What’s the word for competitive-but-needs-a-subsidy? Broke…
One hundred solar PV companies are forecast to collapse in Japan this year alone.
Up to 100 solar PV firms in Japan could face bankruptcy this year, with more than double the number of firms going bust in the first half of this year than the same period in 2016.
According to corporate credit research company Teikoku Databank, which surveys companies across various industries and has produced its third report on solar PV company bankruptcies, 50 companies in Japan’s solar sector have already gone out of business in the first six months of 2017.
While the market overall has rapidly expanded from the launch of the feed-in tariff (FiT) in July 2012, Teikoku Databank acknowledged that there has been a slowdown in deployment in the past couple of years as the government successively made cuts of 10% or more on an annual basis to the premium prices paid for solar energy fed into the grid.
Bankruptcies have doubled in the industry since last year.
Meanwhile Japan plans to build at least 45 HELE Coal Plants.
Check out the map of “coal in versus coal out” in Japan. For a dying technology things are not looking too shabby.
Thanks to the EndCoal Tracker 🙂
Current operating coal fired plants in Japan, 2017.
Current operating coal fired plants in Japan, 2017.
Coal seems to be doing just fine.
h/t Marvin.
PS: The EndCoal Tracker is published by “CoalSwarm“. Where the global EndSolarSubsidies Tracker? All that fossil fuel funding, and no activist group to track the parasites?
Strange, with renewables supposddly so cheap?
441
Cheaper than coal, at least according to Alan Kohler on June 24th 2017.
In his address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Chief Scientist Alan Finkel said: “Ever cheaper wind and large-scale solar, even without subsidies, are dominating investor interest. Investors prefer wind and solar because they are now cheaper to build than traditional generation such as hydro and coal.”
Finkel was backed up on the same day by the CEO of AGL Energy, Andy Vesey, who said: “We don’t see anything baseload other than renewables.”
To be fair Finkle actually said
“Investors prefer wind and solar because they are now cheaper to build than traditional generation such as hydro and coal.”
This is all about the RET. With the RET you get 9c kw/hr just for producing electricity, without even selling it! Plus retailers are obliged to buy for another 9c and sell it on for double?
Cheap to build, windmills are giant money pumps, straight out of the wallets of Australian consumers. No government involved. Pure cash. Of course investors love them! No subsidy however. Ha. Ha. Ha. Money for nothing then? Actually, yes.
580
So a few people can get together, form a company, buy a windmill or two and start pumping gold. Government guaranteed returns, a tax on all their neighbours. Put in a solar system at home. The other electricity customers will pay half and then you get to charge them for power you do not want! What a hoot! All brought to you by useless renewables.
500
These are people who could not dream of building a huge clean coal power station. The environment regulations alone would kill them. Power stations have to be absolutely clean. It makes it very hard for Greens to complain.
Too bad about the CO2 though. Where bonding CO2 with water and sunlight is good. Hydrated Carbon Dioxide (CO2)m(H2O)n, carbohydrates or as Green activists prefer ultimately hydrocarbons. Converting them back to release the solar energy changes the same CO2 and H2O into industrial pollutants. You would not believe how much money there is in CO2. A new invisible gold rush. $1,500Billion a year currently.
340
Just as the closure of Hazelwood was a tipping point in our energy market, construction of a new coal fired station would bear very heavily on every supplier’s business plan.
There is no way to build or even plan a new coal fired station that does not involve massive further corruption of the market. Troublesome though it would be in the short term, we would ultimately be better off if they abolished all government intervention in the electricity market.
Start by abolishing the RET.
210
The electricity market is artificially horridly distorted by the RET.
Remove the RET, the whole renewables thing collapses.
Remove the RET, and the Big Lie collapses.
If the govt doesnt remove the RET, the govt will cause the collapse single handedly of Australias economy through making it uneconomical for businesses to be here.
Could you call it wilful sabotage?
And if so, can the govt be prosecuted?
Bring on Climate Nuremberg…..
180
Been there, done that.
Already suggested byBill Nye, and Eric Idle, and Attorney General Lynch.
Not sure its the answer though. It would be nice to hold them all personally responsible for the Trojan horse of “climate change” and its wanton destruction of progress (irony: in the name of Progressivism), and prosperity. Their time will come. They will reap what they sow, the final demise of the Left masquerading as the Globocult. That will be satisfying enough.
50
All brought to you by eco-dogma.
120
TdeF @#1.1.
These bankruptcies are a natural sequence of incentivizing subsidies. But you mentioned Alan Kohler’s story. Robert Gottliebson came out with the same very assertive meme at the same time. It struck me that there has to be a reason.
My guess is that they calculated the losses that would incur on investments already made should the RET be abolished, and got an awful shock. Many of the affected investors would be super funds. Also many of those investments would have been made on advice, making losses very embarrassing for advisors.
140
You have to wonder if anyone appreciates the impact of the RET. Malcolm talks of new “emissions” taxes. Government departments (apparently) are inventing new massive taxes on CO2 emissions from vehicles, taxes which even cripple the Prius and add $5000 to each new car. You would think the RET did not exist. Either all the politicians and commentators are completely ignorant or they think the public is. They might be right. Does the public really associate the high prices with the direct subsidy/reward system which is the RET.
Even Tony Abbott and John Howard think the ‘Target’ should be dropped, Bill Shorten thinks it should go up, when in law the ‘target’ is not the problem. The means of achieving that target with punitive taxes/subsidies is. As far as I can tell there is no connection between the target and electricity prices.
This situation is all achieved by the RET which was designed to deceive and shut coal and gas power and replace it with renewables by making coal and gas increasingly unaffordable. That is working as designed, as is the deceit of the RET, the world’s biggest carbon tax, which is deliberately and deceitfully and possibly improperly neither about Carbon or a tax. Carbon is not even mentioned.
Alan Kohler talks about something else. He does not mention the RET. Even a pundit like Alan may be confused by the Energy Market, state subsidies etc. Barnaby Joyce says he will not tolerate a Carbon Tax. How does he reconcile this position with the RET? Ignorance. Deceit. Chicanery. The world’s biggest Carbon tax by far and the Deputy PM denies its existence?
Dec 5 2016
“Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce says the Liberal and Nationals’ policy on a carbon tax is quite clear – neither supports it.”
Can he justify the $6Bn a year tax on ‘fossil fuels’ then? Is that a tax or a mandatory direct subsidy? What is it Mr Joyce and who pays it? It is not in your budget, so it is not a Tax?
140
Race fixing is illegal…except if the powers that be do it…..
40
Thanks for your ongoing explanations about how the RET works TdeF but I think an explanation needs to be developed into a meme that can be widely posted on social media.
I think very few people, not politicians, industry leaders or the sheeple understand how it works. Finkel himself probably did not understand it.
If people understood how it worked it would be ended overnight.
Also, we are constantly being told that renewables are cheaper. We can promote that to our advantage by saying if they are cheaper then they don’t need subsidies. (We could say coal needs subsidies if it is more expensive, LOL!)
One person that did understand it was the evil genius that wrote this nation-destroying legislation.
It has to end or Australia will soon be doomed. It really is that serious.
90
Does anyone know which public serpent did actually write the legislation?
30
How the RET works 101.
The Federal Government has legislated a requirement that by 2020 23.5% or 33,000 GWhr of electricity must come from “renewables” – wind/solar/hydro. This is called the Renewable Energy Target. The total supply of renewables is currently about 14.2% and each year there is a progressive increase in the target. As there are no plans for further hydro, wind/solar must increase from about 8% today to 17-18% by 2020, so over a doubling in supply over the next three years.
The RET creates a financial incentive for the establishment or expansion of renewable energy power stations, such as wind and solar farms or hydro-electric power stations. It does this by legislating demand for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs). One LGC can be created for each megawatt-hour of eligible renewable electricity produced by an accredited renewable power station. LGCs can be sold to entities (mainly electricity retailers) who surrender them annually to the Clean Energy Regulator to demonstrate their compliance with the RET scheme’s annual targets. The revenue earned by the power station for the sale of LGCs is additional to that received for the sale of the electricity generated.
So the RET is not a tax, because the government collects no revenue. However, the legislation mandates the awarding of LGCs to “renewable” generators and the purchase of those LGCs by retailers so that their cost is added to electricity bills.
40
Here is a quick guide to the RET :
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/3165168/upload_binary/3165168.pdf;fileType=application/pdf
John
20
Share price is set by net-earnings/share. Do the comparison without subsidies and the result is very different.
The only investors who buy in are technically-ignorant.
90
Ted O’Brien:
The government would be exposed to law suites if it abandonned the RET. Whether they would succeed is another thing, but with so many Union controlled Superannuation funds feeding in the trough (and handing money to the Labor Party) you can be certain that Shorten will be wailing like mad.
The only solution I can see is to stop issuing LGCs under the RET to new entries. This will provoke howls from the Greens but who cares. It will also stop Weatherdill and Dopey Dan from causing further damage to the system.
110
You are exactly correct.
Check out – TTIP : Might is right.
TTIP is ISDS : “investor-state dispute settlement”.
Investors / Corporations who sign these agreements can sue a country / government for loss of profits if any change of policy / law occurs that affects that corporations profits.
Is this why in Australia the Governements are so hell bent on continuing this destructive renewable energy targets – RET’s. for fear of being sued.???
10
Truly, it is stupidity that is renewable.
110
jorge, may I steal (re-use) this? It is brilliant.
40
… and getting cheaper by the minute, as we are constantly assured by the fairies who dwell at the bottom of the garden!
40
They are becoming cheaper by the month a zealot told me.
20
See how they run
when the subsidy
is gone, ’twill
be fun to see
’em run. Turnbull,
Weatherill, Andrews
et (big) al, yo’all
take heed now,
for solar’s on
a slow-down
in Japan.
200
Sunlight like the wind is free. But, both require large subsidies to stay in business. Oops, should have known thee is no free lunch.
230
Also coal is free. Gas is free. Even gas from fracking is free. It is just the cost of ‘harvesting’. Plus the reliability of the source.
Wind is unreliable and you sunshine is guaranteed not there for most of the day and often not available for the rest.
