More bad luck for the renewables industry. Despite providing free energy from the sun and wind, electricity prices keep rising relentlessly, shockingly fast. Even doubling in wholesale costs in South Australia and Victoria.
It was supposed to be cheap to collect low-level-energy across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Who knew that subsidized, unreliable energy would induce volatile pricing, allow the players to game the system, create obscene spikes, drive out the cheapest providers, require expensive battery storage, more frequency control, more maintenance, just as much back up supply, $400 million dollars worth of extra diesel generators (and the rest) and extra long transmission lines? Who knew? — Probably thousands of engineers.
Spot the pattern? Every other nation with lots of renewables has expensive electricity and our forward market says there’s more price rises coming.
Australian electricity prices rising six times faster than wages are growing
Sydney Morning Herald
Electricity prices have jumped by six times the rate of the average pay rise, new figures reveal, as family wallets are increasingly squeezed by essential services such as education, utilities and fuel.
The most significant price rises were electricity, up 12.4 per cent, fuel up 10.4 per cent, domestic holiday travel up 6.3 per cent and fruit up 9.3 per cent.
If you think our economy is flaming out now, wait til we reach the 23% RET target, and pay for the $1 billion interconnectors and the $4 billion extra hydro storage that we didn’t need when we had enough coal power. Then, after we reach the bottom, we’ll have to pay more to build new USC coal baseload, just to keep up with Indonesia, because we were too frightened to upgrade the old cheap plants; and it’s too frightening for any investors to do it for us.
High energy prices make everything else more expensive too. How much of the rise in hospital services, education, and beer is due to the higher costs of energy? Last week Victorian hospitals couldn’t even afford to keep all their lights on. The only thing that high energy prices don’t push upwards, is wages.
Most of the rises were in states that blow up or disassemble their coal plants
Wholesale prices double in a year in SA and Victoria (paywalled)
Samantha Hutchinson and Michael Owen, The Australian
…
Average wholesale energy prices in Victoria and South Australia have more than doubled since this time last year, as experts warn that blackouts and supply issues are likely to increase as state governments chase aggressive renewable energy targets.
The mass outages [last weekend] affected more than 60,000 residents, some of whom were cut off for more than 28 hours.
Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood said Sunday’s and Monday’s blackouts and high pricing showed that the state had botched its energy transition program by allowing baseload power sources — such as the Hazelwood power station — to be replaced by renewables, which delivered intermittent power.
The Victorian State Premier blames privatization (can someone tell him about Texas?)
In Victoria, Mr Andrews blamed the outages on the Coalition’s decision to privatise the state’s energy assets in the 1990s. “Fact is, there was more than enough power being generated to meet the demand yesterday — but the private companies and their distribution systems failed yet again,” he said on Twitter.
The SA government thinks SA electricity is cheap:
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said wholesale power prices were “notoriously volatile”. “Since August, wholesale power prices in South Australia have been consistently cheaper than Victoria, and in September and October, SA had the cheapest wholesale prices of mainland states in the National Electricity Market,” he said.
In fairyland people only need electricity in months starting with O and S. Can someone remind him that a couple of years ago, in 2015, every state had cheaper wholesale electricity. The wholesale price in SA in 2015 was $41/MWh. By 2017 it was the “cheapest in the nation” at $69/MWh. Laugh til you cry.
Odd 2018 CPI trivia: Three of the four fastest rising items are energy: energy for our homes and businesses, energy for human bodies, energy for cars. Is that a message there?
— Nothing that 5 or 10 nuclear plants and a few new gas wells can’t fix.
h/t Dave B, Robber, TdeF, El Gordo, Lance. Thanks.
Listening to the SOTU address today, it struck me that the Trump Administration has been so successful because it is reversing the destructive nonsense of the previous eight years.
This makes it very clear that from 2008 the drive was to disrupt every thing that makes an economy tick. It is as though Obama used Ayn Rand’s work aa a prescription to destroy.
If one gives some reflection on this it is so very clear that the work of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergs, and Soros have been rampantly active in Australia and Canada as well.
As Maurice Strong recognised, the key to a destructive path is to eliminate the abundant inexpensive energy that created this prosperity int eh first place.
How can the voter constituency be made aware of the havoc created, and the reasons for it?
642
Rod, there is little the voter in Australia can do about it with the rigged voting system they have there, it is all stitched up long before the ballot papers are printed.
257
The place to start is to condemn the education system that misled them in the first place.
My observation is that no more than 20%, maybe a lot less, of our modern population has the numeracy skills necessary to comprehend the basis of the AGW scam.
390
Wait until the system fails and the millennials can’t charge their mobile phones or send selfies as the networks go down, then you’ll start hearing an outcry.
180
I agree. When the blackouts come in earnest people will react. Until then expect the public to grumble but pay up. But when the fridges stop working, the sewage systems fail, the lights go out, etc. then and only then will the populace notice and demand retribution from the leaders.
130
Correct. And anyone with any ounce of intelligence and common sense ( the two are sometimes mutually exclusive…) will be working out *right now* how to run their house on lower power consumption, or have generator ( silenced, of course ), know how to build a Coolgardie meat safe, be familiar with basic hygiene ( know how to make soap from scratch using animal fat and hardwood ash ), know how to hunt with bow and arrow, know basic tactical security measures, have a weeks supply of canned food etc. In short, by ready to handle a grid down situation for a week or more.
A couple of days of grid down is a novelty, after that its starts to get ugly and dangerous. Assuming you have put aside 200L of fuel for your car, where will you go? Who will you stay with? etc. Do you have an HF radio? The downed grid wont run mobile phones….
Sounds extreme, but thinking through it and planning for it means if yo never have to use it, great, but what if you do?
Look at Venezuela for clues. Read books by James Rawles about handling grid down situation – they are very instructive but set up as a novel.
https://survivalblog.com/reality-checks-for-a-grid-down-scenario-by-blueleader
PS – I’m not a “prepper” , I do however think some forward planning will make a difference between surviving and succumbing, and the most smallest of things can bring you undone if not planned for…
80
Perhaps the place to start are the various parliaments and with the responsible politicians. The education system can be fixed later. Wrecking the economy of a nation or nation state which a politician is sworn to defend and to work for its benefit, is a betrayal of their oath of office. Perfidy.
The Italians treated Il Duce with an appropriate dignity and a thoughtful consideration in April 1945.
40
Ivan, I believe that the system can work, but people need to know what they want.
I have only ever voted Liberal twice in my life and on both occasions the sitting labor member lost his seat. The first one in the seventies saw Bill Morrison, a nice enough bloke in a not so good party, lose by 49 votes if I recall correctly. Two of those were my wife and I.
If enough independents could be elected the two major parties could be pushed to act in our best interests rather than their own.
The people can’t keep electing the libs and labs and expect change.
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We think we are electing Libs and Labs, but what we get is the Marxists with their balance of power in the senate and various state upper houses.
The Greens get only 10% of the vote, but dominate our policy making as both Lib and Lab try to collar that ten per cent.
It’s all about lust for power, not policy.
[must fix that typo]ED
170
Oh Hell. I didn’t write execute. and I didn’t check what the computer wrote, either. We think we are electing.
60
Autofill: A computer’s way of making a simple typo into something totally meaningless. 🙂
60
True the people can’t keep electing the libs and labs and expect change, but they will keep doing so. That’s one definition of insanity so I suppose that makes most Australian voters insane. So if Australia wants to have at least a chance of breaking away from the current death spiral, people have to stop voting for the major parties. We have the power to do so but most Australians are reluctant to use that power. In that case they have mostly themselves to blame for the ultimate outcome.
00
I like to add that’s exactly what happened with Trump. The US actually voted for someone who didn’t stand for neo-Democratic or neo-Repbulcian party. Trump effectively stood as an independent because he refused to follow the new Republican order, and was almost kicked out of the Republican party for doing so. Too bad we don’t have a Trump-like leader who could take over the LNP, which leaves only one option – simply don’t vote for either major party to send a clear message. Otherwise, Australia bend over and be spanked accordingly.
