End the taboo: The obvious solution to our expensive unreliable electricity is to fix old coal plants
The proposed NEG (National Energy Guarantee) will cut a pathetic sliver off our obscene bills. Malcolm Turnbull thinks Australians will be grateful for $100 off. We pay $3,700 a year for an average 4 bed house (and it’s heated with gas)? Are they kidding?
No one is even discussing the most obvious, cheap way to cut our electricity bills. Fix the old coal plants. As Ian Waters, engineer, says “Enlightened, motivated people can do it!” Just getting Liddell back up to full power would deliver another 800MW of cheap, despatchable, and reliable power. Wouldn’t that be “handy”?
All the talk of new coal ignores the cheapest source of electricity around the nation. Our star infrastructure, gift of the older generation to the younger, are our old coal power stations, paid off over decades and still powering the nation.
Ian Waters, describes below how the NEG serves the big retailers not the consumers, and it’s in their interest to run old coal plants into the dust. (Our electricity market is so screwed thanks to the RET. — Wholesale prices leapt when Hazelwood closed, and all successful bidders get paid at the same highest-winning-bid rate.) Are AGL driving the Liddell plant into the ground? Hard to tell, but easy to see why it might be appealing to turn a once valuable asset into a show-pony for End Of Coal. Remember AGL would rather trash Liddell than swap it for a billion bucks.
See his scathing red pen. This mass email went out last night. Andrew Vesey, runs AGL.
Jo
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Turnbull, Frydenberg: Who is running this country? You or Andrew Vesey?
Click to enlarge
By Ian Waters
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Australian Federal Government and the Energy Security Board are not being totally honest with us about the NEG.
They are quoting these marvellous figures of $550/year saving and all the rest of the nonsense – but, just like many real estate agents or used car dealers – are not telling us that there is in fact a viable simpler option to save much more! That option is to upgrade every single coal fired station in Australia back as close as possible to the original MCR, stop building wind turbines and build a 2,500MW Coal Fired Station in the Latrobe Valley. With an extra 800MW from Liddell alone, many more MWs from other stations and an additional 2,500 MW from the Valley, prices will drop like a stone – and we will have more reliable electricity and enough to get us through future summers. Also there will be less opportunity for the bare faced, extreme rorting that is going on right now. Think about S.A. today and yesterday. With the wholesale price up to $228/MWh yesterday when there was not much wind (5 times what the electricity is actually worth out of the Valley) – and down to -$1,000/MWh for a short time today (yes negative $1,000/MWh!). Now Ladies and Gentlemen, picture perhaps a hamburger seller, who knows full well that there is a Hawthorn Geelong game on Saturday, he can control how many hamburgers he has available at any given time and there are massive price variations for his product amounting to hundreds of percent depending on how many he has available and the demand – what do you reckon the hamburger seller will do?
You guessed it! That is what some energy companies are doing to the citizens. They are doing us over!
The very last thing they want is a large supply of cheap reliable coal fired power that is “boring” and does not have spectacular fluctuations and capably covers the country’s requirements. That is why they – and their industry group mouthpieces – want an NEG.
Just in case the Politicians and professional “spinners” have deluded you into thinking that there is anything good about the NEG, think about these three points:
- The NEG aims to reduce emissions by 26%. If you think that this addition of renewables – and resultant shut down of coal fired generation – won’t increase prices, reduce reliability and waste precious gas – let me introduce you to the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny!
- The NEG has been “designed” (on the surface) by the Energy Security Board. The Energy Security Board – with all due respect – are like all these Government energy organisations – and are grossly over-weight in Lawyers, Economists, Environmental activists and hangers-on and are severely under-weight in engineers, people who have actually been in business and people who understand power generation and transmission. In addition, they are incompetent. Have a look at the attached letter they sent me – where, after having it pointed out that the Basslink was down, they mistakenly thought it was operational! This is the body charged with our future energy security and they can’t even get that right! Be nervous about their NEG!
- AGL, Origin and their mouthpieces in certain Industry organisations have been low key but positive about the NEG. Once you have seen a bit of how these big influential energy companies and Governments work – you know for sure what “low key but positive” really means. It means that they designed the NEG and they stand to make a fortune from it! Be very nervous about their NEG!
Think about the direct competitors to our agricultural, mining and manufacturing sectors in the USA, China and India! No Paris nonsense, no insane NEG’s required and in the Asian countries, hundreds of new coal fired stations being built!
Best Regards,
Ian.
PS: Our ongoing offer is open to Kerry Schott, Malcolm Turnbull, Josh Frydenberg, Innes Willox, Audrey Zibelman and Jennifer Westacott to get down to Wollongong and engage in a public debate with us over whether our coal fired plan described above – or their dog’s breakfast NEG will result in cheaper & more secure electricity and the freeing up of more gas – let’s get the true facts out in the open!
But I don’t understand, Josh and Mal are from the government, and they are here to help.
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Actually Martin Parkinson and the other green bureaucrats.
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It’s the difference between sailing and motor sailing!
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This post is finally getting to the point.
We are being taken for a ride by a system that has been designed to cover up what’s really going on.
I keep saying this but I must say it again;
How do they get away with it?
Scurrilous, is such a mousey word but it might get through the censor.
Evil conveys a better description of what’s going on.
Really, this is against the best interests of all residents and voters.
They are not being treated honestly.
