Climate obstruction bingo

From CommsDeclare 

Golf courses take up more land than solar farms

Coal apologists are always going on and on about how solar panels will cover the whole world if we go solar and don't keep on using coal.  It is utter rubbish, of course.  And here's a nice chart showing how absurd it is.  By the way, 13% of all electricity in Australia comes from rooftop solar.  Yes.

 From Dr Paul Dorfman

Why Trump and big oil won't win

 This is my chart using data from Our World In Data of the price of PV panels in US$ per watt, in constant 2024 dollars.  In other words, a 5000 kW system, ignoring inverter, grid connections, land, and installation would cost 5000x30 cents, or $1500.  (Of course, this pricing is for wholesale systems with economies of scale; a rooftop solar system would be more expensive.)   This is a 99.8% fall from 1975.

Note logarithmic scale

On its own, this is not enough to show that solar will provide most of our power, inevitably, eventually.  After all, the denialists will gleefully tell you the sun doesn't shine at night (goodness me, who knew?) 

So you've got to add the cost of storage.  And the fact is, battery prices are falling even faster than PV prices. 

This chart shows BNEF's battery costs survey data, also in constant dollars, with my estimates for 2025 and 2026.  If you do the numbers, it turns out that adding 4 hours of storage to a solar farm will add just $12/MWh of electricity generated to the cost.  Adding 8 hours storage would cost $24/MWh, which is still cheaper than new coal, or (outside the US) new gas.

Note log scale

But, I hear the denialists wail, what about dunkeflaute, those periods in high latitudes when there is no wind, and little solar, and it's cold?  Well, until we get long-term storage, we will need gas peaking.  We can make the gas using electrolysis of water, and using the hydrogen produced to make methane via the Sabatier system, which would in effect be long-term storage.  Or we can go on using fossil gas.  But even if we do the latter, we will still have cut emissions from electricity generation by 95%.  

A final chart from Our World in Data.  It shows a classic "learning curve".  A new technology starts.  It's expensive, and has only a few uses out in the wild.   But usage increases.  Manufacturers get a bit better at making it.  Demand increases, costs fall.  Falling costs lead to still more demand, which in turn leads to still lower prices, and so on, until the technology has gained a 100% market share. 

The chart uses a double log scale.  On the vertical axis, each tick mark shows a halving of PV module prices.   On the horizontal axis, each tick mark shows a 10-fold increase in cumulative installations.  So each 10-fold increase in installations leads to a halving of module prices --- and vice versa.

There is probably another 10-fold increase in solar installations in prospect over the next 10 years.  Which will be associated with another halving of the cost of solar.  Meanwhile, the rapid progress of EVS and the need for stationary storage will drive down battery costs, which will continue to halve every four years.

This is irresistible.  The learning curve is being driven by fierce competition, which in turn drives rapid technological advance.  There is nothing Trump or Big Oil or coal miners or the rabid Right can do about this.  They can delay the technological advances in the USA, which will just retard the US economy, but in the rest of the world, the advance of solar plus storage to market dominance in inevitable.  Except in high latitudes.

Hottest January since 1940

 From Prof Eliot Jacobson

And still we do nothing to slash emissions.  And we've elected a climate-denying cretin to the White House.

Bogus anti-solar claims exposed

From This is Not Cool (formerly Climate Denial Crock of the week, or as I called it, ClimateCrocks)

Great new resource from Columbia University – Rebutting Claims about Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles. Of course, I’ve been doing this for some time, but it’s great to have a resource like this bookmarked.

There are takedowns for 33 common claims, I’ll post a few every day or so. By all means bookmark the original document – where all the assertions of fact are footnoted.

Columbia University:

False Claim #1: Electromagnetic fields from solar farms are harmful to human health.

“The EMF (electromagnetic field) from solar farms poses serious health risks especially to those who have electromagnetic hypersensitivity.”

The electromagnetic fields generated at a solar farm are similar in strength and frequency to those of toaster ovens and other household appliances—and harmless to humans. A detailed analysis from North Carolina State University concluded that there is “no conclusive and consistent evidence” of “negative health impact[s] from the EMF [electromagnetic fields]
produced in a solar farm.”

