Stupid Nation: Australians crave cheap energy, yet think “low cost” renewables need support

It’s like an Easter Island moment for an advanced economy: somehow “cheap” energy can’t compete in a free market without government subsidy. A Nation of Serfs have forgotten what a free market is. Will cheap desirable stuff sell itself, or not?

The contradictions mount. Electricity and gas prices are hitting escape velocity:

The wholesale electricity spot prices was about $35 a megawatt hour during 2011, rose to $58 after the carbon tax was introduced and is now about $130 as gas prices push up energy generator costs.

Not surprisingly 70% of Australians want cheaper, more reliable electricity. Only one person in four would rather cut emissions than cut the bill. Yet the agitprop telling people that renewables are “cheap” has been so pervasive that fully 38% of Australians think the government should raise the renewable energy target, and 23% think it should stay the same. It follows that around 4 in 10 Australians apparently hold the bizarre idea that wind and solar are cheap and yet in need of government support, as if there are no investors willing to put money into supplying something that 100% of people want at a price cheaper than what they currently pay. So screwed is our national commentary that a large slab of the nation think a cheap and highly desired product can’t profit without complex schemes and assistance.

Message to Australia, if renewables were cheap they wouldn’t need a RET, LET or CET scheme. People would just buy them!

No wonder there is policy gridlock. The situation won’t be resolved until the propaganda bubble pops and the national debate advances to the point where people know how expensive renewables are. Find me one country in the world running on wind and solar that has cheap electricity and no interconnector supplying coal or nuclear powered electrons. Exactly.

The answer for the Liberal-conservatives is clear, unless they get the message out that renewables are a hideously expensive deadweight burning a hole in our wallets they can’t possibly win this debate. As long as the nation blindly drinks from the Kool-aid-Cauldron the Conservatives are on a hiding to nothing —  locked into endless cycles of “uncertainty” and hip-pocket pain.

Welcome to the clean green future — pack the whole family under one electric blanket while boat loads of our cheap coal set sail for China.

Canberra offers tips on snuggling up for a clean, green winter

Angela Shanahan

A few weeks ago I received a pamphlet from the ACT government on energy-­saving tips. For winter it featured a picture of a family all in overcoats and beanies, huddled under an electric blanket.

Welcome to your clean green future huddled under an electric blanket, and reverting to wood fires to keep the house warm.

The Finkel report aims to provide incentives for all energy ­sources that produce electricity with lower greenhouse gas emissions, but the suggested benchmark means a high-efficiency, low-emissions power plant with carbon capture and storage would not qualify. That is why plenty of people think this is a backdoor attempt to block coal and even gas with an effective “tax on coal”.

The crisis has arisen because of the over-reliance on wind and solar power. In South Australia, combined with the closure of two coal-fired power plants, one in SA and one in Victoria, it has destabilised the whole grid. Added to that is the shortage of gas and the lack of storage for renewables.

Meanwhile, despite the domestic opposition to coal, we send our coal to Japan and China to be used in high-­efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired generators to produce cleaner and cheaper power where people don’t have to sit ­inside wearing beanies under an electric blanket.

 

9.7 out of 10 based on 128 ratings

210 comments to Stupid Nation: Australians crave cheap energy, yet think “low cost” renewables need support

  • #
    crakar24

    A person in the local paper was complaining about the cost of power in SA and asked someone to “please explain” so I did via a letter the following week. The next edition comes out tomorrow I suspect I will be called all sorts of names, the last time I was accused of selling gas cookers (same name as someone on the internet who actually did sell gas cookers) and therefore had motive to dis the AGW carp and should be ignored.

    People simply refuse to accept each and every turbine generates over $700K a year and there is a lot of them in SA, that money could do great things for the people if it was a tax unfortunately it is not so is gifted to some foreign CEO. I have met priests that are more open minded than this lot.

    451

    • #
      peter

      You’re lucky. If I submit a letter to the local paper on energy only about 1 in 10 submissions are printed. If on climate, almost never gets published. It is a Fairfax publication though.

      400

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I notice most opeds never have comments capability…..keeps people from actually arguing a counter point….

        300

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Sounds like you are going through the Looking Glass where words mean anything the leftists/Greenies say they mean. Up is down, right is wrong, bad is good, renewables are the best source of power but renewables need huge subsidies or they will disappear.

    Some clear things about the future from all of this. Electricity prices will continue to rise, and thus the consumers from the individual to the largest industry will be stretched to near or beyond their breaking points. Those who rent/sell land to renewable electricity generation will become richer and richer on the backs of the country’s poorest and weakest people. Long- term outlook for jobs, industry,and the wealth of the nation will plummet and the concentration of wealth and power will further accelerate to politicians and renewable energy peddlers at the expense of the taxpayers, workers, the aged, and the poor.
    Hard times are coming for most people for quite some time.

    442

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I have a question.

      What industry is there, in Canberra, other than Government and related governmental support services?

      I ask this, because I have a hypothesis that the intellectual atmosphere, surrounding the organs of governance, has become so rarefied, that decisions are perforce made in a one or two dimensional cognitive vacuum. (If a vacuum can have dimensions.)

      I have worked in, and for, government agencies in several English speaking countries. But in all cases, “the real world”, was always next door, or across town, and could be used as a point of reference, and a signpost towards the reality of living in that world.

      As an observer, I get the impression that “the real world” is somehow missing from Canberra, and that everybody exists in their own little private thought-bubble, where reality is not a welcome visitor.

      Please tell me I am wrong. Because, if I am not, Australia is going to go downhill very, very, quickly, when the implications of the current tranche of decisions become manifest reality.

      463

      • #
        Crakar24

        RW,

        I have worked in this alternate reality you speak of for many years and afraid to say you are not wrong. In fact you are very much correct. They work very hard to project the illusion you are wrong but alas you are not.

        372

      • #
        oldbrew

        Don’t worry, this is not unique to Canberra or Australia.

        The London version even has its own Wikipedia entry: ‘the Westminster bubble’.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Bubble

        100

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Yes, that is true. The “Westminster Bubble” does have its own wikipedia entry. Ho hum.

          But you cannot walk, or ride in an armored limousine, for any distance above ground, in London, without witnessing the day to day bustle of commerce, and the busy lives of “the little people”, as one Australian Prime Minister liked to refer to them.

          That makes a big difference. It is the working people who make the nation, not the politicians, nor the royalty or constitution they serve.

          “One has perforce, to go to Harrods, for Harrods will not come to you”.

          80

          • #
            oldbrew

            Don’t know about other countries but it’s often said that Westminster politicians get their version of public opinion from taxi drivers.

            30

      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        They do have a huge ‘paper’ industry in Canberra.

        40

      • #
        Allen Ford

        What industry is there, in Canberra, other than Government and related governmental support services?

        I don’t know whether they have any heavy industry, like a smelting industry or car manufacture, but a quick Google for Restaurants and cafes brought up this site which is an essential one for pollies and their cheer squads like the meeja.

        Do they qualify, Rereke?

        10

      • #
        Griffo

        Canberra or the ACT,Australian Capital Territory,has some private enterprise,tourism,maybe a few IT Consultants ,the odd academic or scientist who produced something patentable,but mostly guff. In the 1920’s a lot of radiata pine were planted to provide stock for sawmills which no longer exist,but up to the 1990’s produced some lumber. NZ can produce radiata pine more cheaply. There are maybe a few woolgrowers and farmers left, but not many,boutique wine growers and olive oil and that’s about it, Tourism is quite big however.

        20

        • #
          Hivemind

          Interesting sad, but true, fact. Some of that radiata pine was planted at the foot of Black Mountain. It burned down in the 2003 bushfire and the green/labor government of the day decided it was such dangerous stuff, it couldn’t be replanted; it would think about what to do with the site for a bit.

          So what do we have a decade later? A freaking great big “arboretum”. So a site where trees were too dangerous to replant has been replanted with… trees.

          Only in Canberra’s weird socialist green thinking could such a thing happen.

          20

          • #

            We lived in Canberra in early 2003 when that firestorm came. One of our close friends lost their home in Duffy. They went to a movie in Weston Creek that day and everything was fine. By the time the movie finished, streets were blockaded, they were not allowed to return to their home and had to watch from a few kms away as their suburb was razed. Unbelievable how fast it moved through the plantations and Australian bush.

            10

            • #
              Griffo

              The ACT Forestry department wanted to cut down some of the big old radiata pines that were 60 years old as the trees were considered a fire risk close to suburbia,the local residents protested ,the pines were indeed lovely and green,but not so with a hot westerly gale blowing into the forest on that day. I was in Canberra visiting my parents that weekend and the place went dark at 2pm on Saturday afternoon. That fire moved rapidly through forest and scrub,but also through grasslands that was once grazed down by sheep ,no longer permitted by the ACT Govt land managers,bent on restoring the land to some imagined pristine state.

              10

  • #

    One plus one used to equal two in a time now long passed.

    Once upon a time electrical power was cheap.

    Enter renewable power of choice, wind and solar.

    Suddenly power prices begin to rise.

    The cheap power closes down, and again the prices go up.

    Is there something I can’t see here?

    Suddenly, the answer to one plus one has become ….. “well that depends!”

    Tony.

    481

    • #
      Bulldust

      Suddenly you are sounding like an economist … yes indeed, whatever you wish it to be,

      My background as an engineer (sorta) informs me that one plus one is three, for very large values of one.

      150

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      One plus one always equals two, except for very small values of one.

      90

      • #
        Hanrahan

        Not necessarily, 1.4 + 1.4 [rounded to 1 + 1] = 2.8 [rounded to 3]. So the “engineer” is right, as one would expect. 🙂

        20

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      1st person: “What is 1 + 1?”

      2nd person: “What would you like it to be?”

      90

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Are we talking about the old math, that had algebra; and geometry; and arithmetic; and other Arabic notions? Or are we talking about the new math, that is more related to feelings, and a sense of judgement regarding what should be, rather than what is?

        140

        • #
          John F. Hultquist

          “New math” was in U.S. schools about 1958-59. Venn diagrams, base 2, and maybe an abacus.
          Then the “Bowmar Brain” came along and we’ve been going downhill since.

          You must be speaking of the new-new math.

          10

  • #

    Turn air-con to ventilation-only in ACT public buildings during winter.

    For the first day, it’ll be like when CEOs break out their best Paddy Pallin gear for the winter sleep out. Or like wearing jeans for genes, because the two words sound alike and jeans are perenially cool though we’re not sure what they do with genes. Or like when celebs get their heads shaved to show support for…I forget. Lots of media, lots of virtue signalled, if you’re not there you’re square etc.

    By about day three someone will find a statistic which proves that women or some gender other than “bloke” is being disproportionately affected by the heating ban. Day four there’ll be problems for people from tropical regions, those of duskier complexions. Day five will be part of a Canberra weekend, so who cares.

    There won’t be a day six.

    181

    • #
      graphicconception

      … some gender other than “bloke” …

      For information (and I use the term loosely), New York State is currently working with 31 genders. I did not spot “bloke”, though.