Now there is talk of a ‘wind drought’. Obviously due to Climate Change? I thought the weather was going to be ‘worse’ in every imaginable way and we are now faced with no wind? That shows you how cunning and evil CO2 really is. Wind truly is Goldilocks power.
310
Exactly TdeF. All sources of power are free until you try to use them to make power. It is taking the free sources of energy and building a technology to harvest usable power from them. From this perspective no source of energy is free, it just has potential to make energy if we wrap it up in the required technology.
Seems to me that subsidizing one energy source and then claiming it is cheaper than one you don’t subsidize is giving one customer change for a $100 bill (the subsidized one) and when the non-subsidized energy source wants change for their $100 bill you give them change for a $10 dollar bill. And if you don’t like it they can keep your change and tell you to get out. Only the government could get away with a racket like that.
One link that should always be examined is who the landowner is who makes a bundle from wind or solar on their property and who in government voted for the wind or solar project. Would be nice to know the income of both parties and if any money changed hands. Somehow all public projects must be subjected to 100 percent transparency and to 100 percent accountability.
80
Best news I’ve heard all day.
130
97% of creepy globalist deviants prefer solar for its super-rich subsidies and ultra-mild output.
291
What are you smoking?
10
The choice of the fake-tanned international jet set at COP: Craven Image, with king-size guilter and pious aroma.
40
I sincerly hope Engie and Mitsui are doing what they did with Pelican Point, playing possum. I suspect a few governments will soon be paying big dollars for them to restart Hazelwood, like the $500Million that was paid to keep going while losing money. All without telling the public.
Even better, with the end of the RET, we the actual people of Victoria, not Daniel Andrews, would like to see Hazelwood upgraded to HELE technology simply because it would use less coal and make our precious resource last longer. That is really why every country is upgrading, except Australia which is blowing in the wind.
310
One Au academic is working on coal boiler augmented with hydrogen and oxygen. It uses a lot of electricity to do the water electrolysis but reaches a high furnace temperature and thus produces more electricity (with the right turbine set).
50
That sounds to be thermodynamically implausible at first glance.
30
Too late for Hazelwood. It’s destruction of it and the associated mine is well underway.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/hazelwood-power-station-decommissioning-underway/8520924
20
Land of rising sun
likes its solar fossilized.
Ol’ King Coal is chuffed.
140
Can some knowledgeable person calculate how much extra CO2 is produced by carrying around LiO battery ?
An averaged number for 1 person/km could be useful, maybe some other figure to compare apples with apples…
Admittedly, Tesla 2 weighs only 2.1 tons (due to clever measures taken by car designers).
Still it is 1/2 ton more than a comparable petrol sedan.
I need this figure to estimate which end of the world happen first – through entropy growth or Earth cooked at 16.5 deg C annual temperature.
Thanks in advance,
Vladimir
31
Sorry, I’m busy. Try asking Elon Musk.
90
The battery enables regenerative braking. That provides a huge energy saving when driving in traffic. For city driving, regenerative braking more than offsets any increase in rolling resistance due to extra weight of the battery.
For highway driving at 100kph the extra wight of the battery, taken at 500kg, adds about 1kW to the battery demand or say 5% of the total power. Most of the power is going into moving the air. This a great little clip to show the importance of aerodynamics at speed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Iz7ZMALaCY
20
Yep. About 25% gain under realistic driving conditions, according to this study:
http://or.nsfc.gov.cn/bitstream/00001903-5/71550/1/1000004267629.pdf
10
I am honestly glad to hear it. For years we were taught not to carry anything unnecessary in our cars…
Initially I thought that Musk betting on that “100 day SA battery”deal was a sign of his doubts in the viability of Tesla 2 and thus his desperation to find a stationary application.
Thanks,
Vladimir
20
19 Jul: ClimateChangeNews: Indian solar sector wary of China as protectionist policy nears an end
Indian solar manufacturers are likely to go bust when a World Trade Organization ruling kicks in later this year, experts say, increasing the dominance of Chinese imports
By Sapna Gopal in Hyderabad
Following a World Trade Organization ruling, the government is due to end a “domestic content requirement” (DCR) on 14 December, forcing the fledgling industry to compete with China.
“Following the exit, a lot of local companies, local solar panel manufacturers are going to die out,” Mumbai-based clean energy consultant Ritesh Pothan tells Climate Home…
But some are worried about handing the already-dominant Chinese too much market clout. “Once DCR goes, the Chinese are free to do what they want. In fact, they have already begun ***hiking the prices. Whether they give us the same quality or a different one is what remains to be seen,” says an industry expert who asked not to be named…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/07/19/indian-solar-sector-wary-china-protectionist-policy-nears-end/
19 Jul: FinancialExpressIndia: Wind power: After Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, discoms, Bescom in Karnataka cancels PPAs
By Anupam Chatterjee
Toeing the line of electricity distribution companies in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka-based discom Bescom has cancelled the power purchase agreements (PPAs) of 75.6 MW wind power projects commissioned before March 31.
In a notice, seen by (Financial Express), Bescom invoked a letter from the state’s energy department in April which directed the state’s discoms to not sign any new PPAs with wind power projects.
Sources aware of the development said more such PPA cancellation notices from the other four discoms in Karnataka are expected soon. The 75.6 MW are part of the 490 MW of wind projects, whose PPAs were not approved by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC).
The companies affected from the cancellations include big industry names like Gamesa, Suzlon, Inox Wind, Sembcorp Green Infra and Mytrah. Power minister Piyush Goyal has been apprised of the situation, sources added.
A senior KERC official told FE that the power-surplus state requires no new wind power till 2021 as it has sufficient wind energy to fulfil its renewable energy obligations (RPOs)…
The wind power industry believes that such moves send a negative signal to the investor community as financial closure depends on the stability of tariffs as per the PPAs. The wind plants have been generating power since April 1, and they have not received any payment due to the PPA uncertainties. Romesh Mattoo, the Karnataka secretary for the Indian Wind Power Association, told FE that wind energy producers are contemplating moving court against such decisions…
Many discoms from other states have reportedly been reluctant to buy renewable power at earlier rates after low prices discovered in tariff-based reverse auctions…READ ALL
http://www.financialexpress.com/economy/wind-power-after-uttar-pradesh-andhra-pradesh-discoms-bescom-in-karnataka-cancels-ppas/769106/
40
19 Jul: EconomicTimesIndia: TIM BUCKLEY: NTPC a key enabler of India’s electricity transformation
(Tim Buckley, is Director of Energy Finance Studies at IEEFA. The views expressed are those of the IEEFA)
A recent Morgan Stanley report has downgraded the Indian utilities industry. It highlighted that renewable energy is becoming so cheap that thermal power, mostly coal, is uncompetitive.
This is a highly significant market signal which will likely be accompanied by growth in the already impressive list of high calibre international investors moving into India’s renewables sector, including from Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, China, France, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada…
The Institute for Energy Eonomics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has long predicted India’s growing global leadership role in the transformation to a low carbon economy. But it is happening at a speed faster than we dared to imagine…
NTPC stands to be a cornerstone in India’s national electricity transformation, which has now reached critical mass. As per the recent Blackrock (the largest investor in the world) announcement — ***coal is dead. It will take decades to fully transition, but the process is now unstoppable.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/ntpc-a-key-enabler-of-indias-electricity-transformation/articleshow/59661966.cms
***Nye wants CAGW sceptics dead!
19 Jul: CNET: Bill Nye can’t wait for more old people to die
(Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives)
by Chris Matyszczyk
Commentary: The Science Guy says in an interview that climate change deniers skew older, so climate science can only progress when they “age out.”
As the world crumbles all around, scientists work, warn and worry that their words won’t be taken seriously.
One of their more vocal PR representatives, Bill Nye, offered some chillingly rational thoughts on the subject of science-based progress to The Los Angeles Times.
He railed against the current climate in which truth is tattered and experts are scorned.
Nye said fear is behind science being discarded. And the most fear, he said, came from one group.
“The people who are afraid in general — with due respect, and I am now one of them — are older.,” Nye told the paper. “Climate change deniers, by way of example, are older. It’s generational.”…
“We’re just going to have to wait for those people to ‘age out,’ as they say,” Nye said, adding that “age out” is a euphemism for “die off.” “But it’ll happen, I guarantee you — that’ll happen.” …
https://www.cnet.com/news/bill-nye-cant-wait-for-more-old-people-to-die/
61
19 Jul: LA Times: Bill Nye on the terrifying ascendancy of American ‘dingbatitude’
By Patt Morrison
He writes books at the publishing equivalent of the speed of light, and the latest, “Everything All at Once,” brought him to Los Angeles Times Ideas Exchange events at the Ace Theatre in Los Angeles, where he extolled science education for every kid in every classroom…
(Because of technical problems, the podcast version of this interview will be posted at a later time.)
Q: This poll finds that some people say they have a negative impact on “the way things are going.” And it seems to me that we are in retreat in some ways from having any regard for knowledge.
NYE: This is it — the so-called experts: What do they know? They’re experts, for crying out loud! One’s intuition about climate change is not as good as facts about climate change…
It just sounds like people are scared. It just sounds like people are afraid. And the people who are afraid in general — with due respect, and I am now one of them — are older. Climate change deniers, by way of example, are older. It’s generational. So we’re just going to have to wait for those people to “age out,” as they say. “Age out” is a euphemism for “die.” But it’ll happen, I guarantee you — that’ll happen…
Q: When you were a Boeing engineer, did you ever expect you’d have to engage politically to defend science?
NYE: I know! What the heck is that? I’m not the guy denying climate change. You guys started it. I didn’t want to be political. You made it political — clowns. You know, climate change is something we should all be very concerned about, and we should get to work on it as soon as we can…
The amazing thing to me is the amount of carbon dioxide is tiny. It’s .04 percent of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s 400 parts per million. When I was your age, it was 300 parts per million. It’s gone up by a third in just three decades.
It’s extraordinary. It’s never gone that fast ever in the earth’s history that we can tell from the geologic record. So this is what’s causing climate change, that carbon dioxide going from what used to be 280 parts per million around the year 1750…
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-ol-patt-morrison-bill-nye-science-20170719-htmlstory.html
20
Ugh, the mathematical ignorance astounds me 300 ppm 0.03% to 400 ppm 0.04% is not a 30% increase it’s a 0.01% increase. It amounts to just 0.0001 of the atmosphere!
