kgwilson

As things deteriorate the blame game will accelerate and protests will evolve into conflict and anarchy. Check out Hong Kong. I hope I'll be dead by then. There are 80 million extra people every year. Something will eventually have to give & I don't want to be around to see it. Pessimistic view I admit but pretty likely. I hope I'm wrong.

.....and no hot Australian summers.

 

The UK is at 51 to 58 deg North so gets much less sun than Australia which sits between 11 & 43 deg South & much less intensity so that stat was pretty impressive even if it was on a clear day in late Spring.

The UK was the first county in the world to have a Nuclear energy policy & the first Nuclear power station was opened at Calder Hall in 1956. At its peak in 1997 Nuclear provided 26% of the UKs energy needs falling to 19% by 2012 & now to 18% about the same as wind with most Coal plants closed. In May they ran for 2 weeks with no coal power & coal now produces only 5% of their electricity, down from 40% in 2012 & is to be phased out altogether by 2025. A number of old nuclear plants have closed & the plans for new plants may not happen as renewables come on stream in a fraction of the time and cost with no waste disposal problems. In 2018 wind & solar accounted for 28% of the countries electricity generation. Gas which accounts for about 40% will also decline. On 14 May 2019 the UK produced 25% of its electricity needs from the sun.

This is what can be done when there are aggressive targets and supportive government in a country a twentieth the size of Australia with 60 million people.

It is only in the last couple of years that has seen a significant increase in renewable energy. The LGC subsidies were trading at about $80 a MWh and now that the target of 33 GWh renewables by 2030 will likely be exceeded the price has dropped significantly &  will continue to do so as more come on stream. It may even fall to zero when the new build is completed and certificates flood the market. The Murdoch press though still talk about 45 billion in subsidies out to 2030 ignoring the market changes which are accelerating.  At the moment there is huge investment mostly by foreign companies and 12,240 jobs plus the downstream benefits so the government will be getting more than it is paying out.

 

 

 

If we freeze the Dashboard in a non-peak day and time (8:51, 18/11/19),

 

we can calculate the contribution of Wind and Other generation in each State.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demand

 

 

 

Fuel-fired Generation

 

(Coal/Gas/Oil/Bagasse)

 

 

 

Wind/Solar Generation

 

 

 

W/S % of Demand

 

 

 

 

 

Qld

 

 

 

6165

 

 

 

5626

 

 

 

1063

 

 

 

17.2%

 

 

 

 

 

NSW

 

 

 

7536

 

 

 

6320

 

 

 

956

 

 

 

12.7%

 

 

 

 

 

Vic

 

 

 

4747

 

 

 

3676

 

 

 

586

 

 

 

12.3%

 

 

 

 

 

Tas

 

 

 

1160

 

 

 

1260

 

 

 

161

 

 

 

13.9%

 

 

 

 

 

SA

 

 

 

1147

 

 

 

798

 

 

 

311

 

 

 

27.1%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the percentage performance of Wind and Solar Plants, you could be forgiven for believing the “Renewable” stories about their performance being competitive.

 

A quick check tells me that there are 10,551 megawatts of renewable energy projects currently under construction creating 12,240 jobs & in 2018 generation capacity quadrupled from 382 mW to 1824 mW. There are also more than 2 million houses with rooftop solar. This is exponential growth and as it shows no signs of slowing the demand noted above of 21,000 mW will be surpassed relatively soon. Storage is an issue but that's where pumped hydro (& batteries) come in when there is an excess of supply to be used when the wind stops & it gets dark. Peak demand on a hot day means we are still a long way from covering that. The ANU study also stated that Australia could be 100% renewable by 2023 but the government as we know has done next to nothing. Private Industry and individuals are driving the renewables process. 

What I'm not sure about now is whether the main length of that runway is extending off to the right of the frame or is it off to the left?

