In SA recycling business goes broke due to electricity cost — thank renewables for making recycling impossible

A business processing 15% of Australia’s low grade plastics survived for 37 years with coal fired power in SA, and for one year without:

South Australia’s sky-high electricity prices have forced an Adelaide plastics recycling business to shut its doors, costing 35 workers their jobs, its managing director says. Plastics Granulating Services (PGS), based in Kilburn in Adelaide’s inner-north, said it had seen its monthly power bills increase from $80,000 to $180,000 over the past 18 months.

Managing director Stephen Scherer said the high cost of power had crippled his business of 38 years and plans for expansion, and had led to his company being placed in liquidation. “I hate to think of how many hours I’ve wasted on the AEMO website with tools to monitor spot pricing, to assess the implications of power, the trends of power and the future costs of power.

The SA Government is still in denial:

SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter said it was disappointing the facility was shutting down, but he said the pain of high electricity prices was being felt across the country.  Mr Hunter said help was available through the State Government’s energy efficiency programs.

“Green Industries and Zero Waste have quite a bit of expertise in this area [and] they’ve worked with other companies and other industry sectors,” he said. “If that help is not required then that’s up to him, but that’s the offer I can make.”

“Having high power prices … is a reality,” he said.

“That’s why the Government has introduced its state plan for energy in South Australia.

Commenter Bulldust:

“It’s a shame most Greens supporters don’t get irony.

You want renewable energy or recycling? Pick one…

 h/t Bulldust, OriginalSteve, David Maddison

9.7 out of 10 based on 121 ratings

197 comments to In SA recycling business goes broke due to electricity cost — thank renewables for making recycling impossible

  • #
    Dennis

    One of the basket case economies in Australia, Labor governed South Australia, the “gerrymander electorate” state.

    And the vandalised electricity grid state of chaos.

    431

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Dennis, the senate is the bigger gerrymander problem! South Australia has a population of 1.7 million, and the same senate representation, 12 seats, as NSW with 7.5 million people. So SA and Tasmania, with 515,000 people, can outvote NSW by 2 to 1, while combined having less than a third of NSW’s population.

      40

    • #
      Graham Richards

      This warms the cockles of Turnbull’s heart as he sees his much beloved stealth created ETS kick in. This whole country will be in dire chaos & trouble within 18 months. Mark my words.

      40

  • #
    Dennis

    I still cannot get over the federal government arranging for South Australia to build new submarines for the RAN and agreeing to provide diesel generators to secure electricity supplies when the power system crashes.

    421

    • #
      Yonniestone

      When using some of the highly technical welding methods such as Submerged Arc or line welding the power supply must be stable any stopping or drop in amps will render the weld flawed as its not continuous so then will be gouged and reground for another preparation if its even salvageable which adds more expense to the project, if I were 400m down underwater I wouldn’t want the hull compromised because the build was going over budget, may I suggest all the politicians that pushed renewables be the first passengers at depth.

      491

      • #
        Tom O

        But what you are saying is they are going to have to run the diesel generators 100% of the time they are doing welding, so they might as well just connect the operation directly to the diesel source. the more I see of this “green” energy, the more I realize the “green” is money, and not environmental concern. I always like they way things seem to go – some people get filthy rich on “green,” and others just get gangrene(or is that green gang raped?).

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      • #
        tom0mason

        Makes me wonder if Joseph Banks would make of these troubles.

        41

  • #
    Craig

    MD Mr Scherer expecting minister Hunter to be sympathetic? Sorry Mr Scherer, the SA government hates Private enterprise and all it stands for.

    In 50 yrs time as we look on the smouldering ruins that was South Australia, people like minister Hunt will claim innocence behind his 15 foot electrified walled home and a cosy pension to live on while the rest of the masses can get stuffed.

    311

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The “Mad Max” scenario comes to mind…. smoking ruins of a civilization.

      This is what happens when Leftist “seagulls” get hold osomething – torn apart, lots of squarking, and lots of guano is the only output.

      251

    • #
      Manfred

      …people like minister Hunt will claim innocence behind his 15 foot electrified walled home and a cosy pension to live on…

      With his personal domestic power generator for the electrified fence.

      In the early days of electricity, the wealthy had their own generators. With the arrival of public generation and distribution, these became unnecessary and uneconomical.
      Back to those wonderful old days with the added bonus of a generation weaned on Greenwashing happy to be languish in poverty, prosperity a nightmare reserved for of the old school.

      141

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        Australia may have gone mains powered before diesel was invented. Isolated farms certainly had diesel, I remember it being installed in about 1949, 3 hp low revving motor, 32v DC with lead/acid battery. Used for lighting + washing machine. Frig was kero till 1954. Mains power came in 1954.

        I’ve an idea that Tamworth was the first city in Australia to have electric street lighting in 1888, very early in the history of harnessed electricity.

        00

  • #
    TdeF

    Recycling we need. It makes a positive and necessary contribution to the environment removing real environmental long term pollution.

    Windmills we do not need. Utterly useless visual, noise and environmental pollution incarnate.
    Gas is natural, Coal is natural. 300kg of Neodymium in each windmill is going to be a real problem to future recycling, if they even survive 20 years.

    Stop the windmills. Actually in South Australia, that is rarely necessary.

    430

    • #
      Russ Wood

      On recycling and wind turbines – apparently the stuff that the blades are usually made from isn’t recyclable.

      10

  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    “Having higher power prices …. is a reality”
    So says the SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter.
    He’s treating the people like fools!
    But then perhaps they are . . .
    GeoffW

    280

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      He’s treating the people like fools!

      Certainly the people in South Australia are Geoffrey. That’s confirmed. They voted the green socialist Labor government into power.

      Yes, I know, there’s a gerrymander. So do the people of South Australia know. However, they’re so dumb that instead of chucking the incompetents out of 70% of the electorates, they gave them a one seat majority on a 48% Labor vote.

      South Australians deserve everything they get until they boot the mongrels out.

      I’d just like to get our GST back.

      231

      • #
        greggg

        Not South Australians. It’s Adelaidians that voted them in.
        I can’t find a state election results map, but this federal election map gives some idea of city vs country voting:
        http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/federal_elections/2013/files/maps/sa-results-map-2013.pdf
        The electoral boundaries have been redrawn, so hopefully Labor will be chucked out at the next election.
        http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-electoral-boundaries-challenge-dismissed-by-sa-supreme-court/news-story/d4066c4eb8e0d1f45888941a2d5a15b4?nk=2750c4d3a1be0ce9c195fb9847e36c2a-1498564438
        Maybe that should be “48% of them are that dumb”?

        80

        • #
          MudCrab

          Adelaide, I am proud to say, is a Liberal seat, which if anything shows what you can do if you spend 18 months doorknocking and actually showing the voters a bit of respect.

          The problems are more in the ‘traditional working class’ suburbs where there is still a lot of rusted on belief that ONLY Labor will protect their jobs and/or dole payments.

          Sad but true.

          60

      • #
        Glen Michel

        A race to the bottom to be sure. As to what the dumbest state is…. SA is probably leading at the moment. But since most Australians want cheaper power, but want more renewables you can fathom the lack of engagement folks.Question: How many Turtles can be relied on to support this nonsense?

        80

        • #
          Leonard Lane

          Glen. “…since most Australians want cheaper power, but want more renewables…”
          Sounds to me like a teenager talking with his/her parents. “But Mom all the other kids are going to the concert…”
          “Honey, I told you we can’t afford a hotel and I will not let you sleep with boys and girls in a big, unsupervised park!”
          “I hate you, you just do not want me to have fun!”
          “No honey, I want you to be safe and protected from all the bad things than can happen to you when hundreds of teenagers are sleeping together in a park, without any supervision. And we cannot afford the hundreds and hundreds of $ it will cost. We cannot afford it and I will not use your savings for university on a concert.”
          “I hate you and I will not go to your *(^%^&*%%%#& UNI no matter what you say!”
          And many more teenage tears, accusations, teenage fits, cursing, and finally running to the bedroom and slamming he door.”
          Now substitute “renewables” for the concert and sleeping in the park and “inexpensive power” for saving for the future and an education.

          120

    • #
      Bobl

      I think one nation or of conservatives should hang that front and centre.

      “High electricity prices are a reality” – SA LABOR.

      That’s right up there with
      “Electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket” – Barack Obama

      90

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Correct. Slavery requires control over a population – to bring a population that needs electricity to its knees, you hike prices.

        As I siad to my parents when they built their new house recently – make sure you put solar on with enough capacity to run the house stand alone. I knew full well the Leftists would pull something shifty like this, and its come to pass.

        Now waiting for the solar tax to start to stop people surviving with solar on their roofs.

        Lets take this to its logical extension, and as I ‘ve said many times – we will see riots and unrest in this country.
        And every time I will happily point the rioters to the govt and say “go speak to the root cause over there…” and leave them to it.

        Parl House in canberra has recenlty been hardened even more, but they clearly knew this was coming….. terrorism is the excuse, the real cause of problems in oz will by direct action against the people, through squeezing people dry until they cant take it any more, and something will eventually give….. I hope it doesnt, but it seems the gummint seem to be determined to set up a confrontation with its own people. I suspect that will be the moment when excuse to enable martial law ( the real aim all along ) will happen.

        30

  • #

    I noticed that earlier today and another entry for one of my blog rants on Friday.

    60

    • #
      Annie

      I sent a link to one of your High Country expedition stories to our offspring. One in particular does something of the sort himself with a friend from Melbourne. I think they’ll all enjoy it and will look at other entries you have there with a bit of luck.

      40

      • #

        Thanks Annie

        Your kin would be most welcome on one of our High Country Cruises, as long as they can handle a bunch of old farts that don’t act their age, but respect nature.

