God’s joke on governments that try to control the climate with their electricity grid:
Europe talks itself out of building gas plants in order to stop global warming, then after an extra cold winter, they also run out of gas, and now they have to go back to burning coal.
Spooked investors weren’t funding many gas plants now that the glorious renewable era was here and policy makers were all wearing their Hydrogen badges, and waving their carbon capture wands. In the last year all the geniuses of the European Investment Bank, the IEA, the European Commission were saying “gas is over” and it would be a stranded asset.
One month ago, Nina Chestney was predicting a gas supply crunch:
Gas faces existential crisis in climate wary Europe
May 14, 2021, , Reuters
Europe faces the prospect of higher electricity bills and a supply crunch, as utilities struggle to finance new gas-fired power plants unless they meet tougher emissions criteria imposed by banks pressured to stop financing fossil-fuel projects.
…Gas projects worth some 30 billion euros were cancelled, delayed or indefinitely postponed last year as they struggled to find funding.
The costs of renewables are expected to continue falling, while gas plant owners are exposed to EU carbon prices, which have hit record levels above 50 euros a tonne, and volatile wholesale energy prices.
But in Europe, where coal is already hard to finance, lending institutions and governments have moved on to tightening requirements for funding gas projects.
The European Investment Bank, Europe’s largest public lender, has revamped its lending policy to largely exclude new gas infrastructure from the end of this year.
“To put it mildly, gas is over…Without the end to the use of unabated fossil fuels, we will not be able to reach the climate targets,” EIB president Werner Hoyer said in January.
And so the shortage came to pass:
Not only was there a shortage of gas plants, but also a shortage of gas too. Winter was freezing, and Russia was sending more gas to China, and less through the old pipe to Europe through Ukraine. Plus the pipes from Norway were under heavy maintenance.
Gas Is So Scarce in Europe That Coal Is Making a Comeback
Europe is so short of natural gas that the continent — usually seen as the poster child for the global fight against emissions — is turning to coal to meet electricity demand that is now back to pre-pandemic levels. Coal usage in the continent jumped 10% to 15% this year after a colder- and longer-than-usual winter left gas storage sites depleted, said Andy Sommer, team leader of fundamental analysis and modeling at Swiss trader Axpo Solutions AG.
GIE European gas storage: percentage of full
Europe faced freezing temperatures earlier this year, boosting demand for heating at a time liquefied natural gas cargoes were being sent to Asia instead. Russia sent less gas to the continent via Ukraine ahead of the start of the Nord Stream 2 link to Germany, expected later this year.
All of that mean that European storage is currently 25% below the five-year average and benchmark Dutch gas surged more than 50% this year.
Nord Stream 2 will be the contentious big direct gas pipe from Russia to Germany under the Baltic sea, which most of Eastern Europe is annoyed about because it bypasses them, and most of the West is annoyed about because it hands power to Putin. The US is annoyed because it competes with their gas sales.
Somehow coal is still profitable, despite the high price of carbon, due to long hedges bought years in advance.
It’s only temporary, though Europe may need coal on a rolling temporary basis for decades to come.
Our government in the UK has been decommissioning and BLOWING UP coal-fired power stations. There is evil and there is extreme stupidity here.
870
So too have been South Australia and Victoria. Plants have been partly demolished immediately after closing to prevent them being reopened.
The reason being that governments have established a system in which “renewables” are the benchmark, and cheaper coal fired power is an embarrassment. Industry business models depend on high priced power.
730
Nothing quite like the gummint committing hari kiri on the public’s behalf….
500
Britain has had to give up some (quite a lot) of fishing resources in the Brexit deal because the French threatened to stop providing power over the interconnect between the two countries. Recent reports state that the UK is purchasing about 10% of requirements. I don’t know the details as reasons for the transmission include lack of capacity and lower costs and Britain also sends power the other way at other times of day/year. No matter, the result is our fishermen didn’t get what they expected because of our TOTALLY USELESS energy policies.
Now we get this news:
EDF energy nightmare: French firm outlines ‘risk’ of early shutdown of UK nuclear plants
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1450274/edf-energy-france-news-nuclear-power-station-UK-plants-britain-latest
EDF is a French company, largely owned by the French state, but I can’t see that directly affecting the decisions being made.
I can see it is being seen as an outsourced supplier, so the British Government can forget about any strategic significance.
270
Robert:
For some time I’ve wondered how the UK could make its energy policy even more loony than it is, and they still manage to do do.
Wind gets ‘special’ (higher) prices for their generation and even higher prices to stop excess production. Offshore wind ‘farms’ originally got even higher prices, but now get ‘contracts’ at low prices, so low that there is open speculation about how long the contract would last when the turbines are installed and ready to go. Then there are the STOR diesel generators, the solar panels, the interconnections in every direction (although the proposed one to Iceland and the one to Norway didn’t get approval from the countries expected to supply), the biofuels scam, the Northern Ireland scam about heating barns with wood burning, and Drax getting subsidies for destroying 200 year old forests and increasing emission by 32% but unable to convert 2 units to burning gas and reduce emissions because of penalties.
And the Scottish belief that with Independence from the UK they can become the wind capital of Europe; mass delusion resulting in a second Darien disaster.
You would think that someone would cry ‘enough’ but it all seems too hard for anyone to think logically.
390
My favourite was the proposed interconnect from Iceland. IIRC, with a diameter of well over a foot, just the copper was going to cost over $4,000,000,000 at the then prices, which have since more than doubled! Then there’s the manufacturing, installation, maintenance and operating hosts of the cable – and we haven’t even generated any electricity, or transported the stuff to any meaningful conurbation!
Ah, those were the days!
00
EDF is the operator for some of the UK nuclear plants
10
Conservative Home isn’t the official website for the UK Conservative Party at all, the party currently in power, but it the nearest that exists, with most contributers and many posts being members. There are, of course, the usual smattering trolls.
If you want a laugh at what is going on here, just find an article by a current MP about Zero NET Emissions, (there’s about one a week), like this one:
https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2021/06/bim-afolami-the-politics-of-net-zero-are-more-perilous-than-we-think.html
It follows a theme, the MP, in this case Eton and Oxford (Modern History), then a corporate lawyer, is singing the praises if everything green, then nearly all the posts are from very knowledgeable posters, with many sick up to the back teeth that their party can be promoting such drivel.
But then our PM is just as bad. And we have this Green Extravaganza in Glasgow in November, and the BBC thinks that we will all end up winners!!!
It isn’t going to end up well, it really isn’t! 😉
370
To be fair, Bin does ask some pertinent political questions, yet it’s easy to see the agenda that he is trying to square with his party’s political survival is so unreal, it is impossible to come to any credible conclusions.
And so another day passes ….
30
“Glasgow in November”, jeez I hope they freeze.
40
If we have to put up with all this now, just imagine what it is going to be like over the next five months in the run up to COP26.
http://Www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2021/06/16/britain-faces-catastrophic-power-cuts-electricity-begins-run/
20
How did you know!!! 🙂
The same UK MP has couldn’t resist another article, and again, it’s the comments that give the game away:
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/06/bim-afolami-the-governments-net-gain-initiative-will-be-transformative-but-its-implementation-must-be-sped-up.html
00
Meanwhile
Japan guarantees our coal-fired future
Japan has guaranteed the future of new coal-fired power stations and Australian exports at the G7 meeting in Cornwall as part of a push to allow nations to chart their own pathways towards achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Japan insisted the final communique of the G7 meeting – initially aimed at stopping investment and construction of coal-fired power plants – had to allow for coal-fired power plants that used technology to lower or capture carbon emissions.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor told The Australian: “Brokering international partnerships is a key part of the government’s plan to develop and deploy low emissions technologies to support the global effort to reduce emissions while strengthening economic growth and job creation.
