JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Thanks to the Nats the energy debate is front and centre, keep coal burners and drop subsidies for renewables.
350
Yes indeed, National Party Conference voted for ETS and related subsidies to be abolished and for new coal fired power stations to be constructed as soon as possible.
Since the 2016 when the Liberals lost most of the seats they gained at the 2013 election with Tony Abbott as their leader the National Party has been an equal partner in the Coalition, in fact it was one National seat gain that saved the government from defeat.
300
In the late 50’s I worked on a mates fathers farm,near Jameson on Victoria.One of our jobs was to move i Lister generator from the milking shed,down to the dam because the”Windmill”(which was used to pump water to the house and live stock)wasn’t turning(lack of wind)When electricity became available to the farmer,he never even hesitated to get connected.Wind was never reliable then and nothing has changed since.
60
Well, EG, if the Nats are willing to run with that ball I’ll run with them. And if Canavan is willing to support coal then I say he can keep his seat and Forza Italia!
Serious expansion and modernisation of coal, along with serious conservation of coal, are the keys for Australia. This does not apply to any other country as much as it applies to us, because our black coal resources are truly fabulous. Who neglects and derides a fabulous resource that lies right in their backyard and only needs picking up? Just us.
Let’s expand, modernise and conserve our fabulous coal resources. Let’s stop spitting in God’s eye and stop fouling the grid with contraptions which are as modern and cool as a Maynard G Krebs bongo performance. Wind, solar and Big Battery are old and feeble, okay? Useful on a retiree’s caravan, maybe.
Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek,
a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly?
Is not your voice broken, your wind short,
your chin double, your wit single,
and every part about you blasted with antiquity,
and will you yet call yourself young?
That’s our new energy. Blasted with antiquity.
170
But don’t forget that when he was PM Tony Abbott fought hard to have the RET abolished along with the subsidies, but that was rejected by the Labor Green led Senate opposition.
The Senate did however agree to cap the previous Labor Government’s RET of just over 20 per cent which they increased from the early 2000s Howard Coalition Government’s trial only incentive RET of 2 per cent. Recently former PM Howard said the 2 per cent should never have been increased.’
But today Labor want to raise the RET to 50 per cent and the Government’s target is about 40 per cent.
Well, it was until the National Party Conference decided that’s not on, as Abbott MP has been saying for a very long time.
220
Dennis, it was Clive Palmer who “protected” the RET, at Al Gore’s call.
I very much doubt that Al Gore would have ever heard of Clive Palmer before the PUP gained the balance of power in our senate at the 2013 election. My expectation was that PUP would support the abolition of the RET.
Were you not shocked with the news that Al Gore and Clive Palmer would be making an announcement from the steps of parliament house, and to see it happen?
I want to know how Al Gore persuaded Clive Palmer. A Royal Commission would be in order.
00
‘Thou Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound; wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and paint
The casuistry of States to deprive me
Of the yonge sonne’s bounteous energy?’
With apologies to the bard.
90
Sadly Beth, our “young Sun” will one day die.
Certainly a long time in the future.
Until then I will gladly take of our Sun”s energy, especially in wintertime.
KK
50
Energy, stored in Ol’ King Coal, KK, that released serfs from slavery.
Thabk goodness fer that! )
100
I meant ‘thank’.Tsk!
50
Beth
I occasionally pick up small pieces of coal around the beaches and Bush here.
After so many years I am still amazed at how shiny, brittle and clean it is.
Coal is truly a gift from heaven.
KK
80
momoso @ # 1.2
Damn you for your revelations !
Here’s me, blaming my mirror for all those years past for the distortions of my image it threw up every time I looked at it.
And then you come along with your ditty and destroy my illusions about the poor quality of that mirror.
🙂
30
We need to go back to 3 sided contests with both National & Liberal candidates at state & commonwealth elections.
I would vote national, but there is no way I would vote for the Libs with Turnbull, or any of their senior ministers as leader.
150
I agree, sort of agree, in that I would not like the trustworthy Liberal good guys penalised electorate by electorate. We need them in Parliament because the union controlled Labor Greens would be far worse than the Turnbull “Black Hand” faction MPs.
80
Nats talk tough but are they able to walk it through , Libs wear the pants in that relationship and the nats will do what they’re told .
I sent Barnaby an email about the Rutherglen Bom fudging and he defended Bom .
100
If the Liberal backsliders need Barnaby Joyce’s Nats to give them government they will do what the Nationals want.
That’s the Realpolitik here.
Go Barnaby.
30
It is my view that Barnaby Joyce is Australia’s best politician. He has already saved the Nats from annihilation, which but for BJ would have been annihilated at the 2010 election.
But the Nats have been very foolish in confining themselves to a narrow, rural base. This has never been more so than right now, where disunity in the Liberal Party is putting the Nationals back on the chopping block, and all they can do about it is try to hold the government together.
If the Nationals are to survive, they must expand their base by moving into ALP held seats, starting with seats neighbouring seat already held by the Nationals.
00
The Nats should continue to impress upon their Liberal colleagues that they will walk if ignored.
A three cornered contest would wipe out One Nation, which must be an option.
51
Maybe the message is finally getting through that keeping the RET and killing coal plants is electorally suicidal for ANY party….
Labor of course are communists, so will keep the RET as to back away would trigger an internal purge by the hard liners who runt he show. Bobble-head Shortonideas will just do as hes told of course….if Labor gains office this country is just North Korea waiting to happen. Libs arent much better – Turncoat is as left wing as he can be without actually wearing a hat with a red star….
40
Marx didn’t mention deindustrialisation in his Manifesto.
The pseudo Marxist consortium maybe communism with Australian characteristics.
20
Three cornered contests greatly improve the chances for independents.
As for e.g. and Marx. The rank and file of the “Communists with Australian characteristics” believe that after they have busted the bosses and the banks unemployed people will walk into the factories and farms and keep them producing. They don’t believe Zimbabwe’s story.
00
You can tell where the real money is when companies like AGL want to get out of coal fired power stations. I’ll bet every dollar that I have that if all subsidies were removed, AGL would be right into coal fired power stations once again.
160
You can bet that the AGL future business plan involves coal and gas, and probably even a consideration for nuclear power stations.
But for the time being they are making piles of hay while the sun shines, and when the wind blows.
50
My bolding here:
AGL Assets
Coal Fired Power – 6850MW
Gas Fired Power – 1280MW
Total fossil fuel – 8130MW
Renewables – Total – 1616MW
Hydro – 691MW
Wind – 770MW
Solar – 155MW
Seems to me that with five times the fossil fuel assets, and with renewables having a CF a third of coal fired power, that makes 15 times the money out of fossil fuels than renewables, and they would be making an absolute motza out of coal fired power, which they are, umm, getting out of by umm ….. 2050. (now, there’s sincerity for you, eh!)
Tony.
180
Incidentally, how’s this for
hypocrisygenuine belief that they are doing some good for the future. AGL’s asset, Bayswater will still be generating power and making them money long after their current wind and solar plants have time expired.Tony.
170
… but their pogrom against coal helped drive coal prices down and gas prices up.
80
Tony I’ve noticed NSW using diesel generators yesterday and today , only up to 3mw that I’ve seen but do they have some coalfired assets out at the moment .
20
James Bradley September 10, 2017
“… but their pogrom against coal helped drive coal prices down and gas prices up.”
That was\is the whole good business plan of natural gas investors Ex VP AlGore and Goddard director Jimmy Hansen! Jimmy is a wee bit younger than I but never learned by actually ‘doing something\anything’. Did not work out so well after the takeover by “Da Green Blob” of ignorant academia and their wealthy Karl Marx indoctrinated students.
All the best!-will-
62
I wonder what sort of hot water system to buy once my present rheem off peak tank fails.
Is it worth while buying a rheem infinity instant gas heater, a hybrid with gas and rooftop solar, so including collectors and a tank,
or stick to off peak electricity tank with or without a solar booster.
I would welcome some advice on this from your own experience.
40
Lewis, I still prefer gas storage, even though it’s more expensive – I just like instant hot water when I turn the hot tap on. The latest Rheem so-called “instant” gas heaters seem to take forever to supply hot water and they appear to be more expensive than storage systems.
40
Thanks for this.Lewis
20
My annoyance with the instant hot water is the amount of water that flows down the sink waiting for the hot (at least in the model I have). This is will not be OK when we are in drought and it is not OK because the water also costs money – grey water retention is an option of course (but not if you don’t have a garden). Maybe they are smarter now and circulate the water until it is hot?
30
I’ve been looking at that as well and I still haven’t quite worked out what is the best option. The new instant hot water systems seem to be quite good and I know some in our area using them and they recommend them. If you use a lot of hot water, they seem to be effective and efficient.
30
Two solar systems in 19 years (glass lined name brand) failed due to rusted out tanks. Payback on the first was about 20 years IIRC.
Seems the go now is stainless steel – but there is “stainless steel” which also corrodes and “stainless steel” so bewware.
Local “go to” around here is Rinnai on demand, so we went there. Works fine, only a slight delay on getting hot water to the tap.
Plumber who installed it knows of only 1 solar left in an area of plentiful sunshine.
40
316 grade stainless steel is one of the few types that can handle heat + moisture , anything that touches 316 has to also be 316 or it will rust .
It’s a dearer grade but the best for anything that gets heated , it’s also non magnetic .
20
I’ve been looking at the Rinnai and Bosch instant gas systems. A slight delay isn’t a problem in our house, as we always have to run the water for some seconds before any hot water comes through. Sometimes I think that alone adds to the cost of having a normal hot water system.
