Crude oil at 28$ from coal.

What could this mean?

• More time to switch to another source of energy for transport
• Right now the amount of Coal reserve compared to Oil is a lot more, what will happen if we use this coal for oil. The depletion rate will go much faster. Here are the numbers as of today for reserves:

Oil: 43 years (43 years using levels and flows above)
Gas: 167 years (61 years using levels and flows above)
Coal: 417 years (148 years using levels and flows above)
Source

• It could also mean that the tar sand oil from Alberta would become uneconomical. At around 40$ per barrel, we would need to cut down the price or shutdown production.

Here's the full report:

ARLINGTON - How would you like to buy gasoline made from $30 domestic coal versus $75 imported oil?

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington say they've found a practical way to make synthetic crude from inexpensive coal that's common in Texas.

People have been turning coal into oil for 100 years or more, but researchers at UTA say they've invented a better way to do it.

It is so much better that they expect to sign a deal with an oil company within weeks.

"This is East Texas lignite coal. We go from that to this really nice liquid," said Professor Brian Dennis of a light synthetic crude, easily refined into gasoline.

Professor Dennis and a team of scientists have been working on the process for about a year-and-a-half.

"I had the idea for this while I was walking to my car," he said. "I ran back to the lab and I started drawing it out in my notebook."

They only showed News 8 an early model reactor which doesn't look like much. The current reactor design is secret, extremely efficient, and emits no pollution, the UTA scientists said.

"We're improving the cost every day. We started off sometime ago at an uneconomical $17,000 a barrel. Today, we're at a cost of $28.84 a barrel," said engineering dean Rick Billo.

That's $28 a barrel versus $75 we pay now for imported crude.

Texas lignite coal is dirt cheap - less than $18 a ton. A ton of coal will produce up to 1.5 barrels of oil.

UTA researchers expect micro-refineries to be built within a year, turning coal into cheap oil and producing new jobs.

It's still fossil fuel, but scientists say it could bridge the gap until greener technologies catch up.

So why are the biggest polluters pushing for cap and trade?

Source

I am posting Benchmarking US Air Emissions (2006), a joint report by Ceres, NRDC, and PSEG, because it apparently is no longer available on the Internet, and it contains research relevant to the climate policy debate. For example, many of the nation’s biggest CO2 emitters (e.g. American Electric Power) are also leading advocates of cap-and-trade. Does this make Waxman-Markey a “polluter-crafted” bill, and recipients of EPA campaign contributions “polluter-funded” politicians? Yes, if you apply green “logic” without fear or favor.

My comment to this story:
 
In simplest term… Follow the money.

It is like when I learned that a nuclear power industry was pushing for wind power, because this would push prices of electricity up and thus provide more profits for their installed based of nuclear power stations. This is a profit only logic and as nothing to do with a logic of pushing price down for energy for the benefit of all.

What is happening with NASA, is it being transformed into an environmental green machine?

Is NASA hijacked from its true purpose, the exploration of space and colonization of other planets?

PJTV has a good series of video reports on this as they find that NASA has been used to push a green agenda not based on science.

• Climategate 2.0 - The NASA Files: It’s The Data, Not The Globe, That’s Cooked (Part 1)
• Climategate 2.0 - The NASA Files: Don’t Bet The Economy On Weird Science (Part 2)

NASA released files under the freedom of information act. It took them 2 years to release the files in an unsearchable bitmap PDF format.  I took the liberty of converting them to a searchable text format.

We also saw the return to the moon project from NASA being scraped to concentrate on "Global Warming" research... Thanks M. Obama! To boldly go nowhere!

Then there is this minority report from Environment and Public Works (EPW) minority leader Senator Jim Inhofe. Some of those senators are worried of what is going on.



Here's the link to this report, full of interesting email communication between NASA scientists and others.

Is the green propaganda going too far?

Looking at those pictures and video make me feel sick to my stomach. I think the green agenda as lost grip on reality and see doom and gloom where it does not exist. They only see the worst possible scenario that is not even true.

For example this picture, The hanging of a stuffed polar bear and two penguins. Since global warming started, the polar bear population has been increasing mostly because of men:

Polar bears are currently abundant and not threatened with extinction because of the implementation of the International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears and their Habitat and the development of co-ordinated research and management programmes. Scientists generally agree that improved conservation measures, primarily controls on harvests, have lead to an increase in polar bear numbers over the last 30 years.

“The assertion that polar bears as a species are in imminent danger of extinction or even threatened with extinction in the foreseeable future is both unproven and unlikely.” Source

The oldest known fossil of a polar bear is nearly 70,000 years old. It was found in new Kew, England. This fossil shows a bear whose size is much larger than that of todays bears. So those animals lived and survived for a long time through all those periods that where warmer and cooler than today as shown in this graph.

So I would not worry too much about the polar bear and if a problem arise, we are here to help.

What about the penguins? Well those live in the south regions of the planet, not the north where the polar bear lives.  You can see form this page, that the population of all the species of penguins are mostly doing very well. According to this National Geographic article, the penguins survived the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 65 millions years ago. So again I would not worry to much about those either.