“Partnerships with Japan, Singapore and Germany are part of the government’s $565.8m commitment to build new international technology partnerships that will drive investment in Australian-based projects and create up to 2500 jobs.”
Anthony Albanese and Labor, however, say Scott Morrison was “isolated” at the Cornwall meeting and the leaders of the US, Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan have said a new coal-fired power station would not be built in Australia.
Yet the final communique of the G7 meeting said there should be only a transition away from building and financing “unabated coal power”, which Japan insisted on as a G7 member heavily reliant on imported coal and an exporter of coal-fired power technology to developing nations.
READ the full story here
160
The western world’s elites conspire to outlaw cheap energy
Alan Moran – Spectator Australia
H/T – Catallaxy Files
Aspirations of the “have nots” or “have too littles” have, through their elected representatives brought an inexorable growth in the size of government. Government in most western nations controls over half of GDP (it is 45 per cent in Australia) compared to under 25 per cent a century ago. Ironically, some notionally communist nations that ostensibly favour an enhanced government economic presence have relatively small government GDP shares – China (37 per cent) and Vietnam and Cambodia (23 per cent).
Notwithstanding their diminishing non-government sectors, western economies have, to date, still retained scope for markets to bring about cost efficiencies and innovation — and hence rising living standards.
But a corrosive undermining of economic resilience is underway.
190
It’s economic vandalism.
70
Good Lord. Some uncommon sense on display. If an advanced ultra super critical coal fired plant can lower coal usage by several percent ceteris paribus, then why not adopt that and move forward? Making perfect the enemy of merely good i a common failing of zealots.
220
Certainly a good “interim” measure for the period leading up to the sensible development and introduction of a functional alternative.
Nuclear would be good on a small test scale but too expensive at the moment.
So it has to be Ultra Super Critical for the time being with a 30% reduction in CO2 per kWh.
Logical. Economic and Much more environmentally friendly than the current renewables stupidity.
Nation building even.
210
Why do you want to decrease CO2.
What’s it ever done to you?
Other than feed you.
140
That was a political comment.
I love CO2.
20
Where are the costs that make nuclear too expensive?
Are they physical or political?
10
No, it’s not the politics, it’s the engineering.
Regardless, Nuclear is still cheaper than renewables
30
Thanks for that.
10
And until we have a nuclear industry we will have diesel subs.
10
A few years ago, B.C., before covid, I went to a conference in Sydney and Jo was there. By chance, happened to also bump into Peter C as well.
Heard Jacinta Price speaking; she’s fantastic.
Another of the speakers talked about Nuclear power and he was right into it. Raw costs of electricity production without any political costs attached were, Coal fired power, nuclear and then renewables last as the most expensive. A lot of it went over my head but the pecking order was clear.
30
The sheer “banality of evil”, perhaps.
20
Is it this “british-ness” thing of ‘..if I can’t have it, you’re not getting it’ …. Couldn’t the Plants have been mothballed like the green goddesses? and then of course we had the fiasco of that aircraft upgrades: the Nimrod chopped up from behind high walls, and the TSR2 ( http://aviation.elettra.co.uk/tsr2/survivors/ ). Neither left for future generations to “marvel” at. Preferring instead to look at a few fotos and ‘nothing to see here, move along now’
Maybe ONE DAY, GBNews may ask the question about whether there is a culture of anger or stupidity in the governing classes. A lot of anger is derived from degrees of stupidity.
40
The TSR2? Wasn’t that the Brits’ equivalent of the F111?
So far as I know the F111 flew just two missions, both against targets that had no means of defending themselves against such an attack. On the first, in VietNam, 24 flew out and 18 returned. On the second, against Gaddafi in Libya, one was lost.
The F111 was surely the greatest white elephant in history. The TSR2 may have done the right thing by itself and a lot of aircrews to just disappear.
10
The cancellation of TSR2 was a pure political decision relating to the role that the UK government of the time envisaged for the nation, ie. rely on the US for defence, join the European Community, small in power then but growing.
The cancellation was very bad news for the aviation industry, there was a raft of interesting technology with sufficient sound management to suggest success and broad spinoffs. Benefits to UK’s industrial base in general were lost, and a substantial cohort of engineers left for the US.
10
“The costs of renewables are expected to continue falling”
That’s what they keep saying to feel better about their civilization destroying policy choices, but renewable costs are only falling relative to the steadily increasing costs of more reliable sources of energy arising from excessive regulation and taxation. I don’t see the hardware getting any cheaper or any more reliable any time soon.
520
They thought oil would be way over $200 /barrel, but it didn’t happen.
110
Maybe THEY were/are unaware of the known oil reserves and capped oil wells that were considered to be commercially unviable in the 1920s after the discovery of lower extraction costs Middle East oil?
The once Australian Government owned Commonwealth Oil Refineries drilled and capped many oil wells in Western Queensland, for example, Roma and Winton come to mind from talking to now deceased relatives.
Add the vast shale oil deposits in NSW and QLD – and the creation of state land based Agenda 21 National Parks that effectively lock those assets up.
I understand that once oil passes US$70 a barrel the capped oil wells are becoming more attractive as oil bearing sands in Canada, South America and other countries become.
And then there is the refilling of oil wells naturally.
130
The public still treat Science as a set of facts and not a very sophisticated human activity that takes a good few years to learn and understand, and even then can catch out an experienced practitioner.
With the BBC and St David Attenborough, it is impossible to find any worthwhile discussion on any subject.
But then, you know this already! 🙂
They don’t understand that most minerals will not run out: they will just get more expensive, though blanket bans on mining would help their theory.
I think they thought the oil price would top $200 and continue upwards because they just extrapolated the graph at the time.
I know it’s hard to think that ‘Climate Scientists’ would just extrapolated a graph, unthinkingly … …
80
Dennis, 100 years ago and more my father had an uncle at Roma. He said there was plenty of oil at Roma, but nobody honest enough to find it.
50 years later Australia’s first oil field was opened up just up the road at Moonie.
20
The cost is only falling when the sun shines and the wind blows. If you add in the cost of producing the juice you need when those renewables are not producing, which is most of the time, they are very expensive.
They constantly talk as though the cost of renewable juice and the cost of fossil juice can be compared. They cannot because they are fundamentally different products.
391
And should the emissions from the necessary backup be considered as due to ‘renewables’?
290
good point – a VERY VALID point
40
The ONLY thing that wind/solar can do is displace the fuel costs of synchronous generation.
Wind/solar are not and can never be dispatchable grid resources by their nature.
The grid follows the load. That requires response times of seconds to minutes to stabilize voltage and frequency. Solar/wind cannot stabilize frequency or voltage.
Wind/solar ought be costed with the actual costs of running baseload thermal plants inefficiently in order to absorb intermittent power. All connection costs and costs of voltage and frequency support ought be costed to wind/solar as well. It is wind/solar that created these costs. It is politics that shields wind/solar from the actual costs of their intermittency and damages to the synchronous generation.
