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The Climate Change Thread

MIXED BLESSING Australia fires – Massive RAIN BOMB to bring much-needed relief but could cause deadly LANDSLIDES

See link.

New South Wales is one of the worst states affected by the crisis burning through the country, which has been deemed the worst season since records began.
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A total of 27 people have lost their lives, with over 2,000 properties also burnt away by the raging blazes.

But firefighters working around the clock to tackle the fires have been given new hope by forecasters predicting downpours in NSW and Victoria.

However, the huge rain bomb could cause a new set of dangerous weather conditions.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology published a map showing rain for the majority of the state across the next seven days.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service joyfully tweeted the map, with the caption: “If this rainfall forecast comes to fruition then this will be all of our Christmas, birthday, engagement, anniversary, wedding and graduation presents rolled into one. Fingers crossed.”
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The heaviest downpours are predicted on Thursday, with up to 25mm of rain expected to fall on the south coast.

Sydney, which recently experiences scorching temperatures of 50C, will receive a significant downpour, with between 2-8mm of rain on Thursday and 5-10mm on Friday.

But the forecasters say the rain could cause dangerous landslides.

Meteorologist Gabrielle Woodhouse of the Australian Buerau of Meteorology (BOM) said: “We are looking at a couple of days in a row of some showers and thunderstorms, some of which may produce significant accumulation over those couple of days.

'It will be quite welcome but there are some extra dangers and risks associated with it as the landscape is quite vulnerable with the fire damage. We've lost a lot of vegetations and there is the risk of landslips.”
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NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Anthony Bradsheet said fire conditions would ease on Monday, saying: “We would love rain everywhere. Hopefully we will receive some good rainfall in fire affected areas.”

Sadly, there is no rain forecast for Kangarooo Island in South Australia.

More than 220,000 hectares - around half of Kangaroo Island - have been burnt, decimating tens of thousands of the native koala population and destroying at least 50 homes.
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SunriseChampion said:
Way too late. I wouldn't even applaud that.

"Hey, check it out, I've got lung cancer....totally gonna quit smoking....in like a few months or so."
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I agree the timeline should be more ambitious, but what do I know about what it takes to shut down a major power generating industry?
 
We have an expected timeline for onshore coal power generation in Australia based on expected end-of-economic life/use by dates - in 15 years more than 50% of nameplate capacity will be gone - i.e this is business as usual, the plants just will not make economic sense under current operational environment. That operational environment can be tweaked to make things work faster... but yes, you can't just shut down an entire industry overnight.

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shorter timeframe, but shows the specific power stations over next 20 years (Loy Yang A and B from the chart above aren't on this one, but will likely be the last major operating generators - after Yallourn closes in 2030, they'll be the only ones left in Vic):

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The owners of Yallourn have said 2030 will be when the 4 units will start closing but with a disclaimer: energy/climate policy could see it happen a lot faster.

States have varied policies for renewable energy targets, for instance, Victoria's is 50% by 2030 (in 2019 we were about 25% - on some days, right now, during the day we can hit as high as 50% for an hour or two) and thrown in an EV policy that phases in soonish so that the car market has many more options than it does now in 2025, we'll see rapid per-capita emissions drops.
 
Johnny Au said:
The Outback would be an excellent place to install solar power plants.
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Indeed.
Australia might just be one of the few countries in the world with an even more lacklustre CO2 reduction strategy than Canada. (Though, we have very little to brag about, esp since Ford came into office.)
 
Solar?! Are ye mad!? Coal, baby!!!!! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie...Coal, Coal, Coal!!!



...friggin bogans...sorry, is that racist?
 
Tesla filed a new patent 'Solar roof tile with a uniform appearance'

From link.

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2020 can be a very important year for Tesla Solar. Last year, Tesla presented solar roof, and also announced its expansion in Israel.

During Tesla’s Q3 conference call, Elon Musk said that he thinks Tesla’s solar segment could be as big or even bigger than the company’s automotive business. He also said that Tesla’s resources were mainly focused on the production of Model 3 in the past few years. However, since everything looks stable now, he wants to focus on the solar segment of Tesla.

Today, the company has a number of products that can help the world switch to renewable energy. Solar panels and roofs, energy storage systems and electric cars can make us independent of fossil energy sources. All of these “helpers” were developed by Tesla over the years. The company continues to work to improve its products, as evidenced by its new patents.

Solar tiles, in addition to its direct functions, must correspond to other parameters. One of these parameters is the aesthetic appearance. Tesla strives to make your roof not only functional, but also beautiful. Tesla filed a patent application on July 2, 2018, and it was published on January 2, 2020. This patent relates to a photovoltaic tile that has a uniform color appearance.

Photovoltaic modules, also called PVs or solar panels, which can include a two-dimensional array of solar cells, are usually installed on roofs of buildings. But the photovoltaic tile (or solar tile) can be a special type of photovoltaic module that provides weather protection for the home and a pleasant aesthetic appearance, and also functions as a photovoltaic module for converting solar energy into electricity. The photovoltaic tile may be in the form of a conventional tile and may include one or more solar cells enclosed between the front cover and the back cover, but typically contains less solar cells than conventional solar panels.
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The front and back covers can be made of reinforced glass or other material that protects the solar cells from weathering. To ensure sufficient sunlight transmission, the front cover must be transparent, while encapsulated photovoltaic structures are often dark in color. If viewed from a shallow angle angle, for example, if you look at the roof from the street, dark photovoltaic structures can become visible. Then the color contrast between the photovoltaic structures and the glass lid may have an unaesthetic appearance...
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Cool idea. I recall there was something similar a few years ago from somebody but it either didn't pan out or catch on. Doesn't much help when your roof is covered in 3' of snow but it's a step in the right direction. Given that roof surfaces need to last 20-30 years, I'll let somebody else do the real-world testing.
 
tiffer24 said:
Rex Murphy complains that his feet are cold--so climate change is a hoax. Another conservative who can't distinguish between weather and climate...

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/re...-isnt-it-great-the-carbon-tax-must-be-working
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In other news, Rex Murphy claims the following:
  • Creationism is true because he cannot find an animal that shares the characteristics of both cats and dogs and he is unable to understand how bombardier beetles come to be
  • Ancient aliens must exist because he says that Stonehenge is too difficult to build by ancient Britons, the Pyramids cannot be built by ancient Egyptians, and the Chinese were not capable of building the Great Wall (and according to Murphy, the Great Wall is obviously not built by the Chinese, since the structure has battlements, which are absent from all other Chinese structures)
  • There's a huge subterranean city made out of pure gold existing under Toronto inhabited by millions of dwarves since his house's basement has a tunnel that leads to that city (and he refuses anyone to enter his basement); the city is so deep, no satellite can detect it.
 
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