Something is seriously wrong, but when, in the finance industry, they can get away with the big shakedowns of the sharemarkets every few years I guess any other scam is small by comparison.
But, people don’t like being ripped off so we must keep putting the message out there.
KK
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They get away with it because we no longer have governmental accountability. A system practiced in Switzerland, Canada and about 20 of the United States of America is Citizen’s Initiated Referendum. Mr Google will tell you all about it. The point is that if we had CIR NONE of our governments could get away with a tenth of what they do to us!
CIR is simple, cheap and very effective in controlling governments – and that’s why we don’t have it!
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That’s the sort of thing we need to investigate.
The Swiss have a Canton system which, from memory, reduces input from the government overhead, makes the local government more accountable and in some respects, works well.
Accountability is a critical issue.
When our once admired National Scientific Organization, CSIRO, is no longer in a position to tell the truth about science Australia he Lost the Plot.
The claim about CO2 driving the climate is recognized by any qualified scientist as being physical Nonsense, but scientists and especially employees of Universities and CSIRO cannot speak on pain of Dismissal.
A serious moral dilemma and a stain on Australian politics.
The CO2 Nonissue is clear cut scientifically and should be resolved in court.
The reference to a one hundred year old investigation into CO2 by Arrhenius says it all.
CO2 does not drive world climate in any way and the continued use of this myth by politicians is unjustified scientifically.
KK
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KK,
I like you but have serious misgivings about your sanity… look around you, the debate is NOT about science and the politicians don’t give a rats about that. It’s all about 2 things power, and money. As it stands at the moment the government thinks that moral preening on this issue somehow will deliver them power, and they are already addicted to spending your lunch money on preening themselves in public.
The thing that needs to be dealt with is the idea that this virtue signalling is morally defensible. That reducing CO2 is worth the early death of 10,000 peoples granny forced to choose between heating and eating. It’s been a brutal winter and grannies have been dropping like flies. But somehow that’s OK because we’re “saving the planet ” hallelujah.
Why don’t we do a small write in campaign, everyone in the next day or so e-mail your member about the evil of killing grannies to save the planet with the NEG. Jo, I don’t know if you are well again, but would you like copies of any replies.
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‘… the debate is NOT about science …’
Ahh … its not settled.
Memo to Rupert: If Sky News could do a weather channel stint I’ll put my hand up.
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I agree with you both, as it happens!
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Um. Actually, it is because there is a significant proportion of the voting population who do not understand energy, generation, grid stability, economics, economic dispatch, national resources, subsidies, etc, because they have been “dumbed down” by the media and “education” systems to believe in pixie dust and unicorn farts as armour against an imaginary foe.
AU has done “just fine” for a very long time until hobbled by imaginary hobgoblins and ideologies promoted by feckless persons to undermine the sovereignty and economic stability of AU.
I should suggest that anyone wanting a stable and sovereign AU might want to take care at the polls to ensure that nonsense is excluded from those being vested with power over others.
Perhaps some form of binding guarantee that if the follies advertised ought turn out not to be so economical, beneficial, stabilizing, etc, as promised, then, well, the elected officials who imposed such idiocy ought pay the citizenry back from their own resources as well as those who have supported and profited from the madness, and resign in disgrace. Just a thought.
People usually take a great deal of care in spending their own money. But they seem to lose all sense of consequences at the voting booth. How is it that charlatans are entrusted with such awesome power over others without any consequence or obligation and they are held harmless from stupid decisions no rational person would engage?
Please do remember that the last object released from Pandora’s Box was Hope. Hope can be evil or beneficial depending on how it is perceived.
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“Perhaps some form of binding guarantee that if the follies advertised …”
That will never fly.
What could be done, if the pollies were serious at least, is to ensure that the legislation defines all effects in both direction and scale with best-, worst- and most likely cases and legislation automatically sunsets itself into oblivion unless it meets its own targets and does not cause any “unforseen” issues. Targets and measuring systems all defined from scratch so it can’t be scammed with, eg, “Treasury CPI numbers” – would need to be “Treasury CPI numbers using the systems in place as at 08-08-2018” or whatever.
Could be applied to ALL legislation.
Essentially, it’s an outcome based system that removes legislation that has failed to meet its own goals.
Over time, that would weed out all the failed legislation and leave us with the things that actually do what they were designed to do and no more or less, since “success” is defined in the legislation itself. Even better, the pollies don’t have to remove it, it removes itself if it doesn’t work “as advertised”.
Not that I expect it to happen of course.
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I think people misunderstand Veazey . They give him too much credit that he is actually trying to maximise the benefit for shareholders. He is a genuine zealot. These zealots have infiltrated many of the big oil companies, BHP, the academic institutions, the public service, religious leaders, teachers, etc. it’s like we have aliens amongst us. If Veazey achieves his aim of destroying the Australian economy by strapping it to the Gaian worship he will in his mind have been extremely successful.
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Really?
I would have been happy during my working life to have had a paypacket like any of the “zealots” mentioned.
Opportunists is a good description.
KK
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Didn’t they used to be known as “carpetbaggers”?
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If you see a lawyer coming down the street cross over and walk on the other side. Should you then see an economist approaching on the other side…better just to take your chances and walk in the traffic.
No, seriously. It is now August 7 2018 and Malcolm Turnbull is still Prime Minister of Australia. Let’s deal with this problem first. I notice a disturbance in the force when the matter is raised on this blog. It’s kindly suggested we talk about things other than Malcolm. Hmmm.