 

At first I assumed that the a/c that did all the damage was throttling up (regardless) for a take-off run.  But then his flaps seem to be full down, so maybe he had just landed and the area we're looking at is near the far threshold of the runway in use.  So maybe the aircraft that we see taxi onto the runway didn't realise that he'd landed - or maybe he did and thought the best way to clear the taxi-way for him was to enter the runway and move to the far edge so that the just-landed a/c could slip by and up the exit ramp.  If that is the scenario then the pilot landing (and stopped) was just gunning his engine to get the wheels moving on the grass, aiming to taxi slowly off to his right, well clear - but somehow lost control ... and the rest is misery.   Any other ideas or guesses or explanations?

 

Right at the beginning of the video the other aircraft was seen taxying up the runway with full flap deployed I'd say just stopping his landing roll, but the Pilot & passenger of the orange aircraft couldn't see it as they were pointing in the other direction & putting on headsets etc. The when they got out on the runway they saw the red/white aircraft, stopped and then pulled over to the right to allow him to pass. He was stationary then put power on. If he had differential brakes avoiding the orange aircraft would have been easy so long as they were working. With a hand operated brake pulling up should also not have been an issue so long as it was operating. The failure to cut the power at any point from when impact looked inevitable to the final conclusion was the main issue.

Just another point to note. Banks and venture capitalists no longer are prepared to lend money to fossil fuel industries like coal fired power stations and coal mines etc. A local example is none would go near the Adani mine project. They are not run by greenies or climate change activists and their motives are purely economic. They have highly paid advisors and all agree there is no future in these industries and therefore the risk is too high. They are funding Wind and Solar farms though.

Also the biggest Wind turbines now in existence produce 12 megawatts of power each. The UK has the largest offshore wind farms and while Nuclear still provides a large amount of their power they have begun exporting wind generated power to Europe. The change to renewables isn't happening overnight but the growth is exponential. Australia has one of the highest uptakes of solar generation in the world despite almost no support or financial incentives from the Federal government who keeps rabbiting on about base load power which is a myth. 

Two left feet?

Well I now have the definitive answer to why we have the existing drought and all the bushfires. According to Israel Folau in his latest rant it is God's punishment for legalising same sex marriage and abortion. So there you have it, a simple answer to a complex issue that will have all the god botherers nodding their heads.

 

Renewables are a great thing and should be supported but as for replacing coal power, it is a dream.

 

It's not a dream, it is happening but it will take time. The UK recently ran for several weeks without any coal power, South Australia became a net exporter of renewable energy recently and one of the worlds largest pig iron producers in Germany recently ran a furnace on hydrogen with their goal to eliminate coal in the long term.

It sounds like it was not just one mistake. Finally all the holes in the swiss cheese lined up.

Well here we are, 140 posts and the deniers still deny despite overwhelming evidence that mankind is stuffing up the planet. Cherry picking  evidence of local or individual situations proves their case. I rest mine.

I had a quick look at the Flightline. Looks Ok but can it monitor 2 frequencies like the Microair? Microair has 99 memory slots where the Flightline has 32. Not really an issue. I only have a dozen or so stored anyway.

My Microair works fine when it is warm. When I was at Airventure I found out there is a known fault with revision Q models & that is a faulty capacitor that causes noise that the volume control has no effect on so you have to turn it off till things warm up. Microair are virtually impossible to get hold of & then want you to send the radio to them & they will have a look at it. They won't give a timeframe or cost just it will go in the queue. You can take it to a radio repair outfit but most will charge close to a grand just to pull it apart. Now it is warm outside it is OK. Coming home from Airventure it was -3 to -6 degrees at 7500 to 9500 feet & the radio was useless. It was all OK on the ground and climbing out & again when making my 10 mile call once I'd come down into warmer temps.

Flying around low (very low by the sound of it) is just asking for trouble. Power lines are everywhere and you can not see them.

