Belly,

If we had stuck with coal fired power and built a couple of nuclear power stations, electricity would probably be cheaper and emissions lower. I have rooftop solar, but cheap and reliable batteries have yet to be developed, so going off-grid would be far more costly than paying the inflated electricity costs we have currently.

Another thing in that CSIRO report: It said that the oceans were heating as fast as the land, which is untrue. The problem we have at present is the cool water around Australia reducing evaporation. Ocean fertilisation may be able to increase ocean evaporation, but this cannot be determined while the UN ban remains.

You might want to look at the solar minimum as well. It has an association with weak el nino conditions.

Cheers

The renewables, wind and solar , cost two to three times more than coal, gas or nuclear in electricity generation and will never be cheaper than them nor as reliable. Australia is not even particularly well-endowed in wind and solar, except in the more inhospitable and remote parts of the continent.

ttbn is right in inferring that the sun rarely shines in Australia.

ttbn, instead of making broad unsubstantiated claims like; "The renewables, wind and solar , cost two to three times more than coal, gas or nuclear in electricity generation and will never be cheaper than them nor as reliable"

Why not read the facts as presented by the CSIRO;

http://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP178771&dsid=DS2

Sorry if the don't fit your narrative.

Fester are you aware the sunspot cycle is well understood and has existed even before men?
It is at a low point, it has low points, its full cycle, while it changes, is about 11 years
Take me on, tell me renewables cost too much
But please, do not ignore the fast growing use of it in many parts of the world
Tell me again, fossil fuel owners are saints, want to use coal to gift us cheaper power
Self delusion is never fact
Look up the link in the thread firebugs, see it right now, see the national route one as it enters its 22 hour of total shut down
Read of the fire storms here and in Queensland, tell me it is normal
Mr Opinion, you are brighter than that, lift your game
My forcast for a dreadful summer remains true, and it is not yet summer, do many understand? one of the fires, mid total fire ban, was a deliberately lite [controlled burn?]
Tinder dry here, truly horrific, and it will burn, this summer it will burn we can only hope it does not kill

So ..... it's not disputed that world temperatures have risen by about a degree over the last century ? And that sea-levels have gone up by maybe two inches ?

Is that the general consensus ? If not, then what is the 'true' story ?

Another puzzle, at least for me - well, two really:

* . a number of gases are accused of contributing to global warming (am I allowed to use that term, or 'greenhouse effect'?) - carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, water vapour. Does anybody know how much each contributes ? And how many parts per million etc. of each of these is perfectly safe, even necessary for life ? i.e. what's the comfortable limit of - especially - CO2 ? Greenhouse operators pump CO2 into their green-houses at 1050-1200 parts per million to stimulate plant growth and proportionally increase water efficiency, after all.

* . CO2 etc. are produced, not just by human activity (as they have done since we learnt to use fire 750,000 years ago), but also by volcanoes, innumerable sub-oceanic micro-tectonic vents, all animal life, and perhaps other sources that I don't understand. Does anyone know, or have a rough idea, how much is produced by different sources ?

Another thing: what programs can be introduced to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, to partly counter the impact of the greenhouse effect ? Massive and permanent tree-planting schemes of course - useful timber trees, fruit & nut & medicinal trees and other vegetation - but what else ? Oceanic algal blooms of the right sort of algae ? Etc. Etc. - to bring CO2 in the atmosphere down to acceptable levels ?

Or should we go nuclear ? [Yes, yes, let's talk about 60-year-old technology like Chernobyl or Three-Mile Island, or keep building nuclear power stations on the beach in tsunami-prone areas, etc. ?] . France and Finland seem to be doing okay on it.

Or does everybody else but me already know 100 % the answers to these tiresome questions ?

Joe