Did the bromancer just call the liar from the Shire a natural born liar? And then in his last gobbet he goes all frigid with the frigate Dutton ...
"A dismal way" ?!
Thanks Rex """ Patrick, for your contribution, but the pond is deeply consternated by the bromancer and has no need to learn that the mutton Dutton is wrong ... why the bromancer didn't even mention tanks, and instead of missiles, he seemed content with more Collins class subs ...
Was there a general shift in the reptile ether? Come on down lizard Oz editorialist ...
It was too much for the pond. Never in a million years had the pond expected the lizard Oz editorialist to scribble the line "Defence Minister Richard Marles is correct ..."
Is there any wonder that the pond immediately turned to Dame Groan for a jolly good groan about renewables ...
That's more like it, a jolly good groaning about the ACT, and all that, though to have made it complete, the groaning should have mentioned the keen Kean ... currently undergoing an Inquisition for heresy ...
Payback time baby, the luddites still have their mojo, as the pond returns to the Groaning ...
Oh dear. Of all the examples to use ... the pond immediately scurried off to the Texas Tribune for the news on that alleged wind generation dependency and read ...
No, frozen wind turbines aren't the main culprit for Texas' power outages ...Please allow the pond to quote at unseemly length ...
Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the wind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas projected that 80% of the grid's winter capacity, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power.
An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, were offline. Nearly double that, 30 gigawatts, had been lost from thermal sources, which includes gas, coal and nuclear energy.
By Wednesday, those numbers had changed as more operators struggled to operate in the cold: 45 gigawatts total were offline, with 28 gigawats from thermal sources and 18 gigawatts from renewable sources, ERCOT officials said.
“Texas is a gas state,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
While Webber said all of Texas’ energy sources share blame for the power crisis, the natural gas industry is most notably producing significantly less power than normal.
“Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now,” Webber said.
Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, echoed that sentiment Tuesday.
“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” he said during a Tuesday call with reporters.
Still, some have focused their blame on wind power.
“This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.”
He went on to note the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Bay City because of the cold and finally got to what energy experts say is the biggest culprit, writing, “Low Supply of Natural Gas: ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we ran out of the ability to get natural gas. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation —so things were freezing.”
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, known for his right-wing Facebook posts that have, in the past, spread misinformation and amplified conspiracy theories, also posted an unvarnished view of wind energy on Facebook: “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas."
In another post, Miller was even more forthright, but also misleading. “Insult added to injury: Those ugly wind turbines out there are among the main reasons we are experiencing electricity blackouts,” he wrote. “Isn’t that ironic? ... So much for the unsightly and unproductive, energy-robbing Obama Monuments. At least they show us where idiots live.”
While wind power skeptics claimed the week’s freeze means wind power can’t be relied upon, wind turbines — like natural gas plants — can be “winterized,” or modified to operate during very low temperatures. Experts say that many of Texas’ power generators have not made those investments necessary to prevent disruptions to equipment since the state does not regularly experience extreme winter storms.
It’s estimated that of the grid’s total winter capacity, about 80% of it, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power. Only 7% of ERCOT’s forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state.
The pond quoted at length because it's a reminder of the company that Dame Groan is inclined to keep ... those ratbags who take to Facebook to spread misinformation and amplify conspiracy theories, which suggests to the pond that visiting the lizard Oz is as dangerous as inhabiting a metaverse ...
Just what is this “consensus on the need to urgently increase defence spending” of which the Bromancer speaks? I assume it’s a “consensus” of the Bro, a few other Lizard Oz Military Hardware fanfic enthusiasts and various defence industry shills.
ReplyDeleteI like to think I know a reasonable cross-section of society (including a couple of Military types), and I’ve never heard any of them claim that a massive increase in spending on Big Things That Can Blow Up Other Big Things is the most important item on the agenda. However if you go by the sort of coverage given in the Lizard Oz you could easily get the impression that it’s the major topic of conversation around the dinner table in every “Quiet Australian” (are we still using that term?) household.
Just what is this “consensus on the need to urgently increase defence spending” of which the Bromancer speaks? I assume it’s a “consensus” of the Bro, a few other Lizard Oz Military Hardware fanfic enthusiasts and various defence industry shills.
ReplyDeleteI like to think I know a reasonable cross-section of society (including a couple of Military types), and I’ve never heard any of them claim that a massive increase in spending on Big Things That Can Blow Up Other Big Things is the most important item on the agenda. However if you go by the sort of coverage given in the Lizard Oz you could easily get the impression that it’s the major topic of conversation around the dinner table in every “Quiet Australian” (are we still using that term?) household.
Oops - apologies for the double post. I must have been aiming for consensus.
