The SA blackout cost around half a billion, and building a new gas plant (with a $170b in green bribes) adds another half. It’s now emerged that Alinta offered Jay Weatherill a deal to keep the Port Augusta power plant running which he turned down. If he had paid just $30m to keep the Northern coal fired station in business, there might have been no statewide blackout, and no need for regular load shedding. Wholesale electricity contracts in SA have risen from 8c per KWhr to 14c since mid last year.
Alinta offered to keep Port Augusta power station running — The Advertiser:
The owner of the now-defunct Port Augusta power station made a secret offer to keep generating electricity until mid-2018 in return for $25 million from the State Government — 22 times less than its $550 million power plan.
In the six-page letter supplied to The Advertiser by the Liberals, Alinta warns of significant risk to the security of South Australia’s power supply and a surge in electricity prices — costing the state $56 million to $112 million a year — if the power station and associated Leigh Creek brown coal mine were to close.
Other sources have told The Advertiser that Alinta made another bid for $30 million to the government, which made a rejected counter-offer of only $8 million. Alinta then announced in June 2015 that it would close the station.
WHAT ALINTA WARNED
Closure of Port Augusta power plant would trigger:
■ Significant risk generally to SA’s power supply security.
■ Likely increase in wholesale cost of electricity, between $4-8 per megawatt hour. This would cost SA economy $56-$112 million a year.
■ $150 million of regional gross domestic product is cut.
■ $4.5 million lost revenue in foregone coal royalties in payroll tax.
Businesses across the state took an estimated $450 million hit because of the statewide blackout and mining giant BHP Billiton has said that outages at Olympic Dam cost it $137 million.
Having knocked back such a sensible offer, the SA government did what any self-serving government would, and kept the offer hidden, even after FOI requests. Weatherill cited a confidentiality clause. Nonetheless, the Libs have the whole document, and now so does everyone else.
Presumably Weatherill could not bring himself to “subsidize” coal power — how the Greens would have howled. But how screwed up is the free market when the cheapest form of electricity needs subsidies to compete with other subsidies offered one of the most expensive competitors. All Weatherill would have been doing is giving back some of what Big-Government had taken. Alinta closed the cheapest power source in SA because it was forecast to lose as much as $10m a year by 2020.
Weatherill made a billion dollar mistake presumably to stop people like Sarah Hanson Young calling him names. How much more will the people of SA have to pay for Weatherills ideological zealotry?
BACKGROUND to the SA Electricity crisis (post posts on the topic).
People saw The South Australian black out coming. There were warnings that the dominance of renewables made it vulnerable. Then when it came, it all fell over in a few seconds — read the gruesome details of how fast a grid collapses: Three towers, six windfarms and 12 seconds to disaster. Ultimately the 40% renewable SA grid is crippled by complexity. The AEMO Report blames renewables: The SA Blackout was due to lack of “synchronous inertia”. The early estimates suggest the blackout costs South Australia at least $367m, plus their normal electricity is twice the price, and there are reserve shortfalls coming in January 2018 (pray for a cool summer). Welcome to the future of unreliable electricity: Rolling blackouts ordered in SA in 40C heat. And more bad luck for South Australia, yet another blackout, 300 powerlines down, 125,000 homes cut off. See all the posts on Renewable Energy and Electricity Grids.
The time has come for Weatherill to be challenged in court for witholding this document from FOI requests on “commercial in-confidence” grounds.
This document proves that a number of statements made by Weatherill and other ministers concerning the power options available to them and the costs of those options, both in parliament and in public, were false and they knew they were false at the time they made them.
1172
Could members of the SA public bring some sort of private legal case against Weatherill over this? I’d happily contribute to a crowdfunding effort to pay for the lawyers, if they cannot find a lawyer to do it pro bono.
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A high profile class action is required and crowd funding a top QC would be tactically brilliant.
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The problem when dealing with Comrades, is the Cause cones first and foremost, and until they are forced through the courts to rescind the pinko economy killing behaviour, like Obummer, they will continue to undermine living conditions and the economy. What gets me is how messed up must people be, or what useless shiny trinkets they have foolishly coveted and sold their souls for, to behave in such a way….bring back Sir John Kerr….we need another sacking of another inept leftist govt…if you can call it a govt….
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‘…the Cause comes first and foremost …’
For the elites its noble cause corruption and they should be held to account, but most of the rank are basically ignorant and need reeducating.
31
Well, come on El Gordo, come on Ross, get that crowd funding project underway. Don’t wait for somebody else to kick start it.
I’m in for a thousand if either of you pull your collective fingers out.
81
Sceptical Sam
I’m on the other side of the ditch in NZ. It is probably better done in Australia and also I wouldn’t know where to start to get a crowd funding exercise going –better I leave it to the experts.
31
Sam we are only talking off the top of our heads, visualising a possible future, you have the job.
41
Sam in the Bellamy class action IMF Bentham is footing the bill.
‘The proposed claim will allege that between 14 April 2016 and 9 December 2016, Bellamys breached its obligations of continuous disclosure, in contravention of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), and engaged in misleading deceptive conduct.
‘How much will it cost to be part of the class action?
‘The class action is being run on a no win, no fee basis, with all costs paid by IMF pursuant to a funding agreement, or an order of the court. Under the terms of the funding agreement, you will not have to pay any fees unless the class action claims are successfully resolved. IMF will pay the other side’s costs if the class action is unsuccessful and the claims are lost.’
31
Class actions in South Australia information:
https://law.adelaide.edu.au/research/law-reform-institute/documents/committee-reports/36-Class-Actions.pdf
Funding for litigation:
https://www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/LSSA/Lawyers/Support/Litigation_Assistance_Fund.aspx
Lawyers (irony warning):
https://www.slatergordon.com.au/dispute-resolution/litigation-funding
51
Why on earth do you get two ( as of now ) red thumbs for telling the truth?
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Because the Left can’t handle the truth. Their whole belief system is based on lies.
131
Correct. Marx was funded it seems by the globalists to create a leftist belief system to create permenant tension so any crisis could be staged, managed, and steered….
61
The people got the government they wanted, a green experiment that failed and will cost them heaps inth the future
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What can you say when it’s all been said here so many times.
In an age when we have access to the technical and material wherewithal to produce cheap CLEAN electricity, we can’t do it.
It is bizarre that politicians are doing the job of electrical engineers.
KK
511
Tar and feathers…..
51
Something much stronger is called for………
21
Superglue and ……..?
21
…Turkey feathers
21
And wouldn’t life be better if electrical engineers did the job of politicians?
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But hang on a bit. You can’t have people exercising common sense in politics, that would be very unusual and make it too difficult for the usual suspects to divert cash into their special interest projects.
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KK said:
And, because Pollies are not electrical engineers and choose dogma over Engineering advice, their failures are staggering in their size, destructiveness and intensity. The cost alone is unforgivable.
I am mildly surprised at the SA public’s lack of response. Such control. I await the next state election with great interest, and I’m not even a South Australian. (It nearly happened, but my grandfather made the right decision, it would seem, by emigrating… 🙂 )
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Sophocles as you said, the operative word is Dogma.
This afternoon while driving home, chanelsurfing the radio I found an ABC outlet going on about global warming.
The usual strident. “those who ignore the science should be ostracized” comments were there with the discussion leader dropping a few hints about what views were acceptable to decent science loving citizens.
It was strange gear for a democratic free thinking country.
A few choice swearwords from the host soon identified the audience as the young intelligentsia.
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Your last line says it all, KK, and that is what is so sad. This religion was taught in schools before it was actually being pushed outside of them. Like all good religions, they know you have to catch the mind at a young and turbulent time, when you can easily “mold it.” With the head start in schools, they started the MSM propaganda blast that only reinforced it. Now it is as ingrained as flat earth, Earth centric cosmology was, and is just as difficult to ferret out because of its inertia. And these young zealots are now moving into their own personal political power. We live in interesting but dangerously ignorant times.
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Yes and no – I suspect there is a lot of lesser educated people who see it for what it is…I have a mate who is concreter who was smart enough to go to uni but decided not to. He will call a spade a flamin shovel. I am always telling people that CAGW cant be proven sceintifically, and will go toe to toe any day , against anyone who tries to shove CAGW down my families throat.
Our individual circle of influence is also fairly sizeable, so as much as the chattering leftists might dream of global domination, there will always be a significant resitance to The Big Lie.
The other reality is most people who have been around for a bit will haul most 20 somethings to one side and have a quiet word if they start banging on about CAGW and put them straight.Of course there are always leftist road kill, but you get that on big jobs….
The other day I openly criticized the ABC in a group of people for being distorted and overtly left wing, and openly mocked it for lack of fair and reasonable reporting. Deep down people know if something is a crock or not. As Rereke said, most australians are crowd pleasers, however we have netered a war for the mind of Australia, so no point in being subtle about the lies of the powers that be.
If you tell people that a lot of their hard earned is going offshore to fund fringe environmental activity via the UN, that ticks them off. They also need to understand they are regularly lied to in the eco space, and that there is danger in letting the nonsense continue on a la SA blackout….
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It appears that ALL politicians have to certify that they know nothing about technology of any sort before they are allowed into the political arena.
There can’t be any other explanation for their combined stupidity.
71
An acquaintance of mine expressed the view that there should be compulsory dope tests for politicians “as they couldn’t be that stupid, naturally”.
51
This is an almighty scandal which Weatherill wanted to hush up. The consequence of leftwing virtue signalling.
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To be expected, in fact demanded by the anti-Australian leftists. Not to worry – as our electricity supply becomes more and more expensive and less and less reliable the people despite their thick skulls will wake up and realise something smells. Then we should see the likes of SA Premier and Turnbull and the whole group of leftists be the most hated politicians of all time, even including Rudd and Gillard. They may even have to run and hide. I can’t wait for that day to arrive.
351
A while ago I watched a documentary on manufacturing in South Korea, massive ship building using steel produced there from Australian Iron Ore and Coal used in their blast furnaces. A major ship building nation that also produces many other manufactured products once made in Australia.
There are in other countries Australian Coal is used to produce cheap electricity for consumers, for commerce and industry, for nation building while Australia depends more and more on exporting raw materials and suffering every increasing cost of electricity.
And on the sidelines Australian leftists applaud and shout out demanding more economic destruction.
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I await with interest the progress of the submarine project. I visited the ASC when the Collins Class was being built and it was quite evident that just a wee bit of power was required for that enterprise. I wonder if the contract has a clause covering lack of power?
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they are installing their own generating capacity
11
So who wears the blame if the generators have issues? As a contractor, I would not want to be the prime contractor taking ownership of this issue.
And what have the Greens to say about the CO2 and pollution belching generators required to provide that level of power? 🙂
11
I recall some has written a book on Oz whereby the communists working on the docks during WW2 deliberately disrupt the ship loading to hamper the war effort….
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/01-02/treachery-unions-second-world-war/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/stanley-australias-secret-and-unhistorical-war/5960090
31
I think the commies sabotaged the war effort up to 1941.,when the Germans attacked USSR our brave reds sort of came on board to the war effort. They were always interested in undermining our economy and institutions behind the scenes,as we can see in the history of Australia’s External Affairs Dept up to 1949.
11
How much does it take?
For more than 10 years, Labor has been destroying SA while unopposed in any significant way by the “Opposition”.
The last state election result should have been a wake-up call for Weatherill and his cronies, but it just seemed to increase their contempt for the South Australian people.
351
Don’t blame the opposition, blame the SA people, they are the ones keeping Labor in power. But that’s the way of the Left, get the majority dependent on welfare and they will never dare change. It’s only when utter hopelessness faces the majority that things have a chance of changing, like in the US with Trump.
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Spot on. Things will have to get much worse before Australian voters grow a brain and vote against both major parties.
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So the liberal opposition will do what differently in SA , they will put the batteries here not there that’s the difference and probably at greater cost .
111
The zealots turned on him savagely when he said the Party would follow federal guidelines on the RET.
‘Opposition Leader Steven Marshall says he would move to scrap the state’s renewable energy target (RET) in favour of relying on the national RET, set by the Federal Government, if the Liberal Party wins next year’s state election. Opposition leaders in Victoria and Queensland have made the same promise for their states.’
Adelaide Independent News
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Bear in mind he formed a minority government with 47% of the 2 party preferred vote (23 to 22 + 2 independents). Then an independent took gravely ill (and died). To cover the waiting period a second independent agreed (with conditions) to help the government, followed by a former leader of the Liberals defecting and joining the government as an “independent” Minister (bringing the numbers to 25 to 21). then Labor won the deceased independent’s seat in a by-election – the voters thinking the election was settled so why not provide stability (hence 26 out of 47) .