Synchronous generation serves You. You serve Intermittent generation.
111
Lance, currently you are correct. In the future, wind and solar will be able to be partially dispatchable. If you run each unit at a max of 50%, then it can output more when needed.
Obviously a daft idea and grossly expensive AND it would still need 100% backup from reliable generators.Inverters currently sync with the grid.Modern ones will reduce output to cope with the grid overvolting.
A lot of research is being done by PhD students about running a grid with a matrix of renewables! I advise them against it, but they carry on.
To replace a 1GW conventional power station with wind say: 4MW turbines, times 250 units gives you the 1GW.
30% capacity so times by 3 – 750 units.
To allow for some dispatchability run at 50% output so times 2 = 1500 4MW wind turbine units.
That is a lots of money/space/concrete/inverters/maintenance etc
Especially as you would need 100% backup from your 1GW station!!!!
20
Unreliables aren’t any cheaper when you factor in their ephemeral nature, the cost of of running power lines out to woop woop to connect the dilute production and the fact that they only have a life of about 33% of real power plants.
260
Disposables.
70
Unreliable disposables.
40
They keep saying that the cost of renewables is falling.
That may be so, but the ‘fall’ needs to be put into perspective.
A 420MW wind plant cost $1.2 Billion eight years ago.
An equivalent 420MW might now cost only $900 Million. (or they will tell us that anyway)
Either way, that 420MW Nameplate ….. STILL only equates to an equivalent of 125MW of generated power.
A large scale coal fired power plant will deliver 2000MW of power, so the equivalent wind plant multiplied by SIXTEEN, and thirty two when whole of life of plants is taken into account.
The ‘dubious’ ‘spin’ that renewable is cheap is ….. RELATIVE.
Tony.
380
Apart from being unreliable, unpredictable (except that zero power is common and guaranteed for much of the life of solar), unserviceable, wind and solar also are rated by their maximum achievable, like all power plants. Except that the average is 25% of that. As you pointed out, when Hazelwood was shut as useless, old, non functional, it was running at 98% of design.
But even worse, replaceables are not commandables. You would not drive a car which often refused to move, never worked when you really needed it and randomly decided how much power to deliver, if at all. And an aircraft has a critical need for constant power, like the whole of Australia.
Nameplate is maximum deliverable and not commandable and rarely achievable. It should be subject to the consumer laws like everything else. There is no other commodity or equipment in our world which is allowed to legally and lie about its performance. Where is truth in advertising?
*Beware* this windmill will often not produce any power, almost never produce the nameplate power, cannot be requested to produce more power on demand, cannot be fixed, has no spare parts and will cost a fortune to dismantle and disposal is illegal because the blades and engines are environmental hazards for which the user takes all commercial and legal responsiblity. But it also comes with government guaranteed income, even if the power is not sold.
220
If something is basically harmful, dysfunctional cr&p, I really dont care how cheap you make it. I dont want it. Its like buying Chinesium tools that self destruct, food from toxic environment or watching Q&A on the ABC.
160
““The costs of renewables are expected to continue falling”” That would require that costs continue to decrease by increased production….or by market value dropping from loss of artificial protections, preferences and subsidies. Meanwhile analysis suggests if it is such a great idea it should stand by itself….and not by being subsidized by or incorporated into the grid.
20
“50 euros a tonne”
That would be the “Social cost of renewables” . . . and it’s an angle we should be using more often.
220
I think carbon prices will be the new bitcoin. We could virtual mine carboncoins and call them IPCCs.
220
The difference is that Bitcoin operates despite the law, while “Carbon” operates at the direction of the law.
Otherwise, they are very similar, and will feature prominently in The Second Great Reset.
Whenever that comes.
00
50 euros a ton – thats just what they pay you at the tip when you drop off your old solar panels and bird shredders….its the salvage cist if the steel and the going price of the eco na*ies broken dreams of world domination….
So sad …sniff…./sarc
130
Except you can’t drop old renewables at the tip – many of the components are so toxic they can’t be put in landfill.
Late to the party as always, the Australian government is now calling for solar manufacturers and businesses to provide for their safe disposal. As Tim Blair coined it, nothing Green ever works.
140
Nope !…they dont pay you …
…YOU have to pay them….$10 per panel is the going rate apparently !
00
A link to current price of CO2 in EU
https://ember-climate.org/data/carbon-price-viewer/
Few places are converting coal to gas in order to lower the penalty rates.
Whole EU is a mess due to unjustified price on carbon dioxide. Some manufacturing is being moved to neighbouring countries where they don’t have to pay the penalty rates. Good for some but not good for local jobs.
Sad state of affairs.
20
Does anybody think China, or India for that matter, gives a tinker’s cuss about CO2?
Nope.
Just keep on sending them your jobs and your manufacturing plants.
Why don’t they care about CO2?
Because they know it has little effect, or none at all, on global temperature.
50
Get used to the cold weather!
A Grand Solar Minimum is underway as long time readers here know, and this will completely wreck the senseless renewables idiocy.
When people start to freeze to death and have burst pipes through their houses this whole stupidity will be overturned.
440
The alarmists will attribute the colder weather due to actions being taken on climate change rather than the solar minimum and will be emboldened to say we’re heading in the right direction. We just have to do more. Too bad that people can’t afford to turn on their heaters to keep warm
170
“When people start to freeze to death” Not just when but where. A good look at the history of the little ice age written before the eugenicist cult of global warming began to adjust the past could reveal the places that will be hit hardest. How far away is the next great Irish frost?
180
Not only will they freeze, but food production will drop dramatically so millions will starve
Is this really underlying agenda 21
180
Climate change is a win/win strategy. Whether it warms or cools, it’s all our fault for putting CO2 in the atmosphere.
30
I have almost used the firewood supply (small truckload) I purchased in Autumn, last year the same load lasted through winter.
80
Occasionally my mother would give me a few coins and ask me to go round and get a bucket of coal.
The round trip on foot to the “coal man” was about six hundred yards and thankfully the bucket was empty for the first half of the trip.
On returning, the bucket was placed next to the cast iron oven and hot plate.
For faster cooking we had a single gas ring burner that had to be lit with a match and hot water for washing people and clothes came from the gas fired copper in the laundry.
Hot water for the bath was carried from the copper in the larger wash basin.
We had electricity to power lights and a radio and if the power went off we could use the gas light on the wall. Occasionally the mantle needed replacing.
The iceman would arrive regularly to put a block of ice in the top of the fridge; then later we got one of those new kerosene fridges.
That was over seventy years ago.
The world is so much more modern now; everything is perfect.
Isn’t it.
521
My grandparents used to have a big iron stove, next to which was some bedding material where their chicken eggs hatched in the warmth. In the oven they could use wood or coal. My mom told me that she and her siblings would go less than a hundred feet beyond their backyard to where the trains passed by, in order collect coal that fell off of the coal car. As “toxic” as coal burning is supposed to be, she never should have made it to 93 years old, but she did.
Yup, …so much more modern now. Too bad it has to be spoiled from being mismanaged by political monkeys.
390
Now that’s disrespectful and unfair to monkeys.
111
LOL. True. I blame the politicians. 😉
30
I grew up in Victoria and we would buy bags of briquettes ( small bricks of brown coal ) for the fire, which seemed to be the norm as most houses had a briquette fire. I imagine these are not socially acceptable anymore.