        50

  • #
    tom0mason

    “SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter said it was disappointing the facility was shutting down,…”

    Don’t be disappointed Mr. Hunter one company’s loss can be the basis for a whole new industry —

    Using new battery powered vehicles, move the ‘recyclables’ to the docks where they can be removed to wind and solar powered ships, by solar powered cranes and forklift trucks.
    Send these ‘recyclables’ to Recycleland where with the proper bureaucratic flourish and shout of ‘Up yours I’m in the union!’, sustainable paperwork can be sustainably generated on recycled bathroom (toilet) paper, to legally imply that the pile of junk goods were recycled to the highest sustainable standards, and no-one was needlessly hurt or killed in the process.

    260

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    You can see the state promo….

    “SA, where we have plenty of space….”

    Coz everyone has left. Cant even turn out the lights as you leave…blow out the candle, maybe….

    Or a sign at the SA DMZ zone checkpoint – “Our glorious leader welcomes you to SA, all batteries will be confiscated coz we need them….”

    Or

    “SA – the land of fairy dust and rainbows….we know this coz thats what our infrastructure runs on”

    “SA – running one day, Communist the next”

    Well SA, you voted for them….now if only Victoria had similar….oh wait….

    230

    • #
      Manfred

      No, everyone will not have left SA.
      Like N.Korea, SA will set about preventing anyone from leaving. The financial sanctions will be punitive and when that ceases to be an adequate deterrent the armed guards and mine fields should do the trick. ‘Remember, we’re trying to save the planet, don’t yah know?’

      Julia Gillard as visiting honorary professor at the University of Adelaide will be an exception. As an eco-Marxists deity she will be pleased to come and go as she wishes, an exception that proves the rule.

      140

      • #
        Bobl

        Of course to show her eco credentials she’ll arrive by yak.
        /sarc (should anyone actually think I was serious)

        40

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Government has no right whatsoever interfering with private enterprise because it wants to send a massive virtue signal to everyone as its thrown capitalism under a green bus, if the majority of voters want coal fired power but they don’t because of a belief in CAGW then publicly debate the merits so a decision can be reached instead of imposing a faux PC guilt trip on the populace just because they want to stay in the 21st century.

    All of our states and territories are beautiful with its various inhabitants making them into a good place to live, the governments have the arrogance to view the people that have worked so hard to transform these lands into something to be proud of simply cannot be trusted with its stewardship and will only destroy everything.

    All Australians would agree everything the government manages turns to crap quick smart so why isn’t our energy system any different? because years of leftist social engineering has made certain subjects new taboos and being outed on social media is more feared than pneumonia or permanent poverty, this coming from a country that once led the world in wool, mining, and punching above our weight in military conflicts with our Kiwi cousins, give me strength!!

    200

    • #
      Joe

      Strangely though, not all of the lefty states are in the same boat with power; up in Qld I think it was the lefty state gov that shut down some of its old coal and built new ones not that long ago as well as some gas fired stations – maybe all on the public coin. I think some of the gas ones are up on blocks at the moment but the coal ones are firing along nicely – not totally state-of-the-art but pretty modern and they have good coal up there. I think it is good having the gas ones at hand if needed. WA might be the only more gas-luvin’ state than Qld and they seem to be burning it all the time. The Gov owned model might not be that bad after all. All up we still have more coal in the NEM to meet demand (that may get closer when Liddell in NSW shuts) so it would be difficult for any new private player to justify the investment at this time. The ‘free market’ is not really interested in providing cheap energy ‘insurance’ ie capacity above and beyond the demand and so I can’t see how any would be motivated to build a state-of-the-art coal station without a little encouragement from gov.

      71

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Yes but I was referring to the imposition of higher electricity prices due to their obsession with renewables and the RET, the state/public owned grids worked quite well for years and offered cheap power even when times were tough, I believe its another attack on personal wealth in Australia as the more reliant people are on government the more powerful they become, the end game will be state run and owned everything.

        100

        • #
          Craig Thomas

          You don’t think our government creating a gas shortage by allowing multinationals to sell our gas to the Japanese at a fraction of the amount Australians have to pay for it may have something to do with it?

          00

          • #
            el gordo

            Yeah, we wuz done bad by our politicians.

            No need to do a Venezuela, but it rankles just the same.

            00

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Yonnie, i would say historically the Christian / Judeo foundations of this country have given it great fortitude and strength and cohesion. Only recently have we seen the attack on most things Christian for many angles, and morality and virtue and promotion of the leftist victim culture has replaced hard work, wisdom, thrift and resilience. I am appalled at gen y and z being brainwashed with communist thinking and embracing fairy ( ahem ) dust wisdom and work ethic.

      “Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]–blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he.”
      (Prov 29:18)

      40

      • #
        Yonniestone

        True Steve, what passed for liberal or progressive thinking was far more damaging to the fundamental rule of law and standards in our society than any firebrand preacher on a street corner, birth control without responsibility, abortion as a lifestyle choice, normalisation of sexual fetishes, emasculation of men, blaming white people for everything encouraging racial segregation in the process, promoting feminism to girls as childless and promiscuity, gradual dumbing down of the education system, open parenting, obesity as a life choice and the insidious PC culture.

        The list could go on.

        30

    • #
      Bobl

      No, let’s not sort it out, let’s just have a real proper market solution. Vendors can bid, green ( wind solar ), yellow (Gas / Hydro) or black ( coal/oil ) electrons to the public at true unsubsidised prices then let the public decide what mix they will pay for. Suppliers should then reliably deliver what was bought without cross subsidy, customers opting for unreliable energy should not be given reliable hydrocarbon product they didn’t buy, they should be dropped when their colour electrons aren’t available. That is a market, not the fake market we have now where the ultimate customer really has NO CHOICE in what they buy because of the forced cross subsidy from hydrocarbon to toy generators.

      I want to be able to buy black electrons NOW!

      60

  • #

    “Mr Hunter said help was available through the State Government’s energy efficiency programs.”

    He’s talking about our nation’s last great growth industry: brochures. (High gloss brochures might have to be printed in Asia, but most of the text will always be Australian production, true-blue and dinki-di.)

    Maybe the minister can send Plastics Granulating Services a brochure explaining how they can keep running by closing all curtains, wrapping plastic waste in electric blankets and pounding it with door snakes. The government will even send them a door snake like the ones you get in pensioner packs. Maybe even two door snakes, since they’re commercial ‘n all.

    270

  • #
    Radical Rodent

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

    …..deep breath….

    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

    70

  • #
    crakar24

    Heard this on the radio this morning, the radio guy (whatshisname) was ripping into the labor minister Hunt was it? (I live in this retched state and don’t know their names that’s how unimportant they all are)anyway Hunt? had no idea what was the fate awaiting the 15% of plastic rubbish and the radio guy ripped him to pieces.

    He then asked what help the gov could offer and Hunt said we could show him how to save electricity and the radio guy ripped him to pieces.

    He then explained the gov had given him over 400K in grants to expand his recycling business and asked why the gov did not step in sooner to help and before Hunt opened his mouth he was ripped to pieces

    The owner later said all the plastic will go to China, get processed and then sold back to us which made sense as we sell all our coal to china………..he sounded pretty pissed off.

    The mood here in SA is not very good, problem is Marshall (libs leader) is a more on so they never win elections.

    270

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Hmmmmm….destructive govt, inept opposition….sounds like its been set up to assure a destroyed state…..

      Guess were not in Kansas no more….

      70

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Crakar 24:
      “problem is Marshall (libs leader) is a more on ” Nice description, but the real problem is that a lot of others are more ons.

      By now the Liberals should be running about 70% in polling, but I don’t know anyone who thinks they will win the next State election (or deserve to do). There are just less than 9 months to the next State election, so that allows time for 3 more electricity price rise announcements. That may be enough to throw Labor out.

      60

  • #
    crakar24

    We are having a competition at work as to the best name for this retched state. You see Rann was in power it was easy as you could say “Welcome to Rannistan” but weatherill is a tough one so I am open to suggestions, the best so far is “Welcome to SA where our Windy mills ensure the weather is never ill”. Its a bit clunky so give it your best shot.

    Regards

    70

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      South Australia – eat crow.

      71

      • #
        Mark M

        For the overseas visitors, The Adelaide Crows FC.
        http://www.afc.com.au

        30

        • #
          gnome

          No- South Australians traditionally called “crow-eaters”. Hence “Adelaide Crows”.

          70

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            Yes. Thanks Mark M and gnome. It might be a bit too subtle for our overseas friends.

            Eat crow = “Eating crow is a colloquial idiom, used in English-speaking countries that means humiliation by admitting having been proven wrong after taking a strong position. Crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.”

            And yes, the South Australians have long been known as “crow eaters”. Hence the name of their (lousy) football teams. And their poor political judgement.

            It’s just now that the real truth of the nick-name becomes apparent to the modern generation.

            They’re set to eat crow for a long time to come. Raw too, given their unreliable power supply.

            Yum!

            101

          • #
            OldGreyGuy

            The state of the economy in SA can be heard by just listening to the cry of the crows as once brilliantly described by Graham Kennedy.

            10

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I suggest Welcome to SA where our politicians are all dills.

      But to paraphrase “Is that a torch in your pocket or are you from SA?”

      80

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      How about cactus-ville?

      Is in the whole state resembles a western movie ghost town, with tumble weeds rolling through it…..

      Another possibility is Borat-ville….from the movie Borat – many truly cringeworthy moments, but the soviet mentality of Borat sticks in my mind….

      30

    • #
      Bobl

      How about
      South Australia – a state of darkness
      Or
      South Australia – The blank slate
      ( after all computers don’t work without electricity but slates might)
      South Australia – midnight all the time.
      South Australia – the manual labor state

      So much choice so little time

      40

    • #
      joseph

      SOUTH ABSURDIA

      40

    • #
      JPM

      How about Weatherillistan?
      John

      30

      • #
        ROM

        The Democratic Peoples Republic of South Weatherstan.
        .

        President; “Jay “Quixote” Weatherilistan.”
        .