EMF exposure levels vary according to the EMF source, proximity to the source, and duration of the exposure. On a solar farm, EMFs are highest around electrical equipment such as inverters. However, even when standing next to the very largest inverter at a utility-scale solar farm, one’s exposure level (up to 1,050 milligauss, or mG) is less than one’s exposure level while operating an electric can opener (up to 1,500 mG), and well within accepted exposure limits (up to 2,000 mG).

When standing just nine feet from a residential inverter, or 150 feet from a utility-scale inverter, one’s exposure drops to “very low levels of 0.5 mG or less, and in many cases . . . less than background levels (0.2 mG).”33 For comparison, a typical American’s average background exposure level is 1mG, reaching 6 mG when standing three feet from a refrigerator, and 50 mG when standing three feet from a microwave.

The electromagnetic fields present on a solar farm constitute “non-ionizing radiation,” which, by definition, generates “enough energy to move atoms in a molecule around (experienced as heat), but not enough energy to remove electrons from an atom or molecule (ionize) or to damage DNA.”

In addition, EMFs are extremely low in frequency, which means
they contain “less energy than other commonly encountered types of non-ionizing radiation like radio waves, infrared  radiation, and visible light.”

False Claim #2: Toxic heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, leach out from solar panels and pose a threat to human health.

Roughly 40% of new solar panels in the United States and 5% of new solar panels in the world contain cadmium, but this cadmium is in the form of cadmium telluride, which is non-volatile, non-soluble in water, and has 1/100th the toxicity of free cadmium.

Most solar panels, like many electronics, contain small amounts of lead.40 However, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DER) has assessed that “because PV panel materials are enclosed, and don’t mix with water or vaporize into the air, there is little, if any, risk of chemical releases to the environment during normal use.”

The Massachusetts DER has further assessed that, even in the unlikely event of panel breakage, releases of chemicals used in solar panels are “not a concern.”

All materials in a solar panel are “insoluble and non-volatile at ambient conditions,” and “don’t mix with water or vaporize into air.”

Moreover, they are encased in tempered glass that not only withstands high temperatures, but is also strong enough to pass hail tests and is regularly installed in Arctic and Antarctic conditions. It is theoretically possible that, when exposed to extremely high heat exceeding that of a typical residential fire, panels “could emit vapors and particulates from PV panel components to the air.” But that risk is limited by the fact that “the silicon and other chemicals that comprise the solar panel would likely bind to the glass that covers the PV cells and be retained there.” 

When a cadmium telluride panel is exposed to fire of an intensity sufficient to melt the glass on the panel, “over 99.9% of the cadmium [is encapsulated in] the molten glass.”

Furthermore, a 2013 analysis found that, even in the worst-case scenarios of earthquakes, fires, and floods, “it is unlikely that the [cadmium] concentrations in air and sea water will exceed the environmental regulation values.”

 

Exxon's breathtakingly accurate climate predictions

From The Guardian

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.

A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use.

A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards, predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.

Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”.

Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with what subsequently happened.

“This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science. These graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.”

The research analyzed more than 100 internal documents and peer-reviewed scientific publications either produced in-house by Exxon scientists and managers, or co-authored by Exxon scientists in independent publications between 1977 and 2014.

The analysis found that Exxon correctly rejected the idea the world was headed for an imminent ice age, which was a possibility mooted in the 1970s, instead predicting that the planet was facing a “carbon dioxide induced ‘super-interglacial’”. Company scientists also found that global heating was human-influenced and would be detected around the year 2000, and they predicted the “carbon budget” for holding the warming below 2C above pre-industrial times.

Armed with this knowledge, Exxon embarked upon a lengthy campaign to downplay or discredit what its own scientists had confirmed. As recently as 2013, Rex Tillerson, then chief executive of the oil company, said that the climate models were “not competent” and that “there are uncertainties” over the impact of burning fossil fuels.