10
Ivan, you may not like our electoral system but I’m retired so I have taken great interest in the Trump Phenomenon and their lousy electoral system. What they have is wide open to corruption and the USA is deeply corrupt. Be thankful for small mercies.
77
Ivan I don’t normally give red thumbs here, but I just gave you one. To suggest that Australia’s electoral system is rigged is absolute nonsense. The problem is that leaders in all parties believe in the CAGW myth, not rigging of elections.
53
We have a good electorial system in the lower house except there is a need for facial regnition and sufficient penalties (such as jail) to stop union members voting more than once (I have seen a busload go into a voting place where none of those voting live) The senate is a mess with the above the line voting. One should only have to vote for the number being elected ie 6 or twelve at a double dissolution. It would be better if there were more states with less senators as in USA where there are only 2 senators from each state.
00
The preferential voting in Australia makes it a rigged system, and rigged it is.
The Greens get 10% of the vote, not because anyone voted for them but because of the preferential system.
A vote for Labor is a vote for the Green party, and vice-versa. They are one in the same party, but by splitting the names they can garner two votes for the price of one.
70
Its not youw Greg, its up to you how you allocate preferences. A vote for labor could give nothing to the greens
40
Always pick your own preferences.
It’s irritating to hear that two parties have done a deal on preferences.
Do they think that voters are goats to be herded?
30
Most of the idiots that vote labor/green/LNP without thinking are goats, a very good description. The phrase “let’s give the other mob a go” just about sums up voter mentality
30
It’s ok picking your own preferences if you have the time and inclination. Unfortunately, I think most voters here in Australia do not.
20
Annie
A simple remedy may be to take a how to vote card from your least favorite party, put in your No 1 and then reverse their preference order.
But don’t forget to leave last 2 spots for the majors.
20
It’s down to whatever dodgy proportional representation system the ‘machine’ foisted on you. I have a real problem with people who are using democracy to subvert democracy. Trojan horse politics everywhere you look. You are energy poor in SA because that is exactly what they want you to be. Don’t vote for these diabolical bastards for crying out loud!!
20
SOTU address must have been impressive.
The left wing media is hyperventilating.
220
That’s because Trump knows how to play them. He dangles a sufficiently juicy tidbit in the water, and in their blind hatred of him they fail to spot the barb. They snap at it like starving pike, and with casual aplomb he just reels them in. It’s cruel really, but highly effective and incredibly amusing.
In the SOTU climate change was not mentioned – for the first time in 8 years.
291
Rap, I never watched Obama’s SOTUs but I know he never raised the point in either campaign. No one did.
43
This is repeated from Midweek Unthreaded where it was posted late
KK
Remember that Jo Bjelke used to refer to press conferences as “feeding the chooks”?
Trump has taken that to an art form. And they’re so busy watching his feeding (or tweeting) hand that they miss what the other one is doing, which is all the things that he has got done so far
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The sweetest victory of all.
‘The Democratic Party omitted any mention of climate change in its rebuttal Tuesday to President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address.
‘In his speech, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) didn’t bring up global warming, sea-level rise or the surge in global greenhouse gas emissions, which threaten to become worse as the Republican White House ramps up fossil fuel production to unprecedented levels.’
Huffpo
100
It was impressive, worthwhile having a listen if you have about an hour to spare. The Democrats in the audience couldn’t even applaud the falling unemployment, falling unemployment among Afro-Americans, among Espanics, the return of manufacturing plants (including car manufacturing plants) to the US, a plant to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and lots of other things that don’t come to mind at the moment. I do recommend that you have as listen.
Oh! one flaw, POTUS didn’t promise to stop the seas from rising.
60
Listen here if you like.
https://youtu.be/ATFwMO9CebA
00
I have just finished watching the whole Trump SOTU speech. It takes 1 hour and 20 minutes. I wanted to watch it before I read any newspaper or media commentary because they have a habit of changing or interpreting things to suit their own ideas and narrative.
The whole speech could have been delivered in 20 minutes or less if it wasn’t for all the standing and clapping. Trump stayed on message throughout and it was all Apple Pie stuff, basically we are Making America Great Again by;
1. Fixing the economy (redcing taxation)
2. Reducing unemployment by enacting 1.
3. Making Energy abundant and affordable
4. Controlling immigration
5. Respecting American institutions (standing for the national anthem)
6. Removing some people from Government who have been working against the national interest
7. Supporting and strengthening the armed forces
7. Renegotiating trade agreements with new ones which are fair to both sides
8. Stop giving money to American enemies.
9. The importance of symbols and monuments to the American way, ending on his final ppoint that the Capitol building itself is the finest monument to American Freedom and Democracy
The words WE and US were used a lot. I and ME were hardly used. Trump illustrated all his points by creating heroes out of ordinary Americans who had done extraordinary things in the line of duty or in support of the American economy or way of life. Each of these people were present in the chamber and they were individually and publically honoured. A great piece of showmanship which made it almost impossible for his political enemies.
Some of the Democrats were conspicuous when they refused to stand and clap Trump’s points which every one else seemed wildly enthusiastic about. Nancy Pelosi however seemed to change her mind about half way through and was seen standing and clapping with the rest.
60
Good summary, watched about two thirds of it.
Watched most of the Democratic response by Joe Kennedy.
I was shocked, it sounded like a homily to victimhood and I could almost hear the whiney voice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr coming through.
A few people here have commented on the Democrats and Labors use of victimhood, saying that this style of politics is about an association of groups with a grievance.
Everybody must be equal or else it’s not fair.
Just a sad state for politics to be in, in both our countries.
61
You can easily imagine that for the last eight years the economy has been screwed in counter clockwise with a left hand thread, and for the last year it has been reversed out in the clockwise direction.
OTOH, all these theatrics cover the real conflict underway in the republic. The real demons reaction was remarkably more violent than the frowns. Note the sixth comment.
21
Item 6 is exactly what Senator McCarthy wanted all those years ago – removing Communists from positions within govt that could harm govt.
20
TedM
A Pickering look at that scene
http://pickeringpost.com/glance/what-a-piece-of-homework-this-tart-is-/7959
20
She looks Sour!
20
It looks like she “took it to the bank” after predicting that Trump would not be elected.
Some of the sad faces as seen by an endearingly annoying little pommy git called Paul Jospeh Watson.
20
If anyone needs convincing that the left are all out to destroy the Western traditions, all one has to do is watch their reaction to Trump’s speech during this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mGesWbG2Kw
20
Gore’s Vision More Of A Mirage
ADAM CREIGHTON
Al Gore’s vision of a dangerous climate ‘tipping point’ has failed to materialise, says a top US business professor.
The Australian newspaper
120
“Gore’s Vision More Of A Mirage”
A mirage alright. The Weatherbell Global Temp Anomaly for January 2018 was +0.259 degrees C. That is the 2nd coolest month in the past 30 months. The coolest being +0.258 degrees C in June 2017, cooler by a measily 0.001 degrees C. And expect Global Temps to fall further during the current “weak La Nina event” which is likely to persist until mid 2018. So the “AGW Alarmists” have little to crow about right now – their “2015/2016 El Nino event” long gone. The peak month of that “El Nino event” was Feb 2016 (+0.719 degrees C). Oh aren’t hard facts good. Of course most of the MSM never release this impt info to the “AGW brainwashed” public. All part of the “IPCC’s Grand Deception”.
20
Oh Jo, I weep!
40
It is always depressing to read the utterances of the permantently deluded SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis.
Maybe Daniel Andrews should use his state powers to turn off the interconnects to South Australia on the basis the extra available supply will significantly lower market-driven power prices in Victoria.
With South Australia left to its own power sources, I wonder what the bewildered Minister will say after about 3 months in?
150
O/T but try http://euanmearns.com/the-death-of-sunspot-cycle-24-huge-snow-and-record-cold/
for a great picture of Global Warming©.
30
Dalton-magnitude as a minimum forthcoming. I threw a dart in July 2010 and the board must’ve been hanging in just about the right place
Predictions is hard; especially about the future. Count max. was a bit low but the timing of the peak; (sun)spot-on. If the Sun remains quiet for more than 2 years, we’re in for quite a chill.
