Wind drought alert

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Rafe Champion

If you like a hot dinner, or hot coffee on the way to work, don’t depend on wind and solar power. This evening the sun was gone across SE Australia by dinnertime and the wind was down to 2% of the power supply with the windmills delivering  7% of their capacity. I define 10% and under as a wind drought.

This was the story told by the NemWatch widget – live display. Tell your friends and relations to check the widget morning and evening to see how much or how little green for wind is visible.

Below is a display from the AEMO data dashboard. This is the fuel mix and another display, the dispatch overview, shows the flows between the states and the prices, all updated at five-minute intervals.

The chart below from Aneroid Energy indicates the state of the wind supply over 24  hours, expressed as a % of the installed capacity.

The whole of the NEM (the SE Australian grid) was below 10% after breakfast, including NSW where the wind was up to average yesterday and went slowly downhill today.

Victoria has been in drought since breakfast.

SA and Tasmania have been in drought since noon yesterday, and Tasmania hit zero just before lunch and registered  -1.4% all afternoon. At 8 it was up to 3%.

 

 

Posted in Electric Power and Energy, Rafe | Leave a comment

Engineers Australia and Al Gore

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus

Here is a full page ad that appeared in the AFR last Thursday

Gore ad AFR 170621

It is announcing the Engineers Australia “Climate Smart Engineering Conference 2021” on 16 – 17 November 2021 with Al Gore as the ‘keynote speaker’.

According to Celebrity Speakers Bureau Gore charges between $100,000 and $1,000,000 as his speaker fee plus first class travel (usually on a private jet).

Who would have thought that Engineers Australia could afford to hire Gore to speak about climate change while consuming more energy than a small town.

If I were a member of EA I would be resigning immediately. I find it quite offensive when conference organisers pay such large amounts for a speaker when there are plenty of people who are more entertaining, better at communicating facts and happy to speak for free.

On a slightly different topic, I read that the ANU – which is facing severe financial hardship and is begging alumni for donations – has spent $400,000 for an office for Julie Bishop (the Chancellor) in Perth. What an outrageous waste of money. Meanwhile Bishop is being paid a fortune to be Chancellor when those chancellors at other universities (such as Martin Parkinson) are doing the job pro bono. Why doesn’t Bishop pay back the privilege she has enjoyed by eschewing payment as chancellor and operating from a home office in Perth for this part time job?

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

The Universal Truth

Posted on June 20, 2021 by currencylad

A venerable literary society succumbs to the nazism of our time and will probably never recover:

Before we go on, understand that the Tolkien Society’s president was, and formally remains, the great J.R.R. Tolkien himself. His daughter, Priscilla, currently serves as the vice president. At its annual seminar, scholars present academic papers, archival materials are sometimes displayed and discussed, and a serious effort is generally made to understand and appreciate Tolkien’s unique genius…

But this year, seminar attendees will be subjected to something different. Papers to be presented include, “Gondor in Transition: A Brief Introduction to Transgender Realities in The Lord of the Rings,” “The Lossoth: Indigeneity, Identity, and Antiracism,” and “‘Something Mighty Queer’: Destabilizing Cishetero Amatonormativity in the Works of Tolkien.” Pretty much the entire program is like this.

The best thing we can say about a Tolkien conference that presents papers on, say, “Pardoning Saruman?: The Queer in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings,” or “The Invisible Other: Tolkien’s Dwarf-Women and the ‘Feminine Lack,’” is that the scholars in question do not know the first thing about Tolkien or the meaning of his work. The worst we can say is that they hate Tolkien and his work, and would like very much to destroy it.

 
Meanwhile, art ‘experts’ are praising the raw talent of straw (and crack pipe) blower Hunter Biden whose ‘works’ are now fetching up to $500,000 from confidential buyers – who may or may not be Chinese. “I don’t paint from emotion or feeling, which I think are both very ephemeral,” the gifted dribbler deadpanned last week. “For me, painting is much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth.”