“What they did was essentially remain silent while doing this work and only when it became strategically necessary to manage the existential threat to their business did they stand up and speak out against the science,” said Supran.

“They could have endorsed their science rather than deny it. It would have been a much harder case to deny it if the king of big oil was actually backing the science rather than attacking it.”

Climate scientists said the new study highlighted an important chapter in the struggle to address the climate crisis. “It is very unfortunate that the company not only did not heed the implied risks from this information, but rather chose to endorse non-scientific ideas instead to delay action, likely in an effort to make more money,” said Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University.

Mahowald said the delays in action aided by Exxon had “profound implications” because earlier investments in wind and solar could have averted current and future climate disasters. “If we include impacts from air pollution and climate change, their actions likely impacted thousands to millions of people adversely,” she added.

Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University, said the new study was a “detailed, robust analysis” and that Exxon’s misleading public comments about the climate crisis were “especially brazen” given their scientists’ involvement in work with outside researchers in assessing global heating. Shindell said it was hard to conclude that Exxon’s scientists were any better at this than outside scientists, however.

The new work provided “further amplification” of Exxon’s misinformation, said Robert Brulle, an environment policy expert at Brown University who has researched climate disinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry.

“I’m sure that the ongoing efforts to hold Exxon accountable will take note of this study,” Brulle said, a reference to the various lawsuits aimed at getting oil companies to pay for climate damages.

 

China's emissions set for structural decline

From The Guardian

China’s carbon emissions could peak this year before falling into a structural decline for the first time from next year after a record surge in clean energy investments, according to research.

Emissions from the world’s most polluting country have rebounded this year after the Chinese government dropped its Covid restrictions in January, according to analysis undertaken for Carbon Brief.

However, this rebound in fossil fuel demand emerged alongside a historic expansion of the country’s low-carbon energy sources, which was far in excess of policymakers’ targets and expectations.

Beijing’s solar and wind installation targets for the year were met by September, according to the report, and the market share of electric vehicles is already well ahead of the government’s 20% target for 2025. [Update in January 2025: EVs and PHEVs now make up >50% of total car sales in China]

“These record additions are all but guaranteed to push fossil-fuel electricity generation and CO2 emissions into decline in 2024,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the author of the report.

The most striking growth has been in solar power, according to Myllyvirta. Solar installations increased by 210 gigawatts (GW) this year alone, which is twice the total solar capacity of the US and four times what China added in 2020.

The analysis, which is based on official figures and commercial data, found that China installed 70GW of wind power this year – more than the entire power generation capacity of the UK. It is also expected to add 7GW of hydro power and 3GW of nuclear power capacity this year, said the report.

Myllyvirta said the boom in clean energy generation could trigger a decline in China’s emissions from next year despite a wave of new coal plants across the country.

“This is because – for the first time – the rate of low-carbon energy expansion is now sufficient to not only meet, but exceed the average annual increase in China’s demand for electricity overall,” he said.

“If this pace is maintained, or accelerated, it would mean that China’s electricity generation from fossil fuels would enter a period of structural decline – which would also be a first. Moreover, this structural decline could come about despite the new wave of coal plant permitting and construction in the country,” Myllyvirta added.

China had 136GW of coal power capacity already under construction at the end of June, with a further 99GW with planning permits. Another 25GW has been permitted since then, according to the research, which would breach a policy pledge made by the country’s president, Xi Jinping, to “strictly control new coal-fired power generation projects”.

China has forecast that its coal power capacity will peak at 1,370GW in 2030, which would require either an immediate end to new coal power permits, or an accelerated shutdown of existing and planned coal plants, said Myllyvirta.

So, first off, how can Carbon Brief be so confident, given the surge in new coal power stations?  