NASA in 2006:
NASA’s latest; they essentially dropped out of the prediction business after Dr Hathaway retired at the end of 2016. He was usually pretty good in predictions.
10
The tragedy of what is happening is that the electricity situation should mean that these state governments should be voted out in landslides. The problem is the Liberals don’t differentiate themselves to any great extent. In South Australia if Xenaphon controls things there it will still get worse. Why the Libs don’t just do a Trump and call it out as the scandal it really is. I think that you’d be surprise how many sceptics there actually are out there and even if they’re not sceptics voters people will vote for whoever will keep the lights on and costs down. Only coal provides that solution and with the way things are going people are more prepared than ever to take a calculated chance that the warmists may in fact be wrong in terms of size and timing and maybe there are more crucial things than rising CO2 levels.
220
The the solution is obvious; vote for neither. Then if enough do so the major parties will get the message big time. Otherwise, the voters will keep getting same old and they should stop complaining. Simples!
71
I agree, and if the next election federal or state/territory results in a hung parliament and results in alliances forming a coalition of the willing, so be it.
Whatever it takes to break the major parties.
70
“to take a calculated chance that the warmists may in fact be wrong in terms of size and timing and maybe there are more crucial things than rising CO2 levels.”
There is no “may” about it Zigmaster. Climate change is a scam. How is it possible that a power source that is free (wind and solar) actually turns out to be the most expensive way of producing electricity? I mean, who knew?
120
R
“How is it possible that a power source that is free (wind and solar) actually turns out to be the most expensive way of producing electricity? I mean, who knew?”
Recently there was a comment somewhere to the effect that “the wind may be free but sailors know that the harvesting of it is expensive”.
Similar with sailplanes
90
The Black Hand gang of the Liberals are in charge in SA. Sama-sama Turnbull.
10
‘…in terms of size and timing …’
Yeah, its a fair bet Australian politicians will adopt a luke warmers perspective as the signs of cooling become apparent.
20
[…] come the wholesale price of power doubled in SA and Victoria over the last 12 months but declined in Queensland and NSW? Didn’t someone say renewables are […]
00
Who knew — Probably thousands of engineers.
Great quote, well understated. My posting back in 2014, expecially Myths 3 and 4. https://judithcurry.com/2014/10/22/myths-and-realities-of-renewable-energy/
80
Thanks for posting here. Well worth the time spent reading.
10
Its one thing to know, its another thing to speak up. The Engineering profession and its professional bodies have been missing in action.
10
Yarpos, such criticism is warranted here. It’s unfortunate that the profession was slow to muster. Engineers like to think we can do anything. Just let us know if we can hedge on time, quality or costs.
The industry pushed forward with minor tweaks seeking to meet some of the goals of the “green’ agenda. In this case it should have been more widely better understood earlier that expecations for quality,cost and timeliness did not approach reasonableness.
I think a study/evaluation as to the reasons why the industry did not stand up would be most valuable for understanding this situation and helping avoid future screwups.
Here’s one factor seen in the US. NERC is charged with ensuring reliabilty. No charge, focus, or metric for cost. In fact they have refused to even let such considerations be discussed in reliabilty forums. TAs part of politics this entity defers to EPA on the environment.
00
Old Enron execs must be filling in migration paperwork as we speak! Our governments have provided the ideal playground for them to thrive legally.
10
It is also due to gutless politicians. Won’t take on the left.
40
Then it’s high time to buy back the farm and get your public servants to run it all Dan?
30
I have found that when politicians rant and spout inanities about private companies you can bet the wolf of Marxism is at the door. Some places such as Cuba and Venezuela actually open the door!
60
Whatever it costs, buy back the poles and wires from multinationals.
21
The left (in the US, at least) is a collection of constituencies with grievances. The are mostly single-issue, and accept the single issues of their co-conspirators blindly…that’s the only way to get to a majority.
Immigration – open borders folks.
Anti-globalism folks.
Pro abortion folks.
African American rights folks.
Pro-regulation (socialist) folks.
Various sexual issue folks.
Education Unions.
Government employee unions.
And … wait for it … greens.
They ally to win elections. Each group has a few shiny objects and they all vote for each others priorities. If there is an
underlying principle other than gaining and using the police power of the state to further one’s ends I don’t see it, for to me,
if there is a common theme it is too compel the population to do things supported by a relatively small minority.
And indulge in a porcine feast at the public trough…if the left doesn’t win state power they don’t east as well since there are many
more on the left dependent on government funding than on the right.
And that’s why a supporter of (…) rights will support any proposal for “fighting global warming” blindly. It’s the price of admission to the winning coalition.
The other side has social zealots too, but is dominated by an economic vision, though a bit tattered: “free men, free markets, private property rights”.
We see a pendulum over the decades: during some periods we build and create more, followed by creation restrained in favor of regulation and redistribution. Countries that reach a tipping point on one side or the other tend to fail pretty badly; rule by oligarchs can be as nasty for a population as rule by socialists, in fact, as Orwell pointed out, the exremes sometimes meet in the middle on the other side of the circle.
Once either side can retain power by rigging the system, deterioration is likely to follow. Suppression of a free press is a strong sign. Are we there yet?
90
Richard
Have a look at “March of the zealots” at
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm
00
Cultural marxism uses the Coalition of Victims as their main supporters.Those you listed form those in the victim coalition.
20
The CPI chart shows tobacco at the top.
Most of that increase, maybe all, is tax. Yes? No?
In the USA, some taxes (sporting goods, gas, tobacco, wine, beer, booze) are hidden from the buyer at point-of-sale.
With this in mind, perhaps tobacco should be colored a pale blue in the chart.
20
Everything except the final gst amount is hidden at point of sale in OZ. Only when specific industries bleat do you get some insight into the take on things like cigs / alcohol / petrol
00
Jo missed a couple of major cost hikes.
The biggest is council rates. Mine have gone from $680 to $3800 in 25 years, I make that about 19%. That is just rates, I don’t have town water, so I don’t know how much that went up after that B Beattie stuffed it up, then made it a profit centre.
House & contents insurance is another. Even with 25 years of no claims mine has gone from $369 to $1600 in that time.
10
All for nought?
“Delingpole: It’s Over. Now Even Democrats Give up on ‘Climate Change’ ”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/31/delingpole-its-over-now-even-democrats-give-up-on-climate-change/
60
But of course we know it MUST rise. Tobacco, fats and fuels (of any sort) are evil human vices and must be taxed to death….
20
The means of human survival you mean…..
Fats = human survival.
The infamous and deeply flawed Framingham Heart Study with its carefully cherry picked data, set all this up.
Once cholesterol and fat were linked in peer reviewed studies, it opened the door to introduce low cholesterol ( i.e. low animal fat ) diets and the fix was in.
The NWO mob consider humans lower than animals on their precious “Gaia” planet.
Low cholesterol diets create aggressive people as the body when starved of cholesterol intake, or has a low cholesterol condition, creates aggression, from what I’ve read ( happy to be proven wrong..).
Couple low cholesterol intake diets and drugs and other stupid stuff and you wonder why we have, as a society, issues?
Fuel = human survival
In their mind, “fuel = human survival and prosperity of the middle class”.
The NWO mob are both Marxists ( who abhor a middle class with wealth ) but also seem to hate humans.
Commissar Andrews in Victoriastan has set about destroying the middle class by tripling coal costs and reducing the means of production ( electricity ).
Communist SA is already a glorious Socialist “success” ( at least in Weatherdills eyes… ). You can see how its all happening.
10
Where did the Hazelwood generators go? Why sales site Alibaba of course!
https://m.alibaba.com/product/50036367175/Hazelwood-Sale-of-Coal-Power-Generators.html?subject=Hazelwood–Sale–of–Coal–Power–Generators&spm=a2700.9099405.35.9.4f67d230r7BUBG&detailId=50036367175&redirect=1
61
A Philippines company is selling them. They will give someone else many more years of cheap coal electricity production, just not Australia.