Posted in Books and writing, Cultural Issues | 38 Comments

Jon Stewart on the lab-leak theory

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Sinclair Davidson

This seems to have generated a lot of excitement.

Remember – he is actually a comedian. (Allegedly anyway).

From the Washington Post piece that CL linked to:

But it’s not that. On the lab leak question, I’m agnostic. Might that be where the virus came from? Sure. Or maybe not. But it matters only for the historical record and questions like “What should international virology lab safety standards require?” As a political question, it’s pretty much irrelevant.

Even though Trump briefly claimed in 2020 (a claim he quickly dropped) that he had lots of evidence that the lab leak theory was true, what did it change? Had we had definitive proof from the get-go that it came from a lab, would Trump’s response to the pandemic, and the resulting death toll, have been less disastrous? Once the pandemic was here, it was here.

Yep – I have a lot of sympathy for that view. However Covid came to be, it would have made no difference to how we have lived over the past 18 months or so.

Ironically, however, the world would be a better place if the lab-leak theory is correct. Not because this would prove Trump to be correct, or give Sinophobes another excuse to beat up on the Chinese, etc. etc. etc.

Rather it would mean that the world is a safer place. That Covid did not naturally occur and infect and then kill millions of people. Rather it was manufactured, in a lab, where improvements to safety can occur. Funding can be cancelled. Dangerous experiments can be avoided. So on.

If diseases like Covid can occur naturally, the world is a very dangerous place. Of course, if diseases like Covid are manufactured in labs, the world still dangerous, but less dangerous. That danger we can control.

Posted in COVID-19, Culture Wars | 51 Comments

Ivermectin cures Covid according to The American Journal of Therapeutics

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Steve Kates

Ivermectin cures Covid according to The American Journal of Therapeutics.

Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection

A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines

Bryant, Andrew MSc1,*; Lawrie, Theresa A. MBBCh, PhD2; Dowswell, Therese PhD2; Fordham, Edmund J. PhD2; Mitchell, Scott MBChB, MRCS3; Hill, Sarah R. PhD1; Tham, Tony C. MD, FRCP4

 

Abstract

Background:

Repurposed medicines may have a role against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The antiparasitic ivermectin, with antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, has now been tested in numerous clinical trials.

Areas of uncertainty:

We assessed the efficacy of ivermectin treatment in reducing mortality, in secondary outcomes, and in chemoprophylaxis, among people with, or at high risk of, COVID-19 infection.

Data sources:

We searched bibliographic databases up to April 25, 2021. Two review authors sifted for studies, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias. Meta-analyses were conducted and certainty of the evidence was assessed using the GRADE approach and additionally in trial sequential analyses for mortality. Twenty-four randomized controlled trials involving 3406 participants met review inclusion.

Therapeutic Advances:

Meta-analysis of 15 trials found that ivermectin reduced risk of death compared with no ivermectin (average risk ratio 0.38, 95% confidence interval 0.19–0.73; n = 2438; I2 = 49%; moderate-certainty evidence). This result was confirmed in a trial sequential analysis using the same DerSimonian–Laird method that underpinned the unadjusted analysis. This was also robust against a trial sequential analysis using the Biggerstaff–Tweedie method. Low-certainty evidence found that ivermectin prophylaxis reduced COVID-19 infection by an average 86% (95% confidence interval 79%–91%). Secondary outcomes provided less certain evidence. Low-certainty evidence suggested that there may be no benefit with ivermectin for “need for mechanical ventilation,” whereas effect estimates for “improvement” and “deterioration” clearly favored ivermectin use. Severe adverse events were rare among treatment trials and evidence of no difference was assessed as low certainty. Evidence on other secondary outcomes was very low certainty.

Conclusions:

Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.

Ivermectin Hesitancy will be the death of the West and of many of its citizens.

Posted in COVID-19, Politics of the Left | 46 Comments

Washington Post cancels one of its own

Posted on June 19, 2021 by currencylad

Posted in Politics of the Left | 18 Comments

When wind turbines die.