During the 2022 extreme drought in China (ironically worsened by climate change) there were power shortages as hydro generation collapsed and demand for air-conditioning zoomed.  The Chinese authorities responded by unfreezing coal power station planning requests.  But these new coal power stations were to be back-ups for nuclear, hydro, wind and solar.  Capacity utilisation in coal generation in China is already below 50% (the norm is 70-90%) and the majority of coal power stations are loss-making.  But that doesn't matter in China's system.  Unlike power stations and the grid in other countries, China's power stations don't have to make a profit.  They're seen as a public service.  And widespread, lasting power failures are seen as unacceptable, more unacceptable than loss-making power stations.   For example, you could run the grid using solar during the day and coal at night (which, if you think about it, would halve emissions).  Of course, this makes coal power even more expensive, because the plants are only being used for half the day.  In Australia, that dynamic is pushing coal power stations towards bankruptcy; in China, it doesn't really matter.

Second, if China's emissions have peaked, that would mean that global emissions have peaked too.

Look at the chart below.   This includes all emissions except land use change (i.e., clearing forests for food.)  Europe's emissions peaked in 1990 and are back where they were in 1965.  US emissions peaked in 2006, and are back where they were in 1988.  But China's and India's emissions, by contrast, have exploded.  This is because they are rapidly growing economies, and until recently coal was the cheapest source of electricity.  Most of the rise in emissions over the last few decades has been because of China.  So, even if China's emissions only fall slowly, global emissions will have peaked.  (It would help if India's emissions also peaked, but that seems unlikely just yet.)  And if China's emissions start to fall, the excuse offered up by denialists that 'why should we do anything when China isn't?' will be invalidated.

This isn't unmitigated good news.  The rise in global temperatures is proportional to the level of global emissions.  To halve the decadal rise in emissions (currently 0.2 degrees, but showing ominous signs of having increased to 0.28 degrees) we need to halve emissions.  

Let's say global emissions fall by 3% a year.  This will reduce emissions by just 25% over the next 10 years, 45% over 20 years.  Not enough to prevent 2 degrees of warming.  5% a year would reduce emissions by 40% over 10 years, and 80% over 30 years.  That's a lot better, but still far from ideal.  The prospective decline in emissions, though very welcome, just isn't fast enough.  Yet. (To reduce emissions by 90% by 2050, they would have to fall by ~8% per annum.)

Source:  Our World in Data

What denialists say now

 By Ruben Bolling

Greenland melt punching off the charts

 From a tweet by Professor Jason Box

Greenland melt punching off the charts

Yet still we subsidise fossil fuels.  Still we do too little to slash emissions.  Still the Right are wall-to-wall denialists.  

The temperature escalator

From ....And then there's Physics

One of the most well-known graphics from Skeptical Science is the escalator. It illustrates how contrarians tend to cherry-pick short time intervals so as to argue that there’s been no warming, while “realists” recognise the reality of long-term warming.

A classic example of the former was the so-called pause, which was based on claims that there had been no warming since the strong El Nino in 1998. Of course, as illustrated by the escalator, there really hadn’t been a pause in global warming.

The Skeptical Science escalator is, however, now slightly dated, with the latest version ending in 2015. I also noticed that Robert Rohde had presented an updated version on Twitter, which he called the staircase of denial.

This motivated me to produce an updated version for Skeptical Science, which I’ve also posted below.

Climate Scientist reacts to Jordan Peterson

A video from ClimateAdam

Jordan Peterson is at it again: (knowingly) sharing misinformation, while asking "Anyone object to this chart?". But what's the truth behind natural climate change, and why is Peterson's representation of global warming so misleading? Climate scientists joined forces to explain and object to the graph that Jordan Peterson presented. I break down the reality and what's really going on in tweets like this.

Dotty right-wing still denies climate change

 From a tweet by Richard Wike, from Pew Research.  

A cynical campaign to spread climate denialism

From the BBC via Yahoo!

Thirty years ago, a bold plan was cooked up to spread doubt and persuade the public that climate change was not a problem. The little-known meeting - between some of America's biggest industrial players and a PR genius - forged a devastatingly successful strategy that endured for years, and the consequences of which are all around us.

On an early autumn day in 1992, E Bruce Harrison, a man widely acknowledged as the father of environmental PR, stood up in a room full of business leaders and delivered a pitch like no other.