Recently (like this week) a Labor member has gone independent (having been dumped in a pre-selection set-up) so in theory Wetherill is back with a minority government, but with 2 “independent” and the “defector” not wanting to cut their time short it will be Weatherill until March 17 next year (So 21 Liberal, 23 Labor but 1 as Speaker, 1 ex Labor, 1 ex Liberal and 1 ‘Independent”).
The electoral boundaries have been changed (after 2 legal challenges by Labor) so Labor needs 50% of the 2 party preferred vote to have any chance at the next election.
90
Hey bemused, of course you have to sheet the responsibility home to the SA opposition. They have been asleep at the wheel. The old school tie, out of touch, excessively polite “nice” Liberals haven’t a clue how to progress the resistance to the green-left activists. They’re out of their depth and out of the game.
Can you point me to one (just one) incisive analytical attack by a SA opposition member that has belled the cat on Weatherill? Just one? And saying what they might do, if by some fluke they win government at the next election, doesn’t count.
71
I don’t follow SA politics, but if you have a choice between dumb and dumber and you’re always picking dumber, who is to blame?
42
Another choice is required.
Flip flooping between DUMB & DUMBER is not the answer !
31
By voting out dumber, you break the nexus and dumb may be able to get rid of the electoral Gerrymander. If dumb does nothing else but to ensure that situation is broken, they have done SA a service.
01
Exactly the problem. Over the past few decades the Labor party and the left have been playing a whatever it takes ends justify the means approach to political power. They have declared war on our society and civilisation while the LNP behave like they are involved in a Saturday afternoon game of cricket using gentleman’s rules.
11
Okay, so how long can you expect it to be before you are reduced to throwing green grass onto a hot fire and waving a blanket over it to communicate with smoke signals?
It will need some thinking about before it is forced upon you; there’s need for an Alphabet or Character Set to facilitate it. Perhaps NOW would be good time? Not to mention advanced training in making adequate fire breaks—especially in summer.
61
The “Tall Poppy” syndrome is alive and well in Australia. I’m sure most here know what it’s like to stand up and proclaim publicly that climate change is half-baked science intended to deceive and frighten the masses. The scoffing, derogatory comments, laughter, anger and derision from the group is a study in the maturation of schoolyard antics. The politicians (bless their little hearts) find it far more convenient (and profitable) to pander to the mob than stand for integrity and honesty. Truth and honour disappeared from their vocabulary a long time ago for the convenience of a belief.
91
Jay doesn’t do forethought, just afterthought…and whatever comes after afterthought. And after after-afterthought, whatever Elon Musk is selling.
It’s all very easy to blame afterthought in hindsight.
231
To start, the electoral gerrymander in SA effectively secures tenure of government for Labor, until recently when the Electoral Commission revised electoral boundaries and reduced the gerrymander effect meaning that to lose government Labor had to lose well over 50% of the votes. They challenged the redistribution in court recently and lost, so the next state election should end Labor’s hold on power.
However, generally Australia wide, it has become very obvious that too many politicians are no longer representing their constituents best interests. They are using power to impose international socialism objectives without bothering to ask voters what we want.
How much longer will Australians put up with this situation?
Both major alternative governments are badly flawed and not interested in national prosperity and cost of living.
351
Dennis,
Gerrymander or not, most opinion polls I’ve seen still show only a slight margin in favour of the Coalition vs Labor. If, even after 15 years of economic destruction, close to a majority of South Australians are willing to vote for the ALP, I’m afraid that they are living up to the old adage that people get the government that they deserve.
240
A few weeks ago I was at diner and someone asked who was the Leader of the State Opposition? There was no answer for a good 3 minutes. The Opposition hasn’t exactly been vigorous.
The problem is that SA has been losing young people who have headed inter-state for better opportunities. The ones left aren’t going to be the sort who think ahead, even if they aren’t on the government payroll.
Another problem is the number of ‘spin doctors’ employed by Labor (at tax payers expense). I have no idea of the total number but it came out that the Health Department had 17 when they advertised for a head BSer at $331,000 p.a.
For all that the local newspaper and 2? of the local TV stations are out after Weatherill.
91
“A few weeks ago I was at diner and someone asked who was the Leader of the State Opposition? There was no answer for a good 3 minutes.” Same here in NSW, with one person asking ‘What is an opposition?’.
41
This is why I became a foundation member of Bernardi’s party. Not because I particularly trust him or expect him to be able to do what he has yet to promise, but to send a little message. If enough people did the same the majors might actually sit up and take notice. A forlorn hope, I know, but it gives me a sense of having voted twice. Let’s face it, unless we take to the streets we have not much else. The apathy of the general populace has become cause for despair. I asked half a dozen Victorians I know what they thought about Hazelwood closing. All of them replied “what’s Hazelwood”, or words to that effect. I guess not enough people ‘liked it’ somewhere.
101
Almost embarrassed to say this.
At family last week, and was asked if I saw the new iamges of (family images) on facebook.
I don’t go there very much at all, (not enough hours in the day to visit there) and I mentioned that I did see them. I was there checking my page to see how the link I added at the ‘Save Hazelwood’ site was going and what sort of comments I was getting, if any.
The reply was, in fact, “What’s Hazelwood!”
Tony.
151
Jo,
This might warrant a post of its own!! (If Tony does not reply he might not have seen my comment, can you forward please!)
Tony,
I think you would be best to ask to describe to all here how the risk levels of operating power generation systems(I understand there are 4?) are managed and in particular how “SPINNING RESERVE” works – when this is related back to unreliables it becomes obvious why they should never be a significant part of any energy mix.
31
SHEEPLE……….
21
It seems as if SA is approaching a political tipping point where one party may be swept out and another more conservative party may take over. The question is, just how long can this situation go on until the voters have had enough?
It also seems that if SA cannot wake up and do what’s needed, then the national government may have to step in with many$ to keep the left in SA in power. But how many times will SA be rescued at the expense of other states? I don’t know the political ins and outs of your system so I am just guessing.
151
At this stage it’s unlikely Turnbull will step in toe “save” SA. For starters he doesn’t have the brains to do anything right and secondly what’s required to rectify things will go against his own policies. What would be far more preferable is to let SA sink and cause so much pain to the voters that they have to wake up and see reality for once. The reality is socialism is deadly like a cancer and must be removed permanently.
261
Leonard Lane:
What makes you think that the SA Liberals are right wing? They are controlled by Simon Birmingham and Christopher Pyne and would be as right wing as Malcolm Turnbull (and as competent).
200
The Turnbull team couldn’t even be bothered to consider finding $750Mill to try to keep Hazelwood alive as an interim guarantee. The likelihood of them stepping in to bail out Weatherill seems remote. However, in the twisted, perverse world of Malcolm Turnbull, I guess anything is possible. The man sure does love his shiny, freshly pressed HiVis vest and spit polished hard hat.
70
Yet TURNCOAT/BISHOP donate BILLIONS of Australian taxpayer funds to overseas countries (not allowed to use the I and M words anymore) that hate us !
wtf !
22
Hazelwood would be producing some of the cheapest wholesale electricity in Victoria. It is only being shut down because of the market distortions resulting from of all of the green and renewables madness. Now we have the further madness of suggestions that we need a subsidy to keep the coal fired plants running to offset the effects of the subsidies provided to the wind generators.
30
I linked to the blackout in the earlier Post of Joanne’s and showed the catastrophic failure of wind on that day, and explained it.
When something like that happens, there’s nothing much which can be done.
However, what they get away with when it comes to wind power is that when it begins to fall, they have time to get those OCGT’s up and running because they can come up, virtually at a moment’s notice.
Then, when wind begins to rise, they can shut them down. That is easily shown when you look at the current wind site and see what the wind is doing now in SouthAus, generating at 1150MW, hence they are selling the excess back into Victoria. And yet, barely 12 hours ago, those same SthAus wind plants were only generating 100MW. See, a gradual rise and a gradual fall, hence they can easily hide the fact that while wind is not generating, they can call on those OCGT’s to supply, giving the impression that SthAus has enough power to cover all its need, giving the further impression that wind can handle most situations, because, let’s face it, it’s only a few of us here at this site who actually go and look at that wind generation data.
This, the running for short times of those OCGT’s is, of itself an expensive exercise, hence the expensive cost for electricity in SthAus, expensive when there is wind, and more expensive when there isn’t wind.
However, even if they had just the one remaining Unit available at the now
dynamitedclosed Northern plant, there was 260MW of dedicated always there power, even if on rolling reserve. (costly like that, but available)The Premier thought he could get away with it because (with those OCGT’s) he always had them as quick response when the wind began to drop off, so he made the decision to close Northern.
It was only ever going to be a problem with the catastrophe of the blackout day, and even then, just having that one unit at Northern in operation ‘might’ have been the answer to saving SthAus.
They can effectively hide the truth about wind with that Interconnector and OCGT’s and the dribbles of wind when it’s low, and then make great play out of supplying power into Victoria like they are doing right now.
Tony.
303
On that particular day, Tony Abbot was responsible for the wind – and he failed all the poor dills of South Australia.
45
PM Abbott succeeded in convincing the Senate to reduce the RET but could not get support for any further downward review.
Remember what he said in 2015: I will not stand for socialism masquerading as environmentalism.
241
Tony, the unforgivable part of all of that is that the BOM warned them the storm was coming. They warned them in plenty of time. Jay and Tom did not want to spend the money. Well, they’re sure spending it now.
60
Weatherdill casts a very dark shadow over the people of South Australia – they voted for him AND they have Wong, Hansen-Young and Xenophon as senators!!!!
Remember when the rest of Australia said Queensland politics was crazy?
Well, QLD is crazy and led by the CFMEU, but we don’t hold a candle to SA for pure hopelessness.
342
You might be forgetting that Xenophon (with former Senator Madigan of Victoria) had tried to introduce sensible noise limit legislation around adverse acoustic impacts of wind turbines, and was howled down by Labor and the Greens. He has listened to his constituents and been a seeker of truth and transparency regarding the lies and misinformation of Big Wind and its spruikers, and should be commended. For his troubles he was the target of a Greens smear campaign bankrolled by Big Wind . He has honesty and integrity that Wong, Hansen-Young and Weatherill can only dream about.
80
Weatherill is a dead man walking – his party will get wiped out in the March 2018 SA State Election – quoting the late Joh Bjelke-Petersen – “Don’t you worry about that”.
212
DYWAT sounds like a good name for a Coal Mine or a Coal Fired Power Station/ sarc!
20
A while back I somehow got on to the opposition leader’s mailing list. Here’s what arrived today.
322
The majority of voters in SA realised Labor had to go at the last state election but the rigged electoral boundaries saved Labor from that defeat.
112
Not true, a drovers dog could have won that election but some how Marshall lost.
110
There was until the recent SA Electoral Commission review of electoral boundaries what is called a “gerrymander” in SA, meaning boundaries rigged in favour of one party and in SA the Labor Party benefits. Even with a swing to the Coalition of well over 50% Labor could not lose.
100
From memory the Libs got around 53% / 54% of the vote in the last SA election and lost by four seats due to a grossest of gerrymanders that even Graham Richardson, one of the Labors former leading numbers men, has called quite publicly in The Australian, a total disgrace.
SA Labor managed to put the gerrymander into place in around 2005 and has until the latest redistribution which SA Labor challenged in the Supreme Court and lost, managed to keep the gerrymander intact.
With the new electoral redistribution boundaries plus the power debacle, SA Labor is probably on an all out hiding to nothing at the next election cycle in 2018.
60
Apologies Graeme No3 @ #4.2.1.2
You had SA’s political set up all covered in detail if I had only gone through the posts.
20
The drover was called Gerry, and his dog answered to Mander.
50
Agree the gerrymander played a role but the libs would still lose or win by one seat they should have won by 10 seats.
There is no opposition because they believe the same things labour do, Marshall has said nothing about LRET, RECS, useless windy mills etc. Its all about the rush to get here, he would have closed Pt Augusta if in power he would jave grinned when unit 1 ground to a halt yesterday.
He and Weatherill are one the same similar to Turnbull Shorten Libs wont win because you have two policy bereft leaders sucking up the green blob, one a polished performer the other a dithering fool.
Its a no brainer who will win
30
Or do you mean a no-brainer will win?
00
“Weatherill is a dead man walking – his party will get wiped out in the March 2018 SA State Election”.
Maybe Weatherill will be terminated sooner after reading the letter above sent to Ian from SA Liberal Opposition Leader Steven Marshall.
152
Marshall did not write that, he does not have the conviction to nail Weatherill in parliament what a joke
130
Exactly , the opposition has been mostly silent and now all their doing is scoring political points , anyone hear that the Libs want to rebuild a coal fired power station anywhere ?? No I thought not , SA is going to stay a basket case until a party with balls and a clear energy policy comes forward and that does not include Libs . Labs or greens .
