Mike Cannon-Brookes might be an Australian tech-billionaire who wants to buy out one of our biggest energy companies and get rid of coal, but not only does he apparently not understand electricity grids, he doesn’t even know what a free market is.
In a free market customers could choose not to buy green electrons:
If we had a real free market in energy, we could a tick-that-box on our plan that said “100% coal fired, cheapest available reliable electricity”. Instead, all Australians are forced to buy electricity from a hobbled patchwork grid which has been repurposed as a Global Air Conditioner.
It’s a national grid crafted through “Renewable Energy Targets”, and pure hopium. Hidden in our electricity bills, taxes, and frozen-pea packets at Coles, are multiple subsidies to help wind and solar power. Poor Australians have paid to help put discounted solar panels on their rich neighbors roofs, and are paying for back up, storage, stabilizers, unnecessary two-billion dollar interstate transmission lines, and demand management plans.
Every windless minute at night the poor pay more for electricity than they would have — if the Agents of Weather-changing Sorcery were not allowed to romp freely through the energy market. Once upon a time the cheapest, most reliable generator won the bids to supply and set the price, every day and every hour. Then came the Renewable Energy Target which chooseth the Saintly Green Electrons and now we have a grid surging with over-and-under supply, erratic voltage surges, $14,000 price spikes and frequency chaos. Where once massive infrastructure was tuned to run cost effectively 24 hours a day, now it starts up and shuts down, rarely running in the profitable zone, and so is forced to charge more to cover the same costs in the fewer hours it runs.
Poor Australians are paying extra for electricity so the rich can brag about how they’re saving the planet.
Billionaire environmentalist Mike Cannon-Brookes is asked if he will pay YOU for power price hikes after $20BILLION green scheme
Stephen Johnson, DailyMail
Australia’s second richest man Mike Cannon-Brookes has promised more renewable energy will make electricity cheaper – despite a warning from Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The 42-year-old billionaire co-founder of software giant Atlassian has refuted Mr Morrison’s suggestion the early closure of coal-fired power stations would cause consumers to pay more for their power.
Presenter David Koch asked him if he would pay consumers if their bills rose.
‘We have a free market for energy prices: we have a logical plan that shows why prices would go down as we have more and more renewables in the grid.’
Just like no place on Earth. No nation ever added more unreliable renewables and got cheaper electricity.
The man reasons like a kid with a lego set and $20 billion dollars. When Minister Frydenberg points out that shutting the old coal Hazelwood plant raised prices by 85%, Cannon-Brookes insists “it will be different” because they have eight years notice (enough time to invent batteries that work?). Then forgetting that Hazelwood was replaced by newer renewables, he claims that it can’t get more expensive, because the new renewables are “new” — not like things made when man landed on the moon. The magic of “New” failed in 2017 when Hazelwood closed, and physics hasn’t changed much since then.
Give us a free market
Let Australians opt out of renewable subsidies, and opt in to buy fossil fuel power, and new coal fired plants will be built and old ones will be restored. The wholesale rates of coal fired power are just 3c per kWh — they fell for 40 years until Kevin Rudd tried to change the global climate.
Now, if Olympic Dam wanted to build its own power plant to save on electricity costs, they would not be allowed to do it. That was Audrey Zibelman’s* big fear — that prices would rise to the point that the Big Energy Customers would leave the grid entirely.
If ten million Australians set up a Co-Op to build a Big Coal Plant and pay for it themselves, the government would ban them or force them to buy chinese carbon credits to offset the free-fertilizer produced by the plant.
The only thing stopping Australians from getting cheap electricity is The Government.
We know that because when Chinese Crypto Miners did a private deal with Redbank power in NSW — they got 100% coal-power direct for just 8c a kilowatt hour, while the Australians running the local newsagent had to pay 28c for the same thing. The loophole they slid through was to be within 1km of the power station with their own cables.
But that 1km rule is only a rule because a politician said so. That can change…
h/t Great Aunt Janet, Earl, Furiously Curious, David-of-Cooyal, Dave, KP
______________________________________
*Zibelman — Formerly the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Organisation (AEMO)
We continue to be governed by idiots.