Posted on June 19, 2021 by Rafe Champion

Turbines are supposed to last 20 years or more according to industry PR but they lose a lot of efficiency by 14 or 15 and if the tower is big enough they might put a new assembly on top and in US get the tax deduction again.

Old turbines are usually too small for that conversion to they are simply junked one way or another. One way is to walk away and leave them, another is to blow them up after extracting some useable bits.

Here no effort was made to preserve foundations or other wind farm infrastructure. CDI’s crew felled the 90 Units in two (2) mobilizations to the site, permitting the Wind Farm Owner to complete salvage of blades and drive-train elements from some of the wind turbines to provide replacement parts for similar Units. The Units were safely felled, exactly per plan, and ahead of schedule.

Fascinating footage.  Exploding windmills!  Two-minute video followed by top 10 turbine failures.

Posted in Global warming and climate change policy, Rafe | 18 Comments

Patronising leftists roll out the watermelons

Posted on June 19, 2021 by currencylad

Posted in Politics of the Left, Western Civilsation | 18 Comments

Pulp Non-Fiction

Posted on June 19, 2021 by currencylad
Watching the last Resident Evil film.
It’s basically a documentary at this point.”

– Friday night at Arky’s

Posted in Cultural Issues, Site News | 14 Comments

More hypocrisy

Posted on June 19, 2021 by Sinclair Davidson

The Telegraph again:

As I write, the government is in talks with Uefa and Fifa to exempt 2500 VIPs and officials from the need to quarantine when they travel to Britain for the final of the Euros on 11 July. Uefa has threatened to take the final away from London and hold it in Budapest instead unless it wins an exemption. Will the government resist the demands of football’s great and good in favour of maintaining the integrity of a traffic light system for overseas travel which it insists is essential to prevent the importation of new variants of Covid? Like hell it will. You can bet the Prime Minister’s desire to be up there in Wembley’s royal box on 11 July rubbing shoulders with other leaders will trump any fear of new variants and any intent to apply consistent rules.

Here in Australia:

But on Friday, June 11, that same gleeful vision of concertgoers enjoying themselves – in a corner of the nation devoid of Covid-19 infections – had been used as evidence to enforce the sudden closure of an award-winning southeast Queensland music venue at the behest of the state.

In effect, the NightQuarter saga is a flashpoint for an industry under siege that has done its best to abide by the ever-shifting playbook of state health bureaucrats, whose powers have grown dramatically during the pandemic.

…

The public health directive, seen by The Weekend Australian, stated that the Sunshine Coast Public Health Unit had received complaints from members of the public and the Queensland Police Service stemming from concerts headlined by Perth band Spacey Jane on June 4 and 5.

The document alleged that the NightQuarter venue operators had breached the Public Health Act on four occasions, citing instances of “failure to ensure patrons were seated in their assigned seats” and “operating a dance area with an occupant density of greater than one person per two square metres”.

But spot the hypocrisy.

Those working in the Australian live music industry have watched on in horror, wondering whether their venue or their sold-out concerts might be next to feel the blowtorch.

What’s most galling to those who work in the live performance sector, though, is that major sports events continue to proceed, week after week, with minimal restrictions.

Just days after the Spacey Jane concerts at NightQuarter on June 4 and 5, where Public Health Act breaches are alleged to have occurred, the Queensland government reportedly had paid $8m to ensure the year’s first State of Origin rugby league match was held in Townsville.

At Queensland Country Bank Stadium on June 9, football fans flocked to fill the stadium’s existing 25,000 seats, while an additional temporary grandstand effectively increased its venue capacity beyond 100 per cent.

There does appear to be some hope.

Rather than keeping mum, Mr Van der Woude and Ms Christoe chose to hit back hard by energising their networks in politics and the media within hours of being handed the document by health officials.

…

The public blowback was so fierce and swift that state health officials had approved a modified version of the venue’s Covid-Safe plan by Wednesday evening.

Don’t get mad – get even. Tell your elected representatives that you are unhappy.

Posted in COVID-19, Hypocrisy of progressives, Oppressive government | 20 Comments