In fact, we need to talk more about the removal of Malcolm Turnbull. It must be done well in advance of any election and it needs to be accompanied by the removal of Frydenberg and Bishop. They need not listen, hear our pain. They need not justify or explain. They need only to go.
When you have goannas in your chicken coop you do not wait for other reptiles to come and eat them. You remove the goannas.
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That’s it!!
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Well said mosomoso. I have been criticised for mentioning Turnbull too many times yet you are absolutely right – we don’t in fact talk about him enough. He MUST go and go immediately simply because he IS THE PROBLEM.
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Yep, every time it’s nicely implied we need a change of subject…turn up the volume on Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop. We need them gone, and immediately. No need to worry about the consequences of our actions since inaction means more Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop…then welcome to Dastyariland. So the choice is easy even if the execution is problematic.
Oh, and did I mention that we need Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop gone?
Also – terribly sorry to change the subject – but we need Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop gone.
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If you include Pyne and Hunt and Sinodinos on your hit list, you’ve got my vote.
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ad the Fifiddler to the list , and i’m in to .
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No he isn’t he’s a symptom, lie the bad smell that comes from s gangrenous foot, a particularly unpleasant symptom but a symptom nevertheless.
The problem is actually our success , we actually have the capitalist system required for our wealth and well being, it’s pretty well balanced with safety nets, WW-II was 70 years ago, we don’t actually need more laws or bigger government, in fact given that we’re pretty set up, what is needed is less government, smaller government. So our pollies sit around prognosticating on sweet FA and we get issues like homosexual marriage, globalist bullish1t generally ,including global warming, more and more the activists niche irrelevancies get airtime because it’s no longer about making it through the day alive. They need to fill up so many sitting weeks so they can give the illusion of doing something. It’s so bad we’re importing trouble for the government to bolt to the rescue on their sanctimonious white horses. It’s such a “first world problem” and we have first world decay because the LIBLAB machine want to find reasons to expand government when what the first world needs is for government to get out of the way and just grease the wheels for the rest of us to get on with it.
This is the core of the problem, we don’t actually need our governments that much any more, there aren’t that many useful decisions left to make. We should have them meet for just 4 weeks a year, the rest of the time they can be in their electorate offices helping people. Two things would save us – much shorter sitting time, and secret votes in parliament.
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Damn, I tried so hard to beat the moderation filter and failed…
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No Pete, the Australian voters are the problem.
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We need to get rid of Mal, and all those who supported his coup.
How we do this in a democratic and peaceful way, without letting Labor and the Greens loose in the treasury again… is anyones guess. Me? As long as I can still vote in Aussie elections, I keep politely bugging my local member – Chris Pyne, and the Liberal senators, plus Cory Bernardi. I should do the same with the other SA senators, but they are, for the most part, a lost cause.
It won’t achieve anything by itself, but it is better than not trying anything.
Just take a look at the reprehensible and unrepresentative swill here, if you want to be further depressed:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&sta=SA&mem=1&sen=1&par=-1&gen=0&ps=50&st=1
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It’s tricky, parliamentary salaries aren’t that great, the rough and tumble of politics subjects your family to unfair & unusual torture. Just look at Barnaby’s treatment. No thinking person with any real talent would even contemplate entering parliament unless they have a particular axe to grind. This means parliament is full of activists, for example homosexuals are over represented by about 10 times. Yes I know the H-word we’ll get me moderated… sigh
I’ve contemplated standing many times, but as an engineer I can beat a parliamentary salary handily, I couldn’t possibly handle the deceit, the illogical minds of the Briggs Meyer ENF types that infest the parliament and I don’t have the papers hanging on my every word ready to out any irrelevant misdemeanour that someone related to me has incidentally done in order to destroy me by mere association. Parliament is full of over emotional mediocre uninformed people, most of them wanting something other that the good of the people, to grind their axe so to speak. It’s the nature of publications serpents.
# my apologies to those of the public service or ENF* that are not part of the collective, many of you do sterling jobs. Just please, please leave engineering of the energy grid, building NBNs and nations to the objective unfeeling INT* engineers please. Energy systems don’t have feelings.
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Choice out of INFJ isn’t it?
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Good luck with that. IMO, Turnbull and his crew will need to be voted out before the Libs will roll him from within. He’s built up a core of staunch allies around him. Choices at the next election: Labor and a leap off the edge; Liberals and a stumble over the edge. Same destination.
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There is no point expecting the likes of Frydenberg to go against Turnbull and suddenly announce that the renewables is a scam, RET schemes are a waste of time and money and that coal fired power stations is our only option to reduce prices significantly and maintain a stable and reliable power grid. Turnbull has to go first. Frydenberg might even disagree vehemently with Turnbull’s policies but he can’t admit to that for obvious reasons. They are all career politicians and by default they have to follow the leader. Get rid of the leader and things will change. No one in cabinet is discussing the most obvious, cheap way to cut our electricity bills because they are not allowed to. Turnbull must go and a new leader with energy polices diametrically opposed to the existing policies must be put in place. If the LNP is then voted back into government they will have a mandate to execute those new policies. If they still fail to win government and Shorten becomes PM then Australians who voted for them will have to learn their lesson the hard way.
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But put the fear of getting crushed in the next election into them, and then give them a secret party room vote on who should lead them. A/ the man who won by one seat and who had to put a million $ into getting himself elected because the party base didn’t donate, or B/ the man who won 90 seats with a blood oath to axe the carbon tax?