And then there is this type of propagandist video, made to scare kids:


From this video, the polar bears, chimpanzee and kangaroo are all becoming suicidal, because of global warming.  No more ice for the polar bear, no more vegetation for the chimpanzee and kangaroo.

As you may have noticed, the sea ice extent is growing back and the average in the last 31 years does not look so bad.

As for the vegetation, the increase CO2 content of the atmosphere is having a positive effect on the vegetation cover of the planet:

Results from controlled studies show how a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is expected to occur over the next century, will increase crop yields by 30 to 40 percent, double the water-use efficiency of most of the earth's vegetation and possibly triple the productivity of forests.

Also we need to consider that the renewed popularity of nuclear power, will hopefully make the burning of fossil fuel a thing of the past.  The high density of nuclear power, also means that we would use less land for electricity production, thus more land for forest, parks and animals.

Please spread the word that the situation is not that dire and that we can do better.  Educating our kids with facts instead of scaring them with green propaganda will save our planet.

Enough nuclear waste for 3000 reactors of 240MW

General Atomics is proposing a program to build small 240MW reactor that would use spent fuel from big reactors. Source

Those reactors small enough to fit on a truc, could be installed where power is needed and cut the cost of transmission lines. 

Why spend 80 billions on Yucca mountain to get rid of the nuclear waste when 90% of that fuel is still usable in new type of reactors like the one proposed by General Atomics and others.

General Atomics is not the only company proposing new type of rectors.

Small and medium reactors with development well advanced

Name	Capacity	Type	Developer
KLT-40S	35 MWe	PWR	OKBM, Russia
VK-300	300 MWe	PWR	Atomenergoproekt, Russia
CAREM	27 MWe	PWR	CNEA & INVAP, Argentina
NHR-200	200 MWt	PWR	INET, China
IRIS	100-335 MWe	PWR	Westinghouse-led, international
mPower	125 MWe	PWR	Babcock & Wilcox, USA
SMART	330 MWt	PWR	KAERI, South Korea
NuScale	45 MWe	PWR	NuScale Power, USA
MRX	30-100 MWe	PWR	JAERI, Japan
HTR-PM	2x250 MWt	HTR	INET & Huaneng, China
PBMR	200 MWt	HTR	Eskom, South Africa
GT-MHR	285 MWe	HTR	General Atomics (USA), Minatom (Russia)
BREST	300 MWe	LMR	RDIPE, Russia
SVBR-100	100 MWe	LMR	Rosatom/En+, Russia
FUJI	100 MWe	MSR	ITHMSO, Japan-Russia-USA

MIT World : The Great ClimateGate Debate, are they asking the right questions?

This debate that took place December 10, 2009 at MIT on the ClimateGate issue is mostly about politics, policies and perception of science.  I found it interesting with good questions.  Most of the speakers where rational and objective, except one that from my point of view was a bit of an alarmist, but I can relate to some of his concerns. Here's the talk.

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My conclusions after watching this are the following:

• We should have access to raw data all the time
•  Some raw data was destroyed, so we cannot check the conclusions. Source 
• Deleted for space reasons... 100$ for a one TeraByte disk, there is no space shortage in this world.
• We should base policies on hard science.
• Many of the suggested policies coming out from Copenhagen are based on non-peer reviewed statements made by advocacy groups like Greenpeace and the WWF. Source
• Precautionary principal must apply
• This principal goes both ways and can be a bigger killer than global warming. Source

All those debates, climate change, global warming are all around the burning of fossil fuels.

• We all know that we will be forced to stop burning fossil fuel in a couple of generations at best, because this resources is scares
• We all know that burning it creates pollution problems, more real then CO2 concentration.

What we should be debating about is:

• How can we feed 10 billion people
• How will we provide fresh and clean water for 10 billion people for drinking and agriculture.
• How can we give 2000 watts of energy per person to live a descent life for those 10 billion people
• How can we transform our societies technologies based on energy that is 90% fossil fuel based.
• How can we stop the increasing debt spiral of our societies stopping us from our full potentiality to solve those issues.

Those are the debates that we should be having, those are the debates that the "Bâtisseurs De Nations" and my blog is all about.  Please consult them and start the debate.

Simon Filiatrault

Conférence TED

Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas TED, voici un résumé que j'ai pris sur leur site web:

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

Voici quelques conférences que j'ai appréciées.

Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes"

Susan Blackmore studies memes: ideas that replicate themselves from brain to brain like a virus. She makes a bold new argument: Humanity has spawned a new kind of meme, the teme, which spreads itself via technology -- and invents ways to keep itself alive

Bjorn Lomborg: Our priorities for saving the world

Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming? Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg comes up with surprising answers.

Peter Donnelly: How juries are fooled by statistics

Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials

George Dyson: Let's take a nuclear-powered rocket to Saturn

Author George Dyson spins the story of Project Orion, a massive, nuclear-powered spacecraft that could have taken us to Saturn in five years. His insider’s perspective and a secret cache of documents bring an Atomic Age dream to life

Jonathan Drori: Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do

Starting with four basic questions (that you may be surprised to find you can't answer), Jonathan Drori looks at the gaps in our knowledge -- and specifically, what we don't about science that we might think we do.