The only thing with us is that an instant hot water system would need to run off bottled gas and that’s not as cheap as natural gas available in the burbs.
20
I always like the idea of a form of redundancy in any system, so gas hot water with a solar backup/booster would be the go IMHO. If you have solar PV you could also add panels & inverter & batteries and on demand electrical hot water heater. Covers all your options then, and you can mix and match depending on requirements.
10
Our last Gas fired glass lined storage hot water tank lasted about a bit over a decade here before rusting through.
We now have a Rinnai instant gas fired system.
Slow getting hot water through but no tank worries.
Some instant how water units use small tubines spinning up with flow of water when a tap is turned on which then uses a spark generator to light the gas.
Supposedly not very reliable at all with a lot of problems and expensive to fix downtime at plumbers prices according to a couple of local plumbers I asked.
But they are independent of any electrical supply or lack of when working Ok so there is a good chance of still having hot water when required if “Blackout Bill” gets into power after the next election.
The Rinnai relies on the 240 v electrical supply to fire its gas flame to get hot water so any interuption in the power supply means no hot water even though you have plenty of gas supply.
A small generator would over come that problem of an interrupted grid supply.
I think the sizing of gas hot water heaters are a bit like building a farm shed.
Work out the size you want and will fufill your requirements.
Double that size when you build it.
And in two years time you will find that it is about half the size you should have built it to.
10
To minimise time and water before the hot water from a gas fired instant water heater comes through, take the water heater to the water / tap flow point and run the gas to it rather than a long run of water pipe and a short gas supply pipe
10
Thanks everyone, Lewis.
00
Failure of a glass lined tank suggests careless installation or handling to me, chipping the lining. e.g. putting a blow torch too close to the tank, or straining a fitted pipe.
00
If the Nats have had a reality-check and now see the essential need for coal baseload – it would be a good time to make sure that the party is fully briefed on the concerns about BOM – they should look at raising these temperature record ‘uncertainties’ publicly – it would add weight to their new stance on coal:
‘Uncertainties’ i.e.:
Algorithms used for temperature homologation that BOM refuse to release or explain;
Hardware used to prevent low temperature recording;
One second temperature spikes used to claim new ‘Hottest Ever, records – in complete breach of WMO and BOM’s own guidelines;
Destroyed temperature records;
etc etc
Maybe Jo, Jennifer Marohasy and others could get a briefing pack together and sent to the relevant politicians.
81
All we ask is that the government must do a BoM audit, to satisfy our concerns, but they refuse.
What BoM said is that ‘averaged over the State (NSW), maximum temperatures were the third-warmest on record, while minimum temperatures were the lowest since 1997.’
As you know cool dry air supposedly warms when CO2 is added, but obviously the night time temperatures would have remained warm as well. So something else is happening which needs explanation.
61
I should have also commented that my partner had a combination gas instant and roof solar system in a previous new house. Never worked properly, and the roof solar that depends on an electric pump doesn’t work in blackouts. With her next new house she switched to an expensive Rheem gas instant and now is always complaining about having to waste water while waiting for hot water to arrive. My recent Rheem update with another gas storage delivers hot water in a few seconds. Also storage systems are not volume limited – they can quickly fill a washing machine etc.
10
‘My recent Rheem update with another gas storage’
Would you mind giving the model.
Your partner’s problems do not surprise me.
In theory its a good idea to have solar and gas, however the electronics could go wrong and you would not know.
Visiting central Australia I saw the latest solar trackers for photovoltaic electricity.
The sensors kept on failing and they pointed in random directions.
Apparently dust got into them and the call out fees to remote areas were high.
At least you could see they were not working.
In New Guinea the gas instant hot water systems on bottled gas had a pilot light, so did not need electricity to ignite.
00
eg, who actually gives a toss about what the Nats say??
They will, in the end, simply bend over for whatever the Libs want like they always do.
They are the useful agrarian socialist idiots of the conservative side of politics that can safely be ignored at any time.
Entertainment value only. 🙂
31
‘….who actually gives a toss about what the Nats say??’
Out in the bush we take the Nats seriously and expect them to speak up for the conservative side, which you think should be ignored.
They are only the junior partner but have clout, better than rump status.
20
Here in Newcastle we have just undergone the electoral comedy drama known as local government elections.
It leaves me with the image of cattle heading for the gates and a big paddock where all the grass has been cut, packed and sold off to benefit either big unions or big business, depending which group has been in power most recently.
Nothing for the herd but higher rates.
But I promised myself that I wasn’t going to think about politics today.
The good news is that like those in the U.K. and USA we can still send a message to our political class over the job destroying antics and debt increasing antics of recent times.
Just wait till the lights go out, just wait till those huge increases on electricity costs hit out letter boxes.
Brexit, Trumpit may have nothing on the possible ELECTRICIT backlash that may be just around the corner.
Have we got the backbone to stand up and be counted?
KK
160
Here too, just up the road north
50
Surely we have enough backbone stiffeners?
Theorywise Evans, Nicol and Svensmark have discredited the Flannery /Obama/ Gore rantings.
Commonsense says that whatever Oz does will do nothing for climate change.
Investmentwise Warren Buffett advises how to make money out of the “green tax” ideology..at the expense of energy consumers.
But above all the rising power prices and falling supply reliability must convince even the most progressive green latte-sucker that the future for Oz is bleak.
Unfortunately with our representative party-based democracy our politicians open their mouths only when they think they will be “popular” , not when they have a belief in something that will Advance Australia Fair. A recipe for backbone?
The challenge is to get information about the “stiffeners” into the main stream media. Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt aren’t loud enough. Who else is out there?
110
I feel the broad consensus for high power costs sits squarely at the dithering of the Federal Government hampering the plans of State governments wanting to do the right thing and encourage more wind and solar.
Linked is the sort of information on wind and solar that is being distributed by leading investment groups:
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AERFGA.png
As you can see it depicts coal as being much more expensive than wind and solar. This sort of data, being presented by Goldman and Sachs. gives it great credibility. No one questions its accuracy. No one questions its validity.
This is the context where I got it from:
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/coalition-energy-crisis-explodes/
Only a small number of commenters question this data and even fewer can pick the flaws. Have a go; where is it wrong and why?
31
RickWill:
It’s well known that offshore wind costs about double that of onshore wind, yet Mexico, Chile and Argentina have it at figures as low or lower than onshore wind. (Crosscheck with Canada). Either there is something wrong with the supposed prices or other subsidies are involved. Look also at China, a big producer of wind turbines, building big wind farms, and with cheap(ish) labour yet their figure for offshore is 3 times that of the USA.
Sorry, these figures aren’t believable as a full cost of wind generation. There must be other income involved or these suppliers are going to go bankrupt very rapidly.
Try working it out; A 1MW wind turbine costing $600,000 would generate 54400MWh in 9 years at 23% CF (about average for the world). That is $33 a MWh just to pay for the capital cost, without any maintenance or operating cost (which Infigen Energy in Australia puts at $A24 per MWh for onshore generation with a high CF. In the UK the government agency (it keeps changing its name) estimated that offshore running costs were 2.5 times that of those onshore. And after 9 years even onshore turbines in the UK need extensive renovation. And I doubt that any turbine builder (unsubsidised) would sell you turbines installed at that price.
Still, if the costs are really that low there is absolutely no need to offer any subsidies. The government should refuse to issue any more Large scale Generation Certificates as the wind farmers don’t need that extra $A82-85.
101
Graeme
If you look closely at the capacity factors then you start to realise where the basic flaw is.
Who builds a coal plant to run at 50% CF.
The CFs for wind and solar are what is possible with no system constraints. SA has 1600MW installed. On the 4th and 5th of September the capacity had to be throttled at 1200MW despite the wind being consistent with 100% capacity. The State requires a certain level of gas to be running for stabilise reasons and I suspect there has been an agreement reached for a guaranteed level of export from gas plants to ensure they remain economic. At present the SA wind and solar are able to achieve just over 40% of the of the total energy consumed in the state. As they try to increase the proportion they will need a lot more excess capacity that is more often throttled that is going to lower the CF and need an incredible amount of storage. If they rely on battery storage the optimum, meaning lowest cost, CF averages between 4 and 5%.
These CF numbers are highly misleading. I have found very few people actually understand the grid does not work like a battery. Most people believe that power can be pumped in and taken out as they like as long as it nets to zero over some given period of time like a year.
The output for a coal plant is controlled by the demand – it is dispacphable. The output from a wind plant is controlled by the wind plus any demand restrictions – it is not dispacthable. Comparisons based on potential CFs are just nonsense. In the example linked they are greatly skewed by using 50% for coal.
91
Rick, the RET is dispacphable if not dispacthable! I think your spell checker has got the Daffy Duck virus.
Unlike our politicians and Canberra bureaucrats who have caught the Goofy virus.
20
> the RET is dispacphable if not dispacthable!
I hate the way they use the word, I would have preferred dispatch-able.
10
RickWill:
The latest ‘auction’ for off-shore wind electricity has a cost of around $A163, made up of approx. bulk rate of £42 plus a fixed** subsidy of £57.50 per MWh. It has been hailed as the cheapest yet.
** these contracts often include an adjustment clause for inflation but don’t know if it applies in this case.
00
Wind Europe, which represents the wind industry published a new position paper in June 2017 entitled “Repowering and Lifetime Extension – Making the Most of Europe’s Wind Energy Resource.”