At stake was a contract worth half a million dollars a year - about £850,000 in today's money. The prospective client, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) - which represented the oil, coal, auto, utilities, steel, and rail industries - was looking for a communications partner to change the narrative on climate change.

Don Rheem and Terry Yosie, two of Harrison's team present that day, are sharing their stories for the first time.

"Everybody wanted to get the Global Climate Coalition account," says Rheem, "and there I was, smack in the middle of it."

The GCC had been conceived only three years earlier, as a forum for members to exchange information and lobby policy makers against action to limit fossil fuel emissions.

Though scientists were making rapid progress in understanding climate change, and it was growing in salience as a political issue, in its first years the Coalition saw little cause for alarm. President George HW Bush was a former oilman, and as a senior lobbyist told the BBC in 1990, his message on climate was the GCC's message.

There would be no mandatory fossil fuel reductions.

But all that changed in 1992. In June, the international community created a framework for climate action, and November's presidential election brought committed environmentalist Al Gore into the White House as vice-president. It was clear the new administration would try to regulate fossil fuels.

The Coalition recognised that it needed strategic communications help and put out a bid for a public relations contractor.

The consequences of 30 years of climate denialism are still with us: runaway climate change; record floods; record heatwaves; record droughts; record bushfires.  And there are still useful idiots out there who counter the science with talking points from denialists.  

Read the rest of the piece, and watch the film if you can.  You will be as infuriated as I was.

Denialism in action.

How much space is needed for Europe's renewables

 From a tweet by Thomas Hillig

Interesting @Eurelectric slide at #PS22. The small green dots show the area that would be needed for #renewables to achieve the EU clean energy goals for 2030.

A common theme from denialists is that we'd have to cover the whole continent to build enough wind and solar farms to power everything.  Obvious nonsense.  What's more, you can use the space under wind turbines and solar panels to do other things, for example, live (rooftop solar), graze sheep, .....

Embodied lifecycle emissions

 It's common that denialists and delayists maintain that the CO2 emitted during the manufacture of wind turbines, solar cells and batteries is more than the emissions they save during their lifetime.  This is false.

From a tweet by Zeke Hausfather.  Note that this is with current technologies, so that, for example, the steel for wind turbines, and the solar panels, is made using fossil fuels.  Even with that, wind and solar have miniscule embodied emissions compared with fossil fuels.

Last 7 years hottest ever

 From NOAA

Source: NOAA

Cooler than it was in 2020, because it was a La Niña year.  A fair bit cooler than 2016, an El Niño year, when the Pacific gives up some of the heat it has absorbed during the La Niña.  Still, the last 7 years have been the warmest measured by thermometer in the last nearly 150 years, and, using numerous proxy measurements, the hottest in the last 2000.  Temperatures will drop over the next couple of years because of the massive eruption of the volcano in Tonga.  No doubt, denialists will have a field day, pointing out that temperatures have fallen since 2016.   After all, after the last big El Niño in 2008, they dined out for years on the fact that temperatures had "stopped rising", ignoring the ENSO  (El Niño- Southern Oscillation) cycles.

First gigawatt-scale grid nears 100% wind and solar

 From RenewEconomy

In the transition to a world free of fossil fuels, all eyes should be on developments in South Australia, because it is here that skeptics about wind and solar are being defied, and where the local grid is just one step away from being able to operate with no fossil fuels in the system at all.

Last weekend, as reported by RenewEconomy, South Australia set multiple new records for the share of wind and solar for any gigawatt scale grid in the world.

Wind and solar reached a peak “instant” output of 135 per cent of local demand, and over a 48 hour period grabbed a share of 108 per cent of local demand, and a 100 per cent share over a 93 hour period. The excess supply was mostly exported to Victoria, although small amounts were also stored in batteries.

The new records were facilitated by a new operating protocol that means the Australian Energy Market Operator requires only two gas units to be operating at the time – a total of just 80MW. It means that gas delivered less than five per cent of total generation when there was enough wind and solar to meet demand.

