With the hole in the bucket man going AWOL this day, the pond thought it might take the chance to do a detour and a pleasant distraction.
Usually the pond only approaches former politicians via the simpering and pandering reptiles, but a friend sent the pond a link to a Graudian story ...Australia must confront four megatrends that are causing rapid global disruption.
Uh huh. Perforce the pond had to read it, if only to pretend that the pond was paying attention and waddya know:
Today we face four megatrends that are driving rapid and disruptive changes, and which will greatly affect our nation, the region and the world.
These pre-date Covid and are likely to continue well after the pandemic. They are technological advances, shifts in geopolitical and economic power, backlash against globalisation and climate change.
These pre-date Covid and are likely to continue well after the pandemic. They are technological advances, shifts in geopolitical and economic power, backlash against globalisation and climate change.
Do tell, at least on the matter of climate change ...
...My fourth and final megatrend is climate change. This is the drive for carbon emissions reduction and renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels.
Australia has already experienced the extremes of climate-related challenges, but it is a nation historically dependent upon plentiful supplies of cheap fossil fuels to provide baseload power. As researchers from The Australian National University remind us, we have the tools to meet this challenge – but we must act with more urgency.
I am confident Australia can play a useful role in shaping responses to the negative effects of each of these four megatrends.
Julie Bishop is Chancellor of The Australian National University and was Australia’s first female foreign minister. This is an edited extract of her speech delivered at the National Press Club.
The pond confesses it had no idea that Bishop still carried on carrying on, but was pleased she'd found a nice sinecure in academia and can suck up to the splendid profs and researchers at ANU ...
As for the rest, the pond drifted back in time, as you can if you look to Trove or to the Wayback Machine ...
It so happens that tracking Bishop also reminded the pond of another early effort ...Julie Bishop reopens nuclear debate as route to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Latika Bourke set that hare and story running back on 29th November 2014 and it reminded the pond just how long the old 'nuke the country to save the planet' and 'SMRs as the new dream' had been running ...
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says nuclear energy remains an option for Australia, describing it as an "obvious direction" as it considers how to cut carbon dioxide emissions after 2020.
Ms Bishop called for a an open discussion about the feasibility of nuclear power, given Australia's abundance of uranium, but accused Labor of resorting to a scare campaign when the issue was raised during the Howard government years.
"It's an obvious conclusion that if you want to bring down your greenhouse gas emissions dramatically you have to embrace a form of low or zero-emissions energy and that's nuclear, the only known 24/7 baseload power supply with zero emissions," she told Fairfax Media when asked about Australia's options for reaching future carbon-reduction targets.
Ms Bishop flies to Lima, Peru, in just over a week to attend the annual United Nations climate conference, where Australia will face pressure to announce its climate targets for beyond 2020 and it's understood the Prime Minster has personally requested Trade Minister Andrew Robb chaperone Ms Bishop so he can factor in the economic impacts of any new targets Australia considers. Mr Robb, with three major trade deals under his belt, was due to be in South America at the time. Mr Robb was instrumental in influencing the coalition partyroom against former Leader Malcolm Turnbull and his support for Labor's emissions trading scheme.
But new pressure has mounted on Australia in the wake of a recent agreement between the US and China, designed to build momentum for an international treaty due to be struck in Paris in December 2015.
"I always thought that we needed to have a sensible debate about all potential energy sources and, given that Australia has the largest source of uranium, it's obvious that we should at least debate it," she said.
The Liberal Party and its base strongly supports considering nuclear power, but the Coalition has avoided reviving the debate until now. Ms Bishop lamented the result of a 2006 review, commissioned when she was science minister.
"The debate didn't go anywhere. It descended into name calling about which electorates I intended to place a nuclear reactor in, and would I rule out Cottesloe Beach – that kind of puerile debate. So it didn't ever get off the ground," she said.
The review, headed by businessman and nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski, found nuclear power was "a practical option for part of Australia's electricity production" and, if supported, could see plants built within 10 to 15 years.
