Emden, Germany by Gritte
The supreme auditors of Germany warned about the costs of Green energy a few years ago, but now they are paying attention to energy security too, and with sudden alarm they’ve announced that Green energy poses “an existential threat” to Germany.
It’s something dumb bloggers have been saying for years. But this is good news that German bureaucratic numerical masters are on to it.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone, calls it “explosive”:
So explosive is the German Government Audit report that Die Welt and the government auditors see the Energiewende as a “danger for all of Germany”.
Daniel Wetzel at German national daily Die Welt reports on the latest German Federal Court of Auditors’ warning: “If things continue like this, Germany as a business location is in danger. The costs are out of control – and there is a growing threat of an electricity shortfall.”
The Bundesrechnungshof in Germany or Federal Audit Office sounds rather awesome — legislators can’t tell it what to do, and its exact position in the layers of power is disputed, which only makes it sound more significant.*
The Federal Audit Office sees the danger that the energy transition in this form will endanger Germany as a business location and overwhelm the financial strength of electricity-consuming companies and private households. This can ultimately jeopardise social acceptance of the energy transition.”
No one will want to do business in Germany, everyone will be poor, and they worry about the social acceptance of wind plants?
“Ever higher electricity prices” are also to be feared in the current system. The Federal Court of Auditors quoted from a study according to which an additional 525 billion euros would have to be raised for the power supply including the network expansion in the years 2020 to 2025. Electricity prices for private households are already 43 percent above the European average.
The Auditors say the government has too many rosy assumptions and they underestimate the need for more reserve power.
In 2018 the Audit Office of Germany was scathing about the mismanagement of the Energiewende transition.
According to Federal Audit Office data, the Energiewende has cost around 34 billion euros in 2017 alone. In addition to the federal government’s expenditure of almost 8 billion euros, this also includes the burdens on end consumers, in particular due to the renewable energy levy (EEG). “The Federal Government, incidentally, does not have an overall grasp of the costs or any transparency in this respect.”
The wastage of resources to implement the Energiewende was “unprecedented”…
Is there a process other countries can use?
Will government audit offices do the due diligence that the politicians, media and academics won’t?
We tried once before with the Australian National Audit Office, but the BoM suddenly redid it’s entire dataset to avoid the scrutiny.
h/t Pierre, Rafe and GWPF
It is the same in all countries that have embraced renewable energy without consulting power engineers. The UK is definitely heading for power cuts to be the norm when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
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And that’s exactly what the self loathing Leftists want.
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Its not just the green left who are delusional.
‘Malcolm Turnbull has been told to stop talking down coal, with multiple MPs warning his new job could put a critical by-election at risk.’ (Daily Tele)
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G’day e g,
Some semblance of realism in their “…warning his new job could put a critical by-election at risk.’ (Daily Tele)”.
But it really should have been expressed as:
” …warning his new job has already sabotaged a critical by-election.’ ”
Cheers
Dave B
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Not just the self loathing Leftists want that but so do most conservatives, otherwise there would have been an uproar a long time ago for our PM beating his chest about how great we are at reducing our emissions. The silence from the vast majority of conservatives in government is absolutely mind boggling. I would call them traitors to Australian Liberal idealism.
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Where I live in Canada the conservatives are exactly the same. The federal Conservative leader is ex-miltary and was elected originally as a fairly hard right voice, A year later he has moved to the left and suddenly he wants to talk about climate change now.
It’s like he’s living back in 2009. It’s very sad.
He will be crushed by the foppish Trudeau in the next election.
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The political reality of Australia (indeed most places) will always prevent that.
The overwhelming (or at least large majority) consensus of the people, educators, scientists, media, bureaucrats, corporates, local council governments, and even elected politicians – is that global warming is occurring and that it is caused (or at least very much worsened) by the emission of greenhouse gases through human industrial activity, and we have decades, not centuries, to do something about it.
If your organisation, group, or sector recognises that, includes such thoughts in its mission statement and policy papers – all is well – even if not much more actually happens to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But you can’t do the reverse – as a Liberal politician or anyone else – you can’t come out and claim it is all wrong, and that we can happily burn more coal. You are a pariah, a nutter, a conspiracy monger, a disgruntled member of a tiny anti-science minority. There are no votes in climate denial, so silence is the better option.
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Most likely in Australia, as is the proven case here in America, there is really only one deeply imbedded political entity or, as we have termed it, the “deep state”. Various intentionally misleading offspins pretend to offer alternatives but their political candidates, once safely ensconced in office, tend to act in unison. Yes, from time to time they will create some political theater to distract the willfully ignorant and lazy populace from what’s really happening but in the end, the public has few, if any choices.
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Exactly correct. The plan all along has been and remains to destroy western economies to pave way for the “Great Reset” to centralized control over all energy production/ It’s standard political ideology: 1) create a problem 2) Promise to fix it with autocratic methods.
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It’s all by design.
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…”embraced renewable energy without consulting power engineers..” Well, that’s what I’d have thought too BUT! but it seems the Engineering Instituitions and Professional Press are all behind it too. you dare not criticise without being ‘moderated out’ Just another economy of mirrors – but who makes the glass? / who pays the Ferryman?
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Engineers make things work as they are asked to, they can give advice but they do not make policy – that is for the political class to do.