        And his faithfull “Keeper of the Purse Strings” and the windmill tilting score, “Tom “Sancha” Kostalottajobs “

        [ the strings are all that is left ! ]

        20

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    South Australia makes some fine red wines. They are made in the old tradition of hand picking, manual pressing, and bottling and labelling by hand.

    They do it that way, not because they are purists. They do it that way, because they have insufficient electrical power, to do anything else.

    210

  • #
    cohenite

    Australia Agnotology.

    140

  • #
    Dave

    But after the Senate Scientific folks examine the detail

    All will be solved

    They’ve called for an Gravytrain Inquiry

    “Implications of climate change for Australia’s national security”

    Wonder which Electrical Engineer etc will head this Committee?

    I can smell PyneOClean in this somewhere!

    71

    • #
      Bobl

      Hmm as they roll out fragile unhardened windmills and solar panels wide open to attack, clearly visible from space yes the common solutions to climate change are a prime military target and a huge security risk!

      20

  • #
    davet916

    Welcome to Weatherhell! ?

    120

  • #
    David Maddison

    There is a bright side (sort of).

    If they were paying $180,000 per month then that is 720,000 kWh at 25c per kWh.

    The average home uses 20 kWh per day or 600 per month.

    Therefore enough power has been “liberated” by this plant closure to power 1200 homes (720,000/600) thereby forestalling the next grid failure by a bit more time.

    131

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      David:
      It is quite some time since people in SA got electricity at 25c per kWh.

      Redo your sums at 38c (as from July 1), although I think you are being optimistic about the next grid failure being delayed.

      80

  • #
    Mark M

    In the interest of balanced information …

    Australian Financial Review, Opinion: There is no energy crisis and the lights won’t go out this summer

    Any implication that the sector is destined to experience a power crisis next summer is over-inflated, as confirmed by the facts underpinning our recently released Energy Supply Outlook.

    https://twitter.com/alan_john_moran/status/879446833893736448

    50

  • #
    ivan

    Is that part of the basis for this report in Power Engineering International?

    http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2017/06/turkish-power-ship-proposed-for-adelaide.html

    Maybe if SA declares itself a disaster zone the UN will chip in some of the climate change redistribution funds to cover it.

    120

    • #
      tom0mason

      ivan,

      Maybe it’s that price, eh?

      The Turkish ship could be operational by the end of the year for less than the $360m budgeted for a new state-owned gas-fired power plant of the same capacity.

      Enough left in the tax-payer’s kitty for a down-payment on more windfarms!

      60

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        ….or….. they could just fix the mess, sack the govt, ban them from running for election again.

        Then go after the heads of govt depts, sack them all and start agian.

        Job done.

        10

      • #

        I was wondering about that Russian floating power plant. As Russian ice breakers are nuclear powered maybe their floating power plant is similarly powered and if so how would that resonate with SA greenies?
        Just asking.

        10

  • #
    Crakar24

    FFS the word moose limb is now banned so in moderation so I will cut to the chase. Google bachar houli suspension and read how the PM and waaaaleeed got his suspension reduced from 4 to 2 weeks. I wonder if they do the same for a white Anglo Saxon christian boy. The libs are now dead to me

    123

    • #
      Gee Aye

      Yeah it is all connected to recycling and area 52 Craig

      33

      • #
        crakar24

        Heres a funny story GA, the airspace in Australia is divided up into areas and are assigned a number. When you wish to lodge a NOTAM (notice to airmen) it is allocated its area number, what number do you think has been assigned to the Woomera Prohibited Area………….yes thats right area 51, tinfoil hat time.

        What it is connected to GA is the spineless government we have and the SJW movement, to think a players punishment for their on field actions is intricately tied to their religion, what has this country become?

        71

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          The concept of a protected species comes to mind.

          Now what is the tern given to aiding and abetting the enemy again?

          70

          • #
            David Maddison

            It used to be called treason, now it’s called “politics”.

            50

            • #
              ROM

              It used to be called treason, now it’s called “politics”. “Main Stream Media”.

              40

            • #
              Crakar24

              To Jo and the team, how could the topic possibly fall under the definition of 18C? The people involved make the connection between the person and belief, are they now subject to 18C.

              The AFL (caps used to impress fly) are appealing the leniency of the punishment, another 18C crime?

              It matters none to me if you don’t allow discussion but it would seem this is the only media outlet not to do so.

              Regards

              Crakar24

              10

  • #
    King Geo

    “In SA recycling business goes broke due to electricity cost — thank renewables for making recycling impossible”.

    LOL – REMINDS OF THAT HILARIOUS MOVE DUMB & DUMBER (1995).

    SA’s Weatherill Govt must have been inspired by the Farrelly Brothers (the Directors of Dumb & Dumber).

    70

  • #
    Mark

    Surely ‘Athens of the south’ says it all.

    60

  • #
    cedarhill

    Energy is life; cheap energy is prosperity and, obviously, environmentally sound and good.

    40

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    Schumpter gave us the concept of creative destruction. Progressives have the destruction part down pat.
    Not so much the creative. The progressives, so long as they are not hungry, cold, or insecure, ‘feel our pain’
    and tell us ‘science’ will solve things. The primary science we actually see is good modern transportation, supporting out-migration.
    One coming tipping point is that those who leave will be told that “they didn’t build that’, and the state will claim confiscatory rights
    over the wealth developed therein. It might be good to cash out and move before liquidation and confiscation.

    By the way, it won’t necessarily be called that at first. Property taxes, license fees, land-use regulation, environmental fees,
    power bills, eminent domain, hazardous site escrow…….

    Your stuff will be their stuff, that’s how they roll. flee while you can!

    110

  • #
    pat

    unfortunately dated after the Trump/Modi meeting took place…but San Francisco’s Madeleine, who was a volunteer for Obama in 2008 and who worked for the Earth Law Center (2011-2017) before joining Business Insider in February this year, is the personification of FakeNews.
    reminds me a lot of theirABC:

    27 Jun: BusinessInsiderAustralia: Prime minister Modi could lecture Trump on climate change — India is leapfrogging the US on renewables
    by Madeleine Sheehan Perkins
    In the wake of Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Modi might have a thing or two to lecture the American president about. India is leapfrogging the US with ambitious renewable energy goals — and it’s achieving them…

    India wants to get nearly 60% of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027, and the country is on track to exceed the goals it set in its commitment to the Paris deal…
    So how did India, infamous for its sometimes choking pollution in major cities, cut back its emissions faster than anyone predicted? One word: coal.
    India has been unabashedly shutting down its coal plants…

    By virtue of adopting renewables with such gusto, about 25,000 remote villages in India could never use fossil fuels. They will sail right past coal and start using solar, hydropower, and biomass as their first sources of electricity…
    These Indian villages could “leapfrog” fossil fuels and go straight to renewables, Kartikeya Singh, a doctoral candidate at Tufts University, told Business Insider in 2016 — leapfrogging the US in the process…
    Businesses in the US and India can both see that phasing out fossil fuels and adopting renewables is the path forward…
    During their working dinner on Monday night, Modi might just broach the topic of climate change with Trump.
    https://www.businessinsider.com.au/modi-trump-meeting-india-renewables-climate-change-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

    BBC is just as insane:

    26 Jun: BBC: Can Narendra Modi and Donald Trump recreate the magic of the Obama years?
    By Rudra Chaudhuri
    (Dr Rudra Chaudhuri is a senior lecturer in South Asian Security and Strategic Studies at King’s College, London)
    Further, Mr Obama made clear his unyielding aim to curb carbon emissions. On 2 October 2016, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, India handed over an instrument of ratification to join the Paris climate change agreement.
    Mr Obama’s praise was quick to come. He tweeted, “Gandhiji believed in a world worthy of our children. Modi and the Indian people,” he argued, “carry on that legacy.”
    India’s commitment to the agreement was not only about climate change. It was about a pledge to an international system that relies on collective responsibility…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40364161

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      Raven

      India has been unabashedly shutting down its coal plants…

      And as soon as Adani is up and running . . . ?

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    pat

    FakeNewsMSM, from what I’ve seen, is avoiding the following fact:

    26 Jun: InsideClimateNews: Nicholas Kusnetz: Trump and Modi Wrap Climate Change Differences in Shroud of ***Silence
    ???India sees its future in renewable energy and supports the Paris Agreement. Trump promotes fossil fuels. Neither leader mentioned climate in their public appearance.
    PHOTO CAPTION: In a joint appearance, ***neither Trump nor Modi mentioned climate change. Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute said “the omission signifies discord, not apathy.”

    President Donald Trump’s first meeting with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, went off Monday with ***a conspicuous omission when the two leaders made no mention of climate change and just a passing reference to energy in their public remarks…

    ***The absence of any mention of climate change in the public statements on Monday spoke volumes, said Manish Bapna, executive vice president of the World Resources Institute. “The omission signifies discord, not apathy, on climate, and lies in stark contrast to the productive U.S.-India talks of recent years,” he said.

    ***The only mention of energy policy came in an announcement from Trump that the nations were negotiating long-term contracts to export liquefied natural gas from the U.S. to India…

    In May, InsideClimate News wrote about a study that found that slowing coal use in India and China was putting the countries on track to meet their Paris pledges…

    Yet despite all this, coal mining has actually continued to expand in India, growing 4 percent over the first five months of 2017 compared to the same period last year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press…
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26062017/trump-modi-climate-change-white-house-statements

    27 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Modi and Trump avoid climate change tension on state visit
    India prime minister Narendra Modi and US president Donald Trump were silent on climate change after their meeting at the White House on Monday.

    Sidestepping the two leaders’ divergent positions on the Paris climate deal, the state visit focused on trade, migration and military cooperation. Modi and Trump gave every appearance of friendship, sharing several hugs and handshakes during the visit…

    A comment by Modi placed in the Wall Street Journal ahead of Monday’s summit made no reference to Paris. Renewable energy was mentioned as an area for cooperation alongside gas, nuclear and “clean coal” to meet India’s growing energy demand…

    At the same time, (Energy minister Piyush Goyal) has stressed that coal will be the mainstay of the power system for the foreseeable future, as the government aims to expand access…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/06/27/modi-trump-avoid-climate-change-tension-state-visit/

    lol.