Turn the screws — mention Trump.
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Jo the elephant in the room is now stomping over Australians to death, literally as well as metaphorically. The LNP is rapidly becoming worse than even the past Rudd and Gillard governments when we include the debt and immigration issues. I now think we might even be better off with the ALP. I never voted for the ALP and never will due to my principles and dislike of the left who I consider are evil but I can understand why they will romp in at the next election as long as Turnbull remains as the leader of the LNP. It is now clear as day that Turnbull has to go. If he stays the whole LNP will go at the next election. I can see a bloodbath at the next federal election given the combination of so many issues all peaking at the the same time; agriculture, power, gas, petrol, food, water, immigration, super, banks, wages, multiculturalism, education, aged, etc.. As for mentioning Trump that will only be of any use if we become another state of the US, which is far more preferable than becoming another province of China, which is far more likely unfortunately. We do not have a Trump-like politician here simply because most Australians would reject such a figure outright. A crash and burn scenario might change that.
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‘….become another state of the US, which is far more preferable than becoming another province of China …’
I strongly disagree, the Second Amendment would force us to buy guns, whereas Beijing wouldn’t make any demands upon us. Anyway that won’t happen, lets get to the chase.
‘PM’s energy pledge as ALP goes green: Malcolm Turnbull will commit to underwriting new dispatchable power generation in a bid to secure support for the NEG.’ OZ
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el gordo
From what I have read, Malcom said that they would finance coal-fired plants and then changed it to : might be coal or gas. The gas is more likely to be OCGT (peaking plants) and is much more likely than new HELE coal fired plants. OCGT can support wind but is very expensive (will increase the wholesale price of electricity). The fact that it can support wind makes it attractive to them and they will forget about the costs. That promise sounds very hollow.
The bottom line is that you cannot have reliable, cheap, low emissions, electricity production with present technology as they will not consider nuclear or hydro.
What is needed is to reduce the fine for not meeting your renewable energy quota (RET) from $65/MWH TO $5/MWH OR BETTER STILL GET RID OF THE RET entirely. Coal-fired power plants will not be viable as long as the RET exists unless they do as other countries, such as the UK, have done and subsidise coal- fired generators as well. That won’t reduce the price of electricty, will it?
They will not end up with reliable cheap electricity with the NEG and RET and that is for sure.
John
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Jo, read my post about a write-in with responses posted on JoNova. Everyone write your member about the NEG and the association between RET driven high prices and the evil critical heat or eat decision faced by the nation’s grannies. Turn the RET into a moral question choosing between 0.0 degrees of cooling in 100 years and grannies dying NOW, this winter.
If Jo agrees send what you get back to Jo for posting
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Slightly different viewpoint, but to some degree the Australian economy has become dependent on the success of renewable energy. If I’m reading correctly, unions and super funds have huge investments in renewable energy. It’s like a big Ponzi scheme. Remove the RET and those investments become virtually worthless overnight. There’ll be huge repercussions across all levels of government. Nice choice: elderly and poor can’t afford electricity; or, elderly and poor have their superannuation funds disappear overnight. Turnbull will be the target of considerable angst.
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I do feel sorry for you, here in CO it is $72 a month for a 4 bedroom in country setting. On the flip side I pay $5500 a year for health insurance. A recent MRI cost $9000.
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Geese,
Next time you need an MRI drop me a line, it’s about US1000 for a return flight to OZ, it’s a first world country a lot like the USA. I’ll put you up. Last MRI I had cost $700 unsubsidized. That’s $1700 total. Save the other 5300 for your family. Bonus is the free holiday.
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Bobl, I spent 5 days in a public hospital in Cairns back in 2013. The cost to my insurance company was about 1700 a day. This was a public hospital and it is my understanding that people with money pay nsurance so that they can go to private hospitals.. I was placed in the oncology ward where two people died and 5 others were on their way out. I was there because I was going temporarily blind and nobody knew why. I diagnosed myself as having GCA/TA by using the internet. Thank you Australia, without that hospital I might be blind.
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Yes that is around the price of an unsubsidized private hospital stay, though I do think you got ripped off a bit if you’d had time you could have found something around $1000 a day ($730 US). I pay full price too and have never paid that much.
But MRI is an outpatient procedure that costs $700-$900 depending on which radiology outfit does it. Plus you would need a referral from a local GP (general doctor)
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We should follow Trump’s American lead and tap into our inland sedimentary basins’ shale gas reserves by fracing. An abundant cheap energy source just lying under the ground. All we need is a pipeline network to bring to the market.
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Shale was being worked long before Trump. Look at your politicians finances with a FOI. You will probably find Ethanol ,wind and solar investments?
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But that won’t resolve the problem.
We have a Manipulated Energy Market and that manipulation most stop soon.
Remove FreuTurnBish and install honest government.
KK
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I had an old school mate who spent some of the 70’s, the best part of the 80’s and some of the 90’s working on drill rigs searching for oil in outback Queensland. Well after well had no oil but bucketloads of gas. They were simply capped and left.
There is no need to frack – it is there but it is miles from nowhere.
His father was the geologist who found most of the bowen Basin coal and negotiated with Japanese and US companies to for the Thiess, Peabody Mitsui conglomerate that developed this rich resource which today brings in heaps of government revenue.