Dr Switkowski praised Ms Bishop's comments and said "nuclear power simply has to be in the mix in Australia's energy future" given its negligible carbon footprint and Australia's geological stability.
Dr Switkowski said community sentiment towards nuclear power had been warming in Australia until the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
But he said advances in small modular reactors could make nuclear commercially viable for Australia as early as next decade because they addressed the main concerns people typically held about reactors – waste, their proximity to population centres and the risk of a catastrophic accident.
"The small modular reactors will provide a real opportunity to consider nuclear power again because they are a tenth of the size of a nuclear or coal-fired powered station," he said.
But he agreed that if there were improvements in wind and solar technology over the next two decades to make them more reliable around the clock, renewable energy sources could be more viable than nuclear. "It's a bit of a race, given the time that's been lost due to Fukushima," he said.
The government is likely to increase its uranium trade to China and India, and has in the past sold the resource to Russia.
Mr Bishop said: "Other countries are embracing nuclear power as part of their energy mix in order to meet the kind of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that is being considered.
"France is considered as one of the greenest countries on earth [and] has a significant proportion of its energy from nuclear energy."
But the pond really should finish off that first outing ...
Got an asbestos case that's troubling you? She's the woman for you. Want to pander to the onion muncher's climate science denialism? She's the woman for you. Want to spruik SMRs to save the country by 2020? Why look beyond a Bishop, way more useful than a castling? Want someone to muddy the waters by talk of nuking the country? Just make sure she gives a talk to the press club.
Want to pander to a bunch of true believer academics? Why she's the woman who can spin on a dime so fast you're head will spin and all you'll see is a blur. Why aren't you convinced already? She's definitely the woman for you ...
And in that spirit the pond turned to the lizard Oz to see what was making the digital and tree killer headlines, and decided to shove the whole sorry mess into a lumpen montage ...
Something seemed to be missing, and so the pond looked to the comments section ...
Nope, nothing to see there ... perhaps cackling Claire might be able to help ...
A tidy turn of phrase, that reference to global boiling, but not for the reptiles at the lizard Oz ...
Ah, total system costs ... ah renewables ... ah the Graudian ...
At this point, the reptiles slipped in one of their huge snaps ...
Why not an inspirational graph?, the pond wondered ...
Ah yes, Texas, such a sterling example, such a splendid energy system, such a diligent response to climate science ... Climate change has sent temperatures soaring in Texas.
Splendid stuff, and a splendid opening graphic, and lo, the spirit of the vanishing prof lives on, because it wasn't so long ago the pond was proudly featuring ...our very own hole in the bucket man, blessed with exactly the same graphic!
You see? It's called operational interactivity. You just wire all the reptilian minds together to produce a giant hive, and soon enough they can all look and sound exactly the same ...
Sheesh, the boat's burning, and suddenly cackling Claire hovers back into the pond's mind, and using the Bishop to take out the Knight went badly wrong. Quick, another serve of dazzling Dimitri ...
Galileo! Milton! The pond concedes they aren't Thucydides, but are you not astonished at the relevance to brand X?
Ah, an appropriate balance, though the pond suspects it will never find any attention to the lies and misinformation daily peddled in the lizard Oz.
Oh dear, a severed head in the "NO" tray, and so to another and thankfully final serve from a thundering Dimitri, defending the rights of neo-Nazis roaming freely on Twitter ...
Back to Claire, cackling away in her usual style ...
Meanwhile, Claire is still clucking and cackling, as if she's just laid a cost egg ... and never mind all the other unsightly costs going down as she clacks and clicks on her keyboard ...
Well you can read the rest of the Graudian yarn via the link, and the pond is content to present a final cackle, and heil cackling Claire as the Julie Bishop of our time ...
...Extreme heat is presenting new challenges for communities across the state that rely on infrastructure built for a climate of the past.
