Monthly Archives: May 2012

Resources

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard blusters at the mining industry

9 Comments

I have just read “Boom is not yours, PM tells miners” – as if the industry is not aware that State Govts own the mineral rights and issue leases/licences under various terms to competent companies/organizations to explore for said minerals.

Then if payable minerals are discovered – mining leases are negotiated to develop same and royalty payments are made back to the State. That is the basic system the great majority of nations use to develop their mineral resources.

There are examples of where Governments form State owned mining companies – the old USSR of course comes to mind – China – and I think in Chile Codelco is State owned – PNG owns OK Tedi Mining – and South Africa has recently launched a state-owned mining company – Namibia has made moves in that direction too.

I am sure readers might suggest other examples. I have no issue with States who invest in minerals alongside the private sector.

I would say to the PM and her Govt – why not form Aussie GreenLabor Mining Ltd if you think there is so much easy money to be made – pay off some of the huge debts you are building up on the Aussie Bankcard.

Another quicker way to get mining would be to buy some beaten down mineral exploration companies on the ASX – some are selling for only the value of their cash – then you get a structure, staff, ongoing projects basically for nix.

See how easy it is to find another Broken Hill, Mount Isa, Kalgoorlie, Cadia, Hammersley Iron or the next great coal-field.

Remember your own Labor history from the Whitlam years – recall the example of Rex Connor who trod a nationalist path with mineral resources – learn from the disaster that overtook him.

BoM Australia, Surface Record

How the Australian Bureau of Meteorology can get vital issues wrong

13 Comments

I have been looking at the BoM’s new iteration of adjusted Australian temperature data – ACORN SAT. Taking a look at the pdf report 049 “Techniques involved in developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset”
p 86 of 104 Table 8 – Urban classification of ACORN-SAT locations.
– we see

My eye is drawn to to Canberra Airport 070014 classified non-urban. It just seems delusional for the BoM to fail to recognize that UHI affected air from the steady growth of Canberra has been steadily impacting airport instruments at least since WWII. – Not to mention the booming Airport Brindabella and Majura Business Parks – the suburb of Fyshwick and town of Queanbeyan. Not to mention warm air wafting around from the tons of burnt jet fuel and avgas – all of the above effects increasing over the decades.
A photo series here shows the growing business parks development at the airport itself.
image 6 of 16 shows the instruments in the top left – I have marked a copy looking east – business building to south – Fairbairn RAAF to the far left – BoM instruments new site is just above the red “BoM”. Frames 1, 2 & 4 have good views of the business park.
I am working on station by station comparisons of the various BoM adjusted versions over the last 2 decades. If anybody has ideas examples to use, please email them in or let me know.
A 2010 post on UHI at Canberra Airport.
the Google map images seem to have reverted to some odd old version ?

Resources

Olympic Dam mine expansion end of year deadline could be doubtful

6 Comments

In not even two weeks the sentiment in the South Australian Government has changed from

BHP likely to meet Olympic Dam deadline: Weatherill – 18 May 12

to

SA warns BHP over Olympic Dam approval – 29 May 12

I note the SA Mines minister speaking tough about not bluffing – but I wonder if a more cooperative and quiet relationship between Govt and BHP is needed at this time of global financial uncertainty and turmoil.

The Olympic Dam mine expansion could make South Australia into a minerals superstate. Deadlines set with the best of intentions in 2011 should not get in the way of BHP and SA getting this thing up when the time is right.

Does the SA Labor Govt have to emulate Canberra Labor ?

IPCC

Cheering news at last – sackings at the Department of Climate Change

1 Comment

Not far enough though – but a start.
Department Secretary Blair Comley announced job cuts were imminent and far greater than had been originally forecast.
“Only a week ago, Kate Lundy said she was pleased there would be no forced redundancies”, Senator Humphries said today.

IPCC, Resources

China accuses Australia as Bonn climate talks founder

9 Comments

News out of the Bonn climate talks sounds familiar –
“Beijing lashes Canberra as carbon talks stall”
then from the Guardian –
“Bonn climate talks end in discord and disappointment”
and USAToday asks –
“Is China poor? Key question at climate talks”
Amidst all the posturing rhetoric it might be useful to see some facts charted.
First the magnitude of Chinese carbon dioxide emissions compared to Australia
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Australia could decarbonize back to the stoneage and the effect on Global emissions would not be measurable.
A chart of Chinese emissions compared to major global groupings.

A chart of Australian export income from coal –

larger version from source.

Climate indicators, IPCC

Australian hockey stick – whatever happened to the Great Barrier Reef coral time series ?

6 Comments

We have all heard now of the Gergis et al 2012 paper – “Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium”. Dr Joelle Gergis participated in “Winning the guerrilla war on climate change…” as Science met Parliament in 2010.
Sceptic blogs including Anthony Watts, Australian Climate Madness and John Ray have run comment.
I too was taken by their graphics Figs 3,4,5 & 6 which looked to show the 20th C only just warmer than past warm peaks – but my main interest was caught by the complete absence of coral time series from the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) – see the map for yourself.
Now we all know that hundreds of millions of taxpayer $s over decades have been spent studying the GBR including coral cores and how can it be that Gergis et al neatly arabesque past all of that huge scientific resource.
I am hoping readers will have some insights as to why the large database of GBR coral timeseries has been ignored.
Before leaving – I noted on page 10 of 54 – line 225 this gem suggesting a rigorous cherry picking was going on. “Only records that were significantly (p<0.05) correlated with the detrended instrumental target over the 1921-1990 period were selected for analysis." Note that "instrumental target" means HadCRUT3v see Fig 2 - so if a series did not agree with the UHI affected Jones et al temperature trend - it was tossed out.