On another point doesn’t anyone remember that a few decades ago our State governments owned ALL of the power plants ?
Doesn’t anyone remember that a few decades ago our State governments built all the rail infrastructure that supplied those power plants ?
Doesn’t anyone remember that a few decades ago Federal governments of both sides of politics coerced the State governments into selling all of their power plants in the name of competition policy ?
Doesn’t anyone remember that a few decades ago Federal governments of both sides of politics touted that we’d all be better off as a result of competition policy ?
What happened in the real world ?
Power prices began to climb immediately. When climate change mandated renewables entered the scene they began to rocket up.
But who still has “cheap” electricity ? The State that still owns the power plants and regulates prices !
My electricity bill is $119.00 for the last quarter and was in credit the quarter before that.
Yes I have solar panels and I put them up because I am a carer pensioner and I need affordable electricity for my partner. I did it in 2009 and get 44 cents feed in tariff.
I feel guilty and think the scheme is unfair but I make no apology for taking advantage of what was available and affordable.
But even without the solar and government rebate for being a poor old fart my last quarterly bill would have been $430.00 for 14.5 kWHr daily consumption.
At say $1,800 per annum without solar or rebates this is still way below the figure quoted – “$3,700 a year for an average 4 bed house”.
Thank god for banana benders. (PS my dad was a power station shift engineer in the 70’s and early 80’s.)
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Totally agree, I did the same thing. Sad that to some extent it’s a ball and chain around someone else’s leg but make no apologies for taking advantage of government stupidity and looking after my own family first.
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Jo and many of the commenters here like to bash those with roof-top solar installations as somehow being responsible for the huge increase in the price of electricity despite the absolutely minuscule contribution to the grid. The recent ACCC report which Jo quoted claimed a small 2% of the average bill could be attributed to the past installations premium feed-in tariffs and 1% to the ongoing SRES payments, far less than the $100 ‘sliver’ Jo is knocking in this article. People installing these roof-top solar are largely doing it to save on their own bills by producing some of the electricity they consume. It is not a scheme to provide base load power for the grid. It is totally different to large scale ‘solar farms’. This article, along with that last ACCC report is hardly a pat on the back for Jo’s utopian ‘free market electricity’. I think it is becoming increasingly clear that a strictly limited market like electricity supply in Australia is not something that lends itself to the ‘free market’. Over supply of electricity (and I mean proper electricity) is/was a problem here. You can’t expect private companies to take over Government assets and continue to run them at the old 3 cent rate that Jo often quotes just to make the customers happy – you have to please your shareholders first. It is quite accepted how the oil cartels operate to regulate the price of crude. It is seen as good business practice and yet we expect that not to happen in the electricity market.
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That’s not even remotely true. There are feed in subsidies everywhere, at retail, at wholesale, STC, LGC purchases . It amounts to about 1/3 of your bill, another third is various outfits gaming the system. Fact is the raw cost of the cheapest energy is only 3c per kWh the network is mostly fully depreciated so the difference between that and the retail price is mostly all cream for someone. Don’t get me wrong maintaining network asset has a cost but that is small compared to generation.
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Jo and Others
May I suggest a change of tactics.
Let ‘us’ start asking how Mal or Bill will provide ‘sustainable’ jobs for the unemployed!
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Very good point.
The artificially high costs of All energy in Australia is Solely due to;
Deliberate Government Intervention and Manipulation.
Under the present government we are seen as little more than milk cows and we are being forced to pay prices for electricity, gas, petrol and oil that make our industries uncompetitive.
Unemployment is set to reflect this Government Sponsored disaster when one by one our industries shut down in the immediate future.
When you can’t even run an office, let alone a manufacturing business, because Electricity costs have doubled in just a few years, We are in Deep Doodoo.
Turnbull, Freudenberg, Bishop, all must be removed so that we can:
BRING BACK OUR JOBS.
KK
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May I suggest a change of tactics.”
Here’s another change of tactics. Instead of legislating that available wind power be used first, legislate that coal fired power be used first. Remove all subsidies for wind power. Let’s see what that does to the cost of wind power. Only SA would need an electron from their wind farms. SA’s power cost would go through the roof. Probably followed by a change of Govt.
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This NEG is not about reducing electricity prices. It is not about Climate Change whatever that means.
In what other critical market is the biggest, cheapest, most reliable supplier being shut down because it is not commercially viable thanks to a single Federal law? This is despite the fact that coal provides 95% of all power and we are utterly dependent on unprofitable coal.
With the RET in place, you can refurbish the older stations and even promise to build new ones and twice as much cash will still flow every day to the ‘unreliables’ owners and operators. AGL are simply responding commercially to the reality, the opportunity to make billions, government guaranteed. The RET was written for the middle man and the overseas bankers allowing them to trouser fortunes by shutting down working coal power stations in which they have invested nothing.
Repeal the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 and there would be no incentive to build windmills and a great incentive to run Liddell at full power and electricity prices would plummet overnight.
The whole point of the RET is to hide the massive funding of the unreliables industry through middle men like AGL. It is wholesale theft, government legislated.
Pass the NEG and we are stuffed. Then intimidate the banks and insurance companies to refuse to deal with coal power station businesses, old and new and force them to shut. It’s conspiracy by Malcolm and his friends, the Greens and Labor. Capitalists and communists in an unholy alliance to ripoff the public and destabilize and bankrupt another democracy, to turn Austrlia from an energy and minerals rich country into a poor mendicant state, another Venezuela.