Global warming meltdown - Video

Source with links and more information

*The first program “Global Warming: The Other Side” can be viewed on this website

Part 1

This portion of the program quickly recaps my skeptical position about carbon dioxide being a significant green house warming gas in our atmosphere. You can learn a lot more about that from my full 9 minute video on that topic by clicking here, and from the scientific paper here. 

Part 2

This segment tells about the problems of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For one thing, the leader of the IPCC has been accused of fraud.

Part 3

The story behind the IPCC fraud has to do with a gross exaggeration about melting of the glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains. You can read about here.

Part 4

The heart of the segment is a point, counterpoint “debate” with Richard Sommerville Ph.D., Emeritus Research Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Dr. Sommerville declined to appear “live” but did record a video statement prior to our first program. Here you see his entire statement in sections with John Coleman’s response to each point inserted. You may want to visit the Scripps Institution website. There is a lot of scientific information there and a response to our telecast may also be posted.

Part 5

The National Climate Data Center responded to the accusations of data manipulation in our first global warming special in January via the Yale Forum website by essentially saying our experts did not understand the complexities of dealing with the world wide weather data for the last 150 years and that the seeming cutting of the number of weather observations used from 6,000 to about 1,500 was an improvement in the system, as was the formula used to modify the reports because the old thermometers had been replaced by electronic sensors. WLOS-TV of Asheville, North Carolina where the NCDC is located followed up on our report and the response with a two part news special report that aired on their station on Wednesday, February 17th. We show part of that report, including interviews with the chief scientist at the NCDC and one of our experts Joseph D’Aleo, a fellow of the the American Meteorological Society. Both reports are viewable in their entirety on the WLOS TV website. They are listed as “Heated Debate”, part 1 and part 2.

We also interview the computer programmer consultant who worked his way inside the complex computer codes to reveal the data manipulations of the NCDC. He is E. Michael Smith. His web blog Is fascinating.

Part 6

This segment is a collection of global warming tidbits and recognizes those individuals who remain skeptical in the face of personal sacrifice.

Part 7


Anthony Watts, former TV Meteorologist, is the star of this segment. And, he is one of the larger forces in the move to debunk the global warming frenzy. You can get to know him a little bit.

However, this only skims the surface. His background includes designing some of the first on-air weather computers ever used. (John Coleman first met him when he installed four of his computers at The Weather Channel when it was being built in 1981.) Today Watts Company provides the weather data from many television stations, radio stations, newspapers and websites. He lives a very green life with solar cells and an electric car a big part of his daily life.

Anthony Watts webblog is the “home” of many scientists from around the world. It records 3.5 to 4 million hits a month. The postings include a wide range of weather related scientific papers and reports and long dialogs from 100s of commenters. That site known as Watts Up with That.

He also runs the Surface Stations investigations, a website that recruits people to inspect weather observation stations everywhere and posts the results. It has become an amazing display of the lack of good scientific practices by our federal government weather agencies.

In preparing the program Watts did an 8 minute powerpoint display of the results of the surface stations investigation. While only a few parts of that presentation will be included in the TV program, the entire presentation will be posted on colemanscorner on KUSI.com within the next few weeks. Watch for it.

Part 8


The same climate researchers that revealed the data manipulations at the NCDC also found that manipulated data was further “adjusted” at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science at Columbia University in New York City.

Even before our first program was on the air, the head of NASA GISS, Jim Hansen Ph.D. sent us a denial statement which we read on newscast and posed with that segment on our website. But it further highlighted a key question, why does NASA, the space agency, have a climate center that uses land based temperature sensors instead of using the modern satellite measurements of the atmosphere?

A team of renowned Climatologists John Christy Ph.D. and Roy Spencer Ph.D. at the University of Alabama at Huntsville have worked with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, also there in Huntsville, to collect and research the satellite atmospheric temperature data. Dr. Christy joins on this segment of the program to delve into the satellite temperature data and its key departure from the warming scenario long proclaimed by NASA GISS. He tells an amazing story and its top drawer science not some political shouting. You can read about John Christy Ph.D. here and visit his website.

Part 9


This segment looks at the saga of the Argos ocean buoys and asks what has become of Al Gore.

Electricity, fresh water anywhere with nuclear power

Those new floating nuclear power plants from Russia that should be ready inside 1 year, can, for approximately 200 Millions dollars US, give you

• 70 MW of electricity, enough for 200,000 people or
• 240,000 cubic meter of fresh water from sea water per day
• This is 240,000,000 liters per day, divided by 500 liters per day per person =  water for half a millions person.

Source

Click image for full size

Est-ce que les Américains réalisent que le nucléaire est incontournable?