150
We have not yet factored in the Trump Effect on Australia’s political culture.
20
Or the changing political and increasingly hostile public environment towards renewable energy in Germany and by extension, the rest of the EU.
NoTricksZone; “Experts” Sent In To Convince Public Of Wind Park Safety Met By Derision And “Jeering Laughter” –
.
There is also reportedly a German government draft in existence that suggests that renewable energy in Germany will lose the right of first call over any fossil or nuclear fueled generators for grid power by 2020.
If that report is true it will mean that another plank propping up wind power will be removed. and it won’t take many more supports , mostly subsidies, to be removed and the whole stupid resource destroying, vaporous edifice of wind power renewable energy to come crashing down everywhere around the world.
.
From the renewables promoting Irish Renewables Now blog; Several Irish wind projects challenged in court – report
.
The recent case where a group of Irish families sued a wind outfit [ Jo’s post Jan 11th /17 ] was actually settled ahead of the court hearing.
The belief is that the European wind organisation lean’t on the company to settle as if it had gone to court where all evidence is public then there might have been a whole bucketfull of very damaging information on turbine noise and turbine generated infrasound etc finally coming out into the open with dire legal outcomes for the wind industry across Europe.
[ The very low frequency infrasound from wind turbines which is below the normal human levels of sound frequency detection are now known from very recent research to constantly agitate the tiny hairs in the ear’s semicircular canals that detect motion.
The hairs are activated with every incoming pulse of infrasound.
Thus leading to a low level but a continuous form of motion sickness for the susceptible individual and a very miserable life in constantly feeling sick and agitated or worse, severe health problems from the constant agitation by windturbine infrasound pulses on the ear’s highly sensitive motion detection system.
How Our Balance System Works]
.
The landowners and investors who around here are licking their lips at the thought of all the OPM coming their way as they sign up for a wind farm on the Plains some 30 kms north of Horsham, may be in for a very rude and exceedingly expensive future as the wind industry dies over the next decade or so
The land owners will be stuck with large areas of gravel on the black soils of the plains which are today almost completely free of any surface stones and rocks.
And with the huge concrete foundations dotted around their paddocks even after the turbines are long gone making cultivation and other farm processes turn from a “Sit back and Go” to “Oh shit, I never saw that “accompanied by a very expensive cacophony of breaking equipment.
And they may find that with all those huge concrete foundations dotted around their fields, the value of their land may well be much lower than any turbine foundation free land and they will have lost in land values, a great deal more than they ever made from the turbine handouts.
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It’s only been three months. In Adelaide they are still protesting against George Dubyah, and SHY is still hassling the Navy to bring Mike Flynn and Kate McGregor before the Senate committee into something she’s not sure of.
( Reasonable South Australians, I mean no offence. My sister, her two daughters and their families live productive and fruitful lives in SA. Somehow. )
90
I thought I overheard the US EPA head Pruitt talking with President Trump and other conservatives.
I’m pretty sure they were discussing using coal fired power to rebuild our electrical grid in the U.S.
40
The US might have to do it. It looks like a big nuclear station under construction has hit a brick wall. It could cause President Trump some major economic head aches
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-29/westinghouse-bankruptcy-puts-fate-four-us-nuclear-reactors-limbo
00
A full page copy of that letter in the Adelaide Advertiser would be more useful than parliamentary word games.
The is a joke amongst French speakers. Parliament, a place reflecting two verbs, Parler – to speak, Mentir- to lie
10
Look, there’s no other way to say this (sorry mod): what a piss weak letter that is.
It’s typical of the SA Liberal opposition. No cut through. No mongrel. No ticker. Just hopelessly polite “niceness”.
Sack whoever wrote it, and say something like this:
Dear Ian,
I’m writing to tell you what your Premier Jay Weatherill did today to increase your costs of living and reduce the number of dollars in your pocket; to make your life harder and more expensive.
For the want of a lousy $25 million he has sold you and your family down the drain. You’re going to be paying through the nose for electricity – if there’s any to buy – because of his arrogance and lack of concern for the people of South Australia.
For the cost of a cup of cappuccino he could have saved you hundreds of dollars. But he screwed you instead.
Today he refused to keep the Port Augusta power station operating. That station keeps your lights on. It also provides jobs for thousands of South Australians. Well, no longer. He’s just dudded you and all South Australians.
He should be sacked. I’m asking you to do that at the next election. Sack him and his hopeless government.
If you are as outraged about this as I am, please click on this link and help spread the word on social media. Alternatively, write to Mr Weatherill and tell him his decision is totally unacceptable and, please, send me a copy at the above address.
100
Fantastic.
10
Sam that sounds more like a love letter , sink the boots in .
10
🙂 Sam!
I received my electricity bill today and compared it to the corresponding quarter last year:
Coverage – 96 days this year compared to 93 days last year
Usage – down slightly. Note I never use my A/C, preferring to use fans only
Cost – UP 25%
I expect that in the years to come these will be “the good old days”!
20
I think it’s great that Steven Marshall has learned that he can send emails out to us all. They so rarely deal with real issues, though. In a few years’ time he might learn how to stand up in Parliament here and take a fight up to Weathervain and Hanson-Young. My issue with him is that he took on the job to fight for us but he doesn’t fight. An earlier post noted that he is hamstrung by Pyne, Turncoat and others. In the last election Pyne needed to get out of the way and let the Libs win in this state.
For me, though,it is too late now and I have committed to support Cory Bernardi. Most of what he says seems to be plain common sense. It is unlikely, though, that he will get the numbers with the bulging and still growing public service – all Labor voters desperately trying to hold onto their jobs so they can fight to be the one to turn out the last light on the State.
00
I think it’s great that Steven Marshall has learned that he can send emails out to us all. They so rarely deal with real issues, though. In a few years’ time he might learn how to stand up in Parliament here and take a fight up to Weathervain and Hanson-Young. My issue with him is that he took on the job to fight for us but he doesn’t fight. An earlier post noted that he is hamstrung by Pyne, Turncoat and others. In the last election Pyne needed to get out of the way and let the Libs win in this state.
For me, though,it is too late now and I have committed to support Cory Bernardi. Most of what he says seems to be plain common sense. It is unlikely, though, that he will get the numbers with the bulging and still growing public service – all Labor voters desperately trying to hold onto their jobs so they can fight to be the one to turn out the last light on the State.
10
Just thought I would do a bit more research on this subject which I have previously commented on in some headline posts back a month or so!
.
What Is a Psychopath?
The neuroscience of psychopathy reports some intriguing findings
[ some selected quotes from the various paras]
.
______——————–
Disclaimer;
No South Australian Premiers were injured or confined during this study!
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ROM.
You continue to amaze me with the breadth of your interest.
When I was a medical student I did not understand Psychiatry at all. And even now I am still ignorant. But your summary is the best I have seen to describe a psychopath.
(In case others are worried about the capacity of the Medical Profession to asses psychiatric illness, I will allow that my practice has been entirely within the physical sciences.)
60
Albeit your summary has been copied from some where.
60
Thanks Peter but as you know, I am merely a nearly 79 year old, poorly educated, my schooling finished at 15 years, retired grain farmer who being rural and a farmer rates socially a very long way indeed below the academicly educated classes.
And yes, as I noted at the top of the comment, the paras I have posted are taken from the link as above, from what I thought was one of the easiest to read and understand short length articles on the subject I have come across.
130
Admonished, once again, for not reading the intro!
Thank You to :William Hirstein Ph.D.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindmelding/201301/what-is-psychopath-0
40
But ROM,
Psychiatry, Psychology, Sociology are way out there in the dark-ages of any kind of science. It is all subjective study — “Tell me how do you feel about…” and “I believe the patience now feels… from a deep seated childhood…blah, blah…”
As good your round-up is, most of those that work and publish in this sphere of examining the human condition, are mostly homogenizing subjective data from personal experience and many other such studies, then tweaking it to fit their own conscious and unconscious prejudices.
Many of those same traits you list are features of people with Asperger or are on the Asperger’s spectrum. Does that mean they are “sociopath,” or “psychopath,”? No it just means they have an emotional development that is different from others. Who can say which developmental construct is correct for the human condition? The touchy-feely, over-emotional, overly empathic person, who worries about the smallest perceived error but never the detail; that person who so much of today’s society seems to want, even if they can’t act decisively, or sleep well. Or the cold, impersonal, unemotional, go getter who can be the master of business, who can keep so many people usefully employed, and who sleeps little but well every night?
So I would caution against believing that any Psychiatry, Psychology, Sociology studies can tell anyone much about themselves or those around them, and even less about anyone seen only remotely from their public appearances. Yes there may be some broadly correct summations for many people but certainly not for everyone.
Personalities do change over time, over lifetimes, in response to their personal environment, illness and injury, and many other circumstances. Assigning one set of character traits as the be-all-and-end-all assessment of any particular person, I can not believe is reasonable.
30
Sounds just like trying to make sense of all the innumerable variations and subjective assessments when you are a farmer and trying to grow crops or animals.
So one does the human thing.
We put labels on a collection of a somewhat similar group of variables and then we eliminate some groups and simplify what we are dealing with and so are usually able to handle the information load otherwise we would grind to a mindless slushing mess.
So something similar has occurred with the outline of the characteristics of Psychopathy as listed above.
We can then deal with concepts we can get our minds around and not with some messed up porridge of verbiage that in the end leaves the non professionals just looking heavenward and suggesting it is all hocus pocus in any case.
But quite sure that some individuals are natural ass holes and liars and conmen in any case.
40
ROM,
“…so are usually able to handle the information load otherwise we would grind to a mindless slushing mess. ”
So true of the ‘soft’ sciences, so true.
20
ROM
I ask again, “Many of those same traits you list are features of people with Asperger or are on the Asperger’s spectrum. Does that mean they are “sociopath” or “psychopath”? “
20
Dunno, As I have never had a look at that set of traits or got deeply enough into the mental study sciences.
But a very quick read on Aspergers seems to indicate it is completely different in most of its characteristics to psychopathy as Asperger sufferers have trouble communicating and socialising whereas Psychopaths if anything are very able to communicate with a very high level of self confidence and self assurance.
50
If we are going to try to discuss human problems of people, we need a road map.
I think that’s what you are saying ROM?
If you look at a description of traits associated with mental illnesses in say the DSM 1V you are likely to think that you have all of them but the key is the degree of such. We can all be a little suspicious at times but if we are suspicious all the time then there is an issue. I occasionally speak to people who believe in global warming and nothing will move them from that belief. They are not mad, just comfortable being part of a noble cause.
There is over two thousand years of history that shows that man’s attempts to find a way to live sensibly in peace with others just don’t work.
It’s a big problem. I don’t think I’m the one to find the ultimate solution but wouldn’t it be great.
KK
40
Exactly right ROM, People with Aspergers find it difficult to make eye contact and rarely do, while one with a Personality Disorder insist on eye contact, so they project onto you and then mirror you. They can be very dangerous.
As for tom0mason’s comments, maybe they come out of ignorance. Much good work is done with the families of people with a Personality Disorder in as much as helping them cope with a disordered person in their lives. Personality Disorders are contagious and those effected can finish up with Complex Post Trauma Stress disorder.
Those with a Disorder are almost 100% incurable, while those around them are.
Personality Disorders put the ‘D’ in Dysfunctional Families.
40
Chris in Hervey Bay,
I’m sorry to tell you that i do know much of this condition as I have lived for many years in this condition and only late in life has it been recognized. As for eye contact, that can be learned.
40
I tend toward the main difference between the sociopath/psychopath and the ‘Apsie’ is in the feeling of self. Apsies tend to feel apart, remote from others and their feelings, not one of the crowd, not that important.
This is in marked contrast to “the PCL describes sociopaths as possessing a “grandiose sense of self worth.” Cleckley speaks frequently of the boastfulness of his patients.”
30
Tom, the main diff is that Aspies have a conscience…
which is a pretty big deal. IMHO they have a very keen sense for injustice.
50
ROM,
Those with Asperger can communicate with others, some poorly, many well.
Have a look here https://www.healthtap.com/topics/difference-between-aspergers-and-sociopath and see how muddled the ‘professionals’ are.
Apparently Asperger is developmental condition, where the ability to empathize about others is reduced or missing. However these professional ‘believe’ that those with the condition can be taught. My point to some in this profession is that if the Asperger personality is not taught they still learn and can apparently become “sociopath” or “psychopath”. (those with Asperger’s tend to learn well — much of the normal emotional distractions are missing)
Here’s a quote from a professional about the difference between Asperger and sociopaths —
Source: HealthTap, https://www.healthtap.com/user_questions/873637
I would say that this psychiatrist/psychologist has overloaded this comment with their own prejudice and emotions — “..cause pain because they enjoy doing it. They don’t care.” or “… and do not mean to be jerks.”