This 30% junk looking at the CO2 component is just another scary number brought to you by the Nye and Gore tag team. I had 3 cups of coffee yesterday, but the day before I only had 2 so horrors, my coffee consumption increased 50%.! I’m gonna die.
Calculating ratios off small bases is prone to error an increase of 0.01% in 150 years is trivial, not unprecedented.
131
While there are plenty of mathematical abuses to choose from, this isn’t one of them. Your coffee example has it right. A 33% commission added to a $3 item takes it to $4 and, equally, takes a tiny $0.03 to $0.04. You do indeed double your chances of winning Lotto if you buy two tickets, but you still have hang all chance of winning.
So you can argue that they’ve stated their argument in terms most favourable to their agenda (as our side quite often does too), but the mathematical ignorance lies only in whoever is fooled by it.
50
I would argue that the value is a ratio and the difference between two ratios is properly the subtraction of one from the other, otherwise the denominators cancel out and the ratio becomes rebased the ratio percentage of “what” is changed. It is a trick to fool the gullible, whatever you think, CO2 ratio of the atmosphere has increased by 100ppm or 0.01%.The tiny absolute amount of CO2 has changed by 30%, but it’s still tiny, just 4 molecules in 10000 that not a comparison of poms at all. Anyway, no matter how you look at it, the plants are starving, ideally I’d like to see at least 0.15% (1500ppm) to one percent (10000 ppm) for a healthy biosphere, 400ppm is far, far too low and I’m glad it’s on the way up, if it were heading down humanity would be in a big hole.
10
Nye was an engineer? Wow…..scary…..
I guess anyone educated can swap sides from actual science to science-denier politics – look at funkle….
30
(my bold)
This probably explains why recent constructions are less likely to collapse.
30
And wind power is worse e.g. South Australia.
Were Dylan’s famous lyrics of 1963 prophetic?
Was Dylan a prophet of doom wrt wind power?
“Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head”,
“And pretend that he just doesn’t see”,
“The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind”,
“The answer is blowin’ in the wind”.
120
Interpreting Dylan’s famous lyrical verse.
How many times can man turn his head and pretend that that he doesn’t see the damage that RE, especially wind power, is doing to our World’s Economy. The answer my friends is that it is blowin’ US$trillions in the wind and down the gurgler – money better spent addressing the World’s Poverty.
130
No, King Geo, it is not blowing money down the gurgler(not sure what that is, but if you are implying it is being lost, it isn’t.) The money is just going in the same direction money always goes – towards those that have lots of it to start with. What Dylan is saying, is how many times will people take everything at face value and never truly think about it? THAT is what the problem is, as the wind is whistling through empty heads all fixated on climate crisis as a means to transfer wealth – socialist style, and saving the world – what an emotionally tying idea.
What IS behind climate crisis? World government, a new caste system, and reduction of population. All neatly accomplished by “temporarily” destroying the energy creation system that has raised humanity from scratching out a living to the civilization that we have today. The benefits of that civilization won’t go away for the top two layers of the new caste system, but the third? The poor that will support the upper two?
Yes, world government with universal gun control will insure that the next implementation of the caste WILL succeed, and that the population will be reduced to the point where no one will have the time or energy to protest anyway. So yes, “the answer is blowing in the wind,” and on a hot day that is just so much hot air, and on a cold day? Well, a chill wind brings no one any good.
80
It ultimately takes the same degree of political and economic freedom to maintain a high level of technological civilization as it took to create it in the first place. Tools wear out, resources are exhausted, the people with the know how die, and the knowledge and skills needed to create and maintain must be regenerated within new individuals.
The payoff for the new creators and maintainers must be more than mere survival to justify and sustain their expenditure of the mental and physical effort with the disciplined focus necessary. Slavery simply can’t do it. Slavery can only do the same old same old in the same way it has always been done and not all that well.
Trying to maintain a high level of technological civilization based upon slavery will collapse to a mere hand to mouth survival even for those at the top of the heap. Specifically because, if it is not produced it cannot be consumed no matter how many boot on necks, whips on backs, guns at heads, and knives at throats.
Brute force can only kill people and break things in order to keep things from happening. It cannot produce the values necessary to sustain and advance human life. It consumes and destroys them.
If you think it is matter of writing a rule book to be followed by the numbers, try writing the rule book to make a simple and ordinary pencil.
Even if you manage to write the rule book, try following the rules. It can’t happen without a division of labor and knowledge with the freedom to coordinate the thousands of activities within a free market. Certainly not for the price of 5 cents each by the tens of thousands per hour. Now do the same for the millions of other products you take for granted.
The end game here is either the green blob wannabe dictators go away and leave us alone or everything collapses around everyone’s ears. In the long run, there is no middle ground. It is one or the other but not both.
140
It will collapse; or, more correctly, it has largely collapsed. Barter is practised in at least one rural district in South Australia over meat and vegetables. Elsewhere, suburban, a pensioner neighbour of a relative has a chilblain on his nose because his house is permanently cold, thanks to soaring electricity prices. The same people who destroyed Port Augusta’s power station have thus far failed to open a building costing some three billion dollars; possibly it will never work effectively as a hospital as intended.
The school system at all levels disdains precisely the civilisational elements to which Lionel Griffith refers. Thus, for example, the Barr Smith Library is now, to all effects and purposes but a third or so of what it was a year ago—several hundred thousand books removed offsite. The officers of the library call it “revitalisation”.
No minister had to resign over the Oakden scandal.
And so it goes on. Always decline, always the deepening power of the state. And the death of the individual.
One hundred years ago the Labor government of SA had a recruiting train wander about the state in a largely vain endeavour to encourage volunteers to offer themselves for enlistment into the AIF. Government had the support of the War Precautions Act which made any published (very freely defined) statement which discouraged recruitment a criminal act. Most men of the relevant ages did indeed volunteer, many were rejected, typically on medical grounds. And in the main they did so in order to defend liberty and the rights of small states. And they suffered for the sake of their homes and loved ones and friends and fellow citizens.
Their reward, a century on, is one of treachery and deceit. Politicians (elected and unelected) and others intone “Lest we forget” in total ignorance of the source and significance of that line. “Forget” what indeed. Well, language for one.
The long march through the institutions has known astonishing success in the past fifty or more years. Eddie Ward must be laughing—if only in the cold and dark—but his successors have the power he and his kind craved.
110
Much meat here C Paul. Anyone reading should read it again. Maybe thrice.
Of course Lionel has it right and one needs to read his comments until they permanently sink into the gray matter above the brow.
20
Lionell Griffith July 21, 2017 at 4:04 am
“It ultimately takes the same degree of political and economic freedom to maintain a high level of technological civilization as it took to create it in the first place.”
Lionell,
I agree wholeheartedly! Unfortunately you miss the main point! Your claim:
“The end game here is either the green blob wannabe dictators go away and leave us alone or everything collapses around everyone’s ears. In the long run, there is no middle ground. It is one or the other but not both.”
This ‘one or the other’ is nonsense! “Agreeable middle ground” DOES NOT EXIST! Each man is created unique, never equal to any other. Each has the ability to freely choose good or evil! The two; good and evil, are by design, ‘required’ for this ‘is’ to even be!
All the best!-will-
00
The more they spin the renewable cheaper than coal wheel the more the argument to remove the subsidy.
Seen an ad for AGL and their commitment for a green future in electricity generation today and can only think yeah , lean and green , lean on power that is .
170
AGL is against coal because they are likely keeping their gas turbine backups for when the wind stops blowing and so get to sell extremely expensive and profitable power from their backup systems.
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Strategy.
Sure beats science and reality.
KK
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Funny coincidence that the bearded wannabe hipster in the AGL advert , now appears in an AAMi insurance advert where he is “up ship creek”
130
Funny coincidence the actor pretends to know how to fix the climate but not his own car.
40
The time will soon be nigh for Mr Nye to stop the nonsense, two things are starting to happen , governments can no long afford the subsidies for the green nonsense and the world is due for a cooling period. Old sol is having his sabbatical that happens every few hundred years, this means some real cooling hopefully mostly in the northern hemisphere as I am finding this winter somewhat tedious and cold where I live. It will not take very long for the general population sheeple to put two and two together and start being disbelievers in the scam.
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Coal fired power really is king, no matter what you hear.
Wind power has just had three pretty monumental days.
On Monday, 3000MW average virtually all day.
On Tuesday, 2500MW average virtually all day.
On Wednesday, 3100MW average virtually all day.
I watched in amazement really, as those two days up and beyond 3000MW, well that’s something I haven’t seen.
And you know what happened, with so much wind, you know, how it’s supposed to replace coal fired power.
Well, no.
Coal fired power did what it always does on all three days, no change whatsoever. Same at 4AM, same as it rose for the morning peak, and then rose even further for the evening peak, supplying EXACTLY what it has been supplying on every other day, no change whatsoever.
It seems that when you want the reliability of a huge amount of power for whenever you need it, you know, all the time, there is no substitute for good old coal fired power.
I kept thinking, well, here it comes, coal fired power can have a rest while the wind blows huge.
But no, coal did what it always has done. just keeps on humming along, old tech Units that they virtually all are.
At least some Countries are waking up to that, eh. Pity one of those Countries is not Australia.
Tony.
The Aneroid site was down for 36 hours or so, and luckily I could just use the AEMO Dispatch data, and when the Aneroid site came back up, their data (as expected) correlated back with that AEMO data.
341
Thank you for your ongoing analyses of the disaster of “renewables”.
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David, the windmills are not there to generate electricity. They are money pumps. Geysers come from oil wells. In Australia, $120MILLION A WEEK come from RET taxes. $60 Million a week overseas. Another Bonanza!
When you analyse how much electricity and then how much useful electricity they produce, they are usless, as Tony from Oz points out time and time again. However if you are an overseas or domestic investor or merchant banker like Turnbull and his Goldmann Sachs, you get some of the $3Billion a year flowing overseas and perhaps part of the $3Bn which stays in the country, cash for nothing.
Tony continually demonstrates that all the work is done by coal. We know that. Yet our politicians tell us that if we only threw a few more billion at batteries, even Snow Mountain 2.0, the electricity would be useful. Billionaires like Musk cannot believe the money paradise in South Australia. It’s almost worth the trip.