Malcolm like Daniel Andrews just smirks. They are in the winner’s circle and we are the mugs. They are gaming the energy system for themselves and their friends.
When Abbott gets control, as Rudd did on election eve, his first move must be to repeal the RET and the NEG, the world’s biggest Carbon Taxes by stealth. It is government legislated theft, secretly enriching third parties like AGL and windmills operators and vendors at the expense of all the people of Australia. We get nothing.
Of course this has nothing to do with CO2 or Global Warming or science. Turnbull’s posturing on the NSW drought was absolutely offensive, throwing the hard working farmers pennies while giving three times the cash to the Great Barrier Reef Green industry which does nothing for Australia.
Of course the NEG is not about making electricity cheaper. That’s absurd. Taxes and fines don’t make things cheaper. It is about an expanded carbon tax where electricity users will have to buy Carbon Credits from European bankers or face fines as large as $100Million a time. Turnbull, the Alan Bond of politics. Like Bond, a legend in his own lunchtime.
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A great blueprint for removing the RET and, in doing so, demolishing the MEM.
The Manipulated ENERGY MARKET must go.
KK
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Its a manifesto but I’m struggling with this: ‘It is not about Climate Change whatever that means.’
We are going to have an uphill battle convincing the masses that Australia needs new coal fired power stations. Telling them that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming would bring the whole tent down.
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Spot on el gordo! I have replied to PeterS earlier that it is not Turdbull who’s our problem, it is the Australian voters. Australians have fallen for “climate change” hook, line and sinker. Only one way for for Oz, no lucky country left anymore. The two killers: Agenda 21/2030/Paris Agreement and Cultural Marxism.
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The electorate has to be informed that carbon dioxide is a beneficial trace gas, how hard could it be?
30
Pretty easy actually. All that is needed is for a politician to promote the likes of Ian Plimer.
40
Or the ginger group could support our scientific blue team and Ian Plimer should be on it.
Your link is behind a paywall, could you give us the gist?
10
‘….giving three times the cash to the Great Barrier Reef Green industry ….’
The man has no shame, its clearly a blatant dodgy deal.
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Yes indeed a probity free five hundred million. How can this be a legitimate disbursement? Where’s mine?!
40
You’re correct in that the NEG will not reduce prices. The NEG is designed first and foremost to try and put electricity supply and security OFF the agenda for the next election. It’s so Turnbull can say that the NEG is in place and “We are taking the energy companies to task.” Of course the results of the NEG won’t be in yet, but that’s the design. It’s solely a bluff to remove any ammunition from the Labor party’s talking points. The hammer won’t drop until six months after the election. Turnbull is a climate change believer. He will get a carbon tax by hook or by crook and Liberal party faithful will get screwed over again.
41
The NEG is Malcolm Turnbull’s Emissions Trading Scheme in everything but name. Just look at the final detailed design document, particularly the penalties for non-compliance. Bear in mind that there is an emissions obligation and a reliability obligation under the NEG.
Now look at the penalties on p33 for emissions non-compliance: The civil penalty of up to $100 million provides a strong disincentive against non-compliance.
Next look at the penalties on p41 for reliability non-compliance. Whilst in principle it sets out a $100 million cap for non-compliance, there is a caveat: The definition of civil penalty in the NEL will be amended to provide a meaningful upper limit on the financial penalties which can be assigned for non-compliance under the reliability obligation. Similar to rebidding civil penalty provisions, the ESB considers up to $1 million would be an appropriate upper limit on first offences, with up to $10 million the upper limit on repeat offences.
So $1m for an initial reliability non-compliance and an upper $10m limit but $100m for an emissions non-compliance. And my guess is that a reliability non-compliance means blackouts or a system black whereas an emissions non compliance presumably means keeping the power flowing. And the NEG as proposed has separate entities managing the emissions “targets” and trying to keep the grid working!
A final comment as a professional electrical engineer (power). If the NEG gets up and if it is progressively “implemented” or at least regulated into legislation it will lead at some stage to the collapse of our electricity grid but not before prices have really gone through the roof. Simply the well known properties of power generators cannot be legislated to provide some different performance output. And BTW, that was what the Essential Services Commission in SA was trying to do in SA with wind turbines in an attempt to overcome their extremely intermittent power generation characteristics as a sop to the previous government. Insanity, but perhaps they’ve changed tack a little with the new government. Then again, perhaps not because I don’t see any change in direction for electricity in SA.
70
“. . . real estate agents or used car dealers . . .”
Please! Many (most) of the above mentioned are very nice folks.
Each wants some of your money. Neither wants to regulate your life.
I would much rather have lunch with a r.e.a or a u.c.d than a politician.
If you mind your business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine. [Hank Williams]
71
A famous English comic Bob Monkhouse (he wrote for Bob Hope) had a line for politicians.
People would come up to Bob and say “your’e a comedian, tell us a joke”.
His answer was “do you go up to politicians and say, you’re a politician, tell us a lie”.
90
John,
If you’re a Hank Williams fan you may enjoy this biography (if you don’t already know about it).
00
Thanks.
I had not come across that.
John
00
And Hank died on January 1, 1953, long before the long arm of government was trying to micromanage our lives. Or was it long before? I was just a kid then and didn’t know much and knew nothing of Hank Williams. I wonder if he was just writing a song or if he knew more than we can ever guess.