It is arguing that the replacement of end-of-life turbines Must have the same subsidies as new installations if they are to be kept running – if nothing else this totally debunks the myth and propaganda that ‘Wind is Cheaper than Coal or Gas’.
The Introduction on page 2 is well worth reading as it gives the game away that without subsidies wind does not work:
After discussing subsidies from variou EU States (note that these are no longer considered Nation states – the key reason for Brexit) it states:
“WindEurope fully endorses the repowering proposals presented by the European Commission in the Clean Energy Package.”
To read the original document: https://windeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/files/policy/position-papers/WindEurope-Repowering-and-Lifetime-Extension.pdf
WindEurope position papers make very interesting reading: https://windeurope.org/policy/position-papers/
Home page of WindEurope is here : https://windeurope.org/
80
Good find.
40
Just part of what I am currently looking at to show that a ban on sales of all but electric vehicles in the UK from 2040 will, as things are, increase UK CO2 emissions very significantly by 2048.
Preliminary calculations suggest that to power all the new electric vehicles with wind power would need somewhere around 20% of the UK landmass to be covered in wind turbines by 2048 ………
I’m also looking at calculating the subsidy cost from taxation and increased energy costs to install and operate them …
70
Land in Britain will not be cheap.
But the wynde and Sunne are. FREE!!!
KK
20
Ironically, the Loony Left was kicked out of office in the UK at the end of the 70s, now it seems they are back again…..
Seriously – only electric after 2040? Idiots….
20
Starving children will stiffen the resolve of any parent in such a situation….
10
Hi KK,
We need a new political party with the avowed policy to shut down the climate con. In other words, shut off the funds to all the leaches that are feeding off the working people of this country. There must be no compromise or trade offs. When I talk of the “working people”, I am talking of those who produce something of value; the business operators; the people who go to work, and those who provide the finance.
I appreciate that existing contracts would have to be fulfilled. But then each contract could be examined to see if an “out” can be found. These leaches must never be rewarded so if they suffer, that would bring joy to my heart.
Certainly, if I was in the senate, I dream of this. I have had too many nightmares caused by the likes of Turnbull and the activities of the NSW state government, my home state. The state government is in breach of its compact with the people: In other words, it is supposed to act in the best interests of its people.
60
I have only voted liberal twice in my life and never for hard laba.
Voters must do as you say and vote for specific interest candidates.
When the liberals won state office a few years ago the very first thing they did was to rezone a specific area in Newcastle to add extra height to existing building approvals.
This instantly rewarded those who no doubt had supported their campaign.
Government should be predictable and ethical but it’s not what we get.
KK
50
I admit a stuff up.
Should have spelled “leeches”. At least I admit an error when I make one.
30
Peta Credlin at The Daily Telegraph Opinion website has again written about the energy crisis, and exposed AGL Limited and the Union Labor Soros people employed by that company.
160
Josh Frydenberg has another piece in The Australian with 370+ comments, heavily unfavourable.
70
Found some old weather extreme papers produced by the US military for equipment design under extreme conditions.Some Aussi records in here as well.For example the biggest hailstone in those days was in Kansas and measured 17.5 inches bet that caused a few headaches. A PDF doc i have put into Box link. https://app.box.com/s/u5v17nceel128vk15l11vmahozbgeabd
40
Well, every things up to date in Kansas City …… lol
60
h/t stopthesethings.com
A very good analysis of what will probably happen over summer.
The incompetence of the cabal of failed lawyers in the ALP/Greens is truly astounding, not that the LNP are much better.
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/09/09/australian-summer-forecast-more-blackouts-rocketing-power-prices/
61
Hurricane scene from the great John Huston (with Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall) Key Largo film (1948), where Lionel Barrymore mentions the destruction of the Great 1935 Hurricane which hit Florida with devastating effects.
More on the 1935 Hurricane here.
20
In 1935, was that Hurricane caused by global warming?
sarc.
30
Tony Heller on his Real climate site has had a couple posts on the similarity of weather conditions over the USA in 1935 compared to this week
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/09/irma-weather-almost-identical-to-the-labor-day-hurricane/
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/09/1935-labor-day-hurricane-hit-on-a-very-cool-day/
40
With Liddell in the news, it’s interesting to keep an eye on the NSW supply of power.
This week, NSW has had four of it’s ‘biggies’ down for maintenance would be my guess, one Unit at each of Bayswater, Eraring, Mount Piper, and also Liddell, and while only four Units, that takes a big whack out of power generation, 2580MW in all.
Also, in Queensland, there were also four of its Units down, and one also in Victoria.
All up, that removes 4370MW out of the system, more than two large scale Plants overall.
So, because of that, especially in NSW, it was worth keeping an eye on the power sharing arrangements via all those Interconnectors, especially at the main Peak Power time of 6PM.
All the rest of the Units in NSW were virtually at their max, including Liddell.
Victoria’s Units were also at their max, as were those in Queensland.
Queensland supplied all its needs, and 1100MW into NSW. Victoria supplied its needs, and fed some into NSW as well. To counter this, Victoria was importing Hydro from Tasmania, and excess wind from South Australia. SouthAus is interesting to watch since the blackouts there, and dare I say it, in the lead up to the State election there. Those gas fired plants are in constant operation, generating between 1000MW and 1600MW all day, and at one time, up to 2400MW, when the wind failed completely the week before last. Because of that, and with their large concentration of wind plants, when that wind is good, they CAN feed some power into the now stressed Victoria, now minus the buffer that Hazelwood gave them.
So, with NSW in deficit while those Units are down, they are getting power from Queensland and Victoria.
With Queensland doing so well, because of its coal fired power, it’s interesting that the State Government will restart a gas fired plant at Swanbank E, and that’s a CCGT, so a 24/7 power plant of 385MW, probably getting ready for the peak when Liddell may or may not close.
Incidentally, with the State Government in Queensland controlling 85% of the coal fired power via its two Government owned Corporations, it’s interesting to see that one of those Corporations also owns Swanbank E, and the coal mines supplying those coal fired plants, and the rail lines, and the rail company to deliver the coal, and also the Interconnectors.
The cynic in me thinks right now that their plan to go 50% renewable by 2030 is all just talk, as they would be cutting their own throats to shut down all that lovely coal fired power and the money it brings in, somewhere in the vicinity of $3.6 Billion a year, around $10 million each day. Queensland consistently generates between 115 and 123% of its actual power consumption, feeding the rest into NSW, so they have to reduce that to 50%. Yeah! Right!
Even with all those Units down across the Country, coal fired power still supplied just a touch under 80% of the average Base Load this last week.
This last week’s data and comments is at the following link:
Australian Base Load Electrical Power – Week Ending 9th September 2017
Maybe I should send all of this off to The Nats, with all of this current at the moment, and Senator Canavan might be a starting point. He lives here in Rockhampton.
Tony.
240
I wonder how much debt is hidden in those private government owned companies’ books?
When NSW Labor sold government owned electricity businesses for $6.1 billion below the lowest valuation estimate of asset value, sold for $5.9 billion, after the hidden off government books debts were settled all that remained was $800 million.
Debt ordered to pay the government extra in dividends.
60
Hi Tony, in response to your earlier comments about Tumut 3 pumped hydro storage I posted some additional information at http://joannenova.com.au/2017/09/62-of-australians-dont-want-to-pay-even-10-a-month-for-renewables/#comment-1944750
In light of that I wonder if you have any comments on Snowy Hydro 2.0, specifically where all the extra power is going to come from to do the pumping especially as you note Tumut 3 is currently producing only 250MW for a few hours per day which is only a small proportion of its upgraded 1800MW capacity.
If Tumut 3 is not fully utilised now what is the point of Snow Hydro 2.0?
31
Might I suggest here that with such a good snowfall this year, and the dams filling with snow melt, that small output from Tumut 3 is undoubtedly just one time through and they are not pumping any water back up the hill.
Snowy 2.0 will operate similarly. My guess is that cheap coal fired power in the after midnight early AM will be used to pump the water back up the hill.
Tony.
70
Tony,
It’s very hard to believe that anyone with enough education to be able to say, “I’m an engineer and I design generating plants to supply you with electricity,” would do such a thing. They either have discovered the best thing in electricity generation since Thomas Edison or they think they can pull the wool over the eyes of all the people all the time. I’ll cast my vote for the latter.
Or do they think they have a perpetual motion machine?
Or maybe the question is, do they think?
40
Roy
I would like to have unused power produced after midnight put to better use like providing juice for our closed Aluminum smelters.
KK
70
That’s why we had aluminum smelters in the first place…
31
If I was a con man this scheme I’ve been reading about thanks to Tony and a few others is the kind of thing I’d try to get people to invest in. Are you sure there’s no way to “make money” from it? We might be missing the opportunity of a lifetime. 😉
What possible real benefit can it have?
40
Kinky Keith mentions this:
Even I was surprised at how little (comparatively) electrical power Aluminium Smelters consume.
The biggest two in Australia are the Boyne Smelter at Gladstone, and the one at Tomago near Raymond Terrace/Hexham, close to Newcastle, and both have a capacity to make around 550,000 Tonnes of Aluminium a year.
The Boyne plant near Gladstone is just slightly larger, and it consumes around 900MW of electrical power pretty much constantly.