Many people with Asperger’s don’t realize they are, they only understand they are ‘different’. As they are unidentified they make their own way through this world and often end up making many social mistakes, however they will learn something from the experience.
Asperger people are everywhere, often the most obvious ones are spotted as the single-minded uncommunicative obsessive, however spotting all with the condition is much much harder as many learn to ‘impersonate’ appropriate behaviors responses for most social situations (but the empathy they may profess is not necessarily real).
This website is probably better for understanding the condition. http://wrongplanet.net/
20
tom0mason, Here is some real reading for you, a text book, “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome” by Tony Attwood. Tony is one of the world leaders in this subject. If you do your PhD or Masters, you will get to read the book.
By the way, ROM was on about Personality Disorders, but you successfully Hi-Jacked his comments.
20
Tomo
I agree with what I believe to be one of your main points; that psychology can be a very inexact science.
In this modern world we are often far too isolated and disconnected from each other and we need a group to be part of.
Problem is that when the group becomes dysfunctional we don’t do too well on our own.
20
Thanks Chris but I think I already know more than enough about the struggles with this condition.
20
I’m Sorry to hear that, and glad you are able to learn and cope with the condition.
As for me, I Have worked with Personality Disordered since the 1970’s as a Forensic Psychologist. I know there are differences, but you only get to know who has what after several consultations. The thing is, those with a Personality Disorder are dangerous, in as much, a facility I worked at in Massachusetts, we had to be ‘de-breifed’ after each consultation. Today, almost retired, one more stint in the USA, I spend my time teaching Clinical Psychologists how to inform parents and wives and families of US Vets with PTSD on how to live with the condition until they get well.
Asperger’s is not my field, but I do know how to diagnose a Personality Disorder.
40
Unfortunately there is a comment in moderation that basically says my belief in the difference in the conditions amounts to how they feel towards other. Apsie tend towards indifference and disinterest, sociopaths as possessing a “grandiose sense of self worth.” that others should recognize.
30
Some patients can show a combination of one or more of the personality disorders. What we see here in the real world, is a display of their coping method so as they can try to fit into our world.
The degree of the illness varies from one person to another, from very mild signs to the full blown.
One great example of a person showing a combination of disorders, was Julia Gillard. I believe she showed a combination of Psychopathic and Emotional Personality Disorders. Emotional Personality Disorder is the new name for Borderline Personality Disorder, changed in the new DSM4.
Always remember, psychology is not an easy quantifiable science.
50
ROM,
Surely the best people to study these things would be sociopaths.
How many of those working in Psychiatry are real “sociopath” or “psychopath”, surely it would clarify their vision of the human condition by not having all those personal emotions to battle? They can look with more objectivity at the human condition. Almost as an alien examining an earthling. Now there’s a thought!
10
I instantly thought of two words: ‘Roz’, and ‘Andrews’. If you aren’t Victorian you may need a little help.
20
Thank you ROM you just gave a description of most politicians and ambulance chasers, I too am an old bloke, education is not something you learn at school, if you have an IQ bigger than a shoe size you learn much just by living reading and thinking. Good post mate.
50
Lots of commenting here does not understand the craziness of the SA Liberal opposition.
This group are riven with internal conflict, much dating back to the 1960’s. Until some (most) of the Liberal old-guard are purged, it’s not going to get any better.
Most in SA also know that the leader of the opposition is a failed businessman who seems to think that looking like he’s sucked on a lemon is a good thing.
Sad for us here. We have Labor who are damn hopeless, and the opposition is equally hopeless.
I’d like to vote for the libs, but but but, they are just as useless!
Notice that Marshall goes on the attack but does not say what he’d do!
Wotcha gonna do, actually get off yer bum and DO? Steve??
160
That reflects the Liberal Party (or Coalition if you will) across Australia. They are morally bankrupt in every state, as well as Federally.
170
You might as well post that Labor and Liberal at present are like minded fools.
170
You’re right there Dennis.
Watching Australian politics is an exercise in watching extreme self interest regardless of Parti.
They are not quite as obvious as smash and grab, but there is the same intent to profit before any other consideration of public interest.
KK
20
In Victoria, there’s this guy, called Guy, apparently. Where the hell is a Kennett? Say what you like about Jeff, you were never in doubt he was there. There was a leader before him, Alan
BeigeBrown. I only remember because of the ‘beige’ thing. Same problem now. Beige, bland, too scared to open their mouths. Hazelwood should have had them screaming from the rooftops, marching up Bourke Street with torches and pitchforks. Jeff would have. I’ll bet Trump would have as well. Hell, I’d settle for Nigel Farage.81
Greebo , thanks for telling me who the opposition leader was in Victoriastan (my state) I had forgotten his name , I think I seen him on TV once but can’t remember exactly .
Is he only part time casual ?
50
He is on TV quite often , huffing and puffing and being captain negative. I understand that is to some extent what opposition leaders do, but I do wish he would spend a little time saying what he would do differently.
20
There’s his problem, right there. I rarely watch FTA TV anymore. I simply cannot abide the simpering bias on display. There are so many other ways to get noticed these days, but I guess you have to be noticeable to cut through the noise.
Guy has no excuse, however, the Andrews Govt. gives him so much ammunition. Gender manipulation in pre school???? Any Opposition worthy of the name should be screaming about that. Mucking about with our kids?? It’s difficult to imagine a more galvanising issue, and yet not a peep that I’ve heard. Andrews appeared in the Oz for all the wrong reasons. Where was Guy? Doesn’t he have a press office?
How difficult is it to get a Green Card?
20
It seems that way, doesn’t it? Admittedly, media has changed a lot since the days of Jeff. He, however, would have grasped social media in much the way Trump did. I can just imagine 1990s version Jeff with a twitter account. Matthew Guy, I had to go to the Liberal home page to even find out his name.
20
Further evidence pointing to who the cabal of climate saboteurs destroying Australia’s cheap energy advantage are …
0.43 “I’m actually deeply concerned for the US economy.
I’m not concerned for the rest of the world because the rest of the world will continue to move forward.
We know that China, EU, Australia, Canada have already been very, very clear in saying that no matter what comes out of the United States, they will continue to move forward in departmentalising their economy, because it is good for their economy.”
Former UN climate chief: Trump’s energy order not ‘a big deal’ for climate agreement
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-28/former-un-climate-chief-trumps-energy-order-not-big-deal-climate-agreement
~~~
Meanwhile, useless Australian politicians watch on indecisively, to the detriment of Australia …
Conservative Liberals watching Trump’s lead on climate, key backbencher says
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/29/conservative-liberals-watching-trumps-lead-on-climate-key-backbencher-says?CMP=share_btn_tw
40
Could it be a larger conspiracy at play to destroy our overall economy?
Just thinking out loud….
Ref: my previous comments about an organized push to gut australia and hand its carcass to the UN as a broken plaything….
Definition : Conspiracy
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/conspiracy
1A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
30
Steve, they can’t plan that far in advance.
They really believed the advertising.
They believed they were smarter, the only ones who could see that the right path forward was to pave a golden path for the nice people in the Renewables-Industrial-Complex.
60
“Destroy”—perhaps not in so many words. But create a command economy: definitely.
20
It is not a conspiracy. A conspiracy would be a secret plan. This is a declared plan for everybody to see – and, ideally, not to think about consequences. The ultimate (though not stated) is to depopulate Australia. Get your ticket today, or use your brain at the next election.
30
‘The ultimate (though not stated) is to depopulate Australia.’
The real Marxists are salivating at the prospect.
00
How? You can only vote for who they give you. At this moment, with the candidates on offer, I’d rather not vote at all, but that doesn’t work either. There is no ‘lesser of two evils’.
20
This wont change a thing, weatherill is a brilliant polly and will spin this into gold by the time i get home from work and the opposition……….well they will do what they always do dance around the fringes because they are too scared to call a spade a spade (and have Hansen young call them names).
The spade in this case is CO2 is the gift of life and we are in this mess due to ideology.
Disclaimer: Whilst I live in SA, I was not born in SA, I do not identify as an SA.
90
The End!
4.04PM Tuesday 29th March 2017.
Hazelwood’s last Unit (Number 1) back to zero.
Tony.
340
Tony thank you for all your work on this topic, I have been following your posts daily the information you have provided has been very educational.
Regards
Crakar24
300
RIP Hazelwood, a beacon of light a good friend loved by all that appreciated being warm when it was cold and cold when it was hot , cut down before your prime by The politburo, lined up against the wall , blindfolded and unceremoniously snuffed out of existence.
241
On the other hand , Hazelwood might have employed hundreds of workers and was the making and lifeblood of small communities and supplied reliable cheap power but that extra 6% of life giving Co2 you breathed is greening our deserts .
When I go to a desert expecting barren nothingness, I don’t want to see the green landscape and abundant life how dare you ! I want to see the red bare sunburnt earth , the trees stunted and wilting .
The occasional parched crow that sort of thing , and I definitely don’t want increased crop production fertilised by your exhaling , so fairwell and good riddance.
Do I need sarc
101
Yes, and it’s thank you Tony from me too.
I was born in SA, in a country town called Port Augusta. So was my wife. Her father worked at the power station. So there’s a personal connection. It’s sad to now learn about incompetence such as this.
210
Ditto from me too Tony
140
Hazelwood goes off line as the Donald in the USA signs a Pro coal/ anti CAGW order !
How ironic. Despot Dan here needs ousting, along with WindMill Weatherill, and our CAGW BSer in Chief and UN appeaser TurnBull !
141
Yes Ive learnt a lot from Tony’s posts over the last few years.
140
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m inclined to grieve. Not for Hazelwood so much, in and of itself, although I’ll miss the skiing in the warm water, but more for what it means to our society. Hazelwood did not deserve it’s fate. It fought on gamely until the end. At least it had a sunny wall, and a last defiant single digit ‘up you’ to it’s executioner. I hope they treat it’s body with respect, but I sense an opportunity too big for Red Dan to resist.
605 days to go, Dan.
80
RIP Hazelwood and all the beautiful tropical fish in it’s cooling pond that will now also die.
50
Thanks for your careful monitoring of Hazelwood Tony, along with the whirlygigs.
10
FYI, I have forwarded my views on the unconsitutionality of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 to Senator Malcolm Roberts. One Nation are dealing with the High Court now. They could challenge the validity of the RET scheme far more easily than any member of the public. I cannot see how demanding one private company pay another private company for certificates is within the ability of the Federal government to order. They have a right of taxation, not demands for cash for third parties. If it is not a carbon tax, they have no right to impose it as they can only tax or fine, not demand money. Either way it is a charge on coal and gas in Australia, which is again illegal under the constitution where all mineral royalties and charges are the exclusive realm of state governments, as Julie found out.
Finally, I have never heard of ‘future’taxes, 15 years CO2 taxes in advance in cash for solar panels? No one even benefits. This is worse than a desalination plant which is never turned on but the government can make bad purchases. What it cannot do is force members of the public to cough up for all this so it does not even appear in their budget. Jay Weatherill has not paid for a single windmill. We have!
280
You neglect the fact that politicians are above the law not because they are clever but because they all do it and no one wants to stop the music and stop their greed to increase their wealth and power at the expense of the public who continue to vote for them. The system is broken so we have no other choice but to crash and burn to force a reset.
80
PeterS , politicians make the law , if they breach it they change it period .
30
No need to change it – they simply ignore it.
50
So true .
40
Not even Parliament can ignore the High Court. Don’t you think Mabo gave them cause to try?
30
Actually they are not above the law at all, which is my point. I really believe the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act is invalid in many ways. Of course parliament can pass any law they want, but it does not make it legal if they do not have the authority under the constitution. I believe the RET law is so cunning, so devious that in avoiding a (carbon) tax, have created a system of payments and credit which is potentially beyond their constitutional power of taxation. It is even beyond the courts to force someone to pay money to someone else simply because they think it is a great idea.
Better still, if it can be exposed, the RET will have to be repealed and represented as what it is, the world’s biggest carbon tax. That would never pass either house, which is why they did it. It gives Malcolm Roberts something he can do to stop the carbon robbery.
140
TdeF,
I agree with you that the RET is the root of the energy maladministration. I suspect maybe the RET is somehow sanctioned by the States, perhaps via an agreement under COAG. I don’t know but I think the state would be in a better position to strike levies etc. The fed has powers over corporations law as I understand it. It’s an interesting question you raise..I’m no lawyer but our parliaments do seem to be over supplied with them.
In many cases the Federal Government does stuff by agreement with the States who deligate their power.