It has been expected that once the new transmission line linking South Australia to NSW – Project EnergyConnect – is built and operating at full capacity in 2025, then South Australia will be able to operate with only wind and solar generation, and no fossil fuels at all at certain times.

But it is now clear, according to a recent AEMO document, that this could happen even earlier than that thanks to new technologies and new ways of thinking about the grid.

“Project EnergyConnect (PEC), a new synchronous connection between South Australia and New South Wales, is expected to remove the need for a minimum level of synchronous generation online in normal system operation, subject to network support and control requirements being met,” the document says.

“AEMO continues to study the capability of the South Australia power system to function with fewer than two synchronous generating units online, prior to PEC operation.”

This is groundbreaking stuff. South Australia already leads the world in the share of wind and solar in its grid – an average of more than 62 per cent over the last 12 months – and the penetration of rooftop solar in particular, which has delivered up to 92 per cent of local demand at times.

Other grid reach 100 per cent renewables, but they do this with more traditional “renewable” technologies such as hydro and geothermal. South Australia has neither geothermal nor hydro, and it closed the last of its coal generators in 2016.

No other grid is this far down the track with just “variable renewable energy”. Critics say that wind and solar can never power a modern economy. But here they are, doing just that.

The state government has set a target of “net 100 per cent renewables” by 2030, and will likely get there much earlier, thanks to the new link to NSW which will encourage more wind and solar to be built.

But the key figure there is “net”. It’s one thing to build enough wind and solar to deliver the equivalent of annual demand over a year, another to be able to operate the system with no fossil fuels at all. It occurs on smaller, mostly off-grid systems, but not at a gigawatt scale grid like South Australia’s.

That’s where AEMO is headed. It warns that it is yet to decide exactly how that will operate, because it has not been done before.  

“The operating envelope for the South Australia power system with no synchronous generating units is yet to be determined,” it says,

“Neither AEMO nor any other grid operator has proven whether a gigawatt-scale power system with the configuration of South Australia can be operated with no synchronous generating units.”

It is likely, however, that much will depend on the deployment of grid scale batteries that have what are known as “grid forming inverters”.

It’s complicated technology, but the main difference is that rather than following the signals from the rest of the grid, these inverters have the capability of creating their own lead, and act as “virtual synchronous machines” that replicate the system strength and other grid services delivered by spinning machines.

In South Australia, there are already two big batteries that can operate in this mode – Dalrymple North and the expanded Hornsdale Power Reserve. But their total capacity for these services is relatively small, and may not be enough for AEMO to allow the last gas units to be switched off.

That, however, could change when the new AGL battery at Torrens Island, which at 250MW and 250MWh will be bigger than the combined capacity and storage of Hornsdale and Dalrymple, begins operation by early 2023.

At the moment, the only reason AEMO requires two synchronous gas units operating as a minimum is because one is needed as a backup in case the other fails.

“To cover the credible loss of a unit, a second unit must be online. It is either zero or two,” AEMO says. “One unit may provide the requirements, however AEMO must cover the credible loss of that service and hence a second unit is required.”

AEMO is also making sure that a couple of others issues that have emerged, mostly as a result of the rapid growth in rooftop solar PV, are also dealt with.

These are reactive control, RoCoF (the rate of change of frequency), and ramping support. This is mostly to do with the rapid change in output from rooftop solar, either as the sun goes down or because of cloud cover.

“Will AEMO be looking into operating South Australia with fewer than two synchronous generating units?” AEMO asks itself in the document. “Yes,” it says.

More information is expected to be released in a new document in early December. What is quite clear is that South Australia is at the edge of the innovation envelope and doing things that many thought was not possible. And shining the light towards a totally renewable future.

Source: 7 renewable energy lessons from South Australia

South Australia's stunning renewable transition

 From RenewEconomy

South Australia’s world leading green energy transition to a grid dominated by wind and solar has delivered the lowest wholesale prices in the country, slashed emissions, and presents no concerns on the issue of reliability, according to the latest annual assessment by the market operator.

Wind and solar, the report confirms, has delivered a world leading share of 62 per cent of local generation in the past 12 months, wholesale sales were the lowest on the mainland at an average of $48/MWh, and grid emissions fell to a record low.