81
Evidently Australia no longer even has the capability to even sell by itself a piece of machinery like this.
50
Note here that these generators were originally designed and new in 1964, and if they are being sold, then they still must be able to deliver (certain) amounts of power. They could generate 200MW when new and when the plant closed the best one of them could still ‘make’ around 188MW, so, even after 55 years, that’s 94% of design capability.
Even using this old relic, some town somewhere n a developing Country will get reliable power for many years to come.
Tony.
130
The Devil, quite simply, is having a field day.
As I see it, Australia has turned its back on God, and every nation that does, suffers the consequnces. How that happens is irrelevent…..
92
I agree. And Tunbull, Shorten and all the other clowns in “leadership” are our punishment.
60
Ancient Israel was completely trashed by the Babylonians and everyone transported to Babylon as slaves, I cant see why a modern equivalent couldn’t occur, but internally. As I see it, Turnbull is just the next part of the punishment. Problem is, in a recent plebiscite, the population rejected God yet again, but Gods patience is very large, but it finite. Eventually the hammer will fall, and I think its started. Look anywhere that is “progressive” ( anti-God, effectively ) and you will see much strife, and its only getting worse. And its not just the West.
43
The UN is out to grab power and is desperate to make its income from individual taxpayers (vastly huger income) instead of having to wait for nations, like the US, to pay their paltry dues. Hence the energy grab, an excuse to implement a global dictatorship “for humanity’s own good”
Think about the UN police and armed services they could afford … urrk!
Maybe we’re going to be lucky and they’re too late and will miss the bus completely. There are other things with the potential to make things go badly wrong. The UN, like many humans, doesn’t look up. Enjoy.
30
True. God leads a country by it’s leader. A Leader that has God in their heart will prosper the country, a leader who rejects God will harm the country. The history of America is the prime example.
But there is more at play as well. There is the great power play with Satan trying his darnedest to topple God’s plan. The UN was set up as a power house with money, and the principle of preventing a world war from happening again. Naturally Satan jumped on this straight away. Now it’s a cess pool of self-aggrandizing globalists with no moral code whatsoever. Incapable of anything but subverting sovereign nations and pretending that it’s important.
Revelation already tells us how it unfolds. We know that it will only get worse.
41
OriginalSteve, I think the enormous disconnection from reality of your average Australian is reflected in the survey that indicated that for most Australians the vote to legalise same sex “marriage” was the most important historical event that affected them.
https://amp.theage.com.au/victoria/same-sex-marriage-ranked-australia-s-most-historic-event-20180123-p4yyrx.html
America has Trump to save them. Who’ll save us? And Australia is probably in a worse state than the US was when Trump took over, as bad as the condition of the US was.
00
America has Trump to save them. Who’ll save us? And Australia is probably in a worse state than the US was when Trump took over, as bad as the condition of the US was.
31
I think America will be prosperous for a while, then it will all turn to custard….
32
Trump will not save anyone. He is certainly a benefit for now but in time things will go pear shaped big time for a number of reasons, not the least of which are his enemies who are powerful and like a dog with a bone will never give up even at the expense of turning the US into a waste land. It’s clear this is so when one studies the cycles of history.
12
Trust in God? I think she expects us to work it out for ourselves.
11
Nothing will happen without blackouts. The general population has so far been shielded from them. SA is “over there” , all the imminent threats and tipping points will sound a lot like AGW alarmist talk to most people. What to beleive?
They have been told the network was gold plated, yet it fails under predictable load
They have been told renewable place “downward pressure in prices”, yet prices escalate
They get a lot of numbers dangled in front of them about renewable capacity, yet not much is really delivered, and that is hidden from them.
They are generally innumerate and lack even basic techical conceptual knowledge, yet have to vote for the political groups that control power policy.
Until there are multiple widespread blackouts , they will probably just grizzle and pay as its the cost of “saving the planet” I really hope I am wrong but at the moment I think I am in the things are going to get a lot worse. Given the time lag with building this infrastructure its not a good scenario.
130
What we are seeing in Australia is an implementation of the novel “1984” where the truth is the opposite of the reality.
And Australia is being spared from massive grid failure due to:
1) Ongoing deindustrialisation reducing load.
2) High prices reducing demand.
3) Secret installation of massive diesel generator capacity.
The general dumbing down of the population has now been going on for two generations and the dumbed down ones are now teaching other dumbed down ones.
160
But we are transitioning to EV to lower dependence on imported liquid fuels.
sarc
51
O/T – I received an email this morning from Willy Soon asking for people to be signatories supporting a letter to the US Museum of Natural History to ensure protesters do not close down debate on AGWW/MMCCC. I note that David Evans is a signatory and perhaps, if you support this, scientists and others here might also wish to sign the letter.
100
Link?
30
David, the email had two PDFs – one a background and the other the letter. However it also had this link to both:
http://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/open-letter-from-scientists-to-the-american-museum-of-natural-history/
As a non-scientist (my quals are in English and Journalism with my particular interest being the language used by alarmists) I will sign the petition rather than the letter.
30
William,
That link was given as background only. It takes you to the petition of Trenberth, Oreskes at all ,which is the wrong one!
DO NOT SIGN unless you want to help push the Climate Alarmist Nonsense.
50
Thanks Peter C! I hadn’t signed it so thanks for your warning!!
I was in a hurry and should have read it before I posted it. I must hand back my English degree!
10
No thanks. That link is for a petition to kick climate deniers out of the Natural History Museum. and is signed by the likes of Kevin Trenberth, Mickey Mann, James Hansen and all the other “free speech supporting, democracy promoting Animal Farm censorial trash. </sarc>
Dr Willie Soon is at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which is definitely not to be confused with the Natural History Museum which purports to be:
It’s that phrase socio-political forces which triggers all the alarms. That’s not got anything to do with Natural History.
Sounds and looks like another vehicle for Oreskes, Mann, et al:
Big Oil is NOT allowed.
Yep, It’s A propaganda arm of the CAGW crew and the Big Green Blob. The word denier features a lot. It doesn’t wait for children to come to it, it goes directly to the children.
They sure can’t explain the titanosaurs …
30
Not sure how to give a link since the email (which I also received) only has an Willie Soon’s address.
Jo Likely received the same email and may publish it here on her blog.
30
The Grattan Institute are a hoot. They’re like obnoxious footy supporters howling advice from the sidelines and howling again when their advice is taken and fails.
Tony Wood has been Program Director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation (shudder) while David Blowers spent three years working on energy and earth resources policy for the Victorian State Government (shudder). They’re here to help. Like that guy with the fangs and cape is here to look after your blood bank.
100
So could it be that this climate change stuff is all about raising more money for government?
🙂
NAH!
40
Imagine what it will be like if the Govt. thinks of putting royalties on wind and sunlight. Oops! maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this.
30
Well, Britain used to have a window tax.
And the Ottomans had a tree tax.
See https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2010/06/taxing-light-and-air/
10
So British builders bricked up the windows and everyone froze, so they built more fireplaces and the govt. imposed a chimney tax … 🙂
20
No…it would be like the old window light tax in England. I forget the details but it has happened before.
10
Remember the Poll Tax…what could possibly go wrong?
20
Annie – it’s in my link.
And the window tax lead to the expression “daylight robbery”.
30
Some States in the US prosecute people for collecting rainwater
10
Was there not a ban on collecting rainwater in Melbourne not too many years ago?
10
Never heard of it, we got a rebate for putting in city tank. We only arrived early 80s so might pre date us.
00
Different rules in different suburbs maybe?
00
Just time windows I think, we arrived early eighties but the tank I was talking about was much later , mid 2000s. Sounds like the rules changed over that quarter century 🙂
00
Yes in the 1980s we had a neighbour who wanted to install tank in suburban Melbourne and was stopped by the then official supplier of water, the old MMBW.
10
Yes, we had the same.
00
The chart shows just the wholesale price. The grid scale wind and solar generators get $90/MWh on top of the wholesale price.
All that additional capital to be spent on grid assets while households are being offered incentives to produce their own. That means grid demand is falling.