Nah! He was just complaining about a nagging wife. But I sure do wish the lawyers, the protesters, the congress and even the Supreme Court and certainly Sacramento, California would follow that advice. Life could get easier almost instantly.
40
All from the Enron playbook!
[ or colloquially, Bugger you Jack, I’m alright ]
They should build a “re-education” camp for politicians on Macquarie Island with a minimum course of 3 winters.
90
The biggest lie in the NEG is that it is going to lower electricity prices. Ha!
They cannot even bring themselves to say electricity prices will go down, so the common phrase used by Malcolm and friends is that you would miss an opportunity to put downward pressure on electricity prices. Downward pressure. What does that mean?
If you read that in plain English it says, we do not believe for one second the NEG will lower electricity prices and do not want to be held to a promise that prices will go down. Victoria’s Kevin Andrews in forcing Hazelwood to close by tripling coal prices promised electricity prices would go up only 20%. The results was 100% but who is going to quibble over a little mistake like that?
We are being bled dry by politicians. All to lower CO2 and prevent droughts. How’s that going?
150
Please don’t confuse Kevin Andrews with Daniel Andrews. They are poles apart.
20
“[ or colloquially, Bugger you Jack, I’m alright ]”
Otherwise stated as the motto
“Per Ardua ad Asbestos”
(F you Jack, I’m fireproof)
10
Through adversity to asbestos? Would prefer the stars personally!
00
Hi Jo, I am personally involved in provision of coal-fired HELE power to some African countries (6,000 megawatt confirmed to date). The pricing is at the 9-10 cents per kilowatt hour (these countries cant afford more but have plenty of coal,…remind you of somewhere?) and they will be built to turnkey in 3 years. Where is the downside? Except if your’e Chairman Mal who wants his glory from all sides of politics and damn the plebs…
90
Australia is full of energy sources that could provide some of the cheapest electricity in the world, coal, gas and uranium and yet Green madness commits us to some of the world’s most expensive electricity. It comes in the form of heavily subsidised wind and solar which produces little but costs a lot as the subsidies come directly from consumer electricity bills.
102
They won’t change direction. The fact that we’re having this sort of conversation means they won’t change direction. It’s political suicide – but they persist with it.
Why?
Because they’re being told to persist with this plan.
Mal is a committed globalist. Probably eyes off the UN S-G job, much like Rudd did.
Either way, they’re doing as they’re told. And it doesn’t matter anymore – win or lose the next election, we get the same deal – that’s why Abbott was rolled. To guarantee an obedient Australia.
Now, watch for Dutton to lose his job – he’s just indicated we won’t sign up to the UN global migration pact. Well, that won’t do. He’ll need to be replaced by someone more… compliant.
150
Lord Monckton explains the risk to Tony Abbott, before he was rolled.
https://youtu.be/NG0WcjGHkEw
71
Exactly right, Antoine.
Australia is a signatory to the UN’s “Agenda 21”, something that happened without even the KNOWLEDGE of the electorate, never mind their PERMISSION!
The Greens/ALP are obviously in favour of UN policy, although the ‘refugee’ influx part of it is being kept as quiet as possible.
Turnbull is also in favour of UN policy and that’s why he’s leader and Abbott isn’t. The LNP is on a sure-fire course to electoral armageddon in 2019 – not because of silly muddle-headed thinking on Turnbull’s part, but because that’s his job.
He became LNP leader as a seat warmer for Shorten (or whoever the ALP leader may be next year).
He’s not there to save the LNP. Why people can’t see that simple fact is largely due to the mainstream media’s (MSM’s) remarkably successful program to keep the Australian electorate’s minds occupied with contrived and complex trivia – like the NEG.
As I think Antoine is indicating, Australia has been shifted, slowly but surely, toward total control by the UN since it signed Agenda 21 in 1992. In that time, more and more laws we’ve never voted for have been quietly introduced, while a plethora of laws we thought we had voted for have never been enacted.
In effect, democracy in this country has been surreptitiously set aside.
What the electorate wants, and what it gets, are two different things. The decisions are mostly made behind closed doors – without our knowledge.
The Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) scare is quite clearly a nonsense. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of basic science and logic has no trouble seeing through it.
Yet it forms the basis of our national energy policy.
All the intricate discussion about electricity supply and pricing is simply an MSM-supported smoke screen – “full of sound and fury; signifying nothing”.
But trying to convince Turnbull of its stupidity is pointless because he knows full well what he’s doing and why.
It’s entirely deliberate.
When I saw that Dutton had refused to sign the UN migration paper, my approval was tempered by the certain knowledge that it’s just more window dressing. Even if the LNP never signs it, the governing ALP will sign it next year.
The biggest mistake Australian voters have made in recent decades is to think they have a say in where we’re all going. Unless the “scales fall from their eyes” (biblical term), which I don’t anticipate, the Australian people’s future is already decided – and unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to like it when we get there.
[Sorry to be so pessimistic but, with the facts available to me, the above hypothesis is the only one which I believe stands up to scrutiny.]
120
You got it Interested! Just add Cultural marxism to the mix of Agenda 21/2030/Paris and you have a concoction which spells the end of Australia. Not pessimistic, only factual.
70
Who will invest in a new coal plant? Last time I looked, the Turnbull government, as lender of last resort, said nope.
10
Beijing will build them through a HK shelf company at a very reasonable price.
