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Brownedoff

Thanks for the link to the whisky shops.

But seriously, re the usual jumbled b*ll*cks from the renewables lobby...

David MacKay looks at this in Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air.

Annoying units

There’s a whole bunch of commonly used units that are annoying for various reasons. I’ve figured out what some of them mean. I list them here,to help you translate the media stories you read.

Homes

The “home” is commonly used when describing the power of renewable facilities. For example, “The £300 million Whitelee wind farm’s 140 turbines will generate 322 MW – enough to power 200 000 homes.” The “home” is defined by the British Wind Energy Association to be a power of 4700 kWh per year [www.bwea.com/ukwed/operational.asp]. That’s 0.54 kW, or 13 kWh per day. (A few other organizations use 4000 kWh/y per household.)

The “home” annoys me because I worry that people confuse it with the total power consumption of the occupants of a home – but the latter is actually about 24 times bigger. The “home” covers the average domestic electricity consumption of a household, only. Not the household’s home heating. Nor their workplace. Nor their transport. Nor all the energy-consuming things that society does for them.

Incidentally, when they talk of the CO2 emissions of a “home,” the official exchange rate appears to be 4 tons CO2 per home per year.

(Emphasis added).

Rather disappointing if UEA appear to have missed another of their self-imposed deadlines ... this time to provide Andrew with the financial information he has been waiting for.
On Monday they said:

... having sought your clarification that you would be content to receive a response to just question 1 of your original request, we will be providing this information. I am informed that the information is close to completion and you should receive a response prior to the end of the week.

"Tree rings open door on 1100 years of El Nino"

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-tree-door-years-el-nino.html

Your Grace occasionally receives complaints about abusive email arising from your posts. I suggest that when you get such a complaint, you ask for the source IP address of the email and check it against the IP addresses of those who comment here. If there is a correspondence, then you can investigate further, e.g., ask to see the text of the email and exercise your own judgment as to whether it is "fairly unpleasant" or not. In the absence of a correspondence, there's really nothing worth reporting (cf. Nurse on allegedly abusive FOIA requests).

[BH adds: Only works for fixed IP addresses]

Interesting memo from the White House on science and climate collaboration with the UK
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/27/interesting-memo-from-the-white-house-on-science-and-climate-collaboration-with-the-uk/#more-40624

They endorsed the announcement of UK
co-funding of the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for
International Research and Education program in the area of
Sustainable Materials for Energy, agreeing that sustainability should
be a key consideration when making choices among competing energy
technology options.

Does this mean the death of wind power?

At last, a genuine reason to use the cry "trebles all round".

The link below is more useful than the MSM reports of this bombshell, because, at the bottom of the page, there is a button to help a mentally challanged connoisseur find a UK shop where he/she can purchase whisky! Who would have thought that Tesco is listed - every little helps:-

http://www.scotchmaltwhisky.co.uk/scotchwhiskyrenewableenergy.htm

So, a 7,200kW generator ..."– enough to power 9,000 homes - ...."

Right, that 800 watts per home, oh wait minute, is that enough?

Let us see if wind electricity is more useful than whisky waste electricity.

"Thanet Offshore Wind Farm

Vattenfall acquired the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm project in November 2008. Construction was completed September 2010. There are 100 Vestas V90 wind turbines that have a total capacity of 300 MW. This is sufficient to supply more than 200,000 homes per year with clean energy."
See: http://www.vattenfall.co.uk/en/thanet-offshore-wind-farm.htm

So, 300,00 kW of generation for more than 200,000 homes, blimey, at least 1,500 watts per home!

Which is right, or are they both wrong?

You would think that this is something trading standards or the advertising standards agency or even MPs would take on board, surely we do not want the voters to be mislead about "renewables", do we?

Oh, wait a minute.

http://www.cobdencentre.org/2011/05/a-long-way-from-reaching-our-peak/

Brilliant article by Sean Corrigan.

A must read in my opinion.

lapogus

It would be interesting to put on an exhibition of countryside paintings by the old masters that have been touched up to include windmills, solar farms and pylons. It would certainly catch the attention of the MSM and general public. Maybe someone has some contacts in the art world?

Excellent piece against windmills by Simon Jenkins in Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/26/bravo-for-the-nimbys-wind-power