Off Topic Dark Matter and other Astronomy information.

Whilst you're right in what you're saying about China (in the past tense), and it did fly in the face of what the West is driving towards in terms of it's carbon footprint, it shouldn't be used an excuse to say aaah **** it then. As if the West hadnt done the work it's done to reduce emissions then the global picture would be far worse. The challenge now is to continue the pressure on China to reduce it's reliance on coal.

It appears it's taking heed, as it's already closing coal power statiosn and has committed to close over 2,000 smaller coal powered stations by the end of 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...all-major-coal-power-plants-to-curb-pollution

 

A bit of simply research makes you wrong in terms of the impact of that I'm afraid - and this is from Greenpeace.


While China’s coal consumption growth has slowed down, and fell in 2014, coal-fired power generating capacity continues to grow rapidly. This apparent contradiction has led some observers to conclude that China’s coal consumption growth is bound to resume.
But the evidence suggests otherwise. Instead the continued buildup of coal-fired power plants represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore.
Coal plants built – but not used
If there is one factoid that every media consumer knows about energy in China, it must be that the country is “building one coal power plant per week”.
While coal-fired power generation capacity growth has slowed from the peak years – 2006 saw the equivalent of 1.5 large units added every week – the rate of coal-fired power plant additions and construction initiations in China is still breathtaking: 39 gigawatts were added in 2014, or three 1000MW units every four weeks, up from 36 gigawatts in 2013.
At the same time, power generation from coal fell by approximately 1.6% in 2014, due to record increases in power generation from hydropower, wind, solar, nuclear and gas, along with slower power consumption growth. Total coal consumption, including coal use outside of the power sector, fell by anywhere between 0.5-2.5% according to different preliminary statistics and estimates.

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Source: China Electricity Council and National Energy Administration statistics for 2014
In fact, coal-fired capacity growth has outstripped coal-fired generation growth since 2011, leading to dramatically reduced capacity utilization and financial pain to power plant operators. The headline making the rounds in China is that capacity utilization, at 54%, was at its lowest level since the reforms of 1978 (which is when statistics began to be made available).

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Source: Compiled from China Electricity Council statistical releases
Outlook for coal-fired power generation in China
The Obama – Xi deal on peaking China’s CO2 emissions before 2030 has grabbed the headlines in English-speaking media, leaving many observers with the impression that China is planning to slack for another 15 years before starting to pull its weight in cutting CO2.
However, real action is in the implementation of China’s energy targets for 2020 and the air pollution action plans for 2017. For the power sector, the most significant target is the objective for non-fossil energy to make up 15% of all energy consumed in China.
Hitting the 15% target will require raising share of renewable energy and nuclear power in power generation from 22% in 2013 to 33-35% in 2020.
$11 trillion has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output
Gas-fired power generation is also forecast by the IEA to grow to around 5% of total power generation, implying that the share of coal will shrink to about 60% in 2020, from 72% in 2013.
This will require almost doubling non-fossil power generation from 2014 to 2020, meaning that, on average, non-fossil power generation will have increased as much as it did in 2014, every year until 2020.
As in so many other respects, the radical changes in 2014 were not a one-off anomaly, but the “new normal”.
No room for new capacity
As a result of booming non-fossil power generation, even assuming GDP growth of 7% per year until 2020, growth in coal-fired power generation will be limited to around 1.5% per year on average, slowing down towards 2020 as non-fossil generation additions are ramped up.
Together with a targeted 0.7% per year reduction in coal use per unit of power generated, this means that coal use growth in the power sector will average less than 1% and will stabilize before 2020. If capacity utilization is to return to financially sustainable levels, there is room for little more capacity to be added until 2020.

