The World’s Largest Solar Plant Is Blinding Pilots

Written by Sarah Zhang, gizmodo.com

We probably should have seen this coming. At the Ivanpah solar power plant near Las Vegas, a massive glittering field of 170,000 garage door-sized mirrors reflects sunlight. And all those mirrors are making flying near Ivanpah not so fun—or safe.solar farm

The Clark County Department of Aviation sent a letter earlier this week urging the plant’s designers to do something about the glare, reports KCET. The letter included two separate complaints from August 2013, before the plant even opened.

One pilot describes flying near Ivanpah was like “looking into the sun.” An air traffic controller also describes receiving constant complaints but being told, chillingly, that nothing was to be done:

Daily, during the late morning and early afternoon hours we get complaints from pilots of aircraft flying from the northeast to the southwest about the brightness of this solar farm. They usually ask us what it is because they don’t know. On this particular morning, an air carrier complained about the brightness and reiterated that it was “nearly blinding.” I reported this to Management and was told that they were going to do nothing about it. They then suggested that I tell the pilot to report it through the safety reporting system that they have and to report it myself. I have no idea what can be done about this situation, but being a passenger on an aircraft that flew through this airspace and saw it for myself, I would say that something needs to be done. It is extremely bright and distracting.

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Big Government and Big Corporate Roles in Health Care

Written by Dr Gerald V. Todd

 

One thing that will never change – human beings are each unique individuals made in the image and likeness of God – “endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” When designing any kind of health care system, this truth must be paramount.healthcareOur present health care system developed from gradual improvements in individual treatment. As observation, testing and research revealed common pathways to treatment, companies rose to offer new technologies, equipment and devices to make treatment safer, better and less intrusive. In most cases, this has worked to meet the hurting individual’s needs.

I’m all for gathering data, comparative analysis and whatever technology can bring to the fight against disease and misery. My life was certainly spared 8 years ago after a stage 4 diagnosis leading to a cure from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I get uncomfortable with “group-think” when it comes to health care. The exceptions are where population groups share a similar malady that can be dealt with communally. In the case of employer provided health insurance, the typical company has a diverse population and is a proper subsidiary link in the chain.

Microsoft and GE have seldom demonstrated a bottom up view of anything they do, including pushing that horrendous Common Core and moving health care equipment manufacturing to China. Since they are dealing with products and technology it is their proper role to serve the individual through the various subsidiary levels of health care.

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Aussie Alarmists in Spin as Government Climatologist Prof Karoly is Cornered

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Aussie skeptics say they have one of their nation’s top climate alarmist professors cornered in an ongoing battle of words over who holds the high ground on scientific integrity. Scientist, Dr Judy Ryan and her colleague, Dr Marjory Curtis are going public with a series of damning emails they’ve had with government-backed promoters of fears about man-made global warming.

Their latest target is Professor David Karoly, a climatologist who they claim dishonestly championed a government campaign to depict human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as black smoke, contrary to scientific fact.

Dr Ryan reports, “On 18th February 2014 I sent an email to David Karoly with Marjory Curtis, a retired geologist, as my co-signer. Approximately 180 australian and overseas media outlets, politicians, universities, including their student newspapers, and prominent climate hysteria mongers were openly copied in.”

Ryan and Curtis are among many highly-qualified scientists who, as skeptics of the wrong-headed hysteria over supposed man-made global warming, are fighting to restore scientific integrity.

Dr Curtis says Karoly’s “error” over the CO2 as black smoke “may have been a fortuitous oversight” for the cause of alarmists who some say are trying to dupe the public on the issue.

Judy Curtis has advised Karoly all the correspondence, because of its significance to public policy, will be published as open letters. She says, “We replied 21st February and added in our fellow skeptics. So there are now close to 220 observers for Karoly’s next response. To date we have not heard back, but it is early days yet.” 

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low solar activity correlated to jet stream blocking, say scientists

Written by The Hockey Schtick

A new paper published in Nature Geoscience reconstructs climate and solar activity over the past 1000 years and finds tiny changes in solar activity “have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.” The authors find low solar activity, such as we are currently experiencing, is associated with an increase in winter jet stream blockings, which is the source of jet stream/polar vortex dips and record cold 2014 winter experienced in the US.polar vortex The authors propose another solar amplification mechanism by which “a quasi-stationary high-pressure system in the eastern North Atlantic modifies the flow of the westerly winds. We conclude that this process could have contributed to the consecutive cold winters documented in Europe during the Little Ice Age.”