James Doss-Gollin, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University who has researched adaptation to extreme weather, said the state’s electric grid and dams are two examples of infrastructure that are greatly impacted by increasing temperatures. Just a few degrees of difference, he said, can jeopardize the availability of electricity and the structural integrity of dams.
The grid, for example, is stressed by higher demand when extreme heat causes more people to crank up their air conditioning. At the same time, when high temperatures arrive earlier in the spring and last later into the fall, power plants have smaller and smaller windows to make routine repairs.
“We have a lot of infrastructure that’s very, very sensitive to small changes in the underlying climate,” Doss-Gollin said.
Many dams are small, are privately owned and were built decades ago, when extreme rainfall events like the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 — which dumped as much as 50 inches of rain on some parts of the Gulf Coast over five days — were much less common.
“You don’t know what sort of conditions it’s designed for,” Doss-Gollin said. “It’s a huge challenge.”...
And so on and so forth, and so to the bonus, and the pond was shattered that our Henry had gone AWOL - how to make it through the day without a sermon about Thucydides? - but luckily there was a replacement to hand ...
At this point, the pond's survival mode kicked in, and instead of more lizard Oz illustrations, the pond decided to get them all out of the way in a bulk, knock down offer not be missed ... no sniping, mind you ...
Just slip them in whenever you read a trigger word.
The pond will of course revert to its own illustrations because it's read all this before ...déjà vu or perhaps déjà rêvé being the pond's most common experience when reading the reptiles ...
Why do the reptiles always revert to a far right Trumpian judge? Why must the pond of all places head to The Hill to read How a right-wing judge got social media and free speech dead wrong?
Never mind, Dimitri doesn't get out much, and needs his little earner from the lizard Oz, and now perhaps a Wilcox to offer solace and comfort?
Here, have another distraction ...
Sheesh, even the infallible Pope is using a scorched earth as a metaphor. Is there no escaping memories of the asbestos woman or cackling Claire?
Quick, waiter, a heady draught of dazzling Dimitri ...
Perhaps another distraction ...
Oh dear, a severed head in the "NO" tray, and so to another and thankfully final serve from a thundering Dimitri, defending the rights of neo-Nazis roaming freely on Twitter ...
Or come to think of it, roaming freely on Faux Noise ... Fox Insiders Shudder at Gutfeld’s Latest Holocaust Controversy: ‘Yikes’
Take it away dazzling Dimitri, let there be no gutting of the Gutfeld ... remember, arbeit macht frei, and slavery is a good opportunity to hone valuable work skills ...
Speaking of abominations, it's that tag about being a principal that always gets to the pond, but enough of the abominable reptiles this day ...
Sadly, the pond has used up its local distractions, so perhaps a few imports for a closer, just to remind the pond where following the reptiles will get you ...
"Apparently the science was well known at the time..." And for quite a few years before as well. When did we first know about climate change ? How about:
ReplyDeleteEunice Foote in 1856
John Tyndall in 1861
Svante Arrhenius in 1896 (a Nobel Laureate no less).
Read all about it:
Scientists understood physics of climate change in the 1800s – thanks to a woman named Eunice Foote
https://theconversation.com/scientists-understood-physics-of-climate-change-in-the-1800s-thanks-to-a-woman-named-eunice-foote-164687
No sign of Ergas? He must be overcome as a result of the bedrocks of civilization being battered by climate change. Tours of the Greek ruins, where once Thucydides may have walked, closed due the heat. The Roman landscape burning. Even dear old England suffering the boiling.
ReplyDeleteWe can only hope that he returns soon, duller, more pedantic and less relevant than ever.
DeleteThat's a bit hard to imagine though, isn't it Anony ? A duller, more pedantic and less relevant Holely Henry than the existent one ?
DeleteIf anybody is capable of it, GB, it’s Henry!
DeleteWell that's quite a pair for the day, isn't it: Julie and Claire; neither of which has even the beginnings of a clue as to what they are talking about.
