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To: Brumar89 who wrote (78562)	7/25/2017 5:06:13 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

World’s first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland–At huge cost to UK electricity users JULY 24, 2017 By Paul Homewood h/t Joe Public Harrabin’s been a busy boy this week! The world’s first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines. The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes. Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones. It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the US, where waters are deep. The Hywind project is being run in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi firm Masdar. The £190m cost was subsidised by bill-payers under the UK government’s Renewable Obligation Certificates. bbc.co.uk Offshore wind farms receive 1.8 ROCs per MWh, and at the current market price of about £45, this works out at £8.5 million a year. With an expected life of 20 years, Hywind’s owners can expect to earn a total of £170 million in subsidies from bill payers, on top of the value of electricity produced. And all for supplying just 20,000 homes! Contrast to the Carrington CCGT power station opened last year, which cost £1bn and can supply 1 million homes, with no subsidy at all. Hywind claim that the cost of future projects may come down. But why on earth are UK bill payers being made to pick up the cost, so that Norwegian Statoil and Abu Dhabi Masdar can eventually sell their technology to Japan and the US? Knut A. Lian PERMALINK July 24, 2017 3:38 pm Thousands of tons of steel per mill, for heavy chains, 5000 tons of iron ore, copper, GRE, lots of rear neodynium etc. All the environmental impact from mining and processing, and CO2 emissions. It will never produce more electricity or reduce CO2 more than the manufacturing and decommissioning and recycling. It will produce highly variable electricity if the wind blows. A pain in the butt for any power grid. The lifetime will be 10 years. Not 15 due to higher stresses offshore. Costly and subsidices. A killer for Scotish industry due to higher electricity cost. Unrelayables. notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78562)	7/26/2017 8:43:28 AM
From: Eric	Respond to of 86355

El Niño southern oscillation Extreme El Niño events more frequent even if warming limited to 1.5C – report Modelling suggests Australia would face more frequent drought-inducing weather events beyond any climate stabilisation The risk of extreme El Niño events would rise from five events per century to 10 by 2050 under a scenario that presumes warming peaks at 1.5C by that year. Photograph: Alamy Australian Associated Press Tuesday 25 July 2017 00.25 BST Extreme El Niño events that can cause crippling drought in Australia are likely to be far more frequent even if the world pulls off mission improbable and limits global warming to 1.5C. International scientists have released new modelling that projects drought-causing El Niño events, which pull rainfall away from Australia, will continue increasing in frequency well beyond any stabilisation of the climate. Even if warming is limited to 1.5C – something scientists have warned is unlikely if not impossible – the modelling suggests Australia will face more frequent drought-inducing weather events. The risk of extreme El Niño events would rise from the current five events per century to 10 per century by 2050 under a scenario that presumes warming peaks at 1.5C by that year. But the risk keeps on rising for a further 100 years – to about 14 events per century by 2150. Temperature-boosting El Niño set for early return this year Read more theguardian.com The risk of extreme El Niño events would not level off even if the climate was stabilised, CSIRO researcher and lead report author Dr Guojian Wang said. “This result is unexpected and shows that future generations will experience greater climate risks associated with extreme El Niño events than seen at 1.5C warming,” Wang said. Report co-author Dr Wenju Cai said extreme El Niño events occured when the usual El Niño Pacific rainfall centre was pushed eastwards towards South America. Sometimes it moves by up to 16,000km, causing massive changes in the climate. “This pulls rainfall away from Australia, bringing conditions that have commonly resulted in intense droughts across the nation,” said Cai, director of the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research. “During such events, other countries like India, Ecuador and China have experienced extreme events, with serious socioeconomic consequences.” The global Paris climate change agreement seeks to limit global warming to below 2C, a target intended to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But the Paris deal, recently abandoned by the United States, also set an aspirational target of 1.5C – a demand from the most vulnerable countries, including low-lying island nations in the Pacific. Dr Scott Power, head of climate research at the Bureau of Meteorology, said most small island states in the Pacific had a limited capacity to cope with major floods and droughts, and the latest modelling was very bad news for them. “To make matters worse, our recent study published ... indicates that the risk of major disruptions to Pacific rainfall have already increased. And unfortunately, these El Niño-related impacts will add to the other challenges of climate change, such as rising sea levels, ocean acidification and increasing temperature extremes,” he said. The latest research on the El Niño risk has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change. theguardian.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78562)	7/26/2017 8:44:41 AM
From: Eric	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 86355