      Here’s the complete list:

      1. Bi-gendered
      2. Cross-dresser
      3. Drag King
      4. Drag Queen
      5. Femme Queen
      6. Female-to-Male
      7. FTM
      8. Gender Bender
      9. Genderqueer
      10. Male-to-Female
      11. MTF
      12. Non-Op
      13. HIJRA
      14. Pangender
      15. Transexual/Transsexual
      16. Trans Person
      17. Woman
      18. Man
      19. Butch
      20. Two-Spirit
      21. Trans
      22. Agender
      23. Third Sex
      24. Gender Fluid
      25. Non-Binary Transgender
      26. Androgyne
      27. Gender Gifted
      28. Gender Blender
      29. Femme
      30. Person of Transgender Experience
      31. Androgynous

      If you wanted to give Jedi as your religion and Bloke as your gender I am sure they could accommodate you.

      https://heatst.com/culture-wars/here-are-the-31-gender-identities-new-york-city-recognizes/

      I am not sure how all that squares with “Rule 1”, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L220PFMkunI

      131

  • #
    Ted O'Brien.

    Jo, our scholars don’t even know what a free market is. There is no such thing, never has been, and can’t be. Each and every act of government is a corruption of the market, and if there is no government organised thugs will manage the market.

    #1. The market is not Free if it is not Free for all.
    #2. The hallmark of the unfettered market is the boom/bust cycle,
    #3. The boom/bust cycle serves neither producers nor consumers well.
    #4. Every action in the market affects every other action in the market.

    Because the effect of an action is very often negligible that effect is ignored. But when economists are poorly trained, effects which should gain attention are dismissed.

    113

    • #
      Tim Hammond

      That’s all rubbish. People had “markest” without either governments or thugs for millenia, and still do.

      Now all we need is the state to enforce contracts and to prevent coercion and intimidation. Then two people can decide to trade -which is all a market is.

      How two people trading creates boom and bust is beyond me, and of course has been beyond all economists forever, so how you know its markets is interesting. I don’t think you actually know what a market is.

      111

  • #

    Welcome to the clean green future — pack the whole family under one electric blanket…

    I actually read on a forum where someone was doing exactly that (in Canberra I believe) and wanting to ban all wood-fired heaters.

    110

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Wood fired heaters will be banned in urban areas before too many years. 1. They smoke the town, and 2. Availability of suitable wood will become too scarce and expensive. 3. The Greenies will be working relentlessly to ban them.

      131

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Oddly enough that very thing came up in discussion with somebody in a shop on Sunday. When I sounded off about electricity costs she said that the family watched TV beneath an electric blanket with heater turned off. I gathered that the family was her and 2 daughters but aren’t sure. She also said that she had to be forever on the girls backs to make sure that they didn’t leave lights on in unoccupied rooms. It had the ring of truth.
      Also, in the Adelaide Hills the use of wood fires is increasing, not always making a saving. We lost a house in the main street last week when the fire somehow extended to the wood structure and destroyed the house. Owner was on holidays but at least one relative in residence (sadly 2 dogs apparently killed, 2 cats disappeared). Also another house burned down in Mt. Barker same week.

      140

      • #
        Crakar24

        They need to clean their flue more often

        70

        • #
          yarpos

          exactly, many fireplaces/woodburners in Australia are timebombs. In some parts of Europe you have to have your flue cleaned every 3 years, with proof going to the local fire authority and your insurance company. If you dont do it the fire authority arrange it and send you the bill.

          70

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            One way to clean a flue, is to get a chicken, and throw it up the chimney. Chickens can’t fly, but they can flap their wings a lot, in trying to get to the light above them, and that gets the soot out, right enough.

            You then have two tasks to perform: 1. you must catch and wash the chicken (not an easy task); and 2. Clean up all the soot (and odd pieces of brick), that has fallen down the chimney.

            There is no punch-line to this story. But it is documented in the British Archive, as the preferred method of cleaning palace chimneys, in Tudor times. I kid you not.

            60

            • #
              Pat Hogen

              Another way is to allow starlings in to seek a nesting site; they flap all the way down until they get into the firebox. Possums will work too if it is an open chimney, but getting the possum out presents problems, including being bitten and dying of some bacterial infection.

              00

            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              Ah yes. The Tudor chook. They stole the idea from their noble Russian relies. The Chicken Kiev.

              10

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I blame it on the fire lighters.

          40

        • #
          Geoffrey Williams

          It’s a greens problem!
          GeoffW

          10

    • #
      Yonniestone

      They should have pictures of elderly people wrapped in blankets that have died from exposure in their own homes, you know like what is already happening, but I guess once again the disconnection of Canberra from reality bites only those that foolishly believe the elected elite actually have their best interests at heart.

      60

    • #
      Geoffrey Williams

      I have a bio-mass burner in my house. Grate wood burner!
      GeoffW

      00

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    I blame smartphones – the reality is that people are so busy looking at rubbish, they are now incapable of thinking critically unless it can be condensed into a 30 second read and swipe of a finger….

    As an Engineer, it scares me how dumb people are becoming. People seem in capable of thinking in logical lines and sensibly.

    290

  • #
    Another Ian

    I reckon this quote that just arrived in an email would have fitted in the last few threads

    ” Subject: Will we ever learn?
    >
    > BEST QUOTE OF ANY ERA!
    >
    >”The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”
    >
    > – Cicero, 55 BC

    340

    • #
      Ray Warren

      I – and many others here – will doubtless agree with the sentiment, but I don’t believe Cicero is on record as having actually said that. I think it comes from a novel about Cicero where the words were put into his mouth by a modern author – can’t remember who. Some eco-idiot is bound to use the mis-attribution as a reason for disregarding the content.

      50

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        I remember that when as a 14 year old translating Cicero I could see that lawyers and politicians hadn’t changed in 2.000 years.

        20

    • #
      David Maddison

      While the quote contains wise words Cicero never said that.

      http://www.snopes.com/quotes/cicero.asp

      00

      • #
        Allen Ford

        Cicero may not have uttered these words, but Seneca the Younger is reputed to have said, a love of bustle is not industry, words of wisdom lost completely on the current crop of free loaders.

        50

  • #
    Tim Hammond

    People have always wanted stuff for free – if they understood how economies work, at even the most basic level, the Left would pretty much cease to exist.

    I believe we have a predisposed (perhaps genetic) view of the world that accepts everything around as “real” (which is why children don’t wonder at planes or smart phones or TV) and fixed, and believe it all “belongs” to all of us. We therefore struggle to udnerstand wealth creation and simply see people having more than us as being unfair. And we therefore hate to pay for the things that exist, such as infrastructure, as we already own them in our worldview.

    Lots of people believe that in a socialist economy everything we have (jobs, material goods, services, innovation) would continue to exist. what the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela etc have taught us is that that is simply not true, and whilst a reasonably well-organised state can copy capitalist systems to some extent, it can never match them, and in the long-run it goes bust or simply ends up as say the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    130

    • #
      EyesWideOpen

      “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” – Benjamin Franklin

      Or the logical extension …

      “When the largest corporations work out that socialism also applies to them, when they have created efficient lobbying departments, when they have recruited enough corporate and government media companies to sell their agitprop, when they have then repackaged this corrupt enterprise as a virtuous crusade to champion the ‘commons’, that will herald the end of western civilization: Communism and Crony Capitalism united under the banner of Socialism, cloaked in a green mantle of benevolence towards Mother Gaia … as long as the common man pays their annual carbon indulgence, all will be forgiven, for another year! Year, by year, seeming closer to nature, as people feel more or less as if life in the wilderness would be more beneficial than living among the ruins of an industrial society.” – Me

      … words of wisdom …

      “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat

      The latter quote explaining the seeming virtue of Malcolm Turnbull, who represents ‘the people’ (of the off-shored people).

      110

  • #
    EyesWideOpen

    It’s like an Easter Island moment for an advanced economy: somehow “cheap” energy can’t compete in a free market without government subsidy. A Nation of Serfs have forgotten what a free market is. Will cheap desirable stuff sell itself, or not?

    Jo, you’re starting to sound as cynical as I sounded about five years ago, so, when you get about five years further along the realization path that Australia is in fact severely IQ-overrated, I’ll tell you what it’s like: Throwing thongs at the TV set every night as the fake-news barrage and utter idiocy of a nation of ignorant consumer and entertainment obsessed non-entities finally take their toll on my patience.

    At least I have Jo Nova to read in order to feel not so alone trapped in this asylum which is now run by the craziest patients.

    Malcolm Turnbull is but the King of the Revels, and every day is like a slow moving Saturnalia where the world down-under gets just that little bit further inverted.

    [Thanks EWO. Tho I think I was this cynical five years ago! – Jo]

    140

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      If you are not highly cynical, you are simply not paying enough attention.

      We got rid of our TV some twenty or thirty years ago. My partner and I have become much better informed as a result. Think about it.

      60

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Yes, they call it the “idiot box” for a reason….

        And shows like “Modern Family” just confirm there is mileage in celebration of societies’ ability to be easily steered down a dark path by the Elites, and the plebs celebrate the process….

        Its Stockholm Syndrome at a society level….on par with “Daddy…what did you do in the war?”

        10

      • #
        EyesWideOpen

        I thought about getting rid of the TV, but as much as I hate the reality of the situation, I find the knowledge of such rather addictive; like a bad addiction. Why do people smoke? Some people say it is a masochistic desire. MSM fake news and blather is my Lucky Strike, but one day I might be brave enough to kick the habit. After I consume it, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but a strange fascination takes hold.

        10

  • #
    Glen Michel

    Despair. I have resigned myself quite a few years ago to the supplicant manner of the masses. Oh Lord, deliver us from(insert whatever ills-or ails you). Cretins galore.

    130

    • #

      It is easy to despair, but don,t as I know my value. My strength comes from my knowledge, self confidence, individuality, self assurance. I am proud to be who I am and the cretins will never get me. I rather die than submit, free to the end celebrating every second of my life amongst them.

      130

  • #

    See where Joanne mentions this in her text above: (my bolding here)

    Meanwhile, despite the domestic opposition to coal, we send our coal to Japan and China to be used in high-­efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired generators to produce cleaner and cheaper power where people don’t have to sit ­inside wearing beanies under an electric blanket.

    I saw (the shorter version of) this TV ad vertisement on behalf of Australian coal, and went looking for the full version of the ad, because it looked like it was cropped.

    The short one minute video at this link is that longer version of the ad.

    Note at the 32 second mark where the voiceover mentions that there’s over a thousand of these new plants being built around the World.

    These new plants burn 282 grams of coal for every KWH of power being generated.

    Okay then, now to China and this is the most recent power data they have. It’s shown at this link, and you’ll need to do a little work here to see the actual Monthly report, so when the link opens, click on the top blue link there under monthly data. (January-May) When the new window opens, in the box indicating Jan-May, hover your mouse over the blue link, and when the pop up box opens click on the top blue link.

    When the page opens, look at line 22, (National coal consumption rate) and you can see that the total there is 307 grams per KWH, and it fell last year, agai, as it has every year, and in 2013 it was 321g/KWH.

    As those older and smaller plants have closed, and newer large scale ones have opened, then the total drops, and that’s a pretty big drop really.

    Here in Australia, nearly all coal fired plants are three levels of technology lower, 70s technology, as they are in the U.S. as well.

    Those plants here in Oz and America, well they burn around 450 grams of coal per KWH.

    That’s 32% less coal per KWH, hence 32% less CO2 per KWH.