It sources its power from the Gladstone Power Plant, which, at construction, had 6 X 280MW Units for a Nameplate of 1680MW. It was constructed in 1976, making it, in effect only three years younger than the plant in the news at the moment, Liddell, and no one is talking about closing that plant at Gladstone, and the Queensland Government said categorically that NO coal fired plants would close in their time frame for 50% renewables by 2030, and in 2030, that Gladstone plant will be almost 60 years old, but as it supplies the Smelter, that Government would not dare to mention its closure. RioTinto owns the plant with the Japanese in there as well, but the Government has controlling access to the remainder of the power over and above what the Smelter consumes, so anything over 900MW.
Now, while a plant can generate its maximum when new, as it ages, that power generation (per Unit) drops off slightly, so those Units can now manage around 260MW. (give or take a little) At any one point in time, one Unit is always off line, as per the maintenance schedule would be my guess.
The plant uses those units to (sort of) follow the Load, so they ramp up and down for the two daily peaks, but never below 1000MW, as the Smelter consumes 900MW constantly.
So, consuming 900MW and the plant at Tomago something similar, and the other smelters, well, what’s left of them, the actual power consumed by Aluminium smelters here in Oz comes in only 2600MW to perhaps 3000MW tops, and that’s around 14% to 17% of the 18000MW Base Load, so, as I said above, comparatively, it’s not the huge amount of power people may think it to be.
Off Peak hot water heating accounts for around 6% of that Base Load, but that is only for one hour at Max and then much smaller percentages for a further hour or two at most.
So, even at that point in time when the hot water systems all come on, that part of the Base Load with the Smelters on line still only accounts for around 20/22% of Base Load, so the rest of Australia is still consuming 13500MW, or around 50% of average daily power consumption.
Base Load is something important which people have no concept about, and until that is explained, why that reliable and constant power is needed all the time, then this myth that surrounds it will persist, and those levels of power can only be supplied by sources which actually CAN deliver it.
Tony.
50
I heard that Beijing offered to buy Mount Piper, but were knocked back for some inexplicable reason.
They wanted to build a HELE.
00
Climbing on the back of Turnbull’s recent comments on Liddell, the Lithgow community want to expand Mount Piper to four units.
http://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/4911370/council-supports-liddell-calls-for-mt-piper-expansion/
00
Ahh so that’s why NSW is using diesel gensets !
40
Northern, Hazelwood and now Liddel?
Time all of us, not just South Australians, to invest in generators and jerry cans.
00
A few points from Alan Kohler in the Australian. As always, he is puzzled that “But everybody knows coal-fired power stations must close if Australia is to meet the 2 degree committment that everybody agreed to in 2015”. So like lemmings, we march off the cliff, unthinking.
More importantly, he made a good point “Power stations like factories do not have a use by date“. This business that Hazelwood is ‘old’ is utter rubbish. It was running over 95% of design on the day it was closed. When AGL bought Liddell, it was fine. Two years later they announced its closure. I mean, why sell coal power at 4c when you can get 20c with RET certificates?
Alan does correctly say the entire problem is the RET.
Now Malcolm Turnbull says Labor is the problem for the “energy crisis” in Australia, saying its policies have squandered the country’s natural resource opportunities. The last time I checked, the RET was a Howard Liberal Act, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000.
Shorten is up to the absurd criticism. He blames the overcharging on privatization of all things. Cheeky when the RET with bipartisan support now costs $6Billion a year after taxes and this goes to private companies to buy private solar and private windmills and trouser billions. Half leaves the country. All with the enthusiastic support of Labor and the Greens.
The only problem is the RET. Kohler’s Smoke and Mirrors at least says what everyone knows, the RET is the problem. Read the act. This is not about a ‘target’. That is an aspirational goal. The RET is a huge carbon tax at wholesale and no one objects because it is not on petrol and it is buried in our bills.
I have just bought two Honda Generators for the summer. We have to keep going somehow. Businesses are closing everywhere. I will move to the cloud as the US has not put up the out of business sign like Australia.
Our politicians need to stop the games and repeal the RET.
Why should Australians punish themselves for the sins of others, even man made Global Warming was true, which it isn’t. We only produce 2% of the world’s CO2. 98% comes from overseas but we are suffering like no other country. Perhaps it is good for us to be punished by our politicians? For what exactly? Breathing? Driving to work? Turning on the lights? Using computers? When will this madness stop and the politicians admit they and they alone are the problem, even without geniuses Daniel Andrews and Jay Weatherill.
Repeal the RET. It would take a day. Turnbull and Shorten can stop blaming each other and blame themselves. They are the villains.
141
Of course God might punish us with a hurricane in Melbourne. Apparently God does not like Donald Trump either.
71
It’s odd. Largely atheist Greens and journalists talking about God’s punishment, as if they have suddenly discovered religion. Florida is pounded by 15 hurricanes a year on average. It is a risk of which every resident is very aware and one they are prepared to take. A gamble. You can only hope that each time people are better prepared, even in the destitute island nations like Puerto Rico and Haiti.
We are seeing the same thing in Australia as a generation of post WW2 people retire to the very warm tropics around Cairns, at least with steel cables to hold roofs in place, after the lessons of Cyclone Tracey and Darwin. Cyclones/Hurricanes/Tropical Storms are a fact of lie. It is not a question of if you are hit, but when.
91
I had to fact check 15/year. Where did you get that datum?
Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical disturbances that reach tropical storm intensity are named from a pre-determined list. On average, 10.1 named storms occur each season, with an average of 5.9 becoming hurricanes and 2.5 becoming major hurricanes (Category 3 or greater). The most active season was 2005, during which 28 tropical cyclones formed, of which a record 15 became hurricanes. The least active season was 1914, with only one known tropical cyclone developing during that year.[3
40
It was in the book FARK which chose the reporting of hurricanes as part of the summer news filler used by TV and media in the US. Always the same helicopter, the same pier, the same reporter. Regular as clockwork. It’s not news, it’s FARK how the media run stories to keep people interested. I can’t say I have verified the figure. The author even planted fake news just to see how it bounced around in the system.
We see news channels as providing a useful public service. That’s now how they are viewed by newscasters, including sadly our own. People get bored easily. Who cares about the massive cleanup on Hamilton Island today? Or the last time Haiti was devastated. How is Houston coping? What happened to the terrible rolling tragedy of Ebola in Liberia? Did everyone recover on the same day? No, news is entertainment and nothing more entertaining than tragedy, until it repeats.
61
In fact the body count this time is amazingly low. Better satellite watching. Mass evacuations. Education. Better rebuilding. A storm of this magnitude, unless there is a building collapse is now unlikely to produce the mass deaths of the 1970s, whether in Florida or Darwin. That is the good news, but it is not what the news channels want. Tragedy drives ratings, sadly.
41
sounds to me like you are trying to blame an error on Drew Curtis or something. Either that or you were writing whilst in the middle of an cerebral embolism (this is a pun btw for inFARKtion)
10
Fark first appeared in 1999 after Drew Curtis had a few to many beers one night, and decided to write a blog. The book, entitled “It’s Not News, It’s FARK”, was first published by Gotham Books in 2007, and there has been several editions since.
The byline for the book is, “How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News.”
In that intent, it is a very accurate portrayal of how the media pushes its agenda(s), rather than just reporting the factual news. In media circles, FACT is a four letter word. In Government circles, the book is required reading, for any ministerial advisor.
30
well maybe so but what has that to do with Tdef’s error? His 15/year was not a reference to FARK in any way. Anyway vive la fake news
20
It is better than writing about Australian politics, which just seems to be a kindergarten version of chaos theory.
20
This is nitpicking. Sure the average is 10.1, the record is 15, the minimum recorded was one in 1904.
15 was the number quoted in FARK and the number at the time the book was written. It is no rare event.
Since Global Warming the hurricane frequency has strangely halved, not that you would know it from the Climate Change hysteria.
The point again is that Hurricanes are frequent events in Hurricane season, June to November. As in Australia, how often they occur and where and when they hit is a matter of luck. Even totally random events would have a standard deviation of +/-4 so 6 to 14 a year. Unlike Florida, we do not have 20 million people living on Cape York or in the Cook Islands of New Zealand.
21
Tdef the average is 10.1 named storms (not even hurricanes) in the whole Atlantic area and is nowhere near that number for those that hit Florida. Not nitpicking just wrong by an order of magnitude.
21
That’s nitpicking on the word landfall. If the hurricane has dropped to a category 4 before it hits land, it is no longer a hurricane, so it doesn’t count? If it just misses, it is also not counted.
For example “in October 2016, Category-3 Hurricane Matthew did not make landfall in Florida but spent an entire day churning up the coast just offshore, battering towns, causing several deaths, and leaving over a million Floridians without power.”. So not a hurricane then. Just a category 3 storm.
01
OK… I agree. Florida probably interacts with around 10 weather systems associated with named storms.
20
not the same as “pounded by” though is it?
10
Trump doesn’t own Melbourne, so it’s OK if god smites it.
41
Melbourne copped the Brighton Cyclone, two tornados crossing, in 1918. Rated an F3. Yep, in Melbourne.
But on New Year’s Day there was a tornado at Buladelah north of Newcastle which was a possible F5. Didn’t hit the town, but they reckon it wiped out a million of those famous Bulahdelah timbers.
These events have to come round eventually. Some, like Bulahdelah, are just too freakish to anticipate. But what hit the Florida Keys in 1935, a Cat 5 at landfall, could one day hit Miami with the deadly aim of a Cyclone Tracy. Irma is terrible, but there was never a reason to believe it would not occur and there’s no reason to believe worse can’t occur.