40
It is a Federal law demanding payments from you to electricity companies who have to buy pieces of paper from a ‘market’. All this is mandated without actually raising a tax. The Commonwealth has the right to raise taxes. It does not have the right to do whatever it likes. As for the taxataion 15 years in advance, that is unprecedented in any democracy I know, unless someone knows better. Future taxation, not historic. People are being paid your money for their own benefit, not yours and calculated again on the value of a tax which does not exist, a carbon tax. The whole think stinks.
120
As for delegating rights, surely that has to be done openly in legislation. States would be very reluctant to hand over their right of taxation and if a carbon tax on coal or gas is deemed to exist, surely that is exclusively a states right. If they were to surrender that right, surely the electorate would have to be informed and agree. Politicians can sign all the secret agreements they want. If Victoria was to surrender its exclusive right to tax coal and gold and gas, it would require a change in the constitution.
80
“If Victoria was to surrender its exclusive right to tax coal and gold and gas, it would require a change in the constitution.”
I’m not sure that’s the case. As you say, it would be interesting to hear what a constitutional lawyer makes of such an argument. There’s no question in my mind that the RET is wrong for the country. It serves no positive purpose and does a lot of harm to something that worked quite well. Illegal?-i’m not sure but i’d chip-in to get a qualified opinion.
50
Sure. Malcolm Roberts should get some consitutional advice in the Senate. I would hope such advice was free for him.
Under the constitution, the government can raise taxes for the ordinary business of running the government. Such monies have to go into Consolidated Revenue.
The billions in RET payment do not. This simply avoids calling the RET an illegal tax on coal and gas. However I do not expect the Government has any power to force someone to pay someone else for anything, let alone billions for carbon licences. Just because this act has been working for 17 years pushing up electricity prices and forcing us, unknown to most, to pay for windmills we don’t want does not mean the Commonwealth has the right to order this.
The parliament is answerable to the High Court. I cannot see that the RET billions for carbon credits between third parties is within the rights of the Commonwealth which only has a tax and run the government model. You would be upset if your council passed a regulation ordering you to pay your neighbour for the right to watch television or water your lawn? The council simply does not have that right. Nor does the State government and the Federal government only has rights given to it in the constitution and ceded by the states at Federation.
The RET is illegal.
101
I, for one, thank you for this. I don’t have the clarity of thinking to have put this forward.
50
TdeF,
If you can track down the RET legislation, often an Act will say where it’s powers are from. I have my hands full with other matters at the moment and for a few weeks but I will endeavor to follow it up when I can.
60
The act is here
I do not understand your point. Every Act of Parliament is just that and there is the presumption that it has the right to operate the government and raise taxes to do so. That is what governements do.
The commonwealth has powers to raise money as taxation for the general operation of government. It can also fine and rent land and sundry other things related to defence, immigration and more but any monies raised for the ordinary business of government have to go into general revenue.
The billions people are obliged to pay others under this act are all outside the normal business of government. However the fines and obligations are very real, so you have to pay. It has all the trappings of an Act, Royal Assent and the rest.
However I do not believe this is a tax and if it was, it would be illegal without question, especially as the carbon tax is being taken from Australians, not going anywhere near government coffers and going largely straight overseas or into private hands.
Nor is it within the power of any government to create and operate a mandatory trade in pieces of paper with penalties. That is not like something which any democratic government is permitted to do. Just because it has been going on since 2000 does not make it right! This law would not fit with the constitution of any democratic society. It is an abomination, not just because it is a bad law, but because they have to right to do this given to the government by the people of Australia. Parliament cannot just do what it likes and force massive penalties on the people of Australia for things of dubious value like windmills.
If the government wanted to raise taxes and buy windmills, fine. If they wanted to tax gas and coal operators out of existence and use the money to buy solar cells and give them away. Fine. However this taxation by private solar and wind operators on ordinary Australians cannot be right, even if supervised by a Government Regulator.
70
TdeF
The same transfer of monies from the citizens to a pseudo government organisation, a Commission in this case was in existence when each household had to pay a license fee which went straight to the ABC [ Australian Broadcasting Commission ] of the times.
The non ABC stations were on their own and responsible for raising their own operating income
The license fee system was abolished in 1974 by Labor.
.
And not sure if this is an urban legend but the much hated [ UK ] BBC license requirement from each household provides few concessions, one supposedly being that if you are blind and own a TV you get your license for half price.
40
Thanks ROM. I think the case of the ABC raising money for its own operation falls in the general category of any government department charging for its own services in its line of business. That seems reasonable. A lot of government agencies have fees which are not taxes and for those fees, they deliver their services. Goverments can supply water, electricity, services.
However no one gets anything for these RET ‘fees’. Just a worthless piece of paper which you are forced to buy. You received no service from any government department, federal or state. It looks like they do not even handle the money.
According to the Clean Energy Regulator it works like this
To buy large-scale generation certificates (LGCs):
1. Find a seller who has the quantities of LGCs you need.
2. Negotiate quantity, price and payment method with your seller.
3. Organise payment to the seller.
4. The seller will transfer the negotiated quantity of LGCs to your nominated REC Registry account.
5. To accept the transfer, log in to the REC Registry with your username and password.
so you directly have to pay a (private) party who has these things for sale. The quantity of worthless LGCs are transferred to your account and you accept the transfer. You register everything with the government but they are not otherwise involved. The LGCs are now no better than receipts for billions.
This is not for electricity. You get nothing at all for your money from the government or anyone else. That is legalized theft and the intention is to force all gas and coal power stations into bankruptcy, even if you bought the business from the Government in the first place! It is also a way to avoid having a Carbon Tax or Carbon Trading Market except that it is now $89 not Gillard’s $23. It will rocket up further.
If Malcolm Turnbull does not understand this, he should not be Prime Minister. If he does, he should not be Prime Minister.
120
Same thing with the “tax” we pay in our water bills to pay for a desal plant that has not yet been used except for a “test” to see if it will work.
30
Which, if you are in Victoria, it didn’t. Victorian consumer law states that the consumer is entitled to a refund if the item is deemed ‘not fit for purpose’. It doesn’t seem to apply in this case, somehow.
20
Wow!! Jo is on fire today.
80
Peter Hannam thinks “Donald Trump’s anti-climate plans wont fool nature”, but obviously a carbon (sic) tax will!
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/donald-trumps-anticlimate-plans-wont-fool-nature-20170328-gv8lur.html
Green Heads are exploding!
110
OMG, serious?
Houston, we have a problem!
30
Ain’t nothin’ much to lose when a green head explodes.
00
Well, it just keeps getting worse for WindMill Weatherill .
This CAGW propagator/true b’lver needs ousting along with his party of loony misfits !
70
Hey apparently Comrade Julia is back on Oz soil , after burning the economy to the ground and then scuttling off to a cushy socialist stint OS until the heat cooled off….
“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead, but let me be clear: I will be putting a price on carbon and I will move to an emissions trading scheme.’ This is what she announced, but not as far as those in the Opposition and hysterical commentariat were concerned.”
– Julia Gillard, 16 Aug 2010
40
Can someone have a word to their ABC about the difference between less reliable and more secure , as I’m sure less reliable doesn’t mean more secure !
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/sa-power-prices-hikes,-reliability-issues-after-hazelwood/8397696
50
Greens MP Adam Bandt suggested Prime Malcolm Turnbull will have blood on his hands if the the government subsidises loans for new coal fired power stations. Will Bandt accept he will have blood on his hands if a blackout as a result of too much renewables emphasis causes a single death? It’s only fair it goes both ways.
200
Adam Bandt is lacking a brain a spine and a set of gonads .
170
He is an avowed communist. It’s not about what is good for the country.
130
Yes it’s amazing how many voters are closet communists. People on all sides are so critical of One Nation but the Greens are treated as respectable political party by the MSM. It makes me sick.
141
Well what does that tell you about the MSM?
Maybe outside Pravda on the Yarra there should be a hammer and sickle flag flying….
Is Australia living in interesting times?
Certainly if there is a concerted push by communists, it explains why Red J W Howard brought in coveted Socialist gun control. As howard said ” the times will suit me”….indeed…..
Its also worth noting that the first thing historically ( stalin, mao, hitler) tyrants do is implement gun control…just sayin…
10
Delingpole’s Watermelons, Green on the outside, Red on the inside.
50
In his younger days he reckoned the Greens a bourgeois party and his PhD was on the Communist Manifesto, so we can safely say he is a watermelon.
20
GREEN HYSTERIC ADAM BANDT BLAMES COAL FOR CYCLONE
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/green-hysteric-adam-bandt-blames-coal-for-cyclone/news-story/9f1e9cf23c6eb0c572bb6dc12a8ef08a
wtf!
The “character” should be in a straight jacket in a padded cell !!
10
His carrying on is typical of someone who has nothing concrete to support their cause and so resorts to crazy talk.
00
Maybe he still has all three, just in the wrong places.
00
With record electricity prices and Turnbull wants to subsidize new coal power stations? Are we being treated as imbeciles by our Prime Minister. No one will invest in Coal because all the coal and gas plants are being forced out of business as losing money. Now please explain that with record electricity prices? Why would the biggest and cheapest power station, Hazelwood close? Malcolm pretends it is a private company, so secret.
No, no one will invest because of the huge carbon tax, which is not a tax. No one can make a profit, so why build or even turn on power stations. That was the response with Pelican Point when Weatherill demanded it be turned on. They lost $15Million last year, so it is cheaper to leave it off!
As for paying our taxes to subsidize a power station to run at a loss so the carbon tax can flee overseas in the billions? We would be double mugs.
Remove the RET and investors would flock to our prices, which are 10x those of American electricity. How on earth do we hope to make and sell Aluminium at 10x the world price? Aluminium is 95% electricity in cost. Or do we subsidize that too. Then it is just our taxes flowing overseas in the bllions to the French, the Dutch in Port Pirie, the Chinese for windmills and solar cells and to the UN to give money to needy countries while we run at a $50Bn loss every year.
This has to stop. Stop the RET. Sell the ABC/SBS who are pushing this insanity. Get our power stations back on line and stop
buying windmills we do not need and which do not work.
180
Bit much hand-shaking ‘n congrats but here’s the master
persuader flummoxing the alinsky-ites and cur-tail-ing
the EPA octopussy to make America productive again with
cheap-efficient-not-intermittant energy.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/25/a-roadmap-for-meeting-paris-emissions-reductions-goals/#comment-843717
60
Link is to comment and video at 4.06am.
20
I keep reading that Privatization is the problem. If the Government builds coal or gas power stations or rents diesel generators, they have to buy LGCs just like everyone else. These come from privately owned windmills and solar panels.
So there is absolutely no reason for governments to put all our money into new coal plants and then pay double that money to buy windmills. Blowing up coal power plants today and buying new ones to be commissioned five years from now does not make sense. The CO2 savings are not worth it. As for Tasmania paying $121Million a year to rent hundreds of diesel power generators, that is beyond belief and Weatherill wants to do the same?
This terrible situation is almost beyond parody. It is certainly beyond Malcolm Turnbull and his snowy water battery. We do not need such genius.
120
SHY has already demonstrated the defence for that.
So, that’s ok then.
50
SHY did not even realize that a tv show was not reality !
Tv Show Sea Patrol is real
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moJ7j86MyWw&html5=1
Sarah Hanson-Young (Australia’s Dumbest Politician)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGe0ML4ZLos&html5=1
10
She should be very proud that she is Australia’s dumbest politician.
It is an extremely strong field in that race.
00
Multiple postings on Bandts twitter page citing the BOMs (non updated for many years) cyclone record. The standard BOM response now that the record doesnt fit the script is that we will have fewer but stronger cyclones now. Based on what I dont know.
10
Based on the entrails of whatever animal they were getting the cyclone predictions off , wish they would reveal which animal so we could test their workings out .
00
Jay on TV, the fine threads of gold are glorious
80
Like “Titanic”, we all know how this story ends, let’s just make sure that we are prepared.
100
Make sure you get a deck chair
50
Be better off on the Lusitania. Then we could blame the Nazis, and someone would invoke Godwin’s law and it would all be over.
30
R.I.P. Hazelwood.
29 Mar: ABC: SA power: ENGIE announces $40m upgrade of Pelican Point station
By Sara Garcia and Lauren Waldhuter
Meanwhile, the state’s Opposition said it has obtained a letter which showed the operator of Port Augusta’s coal-fired power station, Alinta Energy, asked for $25 million in government support to keep the plant in operation until 2018…
The State Government has long refused to disclose how much financial backing Alinta Energy had requested to keep operating…
The letter from last May shows the company asked for an annual subsidy of $8 million until the middle of 2018, without any guarantee of operations past that point.
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said the Government should not have kept the deal hidden from taxpayers.
“$8 million per year would’ve kept the power station operational,” Mr Marshall said.