    As is now quite plain to see, HELE plants burn considerably less coal than our old clunkers do.

    And WE send THEM our coal.

    Madness!

    Tony.

    381

    • #
      Crakar24

      LOL…..that’s all I got, I could break down cry but am trying so hard to keep a smile on my dial

      60

    • #
      EyesWideOpen

      Madness indeed. Thanks for the relevant stats. I’ve always complained that we call ourselves a first world country, but that in reality we are a glorified dirt bucket that imports all of our finished goods from cheap labor plantations whilst crooning about our wonderful record on fair labor conditions; the Mercantilist in me bubbles to the surface. What makes this worse, based on the info you have gleaned, is the fact that even if we wanted to finish our own goods, we couldn’t even efficiently turn our own coal into electrons and Communapitalist China is already ahead of the USA in the ‘pull head out of rear end’ department. Severely depressing.

      90

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        If you want to brand a steer, first you have to rope it, then tripping it so it lands on the ground…..

        Guess which of these operations is performed by the powers that be through basically banning coal and knobbling our economy?

        Its also worth pointing out the NWO crowd have openly said they would encourage people to go “low carbon”, but if the carrot didnt work, the large stick would be then liberally used to force people into low carbon.

        Oh, and make the most of the “sacred” Oz BBQ & sunday roast leg of lamb – by virtue of the same NWO lunatics, we are to be forced into a vegetarian diet to protect “Gaia”, and will locked out of 95% of land via Agenda 21 ( rewilding ) to proect their mythical “Gaia”….

        50

        • #

          OriginalSteve mentions this: (my bolding here)

          Its also worth pointing out the NWO crowd have openly said they would encourage people to go “low carbon”, but if the carrot didnt work, the large stick would be then liberally used to force people into low carbon.

          Yeah! Right!

          The load curve for actual power consumption here in Oz has hardly moved in the last nine years I have been watching.

          That absolute minimum of 18,000MW hasn’t moved either, despite all the talk of going low carbon, despite all the imploring and cajoling.

          It won’t change any time soon either, and only one form of power generation can supply that.

          Incidentally, the total Wind power generation right now (2PM Wednesday 21Jun2017) for EVERY wind plant here in Oz is down to 80MW, and that’s a Capacity factor of 1.8%, and that 80MW from wind power is currently providing 0.33% of Australia’s total power generation. So, with around 2500+ wind towers, only 45 of them actually have their blades turning. If anything else had that poor a result it would be laughed out of existence. Sir, we have 110 ambulances, but only two of them work. What would be the headline if that happened, eh!

          Looks to me like wind just might be the answer we’re looking for, eh! (/sarc)

          Tony.

          161

          • #
            Geoffrey Williams

            . . 0.33% of Australia’s total power generation’
            Tony you have supplied another brilliant insight indicating the futility of renewables.
            GeoffW

            50

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Yeah I often wonder how it could be done….but then you observe SA and the shutting down of Hazelwood and they swear balck and blue its for our own good…..hiking coal prices and taxes. Remember these people can and will do whatever it takes. They dont care if they trash a whole country.

            The next couple of years will be critical to the insane NWO cause – they may not crash the grid directly, rather set it up to be so poorly maintained and/or finely balanced it wont take much to shove it off the edge or keep it just on the edge to force people to agree. Once people get desperate as they lose jobs and incomes, they will vote for anything.

            I agree 100% – 18 GW base load is just that.

            However the NWO are devious, but unhinged.

            As they say, you cant reason with a mad man…….

            10

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            PS – Tony , I hope I am 100% wrong.

            10

          • #
            EyesWideOpen

            Don’t laugh, next Turnbull will be announcing that funding for Ambulances is to be cut so that we can fund more turbines to reduce air pollution in order to reduce the amount of people who need ambulances.

            Turnbull makes about as much practical sense when he opens his mouth as Sarah Hanson Young does attempting to explain what load-power is … but as long as his offshore mates are making a killing he cares not how his words are perceived by the masses of Australian sheeple being fleeced.

            If Turnbull was in the United States Congress, his Republican running mates would be advising him to get on the correct side of the barricade and join the Demoncrat zombie hoards massing at the gates.

            10

          • #
            Craig Thomas

            So we need more wind turbines.
            *Everybody* knows that already.

            Right now, just over 17% of our electricity needs are being generated virtually for free, without burning any fuel, by the renewable industry.

            33

            • #
              EyesWideOpen

              @Craig Thomas … “virtually for free”

              Is that after the regulatory and cost burdens on competition and other sectors is taken into account? Or the massive costs to the economy and business investment environment of serial power grid instability events caused by insane leftist wishes on a rainbow?

              Your assumption begins with the fact that burning coal is evil and dangerous, thus the burning of less fuel is an instant virtue, when there is literally no proof that increasing the plant food in the atmosphere is not a net positive.

              Last time I checked, coal mining was a JOB for quite a few Australian’s, but nobody is working for a crust to produce the wind that a turbine harnesses … unless Al Gore would like to become the payroll accountant for the Sun, which is where ALL so called ‘renewable’ energy originates from, and I’m sure the thought crossed Al’s mind one night whilst he was counting fleecy carbon credit sheep in his wildest dreams.

              I guess cost benefit analysis is not something they teach in leftist universities, because it stinks too much of the ‘oppressive’ nature of das capital.

              10

              • #
                Craig Thomas

                Coal produces 70% of our power and employs 55,000 people.
                Renewables provide 15% of our power and employ 15,000 people.

                You do the maths.

                23

              • #
                EyesWideOpen

                @Craig Thomas
                With the massive subsidies given to renewables, and the ham stringing costs imposed on coal, how can one compare 15,000 workers who might as well be classified as half government workers, to 55,000 workers who are productive private sector workers not sucking on the teat of the annual budget but rather contributing a net positive revenue?

                You can arrange the chairs on the deck in whatever nuanced way you want — I have come to expect as much from your sort — but everyone can see the constant bluster charade you all need to take part in to justify why renewables are even slightly comparable to coal. It’s like calling the anchor on a sail ship the propulsion system, and calling the sails a brake.

                I don’t expect you to explain how wrecking grid stability and jacking power prices across the country, which is killing large employers far quicker than a solar panel polisher or a dead bird carcass collector is added to the LOW WAGE segment of the labor force, is at all a net positive … besides, most of these turbines are fabricated in China and Korea, whilst they operate the large installations on our soil, jacking our power prices so high our manufacturing can’t keep up with cheap labor and power prices in smog covered mainland China. It’s a double-rape, and your only reaction is to bend over for some more.

                00

            • #
              Graeme No.3

              Don’t burn wood, burn a turbine instead. Hmm, a bigger ax needed.

              00

              • #
                Rereke Whakaaro

                You don’t need to burn a turbine. They catch fire all by themselves.

                Although I must admit, they are fantastic theatre when they do combust. We could make a fortune from selling tickets, if we only figure out which one was going to burst into flames next.

                00

  • #
    RobK

    if renewables were cheap they wouldn’t need a RET, LET or CET scheme.
    And they wouldn’t need a feed-in tariff for a non-dispatchable that is higher than a dispatchable commercial. They should only be paid what it’s worth and charged for the privilege of the grid being up to the standard that they can sell at all.

    230

    • #
      Craig Thomas

      So why are Adani and every other coal operator demanding government subsidies?

      http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/coal-oil-and-gas-companies-receive-4-billion-dollar-in-subsidie/5881814

      Even if you take off the fuel excise subsidy, the coal industry gets $3.30/tonne in subsidies courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.
      The resulting subsidy per MWh is more than the average wholesale price for electricity in this country, so coal is only profitable thanks to government subsidies. If you removed this subsidy, the price of electricity would double and non-subsidised wind and solar plants would be providing electricity far cheaper than coal could.
      (And bear in mind we’re not even talking about the externalised costs of coal, which are vastly greater than those for modern technologies).

      A “stupid country” is a country that persists in subsidising obsolete industry instead of investing in new ones.

      24

      • #
        mobihci

        any report that claims tax breaks like the diesel fuel excise on miners that dont use roads (the intended purpose of the tax and WHY the miners/farmers etc dont pay it) are susibies loses any credibility it attempts to gain by calling itself a ‘report’. The ABC do a fine job of destroying it even further, just be being there.

        political trash, written by activists and every word a lie.

        10

      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        Craig, In Australia 1 tonne of coal produces about 2220 kWh of electricity. If the coal industry gets $3.30 per tonne subsidy and electricity retails at say 25 cents/kWh then it seems to me that the consumer is getting a bloody good deal from coal.
        ie coal is subsidised at abour 0.15 cents per kWh.
        Regards GeoffW

        00

      • #
        EyesWideOpen

        @Craig Thomas

        Is this subsidy corrected for the various onerous regulatory costs placed on this industry by the federal and state government beasts in the first place? Or the net taxes that the industry generates for the government treasury from mine to furnace? Or the lessening of welfare payments which tens of thousands of employed workers and their families do not have to claim?

        Claiming that coal mining and burning is economically noncompetitive in an environment where the government kept its hands off, would be like claiming that Communist China chose the worst form of energy to convert a peasant empire into an industrial behemoth in less than thirty years, because they were stupid … and they IMPORTED a heck of a lot of that coal from us rather than digging it up themselves!

        I love the smug leftist approach to the current dilemma: Knock a guy to to the floor with a big stick, then help him up, then tell him that he just wouldn’t be able to stand on his own feet without the help of his benevolent stick wielding fellows. Just remember … at some point this poor tumbling fellow will lose his patience with dear ‘helper’, which is exactly what just happened in the 2016 US Elections.

        The coal mining and burning territory surrounding the so called ‘rust belt’ that was decimated by Obama, created the necessary swing for Trump. From 2015 to 2016, the five largest coal conglomerates in the US went bust because of Obama’s executive pen. If Obama had left the planned destruction of the coal industry to his successor, Clinton would not have lost. We calls this REALITY, in the real world, and Australia always follows Americas lead, just like Kyoto … Turnbull has been put on notice and he knows it.

        The recent Georgia run-off is even more proof that the leftist agenda has been derailed by common sense rising.

        The coal power industry, on the other hand, is very powerful in Georgia: 17 coal-fired generating stations – representing 73% of the state’s coal electric capacity – were built in Georgia during the 1970’s and 80’s, and the most recent was built in 1998. However, in June 2008, a state superior court blocked the air permit for the Longleaf power plant that had been planned for Early County, Georgia; the court, citing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that CO2 is a regulatable pollutant, ruled that Longleaf’s developers had failed to limit CO2 emissions from the proposed plant. The future of this plant – as well as POWER4Georgians’ Washington Plant and Ben Hill Plant – is now uncertain. – Source Watch

        CO2 ***CANNOT*** be regarded as an air pollutant at 400ppm for human safety reasons. This is ludicrous. Particulate pollution is a totally different matter. People are just not going to put up with this lunacy any longer, and Hollywood can pour $50 million into the Georgia state election to support a carpet-bagger, and still lose by a margin of 5%. EPIC FAIL.

        !!! Vive la Industrial Revolution !!!

        40

  • #
    johatk

    Tony,
    Thanks for taking the time for your posts. I’m finding all your posts very instructive and helpful as I am new to all this.