When powerful cyclone Haiyan hit Leyte the region was shattered but still well served by mitigation measure taken after the much less powerful Thelma in 1991 killed over 5000. You can’t control climate (they try, I know) but you can do something about mudslides on mismanaged watersheds, unpinned roofs, seawalls etc. And you can avoid doing what the New Yorkers did: narrowing the mouth of their main river to make more real estate with the rubble from WTC construction. This despite a long history of hurricanes, named and unnamed, including a Cat 3 at landfall out on Long Island which missed the city in 1938, just.
30
Why anyone takes any notice of Kohler and his confusing graphics is beyond me.
70
Alan Kohler seems to “believe” in renewables – especially windmills. That’s why his head spins. As does his prose.
80
Generator sales are through the roof. The diesel is squirting out of very political foreign ground to be refined in Japan, Korea and Singapore then shipped in along very political sea lanes. The money is heading offshore, as is the coal to pay for the War on Coal.
Thank you, Climatariat. Whatever your dainty green fingers touch turns black. (Does everybody know? Alan Kohler certainly doesn’t, though he is supposed to know what everybody knows.)
70
The Howard Government introduced the RET as part of their “greenhouse gas emissions” reduction planning following the Kyoto Conference, and as a direct result of direct action or whatever they called it at the time Australia has achieved every target for reduction since.
RET was a trial 2 per cent once off not to be raised to encourage the private sector to test alternatives such as wind and solar, and others.
Former PM Howard recently commented that the 2 per cent RET should never have been increased, as Labor did after they formed government in November 2007.
20
The real hope is that the bed wetters in the Liberal party realise that faux PM Turnbull is a dud, as if that wasnt’ obvious after his one seat majority from a landslide victory under Abbott just two years before.
Malcom Turnbull is far more Labor and Green than any shade of conservative and despite his play on the word Liberal, Liberals and the Nationals have always been very conservative. Conservatives can be Liberal but hate being told what to think. On same sex marriage, climate change (whatever that is), Global Warming (which is not true), Immigration, defence. Julie Bishop, Shorten’s equal in knifing others has said we will endure Trump. That must make her welcome in Washington, not the White House.
Turnbull has been basking in Abbott’s shadow on border protection and apart from his crazy projects a decade down the road, big ideas so reminiscent of Rudd, done nothing at all. Now he is furiously agreeing with Shorten on same sex marriage and Climate and trying to wedge Shorten on Coal, which Turnbull hates as much. Not a scientist to be seen.
However if Abbott was put back, he could storm home with his Climate Change is crap, strong border protection, reduce debt, shackle the ABC, make the BOM act responsibly, force the CSIRO to do some real work or go home and cut funding to crazy lefty universities which are spending $1.5Billion on advertising for students while removing European History, British History and even common sense from curricula. Warmist Bjorn Llomberg is a case in point.
Abbott could even form a partnership with Hanson, the woman he campaigned to put in jail. Now it is obvious half the senate is more guilty of wrongly signing documents which carry a statutory one year jail sentence. Even Xeonopon who had no idea his father was from overseas.
A whole country would unite to remove the RET, the world’s biggest carbon tax. Abbott could make Australia Great again and drain the swamp in Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide and Darwin where public servants are being paid rapid pay rises for driving Australia over $600Billion in debt. All we have to show for this ocean of cash are thousands of Goldilocks Windmills which work when they like, designed to drive everyone into bankruptcy, the real aim of Lee Rhiannon and her friends. Gillard’s Pink Batts are nothing compared to Turnbull’s windmills.
Abbott is our only hope. The choice between loony Green Turnbull and Far left Shorten is just impossible. It’s like having a choice between Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. The idea is that no one has a choice between bad and far worst is the most crass in the history of Australian politics. Can we please have our Prime Minister back? Do we really have to wait for 30 bad Newspolls?
100
The second round of Turnbull as leader is very annoying and frustrating, he was a failure the first time after he undermined and then replaced Dr Brendan Nelson in 2008 as leader, and angered many Coalition MPs for siding with Rudd Labor so often, and crossing the floor to vote with Labor on their emissions trading scheme legislation.
I doubt that he would have defeated Tony Abbott for the leadership without several new Liberal MPs who won their seats in September 2007 when Tony Abbott led the Coalition and defeated the Labor Government in a landslide victory. The “Black Hand” faction Liberal MPs convinced them that unless there was a leadership change they were at risk of losing their seats at the next election, 2016. And they did, but because of Malcolm Turnbull.
30
In this Australian this morning, Graham Richardson is strongly advising Turnbull to stick to Abbott’s policies. He is even advising Shorten as well, now labelled “Blackout Bill” or to bring in Albanese.
So once again we have the farce of the usurper and his Black Hand faction who is so reluctant to follow even survival politics on Climate Change. More Green than the Greens. As on border protection, he is being pushed to oppose his own illogical beliefs because Abbott’s strong principles are the only ones which work. “Me too” Labor policies are winning no votes at all.
Abbott would win easily, a fact which will not escape even his mortal enemies in the Liberal party and Barnaby Joyce who stands to lose his seat and bring down the Turnbull Government because he did not know his father was born overseas. As for Larissa Waters who was born in Canada, you would think she might be aware of that. She blames a ’70 year old law’. As old then as the 1948 New Zealand law. Clearly ‘old’ laws should be ignored by lawyers. How ridiculous. Really, who can expect someone with a Law degree to be able to read and understand the document they signed?
10
Anyone know why the names are repeated every 12 years? Surely it could cause some consternation living in a place devastated by a particular name to see that name threatening you again
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/index.php?season=2005&basin=atl
20
They retired Katrina due to the loss of life and replaced with Katia?
20
I’m amazed you’re not blaming Co2 for the hurricane ! Can’t work you out sometimes.
50
Oh mercy
40
The Left are actually blaming Trump.
https://youtu.be/JC2oh5BfPhQ
10
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120413_irene.html
20
oh right every six years… thanks. I didn’t check factors of 12.
10
Chinese calendar is based on a a twelve-year cycle, each year in that cycle related to an animal sign. These signs are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
30
Proof in Australia; we have a sheep in charge but shortly will have a pig.
30
The pig selected and appointed by the feral pigs that raised him.
30
Its no coincidence that there are 12 signs in the zodiac, or that Turnbull, Abbott and Cory are all Scorpios.
Something is coming up in November, but I can’t see how they could all be happy at the same time.
10
From NOAA:
“Irene has been retired from the official list of Atlantic Basin tropical storm names by the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) hurricane committee because of the fatalities and damage it caused in August 2011 and will be replaced by Irma
20
Don’t forget Atlantic Canada takes a not infrequent pounding.
Juan
10
Interests in Atlantic Canada might want to keep an eye on Jose
10
Each list last for 6 years I think you will find!
Then repeated
Different for Atlantic & North Pacific Areas
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml
10
and here is Australian region cyclone names…
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/about/names.shtml
we can only count up to one hand’s worth before we get overwhelmed by the complexity.
10
Australian farmers are right up there at the leading edge of global farming technology and up with and often well ahead of a lot of the north American broad acre farm technology as well as ahead of most of the European small farm technology.
Australian miners of every type of ore lead the world in mining technology such as their remote operated driverless 400 tonne mine haulers.
Australian civil engineers have always been regarded as some of the best.
We could go on!
Even if to buck the mainstream Australians basic beliefs, to claim that Australian politicians are no worse than those from most other nations .
It is just that our politicians are such dreadfully incompetent dead wood and so politically incestous [ 10 out of the eleven of Blackout Bill’s shadow cabinet have only ever worked in a union position and have NEVER had a job or a business in private industry where you have to make a profit to survive . The eleventh member of Blackout Bill’s shadow cabinet was an auto electrician ] that they and their media running dogs all move in the same circles in the same tiny isolated Canberra political bubble, apointing the same totally self interested and self agrandisiing no-hopers out of the same incestous circle to advise them, at great tax payer expense, so that they rarely if ever happen upon the realities of what the rest of the real world might be doing in some field of politics and endeavour.
Plus of course, our politicals are severely hadicapped and shielded from reality by that massive anchor and drag to any long term national progress, the Canberra bureacracy of the Federal Government that advises ministers and members and which is now staffed and run by the third and even fourth dynastic generation of Canberra bureacrats.
Bureacrats, who in their tiny self satisfied isolated from reality Canberra’s political bubble can’t possibly imagine that anybody actually lives a life that has only a fraction of the income they enjoy for such easy work along with all of lifes comforts at work and who never ever can or will enjoy the very comfortable lifestyle those Canbbera bureacrats take for granted courtesy of the Australian tax payer.
——————-
So what is happening out there in the big bad world of Renewable energy that has brought this rant on?
Well, it seems that some other nations and their politicians are beginning to realise that Renewable energy isn’t all its cracked up to be despite Renewable energy’s massive and ongoing, fact distorting and straight out lying propaganda campaign .
Those other nation’s politicals are finally deciding that in their national interest, nothing to do with keeping their seats in their parliaments of course ,that before power prices are completely unaffordable to the proletariat who are beginning to get a bit restless andmight begin to roam the streets getting somewhat vocal and upset about the affordability of power, due to the cost of the increasing penetration of the increasingly expensive unreliables , always at the tax payers expense of course, it might be time to begin to cut the ground out from under those unreliable, non re-newables feet of wind and solar power.
——————–
Brazil, bigger than Australia in area and eighth in the world in the size of its economy, has been there and done that;
From the GWPF;
UNWINDING FAILING RENEWABLES POLICIES
Date: 05/09/17
&
German Wind Energy Market “Threatening To Implode”…”Things Have Never Been This Bad”!