Source

Les États-Unis construiront une première centrale nucléaire en 30 ans. Le président Barack Obama a annoncé l'octroi d'un prêt de 8 milliards de dollars pour la fabrication de deux réacteurs dans l'État de Géorgie.

Avec cette annonce, Washington espère réduire la dépendance énergétique du pays et ses émissions polluantes. D'ailleurs, M. Obama a indiqué qu'il partageait des « objectifs communs » avec ses adversaires républicains en matière de climat.

Il a toutefois assuré que le projet respecterait les règles de sécurité les plus strictes.

Le projet devrait générer environ 3000 emplois pour la construction, tandis que 850 postes permanents seront créés pour le fonctionnement quotidien des réacteurs. Ils approvisionneront en électricité quelque 550 000 foyers, soit 1,4 million de personnes.

Le prêt de l'administration américaine s'appuie sur une loi de 2005, promulguée par George W. Bush, qui autorise le département de l'Énergie à garantir des prêts pour des projets privés réduisant les gaz à effet de serre. Quelque 18,5 milliards ont été alloués à un fonds de garantie, mais c'est la première fois qu'il sera utilisé pour lancer un projet de centrale nucléaire.

Le projet de budget 2011 présenté au Congrès par M. Obama prévoyait de tripler le fonds, ce qui le porterait à plus de 54 milliards.

Quand on comprend que les énergies vertes ne sont pas la solution, que les énergies fossiles ne dureront pas pour toujours et qu’elles sont polluantes, le seul choix logique reste le nucléaire.

Latest news on the climate debate

Blizzards Warm-up Climate Debate
Casey Curlin, Washington Times, 12 February 2010

Harvard Hometown Plans Draconian Climate Regime
Joshua Miller, FoxNews, 12 February 2010

Climategate Panel Needs an Overhaul
Benny Peiser & David Whitehouse, GWPF, 12 February 2010

IPCC’s Errors Were Deliberate?
Richard North, EU Referendum, 12 February 2010

The Carbon-Trading Shell Game
Mark Shapiro, Harpers, February 2010

Why the EPA Is Wrong about Recent Warming
Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 11 February 2010

A Blizzard of Hype
Patrick Michaels, Planet Gore, 11 February 2010

Shoddy Climate Research
Detroit News editorial, 10 February 2010

The Global Warming Thrill Ride Comes to an End
National Review editorial, 10 February 2010

New York Times Swings, Misses, on IPCC Story
Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 9 February 2010

Australia’s Wild Camels Escape Carbon Executioner
Ean Higgins, The Australian, 8 February 2010

Credibility Is Melting
Mark Steyn, Macleans, 7 February 2010

BBC Poll: Climate Skepticism “On the Rise”
BBC News, 7 February 2010

More IPCC Errors
Richard Gray & Ben Leach, Telegraph, 6 February 2010

Les olympiques sont impressionnants, mais nos garçons aussi...

Voici un petit montage vidéo de Vincent Prévost, filmé par mon fils Samuel Beauchesne. C'est le genre de saut que nos jeunes réussissent à faire. Quand je compare ceci avec le ski acrobatique aux olympiques, j'en ai des frissons.

Impressionnant les jeunes, bravo.

Promo Vincent Prévost from Vincent Prévost on Vimeo.

L'énergie nucléaire, présentation de Bertrand Barré

L'énergie nucléaire -Présentation de Bertrand BARRE

Pour faire face à la croissance démographique et aux besoins criants de développement du Tiers Monde, l'humanité va devoir accroître encore une consommation d'énergie déjà sans commune mesure avec celle des siècles passés, sans mettre pour autant en péril son environnement.

Depuis la découverte du feu, l'humanité a couvert ses besoins d'énergie grâce au soleil, soit en utilisant plus ou moins directement son flux instantané d'énergie, soit en puisant dans les ressources d'énergie solaire stockées par la planète. Ce n'est que depuis moins de cinquante ans qu'une énergie nouvelle, venue non plus de notre soleil, mais des lointaines supernovae, est venue enrichir l'éventail des sources disponibles à l'humanité : l'énergie nucléaire de fission.

Déjà équivalente, après un démarrage extrêmement rapide, à toute l'énergie hydraulique du monde, l'énergie nucléaire est aujourd'hui en phase de quasi-stagnation, et se heurte dans de nombreux pays à une opposition presque viscérale.

L'énergie nucléaire n'est, en somme, qu'une façon compliquée de faire bouillir économiquement de grandes quantités d'eau, sans émettre de gaz de combustion dans l'atmosphère. Comme toutes les formes d'énergie, elle a des avantages spécifiques, des inconvénients spécifiques, et des champs d'application plus ou moins privilégiés.

Et puisque nous aurons besoin de toutes les sources, y compris de l'énergie nucléaire de fission, il faut en maîtriser les inconvénients et tirer durablement parti de ses avantages, là où ils sont le plus valorisables. C'est d'autant plus réalisable qu'il s'agit d'une énergie jeune, qui dispose encore de grandes marges de progrès.

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Pour mieux comprendre comment fonctionne une centrale nucléaire, voici un petit vidéo de 6 minutes de la compagnie Areva qui explique le fonctionnement d'un réacteur à eau pressurisée.