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    pat

    A MUST-READ:

    27 Jun: Herald Sun: Terry McCrann: The Chinese have seen the future and it’s still coal
    SILLY Chinese: those ones at Yancoal who are trying so desperately to buy Rio Tinto’s Hunter Valley thermal coal mines, that they have now upped their bid to $3.5 billion.
    Didn’t they get the memo — as they are just throwing away their money? Or rather, that’s actually, two memos?

    The first one, from The Australian’s Alan Kohler and his fellow climate change Kool-Aid drinkers explaining why coal is so yesterday. Coal mines? All they are now good for are new lakes, like the one planned for Hazelwood’s in the Latrobe Valley.
    Who’d be silly enough to buy a coal mine now that — according to Kohler & Co — it’s cheaper to generate electricity with wind and solar, and getting cheaper every day, so there’ll never be another coal-fired power station built?

    And then there’s that second memo, from their own government in Beijing, which has been hailed by the climate change Kool-Aid drinkers, otherwise identified as fantasists living on Planet Insanity, as supposedly now “leading the world in taking action on climate change”…READ ON
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccrann/terry-mccrann-is-china-building-turbines-of-coal/news-story/ec38b11750bdd4293663e7771fe5ff31

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    pat

    26 Jun: Youtube: 8mins48secs: ProjectVeritas: American Pravda: CNN Producer Says Russia Narrative “bullsh*t”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdP8TiKY8dE

    26 Jun: Fox News: Hannity: CNN’s credibility crisis starts with Jeff Zucker
    http://video.foxnews.com/v/5484210223001/?#sp=show-clips

    watch the following video segments (down the page) from the 26 June show:

    Video:Mark Levin: The collusion is among the Democrats

    Video: Sharyl Attkisson: Media no longer follows rules because of Trump

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    tom0mason

    However an even greater catastrophe looms —
    Australian cricketers ‘facing unemployment’ over payments row

    More than 200 of Australia’s senior cricketers will be “unemployed as of 1 July”, says Australian Cricketers’ Association president Greg Dyer.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/40414731

    Wool export decline, electricity priced out of reach, and now no cricket! What has Australia become?

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    Sean

    There is more to this story than the price of electricity. The drop in oil prices has led to a drop in the price of plastics. The very green state of California is also seeing its recycling industry lose money and suffer closures as they have to sell the recycled plastic at a loss. And while California’s electric rates are higher than most of the US, they are still half of what Australia’s is. So while there’s no question that high electric costs hurt, the market for recycled plastics is also in very bad shape.

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    for those of us in the US, could someone explain the political parties and how they compare with our liberal and conservative labels … this inquiring mind wants to know … thanks, Bill Capron

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      Sceptical Sam

      It’s not all that different to the USA Bill. Here’s a quick summary:

      Liberal Party = was originally the party of free enterprise, small business, liberty and the individual; economically liberal and socially conservative. Right of centre.

      It’s now a left leaning shadow of its former self led by a nincompoop who wanted to be a big shot in the Labor Party but was told to bugger off because he’s a wanker. The Liberal Party has been infiltrated and subverted by the green left. It’s future is parlous. So is the leader’s. He’s currently the Prime Minister. I think in the USA he’s known as John Turnbull. His actual name is Malcolm.

      Labor Party = the party of the socialist left which is controlled lock, stock and barrel by the union movement. It is led by a nincompoop who is nothing but a “yes man” to the unions. It’s the party that once looked after the interests of “the workers” but has now sold them down the drain to chase the inner-urban greeny w***** vote. It’s future is parlous. He will be the next Prime Minister of Australia. Sell your shares and repatriate your investments before this happens.

      The National Party = a minor party that held its ground at the last election as the conservative voters abandoned the incompetent Liberal Party as a result of its shift to the left. It’s one of the few parties that still has a reputation for acting in the national interest. May it long last. It is currently the coalition partner of the Liberal Party. Without the Nationals the Liberals would be in opposition.

      The Greens = the haven of the communist and extreme left socialists who seek to bring down the capitalist system through the sabotage of the economy and the subversion of the national character. They love windmills and really get it off over solar PVs. They’re so green they’re iridescent; without the Alpha and Beta waves – which they abhor.

      The Australian Conservatives = a new party established by a break-away Liberal who was finally disgusted with the Liberal’s shift to the left and its nincompoop leader. One of the hopes for the future.

      One Nation = another (older) conservative grouping that is attaining success through its honest appraisal of the stupidity of the two main parties (Labor and Liberal). It’s growing in strength and out-performs the Greens, the Australian Conservatives and all of the other minor parties other than the National Party.

      Hope that helps.

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      stan stendera

      I’ll take a shot Bill. (I’m an American). Liberal Party = moderate Democrats, Labor Party = communism, green party = insanity.

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      TdeF

      Republicans= Australian Liberal party. Small government, low taxation, strong on defence, business, balanced budgets, conservatives, at least until the coup by a very left group under new PM Malcolm Turnbull. Now very Climate Change and windmills and new taxes on CO2.

      National Party. Country voters. Coalition partners in lock step with the Liberal party. Currently policy free. Also moving hard left under leader Joyce.

      Democrats = Australian Labor party. Literally Union owned. You must be a Union member to be a Labor party member. Left on most issues. Big government, big public service, tax the rich, the workers party. Dying with the end of manufacturing and reliant on public servants, aspirational youth, working class family traditional voting. Traditionally also host to the communists who have since gone to the Greens. Anti war, pacifist, for 100 years the political arm of the Union Movement
      Very pro climate change, windmills and shutting manufacturing. Everyone can be a public servant. The soak the rich party.

      Green = Green. Watermelons. Green on the outside, many lifelong Communists. Pretending to be caring environmentalists while intent on creating a revolution where they can take over. Agents of Moscow until Russia changed. Extreme left. Hate Israel because they do. Love any faith but Christian.
      The PAE, People Against Everything and simultaneously uncaring NIMBYs. Up to 25% of the vote but only one seat in the democratically elected Federal lower house of parliament. Popular with aspirational youth. The Land rights for gay whales party. Significantly the media are 60% Green.

      One Nation. Pauline Hanson followers. Straight shooting popular red haired conservative. Has done jail time for a single signature and no personal benefit when criminals walk free. Filling the vacuum with the sudden and scandalous hijacking of the Liberals to exactly the Labor and Green policies.

      National Party. Rural conservative voters. Coalition partners in lock step with the Liberal party. Currently policy free. Also moving left under leader Joyce who says nothing.

      The biggest difference is in the word Liberal. In Australia it means free thinking, family values, anti Union, small government, low taxation, minimal government interference. It is not a perjorative term as in the US.

      Perhaps the biggest recent philosophical change is the idea that governments at every level, Federal, State, City should get directly involved in religion, morals, values, ethics, gender, international politics. In other words legislating what you should be thinking, what your children are told and who are the bad and good guys. In Melbourne that gets down to councils aligning with Palestinians or condemning Turkey for the Aremenian holocaust or even changing the walk/don’t walk figures to be gender neutral.

      Like Washington, Canberra is very anti Trump, anti conservative, pro big government, big taxation and very left.
      Like America, Australian conservatives are very pro Trump, pro deposed PM Abbott and angry at his removal after his landslide victory. His insider enemies Turnbull and friends survived an unnecessary election by a single seat and is a lame duck who dreams endlessly of partnering with the Greens and forcing same sex marriage in churches.

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        TdeF

        Not surprised it is in moderation. It is hard to talk just climate change and global warming and science when science has been hijacked by politics. The big difference is that our Liberals used to be conservative Republicans, not traditionally loonies.

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          TdeF

          Not surprised it is in moderation. It is hard to talk just climate change and global warming and science when science has been hijacked by politics. The big difference is that until recently our Liberals used to be conservative Republicans who stood for traditional values.

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      tom0mason

      bill capron,

      explain the political parties

      Simple —

      Conservatives — They used to be the maintainers of the old political order, power, and old money. Confusingly they identified themselves as advocates of “free trade”, and “nationalist”, and as “liberal” (as in defenders of personal liberty and freedoms) and of course they were “anti-communist”. They have many other labels. They were corrupted by a putrid mix of crony capitalism and soft socialism mixed with Fabianism and what Americans call graft. Now it’s the party representing the great unknown — aka corporate Australia.

      Labor (or Labour)
      — originally a socialist party and the voice of unionized workers. Over the years as their socialist ethic has corroded away to the extent that they only represent Big Union ideals and the ‘I’m all right Jack/Jane’ mentality. They do deals with anyone to increase their numbers, wealth and/or their powerbase. They have no morals.

      Liberals — these used to rejoice in being thought of as the defenders of market economics and personal liberty and freedoms, aka small ‘c’ conservatives.
      These were soon known as the 2-facers as they could be relied on to hold two diametrically opposite views simultaneously without breaking sweat. These wishy-washy in-betweeners have now morphed into a new farce of multifaced, ethnically and sexually diverse socialist force, and defenders of sustainable socialist market economics of subsidized crony capitalists employing unionized labor. They do deals with Labour, the Greens and when they can be found the Conservatives.

      Green Party
      — Well this is really the most difficult ones to describe as they truly are visionary — like an enchanting mirage before the great storm! Their long term strategy is to offer the utopia of annihilating humankind from the planet, but on the way rob everyone of everything, regress all technology back 400 years, and reintroduce feudalism.

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      Hopefully this has enlightened you. However if you are still confused and require even more explanation read these FACTS 😉 and dowse the confusion in political myths.

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        tom0mason

        I should say that this is my view of Australian politics from the outside.

        …hope I was not too far from the mark, most of my information was gleaned from relatives (in-laws) newly returned after living in Australia for 18 years or so, and blogs such as this one.