When politicians decide to install a significant amount of variable and intermittent generation in the grid engineers are instructed to make operate physically while financial modellers and planners build constructs to allow competition between generators allegedly to the benefit of consumers.
The trouble is politicians decide to skew practicality by adding sub-optimal elements into the grid in an attempt to appease ignorant and do-gooder lobby groups some of whom are voters or political donors.
What a mess they have made.
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‘Engineers make things work as they are asked to’ aye for sure: seen that kind of workers. pity they are called / calling themselves “engineers” in my book. Can do fine without their kind. Jobsworths.
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“It is the same in all countries that have embraced renewable energy without consulting power engineers.”
Had any of these countries consulted with scientists who are not conflicted by a dependence on the green gravy train, they would have come to understand that what the IPCC calls the ‘science’ justifying green energy blatantly violates COE and the Stefan-Boltzmann LAW in addition to many other errors and is an embarrassment to all legitimate scientific pursuits.
The most obvious violation is that the average Joule from the Sun results in the surface emitting 1.62 Joules in the steady state per the SB Law. The IPCC’s nominal sensitivity of 0.8C per W/m^2 requires the next Joule to result in the surface emitting 4.4 Joules, again per the SB Law.
Neither the planet, feedback or anything else can tell the next Joule from the average Joule so that the next one can do so much more work in the steady state.
For the non scientists out there, the units of work are Joules, 1 Watt is 1 Joule per second and in the steady state, the only NET work required is to replace the SB emissions of the surface at its average temperature. The effects of latent heat and other non radiant energy transfers to/from the atmosphere have a zero sum influence on the steady state radiant behavior as they’re already completely accounted for by the average temperature and its average emissions.
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Yes. The religious driver behind this is to cripple our industrial civilization that threatens thier mythical “gaia” goddess…aka the earth.
As a Christian I see it as a pagan and demonic religion.
This is the best explanation for what appears to be why the powers that be are absolutely intent in driving the worlds industrial capability nose first into the ground at high speed.
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Talking Germany, and their mad move away from nuclear power?
A reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
A typical twisting of the facts, by the ABC,link via ms.n and a reader MM
ABC admits it lied over nuclear power. There’s a shock.
Thursday, 01 April 2021
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/04/abc-admits-it-lied-over-nuclear-power-theres-a-shock.html
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The Fukushima debacle was an accident waiting to happen.
The diesel gensets to back up cooling pumps for units 1-4 were in a basement. The only DG at high enough elevation to work, had its controls in the basement as well. The sea wall was woefully short for a tsunami prone area. TEPCO rejected the G.E. Passive Cooling System because they figured the cost of it was unwarranted. Well, a tsunami did happen and the mains were lost, the cooling pumps failed, the diesel generators failed, and the cores melted down.
The Chernobyl debacle was the result of ill considered testing of auxiliary generators direct driven from the turbine shaft to supply the cooling pumps. The core was repeatedly exposed, and the fuel rods got hot enough to disassociate the water into H2 and O2 which ignited and blew off the pressure dome, blew out the wall to the control room, exposed the core, and it melted down.
Both circumstances were the fault of Management and Bean Counters and Politicians.
That GE used them as excuses to shut down their own nuke plants is more related to the Green Ideology and Political misunderstanding of grid scale power.
If Japan, Germany, and Russia, had listened to their Engineers and not their Politicians and Bean Counters, none of this nightmare would exist.
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“The Fukushima debacle was an accident waiting to happen.”
All that was needed was an M9 quake. Will this become a new norm? How many accidents are only waiting for a volcanic eruption? For an asteroid strike?
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Lance,
Te Nuclear ‘Industry’ is a scam and a tragedy. In the public’s mind civilization changing energy breakthroughs, that are cheaper than coal …. And that are mass producible and that are naturally walk away safe should not exist.
Why are we fighting about burning coal? Why are we installing wind turbines and solar cells? Why talk about the obsolete fuel rod, water cooled reactor design?
There is optimum fission reactor design that is paradigm changing. It is not a care bear concept. It is real. The optimized fission reactor design could safely produce 24/7 electricity for an entire country, by 2050 and not bankrupt the country and provide electricity at cheap as coal prices.
A 400 MW reactor, of that design, is 13 feet by 26 feet, thin walled, and truckable to site. The design in question, has a life of seven years, after which the fission pot is drained and replaced with a new reactor pot. The old pot reactor is a low level radiation source.
The US discovered, built, and tested the optimum fission reactor design about 50 years ago. Congress hide the test results and block funding. The optimum fission reactor design, is walk away safe,d is roughly six times more fuel efficient, does not require a containment building as there are no possible chemical explosions or meltdowns It produces six times less long life transuranics to dispose of, than a PWR, water cooled, fuel rod design.
The PWR and Boil Water, fuel rod fission reactor design, complete with a containment building, and triple redundant backup systems, to ensure that the cooling water does not stop flowing, as the fuel rods start to melt in 12 minutes on loss of flow. On loss of electric power, that design melts down and the water produces hydrogen gas by radiation and by a reaction with the zircon cladding on the 50,000 fuel rods which will cause an explosion when it reaches 12%. Hence the containment building to mitigate the worst case.
The Three Mile Island (18 months old) Boiling water, the three Japanese boiling water, and Chernobyl water cooled PWR… All failed because those fission designs are dangerous and not fuel efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8QVxYrQRxA&t=3419s
The fission power option has changed. Logically if fission power were as cheap as coal and did not have a very long list of serious safety issues, it would be the engineering best choice.