&
From; >Renewable Energy World and coming to you if you sell your PV generated power back to the grid, sometime in the perhaps not very distant future.
.
Spain Approves ‘Sun Tax,’ Discriminates Against Solar PV
Seems like we are almost getting past the high point of the global Renewable Energy cult as reality sets in and the realisation dawns that renewable energy capable of driving a modern civilisation and powering an industrialised nation is a mirage that is always beckoning in the far distance, a mirage that promises so much but has no substance and will never ever be reached before it fades in to just another false and grossly misleading, society destroying vision.
As usual of course, that is just about at the point where Australia’s politicians, so self satisified and comfortable wallowing in their own incompetence, decide that Australia should destroy all its highly reliable and cheap power producing coal fired power stations and really get gung ho on installing the completely unpredictable, completely unreliable, high maintenance, environmentally degrading, wild life killing, non dispatchable and unafforably expensive Renewable energy systems of wind and solar .
.
The old saying is that we get the politicians we deserve.
Winston Churchill put it another way;
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
130
Surely you’re not suggesting the Australian govt would ever tax sunshine ?
Like when they tried to tax rain that fell on your roof after encouraging people to get tanks .
60
.
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:
.
If it moves, tax it.
.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
.
Ronald Reagan;
America’s 40th President.
100
.
In my post, ROM @ # 11 I have this to say;
Now maybe some of Jo’s non farming denizens and citified lurkers might think that it is stretching the truth a bit as the Americans regularly claim to be ahead of everybody in most things despite a very strong tendency on their part to indulge in a considerable amount of self flagellation on any subject you might llike to name.
So a bit of efficiency boosting Australian grain harvesting technology which the American grain industry knows nothing of and which was first developed in the WA grain belt I think, and imported into the western Victorian grain industry by my brother and myself in 1984.
My nephew has set himself up in an small South Dakota farming town of Faulkton SD. His fiancee is a former Miss South Dakota so he reckons he is batting above his average in that line of business.
Being of Australian farming stock and well experienced under the tutelage of Father and Uncle in the grain farming side of things he noted that the American grain growers seemed to have no idea of the big 100 – 150 tonne plus mobile field grain storage “Mother Bin” system nor the field and grain handling efficiencies to be gained by the use of the “Mother Bins” that are widely used here in the Australian grain belt and have been for some 30 years past.
So he is in the midst of the turmoil that surrounds the beginning of the manufacture and marketing of the Australian designed [ designed by one of his former school mates here in Horsham who specialises in grain handling equipment design ] based Mother Bins for the massive American grain market.
Just Google up “Walkabout Mother Bins” and you will get a whole series of articles and Facebook entries on a long established Australian grain farming concept that the Americans are just beginning to see the first examples of.
50
Australia is in line for high inflation,
When renewables hold sway throughout the nation.
The East Pacific chills both hemispheres,
From surface cooling in La Nina years.
Don’t be surprised if Met. Offices were told,
To highlight warming and downgrade the cold.
The warmists will do everything they can,
To blame the Irma hurricane on man.
100
Copernicus, the Earth observation programme run by the EU has this to say about surface air temperatures for August 2017
“…August 2017 was warmer than the 1981-2010 average over much of Europe. It was particularly warm over the south and east of the continent, where wildfires continued to trouble several countries and sustaining water supplies remained a challenge in places. Temperatures continued to be below average over the north-west…”
[…]
August 2017 extended the spell of exceptional global warmth that has now lasted since mid-2015. It was:
– Close to 0.5°C warmer than the average August from 1981-2010;
– The second warmest August on record, by a small margin of well under 0.1°C;
– More than 0.1°C cooler than August 2016.
This is the 12 month average, dumbed down to ‘higher, lower, above, below’;
“…Average temperatures for the twelve-month period from September 2016 to August 2017 were:
– Most above the 1981-2010 average in the Arctic;
– Much above average offshore of West Antarctica, over much of North America, and over south-western Europe, the Middle East, north-western and central Africa, and eastern and southern Asia;
– Higher than average over most other areas of land and ocean;
– Lower than average over only a few oceanic and land areas…”
10
This morning while preparing breakfast I made an important though disappointing scientific discovery. It was accidental I can assure you. I had not set out to prove or disprove anything.
We buy real maple syrup for the pancakes which comes in small plastic jugs with a flip cap. The caps seal just fine but every time I pour out more syrup a little of it gets on the seal of that flip cap and dries there. And as you would expect, being real maple syrup, it leaves behind more crystalized sugar. So pretty soon the cap is stuck shut.
This morning it was being particularly stubborn and I was grumbling about it. To which my wife, who isn’t above telling me to stop complaining said, “It must be the end of the world.” And I thought surely she’s right and I proved it right here in our kitchen. So I replied to her that indeed it is the end of the world.
Well, being a skeptic as I am she roared with laughter at that. But seeing my opportunity to nail down the discovery I said, “Unlike Al Gore who had to go to the time and expense of making another movie and still doesn’t have the evidence he needs, I have the empirical evidence to prove it right here in my little jug of maple syrup. After all, my wife has confirmed the finding so it must be solid — peer review as it should be done.
And that brought the house down.
Remember folks, you heard the bad news right here on Joanne Nova’s award winning blog. It is the end of the world and Roy Hogue has the evidence to prove it.
80
‘The unmistakeable fingerprint of extreme weather at the crime scene of global warming seems intuitively obvious: consider that Houston is reckoned to have been hit by three “500-year floods” in three years. A 500-year flood does not have to happen only twice a millennium. But a run of three indicates that past climate is no longer a reliable guide to the present weather. The explanation is that the climate itself is changing.’
Guardian editorial.
20
el gordo @ # 15
“Guardian editorial”
With the Guardian’s promotion of that Houston flood statistic I would be very pleased to set up a major business on some now no doubt, cheap flood plain country around Houston.
It surely means if the Guardian in its usual alarmist self is right onto the climate change ball, that I would not face a major flood threat to any business or industry I created and built up on that Houston flood plain for the next 1500 years.
And if there was another 1 in 500 year flood on that Houston flood plain in the next couple of years, that means that my business could then run for maybe 2000 years after that final 1 in 500 year flood without ever getting flooded out again if I am to believe the Guardian’s statistics.
Anybody know where I can contact one of those climate change modellers who have those very accurate , modelled and peer reviewed 500 years into the future climate predictions to see if they have climate predictions for Houston out to 1500 to 2000 years ahead just so I can make sure before I take flood insurance out on my business.
50
The Guardian is the mouthpiece of the Klimatariat and we have to debunk them, it seems intuitively obvious that these unusual floods are a regional cooling signal.
20
I suspect with a lot of dim people, you could break their index fingers by punching them in the nose at any time….
20
Not quite, OS. It all depends on whether they’re picking something.
If not, you’d get a double result anyway:
1. You’d break their nose; and,
2. You’d break the sock-puppeteer’s fingers.
On the other hand, there is a good chance you’d break the nose owner’s fingers as well. That’s what’s known as a triple treat.
So be my guest. You get first shot.
20
So-called journalists, and particularly, those at the Guardian, have no idea about science, so why would you expect them to understand how a flood event return period is defined?
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I understand that the 1 in 100 year, and 1 in 500 year flood return periods are better defined as a 1%, and a 0.2% chance of occurring on an annual basis respectively. Flow rates are only part of the equation (so can only improve with data collection) while some other almost ‘fudge factor’ like variables included as well. If you ask me, this makes it more of an art than a science.
In my mind, the more likely culprit (if there has to be a single culprit) is a dramatic change of land use, and water run-off patterns in the catchment since the 1 in 100, and 1 in 500 year lines were drawn on maps. I imagine a class-action law suit will appear regarding this very factor, if it hasn’t already.
Insurance companies will no doubt take full advantage of the “but you didn’t ask for insurance for a 1 in 500 year event, you only got 1 in 100 year coverage, because that’s what the government mandated, and you never read the fine print” or similar.
A lot of people will lose a lot of possessions and money, and find themselves uninsured, which is an outright disaster for those affected, whatever their insurance status, and I doubt anyone except those who think that is is divine retribution for being Trump voters can say they do not have some sympathy for the victims of flood damage.
20
It seems the extreme expansion in building homes and businesses and malls, and paving to get everywhere and park, of the Houston area (a very very LARGE area of land) along with inadequate water retention and flow infrastructure engineering – which allows flooding to happen in -normal- rains..
is not at all at fault in the “500” year flooding.
Of course, the rain that fell in the last several storms, had it fallen on even 1990 Houston, most certainly on earlier versions, and perhaps even 2000 version Houston, would not have caused such extensive flooding and damage.
But that only goes to show how insidious the CO2 threat really is.
10
Crime scene is it now? If misuse of statistics was a crime the whole Guardian staff of writers and editors would be in jail.
30
he he
J’Accuse, mort de Environment!!
10
On Breitbart
**Irma Live Updates** ‘…1.5M Without Power…
Exactly like that other recent Man Made disaster. South Australia and Tasmania.
Will no one help those poor people? Soon to hit Victoria in the summer. Like Tasmania, politicians will have to fly in scores of giant diesel generators. Businesses will shut permanently but workers will be reemployed in the public service which is borrowing billions a week from overseas. Terrible man Made disasters. Our politicians at work.
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Their ABC no longer hides its bias and is now clearly in the opinion game rather than reporting news .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-11/gas-not-coal-the-fix-to-australias-soaring-electricity-prices/8890818
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you are right- the author gave an opinion in an analysis piece and the ABC published it. How are you going to frame your letter?