“We could’ve avoided the blackout and of course we could’ve had a much more stable grid and lower prices in South Australia, but no this was rejected by Jay Weatherill, rejected by [Energy Minister] Tom Koutsantonis.”…
But Australian Energy Market Operator chairman Anthony Marxsen said there was no proof that keeping the Port Augusta power station open could have prevented the statewide blackout in September…
Mr Koutsantonis said Alinta Energy was asking for more assistance than what had been made public.
“I’m not going to put a number on it because companies need to know they can come to the Government without these things being made public,” Mr Koutsantonis said…
“They were asking for a much more comprehensive deal, but whatever their ask was it wasn’t an offer that would have suited South Australia’s power needs.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/engie-announces-40-million-dollar-upgrade-of-sa-pelican-point/8396092
full text:
28 Mar: CFACT: Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth
PROMOTING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows…ETC
http://www.cfact.org/2017/03/28/executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-and-economic-growth-full-text/
50
And TOTALLY AVOIDABLE !!!
10
In response toRR at 22.1
You mean he’s a Green!!
20
I see what you did there , freedom of beach , clever.
00
Non-Western historians looking back on the Age of Insanity will make careers examining how Western Civilization crashed and burned through democratically elected baying at the moon, barking mad Lefties.
60
Viv Forbes has a article up today in the American Thinker , in which he discusses battery back up and Australian electricity supply issues in a way that even a layman like myself can understand , so posting the link here for those that have not come across it yet ; http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/03/batteries_another_green_scam.html
60
“battery”, is that an Energizer or a Duracell……..
10
That’s a very good article DD. Thank you for putting it up. I’ve forwarded the link to family members so far.
10
OT, but this is on right now if interested.
https://science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/full-committee-hearing-climate-science-assumptions-policy-implications-and
20
Rohrabacher got fired up about all the personal attacks going on. About time too.
10
Nicely demonstrates that on the left, energy is a religious exercise – entirely faith based.
Tar. Feathers. Rinse. Repeat. Cheers –
40
I would love a reporter with tape & camera to visit a few current & past Federal politicians at their homes during a blackout. { especially when summer comes]
Firstly they could get footage of lights on & ACs running by whatever UBER Subsidized solar panel/Generator alternative source THEY have & then doorstop them to get the crocodile tears & green platitudes on record for posterity.
[ starting with “Carbon Pollution Penny”& “There will be no Carbon Tax in a government I lead HerRanganess” – pedal harder Timmy!]
60
I’ve read recently Australia has a huge supply of natural gas due to government tax breaks. The thing to do would be to build more gas plants. You say there are a lot of green costs to building one, but maybe the gov could waive those to use the cheap gas.
31
Australia is among the world’s largest exporters of LNG, but some state governments have banned exploration, so to fulfill export contracts local gas prices have been rising. Dumb, right?
10
Will the last person to leave SA please close the door.?
No need to turn out the lights…..
50
Their ABC has a response to this story and the Kout has his version of what went on .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/port-augusta-power-station-giveaway-a-bad-deal/8398898
10
O/T
I don’t know how many of you are aware of the wxtent of warmist propoganda videos online but I came across this one and there are a large number of copies of it. I think it is worthwhile for climate realists to look at it or at least skim through it to see where a lot of the alarmist nonsense is coming from.
Human Extinction by 2030 – Antarctica Secrets Beneath the Ice!
https://youtu.be/HsrAWTrqUJA
10
According to Michael Moore, Trump will cause human extinction. You cant make this stuff up, oh wait, they are.
20
“Michael Moore”, a great case for abortion……..
11
I’m beginning to think that President Trump is the one person who can halt the mad lefty rush towards human extinction.
10
Of course it may be completely unrelated to the closure of Hazelwood, but average daily Victorian wholesale electricity prices per AEMO:
March 1-15 $68.3/MWh range 40-93
March 16-29 $107.4/MWh range 65-171
Average 1999-2009 $34.8/MWh
Average 2010-2017 $41.2/MWh
Average Jan 2017 $62.0/MWh
Average Feb 2017 $86.1/MWh
20
VIDEO: 29 Mar: Breitbart: J Scott Armstrong: Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method
by Allum Bokhari
Fewer than 1 percent of papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method, according to research by Wharton School professor and forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong.
Professor Armstrong, who co-founded the peer-reviewed Journal of Forecasting in 1982 and the International Journal of Forecasting in 1985, made the claim in a presentation about what he considers to be “alarmism” from forecasters over man-made climate change.
“We also go through journals and rate how well they conform to the scientific method. I used to think that maybe 10 percent of papers in my field … were maybe useful. Now it looks like maybe, one tenth of one percent follow the scientific method” said Armstrong in his presentation, which can be watched in full below. “People just don’t do it.”…
According to Armstrong, very little of the forecasting in climate change debate adheres to these criteria…
According to Armstrong, forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violate all eight criteria…
Armstrong concluded his talk by arguing that scientific evidence should be required for all climate regulations…
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/03/29/j-scott-armstrong-fraction-1-papers-scientific-journals-follow-scientific-method/
30
Given the huge quantity of electricity used by some industries e.g. aluminium smelting, how viable would it be for them to build their own power plants from old jet turbines ? They could also export power to the grid.
11
For aluminium smelting you need the cheapest possible power. It doesn’t come any cheaper than coal or nuclear and traditionally the otherwise unwanted power from off-peak production at night would be used. Using jet turbines to produce power would be far too expensive.
50
About the only use for old jet engines is to mount them, and welded them tight onto a heavy tank chassis and back the whole arrangement up to a burning oil well.
Then crank the jet up to full thrust which blows the flame away from the gas and oil blasting out of the well just like one blows out a candle
Then turn on the high pressure water hose to cool the whole well head as fast as possible so that it doesn’t relight from the very hot metal around the well head.
The well can then be capped or shut down plus some heavy concreting if a crater is left around the well pipe as it burns back and melts.
That technique for extinguishing oil well fires was the brain child of I think, the Poles following the First Gulf War when Saddam Hussein torched nearly all of Kuwait’s oil wells when the Iraqis were forced back out of Kuwait by the American and European armed forces.
Prior to the Jet engine oil well fire extinguishing technique it was dynamite and lots of water to cool things down and stop relights from hot metal so as to extinguish the fire by separating the flame head from the gas and oil pouring from the open oil well pipe.
It usually worked but was very slow, expensive and exceedingly dangerous to the crew who had to move the explosives close to the well head as well as providing and using the cooling water supplies in immense amounts very close to the raging hundreds of degrees C temperatures of the well head fires.
The Kuwait oil well fires lit by the retreating Iraqis were originally expected to take many years to fully extinguish by the use of explosives methods.
Using a jet engine on a heavy tank chassis to blow out the flames like one blows out a candle meant that the Kuwait oil well fires were extinguished and the wells capped and even back in production within a few months.
60
John it may not be viable to keep the smelters operating on Australian soil, Beijing has been dumping steel and aluminium on us for years.
20
From my business based experience China has been dumping into Australia since the 1980s when I was informed by a Department of Trade employee that the then Labor government was not interested in tens of millions of dollars of local industry lost sales to China because the export of raw materials far exceeded the local industry losses.
00
If you put the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ around an industrial project then you can get away with destroying the countryside with virtually no argument. In fact governments will fall over themselves to give you the money to do it (as long as they get a kickback).
Windfarms are an excellent case in point.
The rampant uptake of windfarms has ensured that once untouched regions of the world are littered with these industrial plants. Industrialization of the countryside that builds thousands of great concrete foundations, builds access roads to transport heavy trucks and equipment, and later the attendant maintenance crews; industrial sized electrical connections, switchgear, etc., with all the hazards they bring now despoil what once was beautiful natural vistas of countryside.
All this industrialization disturbing nature’s haven, and worse still killing large numbers of birds and bats, thus ensuring an unnatural tip in the local balance of nature to the all the scavenging species.
And then there future to look forward to. When these whirling monsters fail (and they will) will there really be enough money in the pot to restore the area to its former beauty?
Consider for a moment if a gas fracking company tried the same thing…
Would they be granted access to site a small fracking plant on unspoiled countryside? Could they be granted free reign to deposit lots of small generators at site and wire-up the country to the towns? Of course not. It’s not green, its apparently not sustainable, the greens advocates would shout over the whir of windmills, not realizing that is what they have already done with windfarms.
60
Yes, windmills are an environmental disaster.
It is absurd to think that replacing one single power station with thousands of windmills scattered all over once-pristine countryside would be anything but a disaster.
30
David mentions this here: (my bolding)
Thousands, and see the point here, it’s not like for like.
A coal fired power plant delivers ALL of its Nameplate power ALL the time.
The equivalent wind turbines on poles, you never know, some days good some days not, some parts of a day good, and some not.
Thousands of them.
Hazelwood delivered its power right to the end. Up to the time they started to run down the generators, in 28 days Hazelwood generated at a daily average of 1306MW
Every wind plant in Australia has a Nameplate of 3900MW, which is THREE times what Hazelwood was averaging.
Hazelwood delivered that power in a straight line across the page.
There were a few days all that wind actually generated more power (on the day) than Hazelwood, but at the end, when they started to shut the Units at Hazelwood down, Hazelwood was far and away in front of all that wind.
When the last Unit shut down yesterday, hence no more power delivery from that plant, wind could operate at its average, and it would still take 4 days to catch up to what Hazelwood generated.
Hazelwood delivered 114.8% more power in the same time than ALL that wind delivered.
Hazelwood is ONE power Plant.
There are (around) 2400 turbines on poles around Australia.
So, getting back to what David said above:
Those thousands (2400) of turbines on poles STILL cannot equal the power generation of ONE ancient relic of a coal fired power plant.
LIKE FOR LIKE
Straight line power across the page or up and down by the day, by the hour or even by the minute.
It actually is no contest.
Tony.
180
And today Victoria electricity providers announced a 20 per cent price rise based on the closure of Hazlewood.
70
Bl00dy hell. Did they? Missed that.
604 days now, Dan.
20
604 days too long ! This Despot should be Ousted (Bum Rushed Out) today .
How much longer much we endure this Scam ?
20
Let me highlight something for you here, just to illustrate what I said here, and you’ll have to do some work to see what I mean:
Okay, there are two links and you will open them up on two separate pages. The first link is to wind power, and the second link is to fossil fuel power at (basically) the same aneroid page.
Link One – Fossil Fuel Power
Link Two – Wind Power
Now, for the sake of equality I have chosen the same State, Victoria, and the same day, yesterday, 29th March 2017. Also for the same equality, I have chosen power plants of equivalent size in Nameplate.
Go first to Link 1 – Fossil Fuel Power. At the link, click on MW on that chart there at the top right. Now go to the bottom of the listed power plants there. Untick every box for every State, and also untick the boxes headed sub total and total, just above the States there.
You should have a blank page.
Now, where you see the list of power plants all in different colours. From the bottom go up 3 lines till you see the Plants starting with LY, and that stands for Loy Yang, the plant near Hazelwood.
Tick these three boxes LOYYB2, LYA2, and LYA3, and then tick the box Sub Total. These are Loy Yang B Unit 2, Loy Yang A Units 2 and 3.
In total, they have a Nameplate of 1650MW.
Okay, now go to the Wind Power window you have open. Same thing, tick that MW box at top right. Then under the list of plants untick every Sate except Vic (far right) and also untick the Total box.
This covers every wind plant in Victoria, all 15 of them, with an almost equivalent Nameplate of 1485MW.
Now, compare the two images you have by navigating back and forth. Note how the three Units at Loy Yang have a straight line output across the top of the page there at just more than 1600MW.
Note how the wind image varies from a maximum of 950MW and a minimum of 200MW. This was a good day for wind power in Victoria with an average of (around) 550MW with a Capacity Factor of 37%.
Note that it never reached its maximum of 1485MW, and it never does, NEVER. Just saying that the average was 550MW gives a false impression, because that converts what you see there to a straight line across the page at 550MW, but in actual fact, it’s all over the place.
Imagine now a grid controller trying to watch all of that in real time to see what is happening with wind power so he can work out what needs to be brought on line to cover the wind.
Note that the Nameplate for wind is almost the same and yet, the actual average, even on a good day like this is still only 550MW, the same as for just ONE of those Units at Loy Yang.
See now the work that the grid controllers do to keep the power on, when wind is so variable, and because of that, politicians and wind supporters can get away with saying that wind can actually supply power.
See what we are up against when we try and explain just how variable wind is, and why we need coal fired power.
It’s not variable on a yearly basis, it’s variable from minute to minute across even just one single day.
Something like this needs to be actually be explained to people.
Same State, same day, same nameplate, starkly different results, on a good day for wind.
Tony.