    150

  • #
    Crakar24

    Watching the channel 9 news the stories presented were:

    Aldi are selling kids toys cheaper than anyone else

    This weeks specials at Harvey Norman

    20 minutes of sport

    Obligatory medical breakthrough story

    A koala walks into a restaurant

    The highlight being green heads exploding at the conundrum of cold mornings and warm afternoons.

    What was absent was the news that the US military shot down a Syrian to protect “moderate terrorists” bringing the middle east and probably the world to the brink of war.

    Are there any further questions as to why this country is in the position we find ourselves?

    161

    • #

      Great little story that, and hey, aren’t mobile phones a wonder, a journo for every occasion.

      A koala walks into a restaurant

      Did you see the chef in the background on that story. He had that wistful look on his face, you know that cheffie look ….. I wonder what jus I could serve with that.

      Only jokin’ folks, only jokin’.

      Tony.

      30

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I am interested in the koala. Was it wearing number-ones, for the occasion, or was it in casual dress?

      50

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      the US military shot down a Syrian …

      What type of Syrian?

      Okay, it was a jet bomber (I think), and now they have downed an Iranian drone.

      30

  • #
    Neville

    Matt Ridley’s article in the Spectator May 2017 is an eye opener for anyone who wants to understand about so called renewable energy. He uses IEA data to prove that S&W energy are fra-dulent, unreliable nonsense. Here’s a good point Ridley makes about the inability of S&W to even keep up with world energy demand.

    What a con and Fra-d and yet the true believers ignore the maths, science, data and evidence. This trillion dollar Ponzi mitigation scheme is so easy to understand but Pollies, journalists and so called scientists just continue to ignore the evidence decade after decade.

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/wind-turbines-are-neither-clean-nor-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy-matt-ridley/
    Ridley nails the fra-d here——-
    “Even in rich countries playing with subsidised wind and solar, a huge slug of their renewable energy comes from wood and hydro, the reliable renewables. Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.

    If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

    At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area [half the size of] the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area [half] the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs. [para corrected from original.]

    Do not take refuge in the idea that wind turbines could become more efficient. There is a limit to how much energy you can extract from a moving fluid, the Betz limit, and wind turbines are already close to it. Their effectiveness (the load factor, to use the engineering term) is determined by the wind that is available, and that varies at its own sweet will from second to second, day to day, year to year.

    As machines, wind turbines are pretty good already; the problem is the wind resource itself, and we cannot change that. It’s a fluctuating stream of low–density energy. Mankind stopped using it for mission-critical transport and mechanical power long ago, for sound reasons. It’s just not very good.

    As for resource consumption and environmental impacts, the direct effects of wind turbines — killing birds and bats, sinking concrete foundations deep into wild lands — is bad enough. But out of sight and out of mind is the dirty pollution generated in Inner Mongolia by the mining of rare-earth metals for the magnets in the turbines. This generates toxic and radioactive waste on an epic scale, which is why the phrase ‘clean energy’ is such a sick joke and ministers should be ashamed every time it passes their lips.

    It gets worse. Wind turbines, apart from the fibreglass blades, are made mostly of steel, with concrete bases. They need about 200 times as much material per unit of capacity as a modern combined cycle gas turbine. Steel is made with coal, not just to provide the heat for smelting ore, but to supply the carbon in the alloy. Cement is also often made using coal. The machinery of ‘clean’ renewables is the output of the fossil fuel economy, and largely the coal economy.

    A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.

    Forgive me if you have heard this before, but I have a commercial interest in coal. Now it appears that the black stuff also gives me a commercial interest in ‘clean’, green wind power.

    The point of running through these numbers is to demonstrate that it is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the late David MacKay pointed out years back, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.

    MacKay, former chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said in the final interview before his tragic death last year that the idea that renewable energy could power the UK is an “appalling delusion” — for this reason, that there is not enough land.

    The truth is, if you want to power civilisation with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, then you should focus on shifting power generation, heat and transport to natural gas, the economically recoverable reserves of which — thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — are much more abundant than we dreamed they ever could be. It is also the lowest-emitting of the fossil fuels, so the emissions intensity of our wealth creation can actually fall while our wealth continues to increase. Good.”

    222

    • #
      Peter C

      The David McKay referred to is I believe this one.
      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/18/sir-david-mackay-obituary

      He seemed to be an incurable climate believer but at least he walked the walk himself, by keeping his own carbon footprint quite low. He was able to realise that renewable energy could not work.

      His death from stomach cancer made me wonder if there was a link with being a vegitarian, since I have known of one or two similar cases. My web search did not give any confirmation.

      40

      • #
        EyesWideOpen

        Peter, if leftism leads to early death and a ZERO Carbon Footprint sooner, well, poetry in motion! Livin the dream!

        10

  • #
    pat

    until theirABC management pull the staff into line and insist they give the public factual info on wind and solar, we are doomed. the wind/solar propaganda is on every program, almost daily, so it’s no wonder the public believe these renewables are virtually free.

    this is an odd one:

    20 Jun: Australian: Rachel Baxendale: Gas crisis: challenging times ahead warns Grant King
    Business Council of Australia President Grant King says the Turnbull government needs to realise that the gas supply cannot be turned on and off like a tap, and we’re in for a couple of years of challenging times…
    “What people need to understand about gas is you just don’t go out and turn it on,” he said.
    “You’ve got to invest a lot of capital, and that gets all the way back to this question about creating the right decisions in Australia for people to invest.
    “There’s no point debating that we’re up for a couple of years of quite challenging times. That’s not going to change. It’s not going to open up quickly.”…

    He blamed governments during the late 1990s and early 2000s for prioritising coal investment over gas, which he argued had resulted in the current crisis.
    “In the late 90s and early 2000s business advocated strongly that we had a wonderful gas resource and we should be using that gas resource much more for our power generation because climate change was going to be a real issue and we needed to reduce the carbon intensity of our generation systems,” Mr King said.
    “A lot of work was done around advocating that issue, but at the end of the day three or four new coal-fired power stations were built between 1998 and 2004, mainly in Queensland, and the next generation of power investment went to coal.
    “Economically Australia had a wonderful resource that was stranded by the decision to invest in another generation of coal-fired power stations.”

    Mr King said the gas industry had made the logical move to find another market…
    “Australia said, ‘we don’t want the gas’. The fact that other countries valued that gas in the form of LNG to decarbonise their own systems was to the detriment of Australia,” he said…

    On Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s energy review, Mr King said reliability of energy supply was less of a problem than affordability and reducing carbon emissions, and the Renewable Energy Target was to blame for our current affordability crisis.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/gas-crisis-challenging-times-ahead-warns-grant-king/news-story/9a9a3192d94154891ab855de4ce9c48

    not sure what King is saying re Finkel, or about coal vs gas for that matter. anyone care to comment?

    32

    • #
      Peter C

      Mr King said the gas industry had made the logical move to find another market…
      “Australia said, ‘we don’t want the gas’.

      Well not exactly. In truth in the 1990s we did not need the gas for electricity production. And we still do not need it. New coal is required, then transition to nuclear.

      Gas good for cooking and domestic hot water services.

      50

      • #
        EyesWideOpen

        Amen … government intervention to remedy the negative effects of government intervention!

        Is there any other reason for government intervention?

        It’s like a game of dominoes that has gotten so FUBAR that nobody knows where that first domino was that some politician (a leftist by default) knocked over and claimed to have ‘fixed’ some non-existent problem.

        10

  • #
    Albert

    Cheap energy = coal + uranium and process yellowcake in Australia, not give it away

    111

  • #
    pat

    total rubbish in DM:

    20 Jun: Daily Mail: Bryant Hevesi: Heatwaves in Australia are getting worse and happening more often with the amount of record hot days doubling since 1950 (even if it doesn’t feel like it right now)
    Australians are experiencing more days with record highs, researchers say
    There have also been more days where temperatures have exceeded 35C
    In the last 50 years, days above 35C in Australia have increased by 27 per cent

    Andrew King, a Climate Extremes Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, examined the nation’s increasingly warm weather following a claim on television about Australia’s changing climate, in a piece for The Conversation (LINK).
    Climate Council’s chief executive Amanda McKenzie recently told ABC’s Q&A the nation was witnessing ‘worsening heatwaves [with] hot days doubling in Australia in the last 50 years’.

    Hot days are where the temperature reaches above 35C days – where a new temperature record is set – have indeed doubled and also cited research which showed Australian heat waves were becoming more common…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4620186/Hot-days-Australia-increase-27-cent-50-years.html#ixzz4kX0IcBNQ

    plenty of comments removed; even so, some that remain are sceptical:

    19 Jun: TheConversation: Are heatwaves ‘worsening’ and have ‘hot days’ doubled in Australia in the last 50 years?
    by Andrew King, Climate Extremes Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
    (Disclosure statement: Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science)
    https://theconversation.com/are-heatwaves-worsening-and-have-hot-days-doubled-in-australia-in-the-last-50-years-79337?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton

    40

    • #
      Annie

      Well, that’s codswallop. The last two summers we did not have one day that actually reached 40C and one day each where we nearly reached it. The summer before those was warmer…we usually get a day or two or three that reach 40C. Our first summer back was pretty hot but nothing to what the area experienced in the lead up to Black Saturday.

      I actually dislike excessive heat so I’d be the first to whinge if it became really bad! As it is, difficult as I find the summer, I can’t pretend it’s anything out of the ordinary heat-wise. I’m so fed up with all the exaggeration re. climate going on.

      The alarmists want to try Dubai for real heat, 50C a few days ago, and people just get on with everyday life; thanks to wonderful electricity and a/c in houses and vehicles…thank goodness!

      130

      • #
        toorightmate

        Annie,
        Dubai was tundra until man-made global warming commenced.

        60

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        “The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence.

        Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness.

        The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous”

        Joseph Goebbels, 12 January 1941.
        Die Zeit ohne Beispiel. Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP. 1941, pp. 364-369

        Nothing changes…CAGW anyone?

        20

        • #
          EyesWideOpen

          Baked up at the University of East-Anglia. Al Gore is incorporated with business partner Lord Blood (actual name) in the City of London (GIM LLP), with a subsidiary green-fund on the Isle of Jersey. If alive today, Goebbels would say “HA! Told you so … Conspiracy!”, and sadly, he’d be right. Communal greed is the original conspiracy, and Al Gore knows the best place to set up shop … the regulatory and visibility black-hole of the Square Mile.

          Several partner companies positioned themselves to capitalize on the CCX carbon-trading markets. One was Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management LLP, a London-based firm established in 2004 that invests money from institutions and wealthy investors that are “going green.” GIM planned to purchase lucrative CO2 offsets when anticipated federal government regulations were passed to mandate cap-and-trade.

          Gore’s co-founding partners in the venture are former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) David Blood, along with Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. Bloomberg reported in March 2008 that the investment fund had hit a hard cap of $5 billion, and had been turning away investors.

          GSAM also became the largest CCX shareholder, with about an 18% ownership position. (Al Gore’s GIM–with three former Goldman Sachs cofounders–was the fifth largest.) According to figures released by the Federal Election Commission, Goldman Sachs is also heavily invested in the Obama presidency. Goldman’s PAC and individual contributors made up the campaign’s second-largest donation, nearly $1 million. – Forbes, Dec 2010.