541
But we continue to vote for them. So, who are the real idiots?
521
Liberal & Labor/Greens coalition have the exact same energy policies. The only difference between them is the sales pitch & the salesmen!
The electorate is so confused that they actually argue with each other over the “ two different policies “ which will have the same disastrous outcome and will not change the climate or the temperatures or anything else at all. The only difference will be a lower standard of living & probably lifestyle restrictions “a la pandemic restrictions”.
Climate Change/ Global Warming “ is the Communists nirvana. The old Communist tried governing by controlling all the facets of labour, resources, finance, markets not to mention your every move & even your thoughts. Don’t forget education & brainwashing!!
The new communists, will control everything via simply having full world control of energy thru a centralised New World Government. You’ll be the slaves that they will bleed for your last hard earned dollar thru energy costs & availability of energy for your home or business.
Trudeau in Canada, is having a practise run at the moment. The only hing he needs to threaten Canadians with now is energy supply !!
360
My daughter who is in yr11 and is turning out to be an economics nerd, was espousing may economic theories last night, including quotes from well known some macro economics guy.
In talking about standards of living, I pointed out to her that the low cost of coal powered electricity is what allowed peoples standards of living to rise, whereas unreliables jacked up the cost and made life more difficult and ultimately imposed a form of ( by design ) energy fuedalism. Its important to point out in terms people understand, but I think she got it. I also pointed out the Chinese are building the same as our total generating capacity in coal ( thereabouts ) each day. I said we have 300 years of coal and due to stupid eco nonsense, we export our resources to other countries to use to raise thier standard of living, but our politicians would rather keep drinking the eco koolaid ( and jabbing themselves and others into a form of mass psychosis….) – is it possible our politicians have literally lost thier minds?
I’m unapologetic and wont back down in pointing out the rank stupidity of unreliables. The younger generation need to hear hard logic because the media is a bucket of lefty fairy stories about such stuff.
I recommend people trying a weekend without electricity at home as a demo of what its like in 3rd world conditions, which is where the eco loons would take us by choice.
550
I also believe that the propaganda will increase, become ever more devious & far fetched.
Government need only reach that tipping point where it’s too late to reverse their evil policies.
Once that tipping point where coal powered generation is all but wiped out the subsidies will dry up because there’ll be no income from coal to subsidise the Green energy. Prices of energy will then quadruple, as an optimistic projection & we’ll be told the increases are due to market forces!
Too late! The weeping & wailing be in vain! If this lunacy is not stopped dead in tracks now the future will be grim & probably fighting in the streets.
240
What really annoys me is that the coal-fired power stations aren’t just mothballed against possible future emergencies but actually destroyed. This is sheer destructive vandalism which will seriously damage ordinary people. The people behind this truly disgust me.
460
That’s the plan, Stan / Annie.
Hungry and distressed people re MUCH easier to herd around.
00
What do you suggest?
And please don’t suggest voting for an idiot you don’t know.
104
It has been explained many times already buy others as well as myself. Go back and study the reasoning and the method. It’s fairly obvious anyway. I suppose you just want keep re-electing the same mob. Good luck!
81
Here is a good explanation of how to thwart the “Uni-party”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS3IfC-i6I
90
jelly34. Already seen it, and have a couple of quibbles…
Major one is that I cannot accept that the “Freedom Parties” will get 25-30% First Prefs in any electorate…which means that if / when all goes to plan and all the “Freedom Parties” preferences are distributed to accumulate together, one of the two major blocs will fall into 3rd place, to then be distributed mostly to the Freedom Parties. Can’t see this happening.
Other minor quibble is that even if this somehow happened somewhere, it would not happen in enough seats for the Freedom Parties to get control in the lower house. Good idea for the Senate however.
That’s all.