A Canadian/US Company have re-discovered the US Oakridge designed and tested (test has completely successful) liquid nuclear reactor pot design. The liquid fuel in a pot, at atmospheric pressure design, is expected to be installed at three sites and is currently under US nuclear regulatory review.
The design is mass produce able (it consists of a small reactor vessel that has a carbon core, six heat exchangers, and six small screw type pumps). It does not need a containment building, as it operates at atmospheric pressure and has no catastrophic vectors.
It is safe because it does not have possible meltdown problems (fuel rods) or a loss of coolant problem. It is walk away safe as it has a backup cooling system that does require power.
The reactor vessel is unbelievable small and light, as it operates at atmospheric pressure and produces heat at 600C. A Pressure water reactor is constructed of 10-inch-thick steel plate which requires very special equipment to bend and to weld and produces heat at 315C.
Terrestrial Energy YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MIypP_uBSA
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This is definitely good news, but it’s only the beginning of the end.
As if to contradict this sudden clarity of vision in Germany, our local NSW Minister for Global Warming, Matt, has just announced the appointment of a Lord High Shaman to guide and nurture our descent into disaster.
Yes, non other than MalEx444 has been appointed to guide us into environmental Nirvana. Maybe he will appoint Zali to assist and advise.
The evidence that humans are not a rational species is sitting there in plain view on hilltops in Scotland, rooftops worldwide, rolling plains in Germany and Lake BurleyGriffin here in Australia. Not to mention the clogged oceans full of useless whirling reminders of our stupidity.
The presence of Renewables as a source of electricity is a violent contradiction of Engineering, Environmental and Social Reality; but it works politically.
How was this impost on The West been allowed to get so far as to imperil our future?
Dark times all round.
KK
650
Matt Kean tells former PM to stop talking down coal
Malcolm Turnbull has been told to stop talking down coal, with multiple MPs warning his new job could put a critical by-election at risk.
The Liberal Party is in open warfare over Matt Kean’s appointment of Malcolm Turnbull to a government board position, with multiple MPs warning the ex-Prime Minister’s anti-coal rhetoric risks losing the Coalition the critical Upper Hunter by-election.
It comes as The Daily Telegraph can reveal NSW Energy Minister Mr Kean told his political ally to stop talking down coal in his position as chair of the NSW Net-Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board.
Mr Turnbull’s appointment sparked an inundation of angry calls from the party’s rank and file, with multiple Liberals now “ropeable” about the former PM’s role.
One backbencher has now taken the dramatic step of speaking out publicly against Mr Turnbull’s appointment, declaring the role should have gone to “anybody else but Malcolm”.
“Within hours of him being announced he’s already blowing holes in the Coalition,” Liberal MP Lee Evans told The Daily Telegraph.
The comments follow Mr Turnbull’s call for a freeze on new NSW coal mine approvals, just days after Cabinet approved his appointment.
Speaking to the ABC, Mr Turnbull declared coal mine approvals in the state are “out of control”.
He explicitly singled out the Upper Hunter, where the government is set to contest a crucial by-election after the resignation of under-fire former Nationals MP Michael Johnsen, as a place subject to “extraordinary devastation” by coal mines.
Mr Evans, whose Heathcote electorate takes in the Peabody coal mine in Helensburgh, said he wanted to ensure metallurgical coal mines continue.
“I’ve got whole towns that rely on steel making coal,” he said.
He is one of multiple Liberals who are “ropeable” at the appointment.
That list includes Libs from the party’s moderate faction, led by Mr Kean. At least one MP has expressed concerns directly to Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s office.
Multiple MPs also told the Telegraph that the rank and file Liberals are furious at the appointment.
They also argue Mr Turnbull’s support for a freeze on new coal mines is the latest example of the former PM “campaigning” against the Coalition.
Despite the backbench anger, it is understood there was no substantial opposition to Mr Turnbull’s appointment in Monday’s cabinet meeting.
While some questions were raised, Ministers ultimately supported it.
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Amazing. Turnbull did his best to destroy Tony Abbott and the Liberal party. Now he has been hired to finish the job. And no one said a thing. What on earth does he bring to the job except a hatred of the Liberal party?
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Let’s cut to the chase. The LNP is a fake LNP that’s aligned more with the left.
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The Green vote in younger groups and the inner city is as high as 24%, which is why we get Green senators. And most Labor MPs only hold their seats with Green preferences. This is not lost on any politicians.
Turnbull’s idea was to align with the Greens and wipe out the Labor party and the Liberal party in one move.
The real Liberal and National parties are very conservative and they are being hijacked by people like the Liberal leader in WA, Zak Kirkup. You can tell that in the name, from the planet Nowhere.
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And these are known as LINOs, like the RINOs in America. Like Turnbull, they are the party of expediency, opportunism with morals and values as flexible as a rubber band. Malcolm Turnbull cannot even agree with himself, as is on the front of this week’s Spectator.
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“What on earth does he bring to the job except a hatred of the Liberal party?”
Narcissis complex.
Crass stupidity.
Not a single scientific neuron.
Doom.
