A draft New Zealand Energy Strategy is dominated by the Government's conviction that climate change (more properly described as "man-made global warming") is happening and that we must develop renewable energy to save New Zealand from disaster.
The strategy ignores the uncertainties in the evidence claimed to support the belief that man-made global warming is real and dangerous. It cannot explain why, before the days of man-made CO2, the world was warmer during the Middle Ages, Roman and Minoan warm periods. The whole of the Energy Strategy is based on the assumption that the "scenarios" and "projections" of dangerous warming generated by unproven climate models are accurate predictions.
Read the rest of The New Zealand Herald article: 'Brian Leyland: Powering our future or wrecking the economy?'
Meanwhile, in California controversial legislation is also pending to control energy use, in particular:
"In California, we have 236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24...
...What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During "price events" those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them....
...The real question poised by this invasion of the sanctity of our homes by state power is -- why are we doing this? It seems to me to be the wrong fix for a problem that we don't have to have. The common sense alternative is to build new power plants so that power shortages don't occur. Of course, they can't be coal or nuclear power plants! The coastal elites have their minds set against those undesirables. The state has wasted billions of our dollars on wind generation that hasn't helped to meet peak loads. For natural gas, offshore drilling should be considered. While we have one liquefied natural gas terminal in Mexico supplying us with Indonesian and, in the near future, Russian, LNG, another receiving terminal to be supplied by Australian LNG was rejected by the State Coastal Commission.
While nowhere in the Bill of Rights is there explicitly a right to set one's own thermostat to whatever temperature one desires (and is able to pay for), the new PCT requirement certainly seems to violate the "a man's home is his castle" common law dictum.
Californians have until January 30th to send their opinions and comments on the pending revisions to Title 24 to the California Energy Commission and state legislators.
Read the whole article: 'Who Will Control Your Thermostat?' in American Thinker.
"There you have defined the reason why the markets are useless when it comes to AGW. The price of CO2 now does not reflect it's real, long term cost."
What cost? And what about the benefits?
Chrisgo - don't worry, you'll get cost reflective peak prices as well.
Point is, networks need certainty over load going through the lines. Price response is uncertain and may be weak on consecutive hot days. Temperature control, load shifting, load control can be done with minimal impact on amenity but gives the network business certainty.
You're also assuming consumers respond to price, are able to respond to price, know how to respnd to price etc... I know it comes across big brither like but in this case I think big brother knows best.
Look up some of the ETSA utilities load shedding trials. interesting stuff
"I agree, consumers must have the choice - let price be the determining factor."
There you have defined the reason why the markets are useless when it comes to AGW. The price of CO2 now does not reflect it's real, long term cost.
"Thermostat control is an easy cost effective way to managed this and will have minimal impact on home comfort.
So your choice - take a few degrees off your a/c on peak times or pay cost reflective tariffs. when its 40 outside, the difference b/w 22 and 26 is not much. Get over it and get on with it. " Anthony at January 9, 2008 08:05 AM
I agree, consumers must have the choice - let price be the determining factor.
It's the idea of some remote radio monitoring which is disturbing.
'Give them an inch'.. etc.
Ender,
last pot first:
"as far as I read this you said the sedimentary rocks get replenished from the crustal rocks below."
I never mentioned magmas, you did. Now if oil is coming from the mantle, that does not mean as high temperature fronts from ascending "magmas" as you think. Rather, it's based on the identification of deep fracture zones (the origin of which remain problematical) that oil seems to be spatially associated with.
What is a creek job - same as a gully job, depends on whether it's cattle or sheep.
http://www.gasresources.net/KutcherovKenneyEtAl-2002(Russian).pdf is the Russian paper I referred to. I note that your reference isto Kenney's site.
Which means that you have not at all read anything on Kenney's site.
I have some experience dealing with Russian manuscripts as editor of the Aust. Inst. Geoscientists Newsletter, and transposing Russio-English to English is exhausting, mentally.
Ball in your court
Louis - "I have never said that oil bubbles out of magma. Where did you get that idea from?"
Did you say this?
"post above, Since everyone believes oil is fossil fuel, what on earth do you expect them to say? And have a bit of a think about it and figure out how the fossil oil actually got down there in the first place and where it is to be replenishing the oil in sedimentary basins.
You might find underneath the sedimentary basins are crustal rocks (granitoids, gabbroids, etc) and this is where the oil seems to be coming from."
I think you did a few posts back - as far as I read this you said the sedimentary rocks get replenished from the crustal rocks below.
"You have not read Tommy Gold's book, you seem not to have read anything on Kenney's gas resources site (but you do seem to be able to read Russian as the paper I referred to above in an earlier post was written in Russian) so how do you know it was an excellent paper?"
No - what is a Creek Job? BTW there is a translation of the paper here. I guess you read it in Russian if you did not know there was an English translation available.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/172376899v1.pdf
Ender,
you do know what a "creek job" is, don't you?
Ender
I quote you"
Lets assume for a minute that abiotic oil is correct and oil is created in the magma and bubbles up into the sedimentary oil bearing rocks. Given this assumption, as oil is not bubbling out of the ground all over the place, the oil reservoirs must be at equilibrium pressure. That is the upward pressure of the oil bubbling out of the magma which is at incredible pressure (through I assume cracks and vents in the lower containment rocks) must be balanced by the down force of the cap rock that surrounds the porous sedimentary or carbonate rock that contains the pool of oil. So consider what would happen when we drill through the cap rock".
I have never said that oil bubbles out of magma. Where did you get that idea from?
You have not read Tommy Gold's book, you seem not to have read anything on Kenney's gas resources site (but you do seem to be able to read Russian as the paper I referred to above in an earlier post was written in Russian) so how do you know it was an excellent paper?