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The Peak power consumption time in these Winter Months is at 6PM.
South Australia’s batteries will supply 100MW for an hour probably two, and if two hours, then it’s only 50MW.
At that exact same time, coal fired power in Australia IS already generating and delivering 20,000MW plus ….. CONTINUOUSLY.
Note I said ….. GENERATING.
Because those batteries are only delivering power already generated from some other source.
There is no contest here.
Tony.
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But but….but Elon said……
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
70
I know you are already doing a lot of work giving us the power basics week by week, I wonder is it possible to estimate the LREC (and maybe SREC?) generation ($) each week based on the solar and wind “supply” for the week? Or is that published anywhere already? I feel sick when I see that high wind output simply adding to the hidden Carbon Dioxide tax that is the RET.
00
It’s a simple calculation. For the last 12 hours wind generators have been producing 3,000 MW. So in that 12 hours they produced 36,000 Mwhrs of electricity. The LRECs are currently priced at about $80/MWhr, so we forked out just under $2.9 million. An average day for wind at 1600 MW delivers a cash bonanza of $3.1 Million per day, equal to $1.1 billion per annum added to our electricity bills.
And remember, that is extra cash above the wholesale price they get paid that is running at over $100/MWhr.
Cash cows, far better than farming. And for consumers, cash blowing away with the wind.
10
Tony,
The only thing that happens on ‘big wind days’ is that turbine operators print more REC’s to sell to the networks… at the expense of the consumer.
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RET’s – The new fiat currency..
50
I look forward to the return of the coal fired ship and locomotive.
🙂
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Seeme irrelevant in terms of a power discussion, but I guess its nice to have a hobby. You might enjoy the Puffing Billy outside of Melbourne.
30
Who doesn’t love trains? However the Greens want trains as fast as aircraft because they are afraid of flying. At least in the air at 1,000km/hr you cannot derail or hit much. While the Greens demand 350 and even 1000km/hr in California today, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a train which went as fast as a car?
However our new one seat Green Prime Minister still wants his Very Fast Train. I would rather have the Flying Scotsman. It would be far cheaper, less deadly and more practical and reliable. It seems all about the cost of the VFT, more billions. All going through Goldmann Sachs and real estate developers.
We in Victoria have paid for a Very Fast Train from Melborne To Ballarat and waited years. Massive inconvenience. Now after years of delays, disasters with wheels and tracks, we have a train which takes at least 1 hour and 13 minutes for a journey of only 115 km. Slightly faster than a car at 1 hours 25 minutes, the train averages an incredible 97km/hr. It was 2 hours 20minute in the 1950s and that’s when the line is not closed and you are put on a bus. All this nonsense from Turnbull about Very Fast Trains when all we ever wanted was reasonably fast trains, at least as fast as a car.
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It’s probably because the tracks are littered with speed cameras..
10
Quoting TdeF
“At least in the air at 1,000km/hr you cannot derail or hit much”.
I have seen enough episodes of Air Crash Investigation on Foxtel to dispute this – although most of the disasters described happened in the 1980’s & 1990’s. Much safer now which is good because my wife and I are off to Europe next month. Must remember not to bring Erica Jong’s 1973 novel “Fear of Flying” along and read it during the flight. By the way the novel has nothing to do with airline travel. It is just not a good look when fellow passengers see the book title.
20
Just remember that pilots generally have homes and families, so have a vested interest in safe flying! That is what our pilot son tells his anxious passengers.
00
Plus they are always first to the scene of the accident!
I was taught early on in my flight training that a good landing is one you can walk away from, a great landing is one where the airplane is reusable afterwards! The flying club where I rent from prefers to teach how to do great landings!
10
Most ships ARE run on fossil fuel.
Or didn’t you know that. !
43
We do have a very few coal fired autos. There are called EVs.
30
Oops-They are called EVs.
10
When is the penny going to drop for Australians and realise we have been taken for a ride to self destruction with this silly anti-coal mania? If Australians are still too stupid to see it by the time we have the next election and still vote for either LNP or ALP who refuse to acknowledge we must start building new coal fired power stations ASAP then we have only our ourselves to blame for the ensuring economic collapse.
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Silly? Every Windmill is a gusher. Money in the billions. Your money.
The object of windmills is to win votes in marginal seats at public expense. They do not even appear in the budget as the people of Australia are forced to pay for them directly. Then when they are built, they have to pay for the power they produce, when they produce it.
Because this power is so unpredictable, never there when you need it, intermittent, now the public will be charged more billions for batteries.
It’s like a bad dream. Politicians utterly out of control, passing any law someone can think up. The only sure thing is the public is going to pay and pay. Like the mad immigration policies, or lack of them. Who pays? We do.
151
Peter, there are many, many and and an increasing number of Australians who know exactly what is wrong with our power policies. However, we now see little difference between the two major parties. Labor is driven by left ideology, the Libs are driven by Turnbull’s cupidity and very few of them (apart or Abbott) are prepared to speak ut against him. They can see the cliff edge approaching, but are seemingly powerless to change direction. As much as we resent the Senate usurping its stated role as a house of review to be come a house of rejection, our only hope is that the Australian Conservatives,under Barnardi, will get its act together before the next election and get a controlling number in the Senate and bring this farce to an end. Wishful thinking perhaps, but it is all that lulls me to sleep these nights.
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I’m not convinced that most Australians are smart enough to see through the increasing amount of crap. Cases in point: elections of Rudd and Gillard who at least to me from day 1 they were obvious economic and nation destroyers of catastrophic proportions. More people are interested in change for change sake than in sticking to old ideas that work even if it means risking self destruction. It’s the mentality of many people I see at work over the past couple of decades. Most don’t realise it early enough because the changes are very small and people are busy with other things but those changes all lead to the same conclusion – self destruction. It’s so obvious to me especially when one sees the clear comparisons in the history of mankind over the ages. It’s just the way it is and always has been with humans. We just never learn. All the rest of us can do is be alert and prepared for the coming destruction in case it eventuates in our time.
60
Foxtel
90
Politicians doing as they please. They have very deep pockets. Yours.
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In the case of the ALP it’s also the deep pockets of business, big and small. Then again the LNP haven’t been much better lately in that aspect. Who would have thought we would be witnessing first hand an actual demonstration in real life of the idiom “the killing of the goose that laid golden eggs”. Other countries that have far better taxation policies must be fast becoming very attractive to many businesses here. I can almost hear now the rushing of “air” out of the “tyre” of our economy.
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Good explanation of the Foxtel thing.
And a somewhat timely take on the concept of political death spiral.
Must contact broker today about the popcorn shares………
20
Charismatic leader drowns in swamp.
10
and here is a real cracker. 🙂
20
NotfunnyPhil.
00
Well, not so much for the Fibs, but hey the only place the RW seems to do it for laffs is here. 🙂
00
“the only place the RW seems to do it for laffs is here. 🙂 ”
My brother knows how to ‘mill’ grain. I can ‘mill’ aluminum, brass and even mils steel. Can some one please explain how to mill Wind? That’s almost as bad as ‘Vacuum cleaner’. How many ‘dirty vacuums’ have you seen?
00
Welll……there was that bloke in the ER that night……
00
OT and pinched from WUWT , I asked a question in one of the threads about tide marks made by convicts , this one was done in the mid 1880s .
http://morningmail.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/isle-of-the-dead.jpg
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Robert Rosicka:
The photo is from John-Daly.com
“The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead’, Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004.
Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre. © John L. Daly.”
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Supposed to be mid 1850s .
30
Wanna buy some tulip bulbs?
Verra cheap, beers green, and soon the price will sky-rocket.
It happened before and many missed their chance then.
30
20 Jul: The West: Faulty solar panel fire alert
by Daniel Mercer
Faulty or poorly installed solar panel systems have sparked fires at more than 20 homes in WA in the past two years.
Figures from the electricity safety watchdog show that in the two years to June 30, there were 24 “incidents” caused by defective solar panel installations.
While the solar panels themselves were not in question, it is understood the fires were started by substandard or incorrectly installed isolators or inverters which form part of the systems.
The figures come as the nation’s standards body and the renewable energy industry are at odds over the adoption of battery storage devices.
They also come after revelations that Queensland firefighters had attended more than 60 house fires started by solar panel systems since the start of 2015.
Standards Australia has released draft guidelines for the installation of lithium-ion batteries, but installers have claimed they would all but ban the devices by making the safeguards too onerous…
Western Power spokesman: “Western Power is participating with industry, government and Standards Australia to help develop a new standard called ‘Electrical installations — Safety of battery systems for use with power conversion equipment’.
“This new standard will set out the installation and safety requirements for residential and commercial battery systems connected to or integrated with an intelligent energy system.”
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/faulty-solar-panel-fire-alert-ng-b88540502z
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20 Jul: RenewEconomy: Rooftop solar shock for consumers, installers as rebate price falls by one-third
By Sophie Vorrath
Australia’s booming rooftop solar market has hit a potential speed hump, with a sudden drop in the price of small scale renewable energy certificates, pushing up the cost of solar by around 10 per cent for households and small business and catching many installers unawares.
After several years of relative market stability, STC prices dipped by one-third on Wednesday, falling from around $40 to as low as $26, and triggering panic among PV installers who have sold systems to customers on the assumption they would get a $40 (per kW) rebate…
“The fall in prices has happened because the supply of STCs is substantially outstripping power retailers’ obligations for this year as set by the Clean Energy Regulator,” said Green Energy Markets analyst Tristan Edis on Wednesday…
Of greater concern, however, is the potential impact on Australia’s solar installers – already feeling the pinch of wafer-thin profit margins ranging from around 17 per cent to 26 per cent.
As Geoff Bragg, from the Solar Energy Industries Association in Australia, told RenewEconomy in November last year: “Any Aussie installer marking up less will be heading for closure in my opinion.”…
Many have in recent years – and the STC price drop could see many more follow.
“This will make many (solar installers) close their door today, with quotes signed and jobs to install in coming weeks worth millions of dollars,” one industry player told RenewEconomy in an email on Thursday.
“If this collapse was to occur in the sugar or fuel industry it would be all over the front page of every paper in the country.