ReplyDeleteThat's ok, Anony, good things are worth repeating (a rule the reptiles think that they practise repeatedly). But you do understand that the Bromancer thinks he's a Christian marching as to war, with the cross of Rupert going on before.
DeleteBut not a soldier, GB. He'll leave that to the sons and daughters of others.
DeleteOh indeed not the weapon carrying life risking soldier, Merc; he's the 'truth-speaking disciple" kind whose war is entirely verbal.
DeleteThe breezy Bro: "These are fantastic claims with zero credibility." Quite. However: "But a good idea and a deliverable policy are wildly different things." Oh, but bad ideas and "deliverable [policy" ? They go together like a horse and carriage, yes ? Instant translation into deliverable policy such as Robodebt.
ReplyDeleteThen more Bro: "All through the national submarine disgrace, the Impossible perfect has been the enemy if the usefully achievable." Oh I dunno, the $loMo government has been perfectly incompetent and incapable all along, and look what wonders it has achieved: it lost the unlosable election in which a second miracle had been promised to $loMo by his invisible friend.
The Bro's casual dismissal of a British submarine reminds me of the non-discussion in the late 50s about the TSR2 or F111 to become Australia's air attack hardware; replacing the Canberra. The 'Wiki' has some fascinating accounts of the debate in the UK - including assertions by prominent pollies at that time that aircraft driven by humans were not the way of the future.
ReplyDeleteSo we signed-up for the F111, on open-ended terms. Over too many years we actually had to contribute to the further development of the things, and, when it came to actual war service - in and around Vietnam - much of our bombing was still done by the Canberras.
But the F111s were just great for flying over major cities, at night, during public festivals, igniting long trails of very expensive fuel to compete with other displays of fireworks.
panem et circenses
There's no doubting the power of historical precedent, Chad. We haven't really had a decent airplane since the NA-16 based Wirraway, have we.
DeleteWell there was the Nomad, of course.
DeleteAnd Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation did a pretty good job of bolting 48 Canberras together, with some development of the design as they went along. Certainly a lot more local work and development of skills than came from the 'offset program' for the F111s.
DeleteYeah but the Canberra couldn't do little bows on the tarmac like the Nomad.
DeleteDP - you suggest that our Dame may have briefed herself off F...book, and that is quite likely. I suspect her typing for today is a 'melange' of bits from spokespersons from legacy generators and wiring operators, with comment from the odd disgruntled engineer, pining for the days when electricity supply was entirely the province of engineers who knew about big coal-fired plants.
ReplyDeleteI submit that my suspicions might be confirmed because her column really does not progress beyond 'oh, it's all too hard', with some hand-wringing to go with the groaning.
In seeking the company of disgruntled engineers she might have found some who work in that dark art - transmission lines - who could show her some simple models of how the distribution system already has a very wide range of capacities, some using impressive voltages, but eventually being whittled down to the line that I can see from where I sit, that supplies our household's modest needs.
Such an engineer might also explain that large solar and wind installations tend to be sited close to existing high capacity transmission lines - because that makes simple sense.
And while I am suggesting who she might tap for information - if you are going into the intricacies of supply contracts, it could be worth finding a couple from that growth profession in the energy industry - the mathematical modellers - the best of whom are paid even more than most engineers to produce models and algorithms that guide those within their corporation who offer, or bid on; spot prices for power. The entire purpose of such units is to game the system, and mitigate any moves back to the engineering ethos of around the '50s, to add a bit of extra capacity - just in case. Adds 25% to your costs, but would be amortized over - well, 50-60 years, like the electric stoves the government electricity agencies used to offer housewives, for 3 shillings and sixpence week, on their account - virtually for ever.
I'm beginning to see D'Groan as a prime example of Northcote Parkinson's 'Law of Triviality', Chad: "The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved." Or, in very simple terms: the less people know, the more certain they are that they know it all.
DeleteAs you'll recall from 'The Pursuit of Progress', the committee discussion on the atomic power plant is dominated by a 'knowitall' who thinks he does know about atomic power and is all over in minutes because the only person who actually does know doesn't want to get into an argument that nobody else in the room will understand. Then the discussion about constructing a bicycle shed goes on for hours because everybody knows all about them.
Meet the reptile's instant "expert" in power supplies.
Law of triviality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
Oh - and reductions in household power bills? I am still trying to trace the $550 that Abbott assured us would come our way because he 'abolished the carbon tax'.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but at least I got my annual concession (a whacking great $63) this month.
DeleteBesides, The Muncher would say that you did get your $550 because if he hadn't abolished the "carbon tax" your bills would have come in $550 higher.