        However sometime a view from the outside sees things differently…

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          Graeme No.3

          tom0mason:

          The old conservatives were in the Liberal Party. There is a new party called the Conservatives which detests the Liberals and Labor (and The Greens in their spare time).

          As for The Greens – an ex-leader had to remind them at their last conference which planet they were on, at least that’s what I think he meant by addressing them as “Fellow Earthians”.

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            tom0mason

            Thanks for the update.
            Modern politics has become hard to decode these days as center-left, liberal, libertine, centerist, conservative, center-right, are often relative terms locally and have different connotations across the globe.

            Politically communism is unchanged, being the sinkhole of avaricious stupidity. Green parties the world over are full those who are to stupid for the communists. Both of these political ideologies are taught by academia and are the preferred choices of the UN.

            That^ should get me a red thumb. 🙂

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      Graeme No.3

      Bill:

      Liberal Party = dills. Divided into those who think that same sex marriage is the most pressing problem the nation is facing, and those who think it runs second to their current leader (Prime Minister)
      Labor Party = dangerous dills esp. in SA, Victoria. Very keen on making the electricity crisis worse.
      Green Party = lunatics ( think of those Democrats frothing at the mouth about Trump, the Greens are like that about everything).
      National Party = agrarian socialists but claim to be conservative (usually in coalition with the Liberals)
      One Nation = the one all other parties claim are dills
      Conservative Party = unknown quality. A new party that haven’t yet shot themselves in the foot (or even tried to do so)
      The Nick Xenophon party – sent by South Australians to Canberra but unfortunately they didn’t take the hint and keep coming back. Support depends on the public thinking they couldn’t be worse than the major parties (but who knows?)

      The problem as I see it is that anybody will common sense (and/or intelligence) and concern for ordinary people have been systematically eliminated from the major parties (except the Greens who never had any). The result is complete incompetence coupled with insuffereble arrogance. Because of that incompetence a few good ones get in but they are always pulled down by the pack.

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      OriginalSteve

      Bill, however like the USA we seem to have both main parties running the same agenda, hence in real terms, like USA there aint a dimes worth of difference between the 2 parties….

      IMHO unless the appearance ( but not the substance ) was different, the public would riot as there was no “choice” . Mind you, if both parties are the same, you have a one party state aka communism….

      People often say we have no democracy or freedom of speech – this is why – such things are banned in a communist state.

      It mat take a long tone to get back to actual democracy, but with people addicted to govt handouts, it may take a while and more trump-like leaders.

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      to all who replied to my request for information on the Australian parties, please note, I am un-confused … but, I wonder why Australians do this to themselves. I visited in March for two weeks and was concerned by the subservience of personal freedom to ‘the general welfare’, and when it comes to our 1st amendment free speech, it now seems ever-much more important. Political correctness and virtue signalling seem to be uppermost in the Australian governance … I hope one day you are able to reverse that, and thank you, for the feedback.

      bill capron
      http://www.billcapron.com
      bill.capron@tds.net

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    Sceptical Sam

    Oh Crikey, have I done it again Mod?

    Sorry.

    OK. Delete the “wan—” word if needs be and help poor old Bill in the USA get an understanding.

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      Graeme No.3

      Me being moderated too, and I never used any word rhyming with banker. What could have caused it? Dills? Lunatics? Frothing at the mouth? Incompetence? Can’t be integrity – I never said that about anyone of them.

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      OriginalSteve

      Hmmm…..leaks occur of particular NSA tools and how they work, exposing engineered back door into well known operating systems.

      Now co-oincidentally, just after this leak occurs, a series of global ransomware attacks occur, furious patching of all computers using “ransomware fix patches” from the *same* vendors with exposed back door….

      Whats the old saying? One door closes, another opens….

      Once you know how the Establishment work, its easy to spot.

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    BobH

    In the early days of Information Technology development there was a cartoon in most systems development offices showing a complicated flowchart with the “Go Live” date at the extreme right hand side. Between the end of the flowchart and the go live date the words”then a miracle happens” exemplified the philosophy that all developers should know where they are heading and how to get there.
    There is no doubt that we should be moving to include as much renewable energy as practical into the energy mix for a number of reasons.
    In the case of striking a useful balance to the amount of renewables we can practically introduce we have no plan to keep prices reasonable and the level of integration we will aim at. In the current approach, “Price on carbon” appears to be the “Then a miracle happens” All the current arguments appear to be from two sides completely devoted to their own extremism. On the alarmist side we have the equivalent of the early days of the motor car with the enthusiasts trying to retire off all horses overnight with no clear way to reach the inevitable nirvana of a reliable transport system. The deniers are the current equivalent of those people made to walk in front of motor cars with a red flag.The genuine Skeptics can only forget the whole mess until the rest come to their senses.
    The time and money currently spent on trying to finesse the science would be better devoted to the design of an integrated mixed system and how to get there. At this stage of development, it most be evident that coal producers are going to have a significant future as part of the solution, cleaning up their act must continue.
    The world’s oldest commercial wind farm in Canada has ceased production and will be dismantled if no subsidy is forthcoming. Will it have produced more carbon dioxide in manufacture, backup, maintenance and dismantling than it has prevented?

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    Ruairi

    Renewables had a long try,
    And failed through the grid to supply,
    All the power we need,
    At a price guaranteed,
    So the voters should wave then goodbye.

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      philthegeek

      The problem for the Libs is that they are screwing over Turnbull, but don’t have anyone actually electable to replace him with. Morrison the HappyClapper, Dutton the Thug, or if they really want to plumb an abyss of the TPP…they can reinstate daH man…Tones who seems to have not actually learned anything from his travails over the years.

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        el gordo

        Morrison might be okay, he brandished a lump of coal in parliament and he’s pretty much a clean skin on climate change.

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          philthegeek

          LoL! The redoutable Mesma Bishop certainly has the lead on polling for prefered Lib leader. 🙂

          Policy wise the Lib/Nats are a wasteland at the moment. I think their essential problem is they still have too much deadwood in senior positions from the Howard era. They never did the cleanout then that they needed to actually be a government rather than hyper opposition. And now they are well into valley of death that is the reactive silly #leadershite stuff that the press love so much and will encourage. Problem with the media is they were sooooooooooooooooo annoyed at missing and being blindsided by the deposing of Rudd that when there is even the sniff oc leadership challenge they fixate on that.

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        el gordo

        ‘Tones who seems to have not actually learned anything from his travails over the years.’

        I disagree, his manifesto is divisive and draws clear battle lines in the sand.

        He wants a “big coal-fired power station” and his politically incorrect stance on immigration is bound to create a stink. We want a debate and we want it now.

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          philthegeek

          his manifesto is divisive and draws clear battle lines in the sand.

          True, but if you are going to draw “battle lines” its good to draw them such that you have some chance of winning. He’s drawn them so that he can, maybe, win a party political battle, not the one with the electorate. To much of the smell of the rotting and best forgotten 2014 budget that objectively, was such an utter failure with the electorate.

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            el gordo

            You have taken your eye off the ball, comrade.

            Tony is revamped and prepared to take on the pseudo Marxists, he has nothing to lose. Admittedly 80%of Australians supposedly want renewables over dirty coal and don’t care how much it costs if it saves the planet for our grandchildren.

            So we need a revolution in ideas, overturning the accepted view that we must move towards renewables even if it can’t carry baseload. If Tony can maintain his present course he could seize back the leadership next year.

            His ideas on immigration are novel and should prove popular.

            One final point, have you heard of a Gleissberg Minimum?

            ‘Solar cycle 24 has turned out to be historically weak with the lowest number of sunspots since cycle 14 peaked more than a century ago in 1906. In fact, by one measure, the current solar cycle is the third weakest since record keeping began in 1755 and it continues a weakening trend since solar cycle 21 peaked in 1980.’

            Paul Dorian

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    Crakar24

    Thanks for the sarcasm fly its much appreciated I will in the meantime continue on my phone as best I can.

    BTW GFY there in capitals I am improving

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    philthegeek

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDT3NGVUAAAq56E.jpg

    There really are some fine cartoonists in Oz. 🙂

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    Egor the One

    A must see/listen to pod cast : sky news Jones and co last night 27/6 with Alan Jones, Rowan Dean and Peta Credlin, all combined giving it to the gloBull Warmer / climate change propagandists and properly calling it out for the gross scam it is , and how this racket is destroying and will destroy our country if it is left unchecked .

    One of the best CAGW/CACC hammerings I’ve heard…..good on these three with strong arguments against this bogus religion > https://rss.whooshkaa.com/rss/podcast/id/939

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    pat

    28 Jun: Australian: Michael Owen: South Australia’s power prices to be highest in world
    South Australians will be slugged with the highest household electricity prices in the world from next month, energy market ­expert Bruce Mountain says, in another blow to a state with the slowest population growth on mainland Australia.

    The director of energy and utilities consultancy firm Carbon and Energy Markets said South Australia “unequivocally will have, both prior to sales taxes and after taxes, the highest household electricity prices in the world”.

    Mr Mountain told The Australian that before taxes and levies, household electricity prices in South Australia from July 1 would be about three times higher than they are in Denmark.

    “My calculation is that after July 1, the representative household electricity customer in South Australia will be paying slightly higher prices, after all taxes, than the representative household in Denmark, which currently has the world’s highest electricity ­prices. This comparison is at market exchange rates,” he said.

    He was yesterday “lost for words” after a family-owned specialist plastics recycling company in South Australia was forced to close, with the loss of 35 jobs, after its electricity bills soared from $80,000 a month to $180,000 a month during the past 18 months….READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/south-australias-power-prices-to-be-highest-in-world/news-story/a3c33d98a68bab39f0609982b174bd13

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      OriginalSteve

      SA or should I say Sinkhole of Australia….

      Its a black hole where logic and common sense go to die….