          Malcolm Turnbull … Citizen of Goldman Sachs … in the right crowd to ‘save the Earth’. Donald Trump better look out, most of his finance people in Cabinet are probably packing knives. I’d holiday in mid-March yearly. March 15th will be President-plays-golf-on-his-own-with-body-guard Day.

          10

  • #
    philthegeek

    http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/poll-roundup-few-signs-of-life-for.html

    Essential found that voters said they would on average put up with a 5% price rise to reduce carbon emissions and invest in “new energy supply”, but that few would accept 10%. Newspoll found that voters lean slightly towards an increase on the government’s current renewable energy target, except for One Nation voters who lean slightly towards decreasing or scrapping it.

    20

    • #
      bobl

      And so far we’ve seen 200%, so we are far beyond Australians tolerance for paying to ameliorate an imaginary threat.

      10

  • #
    toorightmate

    I keep hearing about “tipping points”.
    I think $1,000 per month for household power might just be a tipping point.
    Anyone laughing at this probably also believed Kevin Rudd when he said NBN would cost $7 billion and Morrison when he said the bank supertax would not hurt [how are the superannuation accounts going since mid May?].

    30

    • #
      Dennis

      And the when Labor said a super tax on mining company profits would not cause a problem, and that Carbon Tax too would not impact adversely.

      40

  • #
    The Deplorable Vlad the Impaler

    Huh? “For winter it featured a picture of a family all in overcoats and beanies, huddled under an electric blanket.”

    I must be missing something: how is this ‘family’ supposed to run an electric blanket? Does the sun always shine while the wind doesn’t blow, and the wind always blows when the sun doesn’t shine?

    For a small fee, I shall be more than happy to come into someone’s household, and warm it up by reciting the “Gettysburg Address”. About half-way through, most listeners of my oratory are shedding overcoats for swimwear and ice-cold Foster’s, even in mid-July. Y’all hit me back if you want to set up an appointment … … … …

    60

  • #

    Too many people believe that wind and sunlight are ‘free’, and therefore cheap, no matter how much cost there is to extract this ‘free’ energy. Even smart people seem unable to grasp the fact that when it costs so much to extract ‘free’ energy, it’s a bad investment; for everyone.

    120

  • #
    John Watt

    While Ihave not read Mr Finkel’s report I assume he has presented a sound argument for his support of renewables. He certainly has not bothered to tell me where my suggestions for our energy future are at fault. If he has not told us why we need impractical levels of renewables then he is not doing his job. And the same goes for our unwilling-to-face-reality populist political leaders.

    40

  • #
    Mark M

    $1 a year to save the planet.

    2007: Ever since Kevin Rudd falsely said it will cost only $1 a year for 45 years per person to “save the planet”, energy prices have risen.

    “That is that they calculate that between now and about 2045 that you’d be looking at a total impact … in the vicinity of $45 per person over that period of time or something like $1 per person per year.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2076131.htm

    Every year since, Australian politicians have promised the latest tax-payer billion dollar inquiry into energy prices will result in a fall of energy prices.

    Every year since, the inquiries have failed. Energy prices have risen.

    Now, PM Truffles Turnbull, who voted against his own LNP party to support Rudd’s failed “$1 a day” claims, says the latest report will “bring down power prices.”

    Turnbull spent $95K renovating his jetty, but, with the best scientific advice, failed to move it up the hill the 4m projected sea levels will rise unless we cut emissions.

    Turnbull is on record saying that emissions can’t fall without prices rising.
    https://twitter.com/TeamTAbbott/status/875849774141919232

    Turnbull does not behave like someone who comprehends what he is saying.

    Welcome to planet Itsacon. Malcolm Turnbull, PM.

    91

  • #
    Dennis

    It’s not what is best for Australia it seems but what back flips can be avoided to achieve what is best for the government, and the opposition standing alongside in the so called renewable energy politics and wealth creation games;

    The Australian

    DAVID CROWE

    The government is ­preparing to back new coal power stations to prevent a dangerous shortfall in supplies.

    20

  • #
    Another Ian

    For electric car fans – but likely not

    “Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of gasoline driving”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/20/tesla-car-battery-production-releases-as-much-co2-as-8-years-of-gasoline-driving/

    71

    • #
      Dennis

      On television news yesterday a story regarding the cost of running a personal transport vehicle and that SUVs have become the lowest cost option.

      And that electric cars are the most expensive to own and operate.

      31

      • #
        EyesWideOpen

        But if you’re plugging your Tesla into your own personal wind turbine to prove a point, it’s just oh, so, trendy … then the lithium batteries explode pouring a ton of CO2 and toxic gasses into the atmosphere … then you can just blame it on the ‘Russians’ … all virtues retained!

        00

  • #
    David Maddison

    I often explain to people about the REC and how even if a coal power station gave away its electricity for free it would still cost 8 or 9c per kWh and that this money goes directly to an unreliable producer and then off shore to China or elsewhere.

    Can we agree on a clear and unambiguous statement about how this process works and make a meme and also a link on Jo’s site to this?

    Such a statement shoukd also include an explanation and link about how there is no globull warming.

    TdeF often gives an explanation for the first item, perhaps he can do the first draft?

    73

    • #
      Robber

      The Hepburn Springs Wind Farm is a small cooperative. Its 2016 annual report clearly shows the dependence on RECs.
      FY2016 electricity sales $437,210 ($42.73/Mwhr)
      FY2016 renewable energy certificate sales $743,674 ($74.54/MWhr)
      Group EBITDA $793,923 (so essentially all net earnings due to the RECs.
      With the more than doubling of the wholesale price this year undoubtedly their next report will show them making handsome profits.

      70

  • #
    Another Ian

    “A highly misleading article on solar power”

    http://euanmearns.com/a-highly-misleading-article-on-solar-power/

    Via

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/06/dont-be-fooled-.html

    Interesting comments there too

    20

  • #
    Neville

    Ben Santer admits they were wrong about the pause and the models are running too hot. And Mann is part of this new study.
    The Bolter links to Delingpole and it is a very good read. Remember Santer once threatened to bash Dr Pat Michaels because he dared to tell the truth.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/warmist-scientist-admits-our-models-were-wrong/news-story/2948bbe1be32e740e105c15e2341159f

    40

  • #
    Robber

    The RET mandates that 23.5% of electricity must come from wind/solar/hydro by 2020. It’s currently about 15%, therefore something else (coal or gas) must close. Hydro is about 5% and no change is planned.

    Therefore to meet the legislated target, wind/solar must increase from 10% to 18.5%. But they are both intermittent. So back up is needed as Dr Finkel has recommended.

    The Finkel report on page 201 provides estimates of “the levelised cost of electricity.” It shows wind (without back up) $92/MWhr, solar voltaic $91, solar voltaic with storage $138, solar thermal with storage $172, gas $83, supercritical coal $76, ultrasupercritical coal $81/MWhr. These costs exclude grid costs. So when backup is added to wind, it will end up costing about $140.

    Conclusion, new coal is the lowest cost option, and reliable and available 24/7 with poles and wires already in place, but it won’t be built while the RET mandates increased usage of wind/solar and decreased usage of coal/gas.

    Now tell me prices aren’t going to continue to rise. Governments and opposition parties are rapidly driving Australia out of business, and all pollies don’t seem to understand or care.

    110

    • #
      Dennis

      They fully understand what they are doing and are more interested in the international UN based political agenda than what is best for Australia and Australians.

      And both sides, both alternatives for government are on the same page.

      40

    • #
      David Maddison

      Why is USC coal listed as more expensive than SC coal?

      11

    • #
      bobl

      LCOE just estimates the minimum cost energy must be sold to break even. It doesn’t compare like for like, so that $91 or $140 for solar is for unreliable 15% reliable occasional electricity while the $81 for supercritical coal is for 99.95% reliable every moment electricity.

      The cost for reliable renewable energy is around 10-20 times the figures given because that’s the level of overbuild required to guarantee minimum supply levels. Finkel also omits the cost of the poles and wires to transmit the energy within and from renewable generators to the grid, a cost that coal generators DON’T have because they can be built anywhere – usually adjacent to a suitable HV power line.

      The big mistake in all these analyses, and for that matter the green obsession is the failure to compare apples with apples, 99.95% reliable renewable energy (if that’s even possible) with 99.95% reliable fossil fuel energy.

      The same problem comes up unsurprisingly with EVs the efficiency of EVs always seems to omit electrical losses, assuming that the 33% of coals calorific value appear5s magically at the driveshaft, when actually after electrical losses only about 14% does. Invariably some pissant EV gets compared with a ICE with much better performance than the EV, where fairly EV’s should be compared with a variable displacement ICE with energy recovery and shutdown on stop which at typical EV capacity would manage around 2l/100km.

      20

  • #
    Another Ian

    WOW! If somewhat O/T

    “WARMIST SCIENTIST ADMITS: OUR MODELS WERE WRONG”

    “Even leading alarmist Ben Santer, lead author of a paper in Nature Geoscience, now admits the world isn’t warming as predicted by global warming models. Even Michael Mann, who produced the infamous hockey stick, has put his name to this paper.”

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/warmist-scientist-admits-our-models-were-wrong/news-story/2948bbe1be32e740e105c15e2341159f

    50

  • #
    Mark M

    Picking Cherries during the Hottest Year. Evah! …

    California has set a record of 9.7 million 18-pound boxes of cherries in a season just ending.
    The Pacific Northwest is just starting and could top its 23.2 million 20-pound box record of 2014.

    http://www.capitalpress.com/Orchards/20170620/california-sets-cherry-record-big-washington-crop-rolling

    Growing tips: cherries need a cold climate and well-drained soil. The best time to plant them is in winter, when they are bare-rooted.
    http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/fact-sheets/food-and-recipes/food-health-nutrition/cherry-growing-tips-and-recipes/

    In other “cherry-picking” news …

    20 June, 2017: Australian farmers’ record breaking season confirmed at $62.8 billion: ABARES
    ABARES said even with the dip, the figure is still 9 per cent higher than the five-year average to 2015-16.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-06-20/abares-commodity-report-june/8631768

    20

  • #
    TdeF

    The papers are full of Turnbull’s ideas to provide secure energy using coal, while Hazelwood sits idle. Turnbull is going to build a huge water battery to store non existent windmill power from hundreds of kilometers away. He is going to build more efficient coal power stations. He is going to stop gas leaving the country. He is going to do stuff.

    Wouldn’t it be great if the government just left energy alone
    ?

    We would have the world’s cheapest and most plentiful and reliable energy.

    All the problems are caused by the government pleasing their irrational Green friends who worship all things natural at giant fly in conferences in exotic locations. Would someone please tell Turnbull he already enjoys hypocritical coal power? Now if we could only harness the hot air out of Canberra.

    70

    • #
      TdeF

      I would think the RET is driving gas overseas. Just as Hazelwood is no longer buying coal and we in Victoria are deprived of that State income from selling our own coal to ourselves. So why would energy such as coal and gas be fleeing overseas for higher profits? Is it because people are somehow greedy or is it that it cannot be sold profitably in Australia. Is it because the companies who sell gas and coal are getting only 5% of what we pay?

      Consider that until recently the Engie(French) owned Pelican Point gas station in Adelaide closed because it lost $15Million a year.
      Rich premier Weatherill was going to spend $350Million and build his own gas power station. How is that even reasonable when they have one for a mere $15million a year? Now Engie has done a secret deal(?) with Weatherill and is open again. Amazing stuff.