00
Answer this Gee Aye:
If that’s true, why the subsidies?
40
As Alan Kohler opined only two months ago, wind is cheaper anyway and so subsidies are unnecessary and an embarrassment to the government. Really?
How can any government force a power station to close, as Daniel Andrews did by suddenly tripling the price of coal without having any replacement for the lost power? Amazingly Labor seem very happy to shut down all manufacturing. Their numerical strength is now in health, education and the public service generally and they are abandoning the workers in manufacturing.
Besides, Union officials can pay their generous wages from the massive superannuation funds they manage. We have reached a new world where the Labor party does not care about workers and the Greens earn more frequent flyer points than any other group. Hypocrisy.
41
Finkel wrote it and the ABC reported it. The question you have to ask is did they critique it.
10
No. That’s not the question. That’s the distraction.
I asked you to critique it.
Why are you so reluctant?
10
because the topic was ABC bias not my views on climate. As for the quote – it looks nonsensical to me and the data does not support the statement.
11
“you are right- the author gave an opinion in an analysis piece and the ABC published it. How are you going to frame your letter?”
Why would anyone bother it’s not like they take any notice of any opinion that’s not lefty green , and how much honesty is in that article , it’s misleading at best .
40
Editors voice their opinions in editorials and this is quite common but for a government broadcaster to become a mouth piece for the left wing greentards , all opinion pieces should be labeled as such , it’s not news it’s not even about news it’s all about an ideological meme based on nothing more but faith .
30
oh well whine and moan here if it makes you feel better.
21
Its a disgraceful opinion piece, I want a second opinion.
To lose her blatant bias auntie needs a red and blue team in the news room.
30
no, they just need real journalists.
60
There is no such thing as a real journalists anymore, at the ABC they have become virtually extinct.
I am optimistic about the future, but journalism schools will need to change.
30
I agree!
The hunt for the Tasmanian Tiger should really be redirected towards looking for people employed as journalists, or journalism students who can demonstrate some ability to be a decent journalist.
40
Journos working at the Australian Newspaper are still trying to produce honest articles.
There has been quite a bit over the past few days about the Energy Crisis. They correctly identify the problem as Renewable energy Sources (so called).
30
Yeah, the Oz has balance and their journalists are a cut above the Fairfax mob.
10
I take that back, further up the thread a story in the Lithgow Mercury written by Phobe Moloney is informative and balanced. Its a Fairfax newspaper, so there is hope.
00
heard a brief mention of the following, with no name, on 4BC radio news bulletin this morning. for some reason, I thought it won’t be a surprise if the Qld Uni staffer (there was no mention of his friend) has a connection to CAGW studies of some sort!
11 Sept: AAP: Alleged Uni of Qld fraudster faces court
by Alexandra Patrikios
A former University of Queensland staffer has faced court on fraud charges following an investigation by the state’s corruption watchdog.
Craig William Froome, 53, appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday on a total of four charges, including two counts of fraud.
Court documents reveal he is accused of fraudulently using a university travel card in May and June 2015…
Froome did not comment to waiting media as he left the court precinct with his lawyer.
His co-accused, Simon John Harrison, also faced court on forgery-related charges.
The matter will return to court on October 9…
https://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/37033110/ex-uq-staffer-due-in-court-on-fraud-counts/
ABC provided a platform for Craig Froome in July & described him as Principal consultant with renewable consulting firm, Energetic Effects, and former program manager with Clean Energy Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland:
AUDIO: 43mins34secs: 21 July: ABC Podcast: Rod Quinn: Fully charged: electric cars in Australia
It was once asked ‘who killed the electric car’ – but, now, it’s should be ‘who can stop them?’…
Advocates have touted them for their environmental benefits and cheap running costs, while skeptics have criticised their limited range and high costs.
Earlier this week, vehicle manufacturer Volvo announced it would only produce electric cars from 2019…
Energetic Effect’s Craig Froome spoke to ABC Overights about the announcement’s likely consequences, and about the burgeoning electric car industry in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/overnights/fully-charged-electric-cars-in-australia/8730160
2 years ago:
AUDIO: 10mins21secs: ABC Brisbane, Evenings Show: Solar: Interview with Craig Froome
https://soundcloud.com/612abcbrisbane/solar-craig-froome
20
The how, why & what is speculation, the dating; about 176,500 years “Using sophisticated dating techniques”:
(A) team led by archaeologist Jacques Jaubert of the University of Bordeaux, France, found that the stalagmites must have been broken off the ground around 176,500 years ago, “making these edifices among the oldest known well-dated constructions made by humans.”
Cave Rings Indicate Neanderthals Were Smarter Than We Thought
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/science/neanderthals-cave-rings-france.html?smid=tw-share
20
Something huge and unprecedented really is occurring. Briefly, China is moving against the petrodollar, offering the likes of Russia, Iran and – who knows? – even the Saudis a chance to deal in yuan or maybe roubles immediately convertible to the gold that China and Russia have been accumulating. Certainly sounds like a deal the Qataris would love.
This is not one producer like Sadam or Gaddafi trying to break the system: this is the world’s biggest oil importer and second biggest consumer breaking the system.
And we thought China would be content just to buy Africa.
40
Just when you thought the CAGW alarmists couldnt get any more weird…it does….
Can anyone explain beyond perhaps a use of an app to generate random left wing insults, what “environmental racism” is?
http://climatechangedispatch.com/wtf-american-prospect-mag-knows-why-events-like-harvey-are-disasters-just-guess/
20
This paper introduces the concept of value factor for intermittent generators connected into systems with fossil fuel and hydro sources. It specifically looks at data from Germany and Sweden.
https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/19690/the-market-value-of-wind-energy-energiforskrapport-2016-276.pdf
The actual data for Germany, with low level of hydro available, yields the following correlation:
Value Factor = 1 – Market Share
At present wind share of 30% the value factor is now 0.7. This correlation appears consistent so extrapolating to 100% market share the value factor becomes zero; implying infinite resources to achieve 100%.
We are seeing the early stages of this same trend in SA where the wind generators need to be throttled because the installed capacity now exceeds the demand so they cannot achieve their potential (or projected) capacity factors. For stability reasons they have been capped at 1200MW and gas plants must be operating all the time.
So SA is already at the point where more wind and solar generating capacity will be hurting the existing wind generators and their financiers. 30% is the end of the line. I could not imagine project proponents not being aware of this. SA has benefited substantially from its interconnection with Victoria but as the Victorian network takes on the look of the SA network, with reducing coal generation, SA will not be able to use Victoria as its 600MW battery having infinite storage capacity.
30
RickWill @ # 22
Scanning through the link you gave in #22 , to me the major impression I got from that paper is that hydro and etc power production being calculated and postulated in there was being used as the sacrificial lamb to aid the numbers on the intermittent and completly unpredictable Wind Turbine energy system.
I suspect that was not the author’s intentions but due to their European residency and the consequent inbuilt psychological programming over many years and hence their own unidentified inbuilt biases, that is how my admittedly brief scanning of the paper appeared to me and accounted for the results they produced.
20
I have seen much written on the low LCOE of wind being lower than coal. The basis of this is that the wind generators will have capacity factors in the range 30 to 35%. In fact I recently read that the 3rd generation turbines are working on design of 250W/m^2 for the wind flux rather than 400W/m^2 with the previous generation. That is aimed at getting high POTENTIAL capacity factors.
The problem remains that on some days there is no wind so there still needs to be 100% dispatchable generation as back up.
What that paper provides is actual data on how the value factor reduces as the installed capacity increases. Fundamentally it means the actual CF is going to be considerably lower than the potential CF. That has a direct bearing on the LCOE. So the paper is worth more than brief scan. I have not related their value factor to reduction in CF. It is not directly related in any case because the wind generator may be left producing but Germany would be paying a neighbour to take the power. We see that sometimes in SA with power going negative.
20
So the cost of wind power should include the costs of the back up power station. They work as a unit. The wind turbine provides “free energy” when it is working and the backup coal or gas plant sits idle. The cost of both systems needs to be included in the COST OF WIND.
20
I’ve been watching this for a while now, and that’s correct. Wind power reaches 1200MW and then rolls along the top at that level, a bit either side. Those Natural gas plants are generating between 1000 and 1600MW. When wind power is up, and that’s not just a spike, but holding at that 1200MW, then those gas plants drop back a little to around 500 to 600MW, but they can ramp up quickly as soon as the wind drops. it’s been interesting to watch since the blackouts, because it has got to the stage now where it looks like someone is specifically watching wind SouthAus, almost like the cartoon character with his finger poised over the button ….. to ramp up gas, or call on the Interconnector.
Even when wind is high, I’ve seen gas still high, and they just ‘dump’ the excess wind into Victoria.
It now seems that wind power has reached its maximum in SouthAus, and I would be very surprised if any new investor decided to construct a new wind plant in that State.
Still, they won’t have too long to wait, as those wind plants have a short enough life.
Pretty tough when you are limited to a 70% Capacity Factor at absolute best. So, SouthAus with 19 wind plants, a Nameplate of 1700MW, with around 950 plus towers now has a case where it is limited to a maximum that is only 90% that of ….. TWO Units at Bayswater.
I can see the CEO’s of each of those wind plants, sighing to himself, and thinking ….. Thank heavens for those subsidies.
Tony.
50
Tony wrote:
I have a feeling the interconnector is no longer a reliable source since Hazelwood closed. The change in SA gas generation followed Hazelwood but there were also deals being done with gas plants and the realisation in AEMO for more inertia. I think the gas plants in SA are bidding in to maintain higher output than past. I know they have some deal.