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Read the Timeline History from high school student days to prime minister and additions beyond …
https://web.archive.org/web/20180804162425/http://stopturnbull.com/
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And there you have the problem. Turdball is only ever interested in himself. An egomaniac as bad, or perhaps worse than Krudd. He has whinged about the Libs ever since he was dumped. Nevertheless the Libs endorsed his appointment.
Stupid Libs everywhere. No wonder I and many others refuse to vote for this ‘conservative’ party.
BTW, Matt Kean is hellbent on unreliables. Anyone would think that having this bloke pushing his policies would have been enough to ensure the Libs lost the bi-election anyway. What are the Libs thinking???
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Turnbull is certainly not a team player.
Matt Kean is clueless and out of his depth … but sadly when you look at all the state governments around Australia there isn’t much on offer. Don’t expect too much from any politician.
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“Within hours of him being announced he’s already blowing holes in the Coalition,” Liberal MP Lee Evans told The Daily Telegraph. The comments follow Mr Turnbull’s call for a freeze on new NSW coal mine approvals, just days after Cabinet approved his appointment. Speaking to the ABC, Mr Turnbull declared coal mine approvals in the state are “out of control”.
What did the Liberal Party expect? Minister Matt Kean was not going to put a spokesperson for the mining industry into that chairman’s position. It is refreshing as well … for generations all manner of “regulatory bodies” have been captured by the very industries they are supposed to regulate. Boeing and FAA for example.
04
MalEx444.
Mal;
Malcolm.
alEx;
The son who trades in Global Warming futures that spin and flash.
444;
The AUD$444,000 cheque from a grateful Australian public to the Great Big Barrier Reef Foundation for the future of Australia coral, plus operating costs for essential meetings.
That’s seven tons of Gold.
70
Born Lucky
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/03/13/born-lucky-stars-align-perfectly-for-pms-son-with-mammoth-bet-on-wind-power-outfit-infigen/
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Now that the woke are in power here in the US I fear that it is going to get worse here too.
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80 million Americans voted for worse, and the new president promised to deliver a slow recovery after all.
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Not.
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There may have been 80 million votes but not from 80 million voters!
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I don’t wish you well. I wish you socialism. A silver lining is that survivors will be immune to it.
00
Germany is the test idiot/fanatic/Zombie country for the green scams. Germany has installed sufficient sun and wind gathering to meet German’s total energy needs if the German engineers had or could buy magic batteries, that store energy for months and are free.
Germany ‘cheats’ by exporting half of their wind-based electricity to other countries who are less concerned/obsessed about the Green Scam game which can never be ‘won’, and then getting in return hydrocarbon or nuclear energy which Germany.
German will need to increase their electrical grid natural gas/coal power plant output, by 11% to compensate for the closing of six nuclear reactors by 2022.
And in addition, Germany will be required to expand the capacity of their electric grid by roughly 40% and the average power consumed by the German electrical grid by 30%, to power millions and millions of German EV vehicles, which are legislated to be required by 2030.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/21/germanys-green-transition-has-hit-a-brick-wall/
In 2017 about half of Germany’s wind-based electricity production was exported. Neighboring countries typically do not want this often unexpected power, and the German power companies must therefore pay them to get rid of the excess. German customers have to pick up the bill.
http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-electricity-do-we-need-to-go-to-100-electric-vehicles/
Germany
Legislation requiring that only EVs will be sold in Germany after 2030 has been passed by the Bundesrat, Germany’s lower house, but needs to pass the Bundestag, the upper house, before it becomes law. If it is passed we get the results shown in the table below. Replacing all of Germany’s 44,403,124 fossil-fuel-fired cars with EVs would require a 31% increase in Germany’s electricity generation and a 40% increase in Germany’s installed capacity.
Germany has reached the limit of wind and sun gathering.
The German electrical grid will need to provide more power and more infrastructure, to power German EV vehicles.
https://www.kernd.de/kernd-en/nuclear-power/npps-germany/
Nuclear Power Plants in Germany
In 2020 the 6 German nuclear power plants generated 64.372 billion kilowatt hours of electricity (gross). As of 1st January 2020, 6 nuclear power plants with an electric gross output of 8,545 MW are in operation.
In total the gross electricity production in Germany in 2020 stood at 567.4 billion kWh (2019: 603.8 bill. kWh), the share of nuclear was 11.3 percent (2019: 12.4 percent).
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Historically Germany has been the home of the chemical industry in Europe. How many new chemical plants have been built in Germany in the last 10 years even by German companies? They’ve built or announced 24 elsewhere but none (that I’ve seen) in Germany.
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Capitalism at work … if it’s cheaper to build in Slovenia or Botswana or Mexico, then they will. It requires knowing the degree to which the decision to locate elsewhere was based on energy costs.
Without that, the statement just sort of hangs in the air.
02
The existential threat of green energy V the existential threat of climate change. Who is going to win. What will happen first , will we be destroyed by climate change or climate change policy.
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Zig, this is a no-brainer, we will he destroyed by our Climate Change Policy, as the Climate bounces along on its merry way unimpeded by any man-made “Policy”.
This has now been hard-wired in with the appointment of Malcolm Turnbull as the new Climate Czar in NSW.
You could not make this stuff up!
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‘It comes after the Daily Telegraph reveals NSW Energy Minister Mr Kean told his political ally to stop talking down coal in his position as chair of the NSW Net-Zero Emissions & Clean Energy Board.