The new paper contradicts claims by CAGW alarmist Jennifer Francis that global warming will cause an increase of jet stream blocking events, finding instead that jet stream blocking was more common during cold periods such as the Little Ice Age. 

 
According to the authors, “Analysis of the atmosphere component in the climate model revealed that during periods of solar minima there was a high-pressure system located west of the British Isles. This feature is often referred to as atmospheric blocking, and it is called this because it blocks the warm westerly winds diverting them and allowing cold Arctic air to flow south bringing harsh winters to Europe, such as those recently experienced in 2010 and 2013. Meteorological studies have previously found similar effects of solar variability on the strength and duration of atmospheric winter blockings over the last 50 years, and although the exact nature of this relationship is not yet clear, it is thought to be due to complex processes happening in the upper layers of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere.” 

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Goodbye Electricity

Written by Dr Klaus L.E. Kaiser

Much of the western world assumes electric power to be available 24/7 with an unlimited supply to boot. Indeed, “Hydro” (still) is and was a readily available energy source for every household, office and industry in most of the developed nations.smart grid

Less developed nations still suffer from widespread availability, frequent electric power interruptions, and “bandwidth” problems. The electricity providers cannot deliver the quantity desired, particularly to rural areas, and the grid simply cannot carry the currents needed.

Are the “Smart Grid,” “Smart Meters,” “Smart Appliances” and “Alternative Energy” systems going to solve the problem? I don’t think so.

In fact, reliance on these systems will exacerbate the problems in the making. To elaborate, let’s start with some simple numbers on electric power generation.

Electric Power Generation

Electric power generation involves the process of converting the energy inherent in another energy source to usable electric power fed into the grid for anyone’s consumption. There are few energy sources that have sufficient capacity to supply the need. The table below gives some rough data on electric power (EP) generation, by energy source (ES) in percent of the total EP (source Wikipedia) mostly for the year 2009, U stands for uranium (nuclear power).

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The Science Theory of Functional Relativity

Written by Dr Gerald V. Todd

The true definition of Capitalism is in High-Finance’s role as the servant of Science, Commerce, and Investment in vision and courage; in personal and family savings and philanthropy! Science can advance, when a Capitalist is convinced to help for profit and the common good. Totalitarians have a penchant for integrity-compromising pre-conceived outcomes to advance their power.

My theory is far from scientific, rather a road map for long term scientific accomplishment for the greatest number of individuals working in the chaos of human interaction.

About two years ago, I started seeing a series of causes and effects in human interaction that first sparked my imagination in the political arena, then in the debate between social and equal justice, and most recently in the field of science. There are three groups of three philosophical ideas that suddenly fell in like a Conga Line. Their plausibility is easily seem when starting with finance and ending with beauty or the reverse, starting with beauty and ending with finance. The end results are dramatically opposite.

P = Σ(T+A+O) [1]

1The quality or state of being relative.

2A state of dependence in which the existence or significance of one entity is solely dependent on that of another.

Executive Summary

The Science Theory of Functional Relativity is an exercise in realignment of political and philosophical priorities. The purpose is to clear the way for greater freedom to explore, discover, and develop new ideas; and to improve on the older ones. These processes have their own trials and challenges. It shouldn’t be necessary for the government and financiers to stand in the way of real achievement, that both will ultimately profit from.

Scientific advancement has always required inquisitive, visionary and persistent explorers, experimentors and developers, who can draw from the wealth of discovery from those who went before. They require an environment where exploration and experimentation can take place within the bounds of human dignity. 

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IS GLACIAL RETREAT ANOMALOUS?

Written by Myles, PSI Researcher

THE SCARE STORY is that global warming from human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) is going to melt the glaciers of the world causing widespread ecological disasters. The unverifiable junk science claim is that they will continue to melt at an increasing rate and eventually vanish. For example in the paper “Climate Change in Relation to the Himalayas” by S.P.Singh [1],  the author typifies an alarmist position and says… 

“…rivers and adjoining grassland and forest ecosystems would be severely affected by the phase of rapid snow melt and subsequent phase of the absence of the snow melt water forever with the loss of glaciers.”

THE TRUTH is that glaciers will never melt back above the SNOWLINE due to that being the height at which atmospheric temperature becomes zero and thereby where water vapour freezes. According to a well-respected 1980’s paper (before the current fad for global warming alarmism) a well-respected peer-reviewed paper ‘Holocene Glacier Fluctuations’ by Gerald Osborn and P Thompson Davis portrays a completely different secenario (image right). Osborn and Thompson Davis found that glaciers reached their maximum extent about 400 years ago. They say that since then there has been ” General retreat of most glaciers continuing to the present day.”Myles fig 1

This line varies but as a rule of thumb a glacier forms above the snowline and then advances down into above zero temperatures, the region where it can actually melt. How much could supposed human-caused CO2 global warming push this line up? The answer is it cannot to any measurable amount. Therefore there will be no “loss of glaciers” as alleged by “climate scientists.”