I can imagine some angry phone calls come summer between Jay and Dan both fighting to appease their hostile electorates. Pity those in strong liberal electorates.
I have a feeling that the throttling of wind generators will make a lot more people understand that the CFs are not only dependent on the wind but on the ability of the system to absorb the energy that might have been produced. SA could have 16GW of wind energy and there would still be days when it absorbs energy rather than produce any and there would be many more days when it needs to be throttled. That is when the penny drops. Not sure if many actually understand this yet but more are at least thinking about it.
It is very difficult to find good papers on this particular aspect like the one I linked to that makes use of historical data. For now we know that any time we see wind output in SA at 1200MW it could be producing more and that fact means the capacity factor is being driven down by systems constraints rather than wind constraints. So low wind, high wind and system constraints can lower the CF. A good chance that owners will be using “system constraints” to justify falling capacity factors. If the CSP actually produces it will further knock the CFs for the wind generators in SA.
10
11 Sept: TheWest: Daniel Mercer: Renewable Energy Target set to push up WA electricity bills
WA households and businesses could face higher power prices worth half a billion dollars so the State Government can build green energy projects such as wind farms required under national law.
Faced with a mandate from Canberra for electricity retailers to source a minimum amount of the power they supply from renewable projects, Budget papers have revealed the full cost of the policy to WA provider Synergy.
The State-owned utility has made a $463.5 million provision across the forward estimates to meet its obligations from the renewable energy target.
Shadow energy minister Dean Nalder said the cost would inevitably be passed through to Synergy’s one million customers, while questioning whether the provision was enough to meet its liabilities…
Under the RET, most recently updated by former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2014, power providers are required to source 23 per cent of the electricity they supply from green energy projects such as wind and solar farms by 2020…
Mr Nalder said Synergy could not avoid its obligations under the target but queried whether the Government had under-allocated for the eventual cost, which he estimated at up to $750 million.
https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/green-target-set-to-push-up-electricity-bills-ng-b88594965z
10
10 Sept: SolarPaces.org: South Africa’s Reneged Renewable Contracts to Lead to Lawsuits
Minister of Energy Mmamoloko Kubayi’s announcement on Friday that Eskom will sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) with independent producers of renewable energy (IPPs) by October 28, might not be enough to prevent litigation against government for deviating from its own procurement process.
This follows after her department’s acclaimed Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement (REIPPP) Programme has stalled for more than two years as Eskom refused to sign PPAs with 37 IPPs.
The programme has, since its inception in 2011, resulted in investments totalling R200 billion, a quarter of which was from foreign sources. The 37 outstanding projects represent investment of R50 billion with 13,000 job opportunities during construction and 2,000 permanent jobs.
Kubayi’s announcement was limited to 26 IPPs appointed as preferred bidders in round 3.5 and 4 of the REIPPP programme. She stated that Eskom would only sign the agreements at a tariff not exceeding 77c/kWh…
More than two years ago Eskom took a position that it would not sign further PPAs, citing the high cost agreed upon between the IPPs and the DoE. Eskom later indicated that it was prepared to sign agreements at a price not exceeding 62c/kWh.
Eskom now also sits with a surplus of generation capacity, which is a further reason for its reluctance…READ ON
Source: MoneyWeb South Africa (LINK)
http://www.solarpaces.org/south-africas-reneged-renewable-contracts-lead-lawsuits/
10
8 Sept: Guardian: Arthur Neslen:Solar industry says EU tariffs on Chinese imports will raise panel prices
EU duties on Chinese solar modules are set to rise 30% above market levels signalling ‘huge negative effects’ for businesses
Europe’s solar industry has condemned an EU vote to impose another round of duties on Chinese imports, just weeks before a US trade panel is due to rule on similar tariffs.
A Brussels committee yesterday agreed to set minimum import duties for Chinese solar modules and cells that could price them up to 30% above market levels with “huge negative effects” for the industry, according to trade groups.
There is also a “99% probability” that Trump will announce tariffs on Chinese solar imports before the end of January, according to one source who has held talks with senior US government officials.
European commission sources insist the EU’s anti-dumping measure will slowly reduce existing tariffs and “gradually lead to a convergence of the world market price and the EU import price”.
But with world market prices falling, SolarPower Europe said this would still add at least €500 (£458) to the cost of a household installation – and up to €1m to a one-megawatt industry revamp…READ ON
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/solar-industry-says-eu-tariffs-chinese-imports-will-raise-panel-prices
10
***sounds like a winning answer!
10 Sept: CBS News: AP: Miss North Dakota Cara Mund crowned new Miss America
***In one of her onstage interviews, Mund said President Trump, a Republican, was wrong to withdraw the U.S. from the climate accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
“It’s a bad decision,” she said. “There is evidence that climate change is existing and we need to be at that table.”
In an interview with The Associated Press before preliminary competition began, Mund, who lives in Bismarck, North Dakota, said her goal is to be the first woman elected governor of her state…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/miss-america-2017-north-dakota-cara-mund-wins/
10 Sept: Paul Homewood: (Christopher) Booker and Hurricane Irma
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/booker-and-hurricane-irma/
10
***ah, the organisers covered all the possible winners!
10 Sept: Newsbusters: Miss America Contestants Asked to Condemn President Trump
By Karen Townsend
Breaking with the tradition of one question per finalist in the final round of competition, this year the pageant decided to ask two questions of each – described as one serious and one playful. ***The serious questions were saved for the last five finalists. Four of the five questions were political.
It began with a question asked by judge Jordin Sparks to Miss Missouri, Jennifer Davis, about the multiple investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians – did Miss Davis think the Trump campaign was innocent or guilty? She said, “Innocent.” The crowd responded with mostly cheers. She said there wasn’t enough evidence but if the campaign proves to be guilty, the Justice Department should punish accordingly…
Miss Texas, Margana Wood, was asked by Jess Cagle about the Charlottesville protest with the KKK, white supremacists, and Antifa. Should Trump have said there were good people on both sides of the protest, he asked. Miss Wood gave a boilerplate liberal answer – Trump should have labeled the white supremacists as terrorists and made a statement sooner to make all Americans feel safe. She didn’t mention the terrorist actions of Antifa, though…
Maria Menounos asked the third question of Miss North Dakota, Cara Mund. The question was about the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Agreement on “man made climate change” and whether it was good or bad. Miss Mund said it was bad because she thinks climate change exists and the U.S. needs to be at the negotiating table…
And, the last political question was delivered by Tara Lipinski for Miss New Jersey, Kaitlyn Schoeffel. Noting that over half of Americans want Confederate statues left in place, she asked if Miss Schoeffel thought they should be removed. Schoeffel said, yes, the statues should be removed, but placed in museums because we are, in fact, defined by our history…
Aside from declaring President Trump innocent until proven guilty, all the contestants toed the liberal, politically correct line. In the end, global warming alarmist Miss North Dakota was crowned the new Miss America.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/karen-townsend/2017/09/10/
10
Judith Sloan with Alan Jones today:
8 Sept: Australian: Judith Sloan: Australia has gone from cheapest to most expensive power
If I read another press release about the millions of dollars of our money being handed over to the mendicant players in the renewable energy space, I’m going to scream. The latest was $100 million awarded to Macquarie Leasing to subsidise electrical cars. I’m not joking.
But here’s the worst bit. Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg says: “The Turnbull government’s investment in clean energy technologies is helping deliver affordable and reliable energy as we transition to a lower emissions future.”
So we hand over $100m of taxpayer money to Macquarie Leasing so it can offer concessional deals on top-of-the-line Tesla electrical cars to high-income individuals, and the government justifies this as delivering affordable and reliable energy — and a low-emissions future, of course.
Pull the other one, I say. The last time I noticed, electrical cars will be drawing power from our rickety, overpriced electricity grid…
However, the kicker is the fact renewable energy, with its preferential dispatch status and low operating costs, sends dispatchable power plants into early retirement and kills off the incentives to build new ones. Note that since 2011 nearly 6000 megawatts of coal-fired plant capacity has been withdrawn from the market, or close to 12 per cent of total capacity…READ ALL
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/australia-has-gone-from-cheapest-to-most-expensive-power/news-story/e6234beafcf957896c11952cbded77cb
AUDIO: 11mins33secs: 11 Sept: 2GB: Alan Jones Show: Professor Judith Sloan
Alan talks to the economist and columnist about the power crisis facing Australia.
http://www.2gb.com/podcast/professor-judith-sloan-6/
30
http://principia-scientific.org/renowned-climate-scientist-jailed-for-fraud/
I commented elsewhere they was seem to have a swamp in Australia, I called it the Canberra Swamp!
40
Good catch James, it would normally have slipped under the radar.
20
“I commented elsewhere they was seem to have a swamp in Australia, I called it the Canberra Swamp!”
At that ASL, can Canberra Swamp be drained? I believe that like Florida\Louisiana Swamps they can only be temporarily pumped out. We have alligators, you have crocodiles. What Ya’all use for crocodile bait? 🙂
01
Here in the US the multi-national agricultural cabal plus the supporting banksters offer as bait, peonship to ‘immigrants’ and wealth to DC alligators.
Now the US citizens use ‘immigrants’ as bait for DC alligators, and back that up with 40,000,000 rounds of hand-loaded ammunition. A wee part of the US district of Columbia is beginning to learn; even though they remain Alligators!
All the best!-will-
01