Speaking of action...

SA's battery is massive, but it can do much more than store energy

Last Friday, the "world's largest" lithium-ion battery was officially opened in South Australia. Tesla's much-anticipated "mega battery" made the "100 days or it's free" deadline, after a week of testing and commissioning.

Unsurprisingly, the project has attracted a lot of attention, both in Australia and abroad. This is largely courtesy of high-profile Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, not to mention the series of Twitter exchanges that sparked off the project in the first place.

Many are now watching on in anticipation to see what impact the battery has on the SA electricity market, and whether it could be a gamechanger nationally.

The "mega-battery" complex is officially called the Hornsdale Power Reserve. It sits alongside the Hornsdale Wind Farm and has been constructed in partnership with the SA Government and Neoen, the French renewable energy company that owns the wind farm.

The battery has a total generation capacity of 100 megawatts, and 129 megawatt-hours of energy storage. This has been described as "capable of powering 50,000 homes", providing 1 hour and 18 minutes of storage or, more controversially, 2.5 minutes of storage.

At first blush, some of these numbers might sound reasonable. But they don't actually reflect a major role the battery will play, nor the physical capability of the battery itself.

The battery complex can be thought of as two systems. First there is a component with 70MW of output capacity that has been contracted to the SA Government.

This is reported to provide grid stability and system security, and designed only to have about 10 minutes of storage.

The second part could be thought of as having 30MW of output capacity, but three to four hours of storage.

Even though this component has a smaller capacity (MW), it has much more storage (MWh) and can provide energy for much longer. This component will participate in the competitive part of the market, and should firm up the wind power produced by the wind farm.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-05/yes-sa-battery-is-a-massive-battery-but-it-can-do-more/9227288

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

says the idiot who frequents this cavalcade of confusion, chaos and clusterfucks.

Idiot?  Moi?

Just because you lack the intelligence to appreciate my brilliance?

And I thought that you might extend some appreciation for me behaving myself.

Well, obviously, that didn't work.

Wait, you were behaving yourself?

Either the nuances were too subtle, or I blinked and missed it.

I do tend to get distracted by shiny obje- PRETTY!

Replying to the post in the Christmas thread...

You said:

Read this:

http://wbckfm.com/arctic-ice-increase-global-warming/

.

I did.

You sent me to a radio station's website who sourced their information from a blog called 'The Deplorable Climate Science Blog'.  The blog cherry picked from any news articles from unknown sources that would support their preconceived notions and baseless claims such as '100% of US Warming is due to data tampering' and every second articles' title has the word Fraud in it.

It assumes all scientists are liars and con men, but has no explanation as to why - or what they hope to achieve with this global hoax.

I don't consider this to be an unbiased source trusted to focus on interpreting scientific data with no agenda. 

But keep trying.

Cheers,

Jenifer

Lead detected in Sydney and Broken Hill bees due to environmental pollution

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Next time you are spreading honey on your crumpet have a think about how that sweet stuff, and its yellow and black creators, are affected by the environment around you.

Researchers have used bees to monitor pollution for the first time in Australia and have found significant lead levels in the insects depending on location.

It is a reminder that whatever we pollute the world with will end up back in our systems.

The levels of metal varied depending on the history of the land, with scientists finding huge differences between Sydney and Broken Hill.

Sydney dwelling bees are affected by former leaded petrol emissions from the '70s, '80s and '90s, with highest lead levels in the CBD, Surry Hills and Newtown (230-440 micrograms per kilogram).

Fortunately however, the amount of lead found in honey from these bees was negligible.

In comparison, Broken Hill bees possessed much higher levels of lead thanks to ongoing lead mining, with around 2,570ug/kg detected, and in turn, a much higher concentration of lead in the honey.

Professor Mark Taylor, leader of the research team at Macquarie University which undertook the study, said the findings provided a stark warning against the unsafe use of chemicals in the environment.

"They don't degrade that quickly, they get into the ecological systems and they don't break down in many cases and they are persistent and typically harmful," Professor Taylor said.

"This shows us that the contaminants are being mobilised and are getting into our ecological and food systems."

Lucky for us it seems bees protect their sticky stuff and filter the lead therefore limiting its passage into the honey.

The fact that their honey contains much less lead than their bodies may be an accidental convenience or an adaptation.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-13/lead-found-in-sydney-and-broken-hill-bees/9325712

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Happy New Year Johnno.  I have no doubt you'll cry "Fuck the bees!  What do they do for the planet anyway?"

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

Happy New Year Johnno.  I have no doubt you'll cry "Fuck the bees!  What do they do for the planet anyway?"

Not a big concern for me, as the bees are all gonna freeze to death due to global warming.

My big concern is today's Eagles game against the Atlanta Falcons.

Been a while since I've been here.  On December 9 after the Army Navy game a drunken Army guy rear ended me, so I have been doing therapy for whiplash and back damage.  Lot's of fun dealing with multiple insurance companies, health care, doctors and my employer, Comcast.  But, be not concerned, my cat scan came back fine, so my brilliance is unaffected.

Then, this week, my computer hard drive took a dump, so been working on getting everything up and running.  What a pain in the ass.  Just logging into sites, I have 122 user names and passwords.

Oh, my poor Johnno!

Glad you're okay.

I wondered where you'd got to.

Johneeo said:

My big concern is today's Eagles game against the Atlanta Falcons.

I have no idea who those people are.  But given the weather over there,  is the sport curling?

Johneeo said:

Just logging into sites, I have 122 user names and passwords.

Check out a program called Dashlane.  It's free and deals with all your passwords safely.

Get better and good luck with the insurance!

Cheers,

Jenifer

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

Glad you're okay.

You are so sweet.

Still have the hots for me, huh?

Turns out you're not as bad as some who frequent Delphi.

I fear I took you for granted.

Cheers,

Jenifer

Even without El Nino, Earth sweltered again in 2017, UN's World Meteorological Organisation says

Last year was the second or third warmest on record behind 2016, and the hottest without an extra dose of heat caused by an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, the United Nations says.

Average surface temperatures in 2017 were 1.1 degree above pre-industrial times, creeping towards 1.5C, the most ambitious limit for global warming set by almost 200 nations under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The agreement has been weakened by a plan by US President Donald Trump, who doubts mainstream scientific findings that warming is driven by man-made greenhouse gases, to pull out.

The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said 2017 was indistinguishable from 2015 as the second or third warmest year behind 2016, and made 2017 "the warmest year without an El Nino" in records dating back to the late 19th century.

Temperatures in both 2016 and 2015 were lifted by an El Nino, a natural event which can disrupt weather patterns worldwide every few years and releases heat from the tropical Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere.

The WMO said 17 of the warmest 18 years since records began in the 19th century have now happened since 2000, confirming a warming trend driven by manmade greenhouse gases.

"We're in a long-term warming trend despite the ups and downs you get on an annual basis, even a decadal basis," said Gavin Schmidt, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, whose data is used by the WMO.

"When even the 'colder' years are rewriting the warmest year record books, we know we have a problem," said Professor Dave Reay, chair in carbon management at the University of Edinburgh.

Among extreme weather events last year, the Caribbean and the United States suffered a battering from hurricanes, the Arctic ended 2017 with the least sea ice for mid-winter and tropical coral reefs suffered from high water temperatures.