‘Mr Turnbull’s appointment sparked an inundation of angry calls from the party’s rank and file, with multiple Liberals now ‘ropeable’ about the former PM’s role.’ (2GB)
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You left out Peak Oil … Peak Oil might save us from Global Warming!
But your question is reasonable … there is a cost of a transition to green energy, but what is the cost if we do NOT do it?
04
Didn’t Obama once indicate that more expensive energy was a feature of future global warming policy rather than a problem. ( presumably to discourage the wasteful use of power and reduce usage levels and therefore emissions)
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Just search Obama Renewables Expensive and you get many results of his administrations history in this area, regardless of the cost blowouts or failures of these folly’s you can bet your house that it was said “The cost of clean energy is nothing compared to the cost of saving the planet.”
A very expensive Strawman indeed.
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Ok thanks AD I appreciate all you good people do.
00
In January 2008 Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/05/the-nightmare-continues-as-promised-electricity-rates-skyrocket-under-the-obama-plan/
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Having read this & other articles on mismanagement of Germany & the fiasco that is the EU the fiasco that is the EU’s COVID-19 woes & their totally inept, incompetent handling of the self made situation does not come as a surprise!
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Jo
I keep posting on LinkedIn whenever Tim Millington from RenewEconomy or others put forward their simplistic and “engineering impossible” stupidity where they engage in totally unworkable fantasies. The huge issue is that we have idiots “liking” these posts like no tomorrow, and dumb politicians climbing aboard.
Please keep highlighting this one. It also appeared at Notrickszone.com, an excellent site.
One positive sign is that surprisingly, suddenly, some of my anti renewables posts are being accepted by the SMH again. The Australian has rejected many of my posts in other areas but at least whenever renewables appear I can post freely against this idiocy. Do others find their posts restricted?
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I do not bother any more because my comments go to the keeper. I have had a few exchanges but as soon as they realise they have boxed themselves in, I get cut off. I have even had the situation on RenewEconomy where the keeper has said they do not censor but it was quite evident that one commenter had responded to a comment that had been wiped after they saw it. It was eventually put back on but clearly out of sequence. Since that exchange I do not get comments posted so I do not bother.
Reality eventually prevails but there can be a lot of damage done by those who control the purse strings supporting wasteful projects.
I have recently logged a request with CSIRO to explain physically impossible predictions from their climate models. They have replied by back-pedalling, suggesting that their model predictions are middle of the road for 2100. They did not even try to defend the 314K predicted for 2200.
CSIRO also have a complaints process so I plan to pursue that if I do not get a well reasoned response. They just claimed an impossible 307K by 2100 as being the middle of the road. They make no attempt to give sound physical explanations for something that is physically impossible other than providing model output from a number of climate models that all predict warm pools can exceed 30C, which they clearly do not and cannot.
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It’s all justified according to Argentinian socialist Pope Francis who says Climate Change (no longer Global Warming) started with the industrial revolution. Now whole populations are being uprooted because of Climate Change. Of course he is an expert on religion. And contraception. Meanwhile the German ex pope is saying nothing.
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“We are engulfed by news and images of whole peoples uprooted by cataclysmic changes in our climate, forced to migrate”
That’s thing about pontification. Full of sound and fury, but no facts. Where are these ‘catacylsmic changes in our climate’?
We are in a world where trillions are being spent to stop something which is not happening. But after 33 years of this indoctrination, you are not supposed to notice that the emperor has no clothes.
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Which iteration of the inquisition was running rife back then and has he shown their lack of contribution to the problem – if such is the case – conclusively??
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I we be waiting with bated breathe to see if this finds its way onto even Fox News in America. It’s actually quite prescient.
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It won’t make it to Fox News … it didn’t happen in Indiana …
01
The fact that the country is on the brink will only make the alarmists start to prepare their celebrations. Killing the economy, along with many lives is exactly the purpose of the RE transition, which is a key component for the transition to Marxism.
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Oh please … there isn’t a single working person or working family (“Marxist” or not, lol) that want to see the economy “killed” … in any such event the poorest 50% will suffer most.
Any chance you can bed your comments closer to reality? Lots of people – up and down the economic scale – are looking forward to a transition to a green economy … they are not Marxists and not out to destroy Western Civilisation.
03
Tilba Tilba says “Lots of people – up and down the economic scale – are looking forward to a transition to a green economy …”
More idle speculation!
I for one wish that the world more far, far away from such a nasty idea, an idea that comes from the nonsense and hubris that humans are apart from nature and not a part of nature.
What we as humans do is natural for us, and like all of nature, we exploit what is available for our overall benefit.
A ‘green economy’ does not benefit humankind or the rest of wider nature of this planet, unless you believe (for that is all you have) that avian life should be massacred for our needs, or that the required maximal industrialization of the countryside much to the detriment of most other lifeforms is a price worth paying. Or the fact that the future will be far more polluted with these inefficient, crack-pot, ‘green energy’ projects of batteries, wind and solar are not recycled and fill evermore landfill will toxic waste.
70
Although Australia is in the race to renewables, it is following rather than leading. There’s an advantage here – we still have cheap and efficient coal fired plant propping up our endangered electricity supply system. If we run dead in this race we will see others expire in front of us and that will surely prompt the move to nuclear power, the world’s ultimate, cheapest, and best source of grid distributed electricity.