50
“The world is so much more modern now; everything is perfect.
Isn’t it.” APART FROM THE POLITICIANS THAT RUN IT.
190
There has always been ugliness and corruption but it mostly followed the 80:20 rule.
Eighty percent of political activity was to benefit the community and the other 20% was kept quietly out of sight, cause if you got caught you might lose your post or end up in gaol.
Now it’s the reverse and it ain’t Susstainable.
We’ve had desalination plants, Victorian road fiascos, school Sun shelters and many other schemes that transferred taxpayers funds to “the workas”.
Perhaps more widely we’ll see Bill Gates “elected” President of the British Empire.
We are being subjected to a gigantic covid style EcoEnema.
Enjoy.
140
Not only will they freeze, but food production will drop dramatically so millions will starve
Is this really underlying agenda 21
30
Its about the best mankind has ever experienced but, just like 2nd and 3rd generation children inheriting empires they made no effort to build, its probably going to decay as it gets taken for granted. I often wonder where people think the modern world came from. They certainly seem to not care about the shoulders they stand on.
80
Ah the memories come flooding back, and they are not good when lined up against the day the electricity grid arrived in 1962. And those that have never experienced those memories are loudly proclaiming the return to them.
The old saying, be careful what you wish for, you may not like it.
140
Murray says;
“And those that have never experienced those memories are loudly proclaiming the return to them.”
That’s the point.
I much prefer today’s physical world than the one described above but today’s Mental state is catastrophic.
When our community teaches our children, and sadly their parents, that Gretta is our leader, we are surely in trouble.
Our kids need something to work for and strive towards.
The Gretta syndrome offers nothing but the chance to stave off some imaginary disaster that is the product of nasty, greedy, self serving, dominating, manipulative Elites.
All our kids have now is the promise that if they act indignant and go on a Climate Strike they will save civilization.
Of course, if they can’t find work that suits them the government will catch them in the social security net.
And control them forever.
Children must have a decent vision of the future besides the wish for more “screen time”.
130
And that was our house in Cremorne.
KK, you forgot the “Pole” man carrying forked timber poles to prop up steel wire for hanging washing, the Rabbit Man selling door to door carrying a tray of rabbits for sale, the milk cart with tank on rear drawn by horse (which I used to get up in the morning to go and meet and drive the cart) – the milkman would measure milk from the tap on the Tank and put into you Milk Cans, bread delivered by Peerless Bakery Horse and Cart, and finally 2 mail deliveries a day.
150
And don’t forget the visits from the night soil man!
60
Thankfully we had full sewage disposal, but before I was born the back lane ways were made for a reason; easy access.
Carrying one of those you had to be physically tough.
30
Keith you’re story reminds me of a similar one for myself; In the 1950’s I used to go out in the cold nights to get half a gallon of paraffin for our home heating. I was the eldest of three boys so the job fell mostly to myself. No gloves just freezing fingers.
GeoffW
90
You had a bucket!! Luxury!!
I walked to school with a sheep in each pocket as we couldn’t afford gloves.
We were so poor we couldn’t afford middle names.
See also https://youtu.be/26ZDB9h7BLY – Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen
10
So based on a Swiss “model” Europe is facing an energy crises, strange that the Swiss investment house which produced the model is trying to unload coal and gas assets.
The Reuters article points out that Gas is seen as a stranded asset, unless paired with CCS technology, which like unicorns, does not exist.
F
033
The stranded assets are super sticky. Their disengagement is wishful thinking
30
Switzerland’s electricity generation comes from hydro (56.6%), while renewables supplied a small contribution of 3.4%. Nuclear contributed 37.6% to the country’s electricity production and only about 2.5% were generated by fossil fuel based thermal power stations.
160
I see you gave yourself an F for that comment. Fair assessment Peter.
160
When I went to university, back in the day when academic standards meant something, a F was a fail which was attached to a Post exam” (a second chance).
Peter’s effort reflects the decline in standards over the period. In the past it would have attracted an FF. That, as you will probably recall, was a fail without a Post exam being offered. In effect, it was an “on yer bike sonny”, go and get a bank job.
20
The Swiss are land locked.
I would be incredibly sure they have a contingency plan to be able to power their country without access to external power from outside their borders.
Having been to Switzerland and seen how they do things, they could happily sit buy and watch the rest of europe commit hari kiri via their demented and insane climate policy, and very likely the Swiss would stop those who tried to cross their border and control their power sources.
Unlike the Left, the Swiss are thinkers.
160
and planners and doers and pugnacious when need be. We lived there for a few years. A very different world.
30
The unicorns were wiped out by Climate Change.
40
Its all OK, the assets are “stranded” in Russia and Europe will continue to pay through the nose for them. Its funny how all these stranded assets statement come from people with PC agendas and little to zero clue about the industries they pontificate on. More wishful thinking, the world as they would like it to be.
40
How about the UK Poster Battery Bus being unable refuel in Cornwall. It is now stranded there after a well-publicised trip from London to “show off” at the G7 it has to be towed back! What a laugh!
240
What the NRMA is doing for electric vehicles
10
I have written/emailed the NRMA Open Road magazine about EV three times since they started their EV sales promotional activities, too bad about the tiny number of EV in the Australian fleet let alone for New South Wales road services membership.
Too expensive, inconvenient recharging waiting times, 80 per cent recommended regular recharge inconvenience for country driving, 10 per cent of battery charge reserved to protect the batteries and variable energy usage factors relating to range being well under the most often quoted theoretical range based on 100 per cent charge of a new battery pack. In other words real range is well below sales pitch range.
And that in Australia most of the grid electricity comes from fossil fuelled power stations to recharge EV.
Not one reply.
90
Do they have a diesel genny in a trailer for vehicles that have run out of ‘fuel’.
30
You couldn’t make this up. !
50
A bus of fools?
50
Would have been funny, but it’s probably not a bus of fools.
They planned out the trip knowing where all the recharging stations were located. What they didn’t plan on, was only (1) of the charging station along the entire route was functional.
So; they planned in good faith, but reality didn’t measure up.
20
Now the promoters of the Poster Batter Bus are saying the UK needs more recharging points because it got stranded. But fail to mention how they visited numerous recharging points but due to system glitches and incompatibility couldn’t get a charge. Next time they should just tow around a diesel generator.
140
Better still, toss the 4000kg bus battery and put the 400kg diesel generator in the bus. Same Motors. Near infinite range.
150
I have read a couple of New South Wales EV road tests admitting that recharging stations visited were not operating.
40
June 15, 2021: ‘Outrageous.’ Texas grid scare reignites blackout concerns
“Texas’ main grid operator requested conservation during a scorching heat wave yesterday, spurring calls for electricity reform and rejuvenating political fights over renewables months after devastating blackouts.
The tight grid conditions resulted from an unexpected amount of generation outages and strong demand, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Temperatures were in the upper 90s or higher in much of Texas.”
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063734985
Wait. What?
20 Feb, 2021: Why the cold weather caused huge Texas blackouts – a visual explainer
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/20/texas-power-grid-explainer-winter-weather
Further evidence renewable energy does not return the climate to stable.
210
ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Ironic, aint it?
30
Renewables are the problem. Kick them off the grid….
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-throwing-spears-bow-arrow-hawkeye-hiking-archery-2021-6?op=1&r=US&IR=T
See – the elite know whats coming, and are prepping for it.
