoid a catastrophe that might not actually even be catastrophic.
Does Skeptical science have a graph that goes up to 2013 anywhere? I'm curious to compare that to a "denier" graph I found a while ago.
Indonesian, German and French have been mandatory parts of the Australian languages other than English syllabus since I was in high school 16 years ago.
Shifting the focus to more useful languages (IE those spoken in China) can only be a good thing for our future as a nation.
In Australia we have a 0.05 limit on BAC plus a 0 limit on provisional (usually under 21) drivers. 0.08 is the point where you are obviously going to fail at driving. 0.05 is where you think you can do it but more likely than not cannot.
After seeing how friends dealt with the 0 limit on provisional drivers and in light of the fact I don't drive myself, I'd support a 0 limit - it encourages a lot of caution and forethought, particularly the morning after when you can still be drunk and might think it's just a hangover.
The per shot cost may be way lower but honestly, how many times are you actually going to fire this thing?