Is India less prone to manipulation than us in the "developed" world?

 Look at the cover of this Indian magazine:

The Hottest Hoax in the World

We’ve been had.

It is now clear that the Nobel Prize-winning global warming report is full of exaggerations, inaccuracies, illogical conclusions and outright lies. The real tragedy is that no one seems to care anymore about the actual state of our environment.

BY Ninad D. Sheth

  

Compare this to the Toronto Star, where they where asking us to believe every thing that was said without asking question.

66 days later, they change their mind a little bit in this editorial: 
Questions for climate change skeptics, but missed the target on the whole.

Donna Laframboise did a very detailed analysis of this editorial.  I urge you to read it.


So while we are scared by the mass media about the soon to happen end of the world, we are sold the idea that the only solution to all those problems is to buy into the "green" energy and give money to carbon traitors, sorry I mean traders.

But wait a minute, is that really the solution.  As I explained on this blog post, "green" energy will not solve anything, it will only accomplish this:

• Put us all into more debt
• Force us to use more fossil fuels
• Make us uncompetitive on the global market
• Create an unstable and costly power grid.

When you compare this to India, South Korea, China, where they push nuclear energy at 3 cents per kWh, we in the developed world are switching to unstable, unreliable "green" energy at more than 20 cents per kWh.


Are we really saving the environment by following this path?

Wind farm capacity factor 25% is very good !

Here's another example of the capacity factor of windmills. Next time you see a number of MW advertised, you can safely divide it by 4.

This means that a 10MW wind farm plant like this one in India, will give you this 10MW 25% of the time or just 2.5MW in average.  According to this article, this capacity factor is very good.  Look at the months of March and April, it looks like the capacity factor is under 10%.  Therefore you definitely need another source of power to compensate.  Nuclear seems the best choice for them in India.

Full article from the PDF:

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL)has a wind farm in operation at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) since January 2007.

For the second year in succession since its inception, KKNPP wind farm has performed exceedingly well in terms of generation of electricity in the financial year 2008-09. KKNPP wind farm, consisting of eight 1.25-MWe wind turbine generators (WTGs), became operational on January 24, 2007 and since then, it is in commercial operation, generating electricity through wind power.

The power thus generated is being fed to Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) grid, earning revenue for NPCIL. In the year 2007-08, KKNPP wind farm generated 22.423 Million Units with a plant load factor (PLF) of 25.53%, and quite significantly, there is an improvement in the performance of wind farm in the year 2008-09. Generation of 22.996 MUs is higher by 2.56% compared to the generation of previous financial year (2007-08). Plant load factor of 26.25%, achieved in 2008-09 is better than the average PLF achieved in the region.

KKNPP wind farm turbine generators have been among top-performing generators in the region. This is attributable largely due to better windy conditions that prevailed in the year 2008-09 when compared to 2007-08 and also, to some extent, due to improvement seen in the machine and grid availability around this time.

Les énergies vertes, pas très efficaces dans nos climats

Voici deux exemples d’inefficacité des énergies vertes dans nos climats nordiques.

Exemple #1,  Installation de 10MW de panneau solaire au Nevada.  Pas très efficace ces temps-ci!

Même quand il fait beau, ces panneaux solaires ne sont pas plus efficaces que 25% de leur capacité. Ceci à un coût frisant les 20cents le kWh.  Hydro vend l'électricité à 6 cents le kWh au Vermont!!!

Source1, Source2

Exemple #2
Au Minnesota, les éoliennes fabriquées en Californien ne tournent pas à cause du froid.  L'huile est gelée! À 3.3 millions de dollars chaque, c'est assez frustrant pour les payeurs de taxe.

Source


Pendant ce temps, l'Ontario investit 7 milliards de dollars dans des éoliennes.  Certains pensent que le seul effet sera une augmentation des couts pour les consommateurs.  Il est douteux que ces installations diminuent les gaz à effet de serre, car pendant que les éoliennes de produise rien, c'est-à-dire 70% du temps, l'énergie doit venir de quelque part!

Ou sont les ingénieurs?
Source

Mise à jour:
D'où viennent les éoliennes vendues à l'Ontario? De la compagnie Samsung en Coré du sud.  Fait intéressant, la Coré du sud utilise le nucléaire pour 30% environ de sa production électrique et ceci est en croissance.  Elle vend la technologie nucléaire partout en Asie.  Cette production électrique leur coute environ 3 cent par kWh.  Pendant ce temps, nous les gentils Canadiens, on achète des technologies intermittentes pour produire notre électricité à plus de 20 cents le kWh.  Ça va être beau de compétitionner sur le marché avec une énergie 7x plus dispendieuse. Source

After the ClimateGate, a flurry of other "Gates"

After the ClimateGate scandal, we now see a list of other "Gates" that shows clearly that the way the IPCC as been conducted itself is far from appropriate for a scientific organization.