Australia can have it all – cheap electricity, uranium mining and processing, fuel rod production for the world, and our educational institutions turning out the best nuclear scientists, engineers, and technologists to solidly support our future.
150
Nuclear electricity production is much cheaper than Renewables, but more costly than coal fired by a good margin.
180
China is building four nuclear power plants for a total of US$10.4 bn. I don’t know the cost of building a HELE plant in China as a comparison. Also don’t Nuclear plants go to 60 years, while HELE only 50?
30
I saw figures a couple of years ago that clearly separated the methods of production cost wise and the bloke who had prepared the material for the conference was definitely an expert on nuclear power.
31
Why be concerned about the cost? I thought we are being told we must reduce our emissions to 0% ASAP otherwise we are all doomed. Of course I’m being sarcastic again but you get my point? The proponents of emission reduction are extremely hypocritical or liars, or both.
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Peter
You are supposed to only consider the cost for the non-ephemeral power sources /s
10
Both can operate for much longer if properly maintained. Look at Hazelwood – it was reasonably well maintained and was still generating at full capacity when it was shut down.
20
If China and India continue their trajectory with coal consumption coal availability will be tight this century. US and Australia has the largest known reserves and I expect China will be needing to tap into those in a big way within two decades as their reserves are depleted. Africa may provide a significant added reserve. Also miners tend not to get too concerned about their reserves bucket if they have 20 years in the pipeline so they could still be large unexplored deposits.
Spending money to build a power station would require certainty of fuel supply for about 30 years. That may be a tall ask if China and India keep building coal power stations.
00
Yes nuclear is much cheaper than renewables but it appears saving the planet from man-made catastrophic global warming isn’t serious enough otherwise everyone including the extreme left would be demanding we build them immediately. Instead let’s go with renewable at much greater expense and take much longer to reduce our emissions to 0% by which time our economy would be in ruins allowing say China to step in and “save” us. Stupid is as stupid does. Thank you LNP, ALP and Greens for your concerted efforts to destroy our nation. I suppose we deserve it since the vast majority of Australians vote for them.
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The Steven Bradbury strategy in the Energy Olympics 🙂
03
So when are the leaders of this existential threat going to be arrested for acts of terrorism so we can start the ball rolling and do the same here in Australia? Just being sarcastic of course as it’s not going to happen but to be honest that’s exactly what ought to happen.
130
Totally agree.
The collapse of rationality and law and order along with the failure to acknowledge and prosecute those who deliberately damage, mislead and plunder society is not sustainable.
At a dangerous crossroads and I can’t help but believe that, while CV19 is a real disease, the measures imposed by the governments are disgusting and deserving of punitive action to discourage the next manufactured “emergency”.
But who will judge and enforce the punishment.
140
Our governments are already enforcing the punishment for daring to disagree with their ideological crap, and if they continue on their merry way we the people will eventually judge them accordingly but very likely not before the carnage to our nation has gone so far as to risk losing our sovereignty. History repeats.
80
Henry Ford used to have a large coal fired power plant at his largest car plant, maybe that’s what Benz, BMW and VW will have to do to stay in business.
130
As if the wind mills and solar panels weren’t bad enough, we now have clowns telling us that hydrogen ( the most abundant element in the universe), is going to be the new ‘wonder fuel’, I suppose it’s only a rort if you aren’t in on it.
220
Do we mine hydrogen from the Sun or the outer planets?
There is no free hydrogen on Earth so we will have to manufacture it from water. That requires electricity or the use of some cheap source of carbon ( natural gas or brown coal ).
With expensive electricity from renewables it looks like we use the last, as in the pilot plant in Gippsland for making liquid hydrogen for export to Japan. That means the added cost of “carbon sequestration”.
As a source of energy NO.
As a source of money from the gullible (or their representatives) YES! BINGO!
120
As Willis E said a while ago – “The problem with hydrogen is that it is pre-burnt – you can’t just open up a hydrogen mine”.
Those who actually deal with it seem to have a longer list
60
Germany had done such a good job of doing penance for its past war crimes and acts of genocide under National Socialism but now they are again siding with the forces of evil in participating in the anthropogenic global warming fraud, the purpose of which is to destroy Western nations and free enterprise and allow the evil of International Socialism under Marxism to reign.
Germany was destroyed twice for past behaviour and if it follows this present evil it will destroy itself again, although this time, all other Western nations are following the same evil and without President Trump, the Western World has no champion, and sadly, no hope.
260
‘We tried once before with the Australian National Audit Office, but the BoM suddenly redid it’s entire dataset to avoid the scrutiny.’
I remember checking Bourke’s Jan 1939 raw max temps (CDO) against ACORN1 and finding a drop of around 0.35C. Of the three closest stations to Bourke (Walgett, Tibooburra and Cobar, Bpurke had been the hottest WS on CDO. After ACORN1, Bourke ended up being the coolest of the four for that month.
BTW, when one compares the BoM yearly summaries to the Timeseries graph, all the average max temps for every year from at least 1995-2017 have been adjusted upwards by 0.1-0.2C. This is probably as a result of ACORN2.
171
This is an AUDIT report. As such, it is supposed to highlight every single issue of non-compliance or potential non_compliance against the design being audited. This is completely normal and is a valuable tool in managing projects, particularly one of this size and complexity.