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Source: Calculated from State Council Energy Plan for 2014-2020 and IEA New Policies scenario
So what’s the deal with all the new coal power plants?
To grasp why coal-fired power plants can still get built in the face of a worsening overcapacity problem, it is necessary to understand the basics of China’s economic model.
The country’s growth miracle has been based on an economic system designed to enable extremely high levels of investment spending, particularly by state-owned companies and local governments.
These actors have a very liberal access to near-zero interest loans from state-owned banks, and state-owned companies are generally not required to pay dividends to the state, enabling (or forcing) them to re-invest their profits.
Banks exercise minimal due diligence on loans, which have implicit government backing. As a result, investment spending now amounts to over 4 trillion USD per year, making up a staggering 50% of China’s GDP, higher than any other major economy in history, and compared to around 20% in developed economies.
This model served China well for decades, enabling the growth miracle and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. However, finding profitable and sensible investment projects worth trillions of dollars every year is bound to become harder and harder as the investment boom goes on.
Recently published research estimated that 67 trillion yuan ($11 trillion) has been spent on projects that generated no or almost no economic output – ghost cities being the most famous example.
In this context, it is not too hard to see how investment in coal-fired power plants can speed way ahead of demand growth.
A new coal-fired power plant will still generate power and revenue even if there is overcapacity, as the lower capacity utilization gets spread across the entire coal power fleet and across all power plant operators.
What does continued coal-fired power buildup mean for the climate?
The conventional assumption in power business is that once a coal-fired power plant or other capital-intensive generating asset gets built, it will run pretty much at full steam for 40 years or more. Even if there is overcapacity at the moment, demand growth will raise utilization and the existing capacity will crowd out future investment.
However, this is not how things work in China. The government is not going to scrap the internationally pledged 15% non-fossil energy target for 2020 because of excess coal-fired capacity. Rather the overcapacity will lead to losses for power generators and will be eliminated by closing down older plants, as has happened with coal mining, steel and cement already.
Therefore, continued investment in coal-fired power plants does not mean locking in more coal-burning. It does, however, mean massive economic waste, and a missed opportunity to channel the investment spending into renewable energy, enabling even faster growth. Furthermore, the underutilized coal-fired capacity can exacerbate the conflict between coal and variable renewable energy in the grid, as grid operators are known to curtail renewable power in favor of coal.
Hence, investment in coal-fired power plants needs to be rapidly scaled back by restricting approvals and finance. The first step has already been taken with China banning new coal power plants in its three key economic regions, home to one third of currently operating coal-fired capacity.



http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/20...wer-plants-china-carbon-bubble-waiting-burst/

 

Again you are paraphrasing. Why not quote what I said mate instead.

I said what China is doing makes our contribution worthless. We are 16% for the EU, excluding Latvia I think.
While I disagree that CO2 is a problem, China's actual, real pollution is a huge problem, cant swin in the water and soil is toxic in many areas and the air is.. well we've all seen it. It buring coal causes it then of course we'd want to stop that pollution, it ain't CO2 that is killing Chinese every year though is it, it is the pollution from fueling their and our economies.

China is 23% of global emissions I think.

China will increase their CO2 emissions faster than we can decrease ours given a lot of efficiency already in Europe with nuke solar and waves\wind.
So reducing the emissions by 6% is going to be very expensive and China in that time will most likely increase thier emissions by more than 6% which will totally mitigate what we did. Plus we have to offset future emissions and this is why green tech is now the big investment to make because not only is it going to be worth a lot but it is a subsidised sector, the public will fund these tax beaks. So it's also a safe investment.


I always make the distincition between CO2 and pollution, stop pollution of course, I am just saying I think CO2 is not a pollutant.
If stopping coal buring and oil buring prevents actual pollution, which it would, then I agree with that, totally, but not the CO2 bit.

 

That's a biggun, I have to read it.
It's greenpeace so I will have to cross check the data with other sources.

 

You obviously didn't read what I posted fella. Try reading it

 

I was actually writing a reply to your previous post when you "copy and pasted" that link. Fancy that

 

That greenpeace is a scenario, and forecasts. Not saying they are incorrect. I would prefer it is accurate.

China has unsed coal stations and a fall in emissions because of the economic lull and they are currently in, the process of turing off stations in certain places because of the pollution, they are not turning them off because of CO2 emissions, it's the other pollutants that actually kill Chinese every year they have to deal with,

The proof is in the pudding, if China's economy picks up, and they need to generate power the stations will be used.

Hopefully, because I do actually hope the greenpeace article is accurate, places like Beijing will have all coal stations shut down permanently.

 

This is why China has to get away from buring coal, that's not CO2 you're looking at

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buring is not a word, stop using it

 

I think Beijing is now down to 1 coal powered station which will be closed by 2017.