      It is more likely that like coal, gas is simply unprofitbale in Australia. Now presiding over the mess caused by the RET, Turnbull wants to pass laws to make gas companies lose even more money by cancelling exports.

      This is similar in nature to the Labor/Green idea that real costs in rental should not be tax deductible on income earned (no negative gearing). We know that push rentals though the roof. Then pass a law to fix rentals. This is all communist thinking where the state interferes with every aspect of business and people’s lives.

      So the government creates the problem through the RET and then legislates to stop all the consequences while driving gas and coal power businesses to the wall, as intended. From grooming children for LGBIT to closing Catholic schools, closing dog racing (is horse racing next?) our governments are out of control.

      Get the government out of energy and social mores and education. Malcolm’s extreme Liberals make Rudd and Gillard seem reasonable and small government. Then Malcolm’s Carbon Tax is 10x that of Gillard and he wants another big tax as well. When does this government attack on Australia? Who are we trying to please by taxing ourselves and sending it all overseas, jobs, coal, gas, cash? Is Turnbull looking like Gillard and Rudd and Bishop to be part of the UN like NZ’s Helen Clarke? Are there big jobs on offer if they beggar their own country? Labor is bad but Malcolm’s Liberals are now far worse.

      40

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Agreed.

        Interestingly, hydrogen fuel tech seems to be moving along nicely.

        Every time the powers that be try to crush humanity through energy poverty, humanity responds by advancing the tech to get out from under thier completely nhilistic & lunatic overlords….

        Humanity 2, NWO 0.

        10

      • #
        Analitik

        It is more likely that like coal, gas is simply unprofitbale in Australia

        I’d clarify that to say baseload gas is simply unprofitable in Australia.

        The priority market access for “semi-scheduled” generators (I’d really like to know which half is scheduled) ruins the economics for baseload thermal generation whilst the LRET protects the “semi-scheduled” generators from the price dips that they cause. A CCGT can ramp up and down pretty quickly but only if it operates mainly in “open” mode which greatly decreases the efficiency of the plant (and reduces earnings by operating below nameplate, of course) making the return on capital investment pi$$ poor.

        Conversely, peaking gas generation is hugely profitable which is why the SA government proposed gas plant is a 250MW peaking OCGT (simple jet engine), not baseload CCGT, plant
        http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-15/sa-power-what-is-an-aero-derivative-generator/8357496

        00

  • #
    pat

    Reuters/AP consensus – “OVERWHELMING majority” – plus look where this money would go? “ino the Social Security Administration”.

    20 Jun: Reuters: Richard Valdamis: Exxon, BP support Republican elders’ climate proposal
    Major oil companies like Exxon Mobil and BP Plc have thrown their support behind a carbon tax plan proposed by a group of elder Republican statesmen, according to an advertisement published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

    The corporate support for the plan, which would impose a $40 tax on each ton of carbon dioxide produced, follows a decision by President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, a global pact that fights climate change by slashing emissions from burning fossil fuels.

    “This plan would achieve significantly greater emissions reductions than all current and prior climate regulations, while helping America’s businesses and workers get ahead,” according to the advertisement from the Climate Leadership Council.
    The ad bore the corporate symbols of companies such as Exxon, BP, Shell, Total, GM, Johnson & Johnson, and PepsiCo.

    The Climate Leadership Council proposal was co-authored by James Baker, secretary of state during the administration of George H. W. Bush, and George Shultz, secretary of state under Ronald Reagan. The proposed $40 per ton tax on carbon would rise in price over time, and revenues would be paid into the ***Social Security Administration.

    While the plan echoes past attempts by parts of the Republican Party to address climate change, it could be a non-starter…

    An ***overwhelming majority of scientists believe that burning fossil fuels drives global climate change, has raised sea levels and triggered more frequent and powerful storms…
    The full plan carbon tax plan can be seen at http://www.clcouncil.org/ (LINK)
    https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-carbon-tax-idUSL1N1JH0ZH

    full of CAGW propaganda:

    20 Jun: CBS Boston: Debate Heats Up Over Teaching Climate Change In Schools
    By KANTELE FRANKO, Associated Press
    COLUMBUS, Ohio — The struggle over what American students learn about global warming is heating up as conservative lawmakers, climate change doubters and others attempt to push rejected or debunked theories into the classroom.

    An ***overwhelming majority of climate scientists say manmade emissions drive global warming, but there’s no such consensus among educators over how climate change and its causes should be taught…
    http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/06/20/climate-change-teaching-schools/

    10

    • #
      Mary E

      Ahh, the Big Oil/Gas folks have found a new way to secure their future profits (and perhaps improve their image with the less-leftward only-slightly-green Greens) using the government’s fondness for “fixing” problems with other people’s money.

      Finding ways to apply more taxes is a favorite past-time of USAn politicians of all sorts – Republican, Democrat, all the assorted little flavors that pop up now and then. CAGW believers or not, they’d find a way to extract more from the wallet than they did last go-round, and having a handy crisis to hang the need onto is just to easy to pass up. And the support of those who have seen how much money is to be made by investing in these forced “credits” isn’t a sign of belief in CAGW, nor a support of congress-critters, but a barely disguised business-as-usual profit scheme.

      Just when hope was rearing her head, too.

      00

  • #
    Rick

    If you think renewable energy is dear now, wait until it’s free!

    60

  • #
    Frank

    Jo, have you heard about the billion dollar subsidy Adani are fishing for ?

    23

    • #

      Please spell it out Frank. Usually these “subsidies” are really loans or legal tax deductions.

      “Subsidy” is one of the most misused words in modern economics. Is your house loan a subsidy?

      112

    • #
      bobl

      Jo, I think he is probably referring to the billion dollar LOAN being given by the commonwealth to Adani to build a railway line that provides infrastructure that all Australians can use to send freight from the Galilee Basin to the coast. A railway line that in all truth should be built by the commonwealth. It seems to me therefore that its Adani that’s subsidising the commonwealth.

      52

      • #
        bobl

        Ooh a red thumb’s worth +10

        [Have a compensating green one courtesy of your friendly moderator.] AZ

        41

  • #
    pat

    Jill’s with the “OVERWHELMING majority” meme.
    another OVERWHELMING piece of CNN propaganda from start to finish.
    author Jill Filipovic…is a New York attorney, journalist and a liberal/progressive feminist author, ex Guardian columnist, has written for NYT, WaPo & Time (Wikipedia):

    20 Jun: CNN: Jill Filipovic: The Southwest is broiling. Are you paying attention, President Trump?
    Record temperatures. Roads cracking and buckling. Planes that can’t take off. Power knocked out. Wildfires raging. These are just some of the trying conditions currently roiling America’s West Coast, which is in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave…

    And there’s more to come.
    Changing weather patterns are the new normal, thanks to decades of trashing the environment and a refusal from many in the party currently controlling Washington, the Republicans — and their corporate patrons — to even acknowledge climate change as a reality, let alone do anything about it.

    Entire nations may soon be under water…

    But there is virtually no real dissent that the Earth is getting warmer. The ice at the poles of our oceans is melting. Irregular and dangerous weather patterns are increasing. Sea levels are rising.

    We have polluted, depleted and abused this planet so badly that there is much damage that can’t be undone. But there remain ways to rein in the ills we continue to reap — and ways to at least slow our progress toward a chaotic and barren global hellscape…

    Even if you are a climate change skeptic and doubt human agency in this crisis — if you write off the consensus of the ***overwhelming majority of scientists who study this issue — now that we are regularly faced with weather extremes, why not at least entertain the idea that scientists are onto something?
    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/20/opinions/southwest-extreme-heat-climate-change-filipovic/index.html

    20

  • #
    Mark M

    A carbon (sic) tax would be as smart as a tax on people who stand in water.

    20

  • #
    Stan

    When the majority of voters are this insane, we just have to secure our wealth, and start making plans to emigrate.

    10

  • #
    pat

    17 Jun: NoTricksZone: What A Mess! Spiegel Reveals Scientists Don’t Know Real Temperature Of The Planet
    By P Gosselin
    http://notrickszone.com/2017/06/17/what-a-mess-spiegel-reveals-scientists-dont-know-real-temperature-of-the-planet/#sthash.bkEhjoaP.EebSxhM7.dpbs

    2 pages: 20 Jun: Forbes: Ellen R. Wald: The Climate Leadership Council’s Devious Plan To Distract American Carbon Consumers
    Founding businesses include oil companies ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP. Non-energy companies include General Motors, Pepsi and Santander. Founding individuals include Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York; Steven Chu, a former Energy Secretary in the Obama Administration; Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. The website lists the “Distinguished Co-Authors of Carbon Dividends Plan,” the CLC’s founding document, as James A. Baker III and George P. Schultz, both former U.S. Secretaries of State and 87 and 96 years old, respectively…

    If it was not understood from the CLC’s own description, the purpose of this coordination of the powerful is to advocate for a carbon tax…The CLC does not say this, but historically, taxes like this trickle down to the Americans consumers. Consumers will pay for this tax at the pump, on the utility bill or on the airline ticket. It would be felt by all Americans, rich or poor, with a largely regressive impact…

    The CLC’s second step proposes that the money collected from this tax be disbursed to “the “American people” …In other words, “the American people” would be paid back by the government for suffering through higher bills. It is not dissimilar to a convoluted money laundering scheme with a little skimmed off for government agencies. This scheme amounts to a slight of hand to make Americans think they are getting something for free…

    Likely seeing that the power has shifted in D.C., the CLC has placed numerous op-eds and editorials at leading publications—conservative, independent and liberal alike—touting its policy proposal as a “conservative” or “Republican” plan…READ ALL
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2017/06/20/the-climate-leadership-councils-devious-plan-to-distract-american-carbon-consumers/#7b9269a6ad68

    10

  • #
    pat

    19 Jun: ScienceMag: DOE head says carbon dioxide not primary cause of climate change
    By Christa Marshall, E&E News
    Energy Secretary Rick Perry this morning said carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of climate change, stirring the global warming debate ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill this week.
    On CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Perry was asked if he believes CO2 is the main factor driving fluctuating Earth and climate temperatures. He said “no,” adding that he thinks “most likely” the ocean waters and the environment are the main drivers.
    “It shouldn’t be a debate about is the climate change changing, is man having an effect on it. Yeah, we are,” Perry said. “The question should be … just how much and what are the policy changes that we need to make to affect that.”

    He went on to challenge critics of skeptics. It’s quite “all right” to be a skeptic about some of these issues, if one is going to be a “wise, intellectually engaged person,” the former Texas governor said.
    “This idea that science is just absolutely settled, and if you don’t believe it’s settled, then you’re … somehow or another a Neanderthal. That is so inappropriate, from my perspective,” he said…

    Perry has expressed doubts about the CO2 link to climate change before. As a presidential candidate in 2015, he said “the science is not settled on this.”…

    More than 97 percent of climate scientists attribute rising temperatures to human activity, according to NASA…
    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/doe-head-says-carbon-dioxide-not-primary-cause-climate-change

    read all:

    20 Jun: AIM.org: Cliff Kincaid: Why the Russians Conceived the Global Warming Scam
    http://www.aim.org/aim-column/why-the-russians-conceived-the-global-warming-scam/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Email%20Jun-20-2017&utm_medium=email

    10

  • #
    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      There has to be more to come here. Why change their tune when they have almost reached their objective?