Will it stop anything? No
Will it change anything? Yes, there is a legal requirement to take reasonable steps to fix the shortcomings the audit found
So good on the Germans
221
Peter,
You know as well as I that a “fix” of any shortcomings will have a timeline similar to several very long Bungy cords which will stretch to several decades beyond the actual tipping point into energy collapse!
Unless of course Merkel’s own tipping point into electoral defeat comes within the next 18 months.
Now that looks likely, given the total shambles Germany is being subjected to in the name of progress.
140
Peter, look beyond whether they are “just following orders” or not and what is needed to bring themselves into compliance of said orders.
Germany and all other countries that follow the anthropogenic global warming fraud are destroying themselves.
Your beloved “green” energy is unsustainable and destructive to Western Civilisation. Of course, as you well know, that is the plan.
131
And your plan is to choke the earth, with polluting gases, heavy metals, dust, soot, and fly ash, all in the name of cheap power.
I know which horse I’m on.
124
Yes Peter, those solar panels and batteries require copious quantities of heavy metals which I assume you are aware of.
And had you actually visited a coal fired power station then you would see that for decades the fly ash control systems have been outstanding. I know because my late father (an engineer) was involved in this area. Fly ash is a significant component of much of the concrete which is used for construction.
But go on, keep smearing and misinforming – it may make you feel good but its not going to provide the power that we need at anywhere near the cost we have today.
Your horse will only lead you to a dead end.
211
Apart from flyash used in concrete manufacture, residuals of coal combustion are also used to make gypsum as used in Gyprock or plasterboard (Australia) or drywall (US). The sulphur for the gypsum is what is removed by the chemical scrubbers used in coal fired power stations to ensure that the only emissions from the combustion process are pure, clean, harmless 100% CO2 and water or close to it.
170
Don’t forget coal tar shampoo
https://www.dandruffdeconstructed.com/coal-tar-shampoos/
20
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-one-of-australias-biggest-waste-problems/10886866
I love it when you proive right wing debunked talking points, and ignore the facts
018
The NSW EPA says all NSW coal-fired power stations are subject to stringent legally enforceable conditions under their environment protection licences.
Paragraph 13.
70
“The NSW EPA completed the licence reviews for 3 NSW coal-fired power stations, Vales Point, Mt Piper and Eraring on the 23rd of January, 2019 and determined the licences would remain unchanged.”
“The review found that the licences regulating the power stations continue to deliver appropriate environmental protection and the recommendations already being implemented following a comprehensive review of air quality monitoring and reporting at power stations earlier this year, will address improvements required in the licences.”
“While there is technology available to reduce power station emissions, the EPA’s statutory reviews of the Eraring, Mount Piper and Vales Point power stations environment protection licences found that imposing a requirement to significantly upgrade the power stations was not warranted, based on the good air quality experienced across NSW.”
https://www.envirojustice.org.au/nsw-licence-review-decision/
60
The NSW EPA might be the most useless of any of the state regulators
Here is a handy guide to how many times each power station breached the guides, and how much they ended up paying
https://coalimpactsindex.com.au/coal-index/?_sft_category=licence-breaches&_sft_post_tag=nsw
I don’t know what you would have to do to lose your licence, or is this yet another example of regulatory capture by the right
016
You’re not serious.
Coal Impacts is just another of many green slander sites that are quoted by people like you when they have nowhere else to go. An unaccountable green propaganda pressure group. Set up by the green activists to tell pork-pies to their brain-washed comrades. And, to falsely make charges without the need for substantive evidence.
It has no credibility. It’s nothing more than a green whinge, used when people like you when they can’t get what they want from legitimate environmental management agencies.
Whereas, the EPA is an organisation that is legally accountable to the people of NSW through the NSW Parliament. The EPA is required by law to act in accordance with the legislation by which it was properly established. It is subject to audit by the NSW Auditor. It is open to Parliamentary enquiry. It publicly accountable.
Who audits your green propaganda pressure group? The ABC?
If you have any evidence to support your (carefully worded) suggestion that the EPA is an example of “capture by the right” then present it to the NSW Auditor or your local Newcastle MP. Slandering it here has no weight.
130
PF, as usual, the ABC has generated an alarmist report without looking at the research into fly ash
or quoting any valid scientific study. Research undertaken by ACARP 2006 Report 02 found that the levels of toxic trace elements in Australian coal is substantially lover than thermal coal from other nations, particularly arsenic, selenium, mercury and boron. The data and results are all there in this study if you care to look. The CSIRO also did a study that showed no problems.
60
Peter F, none of us here have a problem of you using solar and wind power plus batteries but you must not expect us to subsidise it for you from our taxes or high electricity bills or expect back up from reliable, traditional power stations.
You keep telling us that “renewables” are now so cheap that coal, gas, nuclear and proper hydro can’t compete so what on earth could the problem be with you and others like you not doing this?
170
Yes Peter we do know what horse your on and it uses the same energy as us the same mining resources the same fossil fuel use the only difference is we don’t plant a tree and crow about how we are holier than thou and saving the planet .
100
RR
Wouldn’t that be a “”hobby horse”?
50
Yes.
And truth to it is as rare as its manure.
40
Peter,
“And your plan is to choke the earth, with polluting gases, heavy metals, dust, soot, and fly ash, all in the name of cheap power.”
Peter flogs his dead horse in public again!