The achievements have been celebrated by the Liberal state government who, against many expectations, has thrown its support behind the switch to renewables, aiming for “net 100 per cent” renewables by 2030 and 500 per cent renewables by 2050 as it looks to low cost wind and solar to drive green hydrogen and a green industrial revolution.

State energy minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan noted the recent landmarks that include the local distribution network becoming a “net exporter” of rooftop solar for the first time in September, and repeated the event four times in October, including for four hours on one Sunday.

“This capped an extraordinary month as South Australia securely ran at over 72 per cent renewable energy in October, managing 100% renewables at times on nearly every single day,” he said.

One of the most remarkable changes in South Australia’s electricity grid is the growing role of rooftop solar, which delivered up to 88 per cent of total demand at times in October, and could reach 100 per cent of local demand either this spring or next.

Van Holst Pellekaan noted that AEMO’s new report – the South Australia Electricity Report – forecasts that within a decade South Australia will be producing well over 150% of the state’s demand from rooftop solar at certain times of the year. 

“South Australia is now regularly breaking world records on renewables – operating securely and with the average residential market [electric bill] offer down $303 since we came to government.”

There’s much to celebrate in the AEMO report, particularly as it defies the continuing sniping of anti-renewable ideologues and pro-coal and pro-nuclear lobbies who insist that a modern economy cannot be supported by wind and solar, even if backed up by storage.

The AEMO report makes it clear that it can. It expects rooftop solar to supply up to half of all electricity demand within 10 years – depending on the outlook – and says that with the right protocols and mechanisms, and enough storage, this can be managed.

The emissions intensity of the South Australia grid reduced by another 9.8 per cent to 0.26 tonnes per MWh in 2020-21, the lowest levels to date.

“This change reflects increased penetration of rooftop PV and large-scale solar,” it noted. (No new wind has been added in the last two years).

The wider NEM has also been seeing reductions in emissions intensity since the peak in 2014-15, and reached its lowest levels to date in the past year, but was still almost three times as polluting as South Australia, with 0.70 t/MWh).

Rooftop solar delivered 15 per cent of total state generation and this will at least double over the next ten years, and new mechanisms, including the ability to “shut down” rooftop solar if needed, and a new mechanism known as “dynamic arming”, which allows the operators to best identify where this should occur.

The report also predicts the state will be host 20 per cent of all home batteries on the country’s main grid over the next five years, and is factoring in new green hydrogen projects, and a big uptake of electric vehicles, which could account for one third of all grid demand.

It says “electrification” and electric vehicles could create 5.5TWh of demand by 2030. By 2050, that number could jump to 19.7TWh, about 155 per cent of today’s underlying consumption. Around 13.TWh would come from household and business demand switched from other fuels, and 6.6TWh from EVs.

Currently, the number of EVs in South Australia is estimated at 1,386 (all road vehicles), with just 3.29GWh of consumption.

The pipeline of large scale wind, solar and battery storage projects is even more spectacular, with some 2.7GW of battery storage proposals, (including virtual power plants) and 7.5GW of large scale wind and solar proposals.

PVNSG  is small-scale solar (under 400kW)
Total solar has risen from 8.3% to 20.4% in 4 years

In the chart below, note how low the wholesale electricity price from 10.30 to 2.30 is, and how high it is from 5.30 to 8.30.  This allows battery storage to pay for itself.

The visionless and fossil fuel spruikers have kept on insisting that it is impossible to run a grid with 100% wind and solar.   South Australia will prove them emphatically wrong.   

The iconic hockey stick extended

 From ArsTechnica

The climate “hockey stick” refers to a reconstruction of temperatures over the past 1,000 years. The data shows flattish temperatures over the last millennium, like the handle of a Hockey stick, ending in a "blade" of rapidly rising temperatures since the industrial revolution. The idea first appeared in a paper by Michael Mann and Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts and Malcolm Hughes of the University of Arizona. The work became famous after appearing in a UN climate report, after which it was the focus of climate denial, hacking, defamation, and disinformation, all of which was dramatized in a recent BBC TV drama called “The Trick.”