“I have been in the industry for 10 years and never seen a swing like this in a so called commodity price.
Surely this must be raised in parliament today. It seems as if they want the industry to fail.”…READ ALL
http://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-shock-consumers-installers-rebate-price-falls-one-third-70125/
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It’s never a good business model to rely on government policy, regulation or subsidies to prop up your otherwise non-viable business.
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Japan is not alone. The New York Times reports that around the world 1600 coal plants are under construction or will be built shortly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/climate/china-energy-companies-coal-plants-climate-change.html
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Coal is finite so it makes sense to look at alternative generation and ways of consuming less electricity.
~1/3 of my domestic kWhrs go on heating water and solar is good at producing 70ºC water in sunny Australia. For cloudy days an instantaneous gas booster works well but the set-up cost of all this is triple the cost of a simple immersion heater on off-peak electricity. That seems to be the story for most alternatives and I’m against having to (in effect) pay my neighbour to fit solar PV panels on his house, however, I’d see it as fair if he was offered income tax deductions on any monies he put into such a project. At least that way the “subsidy” is out of his earnings and not yours and mine.
Of course, the post modern logic of Cactus Island says that when we save burning a tiny bit of coal in the name of “saving the planet” we then turn around and sell that coal to Asia so that they can “screw the planet” instead.
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Na you all have it all wrong. The decline of the solar industry is directly proportional to the decline in solar activity. [sarc]
But actually we really are going through a decline in solar activity that no one alive has experienced and some are now claiming that it has been the most precipitous decline in over 9,000 years.
https://www.iceagenow.info/fastest-decline-solar-activity-9300-years/
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Since all Climate Science™®© has ignored the Sun, they’ll try and convince the masses in future that the current global cooling is due to CO2 by blocking sunlight. The proof being in the volcanoes.
20
The Nature paper says this…
‘We note that low solar activity does not guarantee cold conditions in any specific European winter as additional variability is introduced by other factors. The 360-year Central England Temperature record for December–February shows that the coldest winters in the UK occurred at low solar activity, but, for example, 1685/6, near the centre of the Maunder minimum, was the 5th warmest winter in the entire record.’
It very much depends on what the oscillations are doing at any given moment.
00
By “oscillations” your referring to the Milankovitch Cycles, Axial tilt/obliquity, precession, and eccentricity. The approximately 41,000 year cycle of axial tilt/obliquity most likely having the greatest effect.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=7344
10
But it seems to this layman that if we do have a significant solar minimum it would be an ideal time to make observations to find out if H. Svensmark et al are correct about cosmic ray cloud seeding and to better quantify the direct effects in the longer term of solar activity on our climate. I won’t call it a “Grand solar minima” since there is not hard definition of what that phenomena actually is. The definition is nebulous at best. I once asked Henrik Svensmark at WUWT the actual definition of a “Grand Solar Minima” and his answer was ‘You’ll know it when your in one’.
10
Correction the scientist I asked for the definition for a Grand Solar Minima was Leif Svalgaard
00
This is O/T but proves that Craig Kelly is correct about winter deaths.
How dumb are our stupid pollies and media?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/craig-kellys-critics-should-watch-this/news-story/8cbba2a83f3e25e071e37c456ddb9572
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Politicians and the media are only as dumb as the people who vote for those politicians and continuously follow the media. One might argue which came first, much like the chicken and egg but that’s all in the past. The here and now is what’s relevant and important. As long as people continue to vote for the sort of politicians we currently have in government or in the other major party in opposition, things will only get worse and worse.
40
Craig Kelly , could he be the only honest politician out there in our country .
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It does appear to be the case, but surely there must be at least one more.
The pseudo Marxist grip is tightening and there is little we can do at a political level.
30
What I find amazing is that no one can explain why Hazelwood closed. Turnbull said that it was a private ‘commercial’ decision for the company.
Why does a major supplier to South Australia close because they cannot make money when electricity prices are the world’s highest? How can anyone in government pretend they had nothing to do with it? Who is paying for those windmills? How much cleaner is HELE anyway? Why should we spend billions and take years to build a new plant while a perfectly functional plant sits idle or worse, is being dismantled.
Either Turnbull and Andrews are wilfully ignorant and do not understand that coal and gas are being forced out of business by their policies or they should not have their jobs.
As Tony from Oz pointed out, in its last month of operation Hazelwood was churning out electricity at over 95% of maximum capacity. Why was it forced to close? Will no politician speak out except MP Craig Kelly who says this is going to kill people just as it is destroying every business in the South East? Even the only plastics recycling business in SA is now closed and the fire at Coolaroo was in combustible tyres and plastics which cannot be recycled. We are just piling our rubbish, as in the 1880s. No one can afford to recycle.
Will our politicians stop playing games? Can’t they see even Green votes are plummeting. People want their electricity back, shut down by politicians. It is not ‘the market’ and Dr. Finkel is also wilfully blind.
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As an example, Wilson Transformers, a major business in Melbourne and Wodonga
“The Wilson Transformer Company, which manufactures electricity distribution and power transformers for coal, gas, solar and wind projects at two factories at Glen Waverley and Wodonga, said its electricity costs rose by 83 per cent this month to $1.5 million for the financial year.”
That’s 3/4 of a million dollars a year extra from Daniel Andrew’s closure of Hazelwood.
Australia needs businesses and employers like this! Soon we will not even make the means of distributing electricity, all due to record electricity prices caused wholly and solely by the RET and downstream opportunism. Our politicians are out to wreck the joint, especially Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce who think they will build some fantasy new system in the sky which does nothing to actually make electricity.
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TdeF:
Hazelwood didn’t run at 95% of its maximum original capacity, but at 83% because they ran 7 out of 8 units for the last month. NOTE all units were used at some stage, so it could have run at 95% capacity if needed and that after 53 years. Find me a wind turbine that has lasted half as long.
Also, it was the closure of Hazelwood that pushed the electricity price upwards, which started when the closure was announced.
It has been claimed that Hazelwood pushed out 1290kg of CO2 per MWh, while a HELE brown coal plant is known to run at 800 in Gemany, so there is a certain drop in CO2 emissions by switching to HELE coal fired. What drop comes from renewables in a mixed system like ours is carefully ignored. I would have thought it should be the first question asked. I cannot say, but I point out that the Energiewende in Germany with 27,000+ and turbines and sq. kilometres of PV solar has reduced emissions by 2.6% maximum over 18 years. And that at 34% share with renewables (including hydro, wood and household rubbish burning for heat).
“Either Turnbull and Andrews are wilfully ignorant and do not understand that coal and gas are being forced out of business by their policies or they should not have their jobs.” Coal and gas are being forced out of business because of their policies so regardless of their motivation or ignorance they are incompetent and should not be in office.
00
From Dr Finkel’s report it is clear why solar PV companies should be going out of business. He reports levelised costs of generation in 2020 from a report by Jacobs Consulting:
Wind $92/MWhr No backup
Large-scale Solar PV $91/MWhr No backup
Large-scale Solar PV with 3 hours backup $138/MWhr
Solar Thermal with 12 hours storage $172/MWhr
Combined Cycle Gas Turbine $83/MWhr
Open Cycle Gas Turbine $123/Mwhr
Supercritical Coal $76/MWhr
Ultrasupercritical Coal $81/Mwhr
Dr Finkel later admitted that he had not costed wind with backup, but you can estimate from the above that both wind and solar with back up cost about double coal and gas.
So why are they being built in preference to coal? Because they don’t have to provide backup (although Dr Finkel has now recommended that they should), and they receive additional income from the sale of renewable energy certificates currently worth about $82/MWhr to retailers per legislation over and above the current wholesale price of about $100/MWhr. Note that earlier this year before Hazelwood closed, wholesale prices were around $50/MWhr. Now it appears that gas is setting the price.
80
Gas is sold directly. There is no RET on gas unless it is used to generate electricity. Households, factories, laundromats, restaurants, everyone uses gas and gas is limited in supply. In Victoria reserves are dwindling quickly and exploration is forbidden by law. Fracking is banned. Forests are not to be used. Even residents in forests are not allowed use fallen branches for fuel. It is getting crazy. Of course gas is going up. Also as the competition is rocketing, the gas vendors are not crazy. They have a limited market and for their energy content, they have twice the RET carbon tax of even coal. It is simply more profitable to sell it overseas than to pay the RET.
No matter how you look at the electricity market, to the 5c kw/hr you quote as the ‘wholesale’ price you have to add the 8.2c per kw/hr to producers of wind and solar electricity, your opposition. That’s 13.2c an electricity retailer has to pay for gas or coal, so of course he buys all the 9.2c per kw/hr wind he can. Even so, like all businesses, the price doubles to the consumer, effectively charging 16.4c kw/hr for the RET plus 18.4 for say wind.
Take the RET out of the equation and electricity prices would halve in a day. Plus wind people would find it impossible to sell their power. That is the whole point. If wind and solar were not GIVEN $120million per week from the wallets of all Australians and just to exist, they would not exist.
The politicians deny responsibility with the RET, as it is nothing to do with them. It is NOT a carbon tax. Apparently.
80
All this to save the planet. The net result of all this incredible hardship is zero, zip, zilch, null, nada, nothing. Green votes.
80
The next time you see a windmill remember. You paid for it. Feel the attraction to your wallet or purse.
You are paying for it again when you buy electricity and paying for more windmills. You paid for the windmills and transmission lines in South Australia. You are forced to keep paying and you have no choice, tripling the cost of coal power from 4c kw/hr to 12c kw/hr even though at 6pm at night, coal is all there is, apart from the Snowy. When will someone stand up and make sense. Craig Kelly says it will kill people with cold. He is right and has been told to shut up. Why? When will our politicians start thinking about us and not themselves?
It is not some complex unsolveable problem which has emerged from nowhere, a product of our times. We have gone from the world’s cheapest power to the world’s most expensive power in a few years due entirely to the RET and as Craig Kelly knows, you are not allowed admit the truth. It might cost votes. Kelly though will find he is very popular.
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If we own it, does that mean we can decomission it too?
40
No need to decomission them. They rarely work anyway. They are built as money pumps, not to provide timely cost effective and adequate electricity. They work when they can make the most money for just turning. Goldilocks engines.