Climate change Climate Consensus - the 97% Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought How we define “pre-industrial” is important Participants looks at a screen projecting a world map with climate anomalies during the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21). Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters Dana Nuccitelli Monday 24 July 2017 16.06 BST Last modified on Tuesday 25 July 2017 15.55 BST In the Paris climate treaty, nearly every world country agreed to try and limit global warming to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, and preferably closer to 1.5°C. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change notes that the agreement didn’t define when “pre-industrial” begins. Our instrumental measurements of the Earth’s average surface temperature begin in the late-1800s, but the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700s. There’s also a theory that human agriculture has been influencing the global climate for thousands of years, but the mass burning of fossil fuels kicked the human influence into high gear. We may be at 1°C or 1.2°C warming since “pre-industrial” We know that since the late-1800s, humans have caused global surface temperatures to rise by about 1°C. But what about the human influence in the centuries before that, which are technically still “pre-industrial”? The new study used climate model simulations from 1401 to 1800, during which time we know the climate influences of natural effects like solar and volcanic activity fairly well. They found that depending on the starting point, global surface temperatures during that period were 0 to 0.2°C cooler than the late-1800s. According to the last IPCC report, to have a 50% chance of staying below the 2°C target, when accounting for non-carbon greenhouse gases, we have a remaining budget of about 300bn tons of carbon dioxide. But that was for 2°C warming above late-1800 temperatures. If we add another 0.1°C of pre-industrial warming, the study authors estimated that the budget shrinks by 60bn tons (20%), and if there was an additional 0.2°C pre-industrial warming, the 2°C carbon budget shrinks by 40%. As one of the study authors Michael Mann put it: Either the Paris targets have to be revised, or alternatively, we decide that the existing targets really were meant to describe only the warming since the late 19th century. It’s an important point if we want to measure whether we’ve succeeded or failed in meeting the Paris climate targets. And it’s important to know if our budget should be set at no more than 300bn tons, or more like 200bn tons of carbon dioxide pollution. We’re moving in the wrong direction However, we’re not yet on track to meet the Paris climate target budget. Based on current national pledges, humans will cause around 3 to 3.5°C warming above late-1800 temperatures by 2100. But the Paris treaty included a ratcheting mechanism through which countries can gradually make their carbon pollution targets more aggressive. If successful, that ratcheting could limit global warming to 1.8°C above late-1800 temperatures, which is likely less than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures. Global greenhouse gas emissions and 2100 temperatures under no action, current pledges (INDCs), and successful ratcheting scenarios. Illustration: Climate Interactive To accomplish that goal, the US would have to ratchet its carbon pollution down to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, for example. But at the moment, America is moving in the wrong direction, shamefully becoming the only nation announcing withdrawal from the Paris treaty, aiming to join Nicaragua (which declined to sign due to objections that the agreement was too weak) and Syria (which did not participate due to a civil war) as the only non-signatory countries. Fortunately, other countries like China and the EU are stepping up to fill the global leadership role vacated by America under the Trump administration. Regardless, we need to cut carbon pollution ASAP It’s also important to remember that 2°C isn’t a red line – that if we cause 2.1°C the world will end or that at 1.9°C everything will be fine and dandy. The 2°C target is a reasonable one for two reasons: 1) Above about 2°C we start to get into the realm where there’s a significant risk of major climate impacts, like widespread coral bleaching, declining food production, significant sea level rise, and up to 30% of global species at risk of extinction. 2) From a practical political standpoint, meeting the 2°C carbon budget is about the best we can do. Even that will require aggressive global action, with countries ratcheting down their carbon pollution targets. But the key takeaway is that the more global warming we cause, the costlier and more damaging climate impacts will be. The faster we curb our climate pollution, the lower the risk of a climate catastrophe or especially damaging climate impacts. We’re at the point where we need to cut carbon pollution as quickly as feasibly possible. That’s true whether Earth has warmed 1.0 or 1.1 or 1.2°C above “pre-industrial” temperatures. However, knowing which is the case is useful for setting concrete targets and evaluating whether we meet them. But if we’re going to meet them, we’ll have to quickly reverse the mistakes of the Trump administration. theguardian.com