Your virtue signaling for renewables has an inherent flaw — you can’t have wind or solar devices without using ‘fossil’ fuels to make, transport and install them.
The basic materials and the communications networks that infest the grid system are at the behest of ‘fossil’ fuels — iron, copper and aluminum ores to refined metals, sand to glass fibers, limestone to concrete, etc.
Expected usable lifetime for coal, gas and oil generating plants ~50-70 years. Expected usable lifetime for solar and wind generating plants ~20-30 years.
So it much more likely that solar and wind plants will pollute the land for decades longer with more unrecyclable waste of polluting heavy metals run-off, dust, concrete foundations, etc.
140
Hey Fitzy, that horse you’re on is a donkey! You use an ABC report as a source of facts? Really? That toxic metal contamination of fly-ash (Selenium is not even considered a metal but is an in-between element and zinc, aluminium, chromium and copper aren’t really very toxic) was at a concentration of half a gram per tonne of fly-ash. What’s the big deal? Those elements would all be complexed as insoluble silicates or oxides in the ash and not very mobile. So minimal environmental transfer. Though I would agree that the fly-ash waste should be more utilised in bricks, road base etc. So what are you saying has been debunked?
40
Peter, do you read everything in a mirror?
60
I’m sure it’s “perfectly normal” for auditors to refer to the subject being audited as posing an existential threat…
70
The goal of the Internationalist Left has always been the destruction of Western Capitalism.
Green energy is one of the more successful weapons in their arsenal.
They have no issue with the hundreds of new coal-fired plants in China, because the stronger China becomes and the weaker the West, the closer we get to a one world communist government they want.
221
Agree but the other main problem is the so called conservatives don’t give a damn and are letting it happen right under their noses. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. In my mind that makes them just as guilty as the evil ones. As Vox Day says “as the cucks cry” – “Even after being successfully canceled, conservatives still don’t learn. They would rather cry about “disgusting tactics” to the enemy media rather than author a [f’n] law to do something about it. But those “disgusting tactics” are not becoming the norm, they are the norm. They were becoming the norm back in 2005 when people like me were being attacked by the SFWA and the ADL, with the full approval of conservatives who were more than happy to distance themselves from “extremists” and “nationalists” and “supremacists”. Don’t ever support a conservative. There is absolutely no point in doing so. They don’t fight. They will never fight, not even when their backs are up against the wall. They permitted the weaponization of social media by making the technology companies legally unaccountable under Section 230 and their own literally blasphemous free speech dogma.”
He might be going a tad too far but he makes a valid argument. When people like PM Morrison proudly declares that our duty is to reduce our emissions and it’s a good one then we know the conservatives have caved in and lost the plot.
100
Humans can adapt to the climate as they have for millennia .
Modern humans will never adapt to no power .
The Earth will survive for Eons , people need to survive for today .
Back to the caves is not on the agenda .
131
I like this comment that’s repeated on a number of forums by people who are sick and tired of the same old cries by so called conservatives complaining about the left: “Don’t tell us how the enemy hurt you, tell us how you hurt the enemy.”
50
The traditional answers have been …
Facts and logic
Allowing them to expose themselves (based on faith in the common man)
Humor
Tolerance (this one has been turned on it’s head, mostly as a result of past intolerance of the right … likely a good historical research topic … ‘Intolerance can not be Tolerated’)
One new and not understood problem is tech comm monopolies and their heavy handed and coordinated political tilt.
It’s a dirty war now.
Honor and faith in principals have to go in the shirt pocket til after the smoke clears.
Everyone just turn and fight wherever you are.
70
That’s right. Sadly that also means we fight the conservativ4es just as much if not more so than the extreme left since they are in effect on the same bandwagon when it comes to climate change.
30
I we be waiting with bated breathe to see if this finds its way onto even Fox News in America.
20
just a test
10
Germany is touted as the example of what can be achieved in transitioning to renewabubbles (totally ignoring the stabilisation provided byinterconnections to surrounding grids) so the MSM will do their utmost to ignore this report.
But if the Auditors actually force the rollback of Die Energiewende to some degree, the implications could be huge, worldwide. Definitely worth following how this develops.
90
And I laughed and laughed and laughed…
cross posted at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/1026/energy-existential-threat-german-economy
Thank you Joanna.
10
How does one say “Gang Green kills” in German?
This report will be ignored ,just as the last one was.
“Germany spent 2.1 Billion Euros to generate power no one needed”
Which prompted a glorious comedy show,with the German Host ranting about the Cult of the Whirling Crucifix of Climate Catastrophe.
Hopefully better memories than mine can remember the show,paging all Germans…
This was some years ago,I had it bookmarked on a now defunct computer.
30
In other words, a transition to a green energy future has to be pain-free in order to be accepted and successful? I don’t think that promise was ever made by anyone. You don’t transition from a century of ultra-cheap coal, oil and gas to other forms without getting your hair mussed up a bit.
It would be good to know where the Federal Audit Office gets it authority to make statements on this subject at all, what research they do, and if they don’t do research, what research from other people they rely on. Are there other agendas here?
Anyway – it is an interesting event to consider. I can’t see the Australian Auditor-General coming out and saying that if we don’t go nuclear (or conversely, if we keep digging up coal), we’re all gonna be rooned!
00
REALISM and PRAGMATISM…long gone in the energy transition debate
00