Here's a quick list as of Feb 2010 of all the other Scandals:

Aussie Droughtgate

Melbourne University alarmist David Karoly once claimed a rise in the Murray Darling Basin’s temperatures was “likely due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human acitivity”...

But the latest evidence shows that Rudd and Karoly were wrong. In fact, there’s no evidence in the Murray Darling drought of man-made warming, says a new study in Geophysical Research Letters

Africagate

the IPCC has wrongly claimed that in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020....

At best, this is a wild exaggeration, unsupported by any scientific research, referenced only to a report produced by a Canadian advocacy group, written by an obscure Moroccan academic who specializes in carbon trading, citing references which do not support his claims.

GlacierGate

United Nations report that claimed Himalayan glaciers were at risk of disappearing by 2035. This information was repeated all over the world by all media and NASA.

On January 20, however, the IPCC repudiated the 2035 estimate after media attention revealed that most glacier experts consider it absurd.

IPCC based claims on student dissertation and magazine article!

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine....

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them. Aren't we supposed to see only peer reviewed science based studies?

And there is many articles by GreenPeace and the WWF that made it into the IPCC report... Again...

Aren't we supposed to see only peer reviewed science based studies in the IPCC report?

 

Is the history of the progressive movement being re-written?

Some say that Glenn Beck live free or die, documentary is re-writing the history of the progressive movement to show a one sided view only.

Look at this video and read the oposing view and make up your own mind.



Comments?

Communiquer par la pensée

Source

Les scientifiques sont désormais capables d'entrer en contact avec des personnes qui ne peuvent absolument pas bouger ni parler.

Deux équipes médicales, l'une britannique et l'autre belge, ont permis à un homme considéré comme étant dans un état végétatif depuis cinq ans de répondre par oui ou par non, par la pensée.

En 2003, cet individu de 29 ans avait survécu à un grave accident de la route. Depuis, il ne pouvait ni bouger ni parler. Il ainsi été déclaré en état végétatif.

C'était avant que des chercheurs utilisent une technique particulière d'imagerie par résonance magnétique. Cette technique a permis de mettre en évidence une activité cérébrale chez le patient qui s'est montré capable de répondre correctement à des questions, par oui ou par non, en modulant ses pensées.

Pas moins de 23 autres patients diagnostiqués comme étant dans un état végétatif ont participé à cette étude réalisée sur trois ans et dont les résultats sont publiés dans New England Journal of Medicine.

La nouvelle technique a permis de déceler des signes de conscience chez quatre d'entre eux.

Ce scanneur n'a pas seulement confirmé que le patient n'était pas en état végétatif, mais pour la première fois en cinq ans, il a permis à ce patient de communiquer ses pensées avec le monde extérieur.

— Dr Martin Monti, Université de Cambridge

Cette percée aidera le personnel soignant à mieux comprendre les besoins de ces personnes qui pourront exprimer ce qu'elles ressentent.

Les auteurs des travaux, issus de l'Université Cambridge et de l'Université de Liège, tiennent à préciser que ces résultats ne veulent pas dire que tous les patients en état végétatif sont conscients.

Radio-Canada.ca avec Agence France Presse et Université de Liège

What happen when you stop paying taxes?

Source1   Source2

Here's your answer. Colorado Springs, second biggest city in the state, has decided that enough is enough. Confronted by a $38 million budget shortfall, and opposed to a proposal to triple property taxes to make up the gap, residents are instead bracing for spending cuts that make "draconian" sound tame.

The result:

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

January 2010, warmest in 32 years

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The sea level has been rising and falling over the last 2,500 years

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"Rising and falling sea levels over relatively short periods do not indicate long-term trends. An assessment of hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems an irregular phenomenon today is in fact nothing new," explains Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research.*

 The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. "Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. It is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction," explains Dr. Sivan.

The rising sea level is one of the phenomena that have most influence on humankind: the rising sea not only floods the littoral regions but also causes underground water salinization, flooded effluents, accelerated coastal destruction, and other damage.

According to Dr. Sivan, the changing sea level can be attributed to three main causes: the global cause – the volume of water in the ocean, which mirrors the mass of ice sheets and is related to global warming or cooling; the regional cause – vertical movement of the earth's surface, which is usually related to the pressure placed on the surface by the ice; and the local cause – vertical tectonic activity. Seeing as Israel is not close to former ice caps and the tectonic activity along the Mediterranean coast is negligible over these periods, it can be concluded that drastic changes in Israel's sea levels are mainly related to changes in the volume of water.

In the present study, in light of earlier studies, research student Ayelet Toker and Dr. Sivan, set out to examine Israel's sea level over the past 2,500 years, based on data deduced from many coastal archaeological findings. They made a careful selection of findings that have been reliably and accurately dated, and first focused on findings that were excavated by the Antiquities Authority in Acre of the Crusader period.

These revealed that the sea level during the:

• Crusader period – just 800 years ago – was some 50-90 centimeters lower than the present sea level. Findings from the same period at Caesarea and Atlit reinforced this conclusion. 