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    pat

    re writer below:
    Stephen Moore is the distinguished visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He served as an economic advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

    27 Jun: The Hill: OPINION: Trump’s energy plan will make America the new Saudi Arabia
    by Stephen Moore
    This past week, President Trump renewed his promise of an era of American global energy dominance. It’s an achievable goal and a quintessential “America first” theme that Trump should keep playing.
    Trump recognizes what almost all his critics choose to ignore: we are entering an age of American energy renaissance that will last not just years, but many decades. While the left keeps placing bad bets on expensive and unreliable green energy, Trump has a more robust and realistic strategy to make the United States the 21st century Saudi Arabia. We are well on our way getting to that goal given the continuing story of the shale oil and gas explosion…

    The U.S. has by far the cheapest natural gas and are very capable of replacing the Middle East and Russia as primary suppliers to Europe and Asia…
    The liberals left coal for dead, but the remarkable comeback in coal production has proven Trump’s critics wrong. Coal production in the U.S. has risen 19 percent this year, and mining jobs are back as well. That’s a testament to Trump’s reversal of Obama-era regulations meant to bankrupt coal…
    We need cheap coal to produce steel and other manufactured good in America, so coal production is basic to keeping blue collar and hard hat jobs here at home in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia…

    Instead of importing $200 billion of energy every year, the US ***AND CANADA could soon easily be exporting that amount…

    It’s a tribute to Trump’s vision and gut instincts that a real estate developer from the northeast gets that when so many so-called energy experts, including Obama, don’t.
    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/339667-opinion-trumps-energy-plan-will-make-america-the-new

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    pat

    27 Jun: UK Express: UK OIL FOUND: Firm finds ‘significant’ reservoir in Weald Basin and North Sea delivers
    UK oil and gas (Ukog) shares rose yesterday as the firm said it had found more oil in a ‘significant’ discovery.
    It comes as Enquest yesterday also revealed that its Kraken field in the North Sea delivered its first oil…

    Meanwhile in the North Sea, the Kraken oil field, which is one of the largest projects delivered on schedule and under budget.
    Greg Clark, business and energy secretary called it a “landmark” project for the UK oil and gas industry.
    http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/821756/UK-oil-found-UKog-UK-oil-and-gas-reservoir-North-Sea

    conversely, any hint of being pro-fossil fuels in Australia brings on the ABC Inquisition:

    27 Jun: ABC: Queensland Investment Corporation denies planning to fund Galilee coal mines
    Exclusive by Stephen Long
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/queensland-government-finance-body-in-talks-fund-galilee-coal/8655786

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    TdeF

    According to the Australian this morning, South Australia just passed Denmark as having the most expensive domestic power in the world!
    I am sure they are all proud to have a world record.

    All for good reason, except no one can explain it as the jobs vanish. Something about saving the planet by impoverishing yourself. Carbon penance for carbon lifeforms. Lucky they get so much money from everyone else or they would really be in trouble.

    Soon even the mortgages will soar in lucky South Australia. Some people will have work, when the wind blows but not too hard. They could save power by turning off the traffic lights permanently. No one is going anywhere.

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    Curious George

    It may be the first business folding because of high electricity cost. Certainly not the last one. Shall we ever see a government folding?

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    pat

    27 Jun: Newsbusters: 9-Year-Old Boy Claims ‘Global Warming’s Gonna Get Us’ on Hulu’s ‘Casual’
    by Callista Ring
    Hulu’s Casual, although meant to be a comedy, has consistently infused itself with liberal propaganda. Climate change is one chosen crusade, with almost every single episode of the season so far containing mention of how climate change is destroying the earth and how people can help. The most recent episode, “Venus,” which aired Tuesday, had a little boy remark, “Global warming’s gonna get us.”…

    While Alex (Tommy Dewey) watches over his boss’s young son, the 9-year-old mentions to Alex that global warming will destroy the earth. Although Alex agrees, he attempts to calm the boy by explaining that apparently Florida will be the first to go, implying that Democrats will have more votes in the Electoral College so they can save the world!

    EXCERPT:
    9-year-old: What’s the point, global warming’s gonna get us anyway.
    Alex: You’re right. But Florida will be the first to go. Literally under water, 27 electoral votes set free, which shifts the map, maybe slows things.
    9-year-old: Still.
    Alex: I know. Even if we fix it all tomorrow the sun will still expand, boil our surface water and turn our planet into Venus. Scary and inevitable…
    http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/callista-ring/2017/06/27/9-year-old-boy-claims-global-warmings-gonna-get-us-hulus

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    Russell

    Maybe O/T but what’s the real story? Yesterday’s Channel 7 (Melbourne) evening news was talking about a new windfarm in western Victoria that was being built with massive battery capacity so as to be able to keep supplying power when there’s no wind. This sounds like “pie in the sky” to me. Surely the cost of power from such a facility would be even higher than in South Australia.

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    • #
      toorightmate

      It would have to be a ball-buster to beat SA.

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    • #
      Analitik

      Did they define what “massive” was? As I guessed, it’s a humungous 20 MW !!!
      http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/more-than-1300-sweet-jobs-for-stawells-nectar-farms/

      To cover the 196 MW, 56 turbine wind farm, they will have 20 MW of battery backup (no mention of the capacity, only the output) in order to provide “the secure and affordable energy that Nectar Farms needs for its hydroponic greenhouses”

      So it’s to power an operation that probably can cope with some intermittency in its electrical supply but I bet they’ll still be hooked up to the grid despite being “the world’s first ever protected crop farm completely powered by renewable energy”

      More utter irrelevant nonsense from the Victorian state government

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    pat

    ***as pathetic as the figure is, look what took second place in the major networks’ evening news Trump coverage.

    27 Jun: Newsbusters: Rich Noyes: Study: TV News Is Obsessed With Trump-Russia Probe
    The networks’ relentless coverage of Russia meant little airtime was spent on important policy topics, as the investigation garnered 20 times more attention than the new health care bill, 100 times more attention than the administration’s push to improve the nation’s infrastructure, and a stunning 450 times more coverage than the push for comprehensive tax reform.

    The study also found one-third (34%) of the networks’ Russia coverage was based on anonymous sources, some of which later proved erroneous…

    GRAPHIC MRC analysis of ABC, CBS & NBC evening newscasts, May 17 – June 20, 2017:
    TV News Obsessed With Russia Probe
    Focus of Trump Coverage, May 17 – June 20

    Russia/Comey Investigation: 353 minutes
    ***Climate Change: 47 minutes
    Fighting Terrorism: 29 minutes
    Obamacare Repeal & Replace: 17 minutes
    Economy/Jobs: 5 minutes

    Tax Reform: 1 minute
    http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2017/06/27/study-tv-news-obsessed-trump-russia-probe

    imagine how unbalanced the figures would be if MSNBC & CNN were included!

    ultimate chutzpah – CNN defends DIVERSITY OF OPINION – while Daily Beast frames the revelations as “right-wing” & “conservative”:

    27 Jun: Daily Beast: 1. LOYALTY: CNN: We Stand By Our Producer Caught in Right-Wing Sting Video
    “CNN stands by our medical producer John Bonifield,” a spokesperson said in an email. “Diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong, we welcome it and embrace it.”

    In the video—which lit up conservative social media Tuesday morning with the hashtag #AmericanPravda—Bonifield, who works in company’s medical unit and is not connected to CNN’s political or investigative coverage, is seen calling the coverage of the Trump-Russia story “mostly bullshit” and suggesting the CNN president Jeff Zucker directed reporters to return to it after covering Trump’s decision ***to pull out of the Paris climate accord….
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-we-stand-by-producer-john-bonifield-in-project-veritas-sting-video

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    pat

    a comment has gone into moderation.

    meanwhile, while Australian politicians/MSM virtue signal their CAGW credentials, there is not a word of criticism from Bloomberg about the US oil boom in this piece!

    27 Jun: Bloomberg: Welcome to the Booming Texas Port at Heart of U.S. Oil Sales
    by Sheila Tobben & Laura Blewitt
    Dredging to boost export capacity to 3 million barrels a day
    New pipelines set to increase supply moving out of South Texas
    The shipping upgrade is necessary after a surge in production from U.S. shale fields like the Permian Basin brought more oil than Gulf Coast refiners could handle. And Corpus Christi is vying to become America’s main export hub…
    U.S. production has almost doubled and may reach 10 million barrels a day next year for the first time since 1970, government data show…

    Right now, most of the ships handling crude in the port are Aframax carriers that hold about 600,000 barrels of crude. Once the dredging project is complete, Corpus Christi would be able to handle Suezmax tankers that load about 1 million barrels. The VLCCs like Anne hold as much as 2 million barrels, so they remain too big for the channel.
    But producers are looking toward a day when the port can handle those big tankers, too…
    “It was a positive sign that both committees gave their initial approvals for the project so quickly” during meetings in late April in Washington, D.C., (the port’s executive director John) LaRue said…READ ALL
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-26/welcome-to-the-booming-texas-port-at-center-of-u-s-oil-exports

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    pat

    READ ALL:

    26 Jun: NationalEconomics Editorial: Wind Energy Meets Just 0.46% Of Global Energy Demand—Despite Hundreds Of Billions In Investment
    Rounded to the nearest whole number, wind power meets 0% of the earth’s energy demands.
    Wind energy is trivial to the point of irrelevancy. It doesn’t matter…

    According to the same data, solar energy is even further behind: solar and tidal energy (which are lumped together) provide a mere 0.35% of the earth’s energy…
    Together, wind, solar, and tidal energy met less than 1% of global energy consumption in 2014…

    But that’s the past — what’s the future for wind and solar energy?
    There isn’t one…READ ALL
    https://www.nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/06/26/wind-power-future-impossible/

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    John in Oz

    Put http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy in your favourites/bookmarks, read daily then weep into your Weetbix.

    I have been sending our Tom Koutsantonis the daily/monthly graphs for SA with snide remarks – no response as is expected.

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    • #

      For ten and a half hours on Monday just gone 26Jun2017, the 19 wind plants in South Australia with around a thousand turbines on poles delivered ZERO power into South Australia, and in fact were drawing around 10MW FROM the grid.