THE ASSUMPTION is that glacial retreat is unusual, unprecedented and occurring at a rate faster than has ever been seen before because of human factors. Research into the history of glaciers reveals a different picture. Glaciers have been advancing and retreating constantly for thousands of years. The most recent peak in length of glaciers being with the peak of the little ice age. A short three-page paper here to verify this:  http://www.episodes.co.in/www/backissues/101/ARTICLES–26.pdf

 Naturally after reaching a MAXIMUM size with the peak of the Little Ice Age the glaciers started retreating. The glacial retreat of some areas started well before human industrialization even began and carries on to the present day. NO human fingerprint is thus proven.

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AMPLITUDE MODULATION CASE STUDY AT THE LEONARDS HILL WIND FARM, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

Written by W Les Huson

Australian acoustics expert, W Les Huson, performs a detailed case study on a wind farm to prove that noise pollution study is complex and problematic. Wind turbines operators declined to assist research. Full paper reproduced below.wind turbine noise

ABSTRACT

Results of two channel simultaneous audio recordings outdoors in the free field and inside a bedroom are presented from the Leonards Hill wind farm that has two Repower 2MW MM82 wind turbines. 

The analysis demonstrates the dynamic effects of amplitude modulation on attenuation of sound between the two measurement locations and shows how outdoor to indoor attenuation is compromised at particular room resonant modes.

Different measurement approaches are discussed with the conclusion that a 10Hz sampling rate of sound level is insufficient to accurately determine peak to trough amplitude modulations.

Infrasound measurements are also presented to show that amplitude modulation is also observable below 20Hz and that low frequency infrasound may also be considered to be amplitude modulation.

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Skillful (so far) Thirty year Climate Forecast

Written by Dr Norman Page (PhD - Geology)

 

Three-year Update and Latest Cooling Estimate

1. Original Forecast  v Reality.

In the last few months there have been numerous discussions on the WUWT site and amongst establishment scientists questioning the validity of climate models as a source of useful predictions about future temperature trends.Notably, the UK  Met Office has reported on “The Recent Pause in Global Warming” for which they have no good explanation.
 
The fact is that, as will be discussed later, their models are incorrectly structured and the modelling approach is inherently useless for making  predictions. A much better approach is to recognise and project forward quasi-cyclic quasi-repetitive patterns in the temperature, oceanic systems and solar driver data as was done in the 30 year forecast reviewed here.
 
Here are extracts from the original (6/18/10) 30 Year Forecast and the 2012 update which readers can check against the last 3 years of data and their own experience.
 
6/18/10:

“The geologic record shows clearly that the sun is the main climate driver. The Milankovitch multi-millennial orbital cycles in NH insolation are firmly established in the record as are the Schwab and deVries cycles. Other millennial and decadal variations in solar activity are present in the record. TSI is not the only or even the best indicator of solar activity – variations in EUV radiation and the GCR flux (via cloud formation and earth’s albedo) seem to be more important on decadal and centennial scales.
 
Earth’s climate is the result of complex resonances between all these solar cycles with the lunar declination cycles and endogenous earth processes.
At this time the sun has entered a quiet phase with a dramatic drop in solar magnetic field strength since 2004. This suggests the likelihood of a cooling phase on earth with Solar Cycles 21, 22 ,23 equivalent to Solar Cycles 2,3,4, and the delayed Cycle 24 comparable with Cycle 5 so that a Dalton type minimum is probable.” …………………………
“There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter.
 
The southern continents will be generally cooler with more frequent droughts and frost and snow in winter, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice may react differentially to an average global cooling. We might expect sea ice to increase in the Antarctic but in the NH the Arctic Oscillation while bringing cooler temperatures further south may also occasionaly bring warmer air into the Arctic with possible relative loss of sea ice in that area during those years.”