When additional sites were examined from periods before and after the Crusader period, it was revealed that there have been significant fluctuations in sea level: 

• During the Hellenistic period, the sea level was about 1.6 meters lower than its present level; 
• during the Roman era the level was almost similar to today's; 
• the level began to drop again during the ancient Muslim period, and continued dropping to reach the same level as it was during the Crusader period; 
• but within about 500 years it rose again, and reached some 25 centimeters lower than today's level at the beginning of the 18th century.

"Over the past century, we have witnessed the sea level in Israel fluctuating with almost 19 centimeters between the highest and lowest levels. Over the past 50 years Israel's mean sea level rise is 5.5 centimeters, but there have also been periods when it rose by 10 centimeters over 10 years. That said, even acute ups and downs over short periods do not testify to long-term trends.

An observation of the sea levels over hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems a phenomenon today is as a matter of fact "nothing new under the sun", Dr. Sivan concludes.

The economy is in recovery? Think again.

Paul B. Farell published this scary scenario on 20 reasons the global Debt time bomb will explode soon.  Make sure you also look at the commentaries Source 

Here's one: Paul Farrell paints a frightening picture; but on every one of his ticking time-bombs, he has put his finger on something real. In our nation today, there isn't even enlightened self-interest any more, let alone a concern for the common good! And that spells catastrophe." - Philo

---

Feb. 2, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST

20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon

Commentary: Which trigger will ignite the Great Depression II?

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Retire? You can fuggetaboutit if the new Global Debt Time Bomb is detonated by any one of 20 made-in-America trigger mechanisms. 

 Yes, 20. And yes, any one can destroy your retirement because all 20 are inexorably linked, a house-of-cards, a circular firing squad destined to self-destruct, triggering the third great Wall Street meltdown of the 21st century, igniting the Great Depression II that George W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and now President Obama have simply delayed with their endless knee-jerk, debt-laden wars, stimulus bonanzas and bailouts.

Wow, what an epic Hollywood blockbuster this will make: You know the drama, can't miss the warnings. The financial press is flooding us with plot lines ... a Forbes cover story focuses on a "Global Debt Bomb: How It Could Wreck Your Life" ... Leaders at the World Economic Forum on Swiss Mt. Davos fear another global meltdown will trigger mass rebellions ... The Economist calls the plot a "Global Asset Bubble," with cheap money fast driving up asset prices.
Plus, Bloomberg BusinessWeek is adding jet fuel to the ticking time-bomb in: "After the Stimulus Binge, a Debt Hangover: Trillions of dollars have been spent keeping the global economy afloat. But now fears about the Great Recession are giving way to worries about something else: The Great Reckoning" when massive debts come due. Then the debt bomb explodes "and the results won't be pretty for investors or elected officials."
Forbes discovered the trigger mechanism in "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly," by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff: The "90% ratio of government debt to GDP is a tipping point in economic growth." For 800 years "you increase it over and beyond a high threshold, and boom!" Well guess what? "The U.S. government-debt-to-GDP ratio is 84%." Soon, Ka-Booom! Depression. Kiss your retirement goodbye.

Who knows? Forbes? Bloomberg BusinessWeek? The Economist? Davos-World Economic Forum? True, they're all looking at the same plot line for a Hollywood blockbuster about the "Global Debt Time Bomb."
But the financial press navigates in a fog. There's not just one, but many triggers, all linked in a lethal network. We've reported on it for years. Now you tell us: What triggers this firestorm?

Poll: 20 economic weapons of mass destruction triggering ticking Global Debt Time Bomb