30
Tony, there are odd things happening this morning. Vic is importing 540 MW from Tas, presumably hydro, while exporting 290 MW to SA and 220 to NSW. NSW is also importing 540 MW from Qld. Yet spot prices are $450 in Vic, $490 in SA, yet only $60/64 in Qld/NSW. Please explain!
Maybe because Vic has a lot of gas stations operating to meet the morning peak? And its cold down here in Melbourne this morning!
00
The UN’s “Sustainable Development Agenda” is Basically a Giant Corporatist Fraud
http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-uns-sustainable-development-agenda-is-basically-a-giant-corporatist-fraud.html
20
JOANNE and MODS , sorry for being way off topic I would normally keep this for a weekend unthreaded , but In my opinion its so important that I think some cakes are better when they are fresh from the oven , my favourite online philosopher , Stefan Molyneux has a article out today that should resonate with everyone here , its very important that we all continue to support JO and this blog however we can , including most importantly , financially , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ8NvWvMF-I , first they came for ,,,,, ( you know the rest ), DONATE .
20
lengthy, multiple links.
Paris doesn’t concern me particularly, and I think, with all the legal battles ahead, the President would want to get Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court before taking on the CO2 endangerment rule:
29 Mar: TheNewAmerican: Alex Newman: Trump Takes Chainsaw to Obama’s “Climate” Schemes
Still, there are key policies Trump promised on the campaign trail that have yet to be fulfilled. Among them: Overturning the Obama EPA’s absurd “finding” that CO2 — the gas of life, exhaled by every living person and required by every plant — is dangerous “pollution.” Formally canceling the UN Paris regime has also not been done yet. Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team, said he expected those decisions would be made in the future. “We’re happy with it so far and we look forward to the right decisions on Paris and [CO2] endangerment, but I think those are still to be made and they’re a ways down the road,” Ebell was quoted as saying in Politico (LINK). Prominent climate realist and Breitbart writer James Delingpole, though, took a harder line, saying that Pruitt should resign if he was not ready to overturn the Obama administration’s widely ridiculed “endangerment finding” on CO2 that declared human breath to be pollution…
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/25705-trump-takes-chainsaw-to-obama-s-climate-schemes
10
29 Mar: Seattle Times: AP: Seth Borenstein: Dirty air from global trade kills at home and abroad
More than 750,000 people die prematurely from dirty air every year that is generated by making goods in one location that will be sold elsewhere. Some of those deaths are a result of air pollution that has blown across national borders…
It’s not a local issue anymore,” said study co-author Dabo Guan, an economist at the University of East Anglia in England. “It requires ***global cooperation.”…
It found that people in Western Europe buying goods made elsewhere were linked to 173,000 overseas air pollution deaths a year, while United States consumption was linked to just over 100,000 deaths, according to the study published in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
What that looks like in China: 238,000 deaths a year associated with production of goods that are bought or consumed elsewhere. That number is 106,000 deaths in India and 129,000 deaths in the rest of Asia…
Dr. Howard Frumkin, a former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now at the University of Washington, was not part of the study, but praised it. He said the calculations done by the study are crucial for understanding the larger problem.
“This is a moral question as much as a scientific one,” Frumkin wrote in an email. “But the scientific approach here — linking data on manufacturing and associated pollution emissions, import and export flows, pollutant movement across national boundaries, and the health impact of pollution exposure — is exactly what’s needed.”…
Bringing back manufacturing to the United States, as President Donald J. Trump and politicians from both parties want, would bring more air pollution deaths to the U.S., but reduce deaths worldwide because pollution laws are stricter, Davis and others said…
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/dirty-air-from-global-trade-kills-at-home-and-abroad/
29 Mar: Nature: Transboundary health impacts of transported global air pollution and international trade
Acknowledgements:
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41625020, 41629501, 41422502, 41222036 and 41541039) and China’s National Basic Research Program (2014CB441301 and 2014CB441303).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7647/full/nature21712.html
10
It’s strange then that life expectancy is improving for so many and population numbers are increasing as a result of that.
10
Youtube: 4mins05secs: Sky: Nigel Farage I’ve been fighting 25 years for today to happen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwapsfvpUVc
Youtube: 4mins25secs: BBC: Nigel Farage having a beer celebrating Article 50 triggering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT0Eqb07KG0
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[…] 30 Mil to save a Billion? No thanks, not green enough. The SA blackout cost around half a billion, and building a new gas plant (with a $170b in green […]
00
OT from Aunty , the new catch word is Consillius not consensus, WTF .
According to their seance Guru Robin Williams it means that the overwhelming science has been tested on many levels .
The same as a doctor ordering multiple tests on a patient , yes Consillius he said fits perfectly .
Never heard the word don’t even know if I spelt it right but there you have it .
20
So the ABC is still trying to blind us with pseudoscience? Sorry, ABC, not my scene. If I ever have the misfortune to be watching your version of the ‘news’ I just sit fuming and ready to put an axe through the screen! Also, muttering to myself in disagreement at what is said and correcting their grammar and pronounciation mistakes 🙁
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Just thinking about it , Con -Silly – Us , it is appropriate isn’t it .
30
To be fair to Robyn Williams, I think he has actually picked up a bad case of consillitis which is endemic throughout the ABC- Its root cause has been traced to a profound media bias/ lack of objectivity, and this has led to a fulminating purulent exudate of sustainable and renewable Green phlegm lodging deep in the back of Aunty’s throat.
00
LOL.
29 Mar: NPR: Scientists Who Want To Study Climate Engineering Shun Trump
by Nell Greenfieldboyce
Just a year ago, some hoped that the U. S. government would start funding such research and take a leadership role. Back then, advocates for the work saw public funding as ideal, because it would foster transparency, accountability and public trust…
But now that the Trump administration is in charge, those folks have changed their views…
Today, if officials offered money for a big research program on climate engineering, “I would say, ‘No, thank you,'” Ted Parson, who specializes in environmental law at UCLA, told NPR…
David Keith, a climate scientist at Harvard University who is planning to use a balloon to test putting particles in the stratosphere as early as next year, is well aware of the need to reassure the public about his small experiment.
“We are horrified by the idea that there might be some huge backlash,” Keith said, “and so the questions of how to avoid that are top of our minds.”
He used to want public funding, he said, partly to inspire trust. But, for now, he’s happy to stick to private sources.
“I am more comfortable,” Keith said, “taking money from clearly environmentally aligned philanthropies or philanthropists than I am taking money from the administration.”
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521780927/scientists-who-want-to-study-climate-engineering-shun-trump
24 Mar: MIT Technology Review: James Temple: Sustainable Energy: Harvard Scientists Moving Ahead on Plans for Atmospheric Geoengineering Experiments
Sometime next year, Harvard professors David Keith and Frank Keutsch hope to launch a high-altitude balloon, tethered to a gondola equipped with propellers and sensors, from a site in Tucson, Arizona. After initial engineering tests, the “StratoCruiser” would spray a fine mist of materials such as sulfur dioxide, alumina, or calcium carbonate into the stratosphere…
The researchers first proposed these balloon experiments in a 2014 paper (LINK)…
“We would like to have the first flights next year,” he said at the Forum on U.S. Solar Geoengineering Research, held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace…
***Funding for the initial experiments would come from grants that Harvard provided Keith and Keutsch as new professors. Additional funds may come from Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, a multidisciplinary effort launching this spring to study feasibility, risks, ethics, and governance issues surrounding geoengineering. As of press time, it had raised more than $7 million from Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, the Hewlett Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Harvard-internal funds, and other philanthropists…
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603974/harvard-scientists-moving-ahead-on-plans-for-atmospheric-geoengineering-experiments/
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Weatherill must be thrilled.
In the Australian Editorial today
“Hazelwood’s French owner Engie is also looking to sell the Loy Yang B coal-fired station, which supplies 17 percent of the state’s power”!
Of course after closing 25% that is now 22.5% of what is left.
Close both Hazelwood and Loy Yang B and we lose 42% of our power. I am sure Daniel Andrews or Jay Weatherill would paint that as a 72% increase in wind power when nothing had happened except closure.
“Jay Weatherill will be relieved .. rising prices have enabled the Pelican Point gas-fired power station neaer Adelaide (also owned by Engie) to strike long-term contracts to purchase gas and sell electricity, allowing for the reactivation of its second 240MW turbine. This is a major boost to reliable baseload generation in SA but highlights how the pressures created by a rapidly growing, subsidised renewable energy sector had forced the plant in to mothballs in the first place“
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All of the politicians cannot be as stupid as they appear to be.
20
Never underestimate the ability of politicians to do something stupid.
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Dennis you forgot the sarc tag !
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Crazy stuff happening. Right now, Victoria is a net importer of electricity – 170 MW from windy SA, 160 from NSW, partly offset by 230 MW being sent to Tas.
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The number of politicians in Australia who are mendacious, terminally confused, totally incompetent and working actively to destroy Australia has reached a new all-time record. The number of serious players in economics in the political field in Australia can be counted on only one hand.
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Have you lost some fingers off your hand ?
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I do not have access to this article at The Australian newspaper;
ROBERT GOTTLIEBSEN
An unprecedented step has been taken in bringing those who vandalised our power systems before the courts.
20
I think there ought to be a vote on which city is first for the load shedding regime coming soon and would like to nominate Melbourne for the blackout capital of Australia. Let’s see how many vote greenloon next election.
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The majority of the minority called the greens live in the inner city, and if there’s load shedding to be done my bet is it will be rural towns that will suffer not Melbourne.
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Often wondered about that myself, RR.
But maybe, just maybe the engineers running the grid might also just be fed up to the back teeth to see what for some of them may have be a lifetimes work, that of developing and operating a highly stable, rock steady, absolutely reliable power grid covering most of SE Australia.
They might just be fed up to the back teeth by the running down of the grid reliability, the consequent severe damage to their own personal standards as engineers and the pall that the politically induced unreliability of today’s grid is bring on their reputations as engineers and grid operators.
All due not the the engineers and operators of the grid, in fact in spite of the best efforts of the grid operators and engineers but due solely to the imbecilic politician’s and greens quite knowingly and quite deliberately destroying the reliability and stability of the grid in the name of some completely illusionary cult like ideology called that vaporous and illusionary, never to be clearly defined or validly explained, inchoate and confused “climate change”.
So just maybe, again, those engineers and operators will quite subtly see to it that the green electorates and the electorates held by the blatantly grid wrecking politicians get a bit more of the blackout experience than does the grid operator and engineer sympathetic non city and rural regions.
We can only live in hope out here!
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Former trade minister Andrew Robb has taken an unprecedented and important step towards bringing the politicians who vandalised our power and gas systems before the courts.
I emphasise that Robb did not describe as “criminals” the politicians who put NSW, Victoria and South Australia at risk of blackouts and forced hundreds of thousands of Australians to consider installing their own generators or batteries.
But at this week’s Food Forum Robb did describe what happened as a “crime”. I believe it is the first time a former Coalition minister has used the word “crime” to describe the destruction of low-cost energy.
He did not discuss blackout danger but, if anything, that is a greater “crime”.
I emphasise that Robb did not say politicians should be prosecuted, but now the “crime” word has been used, if we have power blackouts in NSW, Victoria, or South Australia over the next two summers an enraged community is going to demand that the perpetrators of the “crime” — the politicians — be hauled before the courts.
As I have described previously there is a 75 per cent risk of blackouts in NSW and Victoria. But it might not happen. The politicians could be lucky.
We are fortunate in Australia to have a section of the criminal code that covers politicians and public servants who make false statements or mislead the public. It sets out that if they are guilty of an offence they can be punished with 12 months jail. Every word uttered by ministers as they vandalised the network and created higher prices needs to be examined to determine whether an offence has been committed. It’s not my job to say they have committed an offence and, as is their right, the politicians will fight any prosecutions with great vigour.
The question for the courts to decide will be whether the community was told by the politicians that, to guarantee supply security, solar and wind installations required backup facilities and a reconfiguration of the power network, which the politicians did not undertake.
In addition, was the community told that blocking gas developments in NSW and Victoria would create supply dangers given Gladstone required southern gas. Prices of energy would have to rise.
Quite rightly, Senate crossbencher Nick Xenophon is refusing to allow tax cuts until the power and gas mess is sorted out. And he is right. Few local or overseas groups are going to make substantial new investments in Australia while power and gas prices are out of control, plus substantial gas shortages and blackouts are on the menu.
The federal government may need to declare a state of emergency and restore Hazelwood, given that a “crime” has been committed, as well as accelerating the Snowy plan and quickly taking other emergency measures.
Like Andrew Robb and my readers, I can’t help thinking about why our politicians made such fundamental and catastrophic errors. I have written about the need for advice outside the public service and the “yes” people among the ministerial advisers. But watch question time in state and federal parliaments and you will see politicians using too much of their time thinking up ways to abuse each other.