ReplyDeleteBut here's Claire's major input all about the results claimed by an economist named Robert Idel: how "taking into account the full cost of renewable to an energy system, solar is 14 time more costly that nuclear energy, and wind is 4.7 times more costly." Taking that at its apparent meaning, then all the solar and wind so far installed (increasingly around the world) has already cost about as much as the existing nuclear, and putting in even just a little bit more will bankrupt the planet - but fortunately the Americans have made contact with aliens who will lend us what we need.
But anyway, she goes on (following Idel) that "In Texas ... solar is 3.3 times more costly than nuclear, and wind is 2.3 times more costly." Now how did the cost of solar suddenly decrease by 14/3.3 = 4.24 times just because it is in Texas ? Is that where the Trinity that gave us CO2 really lives ?
I was a bit stunned to learn that Julie Bishop is now the Chancellor of the ANU. Other than once having been Federal Education Minister, way back in the Howard Era, I can’t think of anything that qualifies this particular political cockroach for the role. I suppose she could provide advice should the Uni be hit by legal action over asbestos removal from any of the older campus buildings…. Still this is the ANU, an institution that was once silly enough to award me a degree, so its judgement was already pretty suspect.
ReplyDeleteC'mon Anony, Chancellors are nothing much other than well connected introduction services which is a function Bishop is at least marginally qualified to perform. It's "Vice" Chancellors who supposedly run the joint. And for ANU, who is that ?
DeleteTriue, GB, but when I graduated I got to shake the hand of the then Chancellor, Sir John Crawford, who had a long and distinguished history of public service. The thought of shaking hands with JBish makes my skin crawl. Could be worse, though - they could have appointed Bronwyn Bishop to the position.
DeleteBut the question is, Anony, how would they feel about shaking hands with you ? 😄
DeleteHah! Good question, GB - probably sensible to wear gloves, just as a precaution.
DeleteHere’s something that could well trigger the next Reptile Scream-a-Thon -
ReplyDeletehttps://auspost.com.au/community-hub/traditional-place-names
I’m sure that we can all imagine the headlines. Should be worth at least a couple of dozen articles from the usual suspects.
Very interesting indeed, but I do wonder if each and every 'traditional place' only ever had one, unique name that never changed. Or are there any places in Australia that were known to, and differently named by, different 'tribes'?
DeleteIt has been a real challenge to find anything worth reading for several days. Actually, that is more likely ‘to find anything worth reading for the fourth or fifth time’, such is the penchant for repetition by ‘contributors’, but the eClaire has put something on the plate this day, in the form of German-American energy economist Robert Idel.
ReplyDeleteSo odd were the numbers eClaire quoted from Idel that I went looking for more about that author.
Idel received a PhD from Rice University in 2021. It seems that he is doing as many recent ‘Docs’ do - remelding his thesis into multiple papers in different journals, to try to build up a citation index.
An aside on Rice University, there in good ole Houston, Texas. It was founded as a private university from the estate of one William Marsh Rice, prosperous businessman in the 19th century, which means slave owner (and member of his local slave patrol - citizens group to return escapees and generally keep slaves in their place). His wishes included limiting enrolments to white persons, although he was oddly liberal in having no objection to his university accepting women. It took until 1963 for Rice University to amend that part of its charter, and accept non-white students.
Idel’s thesis - readily available online - was titled ‘Efficiency in a New World - Electricity Markets with Renewables and Storage’. He does refer to ‘evaluating the cost of generating electricity by augmenting previous cost measures’ - which seems to include his, er - calculations (augmentations?) on his version of the ‘real’ costs of renewables - but the study is directed more at how spot markets for supply to the distribution system might be tweaked for best efficiency.
But a major source of data is identified by ‘Reliability in electricity markets can be evaluated using the (marginal) Value of Lost Load, which we estimate using a household survey on the experience during the Texas Snow Storm 2021 and the accompanying power outages.’ The outstanding factor in that event in Texas was the insularity of successive state administrations in not connecting to power grids in adjoining states, which ultimately meant that there was no market, because no alternative supply.