South Australia had its minimum demand of 915MW in the middle of the day yesterday. That is a working day mid summer. Another month or so and it will be even less.
The RET is working. It is pushing up prices. Energy intensive users are closing. Low energy intensive business ad households are making more of their own. Economic activity is declining. That means CO2 will follow a similar decline. It actually works!
All mainland States are following SA down this path. It will eventually reduce CO2 output the same way the GFC achieved that result.
70
I came across a graph recently showing economic activity (GDP) from 1983 to 2017.
Noting that in 1983 there was a change of government from Fraser Coalition to Hawke Labor and at the time the economy was just over the recession created by the Whitlam Labor government, and coincidently a serious drought period also ended in 1983. And circa 1990 there was the worst recession here for sixty years while Keating Labor were in government. In 1996 the Howard Coalition formed government.
After recovering from the recession that ended by 1983 the economy steadily improved until the 1990 recession that lasted a few years and had just ended when the 1996 change of government took place.
From 2003 to 2008 were the best years for the Australian economy in a very long time. In November 2007 Rudd Labor formed government.
From 2008 to 2017 the economy slowed and dropped back to 1983 figures.
Our politicians are not looking after the best interests of our nation including national prosperity.
40
The Minister for Foreign Affairs signed Australia onto the latest version of United Nations Agenda 21, now Agenda 30, during an overseas trip in January 2016. I cannot recall any discussion with voters about this before or during the 2016 federal election campaign, not even from the Labor opposition.
This DFAT website could be of interest;
http://dfat.gov.au/aid/topics/development-issues/2030-agenda/Pages/default.aspx
30
Agenda 21 is about local issues. The UN have an organisation that has local governments involved. Your local council may be signed up with it. They have an organisation in Melbourne which manages their programme in Australia. Some people throughout Australia conduct regular meeting there.
Agenda 2030 is about national issues. Both programmes are current.
When the term sustainabilty is used it generally refers to Agenda 2030. The programmes to promote women leadership comes from Sustainable Goal 5. Rather than promote women and girls, it is an attack on men.
30
Dennis, how does a government create a recession? They are as much taken by surprise as most people, including the banks, and, especially, the economists.
Those responsible for the past recessions were meeting at Davos in January.
10
For 1990 recession Labor deregulated the banking and finance industry, floated the A$, and proceeded with major economic reforms without considering the consequences. As a direct result money lending increased and the spending overheated the economy (remember WA Inc?). PM Keating referred to that recession as the recession we (Oz) had to have. He understood the problem too late.
In 1998 the Howard Coalition Government acted by establishing the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority as a banking and finance sector watchdog.
The Reserve Bank of Australia is a government department that also oversees matters economic including protecting the value of the A$ internationally and providing various services, the RBA is responsible for setting the official interest rate and for measures directed at maintaining inflation within a 2-4 per cent range if possible.
Of course there are other factors including Asia Economic Meltdown that Australia avoided because of economic reform etc., and we avoided recession again during the Northern Hemisphere Financial Crisis, not because Rudd Labor squandered borrowed billions of dollars pretending to be performing economic stimulus (it was but it was very expensive and unnecessary) and ignoring our firewall: Major economic reform, APRA, zero debt when the Howard Government left office in November 2007 and their years earlier of managing budgets into surplus in all but one year and repaying the Keating Labor debt. Rudd Labor inherited a strong economy and a $22 billion budget surplus for 2007/08 financial year, which they spent before borrowing more to spend, socialist financial management.
20
I know nothing about WAinc; I’m not an Australian.
Everything about the liberalisation of the economy was through the 1980s. New Zealand carried out the same reforms at the same time. What does that tell you?
The reforms were touted by economists (miseducated idiots) as necessary to get the economy performing again. At least, that’s how the economists in NZ put it. That was after the 1981 recession.
The banks imported lots of credit. Credit is not money. It’s imaginary money. They lent that money freely and succeeded in creating a Real Estate speculative bubble. The crash from that hit in 1990. In Australia. In New Zealand. In America, In the UK. Everywhere. It wasn’t caused by your federal government, It wasn’t caused by the NZ government because it was a global crash. So it couldn’t have been.
This might be helpful.
You might learn something from here.
Davros, last month, was the annual conference of those who cause these crashes. Not governments. Economic parasites.
Governments usually spend their time and efforts trying to clean up from the last crash while the wank… ah bankers steer their countries straight into the next one. There are two things governments can do to stop or limit the damage: first, shift taxation off economic performance (income tax, GST, etc) onto the amassing of wealth (land value tax) which will prevent speculative bubbles, and second to modify the Reserve Banking System by requiring banks to lend out only what they hold in deposits. At present, they can lend out over nine times what the hold in deposits by importing credit (which is not real money but is accounted for as though it is). That fuels speculative bubbles.
10
When you hear a bank Economist saying the bank “is seeking to increase its market share of the mortgage market…” cash up all your investments and settle in behind the barbed wire and the barricades. You’ve got about 2 – 3 years at most before it goes BANG.
10
1 Feb: Age: Recycling on the brink of collapse in Victoria as China ban bites
by Liam Mannix & Debbie Cuthbertson; with Chris Vedelago, Warrnambool Standard
Recycling in Victoria is on the brink of collapse, with councils facing having to stockpile millions of tonnes of waste – or dump it in landfill – as a China export ban begins to bite.
Several councils have already had recycling contracts cut off, with the Municipal Association of Victoria warning the problem could soon spread to the entire state.
Experts said any solution would be expensive, with ratepayers likely to be slugged if the crisis takes hold…
The recycling industry has been warning for some time that a decision by China – our largest export destination for recycling – to ban waste imports would have a catastrophic impact on the sector, possibly making it unviable…
Those warnings came home to roost this week. Recycling giant Visy told Wheelie Waste, a bin collector that services 11 councils in Victoria’s west including Greater Shepparton, Macedon Ranges, Horsham and Ararat, that it would stop accepting council recycling on February 9.
The company cited China’s ban as the reason for the move…
The crisis “would inevitably affect rates,” Dr Thornton said. Councils across the state spend about $600 million a year on kerbside recycling, about 12 per cent of their total budget.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/recycling-on-the-brink-of-collapse-in-victoria-20180131-p4yz5f.html
30 Jan: GlobalTimes China: China stops recycling the world’s waste
By Katrin Büchenbacher
Since the beginning of 2018, the papers of Western industrial countries have been inundated with headlines that presaged bad tidings. “Chinese ban on plastic waste imports could see UK pollution rise,” titled the Guardian. “Where to go with Germany’s plastic waste?” asked the German National Radio. “Plastics pile up as China refuses to take the West’s recycling,” reported the New York Times. Caixin Global was the darkest of them all, asking “Will China’s ban on plastic waste imports choke the world?”
Reading those headlines, one could get the impression that the world would soon come to an end. Whose fault was this? China’s! On January 1, the policy that banned 24 kinds of recyclable trash from being imported to China came into effect. The world’s garbage dump had closed its doors.
For years, industrial countries including Japan, Australia, America and many European countries relied on China to solve their waste problem. The EU exported 86 percent of its plastic waste to China. In total, China shouldered 56 percent of the world’s plastic waste.
I remember that during my undergraduate studies in the Swiss town of Fribourg, my roommates and I diligently collected plastic, cardboard and metal trash in separate bags. Once a month, we carried it to our community recycling station. Little did we know that most of our waste, especially the PET bottles and other plastic waste, first had to be shipped to the other side of the world to be recycled, using fossil fuels and producing CO2…
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1087281.shtml
31 Jan: ABC Ballarat: Victorian councils face recycling overflow amid China import ban
By Dominic Cansdale and Gavin McGrath
Director of sustainable development at the Moyne Shire, Oliver Moles, said contractors were desperately trying to find new markets for the recyclable material…
Mr Moles said the ‘lift price’ or the cost to council each time a truck collects a recycling bin, could double to $3.20 per lift while the cost of transporting recyclables could increase from $40 a tonne to $200 if a solution was not found in the next few months…
In a statement, the Victorian Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio said she would be seeking assurances that Victorians would not be impacted…
30
Every one knows that most recycling does not work. Metals and glass can be recycled profitably.