      Fear of punishment, perhaps, when Trump drains the swamp? Can the lie not be maintained without the protection of Obama? Just in recent months NOAA issued a bogus “paper” debunking The Pause. That “paper” is under official investigation.

      I’d call this report “smoke”. There has to be fire somewhere.

      00

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      I see Ian @ #32 hs already drawn attention to this.

      00

  • #
    pat

    ???????????????

    21 Jun: Australian: Matt Chambers: Coal can’t compete with renewables: AGL chief Andy Vesey
    AGL Energy chief Andy Vesey, who runs one of the nation’s biggest coal-fired power businesses, says coal cannot compete with renewables, where prices are falling and which he sees dominating baseload power.
    The comments, made to the Australian Energy Week conference in Melbourne this morning, come a day after Malcolm Turnbull flagged potential government-backed investment in new coal-fired power plants.

    “The new baseload for us is going to be large scale renewables, firmed up by open-cycle gas and, eventually, when storage comes down, that’s what it will be,” Mr Vesey, who has said AGL will exit coal but only as plants reach the end of their scheduled lives over the next 30 years, said.
    “Technology is driving this — we don’t see any baseload other than renewables.”
    He said the economics of renewables would continue to come down because of economies of scale…

    “You’ll hear people say, ‘no coal can compete’,” Mr Vesey said.
    “But I’ve looked at the numbers and come to decisions (that) are going to direct billions of dollars of investment. I’ve looked at it pretty hard.”
    The energy boss said the more wind and solar components that were made, the faster the price would continue to fall.
    “Large coal plants, super critical and even carbon capture and storage, the more you make, the cheaper you get, but guess how many you have to make?” he said, adding the cost of coal plants had hardly moved in the past 20 years.

    Mr Vesey, who has previouslybacked an emissions trading scheme, conceded batteries remained high cost, which was why some sort of transition scheme was needed…

    He did not take questions or speak to reporters after his speech.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/coal-cant-compete-with-renewables-agl-chief-andy-vesey/news-story/8f488b5adbf61735ea85e01c267aad36

    00

    • #
      bobl

      Yes Pat,
      AGL more than any sees the bucks in selling certificates so they are doubling down on that plan. They don’t care that it doesn’t actually supply any baseload, the holy buck is king.

      00

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Selling rets is like selling promissory notes……

        Fractional green “loans” making money out if thin air with nothing suvstantial to back its value?

        00

  • #
    Neville

    Gosh, Rudd was about as good a forecaster as Flannery. If only the cost was just 1 $ a year, but Rudd was as lousy a projectionist as he was a PM. JUST LOUSY.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/rudd-claimed-warming-policies-would-cost-just-1-per-day/news-story/ef58777eeb2194b3681335d681ad563a

    Here’s the Rudd quote from Kerry O’Brien’s interview on their ABC.

    KERRY O’BRIEN: Then come back to my question, how will it impact on the coal industry in terms of jobs?

    KEVIN RUDD: In terms of the whole economy what the modelling from MMA demonstrates is that the total impact on the economy will be marginal over time. That is that they calculate that between now and about 2045 that you’d be looking at a total impact on the economy of somewhere between $600 and $800 million or something in the vicinity of $45 per person over that period of time or something like $1 per person per year.

    00

  • #
    Dennis

    The Australian

    Coal can’t compete: AGL Chief

    12:19PMMATT CHAMBERS
    AGL chief Andy Vesey has said that coal can’t compete with renewables, which he believes will dominate baseload power.

    (the Chief announced a few months ago that AGL would be investing only in renewables)

    20

    • #
      Dennis

      …. translation: Our shareholders demand the best return on their funds possible and while taxpayer’s monies are paid out by governments to subsidise so called renewables the profits are better than on coal fired or gas fired power stations.

      Management recommends renewables, our profit margin applied to $100 at 10% is a far better result than $20 at 10%

      60

      • #
        Neville

        Yes, and remove the ongoing funding from the poor bloody taxpayers and their entire PONZI scheme falls in a heap.

        60

  • #
    pat

    conservative Republican Karen Handel just won the Georgia special election that FakeNewsMSM/pollsters said the Democrat Ossoff would win.
    that’s 4-0 to Republicans in special elections since Trump became President.
    when Handel thanked the President in her victory speech, the crowd went wild, chanting Trump, Trump, Trump…

    poor old Nate, lots of mocking on this thread:

    Twitter: Nate Silver: It means there’s a 70% chance Ossoff wins and a 30% chance that MATH IS DEAD AND DATA IS BROKEN.
    REPLY: GT: Nate are you sure you’re not a weatherman? Always wrong but still manage to keep your job. BTW what’s the 5-day looking like?
    https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/875112655836643328

    Fox joined in the “referendum on Trump” meme
    checked Fox post-election coverage an hour ago, and they had a pollster claiming polls weren’t really wrong. almost everyone else in the studio was saying Trump can’t really get any credit for Handel’s win and, besides, he’s very unpopular.

    Democrats March on Georgia: Special Election in Atlanta Suburbs Becomes a Referendum on President Trump
    Fox News – ‎19 hours ago‎
    Against Mr. Ossoff her (Handel’s) greatest liability has less to do with her than with President Trump.

    Nation watches Georgia special election, seen as referendum on Trump
    CBS – 20 June 2017

    High-Stakes Referendum on Trump Takes Shape in a Georgia Special Election
    New York Times – ‎Jun 18, 2017‎

    Georgia’s Special Election: A Referendum on Trump
    Wall Street Journal – 16 Jun. 2017

    Polls close, rain pours in Georgia’s ‘Trump referendum’
    Reuters.com-4 hours ago

    A referendum on Trump’s presidency? Politicos watching tight Georgia election for clues
    CBC- ‎18 hours ago‎
    The most expensive House race in U.S. history ends with the voting Tuesday night in a special election…

    don’t believe polls.
    don’t believe President Trump – despite the relentless 24/7 negative MSM coverage for months – is necessarily unpopular, or as unpopular as the “SWAMP” claims.
    btw Rasmussen has his approval rating at 50% this week.

    similarly, I wouldn’t believe the following which is all over our MSM today:

    Australians May Not Like Trump, But They Value the US
    Bloomberg-18 minutes ago
    Sixty percent of Australians say Trump has caused them to have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S., according to the 2017 Lowy Institute Poll

    10

    • #
      toorightmate

      Lowy Institute poll didn’t ask me about:
      less gun sales
      lower crime rate less police being killed
      lower unemployment
      DJIA up 15%
      more business investment
      less illegal immigration
      etc
      etc
      etc
      All in the USA since Trump was elected.
      It seems that the USAis getting great again, despite the swamp being deeper and more infested than anyone could have imagined.

      31

      • #
        pat

        toorightmate –

        Lowy’s polls are always telling us “believable” stuff like:

        2 Jun: Lowy Institute Poll: Majority of Australians say climate change a critical threat to Australia’s vital interests
        As the Trump administration in the United States announces its decision about the US participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change, findings from the 2017 Lowy Institute Poll show that the majority of Australians see global warming as a serious problem and a critical threat to Australia’s vital interests.
        https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/majority-australians-believe-global-warming-serious-problem

        as for their latest “poll”, we are constantly being told voters all over the place are sick of politics as usual, that we hate the traditional parties, etc., so how come we don’t like a larrikin like Trump?

        I recall one of theirABC’s Tony Delroy’s last “Issues of the Day”. it was on globalisation. I could hardly believe every single caller I heard was ANTI-GLOBALISATION, and sounded pretty much like Trump on the campaign trail. I also know a lot of people who love him for exposing the corruption of the MSM, withdrawing from Paris, etc., so I don’t believe today’s Lowy Poll on Trump at all.

        check this pic of the CNN mob when it was clear Karen Handel had won the Georgia election. so embarrassing, yet nothing will change. the MSM is dead:

        PIC: TWEET: ColumbiaBugle: CNN cut from Karen Handel’s victory speech, to make us listen to these unhappy losers #GA06
        https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/877358915796606976

        00

  • #
    Egor the One

    We are fast becoming a nation of idiots.
    Here we are leading the crusade on gloBull warming, much to our own economic detriment that will achieve zero .
    In fact the slight warming we seek to eradicate is beneficial.

    We are forced to use windmills and solar increasingly without base load back up .
    We need, and will need power on demand, not try and match our demand to wild fluctuations of gusty wind conditions for wind mills and partially clouded over days for solar that create extreme spikes in their power outputs.
    Without efficient power storage capability for intermittents such as solar and especially wind, they are useless except as supplemental only and in low single digit percentages to total grid output.
    That is 5% maximum, not a suicidal 50%,42%(the Foinkel), or even 23%.

    This stupidity, on a small scale, is similar to running a generator with no power regulator/governor.
    Imagine trying to run a TV off of such a generator as it speeds up and slows down ,spikes, stops all together, then spikes…….an unusable catastrophe, which is increasingly what is happening to our grid, thanks to governMENTAL energy policy gross mismanagement.

    All this junk needs to be dumped, and reliable continuous new coal power plants brought online, just like China, India, Japan, America, and Russia are currently doing!

    20

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I blame smartphones – they give a lot of dim people a voice who contribute little except a form of white noise. And it creates the illusion of intellect by being able to search through a search engine.

      A real challenge would be shut off the data network for a while then see how they go.

      10

  • #
    crakar24

    Did not get a response from my letter as per comment #1 however there was a letter in the “guest editorial” section from Andrew Bray national coordinator Australian Wind alliance he used to live up Yonniestones way but now resides in Canberra (hmmm closer to green central do I smell a senate run just around the corner?)

    Anyway he wa saying “If coal actually was the cheapest source of power you could almost understand the gov support”, the title reads “Protecting coal industry at our expense” his main point is wind is cheapest so lets build even more in order to cut power prices. My response is below and am looking for spelling and grammatical corrects, alerts to logical fallacies and ideas for improvement, bear in mind I am already over the word limit.

    TIA

    Peak stupid yet? No not quite
    Mr Bray writing from his home in Canberra tells South Australians wind is the cheapest form of power generation available, therefore by logical extension as we shut down the Playford and Hazelwood plants and continue to build more wind plants our bills should be the cheapest in the country, they are in fact the dearest, why is this so?
    It is so because the Large scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) reaches into the wallets of every Australian and deposits that money into foreign bank accounts on behalf of the Wind farm operator.
    Each year South Australians pay around 450 million dollars into this scam via very high power bills, we would probably not mind if it was a tax because at least then the money would appear on the government books and I am sure many South Australians could benefit from this money. However it’s not a tax, the government does not see this money it leaves the country and is never seen again.
    The rules of the power generation market have been changed to greatly assist the wind farm operators and hobble the coal and gas generators that’s why Playford and Hazelwood shutdown, the last straw for Hazelwood was when the Victorian premier tripled the royalties cost for digging the coal out of the ground. Hazelwood could produce one kilo watt/hour at less than 4 cents which was sold to the consumers by the “market” at over 30 cents and they could still not make a profit due to green tape. This is not wind farming its subsidy farming. The title of your letter “Protecting coal industry at our expense” is beyond laughable and displays a high level of ignorance.
    I acknowledge many people believe a molecule which accounts for a mere 0.04% of atmospheric composition and vital to the sustainment of life on Earth needs to be drastically reduced in order to change the weather. A belief based on some bizarre notion it traps heat like a blanket but surely even these people could not possibly agree to the nationwide subsidy transfer of over one billion dollars annually to these foreign companies?
    Australia currently produces a mere 1.3% of all human CO2 emissions, 30% of that 1.3% are from power generation. We could have built new coal plants called HELE, these plants burn 40-45% less coal per kilo watt so we would have seen the same reduction in emissions. This would have given us cheap power, infrastructure investment a massive boost to state economies plus considerably reducing CO2 emissions but this idea was rejected by the believers in heat trapping blankets. The coal we export goes to the HELE plants in China, Japan and very soon Indonesia, they use our coal to provide cheap reliable power for their people and they don’t freeze during winter whilst we sit with blankets and beanies and hope the wind picks up.
    Peak stupid is not here yet but it is coming so get ready.