1. Federal Budget Deficit Bomb. The Bush/Cheney wars pushed America deep into a debt hole. Federal debt limit was just raised almost 100% with Obama's 2010 budget, to $14.3 trillion vs. $7.8 trillion in 2005. The Congressional Budget Office predicts future deficits around 4% through 2020. Get it? America's debt at 84% of GDP will soon pass that toxic 90% trigger point.
2. U.S. Foreign Trade Bomb. Monthly deficits actually dropped from $50 billion per month to roughly $35 billion. But the total continues climbing as $400 billion is added each year. Foreigners now own $2.5 trillion of America, with China holding over $1.3 trillion in Treasury debt.
3. Weakening U.S. Dollar as Foreign Reserve Currency Bomb. Fear China and other currencies will replace dollar as main foreign reserves. The dollar's fallen: The main index measuring dollar strength has gone from 120 at the Clinton-to-Bush handoff to below 80 today.
4. Cheap Money Bomb: Credit Ratings Down, Rates Up. Economists at S&P, Fitch and Moody's were totally co-conspirators of Fat Cat Bankers, misleading investors before meltdown: Soon, debt up, ratings down, interest rates soar.
5. Global Real Estate Bomb. Dubai Tower, new "world's tallest building" is empty. BusinessWeek warns that China's housing collapse could be worse than America's. Plus the U.S. commercial real estate bubble is now $1.7 trillion, a "ticking time bomb" bloating 25% of bank balance sheets.
6. Peak Oil and the Population Bomb. China and India each need 500 new cities. The United Nations estimates world population exploding 50% from 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050: Three billion more humans demanding more automobiles, exhausting more resources to feed their version of the gas-guzzling "America Dream."
7. Social Security Bomb. We have no choice; eventually we must either cut benefits or raise taxes. Politicians hate both, so they'll do nothing. Delays worsen solutions. Without action, by 2035 Social Security and Medicare benefits will eat up the entire federal budget other than defense.
8. Medicare: A Nuclear Bomb. Going broke faster than Social Security. Prescription drug benefit added an unfunded $8.1 trillion. In 5 years estimates rose from about $35 trillion to over $60 trillion now.
9. Health-care Insurance Bomb. Burden increasingly shifted to employees. Costs rising faster than inflation. Recent Obamacare plan would have cost $90 billion annually, paid to Big Pharma and insurers.
10. State and Local Government Budget Bombs. Deficits of $110 billion in 2010, $178 billion in 2011on top of more that $450 billion in underfunded state and municipal employee pension funds.
11. Underfunded Corporate Pensions Bomb. From $60 billion surplus in 2007 to $409 billion deficit in 2009. And a whopping 92% of the pension plans of companies are now underfunded. Defaults are guaranteed by taxpayers.
12. Consumer Debt Bomb. Americans are still living beyond their means. Even with a downturn, consumer debt rose from about $2.3 to $2.5 trillion. Fat Cat Bankers love it -- yes love making matters worse by gouging cardholders and mortgagees, blocking help in foreclosures and bankruptcies.
13. Personal Savings Bomb. Before the 2008 meltdown savings rate dropped from about 10% in the early 1980s to below zero. Now it's increasing, slowing retail recovery. Today, government's the big "unsaver."
14. War and Military Defense Deficits. Costs of Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- $200+ billion annually, $3 trillion minimum, with massive long-term costs for veteran medical care, equipment renewal, recruitment.
15. Homeland Insecurity Bomb. Security at airports, seaports, borders, vulnerable chemical plants all increase budgets.
16. Fed/Treasury Bailout Bombs. Tax credits, loans, cash and purchase of toxic assets from Wall Street banks estimated at $23.7 trillion as new debt was shifted from too-big-to-fail Fat-Cat banks to taxpayers.
17. Insatiable Washington Lobbyists Bombs. Paulson, Goldman, Geithner, Morgan and Wall Street banks, through their lobbyists and former employees working inside now have absolute power over government spending. Democracy and voters are now irrelevant in America's new corporate-socialism.
18. Shadow Banking: The Derivatives Bomb. Wall Street wants no regulation of this $670 trillion, high-risk, out-of-control casino that's highly leveraged versus the $50 trillion total GDP of all nations. We forget that derivatives almost destroyed global economies in 2008-09, finally will by 2012.
19. Dysfunctional Two-Party Political Bomb. Polarized partisanship increasing: Every day both parties show zero interest in cooperating for the public good. Instead they fight viciously, resisting everything and anything proposed by opponents. Only goal: Score political points, make the other side look bad.
20. The Coming Populous Rebellion Bombs. Nobody trusts anyone in authority. For good reason. So immediate gratification, short-term betting and a lack of long-term perspective wins for individual investors, consumers and taxpayers as well as Washington, Wall Street and Corporate America CEOs. Today: "Doing what's right for the common good and country" is just empty political rhetoric.

Forbes. The Economist. Davos-World Economic Forum. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. All one voice, one loud, lonely chorus echoing that famous Beatles tune: "Head in a cloud ... The fool on the hill, sees the sun going down ... a thousand voices talking perfectly loud. But nobody ever hears him, or the sound he appears to make ... And the eyes in his head, see the world spinning 'round ...ooh, round and round and round."

Historians and behavioral economists tell us most investors are blind optimists. Investors cannot see bubbles from inside their bubble. Nor Fat Cat Bankers from inside their mega-bonus-bubble. Nor politicians from inside the beltway bubble.

Why? The optimist's brain filters out bad news. They know their dreams of prosperity will come true. Then, when they finally do see that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, it's always too late.

I will say it again, gently: A new meltdown is coming. The Great Depression II is coming, soon. And yet, I know your mental filters are working, blocking warnings of a bomb. I can even hear you calling me "the fool on the hill who sees the sun going down, the world spinning round" ... sees you kissing your retirement goodbye.

Tire recycling with microwave

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How about recycling those old scrap tires and recovering oil, steel and carbon, while generating its own electrical power through the use of ultra-clean micro-turbines which, after providing the necessary electrical power directly to the prototype pilot recycling machine, could then feed the remaining electrical energy production into the power grid.

Ever heard of the UHI effect? (Urban Heat Island)

This is the the influence of all the urbanization, cars, road, homes, industries, power plants etc that influence the temperature.  This effect can be very important and you must take good care when comparing temperature measurements to understand if there is global warming or not.

Here's one example (source) of this heat effect.  This graph shows the temperature contrast between a city center and the outskirts.



Where I live, I often see a difference of 5-10 degree C between my home from the city center.