The elite dont build massive underground bunkers and learn archery and spear throwing for no good reason……
When the grid goes down…for months…..well….nasty…..
00
That sounds very much like “chickens coming home to roost” 🙂
The toxicity of coal is still a puzzle for me; why isn’t everyone affected by the noxious gases from burning it.
Perhaps chimneys are worth their weight in gold.
I lived with the coal fired lifestyle for ten years and none of our family seem to have developed lung problems.
My great grandfather went down the mine in Wales at the age of ten and continued here in NovoCastria from the age of thirteen.
He lived to be eighty three but his younger brother died at fifty from “black lung”.
Their father, also a miner, lived a long life. Go figure.
Life in the old days was harsh, but today’s world is downright scary when so many live in a virtual world.
A virtual world that’s far from virtuous.
250
Response to 5.1
30
Coal is just biomass . . vintage biomass, but biomass nonetheless.
That’s another angle we should be pushing.
30
They know full well exactly what it’s made of and how beneficial it is to plant life the planet over.
But they aren’t in it for the benefits or the savings.
They “want” to destroy the economy and to restrict movement around the country.
They “want” to keep people poor and depressed.
Happy people are a lot harder to control.
50
The Australian government is underwriting a new gas fired power plant in the Hunter Valley as a transition. They will also be the bank of last resort on coal if the banks won’t support investment in that sector.
132
I’ll believe the last bit when I see it. Up to know our politician have been speaking with forked tongue.
50
Its a tricky balancing act for the Morrison government, but they are convinced its the way ahead and the electorate will endorse them. The transition back to coal is not all that far off.
63
All I can see is a concerted Western agenda to reduce emissions. It goes contrary to your delusion we are about to return to coal. I wish it were true but the reality says otherwise.
40
Simple, give up the Western agenda and join China’s new world order. They will come in with the best tenders for coal and nuclear plants.
Morrison is keeping his powder dry and when they bully him on the issue of CO2 emissions per capita, Scott will give them the finger.
34
You are dreaming. You are just proving the point he is either a liar or a fool; perhaps both.
40
How rapidly can a coal fired plant be built in the near future? Do wonder if smaller scale units could be assembled quickly on site using 3D printing robotics and drone delivery etc. Real science and technology must surely soon find ways around the cult of telephone box vandalism style destruction.
One obvious place to build them is miles out to sea on Australia’s continental shelf where they can harmlessly fertilise the oceans, get easy delivery from ships and be closer to major cities than many sites on land.
34
The answer to end of life coal fired installations is refit and refurbishment on the original site. The coal in/power out infrastructure is already in place.
Simple really.
190
Yes i agree Murray but that only gets us back to where we were. It would be good to bud grow multiply and improve again as well.
10
Murray,
Hazelwood springs to mind, but can you imagine the outrage and hysteria in Victoria about a replacement plant that reduced emissions by 32%?
60
It wouldn’t even matter to the climate if the new one increased emissions by 32%. It would have zero impact. In any case, the hundreds of new coal fired power stations being built by China, India, Japan and others will make even the total loss of not just one but all of our coal fired power stations here in Australia totally irrelevant to the impact on the climate. Goes to show the total lack of credibility of our so called “leaders”. All they are doing is leading our once great nation down the drain.
101
That only works if our demand for more power doesn’t keep increasing, but it will, at least if we want a growing economy, not a declining one. Even if we keep our existing ones, we need to add more new ones going forward.
61
?
10
Coal Fired Power Dying – Not So Fast – Part Four – SteamH, The Future For Coal Fired Power
30
We need to build two Hele close to the Galilee Basin to fertilise the local environment and supply enough energy to power a satellite city, attached to a new space port.
32
Such nice dreams. Too bad they will fall on death ears of our politicians.
10
Silliggy mentions this:
I have a number of sites pertaining to Power Solutions that I refer to when needed.
One of them is the Siemens site.
I have a short(ish) video for you to watch, and it’s 7.34 long.
Now, while this may not interest some of you, I’m sure others might be interested. It’s a video showing the construction of the Turbine/Generator Unit at a large scale power plant. Now while this is just one part of the overall plant, keep in mind that construction is going on in every section of the plant. This is just the Turbine/Generator part of the overall.
This takes around 50 weeks.
What the video shows is construction of this ‘Power Block’.
This is for an UltraSuperCritical plant, as Siemens have not yet reached Advanced USC.
Now, I can’t direct you to just the video itself, so you need to take the link below first. Then scroll down to the heading Installation of the steam turbine package and directly under that you see two videos, and the one I am directing you to is the one on the left, the erection of the SST-6000. For full screen, just hit the button on the video screen at the bottom right.
Link to Siemens video
Tony.
80
It takes around six years to build a coal plant and when financing costs are included it could cost $2 billion for a new 600 MW construction.
13
“using 3D printing robotics and drone delivery etc” boy you had the buzzword generator wound up for that one
off shore is a good idea , maybe Lord Howe Island would be a good spot. NZ and Norfolk is a bit far. Or King Island in Bass Strait. I’m sure the locals would get on board.
10
Hey, great idea.
You could beam the generated power up to a geosychronous satellite, and then beam it back down to the radar dish on your roof.
Tony.
Post Script – I can see Fitroy googling this right now.
60
Here we go. 90 days not including the under sea connection.
“Karpowership has started the development of the world’s largest floating power plant, launched in 2016. Khan Class Powerships, with a capacity of 470MW, are designed to change the future of the world.”
http://www.karpowership.com/en/#khan-class-detail
00
“Low Sulfur HFO, Natural Gas or LNG”
http://www.karpowership.com/en/powership-in-10-questions
00
combined with this?
“Conventional coal-to-liquids projects involve mining the coal, gasifiying it and then converting the gas to a liquid fuel. Some Australian projects being considered are investigating the possibility of side-stepping the costs of mining the coal by igniting underground coal seems and extracting the gas for processing. Others are based on mining coal prior to gasification.”
https://www.gem.wiki/Coal-to-Liquids_in_Australia
00
Coal to liquid fuel…
That is what South Africa developed in the ‘70-90s , when the Apartheid trade embargo prevented them importing oil.
Sasol have developed the process to be commercial
https://www.brandsouthafrica.com/investments-immigration/business/economy/development/liquid-fuel-from-coal
10
The only way the Sheeple will wake up to the madness is if consumers are forced to choose between Reliables or Ruinables and neither one will be allowed to back up the other.
So, if the wind stops blowing and the Sun doesn’t shine, the Ruinables consumer goes dark and cold if they don’t have huge batteries.
Acceptance of this scheme won’t be a problem because the Sheeple have been told that Ruinables are incredibly cheap and reliable with batteries.
Smart meters with appropriate software at the point of distribution should easily be able to make this work.
I’ll stick to fossil fuels, properly engineered hydro (not SH2) and nuclear if the Australian people can lose their terror of it.
If the Sheeple are stupid enough and ignorant enough to believe in Ruinables and the supposed reason for using them, then they deserve them. But those of us on the rational side of science shouldn’t be made to suffer due to the stupidity of the Sheeple.