As ever, the eClaire has found what seems to be a publication, with numbers convenient to her case (or simply to her need to full a column for this day) but with no inclination to look at the data that provided those remarkably high multiples. Neither did it occur to her that if all Idel’s publications and self-promotion (he does a lot of self-promotion) identifies him as one studying spot markets, then it does not matter what accounting trick you might want to attribute to make up some theoretical ‘cost’ of supply - a spot market responds to the price put up by the potential supplier, coupled with a calculable risk index for the period of supply that is on offer.
The only lingering interest will be to see how readily, and how often, other contributors in the reptile lemniscate will add Idel’s multiples to their ‘gospel’ on why anything favouring renewable generation could not be more wrong. My bet is on Blot.
So from the sound of things, the recently-minted Dr Idel favours a market model which, while it’s Jim dandy from the perspective of company and investor profits, comprehensively fails to meet customer needs? Or, to put it a little less elegantly, resulted in massive human suffering and numerous deaths when the grid experienced increased demand as a result of natural disaster. So yes, it certainly sounds like the sort of guff that free market-loving, climate change denying Reptiles would lap up and endlessly regurgitate.
DeleteHave I ever mentioned, Chad, that there's millions of 'PhDs' (which, as you know, means 'Piled higher and Deeper') graduates in the world, with tens of thousands more every year. And that therefore, since PhDs and Nobels are awarded for a specific result, not for a lifetime's work, that PhDs/Nobel Laureates can be found, with relatively little searching, who will say or assert or whatever 'anything' it is that you want said. See James Watson, for example (who never did even begin to understand the stuff he stole from Rosalind Franklin).
DeleteIdel, it would seem, is just one amongst many recent additions to the list. But ideal for the reptiles, of course, and one wonders just how the reptiles identify and recruit them.
But thank you for your usual comprehensive research and clear exposition.
Anonymous - being a resident, and student, of Houston, I am sure Idel well understood that he should not choose Enron as his example of the 'accounting' that was possible with gas supplies, in those early days of good ole, 'free market' deregulation. After all, it was all verified by the Arthur Andersen conglomerate, right up to the time that AA fell in a heap. No doubt there are still plenty of people around Houston who did well out of Kenneth Lay, and the wonderfully named Jeffrey Skilling those few short years back, so, even though it offered the chance to laugh at the naivety of the state of California's energy trades with Enron, Houston is always Houston.
DeleteTruly lovely memories, Chad, all of them.
DeleteOk so there's Dimitri running the standard reptile line: "I get paid for lying, so don't ever try to stop me."
ReplyDeleteNo, we won't, Dimmy old mate, we'd just like it better if you could do a more entertaining job of things. But do carry on.
ReplyDeleteBurshtein quotes Milton "that the best way to protect the public from bad ideas is to expose them to good ideas and allow the people to make up their own minds." Even in Milton's time it must have been clear that this was not going to lead to the truth triumphing (may I recommend "The Origins of Atheism" at Gresham College, https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/origins-atheism which DP kindly brought to our attention a while ago). See also evolution, vaccination, racism and so on, where the truth has not triumphed. Milton's argument is very feeble.
Hmm: "Once - so the story goes - everyone believed in God." Yeah, I guess that means that everybody believed in the original Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. After all, they predated the later Trinity - God, Jesus and Holy Ghost - by several centuries.
DeleteI confess that I'm always laughingly entertained by this simplistic assumption that there is, and always has been, only one "God" that somehow all of humanity believed in, but now are beginning not to.
There’s a good chuckle to be had over at the Graudian in this week’s “Daily Beast” column. It appears News Corp is now charging employee Reptiles for the cost of subscriptions to the Ninefax rags. Penny-pinching for form’s sake, or desperate cost-cutting wherever possible?
ReplyDeleteHeh. I see that 'Daily Beast' also commented on the slowly dying Q+A that "The program was attacked by both the left and the right...". Who was it who said yesterday that "...try to keep some semblance of balance and that simply makes you into everybody's enemy."?
Delete