50
The RET has annihilated the economics of coal in any region where intermittents exceeds 30% of generation. First the coal plants in SA were uneconomic then the next in line was Hazelwood. That has created a gas fuel monopoly in that region and monopoly pricing.
There is a mistaken belief that intermittents replace dispatchable generation but it only shifts the burden to fast response fossil fuelled plant. This is where gas dominates with the end result of total reliance now on gas. The gas suppliers and pipeline operators are making bundles.
The mistake was ever allowing intermittents into the NEM. The NEM developed through the economy of scale of coal generation. There is no economy of scale with intermittents. Allowing them into the NEM has dramatically reduced the value of the NEM.
At present component costs intermittents can make economic sense when they are located at a load that is remote from the grid. That eliminates all the transmission and distribution costs. Given considerably more R&D there is potential for intermittents to be the low cost option for households with roof space for enough panels. If that reduces the need for augmenting the grid then that could also make economic sense.
40
It’s ironic. When you want to talk about the physics, physical chemistry, meteorology of Global Warming or vague Climate Change, you end up talking to a paleoentologist or an economist or a bureaucrat. Tim Flannery. Ian Dennis. Ross Garnaut.
When you want information on why electricity prices are going through the roof, the government brings in the Chief Scientist no less, Dr. Finkel.
The same with Education and Gonski, who said that as a lifelong busineman he was not qualfied to be writing recommendations for Education.
Perhaps the Chief Scientist should be talking about science and the Economics Professors explaining why electricity is so expensive and professional teachers should design our education system? That would be too obvious.
No, this is all obfuscation politics. Bring in an inappropriate expert, someone who can ultimately claim they are unqualified to respond. So we are freezing, our electricity is becoming unaffordable, unreliable, inadequate while our education standards fall below Kazakhstan. Global Warming, carbon dioxide pollution and no competitive pressure education. School halls.
At least the Japanese are just building the coal plants they want and need, even though they do not have coal.
That is impossible in coal rich Australia where as much as possible, we are not allowed dig it up.
100
I think it is a great time to invest in coal companies. Look for companies which export to places which are building power stations. You can easily find 8 percent dividend yield right now in the right coal business.
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In reply to Vladimir, Post #8 asking about the CO2 ‘cost’ of battery mass.
See the post by Stanislav Jakuba of Feb 4, 2015 entitled Gasoline vs Electric Cars: Energy Usage and Cost on website http://www.masterresource.org
His article includes a graph “Road Vehicles Fuel Consumption vs. Mass”
Cheers.
10
Around this area
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/20/kelly-mcparland-another-wheel-flies-off-ontarios-green-energy-bus-and-lands-on-340-workers/
Comments too
20
What I cannot understand is that no one thinks we have a Carbon tax. They say so. Even Tony Abbott. Barnaby Joyce. Abbott and Howard want to reduce the ‘target’.
Hazelwood did not close because they wanted to help with a target. They closed because they could not make money. They were forced to close! Explain why that is and you have the key.
Then ask who is paying for all the windmills and why? You do. Who makes the huge cash payout on home solar. Not the government. You do. Do the politicians really believe it is just a complex system they do not understand? The RET is working exactly as planned, nothing more.
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Good point. It’s because the gullible public has been convinced that “unreliables” are a good thing and got roped into this retarded scheme. People with PV on their houses benefit from those without, but the cost continues to rise nonetheless. They’ll learn the folly of their decision soon enough when their panels reach end of lifespan. They’d better have put those “savings” aside to cover the cost of replacement, which will far exceed that of the original panels as inflation goes and, it’s not guaranteed they’d be much more efficient by then.
With the advent of LED’s and other efficiencies in appliances and cost-saving measures, it wouldn’t surprise me if those without PV disconnect entirely if grid costs continue to climb. That would leave a big hole in sales for PV householders and their income/subsidy from non-PV owners would shrink even further, especially if grid power costs equal generator and battery storage.
About a decade or more ago I was approached by phone from my electrickery supplier asking if I wanted to switch to green energy for a 10% extra cost. She couldn’t guarantee that the electrickery would be green or purely from such a source. As far as I was concerned, I’d be paying more for something that looked, smelled and tasted exactly the same as before. Just like doing the weekly shop in an affluent suburb.
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Believe it or not General Motors built some experimental cars in the late 70’s that ran on powdered coal burned in a gas turbine.
http://jalopnik.com/gm-once-built-these-fascinating-coal-powered-turbine-ca-1791842557/amp
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David I so want one , and would drive it to all future green protest rallies , just need to modify it to run on sump oil at the same time .
30
Yes, the idea first appeared in Germany during WW2. Being engineers they realised ash would foul or pit the turbine blades so they tried to run a ram jet on it. Details are sketchy.
The USA coal industry sponsored a liquid ‘coal’ fuel in the 1970s as a counter to increasing rail freight charges. They ground the coal finely and mixed it with water (& additives) and pumped it many miles and sprayed it into a boiler with success. They used 48% coal.
The Russians have long had an interest in this idea. In the 1950’s they set up a production at a coal mine. The coal-water slurry fuel was transported through a pipeline a distance of 262 kilometres. The pipeline had three intermediate pumping stations. The Belovo Novosibirsk project used coal-water slurry fuel in steam boilers at a rate of 1340 tonnes per hour. There was a further project at Belovo Novosibirsk between 1989 and 1993 and development of coal-water slurry fuel technology for district heating stations and power stations. In 2004, a coal water slurry fuel production plant was opened at Murmansk.
Lately the Chinese and Thai authorities are working on the idea, as possibly the USA military.
Later developments use higher levels of coal, depending on the grade of coal and how finely it is ground. Advantages are its liquid state and non-flammable property. There is some difficulty with initial combustion which is often started with gas or oil based fuel, although the USA coal industry trial incorporated about 1-1.5% flammable liquid.
With fairly clean coal (low ash) the idea can be used in diesels and gas turbines as well.
Given our stocks of clean coal and our low reserves of oil & petrol ** Australia should be looking at this closely.
** Another federal Government failure despite signing to an International agreement so we had 2 months reserves, they have reduced us to potential chaos within 2 weeks if there is trouble in the Straits of Hormuz.
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listen to all of it.
good to see Small Business take a stand, but Peter Strong’s solution is for Govt/taxpayers to subsidise electricity retailers, while Kate Carnell’s solution is for Govt/taxpayers to subsider small businesses.
Strong makes the point the retailers will get the subsidies either way, which is true.
and we know who ultimately pays…the Australian taxpayers, now or in the future, because any subsidies would be provided from borrowed money.
neither is demanding the Govt abandon the RET, or questioning the CAGW scam in any way:
AUDIO: 7mins17secs: 20 Jul: 2GB: Skyrocketing Power Bills
Ben Fordham speaks to Council of Small Business CEO Peter Strong.
http://www.2gb.com/podcast/skyrocketing-power-bills/
20 Jul: Australian: SMEs at risk of going broke without energy subsidies, warns Kate Carnell
Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell says the government needs to consider subsidies to help small business struggling to cope with skyrocketing energy prices.”
Small businesses say they are losing competitive advantage and being brought down by skyrocketing and unpredictable energy bills, some of which are expected to rise by 180 per cent in a year.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/smes-at-risk-of-going-broke-without-energy-subsidies/news-story/c0122f98862248eeb5e8649f2396af16
10
see second link reminder about John Podesta’s link to this company:
18 Jul: BiofuelsDigest: Jim Lane: Heat Death: Joule Unlimited collapses as oil prices flag, time passes, pressure mounts
One of the more striking outcomes from the DOE Bioeconomy 2017 conference in Washington DC was confirmation of the demise of Joule Unlimited. “We had a lot of prospects last year,” former CEO Brian Baynes told The Digest, “but those new investor prospects walked away, particularly post election. The insiders would have been happy to see this project go forward, but didn’t have an ability to go it alone given the amount of capital we needed. Baynes was responding to reports that the technology and the Hobbs, New Mexico pilot facility would be auctioned shortly…
Joule’s solar process broke ground by using engineered photosynthetic bacteria as catalysts to directly produce and secrete targeted fuel molecules in a continuous, single-step conversion process. By design, the process requires no use of biomass feedstocks or agricultural land. Its main inputs of sunlight, waste CO2 and brackish or sea water make the process well suited for wide-ranging geographies.
Joule technology applied engineered biocatalysts to continuously convert waste CO2 directly into renewable fuels such as ethanol or hydrocarbons for diesel, jet fuel and gasoline…
Were the skeptics right?
At any industry gathering over the past 8 years, the room divided into passionate Joule supporters and deep skeptics. Does the news from Joule mean that the technology was doomed, or that the timing was flawed?
“Obviously this is a totally novel process,” Joule EVP Tom Einar Jensen once told The Digest…
Joule last appeared on the news radar in April 2016 when we reported that the company obtained EPA approval of Joule’s Sunflow-E ethanol pathway for generating advanced biofuel (D-code 5) RINs under the Clean Air Act (CAA). This recognition from the EPA validates Joule’s mission to create carbon-neutral fuels for a sustainable tomorrow, and follows the 2015 announcement that Joule’s Sunflow-E ethanol was registered by the EPA for commercial use. In the EPA’s analysis, Joule’s Sunflow-E was found to reduce lifecycle GHG emissions by a whopping 85 percent, significantly above the required threshold…
Despite a $40 million capital raise as the company pivoted towards commercialization, the company went through four CEOs in less than two years and laid off as many as 40 people in Massachusetts and 20 in New Mexico in 2015…
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2017/07/18/heat-death-joule-unlimited-collapses-as-oil-prices-fall-time-passes-pressure-mounts/
19 Jul: Breitbart: Jerome Hudson: Putin-funded Company John Podesta Received 75,000 Shares from Has Collapsed
Controversial Kremlin-connected energy firm Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Vladimir Putin-connected Russian government fund and counted former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta as a executive board member, has collapsed, according to the firm’s former chief executive…
First revealed in research from Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer, Podesta joined the executive board of Joule Unlimited Technologies — a Boston, Massachusetts-based firm that received $35 million from the Russian government while Clinton served as secretary of state — in June 2011. Podesta received 75,000 common shares of Joule stock options, according to an email uncovered by WikiLeaks…
Podesta failed to disclose his presence on the board of the Dutch-registered Stichting Joule Global Foundation before he became President Obama’s senior adviser in January 2014 — a possible violation for federal law.