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A Challenge to the Royal Society, PIK, IPCC, and Others

Written by PSI Staff

 

The Royal Society [of Britain], hereinafter “RS”, a venerable institution with more than 300 years on its back, has been served with a scientific challenge from independent scientists. The dispute is about the society’s continued refusal to even acknowledge, much less discuss, evidence to the contrary of their stance on carbon dioxide as THE “climate change” villain and the amounts and rates involved in the carbon cycle in various compartments of the Earth’s ecosphere.Royal Society Entrance

Carbon dioxide (CO2), by some people referred to as “carbon pollution,” has been vilified by politicians and scientists alike as a “greenhouse gas” that, supposedly, heats the earth to a “tipping point” of calamitous proportions for the entire world. That view has been propagated by people like Al Gore and Michael Mann, and by organisations like the RS and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, hereinafter “PIK.” The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, hereinafter “IPCC” has been a major proponent of Dr. Mann’s “hockey stick” graph in the past; it no longer is, as their latest report omits it. No wonder, the graph has become a “sticky point” for the believers in the CO2-theory when its scientific foundations were found to be, shall we say, shaky as Mann’s lawsuits against his critics unravels.

To this day though, RS, PIK and IPCC officials as well as renowned politicians use terms like “carbon pollution,” ”global warming,“ “climate change” and “ocean acidification” as reason to propose and enact all kinds international agreements, new laws, taxing mechanisms, “pollution control mechanisms,” “environmental principles of conduct” and so on. All such new rules depend on the veracity of the scientific claims behind them. That’s where the rubber hits the road.

Principia Scientific International (PSI) has great pleasure in joining in the challenge by way of publishing Dr Kaiser’s analysis in our unique PROM system for reader feedback (PROM: peer review in open media). From the response (or lack thereof) to Dr. Kaiser’s challenge to the RS, PIK and the scientific community at large, as provided in his paper,  “The Carbon Cycle and Royal Society Math” (https://principia-scientific.com/publications/PROM/PROM-KAISER-Carbon_Cycle_and_RS_Math.pdf), take your clue.

 

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How ‘We All’ Came to ‘Have AIDS’: Rock Hudson’s False ‘Legacy’

Written by Elizabeth Ely & Cal Crilly

Thirty years ago this spring, actor Rock Hudson tested “positive” on the new “HIV test.”  A year and a half later, he was dead of so-called “AIDS” after sensational media reports set off a sexual panic.  We look at the more likely causes of death – and why those causes matter. HudsonIt was the world’s most famous case of “AIDS.”  In June 1984, actor Rock Hudson, the good-looking, crew-cut symbol of perfect American manhood, received his diagnosis of the new syndrome, based on a “positive” result on a test that had been on the market for less than two months.

The hype around Hudson’s illness and death turned AIDS into a general “epidemic” from an affliction among a subset of gay men.  But we find other, more likely, causes for Hudson’s death.  The idea that AIDS could happen to anyone, accordingly, rests on a lie.

In the official biography he commissioned while wasting away, this famous yet very private man wrote, “I want the truth to be told, because it sure as hell hasn’t been told before.”  The media indeed didn’t tell the truth, in the rush to enroll us all in a sexual hysteria.

In another troubling precedent, a claimed Hudson lover filed the first lawsuit for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”  Since then, we’ve seen widespread legal system abuse against alleged “HIV positives” based on a questionable medical diagnosis.  And we note the only token objections from AIDS organizations, which stand to gain from the hysteria as more otherwise healthy people seek “HIV tests.”  (This propaganda tactic later became known as the “Magic Effect.”)

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Wooly Times to Come

Written by Dr Klaus L.E. Kaiser

The New York Times recently had a lengthy article on The Mammoth Cometh by Nathaniel Rich. It describes current efforts to recreate extinct species, from the Woolly Mammoth (gone for about 5,000 years) to New Zealand’s Great Auk and North America’s Passenger Pigeon. The latter found its demise exactly 100 years ago this year. mammothThose are just some of the species the Revive & Restore “de-extinction” project has under consideration. The California Grizzly Bear, the Carolina Parakeet, the Tasmanian Tiger and Steller’s Sea Cow are also mentioned as potential candidates for revival. Presumably, all the “de-extincted” species are meant to again freely roam the Earth and in large numbers.

Revive & Restore

The Revive & Restore project is spearheaded by the husband and wife team of Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan, with assistance from Ben Novak, Perry Hall and others. Their brief bios can be found at the project’s website.

It may well be possible to “revive” some of these extinct species with modern scientific methods though some scientists don’t think so. Passenger pigeons might find sufficient habitat and food in the harvested areas of the grain fields on the continent, but seeing again swarms of 50 million pigeons darkening the sky is not likely, even if they can be de-extincted. 