Their prime driver is the smog, but there's also been massive international pressure for them to reduce their CO2 output, which they've committed to.

The expanse in the number of coal fired stations is due to poor business sense as they're privately operated. I'd imagine the green energy sector in China is about to become an absolute gold mine, so the smart money will be flowing into it with a pace.

 

Big bucks for sure, the likes of which you nor I will ever see plus every rich **** can start up a green tech company and you and I get to subsudise it, that's the reality.

I am not sure the Chinese really buy the CO2 argument. LOok at how they let the air soil and water get, as you can see in the images.
So if they are quite willing to let things get so bad with actual pollution that kills people, then I would imagine they cared even less about nowhere even remotely near toxic CO2 levels.

 

You ****

 

Right. The THREE of you get a ****ing room

 

the chinese IMO are simply playing the economics.

they built all those coal stations now they are building all nucelar.

each time is was massive inward investment. that drives their economy but now they don't have to buy in coal so you'll see the prices of coal plummet if its not occurred already.

They are simply seeing where they are reliant on external and cutting it.

they are nuclear now....

the german on the other hand have half abandoned solar and gone back to coal and are burning very dirty stuff as well. why? cheap... why? can build other forms of energy i nthe mean time.

#fixing half baked ideas that didn't work.

 

Sisu asking others to back up their stuff with sources. Whatever next?

 

@astroturfnaut you mentioned "hottest day"
All the temperature reading stations around Heathrow did not record this record temperature, only the airport one, which is the effect of urban island heat, tarmac heats up in the sun obviously. Not that the met office would mention that.

36.7 figure had only been fleetingly reached in a marked 1.7 degree temperature spike at 2.15pm, maybe a passing airplane as it taxied ?

Should be called the fraud office.
Met Office caught out over its 'hottest July day ever’ claim

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...out-over-its-hottest-July-day-ever-claim.html

Weather station, isn't that convenient, this is not heathrow it's Italy

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Heathrow.
2 Temp sensors, one nice and handy right next to the runway.

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This is how you create warming

 

Surely we cant be expected to take a temperature recording from right next to the runway seriously!

Just wondering though, I personally have been in a queue of planes taking off at heathrow so why isnt the temp there always so much higher than elsewhere?

 

It could be half a degree or a degree warmer, not really something you notice.

The temperature can be higher than surrounding countryside. It's called the urban island heat effect. They use algorithms to "remove" the extra heat caused by concrete and such heating up. half a degree makes a difference when it adds half a degree to hundreds of stations world wide that are in locations like these.


The UK met office said a bunch of records were broken but.. Most of those stations don't have records going back as far as 1990 even so claiming "it's a record" is utterly meangingless.

The met office said 9 records, 2 not here are questionable because other nearby sensors did not show the same record temps.
This other 7 all have records that go back 20 years or less. Meaning there could well have been hotter days in the past 50 years.

I only bring it all up because the met office didn't, very misleading saying "hottest day on record" if records don't go back even two decades

Gringley-on-the-Hill Nottinghamshire - 31.1 °C on 17/7/2006, New record 32.1 °C (years of data 15)

Loftus Cleveland 28.4 °C on 2/8/1999 and 6/8/2003, New record 29.2 °C (years of data 15)

Ryhill West Yorkshire 31 °C on 9/8/2003, New record 31.7 °C (years of data 20)

Blencathra Cumbria 28.2 °C on 21/8/1995, New record 28.7 °C (years of data 18)

Pateley Bridge North Yorkshire 28.8 °C on 18/7/2013, New record 29.2 °C (years of data 10)

Shap Cumbria 28.4 °C on 18/7/2006, New record 28.8 °C (years of data 17)

I am just a no body and I am doing due dilligence on this, why is the Guardian not.. It takes a few minutes to find out the truth, I can only assume they don't want to know the truth
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2015/jul/01/heatwave-live-britain-hottest-day-2015

 

I am aware of the urban heat island effect but my point was more about the effect of airplanes as it is positioned right next to the runway as mentioned in your post.

 

with respect.

a picture of a hottie licking a cone and a headline saying hottest day will sell rags... a story debunking hottest days with a picture of anne witicombe will not.