    71

  • #
    pat

    Global demand for coking coal set to revive Cumbria mining
    Financial Times-19 Jun. 2017
    Global demand for coking coal set to revive Cumbria mining

    FT behind paywall, but Carbon Brief has this excerpt:

    FT: West Cumbria Mining plans to extract high value metallurgical — or coking — coal used for steelmaking, using existing tunnels at a disused drift mine to access undersea resources off the coast of St Bees Head. “Metallurgical coal was the best performing commodity of 2016,” said Mark Kirkbride, their chief executive. “There is no source of it in Europe.

    can hardly believe Mooney has written the following…read all:

    19 Jun: WaPo: Chris Mooney: A bitter scientific debate just erupted over the future of America’s power grid
    In 2015, Stanford professor Mark Jacobson and his colleagues argued that between 2050 and 2055, the United States could be entirely powered by “clean” energy sources and “no natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed.”

    That would be a massive shift from the current power makeup, as in 2016, the United States got only 6.5 percent of its electricity from hydropower, 5.6 percent from wind and 0.9 percent from solar. Nonetheless, the paper excited proponents of renewable energy, and has been embraced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, celebrity backers such actor Mark Ruffalo and many environmental groups.

    But Jacobson’s idea was always contentious (LINK). And now, no fewer than 21 researchers have published a study in the influential Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which also published Jacobson’s original study in 2015) arguing that the work “used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions.”…

    The fight between researchers comes as the Trump administration has signaled it does not believe the nation’s electric grid can support a quick and thorough shift toward renewable energy, as Jacobson suggests that it can…

    The debate is crucial because, while it’s great to talk about wind and solar in theory, the reality is that the electrons that they generate have to be sent through wires and transmission stations to satisfy needs at particular places and at particular times — or else, we’ll have to come up with a way of storing electricity on a large scale, which remains a mostly unsolved problem right now…

    And critics have contended that while you can add some wind and solar to the grid without any problem, if you add too much, it can be destabilizing and the electric grid will always require some “baseload” sources of energy, such as nuclear or coal or gas, which generate power continuously, rather than intermittently depending upon the availability of the sun or the winds…READ ALL

    (Christopher Clack was previously with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory and the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences while authoring the paper, but now works with Vibrant Clean Energy)
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/19/a-bitter-scientific-debate-just-erupted-over-the-future-of-the-u-s-electric-grid/?utm_term=.8b735eb19107

    10

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Very much worth a read….I agree the mask has slipped off and Conservative values are under direct assault through any means necessary….

    Maurice Newman speaks truth.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/masks-slip-to-reveal-the-ugly-face-of-the-future/news-story/2620a5023a6ae253109beded9df1f6c8?nk=c6f6c650c74b6b235a2ef01ce561d20d-1498032295

    00

  • #
    David Maddison

    I just heard this appalling doom and gloom interview on Their ABC. The end-of-the-world statements are bad even by the low standards of warmists. I recommend listening to it.

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/climate-risk/8638802

    QUOTE

    IMAGE: DRY SOIL LEFT AFTER A SEVERE DROUGHT (CSIRO) LINK TO LARGER IMAGE.
    Within weeks, it’s estimated an iceberg roughly twice the size of the ACT, will break off from Antarctica.

    Meanwhile, on America’s west coast, a scorching heatwave is causing massive power outages and prompting flight cancellations

    A new report from Breakthrough Centre For Climate Restoration, argues major weather and climate events such as these are intensifying with global warming.

    It also states that the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, will experience some of the worst impacts of climate change.

    END QUOTE

    32

    • #
      bobl

      Lets see, an iceberg breaks off in Antarctica because of ice pushing glaciers down into the ocean – ice being FROZEN water – implying it’s COLD is caused by the same forces causing a heat wave in America implying it’s HOT. Wasn’t it Lewandowski that suggested that holding two opposing views simultaneously about the climate was a sure mark of a conspiracy theorist?

      40

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Meanwhile, on America’s west coast, a scorching heatwave is causing massive power outages and prompting flight cancellations

      What scorching heat wave? So it’s hotter than usual somewhere. Hotter than usual has been the usual for all of my life and no doubt will continue to be the usual long after I’m gone.

      People have short memories and far too much willingness to believe some moronic story about the weather and mix it all up with the climate which hasn’t changed enough to notice since the little ice age.

      Our power problem, if any, is self inflicted and we could start tomorrow on construction of new generating capacity if we were by some random chance smart enough to think of that obvious solution.

      20

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        And of course if there is any supporting data in all that you need to know the magic key to finding it.

        No data equals no credibility. But it will be believed nonetheless.

        20

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Why would hotter than usual weather prompt flight cancellations? Heat would only be a problem if you have runway lengths that are already marginal for takeoff and landing. Runways 24 left and right are marginal at LAX but runways 25 left and right are not. Maybe the traffic volume causes problems if 24 isn’t usable but that’s already a problem anyway.

        But where is the temperature data supporting this claim?

        20

      • #
        Mary E

        West Coast? It’s in Phoenix, Arizona, which sits between New Mexico (clue) and Baja California (another clue) and just north of (big clue) Mexico. It’s a southern state, located to the west side of the US, yes, but mostly -southern- in nature. Also, lots of dry desert there. Hot dry desert.
        Certain planes don’t fly well in the heat – and temps are over 100, maybe will hit 118, degrees F – not unheard of there in the summer.

        00

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          In August, 1993 I arrived at my motel in Scottsdale, Arizona at about 5:30 PM. The temperature was 117 ° F (47 ° C) then but had been higher during the day. It was 122 ° in Blythe, California when I stopped for lunch about 2:00 PM. My son lived in the Phoenix area for several years and temperatures of 120 ° and higher are not uncommon.

          At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport the runways are long enough for the airplanes that use them and as far as I know, fights are not cancelled because of heat. A scheduled air carrier would be foolish to try to run summer flights in airplanes that can’t fly in the usual summer temperatures because cancelled flights are bad for business.

          You are correct about aircraft not doing as well in the higher temperature but that’s a limitation on everything that flies. Nothing can escape that problem. But Sky Harbor is at about 1,100 feet elevation and with runways over 11,000 and 10,000 feet long it can handle most many jet aircraft on the hottest days.

          00

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            All right, I finally found an announcement of the cancelled flights. It’s on a BBC site no less.

            10

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Iowe you an apology, Mary.

            But 120 is not an unusual temperature in Phoenix. Shame on an air carrier that runs planes that are grounded at temperatures regularly found at a major airport.

            But here’s the explanation.

            The local Fox News affiliate in Phoenix said the cancellations mostly affected regional flights on the smaller Bombardier CRJ airliners, which have a maximum operating temperature of about 118F (48C).

            Actually by the way, the limitation is density altitude or just call it air density. Density altitude is the equivalent altitude of an airport at standard atmospheric pressure and temperature, barometer reading 29,92 and an assumed standard sea level temperature, which I have forgotten, which will be higher than the elevation at Phoenix because of the heat having caused lower air density.

            Looks like the major carriers can still operate.

            20

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    In this Through the Looking Glass world within Alice’s Looking Glass World, logic is inoperative. All one need to do now is to have your contradictory statements separated by white space. This allows the meaning attached to the words to mutate according to the whim of both the source and target of the communication.

    Since you really can’t know what is or isn’t real, the ever shifting intent behind the words is all there is. Reality is now nothing but a social construct with no possible connection to anything real. Words refer to the ever shifting foggy miasma of subjective intent within the mind of the sacred collective. If you do not submit to the will of that collective, you are to cease to exist as an individual by any means necessary. Resistance is futile.

    You say, humans cannot continue to live and thrive if this is the case. That is the point.

    21

  • #
    Crakar24

    Just watched standard rubbish on ABC

    First wheel in the pensioners to establish there is a power bill crisis then conduct a witch hunt to find the guilty.

    Usual excuses, poles and wires, give selling gas o/s. No mention of lret etc, then bring in the numbers guys who predict prices will drop over the next 3 years. One did say we have installed 3 x Hazelwood capacity and now generate 50% worth so lies by omission. They did acknowledge coal shutdowns had an effect on prices but still a long way from the truth……lying b….s

    21

    • #
      Another Ian

      Check what wind energy contributed today

      http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy

      Particularly for Vic and SA

      00

      • #
        Analitik

        The whole month is instructive if you look at it on a day by day basis. The correlation between the SA windfarms (mostly in the east) and the Victorian windfarms (mostly in the west) is something that regularly escapes the notice of the “always blowing somewhere” crowd.

        When this last fortnight’s weather pattern repeats in July, it will be most interesting (for those outside SA)

        00

  • #
    Crakar24

    Forgot the firelighters again, trying to start with old newspapers is very difficult but down to zero tonight so shall persist

    00

  • #
    Neville

    The Bolter shows how we were conned about their CAGW claims and how they blew out our electricity prices. This is nothing short of corrupt-on and fra-d and they should be charged.
    And no measurable change to temp at all. Even Finkel admitted at the recent senate hearing that OZ could cancel all our emissions and it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Watch the Bolt video, definitely one of his best editorials.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/three-ways-we-were-conned-into-destroying-our-electricity-system/news-story/07277c4f228ac0cfe33690a90926546a

    10

  • #
    Dave in the States

    It is much the same everywhere, so don’t feel too bad. The problem is the main steam media and their allies in academia. It is not only the disinformation they report but it is all the lying by omission. People just don’t have correct facts at their disposal to be aware.

    10

  • #
    Rupert Ashford

    As a recent enough arriver that can still “look from the outside” I’d say this country has never really had a totally free market and that’s why “the serfs” are easier to fool.

    00

  • #

    Hi Jo, like David I am an electrical engineer. For over 40 years my day job has been power system engineering. I have been somewhat dismayed by the incessant push for intermittent and unreliable forms of generation destabilising power grids around the world. It seemed that many folk, while they know the problem, they might not understand the physical realities of the grid, how it maintains power balance, etc. I have written a series of articles at my blog, http://www.kiwithinker.com describing in hopefully not too complex terms, some of the magic. Two important components are the synchronously connected inertia defining the rate of frequency change for a power imbalance, and the use of governor control of the prime mover to restore the frequency and power balance. Feel free to steal what you like from Kiwithinker, to share with your readers here.

    30