Nothing wrong with CO2. It puts bubbles in my beer, puts out fires and stores itself as carbon in wood. The only trouble is we are now producing too much of it. We are producing 45% more now than in 1750, from 280 ppm to 415ppm in 2019 in the atmosphere. This despite more than half the uptake coming from natural sinks like forests and the sea. Great it'll make the trees grow well. Well we've gotten rid of 75% of the trees so that may be a small issue. Oh but 1/3rd of it is absorbed by the Ocean. No worries then. Hang on more CO2 in the Ocean raises acidity. Bit of a problem for the shellfish & coral with calcium carbonate houses. Then of course the more CO2 that is absorbed into the Ocean it eventually encounters a resistance to further absorption so guess what, we are left with it all hanging around in the atmosphere.

See post 82. 

The Rego from the photo on the ABC report shows 24-4399. It is a low wing & the Rotax engine has been torn off & sitting beside whats left of the airframe. The pilot was extremely lucky to have survived & probably only did so because the airframe absorbed most of the impact

And of course there are the 2% who cherry pick individual situations and ignore the long term global trends. If you don't believe there is any change occurring just say so. The overwhelming evidence is against you.

The planet was formed 4.5 billion years ago. Life began 3.2 billion years ago and began storing energy. Humans have been around for about a million years which on the evolutionary 24 hour clock is about 4 seconds to midnight. At the beginning of the industrial revolution around 1750 AD there were about 700 million humans on earth. Today we are closing in on 8 billion people with an annual growth rate which is still increasing of 80 million. We have used most of the stored energy in 270 years that took 3.2 billion years to amass and released the carbon back into the atmosphere. How could all of this possibly have any effect on the climate?

Won't be hard to remember. It is even the same if you say it backwards.

What never ceases to amaze me is how many people just don't know how Australia is governed (six sovereign States). If they wanted to get a message across they needed to talk to the States and Territories. The Commonwealth certainly has some financial powers but on many things can't just march in and take the initiative. It's a Commonwealth of States.

 

We saw the same thing happen with power, where the States have the responsibility, and the same thing recenty with the Murray Darling Basin where the States were comfortably working to an agreement, but agitators had the news media calling for Commonwealth Royal Commissions, and wanting the Commonwealth government to "do something about it" (the drought), which leads to the temptation for the Federal government to do some electioneering by window dressing (example Turnbull's Snowy 2).

 

They are a coalition of 23 Fire and Emergency Services  leaders from EVERY STATE AND TERRITORY so how could they just go to one State or the other? That would make no sense at all. This problem exists nationally not just in one State or Territory. It is Morrison and his government who refuse to accept Climate Change exists even though they publicly give lip service to it. Morrisons best effort is to be Hillsong smart and sing and pray the problem away. If it wasn't a serious issue it would be hilarious.

Agreed it looks horrible. I've never seen this on any Tigers in Australia or NZ

The ex fire commissioners chose to release their information while the current hierarchy were flat out fightiong fires in two States, and that's unforgiveable.

 

They requested a meeting back in April but Morrison refused to meet them to discuss the problems that they forecasted and are now happening & they were turned down. They finally got a meeting with Littleproud this week. They did not choose to release it this week. It was Morrisons mob with their head in the sand attitude that forced the delay to this week. The rest of the post is equally uninformed.

That's just a sideslip, that's what they were known as in the olden days. I did read description in the wikithang, news to me. The half a dozen instructors I've flown with just called them sideslips, that was a few years ago though.

 

It's a sideslip in my book. You are always going forward or should be. Maybe it's just semantics. I don't care. I'm not changing my mind as to what I call it.

And yes Guys & Gals. It is all inclusive these days. Guys means male or female BUT Gals still means female. Why? Don't ask me and anyway I don't want to know even if there is an explanation.

He was honking. Listed stall speed is 43 knots clean & 39 knots full flap. Flaps weren't deployed. The wind was negligible so was not a factor. Probably the initial touch was around 50 knots & half way up the runway.