130
In the democratic west we have the opportunity to elect our way out of this madness but even conservative governments have not been game to go 100% against the alarmists. They pay lip service to alarmists by adopting policy positions, which still see renewables as part of an energy mix . They should make it clear that renewables are an unnecessary cost to society which threatens to make electricity a luxury item and creates such unreliability that many businesses will have to review where they produce and manufacture things. All this idiocy plays into the hands of China and Russia who are winning a war that very few people realise has already begun.
When you have a conservative brexiteer like Boris sounding like a teenage greenie establishing policies designed to stuff up the economy with no real impact on global emmissions you actually have no where to go ( via normal democratic processes ) to escape the green political madness. Unless a Donald Trump inspired candidate can get back into the White House the damage inflicted by the alarmists will be difficult to fix. We need conservative oppositions that differentiate on Climate change not just at the fringes but at the core. It’s time to attack the underlying principals head on. Establish a reprogramming policy which educates people that the world is not warming dangerously, and if it was renewables won’t make a difference and if you are still worried adaption is a lower cost and more practical approach. Also a global audit must be made of all temperatures , data and adjustments that have been made to justify the policy decisions that goverments have made. In the same way that charlatans Cuomo ,Fauci and Bruce Pascoe have been exposed ,it is possible to expose the prophets (and profits ) of the climate change movement as more and more evidence surfaces. It’s not a matter of finding out the deceit and lies ( conservatives have known the truth for ages) . It needs a media and bureaucracy which have some heroes that have the courage to call out the dishonesty when they see it and realise that the side theyve been barracking for is look for extreme social change creating a distopia not the nirvana that is being preached. Powerful people can be discredited and destroyed but it’s important to know who are the good guys and the crooks.
Now more than ever we need people of courage in positions of real influence.
160
I’ll second that motion.
30
My latest is related:
https://www.cfact.org/2021/06/15/electric-power-fantasies-are-lining-up/
111
Nice.
10
Demand-Side Flexibility – This concept has come about because of the green energy dilemma that unravelled when the geo-thermal, tidal, wave and solar thermal generation concepts all failed to eventuate – as we expected. To avoid a humiliating back-down the green idiots decided that we could live without base-load energy by conditioning the public to accept intermittent energy, under the predictable guise of saving the planet. When you look deeper at demand management, it becomes a very nasty beast. Any business that requires permanent power such as data centres, or refrigeration for meat works, dairy, supermarkets, farming, etc, will all need to build their own diesel generators which will be at great expense and passed onto the consumer. Small domestic consumers might be able to purchase batteries or small generators, but this is also very expensive and dangerous on a large scale. What we are really doing is spending a trillion dollars to make a cheap and nasty unstable grid and then expecting all users to invest their own money in solutions to manage the crap.
71
Goody. Are you paying attention Mrs Johnson?
30
SMH 9 months ago and coal price more than doubles since then.
130
I’m not sure how much more evidence is needed to prove the Western leaders (Morrison included) are either completely blindsided by or aiding and abetting with a certain group of evil people who are going out of their way to destroy of the West. There is no doubt in my mind that in either case such leaders ought to be considered as turncoats against the West given so much factual scientific evidence has been forthcoming for so many years how the CAGW story is a scam and a hoax of epic proportions. Perhaps people like PM Morrison are just going for the votes and ignoring the truth along the way, which makes him a very simple-minded and inattentive person. That’s no excuse given the gravity of the situation, namely our very own survival as a civilisation. Living in ivory towers away from the real world as all Western leaders do doesn’t help. The Chinese and Russian governments must know all this as they are not stupid.
Regardless of the real reason why our Western leaders are gravitating to a common agreement to reduce our emission to zero by say 2050, and as a consequence shying away from using coal for power generation, countries like China, India and many others are going ahead and building hundreds of coal-fired power stations and dozens of nuclear ones as we speak. In essence then the Western leaders are embarking on a sure path of economic suicide by allowing those other countries free reign to continue to use much cheaper forms of power generation.
The other problem though is the fact that much of the public are in agreement with the need to reduce our emissions, at least provided it doesn’t make power generation more expensive. That in itself is a delusion since all thinking people know that renewables cost a lot more than coal or nuclear to provide the same level of availability and quantity of power.
As long as we have leaders with none of the qualities necessary to go against public opinion when it’s wrong, and at the same time the people are becoming more apathic, less aware and less interested in the truth, we will continue to be in a death spiral heading for a crash and burn scenario before people wake up to reality. As they say reality bites. It is going to be extremely painful, if not deadly for the West when it does bite. We need to return to the days when some of our leaders had brains and guts. Sadly, I can’t see that day coming any time soon.
100
Sky News commentators have praised our PM for resisting the woke leaders at the G7 Meeting (Australia was a guest nation) calls for net zero emissions and other economic vandalism demands.
52
More evidence he speaks with forked tongue. Not long ago he believed the global economy is transitioning to net-zero emissions, and so too must Australia.
20
He quickly added that if net zero emissions can be achieved it must be based on technology development, not undermine economies.
Tonight I viewed PMN Boris with PM Morrison, Boris remarked that Australian aims to achieve net zero emissions but our PM shot back that its not guaranteed.
00
That’s doublespeak. What he really means is he is an advocate of reducing emissions by any means as long as it’s not on his watch.
00
The US is annoyed because it competes with their gas sales. Not exactly correct, Biden’s stupidity handed Russia those gas sales. That’s the price of saving the planet. After 4 years of a witch hunt to claim Trump was a Putin stooge, in one Executive Order, Biden filled the Russians pockets with millions in gas sales and pushed US inflation up above 5%.
That’s what you get when you put social engineers in charge of an economy.
220
As mentioned a few times, the real solution to disposables is that they will vanish. Within perhaps five years. They never made commercial sense. It is just a ripoff done illegally by the government of Australia and copied in the UK. All the cash is ripped directly out of your electricity bills and goes to the owners. Not for electricity, but as an endless gift. Legally enforced theft because governments can only raise taxes, not force you to pay their friends. Not since Magna Carta anyway.
Real fact based science has always been very clear. Global temperatures are now plummeting, in case no one has noticed. Global warming has not happened unless you are scared by 1.5C in 150 years and now the peak of the PDO and De Vries cycles is past. Terrible winters are coming and there will be mass power shortages as solar does not work in winter where 60% of people live, up to 70 degrees from the equator. Wind works but not in storms and by definition, wind is out in the weather and windmills age quickly and are utterly unserviceable, disposable.
So there will be a stampede to coal and gas. And most of the climatebaggers will have retired on their fortunes. Al Gore is 73, James Hansen 80 and even Grumpy Greta will find Sweden far too cold. How dare you move to Spain? Almost entirely above 60 degrees North, Finland is going nuclear.
We in Australia should be selling those French desalination plants, except none are paid for yet and most were never used. Australia inside 40 South missed the last ice age, but the potential for the return of the glaciers to Europe is just sitting there. That would be Climate Change. By 2030, the snow and ice will be back and the London Fog and the Thames freezing over. At least we are keeping our coal in the ground. There will be mass migration, to Australia.
132
The only reason the Thames didn’t freeze over in the early 1960s was because of the coal fired power stations along its banks, This time around there will be skating opportunities all the way to London Bridge.
‘Global temperatures are now plummeting, in case no one has noticed.’
I noticed, but its only La Nina and the after effects. Neutral conditions are now in place, which should continue the pause in temperature. Thanks for tipoff on the connection between De Vries cycles and PDO.