Answer; Mine coal. Then landfill the hole with the rubbish.
60
Not sure that glass is currently being recycled, for the same reason – China’s refusal to take it. A few weeks there was a news item that showed large dumps of glass, I think in Victoria.
00
Globalisation is a wonderful thing. You watch they will be all wise with hindsight about dependency on China to facilitate recycling, but not bat an eyelid closing refineries and creating a dependence on imported refined products.
Maybe now all those managers with sustainability in their title can show us what they are made of , instead of just playing Pontious Pilot washing their hands of the problem as they ship waste of to China. At serious risk of having to do something real.
10
Time for celebration! More electricity saved!
/s
00
The mystery to me is why it is only going up 14%. The rank stupidity warrants about 25% – COMPOUNDING ANNUALLY.
20
Generator being shipped to Germany …
http://aglblog.com.au/2018/01/extra-loy-yang-generator-to-be-refurbished-in-germany/
30
for me, it has never been accidental that the CAGW mob rarely preach, without mentioning tobacco. no wonder Govts love them – it’s paid off big-time.
Turnbull never got the kudos that Gillard did, but:
2016: Daily Telegraph: Cigarettes could rise to $40 a packet under Turnbull government tax
When he was opposition leader in 2009, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull championed a higher tobacco excise to help fund private health insurance rebates…
Oct 2016: SMH: Malcolm Turnbull told to quit the cigs after stakes in big tobacco revealed
He has called tobacco a “dangerous drug” and the single most preventable cause of bad health and death in Australia. So why does Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull still have a financial stake in two of the world’s biggest tobacco companies, 18 months after he promised to snuff out out his sharemarket exposure to cigarettes?…
According to his recently released pecuniary interests register, Mr Turnbull has shares in three funds that invest in tobacco…
—
the above reminds me of dear friends – anti-tobacco Green voters – who didn’t think twice about bringing back plenty of cigars for family and friends from a holiday in Cuba.
2015: TaxWatch: If Labor Wants To Tax “Bad Things” They Should Start With Pollution
by Ben Eltham, New Matilda
Labor’s approach to tobacco excise is sound public health policy. But if the party is really going to start taxing “bad things”, it shouldn’t stop with smokes, writes Ben Eltham…
Poorer smokers will feel the brunt of such tax increases most in the short term, even if the end result is less smoking.
Labor is at least honest about this. As Bowen said today on ABC radio, “it’s true that poorer people have higher rates of smoking and that’s something we want to fix, because it’s a big contributor to poorer people having lower life expectancy, they’re dying earlier.”
Indeed, you could even label the tobacco excise “courageous.” There is no doubt that the tax rise will be quite unpopular, particularly among Labor voters…
The policy of “encouraging less of the bad things” would be a lot easier to take seriously as a genuine reform measure if the party would announce other policies on various other “bad things”, such as sugar, gambling, greenhouse gases, and air pollution…
There are quite a lot of bad things, when you think about it. They don’t get much worse than greenhouse gases, which are already rapidly warming the planet and costing Australia billions in hotter summers and lower rainfall…
If Labor really wanted to get on with taxing bad things, carbon pollution should surely be top of the list…
—
More smokers lighting up, despite ever-increasing taxes
The Australian-13 Aug. 2017
The government’s world-beating tobacco excise haul, $11.6 billion this year (or $4950 a year per regular smoker), is on track to rise 31 per cent over the three years to 2021 owing to scheduled increases in excise of 12.5 per cent every year until then…
Aug 2017: AFR: Black Economy Taskforce calls for illegal tobacco ‘blitz’
The powerful Black Economy Taskforce will urge the federal government to “blitz” the illegal tobacco industry, which could be channeling funds to terrorists and costing taxpayers about $4 billion a year in lost revenues.
Sept 2017: c-Store: Tobacco robberies terrorising retail workers
As convenience stores have hardened up their security over the years and installed cash management safes, there is now much less cash in the drawer to attract armed robbers. But the high retail cost of cigarettes has made tobacco a much more lucrative target for criminals.
Figures released detailed 450 armed robberies of tobacco products from retail outlets in Victoria in the twelve months to March this year. There is little doubt that the trend is being repeated in the other States…
Australasian Association of Convenience Stores CEO Jeff Rogut: “Sometimes they aren’t even interested in what’s in the till, it’s the cigarettes that are worth more than $250 a carton, and are easy to turn around and sell.
“These crimes take an extraordinarily heavy psychological toll on workers, who are threatened with guns and knives…
—
23 Jan: EurActiv: Australia proves that EU tobacco plain packaging will fail
By Sinclair Davidson
(Sinclair Davidson is professor of institutional economics at RMIT University in Australia, senior research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and an academic fellow at the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance)
https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/opinion/australia-proves-that-eu-tobacco-plain-packaging-will-fail/
finally, anyone else notice a new phenomenon in Australia – people picking up cigarette butts in the car parks of malls, etc…and not for the sake of cleaning up litter.
20
BEIJING • When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, even as US President Donald Trump vowed to “bring back coal” in America, the contrast seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change.
However, new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.
These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, a Berlin-based environmental group. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, about a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries.
Overall, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, said Urgewald, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 per cent.
The fleet of new coal plants would make it virtually impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris climate accord. Electricity generated from fossil fuels such as coal is the biggest single contributor globally to the rise in carbon emissions, which scientists agree is causing the earth’s temperatures to rise.
20
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-firms-to-build-700-coal-plants
00
What’s a pay rise??
10
A pay rise is what public servants including politicians get from the taxes the private sector pays including paying well above inflation bills for government services as we struggle to make our incomes go further in almost survival mode.
20
A political stunt pulled by politicians when they are lagging in the polls
00
This is a particularly dishonest narrative.
Windpower represents such a small proportion of our energy generation that it isn’t logical to believe it could be driving current wholesale prices:
http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/h/0/g/p/t/r/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620×0.png/1515637357245.png
What you *do* see there is that supply has been seriously constricted.
Then there is the fact that the wholesale component of the final charge to the consumer is a fairly minor part of the equation:
http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/p/j/r/8/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620×0.png/1501828937705.png
And when did the volatility start? Again, it is not correlated to anything like wind power penetration, *BUT* it correlates perfectly the swearing-in of the current government:
http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/5/z/h/v/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620×0.png/1499317552968.png
The current government’s energy policy is a mess:
They inherited a situation where retailer margins had grown completely out of control, grid assets had been privatised, and network charges were been massively boondoggled. Their contribution was to preside over an artificial gas supply crisis and to create enough uncertainty in the market that suppliers are shutting down plants, in addition to the uncertainty created by their axing of the carbon tax which caused a massive reduction in new power generation investment.
We are being ripped off by industry and led up the garden path by government, and none of this has anything to do with *too much* supply of renewable generation. In the words of the AEMC:
“More wind and
solar generation
enters putting
downward pressure
on prices.”
http://www.aemc.gov.au/News-Center/What-s-New/Announcement-Documents-(non-project)/EPR0056-National-fact-pack-and-media-release.aspx
And *that* downward pressure is precisely what the current government has been trying to stop through their messaging and their policies. They are actively trying to prevent more generation from being added to the Australian market.
It is exactly like their sabotaging of the NBN: vested interests are convincing these traitors to take a stand against the tide of progress, with we consumers being the ones who pay the price.
25
What you fail to address is wind power and solar cannot maintain a stable system because it’s weather dependant, wind has to be curtailed for the sake of the grid and reliability.
Remember the big SA blackout .
60
Another minor oversight by CT is the subsidy.
Wind, solar Et al are gifted approx. $90 a MW, this cost is born by coal/gas driving up the cost of our power. Coal/gas can no longer compete financially and shutdown thus reducing the supply, normal supply and demand equations drive the costs up even further because solar/wind is pathetic at generating large scale power as CT states right off the bat.
Question: How does the above scenario relate to the NBN?