Questions about the unsavory details surrounding Podesta’s Russia connections sent the longtime Clinton ally into a frenzy earlier this month during a heated Fox Business interview with Maria Bartiromo…
Breitbart News reported Podesta’s extensive Russian ties last August, as revealed in a 56-page GAI report titled, “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism.”…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/19/putin-funded-company-john-podesta-received-75000-shares-collapsed/
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19 Jul: CarbonBrief: In-depth: The challenge of using biofuels to cut transport
by Jocelyn Timperley
Liquid biofuels still have a significant role to play in meeting the UK’s climate change targets, a new report says.
The Royal Academy of Engineering analysis (LINK), commissioned by the UK Department for Transport (DfT) and now-defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), reviews the most significant sustainability issues associated with the use of biofuels.
It argues that some biofuels can help the UK to meet the greenhouse gas emissions savings required under EU and UK rules.
They also offer potential options for cutting emissions in tricky-to-decarbonise transport sectors, such as aviation, shipping and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), it says.
But the report cautions that the use of biofuels can in some cases result in problems, such as knock-on emissions due to land-use change, degradation of land and increases in food prices…
Carbon Brief breaks down the main findings of the report, which provides an overview of the current status of biofuels in the UK…READ ON
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-the-challenge-of-using-biofuels-to-cut-transport-emissions
00
Inner Mongolia has a novel approach to renewables, cleaning jobs for the peasants.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-07/21/content_30195969.htm
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But here is the truth on Inner Mongolian renewables.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2016/03/solar-pv-industry-faces-challenges-in-inner-mongolia.html
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the spin:
Falling value of coal assets pushes Drax to H1 loss
Financial Times-18 Jul. 2017
Drax looking at ‘coal-free future’ as it reveals £83m pre-tax loss
The Guardian-19 Jul. 2017
a bit more to it than coal:
19 Jul: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Drax profits go up in smoke as coal assets lose value
The energy giant fell to a pre-tax loss of £83m from a profit of £184m in the first half of 2016.
Drax was also stung by losses totalling £65m on its foreign exchange hedging…
The hit from coal depreciation costs underlines the pressing need for the group to drive forward its half-billion pound strategy away from high-carbon coal to cleaner energy generation…
Drax deepened its presence in the retail market by snapping up Opus Energy in a deal worth £340m, which catapulted the group into the UK’s top five of energy suppliers to business…
The group is also planning to build four ‘rapid response’ gas-fired power plants to help balance the electricity grid…
Drax was once a dedicated coal-fired power generator but the group now produces more than two-thirds of its power from renewable biomass by converting its coal-fired units to burn waste-wood pellets…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/19/drax-profits-go-smoke-coal-assets-lose-value/
19 Jul: Sky News: Energy future poses burning question for coal firm Drax
Drax has been looking at a fresh approach as it grapples with the Government’s changing strategies on energy needs, says Ian King.
Opened in North Yorkshire 43 years ago, to generate power from the newly-discovered Selby coalfield, it was heralded as the UK’s most efficient coal-fired power plant and, later, its most environmentally friendly.
At its height, Drax and other coal-fired power plants in the region produced around a fifth of Britain’s electricity.
Drax remains the UK’s single biggest power station and still contributes 7% of the UK’s total electricity needs.
However, after years of criticism of coal from the environmental lobby, it became clear a rethink was needed…
Some 68% of the electricity it generates is now from biomass and just 32% from coal…
In its latest update as to current progress, the company reported a half-year pre-tax loss of £83m – down from a profit last time of £184m.
That does not necessarily point to a failure in the strategy. Far from it. Earnings before interest, tax and accounting adjustments more than doubled.
However, due to writing down the value of its coal assets at a higher rate, one-off costs associated with the recent acquisition of retail supply business Opus Energy and a hit from currency movements, it was pushed into the red…
And there may even be a stay of execution for coal-fired generation if Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation, does not open on time.
Ms Thompson said: “We await with interest the result of the consultation.
“We’ve heard nothing to indicate the Government isn’t still looking for closure by 2025 and possibly something in advance of that… but we do note the challenges of [building] Hinkley.”
Drax is also making fresh overtures to the environmental lobby.
***It has unveiled David Nussbaum, the former chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund in the UK, as a new non-executive director…
http://news.sky.com/story/energy-future-poses-burning-question-for-coal-firm-10954086
00
some birds are more CAGW-correct than others.
no concern whatsoever for the birds.
short, with no Guardian support for the birds:
19 Jul: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: RSPB loses legal fight against £2bn offshore windfarm in Scotland
Neart na Gaoithe project on east coast likely to go ahead after long-running court battle despite claim it threatens seabirds
A £2bn offshore windfarm in Scotland looks set to go ahead after the RSPB lost a long-running legal challenge against the plans, which the conservationists said threatened puffins, gannets and kittiwakes…
On Wednesday, the court of session ruled it was refusing the application for the case to be sent to the supreme court…
Anne McCall, director of RSPB Scotland, said: “While disappointed by the court of session decision it is not wholly unexpected. We will now take time to consider the details and determine our next steps.
“The existing consents, if implemented, could have a significant impact on Scotland’s breeding seabirds but we are hopeful that by continuing to work with all the developers we will be able to reduce those impacts.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/19/rspb-loses-legal-fight-2bn-offshore-windfarm-scotland-neart-na-gaoithe
on the other hand… endless outrage at The Guardian:
20 Jul: Guardian: Michael Slezak: Fresh legal challenge looms over Adani mine risk to endangered finch
Exclusive: Australian Conservation Foundation asks environment and energy minister to revoke Carmichael mine approval
New advice has found the federal environment minister’s approval of the mine may have been unlawful in light of new scientific evidence of its impacts on the endangered black-throated finch.
As a result, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has asked the federal minister for the environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, revoke the approval and ask Adani to resubmit its plans for consideration.
The Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act says the minister must not act inconsistently with any official national recovery plan for an endangered species when approving a development. In addition, one of the conditions on the approval of Adani’s mine specifically stated that the company’s management strategies must be consistent with the recovery plan for the black-throated finch.
But according to legal advice given to the ACF by the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) Queensland, new scientific evidence shows the approval of the mine by the former environment minister Greg Hunt was inconsistent with the recovery plan…
Adani’s Carmichael mine will destroy some of the most important remaining habitat for the endangered black throated finch. As a result, Adani has been required to create “offsets,” which are supposed to provide alternative habitats for the birds.
The legal issue arose after a team experts – the Black-Throated Finch Recovery Team – obtained Adani’s plans for managing the birds, including plans for offsets, under freedom of information laws.
The team’s analysis of the plans were reported by the ABC last week.
They found the company’s plans would result in a net loss of habitat for the birds, despite the government’s official recovery plan stating that loss of habitat was the main threat facing the species.
The plans also rely on new habitat being created, despite the experts saying such a feat has never been achieved.
In addition, they say the mine will destroy the most important remaining habitat, which will not be able to be offset.
Finally, they concluded that errors were made in the calculation of the offset habitats required, and they didn’t take into account the reduced value of the offsets caused by their fragmentation.
“These dodgy figures dramatically underestimate the impact of the mine on an endangered species and significantly reduced the amount of land Adani had to provide compensate for its impacts,” Stasak said.
“What is clear is that this mine will clearly have an unacceptable impact on the black-throated finch. Everywhere you look Adani has cut corners in a desperate bit to get this mine up.”…ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/20/fresh-legal-challenge-looms-over-adani-mine-risk-to-endangered-finch
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Jo – I keep an eye on AEMO Datas Dashboard and this type of notice has started popping up re SA Wind: never seen it before.
Market Notice 58845
AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
Refer to market notices 58785
Constraint Invocation to manage power system security in SA Region
In order to maintain sufficient fault levels in SA and hence a secure operating state, the following constraint set was invoked at 1500hrs which operates in both Dispatch and Pre-Dispatch:
S_WIND_1200_AUTO
This constraint equation automates the process of applying the 1200 MW limit on the wind farms. If there is enough synchronous generation online it will be “swamped” out by adding 10000 to the right-hand side, otherwise the 1200 MW limit will be applied.
Ben Blake
AEMO Operations
To my untutored old eyes, this seems to say:
“Windmills, rotate all you like, but to preserve grid synchronicity we will accept/pay for only 1200 MW”.
Other common taters may well cast more light on this constraint, but that limit compared to the windmills’ nameplate capacity feels like, as Chiefio would say, a Dig Here….
30
the numbers didn’t add up…so we changed them:
19 Jul: Scientific American: Satellite Snafu Masked True Sea Level Rise for Decades
Revised tallies confirm that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating as Earth warms and ice sheets thaw
By Jeff Tollefson
The numbers didn’t add up. Even as Earth grew warmer and glaciers and ice sheets thawed, decades of satellite data seemed to show that the rate of sea-level rise was holding steady—or even declining.
Now, after puzzling over this discrepancy for years, scientists have identified its source: a problem with the calibration of a sensor on the first of several satellites launched to measure the height of the sea
surface using radar. Adjusting the data to remove that error suggests that sea levels are indeed rising at faster rates each year.
“The rate of sea-level rise is increasing, and that increase is basically what we expected,” says Steven Nerem, a remote-sensing expert at the University of Colorado Boulder who is leading the reanalysis. He presented the as-yet-unpublished analysis on 13 July in New York City at a conference sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme and the International Oceanographic Commission, among others.
Nerem’s team calculated that the rate of sea-level rise increased from around 1.8 millimetres per year in 1993 to roughly 3.9 millimetres per year today as a result of global warming…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/satellite-snafu-masked-true-sea-level-rise-for-decades/
10
Ah, the old “if the data doesn’t support the theory, then we must change the data” ploy.
The other possibility is that the sea level isn’t rising because there has been no global warming for decades.
For an interesting read try http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.J2E1OrOK.dpbs
00
19 Jul: WaPo: I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.
By Joel Clement
Joel Clement was director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until last week. He is now a senior adviser at the department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government.