51
Another reason (in 1963) was that the river was narrowed by the embankments in London, so the river was faster flowing. I went skating on ponds near Reading at that time. Our house was freezing cold, except near the fireplaces downstairs; one had a Courtier (sp?) stove in it which improved matters and the other had a gas heater, another improvement.
00
Gone in five years you say, certainly they won’t be missed, and we’ll have a network of superfluous derelict electricity easements crosshatching the map littered with the unsalvageable remnants of the green revolution; but at least obstinate rationality will have prevailed and we will construct the ultimate-tech coal fired plants and live happily ever after…
30
Within five years we would have proven that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming and then a rush to build coal fired power stations to save the planet from CO2 starvation.
33
Yep; those sagebrush club people are about the only group alerting us to its perilously low level which so emphasises the irony of having deeply ignorant persons such as Mrs Boris and Greta demanding we eliminate it from the atmosphere.
40
G’day e g,
I reckon that proof is in, and has been for years. It’s just been suppressed by our censorious media moguls, and academic “experts”.
And that rush should have started 5 yers ago.
Cheers
Dave B
30
For those unfamiliar with decadal climate change.
‘Many solar effects work on climate through ocean cycles. The Atlantic/Pacific Oscillations are well known as drivers of climate and can be traced back through at least about 1500 years. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) has a period of about 66 years while the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has a slightly shorter cycle of 60 years.’ (The k2p blog)
11
About forty years ago at a public meeting where the State Engineers office was contemplating a moratorium on drilling new water wells, it dawned on me that people are nearly always the source of their own problems. By default people believe they are entirely in control of things, and therefore they face no risk in whatever they do. If this assumption turns out wrong, well it must be that someone else has caused them an unforeseeable problem. Sometimes the linkage is a bit difficult to follow, but it nearly always is there.
Simple case in point: When the bus that allegedly had an adequate range for a public relations
stunttrip runs out of electrical charge in its batteries and has to be towed home, it turns out not to be the consequence of magical thinking about batteries, but was the fault of someone who failed to have a charging station conveniently located for them. EVs can only fail by us not going full-on EV right now.Complex case in point: Large numbers of people with no experience or wisdom in these matters at all, and against all sorts of available data, decide that fossil fuels are causing a rapidly evolving climate catastrophe right before their eyes. They see the only response as renewable portfolio mandates (AKA engineering through politics), banning fracking, banning pipelines, impairing exploration leases, and placing a moratoria on service facilities for fuel storage and transmission or petrochemical plants. To add insult to injury they obtain positions on boards of directors of financial companies and large pension portfolios and convince them to not lend to fossil fuels projects on the idea that these assets are soon to become stranded per their visions of catastrophe and salvation. When the entirely predictable shortage of, say, natural gas occurs they reason that this is proof of the unreliability of fossil fuels, and thank god they forced the transition to renewables when they did, and should have done sooner, and will persist in persecuting the wicked fossil fuels. You see the drill — no discrepant event is great enough to pop their bubble.
110
I’ll let Dr. Thomas Sowell support your position:
The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices – paid by others.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
“Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.”
“Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?”
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
“Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.”
110
Much appreciated; I’ve captured those words.
10
That would be a sight to see, the public relations stunt bus being towed home by a diesel powered tow truck.
40
Hope some good quality photos got taken.
00
There’s a similar thing happening with magical ‘green’ hydrogen, whenever I hear it spruiked to the max, I always think, what exactly do you know about hydrogen, Fools.
30
A longer winter than usual in Europe. Well well. With a tear in the eye, the narrative for some time now has been “winters start later and end earlier than they used to”.
I’ve been watching closely since 2017 when that Ukranian astro physicist lady (cant remember those complicated names, I’m Australian) said by 2024 we should be seeing some pretty cold winters. I’ve no idea if shes right and make no attempt to predict weather, but she’s looking okay at this stage.
50
Valentina Zharkova , I’m Australian too. Is it really that much harder than Benedict Cumberbatch or Natalie Bassingthwaighte 🙂
51
“Gas projects worth some 30 billion euros were cancelled, delayed or indefinitely postponed last year as they struggled to find funding”.
This is amusing.
The only available means of managing more RE into a grid is to have more gas peaking plants, so this cancelling of gas generation is actually limiting the push to add more RE, the very opposite of EU policy objectives. Obviously the Russians are laughing all the way to their own gas funding banks, as Europe will now become their new string puppet, with a punch and Judy show that will run 24/7 each day, minus Judy.
60
AGL applied for closure of Liddell to be delayed (but only 1 unit so 1/4 capacity)
https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/notice-of-closure-exemptions/76484-agl-macquarie-pty-ltd-liddell-unit-3-exemption
40
I hope they aren’t allowed to do so. The sooner the system crashes the better. It’s the only way the Sheeple can be made to understand (apart from the other method I mentioned in #12).
61
Agreed. We need a good 3 day blackout and people will be begging for coal. I doubt anything else will work.
10
Closure date of April 1 seems significant.
30
I laughed at these fools. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. Then I realised that these are the fools who are making the rules, and then I cried.
Cheers,
Speedy
130
And how long will the fools be able to continue enforcing their risible rules? Surely a reckoning approaches.
40
I would like to watch a debate held with the politician’s team on one side and people like Professor Ian Plimer on the opposite debating team.
Let them debate net zero emissions, eliminating CO2, the transition to so called renewable energy and electric vehicles.
My guess is that none of the elected representatives who support the globalism nonsense including climate hoax and creative warming trend would be prepared to attend.
50
You’re probably right regarding the attendance at such a debate. Which is a shame, really, because Boris Johnson ought to be a very capable debater.
20
Facts are not wanted, when Christopher Monckton released his auditing of the UN IPCC modelling of climate hoax producing evidence of errors and omissions he was banned from speaking at the Copenhagen Conference.
Just before that was held the hacked emails released, two batches, revealed the plotting between IPCC “scientists” to creatively account for global warming that exceeded the natural climate change weather data available at that time. The emails were referred to as “climate gate” 1 and 2.
But no matter what truth is produced the climate hoaxers ignore it and continue their deceptive behaviour.
20
That’s it.
00
[…] Europe has already learned this lesson and is rapidly cutting back on wind energy. […]
00
Meanwhile, in the real world: One June 1, CS Energy informed AEMO that Callide Unit B1 will be returned to service on 11 June and B2 on 21 June. No advice on units CPP 3 & 4.
As at June 16, nothing back on stream.
On June 11, Forensic engineer Dr Sean Brady has been engaged to lead an external, independent investigation and review of the incident on Unit C4.
Unit B1 is scheduled to return to service on 16 June and Unit B2 on 20 June (UPDATED AS OF 15 JUNE).
AEMO has been advised that Unit C3 will return to service on 2 July.
Meanwhile in Victoria, Yallourn station, due to flooding in the open cut coal mine, is currently operating at 200 MW, with an evening peak of 600 MW, compared to normal generation of 1,400 MW.
And for a laugh: Energy Australia will close the Yallourn power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley in mid-2028, four years ahead of schedule, and build a giant battery instead.
Ms Tanna said Energy Australia would build a 350 megawatt, utility-scale battery in the Latrobe Valley by the end of 2026. The battery will be located at the company’s Jeeralang gas plant. “This will provide energy for up to four hours at a time, and is larger than any battery operating in the world today,” she said.
Jeeralaang provides 420 MW of open cycle gas turbines that are used to cover evening peak demand.