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IRISH HEALTH OFFICIAL WARNS OF ‘WIND TURBINE SYNDROME’

Written by Nick Hallett, breitbart.com

The Irish Department of Health’s deputy chief medical officer has warned that people who live near wind turbines risk having their health and psychological well being compromised.wind turbine noise

The Irish Examiner reports that, following a review of research on the effects of wind turbine noise on human health, the deputy CMO said, “There is a consistent cluster of symptoms related to wind turbine syndrome which occurs in a number of people in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines.”

‘Wind turbine syndrome’ is a condition suffered by people living within earshot of the noise made by wind turbine blades as they spin round. The blades are known to make infrasounds, vibrations that we cannot consciously “hear”, yet still have an effect on the inner ear.

Symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, headache, difficulty concentrating, and insomnia.

“There are specific risk factors for this syndrome and people with these risk factors experience symptoms. These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating,” the deputy CMO added. 

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The report that could kill Australia’s wind power

Written by Dr Jenny Riesz, Climate Spectator

BUSINESS SPECTATOR:

Editor’s Introduction: With another review of the Renewable Energy Target commencing we felt it was important to revisit the results of a modelling exercise assessing potential wind power grid integration technical issues undertaken by the Australian Energy Market Operator back in late 2013. This study attracted little attention but gave strikingly different answers to prior modelling exercises, suggesting greater grid integration costs for levels of wind consistent with achieving the Renewable Energy Target. While this study was fine for its purpose of helping AEMO to explore potential technical changes that might be required to manage high levels of wind penetration, it made simplifying assumptions that made it unsuitable for assessing the likely economic costs of achieving the Renewable Energy Target. To head off the potential for this study to be misinterpreted and misused in the forthcoming review of the Renewable Energy Target, we asked Jenny Riesz to provide this review of the report.  

AEMO’s Wind Integration Studies report, released in late 2013, suggests that technical constraints and grid limitations could lead to the significant curtailment by 2020 of around 35 per cent of the wind energy generated in Victoria, and around 15 per cent of the wind energy generated in South Australia. 

Have other studies failed to capture the impact of grid constraints that mean meeting the 41,000 GWh Renewable Energy Target will be much more expensive than we thought?

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Birds are being killed by solar plants

Written by World Council for Nature (WCFN)

“The concentrated sunshine of tens of thousands of reflecting mirrors heats liquid on towers to drive steam turbines and create electricity, but also singes the wings of birds flying through the power plant’s footprint.”   USA Today – The Desert Sun

swallow with fried wings - Mojave desert solar farm

Courtesy of: the Desert Sun, Palm Springs, California

From the article of K. Kaufmann, The Desert Sun, Nov. 10, 2013

“A small bird, barely the size of a human hand, had its wings reduced to a web of charred spines. No longer able to keep aloft, the bird was found on the ground after it had flown through the intense heat of a solar thermal project soon to go online in the California desert.”

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The Original Sin of Global Warming

Written by Robert Tracinski

It might seem strange to say it, but I am a global warming skeptic because of Carl Sagan.This might seem strange because Sagan was an early promoter of the theory that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide are going to fry the globe. 

Sagan But it’s not so strange when you consider the larger message that made Sagan famous.

As with many people my age, Sagan’s 1980 series “Cosmos,” which aired on public television when I was eleven years old, was my introduction to science, and it changed my life. “Cosmos” shared the latest developments in the sciences of evolution, astronomy, and astrophysics, but its real heart was Sagan’s overview of the history of science and the distinctive ethos behind the scientific method. Sagan returned again and again to one central theme: that the first rule of science is to follow the evidence wherever it leads, regardless of one’s wishes or preconceptions. He spoke eloquently about the Ancient Greek Pythagoreans and their attempt to suppress the facts about “irrational numbers” that didn’t fit their theory. And he spoke admiringly about the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler, who started out pursuing a theory in which the planets move in circular orbits reflecting the ratios of the perfect Pythagorean solids—and ended up being driven by the evidence to reject this theory and discover completely new laws of planetary motion.

I didn’t end up becoming a scientist, but I absorbed Sagan’s basic lesson and have tried my best to adhere to it in my own field: follow the evidence wherever it leads.

But this can be a difficult rule to follow. It is easy to spot the unexamined assumptions of others, but harder to root out your own prejudices. A few years ago, while watching “Cosmos” again for the first time in 25 years, I was reminded that Sagan did not always practice what he preached, and his error sheds light on the global warming theory’s original sin against science. It is a sin that has only gotten worse and which explains the scandalous state of today’s debate over global warming.

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