BoM Australia, Climate indicators, Surface Record

Australian Climate Commission makes dodgy claims about Western Sydney hot days

11 Comments

About a week ago Dr Tim Flannery, Professor Lesley Hughes and other Climate Commission luminaries went public with claims about hot days above 35C in Western Sydney including;
“…hot days had already increased 60 per cent in western Sydney since 1970…”
and – Federal Climate Commissioner Professor Lesley Hughes says western Sydney is getting disproportionally hotter and drier than the rest of Sydney.
“If we compare western Sydney with the rest of Sydney, the number of hot days in western Sydney used to be three times as many as eastern Sydney, and now it’s four times,” she said.
These claims are from the Climate Commission report – “The Critical Decade: New South Wales climate impacts and opportunities”. If you Google the report title you will find the ~5MB pdf download.
Here is the Climate Commission Figure 3 from page 4.

Which gives them the pictorial of increasing heat that they want you to believe.
Here is the entire Sydney record showing warm peaks in 1926 and the 1940’s – so deliberately censored out by the Climate Commission because those inconvenient data destroy their pro-IPCC storyline.

I have also shown the Richmond RAAF data which commenced in December 1939 (so missed out on Jan-March 39) and shows the all time peak of 36 days over 35 degrees in 1940 – despite 1940 data only including Jan to the first few days of May, no data for December. So the all time peak of 36 days over 35 degrees would probably have been higher if all the data had been preserved. Then there was no data for 1941-42 – 1943,44,45 were OK but 1946 only has Jan-May (with a few gaps) yet still made 21 days over 35C. The gap post May 1946 carries on through 1947-52. Then 1953 does not start until late April yet still made 15 days over 35C. So we are fortunate that enough data has been preserved from Dec 1939 to show up the Climate Commission distortions of our history.
To sum up how the Climate Commission has been misleading.
[1] Shortening the Sydney trend to censor out periods warmer than they want you to know about.
[2] Failing to find the well known Richmond RAAF data – which comprehensively ruins their storyline.
[3] Leaving a large gap in their Paramatta trend circa 1978 which they should have known was concealing a peak comparable to the last few years. Keeping their storyline intact again.
[4] Making all manner of scaremongering statements about heatwaves based on 1,2 & 3.
It is interesting to reflect that if Hitler had not invaded Poland in Sept 1939 – the RAAF would maybe not have been so active at their Richmond base and the BoM might not have commenced the temperature station there in Dec 1939.
And the Climate Commission would have been more likely to have succeeded with their misleading version of the history of hot days in Western Sydney.
Jennifer Marohasy and Basil Beamish have reported on these issues before me – thanks to them both.
Climate Commission Fudges Hot Day Data
and
Basil Beamish for Climate Commissioner – which shows how Bathurst data too ruins the Climate Commission fairystories.

News and Views

Leave our Constitution alone – voters expect MP’s to act honorably

10 Comments

In the hurly burly of the Craig Thomson (MP for Dobell) affair there are calls for the Australian Constitution to be amended so members of Parliament have some sort of “code of conduct” under which they must operate. I would say if they know so little that they need a code – then we should not elect them in the first place. At present Section 44 sets out the circumstances under which members can be disqualified.
I do not want to reprise the Craig Thomson affair here – anybody awake in Australia must have the gist.
There is a petition circulating in the electorate of Dobell calling for Thomson to resign his seat.
I just wanted to make the point here that it is the colossal failure by Labor to act on the Craig Thomson matter over YEARS – that is the cause of the black hole in which the Prime Minister finds herself.
Secondarily to Thomson of course and unrelated there is the Speaker of the House Peter Slipper who has stood aside while allegations are investigated.

Resources

Australian clean energy future costs & benefits

25 Comments

Many people are concerned that huge policy changes are being made without due consideration of the realistic costs and benefits. So I asked www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au to point out to me with the assessment of costs and benefits were set out – they sent me the following 4 URL’s.

At the first I found a reference – 1.4 Risks to economic prosperity – to sea level rise affecting property worth $226Bn over the next century – that was all.

I found nothing at the Climate Commission.

Sorry I missed whatever was at this page.

Then at the Garnaut page I clicked for an update;
Mentions costs benefits
and and downloaded the Update pdf paper 540KB. “Weighing the cost and benefits of climate change action” by Ross Garnaut,

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When Prof RG mentions “non-market benefits” he is talking about things like the Great Barrier Reef – and life in Murray Darling Basin country towns.

on page 10 RG says – “The benefits can be difficult to observe and some only
accrue far into the future.” Indeed Professor.

I liked the bit where Prof Ross Garnaut says –
bottom page 8 “…messy world…” – yes it is terrible when people just do not do what you say Prof.
page 11 – in the last clause of para – Type 1: Currently-measurable market benefits;
we learn – “Climate change also dampens demand for labour, causing real wages to be lower,…”. OKay – so if we are experiencing “climate change” – how come our employment sector is booming Professor ?
Sorry but I can only read so much of this stuff.

Atmospheric science, IPCC

New paper contends that carbon dioxide causes less than 50% of the greenhouse effect

7 Comments

Timothy Curtin, “Applying Econometrics to the Carbon Dioxide “Control
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pages, 2012. doi:10.1100/2012/761473.
Download a copy and lets have your views.