40
Well she is wrong,..or stupid,…probably both by the sound of it !
One site in N California has 2 batteries…one a 750 MWh,.. the 2nd a 1100 MWh system ( different operators)
00
Callide B1 is back onstream, operating at 150 MW or about 50% of capacity.
10
“The costs of renewables continue falling”???
Well, something’s falling, for sure.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/south-dakota-rocked-again-as-a-wind-turbine-plant-shuts-its-doors?
20
[…] JoNova; As Europe emerges from a harsh winter with depleted gas reserves, desperate European governments […]
00
[…] JoNova; As Europe emerges from a harsh winter with depleted gas reserves, desperate European governments […]
00
Sounds like a good idea for the Europeans to have a very deep look at the global warming theory of human produced CO2 they have decreed as the science-not-to-be challenged and under which they are destroying themselves and their economies.
If after 40years they still can’t produce the evidentiary papers that prove their theory, it sounds to me that any rational, intellectual human being facing extermination at hands of that same global climate system they consider they can control, but are seeing they can’t, just might want to look urgently at the basis for that creed with no basis. Suppose they just might accept martyrdom – for those outside the ruling clique – today as simply the price of saving the world in 100years time – in case their opinions are right!
The destruction being wilfully induced on all western economies (while the East Europeans, China, Russia, others and Brazil show more rationality)is totally irrational. Our leaders are destroying our energy systems before they have anything to replace them with. They gamble the nation’s prosperity away on the idea technology will immediately come up with something better by a miracle. So far its the Russians et al 100 and the West 0!
Now grandad Joe Biden has dumped that fuel line from Canada into the USA, I wonder what those Americans that actually watch Europe for any other reason than being besotted by royalty, might be thinking about next winter in the USA. No longer self sufficient in fossil fuels, I wonder which unfriendly oil-producing nations might just put the spigot into those oil stores bound for the USA come next winter.
40
When Liddell goes either next year or 2023, what is there to replace it, or even being planned to be in place then, maybe Snowy 2.0, which is just a battery which won’t work unless it’s charged.
20
The science.
Is this where the CO2 Global Warming ‘science’ meets the Wuhan COVID-19 ‘science’ moment.
Just as the science around the source of the viral outbreak is suddenly being intensively investigated – against the resistance of the purveyors of the current theory they had weaved – it would appear that the science argument around the climate theory must also be thrown/forced open before the West casts itself, the people, into oblivion.
The way labor governments have been willing to blow up existing power stations so they cannot be reopened places Australia at the brink and beyond salvage if we lose much more dependable generation. It doesn’t matter how much and how often green energy fails to prove itself capable to carry the load, governments must literally be in ivory towers the way they keep increasing the spread of the incapable and destroying the proven capable. They don’t even wait to see they have anything that works to take over that which does. They just destroy the latter.
Our governments believe in flying doormats. They are destroying technology that keeps us cheap and working before they actually have anything to replace it. Our banks and businesses are no better except they look after where they see profit in the short term and push the government policy with total disregard for the welfare of the people. Reminds one of the power duopoly that destroyed Trump. In the USA and here, that duopoly is coming for us now.
It seems it is better to destroy the futures of our current young people when energy really becomes unaffordable so that generations in 80-100years time MIGHTN’T have to cope with 2degrees of possible warming. That ignores the extremes of climate and temperature in which peoples already dwell. Where’s the logic, especially in Australia which is blessed by neither nuclear power nor great hydro resources to fill the energy hole, unlike the USA and EU????
20
There’s a new/old approach to capturing and sequestering CO2: “Blue Oil”.
“Blue Oil” is the tag given to oil which is claimed to be carbon-negative.
The oil industry has used CO2 to enhance oil recovery for decades. Now they are promoting the fact that this also locks away the CO2 so they talk of CCUS: Carbon Capture USE and Sequestration.
One example is Denbury Oil:
“Chris Kendall, Denbury’s President and CEO, commented, “We are thrilled to continue progress on our Cedar Creek Anticline EOR project in 2021. This will be one of the largest EOR projects ever undertaken in the United States, using 100% industrial-sourced CO2 to recover over 400 million barrels of oil. Additionally, the oil produced will be Scope 3 carbon negative, as the amount of industrial-sourced CO2 that will be permanently injected to produce each barrel of oil will be greater than the combined emissions associated with the development and operation of the field, including the refining and combustion of the finished petroleum products. We believe that this carbon negative oil, which we have labelled “blue oil,” will ultimately be a preferred commodity as it assists end users in reducing their own carbon footprint.””
Carbon-negative oil! It will be fascinating to see how this develops. For the oil companies it could be a godsend: they could get credits/payment for sequestering CO2; recovery from their oil reserves (those that are amenable) could increase; existing infrastructure would be more productive; demand for exploration would be less. Their public image would be transformed for actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere while continuing to provide energy for the world.
Save the planet: buy a gas-guzzler!
20
Increased CO2 contributes to better agricultural productivity and as sighted increased greening of the planet.
https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/agriculture/agriculture.pdf
Page 19, indicates that despite the droughts the sector is recording an average increase in productivity of 3.5% per year
2019 sector value was $67 billion
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snapshot-of-australian-agriculture-2021#agricultural-production-is-growing
Average per year increase of CO2 over the last 10 years was 2.39%. That 2.39% is $1.47 billion dollars from the total value of $67 billion. Thank you CO2. (keep in mind the droughts, no increase in jobs)
Has anyone looked these numbers as a measure of benefit rather then demonising the shifty molecule?
10
I’m waiting for the first large industrial sized wind and/or solar plants to reach the date of their demise. Surely it can’t be much longer. That will be a time of great awakening for greens and governments. What do they do with all that junk? Do they replace all those windmills? Do they have to bring down the towers as well and rebuild? All that concrete, rare earths which are big environmental pollutants.
How much longer to be patient? Still haven’t heard a whimper from the greens about how devastating all that bare land looks carrying those p/voltaic cells. It’s seen on TV advertising most days with a power company demonstrating how much it’s into the futuristic story of power generation. Funny how they found such big spaces with nary a threatened bird, insect nor bush on which the greens would give their lives to defend – well, almost! No great problems at all got in the way of construction. Maybe they will argue to leave the solar panels in place to provide wind protection for bush re-establishment and maybe a bit of water from condensation as well.
21
You have missed it Doc ..!
Check Youtube etc,.. lots of video and reports of the decommissioning of Wind plants in the USA.
They simply blow out the towers, trash the generators, but the fiberglass turbine blades are simply cut up and burried in land fill .
And Australia’s first Solar farm (White Cliffs) is now a Museum piece !
Ditto also our earlyest Wind farm over in WA.
30
[…] h/t JoNova; As Europe emerges from a harsh winter with depleted gas reserves, desperate European governments are increasingly firing up old coal plants to bridge the energy supply gap. […]
00
Does anybody know where that graphic image of EU natural gas storage levels can be found ?
Further, does anyone know where to find the EU’s reports on its natural gas storage levels and capacity utilization ?
00
Which image ?
There are several, bar charts, line charts, etc ,..at this site
https://www.bicmagazine.com/industry/natgas-lng/european-natural-gas-storage-inventories-are-at-record-high-/
00
First stage has been partially achieved….check out Napa Valley in California…full of rusted-out wind turbines
00