20
The starting point for the government NEG and AEMO’s ISP is the 26% RET. Having accepted that at the start means electricity prices have to increase.
The younger generation do not want dirty coal they want “clean” energy from ambient sources. They do not value the gift of coal generators from preceding generations. They are horrified that the older generations were content to destroy the planet.
80
The younger generation are just that young, idealistic and gullible. After a few years they’ll grow up. There is a saying, if you are not a progressive in your twenties you are heartless but if you are not a conservative by your forties you are brainless. Very true. Experience counts Rick – experiences like the global cooling scare of the seventies. Experiences like Whitlam, Rudd, Gillard, Bob Brown.
Learn, #walkaway
81
Next sitting period in Canberra starts next Monday.
Everyone will be in the same place again. If there is going to be a leadership spill then I think this is when we are going to see it.
(Living in hope)
60
Yes it certainly can be done. FWIW about 30 years ago now, I undertook the electrical design for a Sydney based boiler manufacturing company (UK parent) to install a specialist high frequency induction being machine that was being imported from Germany. The purpose of the machine was to bend high pressure piping to required shapes to refurbish the superheaters for a number of (I think) Victorian power stations. And a whole production facility around that machine was set up: pipes were purchased, cut to length, bent and butt welded as required en masse, but that was in the days when useful machinery was refurbished. The whole facility was quite impressive as pipes travelled along automated conveyor systems to the various stages in the production process as was the induction bending machine in operation. A link to what the process looks like for anyone who is interested.
30
Turnbull’s NEG is more than just madness-it’s a treacherous bussiness ‘scheme’ to make unlimited profits for the big energy companies and other vested interests in Australia. The public better wake up to all this Turnbull-Frydenberg BS before we as a nation are completely ruined.
GeoffW
50
Jo, some might have difficulty putting “$228/MWh” into perspective. Most people would know that their power bills show the cost per unit, or KWh. A simple addition of “(22.8c/unit)”, after the cost in MWh would help people understand what that cost means.
10
My electricity bill is $6,200 p.a. (no gas). On a property so have 24/7 bioseptic pump, and water pump comes on for showers, taps etc.
40
Or property is the same it annoys me no end that I pay the same for water as city dwellers but I have to pay to pressurise it.
I can probably help with that ridiculous bills especially if you have some grid connect solar.
00
How many Gigawatts of state of the art coal-fired generating capacity could be built for the cost of Snowy 2.0? That is where my money would be going.
70
Three Hele, all despatchable power.
60
TURNCOAT’S NATIONAL ENERGY GUARANTEE (NEG) IS NOTHING BUT A CARBON dioxide (PLANT FOOD TAX) !!!
THIS POS TURNBULL IS WORSE THAN GILLARD AND RUDD !!!
http://pickeringpost.com/story/it-will-only-be-a-little-baby-carbon-tax/8441
IT WILL ONLY BE A LITTLE BABY CARBON TAX
… trust me
GLOBAL WARMING IS THE GREATEST SCAM IN HUMAN HISTORY !!
CARBON dioxide IS PLANT FOOD AND NOT POLLUTION !
FFS !!!!!!!
HOW MANY BLOODY TIMES HAVE AUSTRALIANS HAVE GOT TO SAY “NO CARBON TAX……….EVER” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
01
Absolutely correct, ‘Angry’.
Your link at “The Pickering Post” defines Turnbull’s role in all this perfectly.
Years ago, he first asked about joining the ALP as a Finance Spokesman, utilising his knowledge high finance from his Goldman-Sachs days.
He didn’t ask to join the LNP.
He asked to join the ALP.
How he ended up leader of the LNP is not fully understood but I suspect there were many secret meetings along the way.
As I’ve said, he’s a socialist. His mission isn’t to save the LNP and serve the best interests of the Australian people. His first task was to unseat Tony Abbott because Abbott had shown he understood that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) “is crap”, to quote a pithy phrase!
The ferocity of the Mainstream Media’s (MSM’s) attacks on Abbott are an indicator of what a good job he was doing for the Australian people in that regard – but that’s NOT what the Left wants.
Turnbull doesn’t answer to the Australian people. He answers to the United Nations and, more specifically, he draws his brief from Agenda 21.
That IS what the Left wants.
His overriding aim is to steer the LNP to electoral disaster in 2019 and ensure that the ALP/Greens alliance becomes our new government. And he is well on the way to achieving that aim.
I have no doubt Shorten (or his party replacement) will be deconstructing our economy with CO2 emissions regulations and opening our borders to all comers in just a few months from now.
CAGW is just a tool. But it’s easily the most effective tool the Left has ever devised to persuade more ‘useful idiots’ ( a term coined by the Bolsheviks in revolutionary Russia) to back their push for a socialist totalitarian regime worldwide.
People have conflated ‘saving the planet’ with voting for socialism for God’s sake!
It’s a masterful ploy!!
Put this together with humanity’s tendency to ‘vote for free money’ in any case – i.e. to vote for the Left – and the ALP simply can’t go wrong.
With unrestrained growth in Federal debt, wide open borders, and an economically-suicidal energy policy, our new ALP government next year should oversee the final demise of Australia as the prosperous 1st-world nation we’ve known for the last century and more.
It will become poor, chaotic, unsafe, and completely dependent on the despotic United Nations for everything.
But that’s the plan.
We’re sleepwalking into a future in which democracy plays no part.
And I don’t think there’s a damned thing we can do about it any more.
11