      Take this link, click MW at the top right of the image.

      Then, see the ticked boxes underneath the image, well, go the bottom, and you’ll see the States listed. Untick all State boxes except SA and the box above it titled Subtotal, and also untick the box titled Total, and you can see that from 7.30AM till 6PM, they were taking power from the grid.

      Some might say, don’t sweat it Tony, it was only 10MW or so, but keep in mind, these 19 wind plants are supposed to deliver 1000MW+ TO the grid, not take power FROM the grid.

      Disgraceful really.

      Tony.

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        toorightmate

        A little gen set from Bunnings would beat the SA wind farms hands down at the moment.
        But, oops. They produce CO2.
        The co2 horsesh*t has to stop.

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      • #
        John in Oz

        Tony,

        I have just sent an email to Josh Frydenberg, copy to our local state and federal members, pointing out that the wind farms were taking power from the grid for 10 hours on a normal working day.

        I also sent the SA graph for June to show how little renewable power there would be to replenish the suggested pumped hydro solutions using that as a source.

        Do I hear crickets????

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      • #

        ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,
        ‘takes on a hole new meaning in Weather-ill territory
        where sometimes (often) the wind doesn’t blow enough,
        and sometimes too much.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBYJul2ykZs

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    pat

    thanx to TonyfromOz and others who keep a close watch on SA’s non-performing wind plants.

    yet only a couple of comments at the following link make any connection between lack of population growth and the ever-rising cost of electricity:

    27 Jun: Adelaide Advertiser: Census 2017: Lagging population growth to impact on South Australia’s national representation
    by Tory Shepherd
    NEW population figures confirm what South Australians had feared – the state is set to lose a federal seat, leaving just 10 voices to represent our state in Federal Parliament’s lower house…

    Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released yesterday along with the results of last August’s Census, found SA’s population is now 1.717 million.Calculations based on the Australian Electoral Commission formula show that means the state has a “quota” of about 10.4.
    Had the quota been 10.5, it would have been rounded up and the state would keep all its existing 11 seats…

    The change is a result of our diminishing share of the nation’s population.
    It also means there will only be 149 MPs in the House of Representatives until interstate redistributions are finished, after which there could be 151…
    COMMENT: Kate: It won’t be long before we are all gone. Cheap reliable power would go a long way to stopping the exodus. The Government does not seem to equate basic power with business growth, jobs growth and a strong and robust economy.
    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/census-2017-lagging-population-growth-to-impact-on-south-australias-national-representation/news-story/1701307a0a19e68b7c585131b8593f93

    btw has anyone worked out what ***this means?

    27 Jun: news.com.au: Charis Chang: Great Barrier Reef is worth $56 billion to Australia and is ‘too big to fail’
    Deloitte Access Economics found the reef contributed $6.4 billion to the Australian economy in 2015-16 and the World Heritage listed area supported 64,000 full time jobs.
    The report commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, with support from the National Bank and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, assessed the reef’s economic, social and iconic value…

    The reef’s value as a tourist attraction was the biggest contributor to the reef’s $56 billion value, followed by ***$23.8 billion from indirect or ***non-use value (those who haven’t yet visited the reef but value knowing it exists)…
    http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/natural-wonders/great-barrier-reef-is-worth-56-billion-to-australia-and-is-too-big-to-fail/news-story/e6b47dbb42103ae37e5b08fba684f15d

    $23.8 billion sure accounts for a lot of the $56 billion…is it the “iconic value”? lol.

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    TdeF

    Largely well inside 32 degrees South, almost the whole of South Australia is desert. The place with the greatest sunshine hours in the world is in Coonawarra, South Australia near the coast in the SE corner. So if solar was to make a difference it would be in South Australia. However it is not true or what is true is that even with fabulous amounts of sunshine year round, a small place like South Australia cannot survive on solar. How anyone expects Europe to run on solar is beyond me. Vastly greater power required, freezing winters and Paris, London, Berlin at 50 degrees, so not even bright sun in summer and almost nothing in winter.

    Solar is doomed from the outset and only works for half a day at the best of times. Industrial scale battery storage is a popular myth. Even when batteries work they are Lithium and lithium batteries have a very short lifetime. To quote Wikipedia “The typical estimated life of a Lithium-Ion battery is about two to three years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever occurs first. ”

    To paraphrase Climate Commissioner Professor Will Steffen, you would have to cover half of the state of Victoria with solar panels to supply the electricity requirements. No idea however how to supply them at night.

    So it is all down to South Australia and Windmills.
    As Alan Kohler indicates, we’re waiting for the new renewable technologies to supply Victoria 24/7 at under 4c kw/hr.
    Or have we paid all that money for dodgy windmills? If so, please supply the ones which work.

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    pat

    26 Jun: Platts: Trump’s ANWR move could spawn epic oil, natural gas battle: Fuel for Thought
    Oil majors thirsty for reserves likely to line up for any lease sale
    The White House budget proposal includes a revenue line of almost $2 billion from selling oil and gas leases in the richly oil-prospective northeastern coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska.

    Until the climate change debate came along, leasing and drilling in the ANWR (pronounced an-war) Coastal Plain was arguably the most ferociously contested item on the oil and gas industry’s wish list at the national level.
    There is not enough space here to track the tortuous history of legal and regulatory battles and failed legislation that has marked efforts to either develop oil and gas in the ANWR Coastal Plain or to lock it up against development permanently…

    The US Geological Survey, in a 1998 estimate, reckoned that the Coastal Plain contains 4.3 billion to 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil and as much as 11 Tcf of natural gas, with a mean estimate of 7.7 billion barrels and 3.5 Tcf.
    Industry contends these are very conservative estimates. As much as 32 billion barrels of oil is in place.

    ANWR’s resource potential could bring hefty demand for leases.
    One recent study suggested that a commercial find on the ANWR Coastal Plain could yield more daily oil production than the volume of oil the US imports from Saudi Arabia today…READ ON
    http://blogs.platts.com/2017/06/26/trumps-anwe-oil-natgas-battle/

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    Ross

    What’s that joke about Government assistance ? —” Hello we’re from the Government and we are here to help …..”

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    pat

    A MUST-READ…LENGTHY…FOR THOSE WATCHING THE CAGW FINANCIAL SECTOR SHENANIGANS (HOPE TRUMP DOESN’T PARTICIPATE IN THIS DISCUSSION AT ALL):

    26 Jun: CNBC: Daniel Yergin: Disclosing climate-related risk: Let’s get it right the first time
    •The G20 meets in Germany in July and climate change will be a key topic.
    •World leaders will receive advice on setting guidelines for firms disclosing risk related to climate change.
    •It’s important to get these guidelines right the first time or risk misleading disclosures and confusion.
    In Hamburg, as part of that agenda, G20 leaders will receive a report from the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international financial oversight organization composed of central banks, finance ministries and financial regulatory authorities from the G20 countries. The report responds to a request from G20 finance ministers to review how climate-related issued are accounted for by the financial sector. These recommendations are meant to become the template for financial regulators in the United States and other countries to implement. Initially, they are meant to be “voluntary,” but the trajectory of the exercise is for them to become mandatory…

    A draft of this report was published last December. We expect the final FSB report will recommend that all entities with public debt or equity make disclosures about their climate-related financial risk in their mandatory regulatory filings using a standard framework…
    The Task Force has been reviewing comments and hopefully will have made important modifications in the report. Otherwise, the recommendations could lead to misleading disclosures and confusion about their interpretation, mispricing of risk and market distortions…

    The findings of a recent IHS Markit report (LINK) (of which we were among the co-authors) makes clear that the FSB approach, at its core, represents a radical departure from the concept of “materiality” in financial reporting. “Materiality” has been a basic principle of required financial disclosures for the last eight decades – a foundation of the financial reporting upon which the entire investment system depends. This is the communication by managements and boards of information needed by reasonable investors seeking financial returns. It provides the opportunity for companies to describe issues and risks, based upon their judgement as to what is important.

    But the Task Force has singled out one type of risk—climate change—for separate treatment using a universal disclosure framework. In so doing, it sets aside managerial judgment and promotes those risks to automatic materiality status. It risks politicizing financial disclosure by directing it to specific topics rather than material information. This directly conflicts with the established principles that management and boards must decide what information is material. It also risks impairing informed decision-making by — as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall cautioned against —burying investors in an avalanche of information…

    ***The Task Force recommends the use of scenarios and metrics in their draft report. But this would be a misuse of such tools, ***transforming uncertainties about the future into “certainties.” This will have the effect of distorting markets rather than improving them…
    http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/26/dan-yergin-on-disclosing-climate-related-risk-lets-get-it-right-the-first-time-commentary.html

    FSB reminder:

    About FSB: Organisational Structure and Governance
    Chair, Mark Carney, Bank of England
    http://www.fsb.org/about/organisation-and-governance/

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    pat

    by Amy Harder, ex-WSJ, now with Axios. love how it goes from caring about CC in the headline to caring about their money in the text! read all:

    26 Jun: Axios: Amy Harder: Wall Street is starting to care about climate change
    A record number of investors are pressuring fossil-fuel companies to reveal how climate change could hit their bottom lines.
    Efforts by shareholders to push resolutions on the risk related to carbon regulations are reaching a tipping point, with almost half of investors in fossil-fuel and utility companies backing resolutions, according to a new analysis by nonprofit group Ceres not yet published publicly…

    Why it matters: With the U.S. government retreating on climate policy under the leadership of President Trump, corporate America is emerging as the central battleground. The increased support for climate-related resolutions show that mainstream investors are taking the issue more seriously than ever despite Trump.