Today, in a paper published by Nature, scientists show that the "handle" of the "hockey stick" extends back 9,500 years, while its "blade" is taller—the last decade was 1.5° C hotter than the average temperature over the last 11,700 years. "Human-caused global temperature change during the last century was likely faster than any changes during the last 24,000 years," said lead author Dr. Matt Osman of the University of Arizona.

To measure temperatures at times long before the invention of thermometers, scientists must use indirect proxies. For the new study, scientists carefully vetted over 500 proxy records from oceans around the world; the data shows the fossilized remains of plankton and microbes in sediments where the age is known from radiocarbon dating.

Researchers then used statistical methods to calculate sea surface temperatures from the chemical properties of those remains. “We spent seven years developing the models for the different kinds of marine temperature proxies, incorporating knowledge from biology and geochemistry and using the best statistical practice,” explained coauthor Dr. Jessica Tierney of the University of Arizona and leader of the lab in which this research was conducted.

The researchers combined the proxy temperatures with climate model simulations to account for the incomplete geographic distribution of data, and they cross-checked their results with independent records such as ice drilled from polar regions and stalagmites in caves.

But unlike earlier studies, the new work shows that, prior to our current warming, there was a slow, long-term warming of 0.5° C that started 9,500 years ago. It also shows that the "handle" of the climate "hockey stick" is straight, whereas in prior studies, the "handle" was warped, with early warming followed by cooling into preindustrial times.

The new results resolve a disagreement between climate models (which simulated warming) and proxy studies (which showed cooling). The problem was known as the “Holocene Temperature Conundrum.”

Dr. Samantha Bova of San Diego State University, who published a reconstruction of temperatures for the same time period earlier this year, agreed, saying, “Both reconstructions show no evidence for an early Holocene warm period.” She pointed out that her paper used a completely different method, so the fact that her research came to the same conclusion as the Tierney team “leaves little room for doubt that the Holocene was a period of long-term warming,” she said.

Note right scale is lower than left, for clarity

 

See also Forget the "hockey stick". Now we have the "scythe"

Case over. 99.9% consensus on climate change

 From The Guardian

The scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

The degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies. This means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather.

A previous survey in 2013 showed 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate.

This has been updated and expanded by the study by Cornell University that shows the tiny minority of sceptical voices has diminished to almost nothing as evidence mounts of the link between fossil-fuel burning and climate disruption.

The latest survey of peer-reviewed literature published from 2012 to November 2020 was conducted in two stages. First, the researchers examined a random sample of 3,000 studies, in which they found only found four papers that were sceptical that the climate crisis was caused by humans. Second, they searched the full database of 88,125 studies for keywords linked to climate scepticism such as “natural cycles” and “cosmic rays”, which yielded 28 papers, all published in minor journals.

The authors said their study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed scepticism among experts is now vanishingly small.

“It is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change,” said the lead author, Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University.

This echoed the view expressed in August by the world’s leading scientific body, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

The general public does not yet understand how certain experts are, nor is it reflected in political debate. This is especially true in the US, where fossil fuel companies have funded a disinformation campaign that falsely suggests the science is not yet settled, similar to the campaign by tobacco industries to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer.

The paper cites a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center that found only 27% of US adults believed that “almost all” scientists agreed the climate emergency was caused by human activity.

Many senior Republicans continue to cast doubt on the link between human activity and the climate crisis as market researchers have advised them to do since at least the presidency of George W Bush. According to the Center for American Progress, 30 US senators and 109 representatives “refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change”. Several big media organisations and social networks also promote climate-sceptical views that have little or no basis in science.

Lynas said the study should encourage them to review their policies. “This puts the likes of Facebook and Twitter in a quandary. It is pretty similar to vaccine misinformation; they both lack a basis in science and they both have a destructive impact on society. Social networks that allow climate misinformation to spread need to look at their algorithms and policies or to be forced to do so by regulators.”

Source: NOAA