60
One of the problems of having a govt decreed “sacred cow” of renewables is that the market is being distorted and dismembered to create an artificial floor for pricing, but worse than that, its also removing viable coal power and replacing it with solar and wind etc.
Its a bit like taking a good capitalist economy and replacing it with 100% always dis-functional Socialism….
60
As Christiana Figueres described.
40
I love this…all that is missing is the violin case….from a UN agency of course…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-cops-un-investor-slap-on-climate-policy-as-green-paradox-looms-20180129-h0qc0f.html
“Australia’s climate policies are “a decade behind” other rich nations, according to a United Nations investment official, leaving the country exposed to risks of a so-called “green paradox” when carbon emissions will have to make a precipitous retreat.
A phasing out of coal and other fossil fuels is the centrepiece of four recommended investor goals to be unveiled by the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment unit in New York on Thursday morning, eastern Australian time.
Fiona Reynolds, UNPRI’s managing director, said investors needed to take the lead in forcing companies to reveal their exposure to fossil fuels and to step up pressure on governments to meet their Paris climate commitments.
“Investors have a huge, huge role to play on climate change,” Ms Reynolds told Fairfax Media, citing their ability to influence the companies they own, including steering them away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. “This a really urgent issue.“
20
Coal exporters?
00
Craig,
You are even thicker than I ever gave you credit for (that is very, very thick).
Enormous subsidies for power systems that do NOT generate power for most of the time is THE reason for the astronomical increases.
The whole bloody mess is predicated on CO2 being an influence on temperature. The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
70
The NBN is also disasterous unless you pay for a big 12V ( car ) battery to keep your phone alive if the power in the street fails.
Unlike the POTS phone system which was battery backed in the exchanges so the phones would keep working in a blackout, the NBN is all digital, which means when the street power goes out, the connector to your house goes down. So if youre elderly and have an emergency phone dialler as my parents do, unless you stick a big 12V battery in to keep your phone alive, you cant automatically dial out to get an ambulance.
Its pretty dumb – take away a solid POTS and ADSL connection, so a few inner city types can play endless youtube videos of themselves and call it progress…..
50
Bit naive to say just because something is a small proportion it cant drive big changes. Whie technology itself is small in amount of powere delivered and actual usefullness, the whole RET system surrounding it drives bigger changes.
Naivity again further down you post, you dont really believe the downward pressure meme surely. Just think about it, intermittentency, no grid level storage, must be backe up with other sources i.e. duplication. When has duplication ever reduced costs?
50
Less than 5 per cent of electricity from RET wind and solar but claims are made that downward pressure on pricing is underway.
So how about considering why pricing is so high for such a tiny intermittent source?
30
Duplication or backup of the renewables supply sector is what all the greenies do not understand. It doesn’t take a genius to comprehend this not too complicated issue.
I find it laughable that Craig Thomas,(GENIUS) that he is, cannot understand that backup plants have a cost. They are constantly ready to fill in the gap whenever renewables don’t deliver. This cost, and the RET is passed onto us mugs. The huge problem is that nobody can say when the renewables won’t deliver. There is no guarantee of supply.
If only we could cut the interconnector to SA, then we could see the result of the reliance on renewable energy. I wonder how many backup diesel generators that the DUDmarines builders will need to ensure a sufficient, reliable source of power?
20
AEMC are spouting nonsense. They have no clue. More Wind and solar does not put downward pressure on prices. It forces prices up. It does not matter how much wind and solar generation is added, all the fossil fuel generation has to remain. Wind and solar cannot be relied on. There has to be a back up and in Australia that is predominantly fossil fuel. So all the added assets in wind and solar generation only increase the cost of fossil fuel generation because fast response gas is needed to replace coal generation. Wind and solar save a tiny amount of fossil fuel in the generation but that is offset by their huge requirement in fossil fuel to manufacture them.
If you want to understand this dilemma, have a go at comprehending the linked paper:
http://www.hanswernersinn.de/dcs/2017%20Buffering%20Volatility%20EER%2099%202017.pdf
This is the first proper analysis of high penetration of wind and solar on a large grid. AEMO admit their modelling is superficial despite now having good historical records of wind and solar generation. The modelling in the Jacobs Group report for the Finkel enquiry was laughably optimistic. That had wind generators that never fell below 10% output and winter sunshine at 100% for 10 hours a day – simply nonsense.
It does not make economic sense to have grid scale wind and solar on the network. There is no economy of scale. My rooftop panels in Melbourne are the same size or bigger than those used at the Broken Hill solar plant and I get almost as much sunlight. Their costs more than double by the time energy is transmitted to Melbourne, the RET charge is added and the retail cost added. They simply cannot compete with what I make myself.
Trump’s USA will have a huge economic advantage over the countries that are deluding themselves that wind and solar generation directly reduces CO2. It has the indirect effect of hobbling all heavy industry so it closes down and that results in reduced CO2. Take a look at the unemployment in SA.
60
Another good outline Rick.
10
Craig,.. If you believe that, you should also believe that it is not logical for such a small proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere to drive global temperatures ?
And of course, they do not. ,!
Those states with big increases in power costs are the states (and countries like Germany) , with the high % of wind and solar (SA has capacity for 100% wind .generation most of the time)
Those states with little % wind and solar (NSW, QLD, ) have not seen the huge cost increases.
20
Excellent point Chad,
And it is the same one that Jo makes in this and previous posts. However that seems to have gone over Craigs head.
20
There was a graph in The Australian a few weeks ago that showed electricity cost increases closely tracking the normal cost of living until 2003, when they suddenly increased at a much faster rate. I’m not sure when renewables started to be used and the RET started, but I suspect that they would have commenced around 2003.
10
31 Jan: OilPrice: What’s Behind Canada’s Oil Driller Exodus?
By Tsvetana Paraskova
Canadian drillers are moving rigs south to the U.S. to seize more profitable opportunities. But it’s not just the bright prospects of the Permian that is attracting Canadian companies—moving south of the border has more to do with favorable tax rates and more takeaway capacity and market access opportunities than there is in Canada.
Last week, Calgary-based AKITA Drilling said it would be expanding in the Permian and has contracted a rig with a major U.S. operator that has a significant presence in the Permian…
Another Calgary-based firm, Trinidad Drilling, said on Monday that it would be moving eight rigs to the Permian to meet increased customer demand, redeploying idle rigs from its existing global operations with weaker demand, including Canada.
Trinidad Drilling’s CEO Brent Conway told The Canadian Press in an interview that he would rather avoid the move if he could find profitable drilling work in Canada. The rigs moved to the U.S. would be crewed by U.S. workers, as Canadian crews likely won’t move with the rigs, the manager added.
“What’s happening in the U.S.? They’re lowering taxes, they’re building pipelines and they’re starting to export oil,” Conway told The Canadian Press, adding that in Canada, taxes have been raised, pipelines are not getting built, and there isn’t much regulatory certainty.
His sentiment is shared by AKITA’s chief executive Karl Ruud, who said that the U.S. offers more attractive prospects with more favorable tax rates and regulatory system…
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Whats-Behind-Canadas-Oil-Driller-Exodus.html
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The socialist factor again.
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Jo, that SA price should be $99.94/MWhr for 2017/18 FY.
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A spare generator weighing about 255 tonnes will be transported from AGL’s Loy Yang A Power Station on Thursday for repairs in Germany.
Described as a “superload”, the convoy will stretch 108 meters and will travel by road to Port Melbourne before being loaded onto a cargo ship.
Longer than an A380 Airbus, the convoy is so large it requires three prime movers to pull it. A fourth guides the load from behind.
The total weight of the convoy is 650 tonnes. As part of a maintenance schedule, the repaired generator will be brought back into service later this year.
Thank goodness one supplier is helping to keep base load power reliable. However AGL has also reported: “Starting in 2022 and ending by 2050, we are getting out of coal”.
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30 Jan: BBC: Can cars be used as mini power stations?
By Roger Harrabin
The feasibility of using electric vehicles as mini power stations will be tested using government funding of almost £10m.
During the trial involving 1,000 car charging points, electric vehicles will feed power back into the national grid.