I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science…
While I have given small amounts to Democratic candidates in the past, I have no problem whatsoever working for a Republican administration…
Trump and Zinke might kick me out of my office, but they can’t keep me from speaking out. They might refuse to respond to the reality of climate change, but their abuse of power cannot go unanswered.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/im-a-scientist-the-trump-administration-reassigned-me-for-speaking-up-about-climate-change/2017/07/19/389b8dce-6b12-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html
20 Jul: GWPF: from NYT: Trump: “Frankly, The People That Like Me, Love That I Got Out Of The Paris Accord”
https://www.thegwpf.com/trump-frankly-the-people-that-like-me-love-that-i-got-out-of-the-paris-deal/
00
a must-read:
18 Jul: InsiderUK: Lord Forsyth claims Tory ‘revolution’ of electricity industry is being undermined by ‘virtual nationalisation’
The former Secretary of State for Scotland says Conservative-led changes which he claims led to lower costs and a better service are being ‘undone’ by ‘over-emphasis on carbon emission reduction’.
By Scott McCulloch
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, a former financier, said Tory-led changes to the electricity industry, which he claims had led to lower costs and a better service, are being “undone” by the “over-emphasis on carbon emission reduction at the expense of security of supply, competitiveness and costs to the consumer”.
In debate on a critical Lords economics affairs committee report on reforming the electricity market, Lord Forsyth said: “We are seeing the virtual nationalisation of electricity production in this country.”
He added it was almost impossible for anyone to build a power station without getting some kind of subsidy or guarantee from the Government.
Lord Forsyth said it was “a moment of high farce” when coal-fired power stations are being closed so rapidly consumers and industries had to be paid “not to take the electricity” and diesel generators turned on to supplement the national supply…
He claimed prices had “soared” in recent years after falling due to changes brought in by the Conservatives in the 1980s, and claimed jobs had been lost to countries with lower energy costs…
For the Government, Viscount Younger of Leckie said there was common ground between ministers and the committee on the need to keep costs down and maintain security of supply.
He confirmed a cost of energy review would go ahead but refused to confirm reports that it will be led by economist ***Dieter Helm…READ ALL
http://www.insider.co.uk/news/lord-forsyth-claims-tory-revolution-10819687
headline “is chosen” is a bit premature, perhaps:
***13 Jul: Guardian: Renewable power critic is chosen to head energy price review
Government’s preferred choice of Oxford economist Dieter Helm is controversial owing to criticism of wind and solar power
by Adam Vaughan and Nick Hopkins
An academic who is a vocal critic of the price of renewable power is the government’s preferred choice to head a review of the financial cost of energy in the UK…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/renewable-power-energy-costs-review-dieter-helm
00
also a must-read:
21 Jul: Australian: Matt Chambers: Electricity affordability more crucial than carbon reduction: Frydenberg
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg says electricity affordability has become more crucial than carbon reduction, as stories of energy hardship mount and gas export restriction is set to play a critical role in easing prices…
Speaking at The Australian/Melbourne Institute’s Economic and Social Outlook conference on Thursday, the Energy Minister said prices were the priority in solving an “energy trilemma” of high prices, carbon emissions and system unreliability.
“Unequivocally we are focused, right now, on affordability,” he said.
“We are getting daily hardship stories from the street, from regional communities, about the impact of higher prices is having on business. This is really hitting home.”…READ ALL
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/esoc15/electricity-affordability-more-crucial-than-carbon-reduction-frydenberg/news-story/433f3487e22e5ba986e17ce8a63d3e26
20
Must be an election coming up !
10
Robert Rosicka –
you got it.
00
Stupid ideas are only viable while others are forced to pay for them .
When the free money ends,so does the so called free energy !
20
Can’t see Japan building a N. Korea missal defence system relying on wind and solar power .
A business that relies on subsidies isn’t a business it’s doomed .
How many $trillions have been wasted on propping up corporate welfare bums when the money could have been put to better use ?
Maybe some unemployed climate modeller can plot the correlation between the drop in renewable subsidies
and the decrease in global warming fear mongering .
00
Does anyone really believe 100 years from now we will be getting electricity from coal?
If it were just about price, we would all be using nuclear energy.
An overwhelming number of people in Oz believe in and want action around climate change. Some lobbyists are using climate change to scare the population, however this is becoming moot as the technology gets incrementally better. It isn’t going to get worse, it only gets better, faster and cheaper.
The real driving force behind the coal lobby is profit. I don’t really think they care that much about the average pensioner’s electricity price, more about shareholder return.
I am not sure the coal supporters in Gov really care about electricity prices either. Follow the money.
The RET adds about 5% to cost. I am pretty sure the majority of Aussies can live with that for climate action.
The future is about smart grids and high tech energy, I cannot see coal in that equation, time will tell.
Cheers
Mike
00
4AM every day. Total power consumption 18,000MW+, the minimum for each day. Coal fired power supplies 80% of that, and between 70% and 75% at the Peak power consumption times.
Nuclear power in Australia is at least 15 years away, provided the conversation starts right now, today.
Until then, coal fired power is all we have.
Take that away, and Australia just stops.
That will not be allowed to happen.
10
I can’t see coal in a hundred years. I can see it now, a hundred years short of a hundred years from now. I can see that the huge amounts of premium black coal available to us in the Sydney-Gunnedah-Bowen Basins are a unique advantage to us. We should turn that into “high tech energy” now instead of continuing to rely on our coal (see Tony above) while burning it wastefully in aging facilities.
As for desire of coal companies to make money selling coal…psssst, draw near…I kind of knew they weren’t going to all that trouble for love or because they were bored.
Jet Jackson dialogue like “high tech” and “smart grid” will not compensate for energy sources which are primitive, intermittent, intrusive, hyper-expensive, diffuse, unreliable…and massively oil and gas-dependent!
10
That would accurately reflect the current state of things and how we got to where we are. The renewable energy targets are only starting to make an impact on the overall consumptions of coal in Oz. At one stage, horses made up 80% of carriage transport and cars made up 20%. Quoting current stats only tells you where we are and perhaps how we got here. It doesn’t dictate what we create in the future.
I cannot see Nuclear getting to Oz unless there is a major technological breakthrough. Until then, as you say, we have coal, which will be slowly replaced by renewables and Oz will not stop, it will progress.
@mosomoso, we have also been able to see huge amounts of uranium for some time. that doesn’t necessarily mean we should be using it.
Should we be continuing to decimate the rainforest because we can see trees also? My question was genuine. If we accept that fossil fuels are not likely to be in our future then we have to accept that there is path from where we are to that point.
high tech and smart grid are not Jet Jackson talk, which I assume you are suggesting is far fetched future speak. It is what is driving the future right now.
I appreciate there are many sides to this debate, including the merits of considering coal. I am not sure that ignoring the benefits of renewables is overly helpful to the conversation though.
Maybe I joined this thread too late and missed all the balanced points of view. A friend sent me the link hoping to show me some useful discussion from the coal supporters. It seems a little one sided.
Lets see where it goes,
Cheers
Mike
00
Mike, you say: “If we accept that fossil fuels are not likely to be in our future.”
Why? What are the benefits of renewables? Have you done a cost/benefit analysis?
Are you implying the end of the industrial revolution? A key factor in human achievements has been economy of scale. Why replace Bayswater coal station that has 660 MW x 4 generators and can operate at 90% capacity 24×7 with generators on poles that each generate 3 MW at maximimum wind speeds, deliver 1 MW on average and sometimes deliver zero?
Why give up the convenience of gas heating?
Are you suggesting fossil fuel free aeroplanes, a return to wind-powered ships?
What is the future you think we are being driven towards?
00
Hi Robber,
The benefits of renewables are many and their importance varies on the audience. For some it is the long term impact on carbon emissions on our environment. Some people and many scientists consider this greatest threat to us as a species. Others point to the potential of inexhaustible energy supply, taking away reliance and economical imbalance from countries that have fossil fuels versus those who do not. If you cannot see past the next couple of years and to the generations to come, staying as we are looks like a good idea.
The weakness of renewables is our ability to control output to meet demand. For the most part we have been and currently are reliant on the elements working in our favour. Coal and nuclear are good at delivering exactly what we need when we need it. Effectively solving the element problem in one way.
As storage technology improves, and it will, we will have another way to solve the demand problem. Right now some people are screaming the size of storage are so small it is a waste of time. in 1969 we landed on the moon with 64k of computing power. We have a track record of getting better at this.
With so many tech breakthroughs happening concurrently, it isn’t hard to imagine advances over the next few years that will change the ratios by orders of magnitude.
Indeed those advances may enable us to produces Gigawatts of power using 1 piece of coal, we really don’t know. 50 years ago we barely had digital technology. Now we have a connected planet.
The cost analysis of renewables, like all emerging technology, gets stronger over time. Its a little like trying to work out the cost analysis of building the first railroads. I can hear the naysayers now screaming why would byou build tracks and stations when we already have horses and carriages, etc.
I was reading the other day that many of the jobs that people will have in 20 years have not even been invented yet. The hardest part is letting go that any of us can accurately predict the future, we can look at trends and the trends say we are going high technology.
The industrial revolution, as it was first envisioned is not so much ending as much as evolving. When they started building factories to increase productivity there was no idea about the where the world would end up today. Much of the industrial revolution was great for the those in power and less good to the nations that were exploited for their resources.
Regardless, it was was it was.
We don’t have to give up the convenience of gas heating or coal powered electricity. We will transition, which is what is happening. It may take decades but it will happen. And when generations to come are getting their electricity from whatever source we have evolved to that point they wont give a shit about these conversations.
I definitely see planes and ships running from alternative fuels, that isnt even a stretch. Look at what is happening the car industry. Several European countries are moving to ban fossil fueled vehicles. you cannot think this is a giant conspiracy to kill the fossil fuel industry it is boring old progress.
The future we are being driven towards is somewhat scary. I see it as been pragmatic, economically driven with an expediency that ignores the believes and feelings of those that do not fall in line.
The problems the world needs to solve are amplifying everyday and increasingly we are looking to technology to solve them.
Even the fact that we are having this conversation right now is evidence that the world will look a lot different 50 years from now. How were people communicating on issues like this 50 years ago?
Its a fascinating conversation and without the hysterics of both sides of the debate there are some genuine problems worth solving.
Cheers
Mike
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