    “Investment risk is increasing, and investors care – not because they believe or don’t believe in climate change – but because they care about the value of their investments,” said Kevin Book, managing director of the independent research firm ClearView Energy Partners. “The issue doesn’t go away just because Trump came to Washington.” …

    Shareholders of publicly traded companies cast votes every spring on resolutions of all kinds, including on climate change…
    Symbolism matters: The resolutions aren’t binding and have no legal force, but that doesn’t make them empty proposals…
    The concern for climate change is spreading to ratings agencies, which influence how investors assess companies…

    Andrew Logan, director of oil and gas at Ceres, said the ultimate goal of these symbolic resolutions is to show fossil-fuel based companies their current investments won’t work in a carbon-constrained world…
    https://www.axios.com/investors-are-starting-to-really-care-about-climate-change-2446957535.html

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    pat

    ***no surprise what it #1 on Bill the renewables’ shill’s list.
    cliché-ridden, not worth reading:

    26 Jun: RollingStone: How to Tell If Your Reps Are Serious About Climate Change
    In the wake of Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, how serious are your elected leaders about fighting back?
    by Bill McKibben
    Perhaps no president in recent times has unified the country, AND THE GLOBE, as effectively as Donald Trump. In the hours following his rejection of the Paris climate accord, pretty much everyone who didn’t actually work in a coal mine joined in the condemnation…

    Here are three simple criteria for detrmining whether your local politicians are serious enough to pass the climate test:
    ***They are committed to converting to 100 percent renewable energy.
    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-politicians-must-fight-climate-change-in-the-trump-era-w489549

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    David Maddison

    Professional engineering associations should expel any members that are found to be working in support of windmill and solar power as it is based on a disproven hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming and is expensive, ugly and unreliable and gives engineering a bad name.

    Exemptions to be granted where such power systems are genuinely justified due to the remoteness or inaccessibility of various sites.

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      TdeF

      I suppose if morality were part of work, the largest employer of engineers, the entire defence industry would be closed down. The result of their work is rarely pleasant or subject to moral values. Defence is part of life and necessary.

      However the greatest and most pointless waste of professional engineer and science salaries would be in the CSIRO with 350 doctorate level scientists working on fixing the ravages of Climate Change in Australia. This is especially amoral when in the previous decade they could not prove any man made climate change in Australia. Except that bit about slightly longer parrot wings in one part of the desert.

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    PeterS

    So what’s to stop the same thing occurring to a whole range of businesses in any state let alone SA? As long as both major parties maintain their current policies this country will reach an economic crisis in due course.

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    Attention Joanne,

    maybe there’s a Post in this.

    After watching Lateline last night, my first thought was to just give up doing what I do. That’s it, I thought, we’ve lost. There’s no point going on.

    Those poor bl00dy snowflakes.

    I could go on, but hey, watch it for yourself. (at this link)

    If this is the ‘state of play’, there’s no point in us doing what we do.

    Tony.

    (and snowflakes is perhaps the most polite word I could find)

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      Yonniestone

      I don’t know why they’re so anxious about having kids, with that level of weaponized stupidity they’ll never figure out the mechanics of procreation!

      50

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        OriginalSteve

        I love that quote “weaponized stupidity”.

        I just love saying “but there is no scientific proof cliamte change is catastrophic”……they cant handle it.

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      John in Oz

      Good to see they are setting up their sensors on a large, asphalt covered area where they can, no doubt, remove the UHI effect from their ‘data’.

      As for the pregnant researcher recording 39C in her house – TURN THE BLOODY AIR CONDITIONER ON – take advantage of modern technology.

      I also note that many of these ‘researchers’ are relatively young so would not remember the hot days we had back in the 60’s (as I do). We had few ducted reverse cycle air conditioners and even cars were not necessarily fitted with them but we survived.

      Snowflakes all.

      (anger pill taken but takes time to have an effect)

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      Peter C

      It may be too late to head off disaster Tony, but reality must win in the end.

      We may still make the end less horrible than it other wise would be.

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      TdeF

      So knowledgeable. Talking about the past climate in Australia as if there have been people keeping records for thousands of years. Supposition, conjecture, extrapolation, guesswork.

      Climate is not a static thing and climate includes long term variations, cycles over decades. Even the Egyptians mapped the 11 year cycle for 1600 years. Cyclic changes are part of the climate.

      So how do they tell a climate has changed and how do they tell that it is not natural variation? This women worrying article is far from real science, but when you hear people have been working on Climate Change for twenty years, will they ever accept that the small variations they see are not just the climate? Looking at graphs. Colours. How do these ‘scientists’ tell mankind is making the difference? Consider for a second that mankind has no effect on the climate and they are scared of their own shadows?

      Walking on the beach, worrying, waiting for a climate tsunami. She has been walking on that beach for 20 years. How much has it changed? Really. Having walked on similar beaches all my life, I cannot see any change at all. Like the temperature, any variation is so small it is dwarfed by the tides and storms. In fact if I had to give an opinion and call it science, nothing has changed. Nothing.

      In fact the change they are worrying about would not even been detectable in the 19th century and made no real difference to any city I know in the 20th century. More Chicken Little stuff from people who earn their entire living from their beloved Climate Change.

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      george

      Tony
      Keep doing exactly what you are doing!
      A source of knowledge which I have found useful (and have passed around) in relation to the practical ramifications of real-world renewables performance, and where power actually comes from with reliability, etc. You are a very handy asset with respect to factual information sourcing.
      I have found that people tend to at least moderate their spruiking of ideology when confronted with facts – they may still “believe” but can`t argue with the pragmatics of a specific situation.

      BTW – I have been of the opinion for some time now that the “war” is NOT going to be unquestionably “won” by either side through ideological argument or proselytising zealotry or he said/she said scientific argy bargy.
      Instead, it will inevitably resolve itself through real-world outcomes (the Jay & Tom team here in SA have escalated the process locally – in a rather perverse way, one could almost say “thankfully”).
      I get the feeling that more and more people (in the fullness of time, everyone except the dark greens and committed snowflakes of course) are seeing, or will become aware of, the pragmatic realities of over-extending on renewables. With time.

      THAT is where the war will be (ultimately) won, if one wishes to put it in those words – and that just happens to be your area…
      My attitude nowadays is – why get into (effectively ideological) arguments with people about which scientist said what about climate sensitivity or anthropogenic attribution extent, when a screenshot of an anero.id or Renew Economy website renewables output can`t be argued with?
      😉

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        If it’s going to be won, it will be won with two words.

        Base ….. Load.

        There’s no way they can find that amount of power without coal fired power.

        It’s just a matter of patience, until someone actually ….. discovers it.

        18,000MW, required absolutely.

        Tony.

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          george

          Got that memo some time back, Tony…
          😉
          Pretty self-evident what was keeping the lights on in the J-curve a little later on during the evening of our rolling dinnertime blackouts on the 8th of Feb in SA.
          And it wasn`t wind or solar PV.

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    Dennis

    An interesting observation today from an auto electrician in north western Queensland regarding solar panels and how they become far less efficient the hotter the day is, when the Sun is overhead the input from solar panels into batteries (e.g. camping/caravan) decreases.

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    William

    This malicious ideological insanity is not new.

    Prior to throwing in the towel and moving to Australia, I owned a hazardous waste processing operation in Canada. We collected hazardous waste from producing industries, neutralized it, and disposed of the inert residues.

    My most vicious and relentless enemies were the “environmentalists”. They used every legal, and illegal, trick in the book to undermine, block, sabotage and cripple my business. To this day, I don’t understand the logic of their opposition. It very much resembled the fanaticism of today’s warmists.

    When I reached the point I was paying more in legal bills than I made in gross revenue, I closed up shop, laid off all my employees and moved to Australia.

    Industry returned to its age old practice of dumping their waste into the nearest river or lake; and the “environmentalists” held a huge party to celebrate my demise.

    Is it possible that the lunatics in SA are working from this same playbook?

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      OriginalSteve

      Dont forget this is a religious war – the Left are not governed by morals, just an insane drive to win at all costs with no holds barred. On one side you have people who play by rules, while the Left have none. Dont expect them to play fair, they cant, its in their DNA. As to the religious aspect – the right are usually conservative and religious, the left are Godless nhilists.

      You have one value system ( predominately Christianity ) facing off against another ( Godless nhilism).

      I suspect there may eventually come some version of Krystal Nacht against any who dare resist.

      Having said that, protect your family at all costs, with no quarter given.

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    David Maddison

    O/T

    The Government’s 2017 review of climate change policies Discussion Paper received over 350 submissions. All the non-confidential submissions are on the Department of the Environment and Energy’s website.

    http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/review-climate-change-policies/discussion-paper-2017

    My submission is at:

    http://www.environment.gov.au/submissions/climate-change/review-climate-change-policies-2017/david-maddison.pdf

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    Watt

    I don’t know if this is like saying ” the falling cost of renewables is making coal uncompetitive” but the bottom seems to be falling out of the recycled plastic bottle, market due mostly to a low oil price.
    http://uk.businessinsider.com/low-oil-prices-hurt-plastics-recycling-2016-4?r=US&IR=T

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    Unemployed Taxpayer

    All tax is theft enforced by extortion.
    Fuel is the food of enterprise.
    The more internal friction a machine experiences, the less effective it is in producing wealth.
    Tax is fiscal friction.
    Any tax on fuel diverts energy from wealth creation to wealth destruction.
    Any enterprise that relies on tax to finance its business model is a parasitic organisation.
    Tax on food creates poverty; tax on fuel is no different, as it too creates poverty by destroying wealth creating enterprises.

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    Crakar24

    The CH 9 news in “Athens of the south” claims as of this weekend SA will surpass Denmark in the “dearest electricity” competition. We then cut to our fearless leader telling us its all under control.

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    Roy Hogue

    If the true believers complain that a recycling business went broke just tell them they shot it down themselves. They’ll have no legitimate answer. Of course that will help no one but you’ll feel a little better after doing it.

    What does it take to get a fool to back out of a mess and let someone who knows what he’s doing take over? Politics needs to find its reverse lever.

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      David Maddison

      That’s quotable Roy!

      What does it take to get a fool to back out of a mess and let someone who knows what he’s doing take over? Politics needs to find its reverse lever.

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