It is seen as a key step towards an economy powered increasingly by renewable energy…
While electric cars are charging in the office car park they can be programmed to use power when it is cheapest – when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.
Under the government’s plan, those vehicles would then be driven home and plugged into the grid – not to suck out more power, but to give energy back…
The surge of power from the batteries could come just in time for peak demand in the evenings.
The flow can be reversed again when the wind is blowing at night to charge the electric vehicles (EV) for the next day’s commute.
The trial is being run by Nissan and partner firms…
“Allowing EVs to return energy to the power grid when parked will increase grid resilience, allow for better exploitation of renewable sources and lower the cost of ownership for EV owners,” a spokesperson said.
“It will lead to new business opportunities and clear advantages for EV users and energy consumers.”
Patrick Erwin, from Northern Powergrid, said: “The growth in electric vehicles will provide greater system flexibility and use of renewable energy sources.
“Vehicle-to-grid also offers the prospect of enabling our customers to gain income from their vehicles by selling services to the energy system.”
The UK will need more battery storage to hold renewable energy as the country moves towards a target of cutting 80% of carbon emissions by 2050…
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42876343
earlier, with reservations:
Nov 2017: BBC: How your electric car could be ‘a virtual power station’
By Theo Leggett
“By 2030 we could see as many as nine million electric vehicles on the road,” says (National Grid’s) energy insights manager, Marcus Stewart.
“That would add around 5% to the annual energy demand on the electricity system. So it’s going to add demand, but maybe not as much as you might think.”
One reason the anticipated demand isn’t higher is because National Grid assumes that so-called “smart charging” will be widespread.
The principle is relatively straightforward.
If millions of people charge their cars at the same time – for example when they come home from work – it will put heavy strain on the grid. But that doesn’t have to happen.
Smart chargers will allow vehicles to draw power only when it is readily available, avoiding peak periods, while ensuring that they are fully charged when their owners need them…
But the carmaker Nissan is hoping to go a step further.
At the Nissan Technology Centre in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, a number of the company’s electric Leaf models are lined up alongside a bank of chargers. But these cars aren’t just drawing energy from the grid; they’re also putting it back.
The system is called Vehicle to Grid, or V2G. The Japanese company is developing it in partnership with the Italian power firm Enel and is already operating a small trial hub in Denmark.
Electric cars are, in effect, energy storage devices, and because they spend much of their time parked up not doing anything they can help smooth out the peaks and troughs in energy demand…
Not everyone agrees that V2G makes commercial sense, however. The chief technical officer of Tesla, JB Straubel, for example, has suggested in the past that he doesn’t see it becoming a viable solution, largely due to its cost and complexity.
Some experts have suggested it could accelerate battery degradation, although Ms Corallini insists the reverse is true, because the car is maintained in an optimum state of charge.
A recent study by researchers at Warwick University came to a similar conclusion, suggesting V2G technology could increase battery life by up to 10%…
There may be other obstacles to the mass take-up of electric cars – the availability of batteries for example, and the need to invest in charging infrastructure.
But if we manage demand properly, there’s no reason why running our cars on electricity should stop us lighting our homes or boiling our kettles.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42013625
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Pat
Do they pay you for the use of your battery life that they are going to chew into or is this another user provided subsidy?
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More wishful thinking methinks. I guess you can imagine anything you like and claim it will worksometime in the future, all going well. It is renewable related after all.
Personally I will be interested just to see them to sucessfully deploy and operate consumer EVs in a range of diverse situations and seasonal conditions. Especially in the UK with good chunk of people overnight parking on the street.
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30 Jan: CNBC: Tom DiChristopher: Exxon Mobil will triple production in the Permian basin, the hottest US shale oil field, by 2025
•Exxon Mobil aims to triple its production of oil and chemical feedstocks in the Permian Basin to 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent by 2025.
•The Permian has been the epicenter of the rebound in U.S. drilling in recent years following a protracted price slump.
•Exxon will also build out infrastructure to bring its crude oil and products to market.
The announcement came one day after the world’s largest publicly listed oil company said it would ratchet up its U.S. investments to $50 billion over the next five years, in part due to the benefit of recent U.S. tax cuts…
Exxon expects crude oil production alone to increase five-fold in the Permian, which runs beneath western Texas and eastern New Mexico. Last year, Exxon doubled its Permian holdings through the $5.6 billion acquisition of companies owned by the Bass family…
The oil giant also plans to spend $2 billion to expand infrastructure to bring oil and feedstocks to market…
Last year, Exxon said it would invest $20 billion to build chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas facilities along the U.S. Gulf coast…
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/30/exxon-mobil-will-triple-production-in-the-permian-basin-by-2025.html
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30 Jan: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: UK electricity use falls – as rest of EU rises
***Slowing economy, mild weather and energy-efficient appliances among possible reasons for decline
Britain’s appetite for power has been waning for more than a decade ***as industrial activity declined and businesses and households opted for more energy efficient lighting and appliances.
But an analysis of official figures by campaign group Sandbag (LINK) found the fall between 2016 and 2017 was one of the biggest in several years, marking a striking divergence with the rest of Europe…
The UK’s power consumption fell nearly 2% from 355 terawatt hours to 348 tWh, while it rose across the EU as a whole by 0.7% from 3,239 to 3,262 tWh…
Overall, electricity demand has fallen by 9% in the UK in the past seven years, the sharpest decline in the union…
***The EU increase is the third year in a row, and suggests the push for economic growth is winning out over energy efficiency measures…
The growing disparity between the UK and EU has puzzled experts. The gap cannot be explained away solely by shrinking industrial production in Britain or slower economic growth in 2017, of 1.8% versus a forecast of 2.3% for the EU.
Weather does not explain the difference either. Britain was relatively mild last year with the average temperature 0.7C above the long-term mean, said the Met Office, but Europe as a whole was 0.8C above the long-term average, said the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
Jones said: “Reasons are hard to identify. It is likely other EU countries’ air-conditioning binge has been much stronger than that in the UK. Perhaps UK shops are better at stocking energy-efficient appliances or UK consumers are shopping for energy-efficient products.”…
Sandbag also found that for the first time across the EU, renewable sources of power, excluding hydro, overtook coal. Together, wind, solar and biomass accounted for 20.9% of the union’s electricity mix in 2017, up from 9.7% in 2010.
“This is incredible progress, considering just five years ago, coal generation was more than twice that of wind, solar and biomass,” the report said…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/30/uk-electricity-use-falling-economy-weather
Guardian links to:
30 Jan: Sandbag: The European Power Sector in 2017
The Tipping Point
Today we launch our fourth annual review of the European power sector – and for the second year in a row with Agora Energiewende.
The reports celebrates how for the first time, wind, sun and biomass overtook coal in supplying European electricity.
But there are worrying failings in the current electricity transition, not least that emissions reductions have stalled this year.
“With electricity consumption rising for the third year, countries need to reassess their efforts on energy efficiency. But to make the biggest difference to emissions, countries need to retire coal plants. We forecast Europe’s 258 operational coal plants last year emitted 38% of all EU ETS emissions, or 15% of total EU greenhouse gases…
***European electricity consumption has risen for a third consecutive year. With Europe’s economy being on a growth path again, power demand is rising as well…
Together with additional increases in non-ETS gas and oil demand, we estimate overall EU greenhouse gas emissions rose by around 1% in 2017…
30 Jan: CarbonBrief: Simon Evans: The EU got less electricity from coal than renewables in 2017
The figures, from London-based Sandbag and Berlin-based Agora Energiewende, are a best estimate, based on near-complete electricity market data from each of the 28 EU member states…
Low-carbon sources met 56% of demand, a figure that is unchanged since 2014…
Nuclear number one
While renewables rise and coal falls precipitously, one relatively constant feature of the EU’s power sector has been nuclear. In 2017, it was once again the single-largest source of electricity, generating 25.6% of the bloc’s power, as the chart below shows…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/eu-got-less-electricity-from-coal-than-renewables-2017
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Oh my does that consumer pice index tell a story or what!! Chardonnay socialism anyone? It’s a good vintage this year.
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