That time could be used to make sure we avoid blackouts.
Vast amounts of state and federal government resources are used to duplicate what the other is doing, and usually one bags the other so no decisions can be made. We need to synchronise power structures so states control some areas and Canberra others. When duplication is ended, not only do we save countless billions but real policy can be determined, rather than developing new weapons for the state/Commonwealth fights.
Paradoxically, it was Andrew Robb who in the lead-up to the 2013 Abbott election victory was shadow finance minister and set out detailed plans to save those billions by ending state-federal duplication.
But Tony Abbott made him trade minister, and since then the Coalition in government has set about increasing duplication and infighting, which takes state and federal politicians’ eyes off the ball and leads them to poor decision-making.
Maybe long blackouts and gas shortages are what the community needs to rewrite federation and change the way we make decisions. It is the most important issue in the nation.
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That above is the Robert Gottliebsen article referred to by Dennis.
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When the Oz self governing colonies decided to come
together to achieve Federation, politicians didn’t
make the decision for them, it was a decision that
involving citizens. Today we look on as decisions
like the closing of Hazelwood, affecting our economy
and our future, are made without our say so.
David Flint and Jai Martinkovits wrote a book in 2013
entitled,’Give us back our Country,’ where they state
that we’ve become a nation ruled by top-down, behind-the
-scenes decisions, increasing regulation and taking away
our liberties. Flint and Martinkovits argue that the
imposition of elite initiatives has had disastrous
consequences , expanding government’s role through so
called reform agendas, a cloak of infallibility for
gaining increasing power.
They argue that ‘electing a government in the 21st
century is tantamount to signing a blank cheque on your
bank account,guaranteed by your house, your assets and
your income.’ They make 4 proposals to re-empower the
people with tools of direct democracy, these are:
1. Citizen Initiated Referendum.
2.Citizen Veto over existing laws.
3.Recall Elections.
4.Reintroduction of Grand Juries.
Don’t know which would work but we need some action to
stop guvuhmint vandalizing our productive coal and gas
energy system and replacing it with medieval technology.
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Gottliebsen wrote another article 20/3/17 in the Australian, with insightful intro and reflection by Stop These Things. It is a fascinating discussion of expert engineering opinion versus the mendaciousness of political spin masters https://stopthesethings.com/2017/03/29/australian-wind-power-forecast-75-chance-of-more-blackouts-next-summer/
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28 Mar: StarOnline: Reuters: Bulgaria wants exemption from planned EU pollution curbs on coal-fired plants
Bulgaria’s big coal-fired plants produce about 40 percent of the country’s electricity…
“The planned levels … will be unbearable for Bulgaria’s coal-fired plants,” the energy ministry said in a statement on Monday. “Initial calculations show that an investment of over 1 billion levs ($556 million) in total will be needed to meet the new environmental norms.”…
The ministry said it would seek meetings with EU environmental and energy commissioners and demand lower levels on polluting emissions for the Balkan country than those planned for other member states.
The country’s big coal-fired plants are located in the Maritsa East lignite coal mining complex in southern Bulgaria where the coal deposits are rich in sulphur.
The ministry said the new curbs would pose a risk to the security of energy supplies and hit the competitiveness of Bulgaria’s small economy…
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2017/03/28/bulgaria-wants-exemption-from-planned-eu-pollution-curbs-on-coalfired-plants/
29 Mar: EnergyPost EU: Pippa Gallop: Western Balkans Are Massively Expanding Coal Power, but the New Plants May Have to Be Closed Again Soon
At least 9 new lignite power plants are being planned in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, but according to a new report from CEE Bankwatch Network (LINK) their feasibility studies do not take into account the effect of CO2 prices. As a result, when these countries join the EU, the plants will not be competitive anymore and will need to be closed down, writes Pippa Gallop, research coordinator at CEE Bankwatch Network – just like the many coal power plants in Western Europe that are now being shut. The taxpayers in the Western Balkans will end up footing the bill…
However none of this seems to have entered the heads of decision-makers in the Western Balkans, who remain wedded to producing as much electricity as possible, irrespective of the economic feasibility or impacts on the environment and climate…
In a briefing published on 29 March we’ve crunched the numbers for ten new lignite power plants across the Western Balkans – one already built and nine planned – to see how much CO2 prices might add to annual operating costs…
GRAPH
Worryingly, these huge costs do not appear to have been properly accounted for when planning the new coal plants…
With a dearth of wind and solar power in the region, the governments also need to set 2030 targets for renewables and to diversify away from over-reliance on hydropower and coal. Without this, the region looks set to find itself stuck with a fleet of new but un-useable coal plants – a monument to the utilities’ and governments’ failure to change with the times.
http://energypost.eu/western-balkans-are-massively-expanding-coal-power-but-the-new-plants-may-have-to-be-closed-again-soon/
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can anyone explain why Australia continues to go along with the CAGW scam?
28 Mar: UK Independent: Ian Johnston: EU states trying to ‘rig new greenhouse gas law with loopholes’, new report claims
Twenty-five out of 28 states, including the UK, accused of trying to water down the EU’s ‘most important climate law’
Just three out of the 28 European Union countries appear to be in favour of creating a tough new law that would set binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis.
Sweden was the sole member state whose attitude towards a key piece of proposed EU legislation was rated as “good”, in a ranking was developed by Carbon Market Watch and the European Federation for Transport and Environment.
Germany and France’s stances were only described as “moderate”, but this was enough to claim second and third place.
Most countries were seeking to “rig the law with loopholes”, one analyst who worked on the ranking said…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/eu-states-greenhouse-gas-law-loopholes-european-union-global-warming-climate-change-report-carbon-a7654151.html
28 Mar: InsideClimateNews: Phil McKenna: Canada’s Climate Change Policies Keep Its Paris Commitments Out of Reach
With no rollback in Alberta tar sands production, Canada’s emissions remain on an upward slope, a new report says
Canada probably will fail to meet its international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under even the best-case scenario, according to a new report by the Canadian government…
“The biggest source of emissions that the Canadians haven’t yet grappled with is their growing tar sands expansion,” Schmidt said. “There is still a gap between their target and current policies.”…
Under the global climate agreement, Canada vowed to cut its emissions 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. To reach its target, Canada would have to rein in emissions from oil and gas production, the country’s leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.
On Nov. 29 Trudeau approved two pipelines that would pump nearly 1 million barrels of additional tar sands crude oil per day from Alberta to global markets…
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/justin-trudeau-canada-climate-change-paris-agreement
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can anyone explain why Australia continues to go along with the CAGW scam?
Geez that’s a tough one Pat , but from where I’m sitting it’s because we don’t know the difference between left and right these days , and neither do the idiots we vote for .
00
When I look through so many posts above, it would seem taking the mass of comments at face value, that we are near the end of the road as a nation with only a hell hole Venezuelan type economy ahead of us as a nation.
But I guess I am an optimist about the future, always have been, sometimes at considerable personal cost when my optimism and my tendency to take people and relatives on trust does not eventuate.
So looking at the present Australian energy debacle I am quite angry and appalled at the abysmal levels and complete lack of any sense of responsibility by the political class, all of them, toward their voters and citizens which they merely as it turns out, only purport to represent as elected representatives of our government and nation.
But I come back again and again to the fact that so very many of the proletariat and political class today have absolutely zero understanding of the basic and quite old and unfashionable technologies that are the basic underpinnings of our civilisation and which have kept our society ticking so smoothly along for close on a century past.
So this stupid energy debacle episode is a cathartic of our society, a cleansing and an awakening which will and is educating a whole new group of citizens on the absolutes of always having a nationally based, basic reliable and cheap power supply system that is almost impervious to natural and manmade traumas and will be always there to sustain and maintain our society, our living standards and cohesion as a nation.
Out of all the trauma that is so evident today around our energy supply and the abysmal personal performances of our entire abjectly incompetent and totally selfie/ selfishly orientated political class, we can only hope that a new generation emerges who have taken on the lessons that can be learned from the current politically created societal and energy debacle and rebuild Australia in a new image and with a renewed commitment to create a better nation and a better future for our generations still to come.
As I said, I am an optimist, maybe an unjustified optimist but our nation has been here before during the Great Depression of my Parent’s era and our lives today are infinitely better and have far more hope in the future than did that generation that had been through the Great European War [ WW 1 ]and then had to face the Great depression whilst unknowingly still having to face another blood letting in WW2 that cost perhaps a hundred million lives over the decade after the Great Depression.
20
Add to that the Australian Government’s growing debt:
When Labor gained office in November 2007, the debt was $58.0 billion. In September 2013 it was $270.0 billion. An increase of $212.0 billion.
It is now $483.1 billion, up $213.1 billion.
That’s $20,000 debt for every person in Australia.
10
Good facts Robber but how much of that was forward spending by Rudd Gillard Rudd and how much to the nincompoops who followed .
10
Congratulations to this blog for achieving a zero for posts relating to Science in any form, rather they have been about politics, finance, a weather event and energy production. All of them tagged with the rather bland tag “Global Warming”. Actually this has been true for some time… more than 20 posts with barely a sniff of science.
zzz
012
Perhaps you need to go back and read what this ones about you twerp !
50
It is about the energy market in Australia with a reference to specific happenings in south Australia. You bazooka!
02
So Gaye,
Energy is not science?
Distribution of electricity is not science?
CO2 emissions is not science?
Electrons are not science?
Manufacture of steel is not science?
Manufacture of concrete is not science?
Etc
Etc
Etc
GeAy – why can’t you look further than a heading?
Double face palm for you!
Blinkers sometimes can be an aid to Blindness!
10
Eheeeeehhe
When do you read anything Geeaye!
“Bring back DDT MSDS Now!”
50
GA,
We have given up discussing science with you lot because the sound of that pea rattling around in your head drowns out the science we speak of.
When you grow a brain and along with it develop the ability of critical thought and the much underated logical process pathways come back and lets have a chat.
Until just sit and click the little red thumbs.
60
WB
03
WB…………..another non descript comment and you b*&^tch about a lack of science being discussed you GA are the main offender.
30
Sorry you feel that way Craig. I’ll comment on science when there is something to comment on.
03
How many degrees below normal temperature is now in the Antarctic?
https://www.yr.no/sted/Antarktika/
https://www.yr.no/place/Antarctica/Other/Scott_Base/statistics.html
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_JFM_SH_2017.png
https://www.yr.no/sted/Antarktika/Annet/Scott/
00
I can remember when Juliar Gizard was criticising the NSW Liberal government for spending money to “gold plate” the NSW grid and pretending that that was why the cost of electricity was going up. LOL!!
10
Jo, your story gets another billion dollar boost from the Lyon group.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/new-solar-project-announced-for-sa-riverland/8400952
Batteries! Get your batteries. Everyone’s a winner!
Hmmm. Well I did say Tesla would need 300MWh of storage to even begin to be useful.
This group want to install 600MWh of battery storage total.
But the catch is that maximum discharge rate is only 100MW.
SA’s average wind power generation is very roughly about 510MW.
So these battery farms can buffer just one hour of the electricity collected from wind turbines, and release it over 6 hours during peak demand period.
SA’s average grid demand over the last two days is 1100MW.
So the two battery farms on the drawing board are enough to supply 9% of SA’s average demand, but only for 6 hours, and it will cost 1 billion dollars to build, no mention of depreciation rate and operating cost.
How much did Port Augusta’s Northern power station generate?
At full operation it was ~520MW, about half of the state’s demand. That’s as much as all SA’s wind turbines combined, except it is reliable.
As Tony points out above, they only had one of two units running towards the end, so it was more like 25% of demand or half the wind turbine average, but still reliable.
Already built and paid for, and Alinta offered to run it for only $20M/year.
And Wetherdill passed it up.
Generate 25% of daily electrical energy needs on demand for cheap, versus spending a billion dollars storing just 2% of daily needs in batteries recharged from renewables of unpredictable output, and Wetherdill chose the storage option.
What a monumental stuff up.
No really, they should build a statue of Wetherdill sitting at his desk signing a rejection letter to Alinta as a monument to the stuff-up that cost SA a billion dollars. Carve the statue out of wood as it is eco-friendly, doesn’t conduct electricity, and won’t last the distance.
40
Err, slight correction to above, it’s not spread over 6 hours. Sorry, it was 2 separate plants so their power adds together. That’s 200MW for 2 hours then 100MW for 2 hours after that. Same conclusion; designed to farm subsidies and to profit only from peak power pricing, not to provide a 24/7 reliable energy supply.
10
h/t Graeme No.3 – http://joannenova.com.au/2017/03/aemo-report-blames-renewables-sa-blackout-due-to-lack-of-synchronous-inertia/#comment-1902546
00