73
I was in Port Macquarie yesterday and was fortunate enough to meet Faye Aspiotis, the PHON candidate. A mother of four and supporter of coal she looks the goods. The role such candidates can play is out of proportion to their individual votes. You might remember the guy who won a seat in the Senate with less than one percent of the vote. It all depends on the way the voter uses their preferences. Too many simply follow the “How to Vote Card” particularly in the Senate. In this coming election each state will have to choose six Senators so the opportunity exists to be very particular about your choice. There are some very good Senators in the Coalition, Jim Molan and Matt Canavan for example who I believe deserve to be there but others are up for grabs. It would be easy enough to put nine or ten “Freedom Party” Senators into the Upper House which, if they voted as a block on the critical items, could provide a brake on the ridiculous and a boon for the better proposals like nuclear power for example.
120
Further to my above. Now is the time for us, why not us?, to nominate the current Senators in our states that do either nothing worthwhile or do negative things. There are LINOs who are anything but conservative and could be replaced by a Liberal Democrat with a vision. I do not believe the ALP/Green coalition has any worthwhile contribution to make and since they always vote along party lines would vote against nuclear, coal and gas while there are some Coalition members who would vote for it if they were given a shove. Whatever we do it can not be just more of the same.
130
Laurie
I’m a candidate for the Liberal Democrats for the seat of Goldstein where the electorate will be particularly focussed on energy policy . We have a freedom manifesto of 10 policies I will probably concentrate on energy as we are the only one who supports removing the ban on nuclear. We also support no net zero target , no RET and no subsidies.
https://www.ldp.org.au/cheap_energy . Hopefully I have just linked our policy so you can look at it.
Whilst I have no great expectation of winning the seat which has been a blue ribbon liberal seat now held by Tim Wilson. I hope that being an advocate for our energy policy will help get us a senate seat where David Limbrick who is a member of the Victorian parliament is moving into Federal politics . David has had a very high profile mainly cause of his opposition to vaccine mandates and passports.
40
That is a great flick. I am going to follow his advice!
John
40
That is brilliant, I reckoned we need a tail to wag the dog with and this is the simple way to use the existing system to do it,
60
All you can do is guarantee Albo. You get what you deserve.
210
After Palmer’s stunt with Gore some years ago I’m not convinced to vote for his UAP. Kelly seems OK but appears to take on all sorts of weird and wonderful things. PHON seems to bleed a lot of preferences to the Labor party. Liberal Democrats?
60
Immodest 3. A new daily record.
00
The electorate, at least 3,000,000 , more would be better, need to stay home & not vote at all. That sort of message would shake the establishment to its core. Maybe wake them up.
Good luck imposing& collecting fines!
If only !
00
Dominion might have the answer to that.
10
A lot of Australians are busy working, looking after families and trying to balance a budget. They don’t have time to sit on blogs or look through alternative new sources. They do the best they can with the information given to them. The problem esssentially is the the information is poor and the information carriers aren’t doing their jobs.
50
The “information carriers” are indeed doing their “jobs”, exactly as expected
That this is deliberately to the detriment of REAL PEOPLE is INTENDED.
“Churnalists” take their self-appointed role as “opinion shapers” VERY seriously.
00
I think that is because there isn’t anyone with a technical background among them hence the stupidity they get up to. Also I doubt there are any real technical people working for those that advise the government so don’t expect any changes soon.
220
In the last WA state election my local candidate bragged that they would build an aluminium refinery powered by wind. Every engineer I’ve mentioned this to laughs their head off.
How many journalists are ignorant enough to actually believe renewables are cheaper!?!
380
Answer is most of them of course.
210
If all Watts are born equal, they are, but they aren’t. Dispatchable Watts are at a big premium when they are NEEDED.
100
I think our language needs to change.
Calling these people “idiots” or “clueless” suggests that they merely stupid and are making avoidable mistakes.
Sorry, these people are actually hyper-smart, and they are intent on unfurling their world-changing ideas.
192
The last coal generators are being ‘used’ to prop up the unreliable power dumped into the grid, they are paid a token to stabilise the voltage, frequency and more.
No wonder they are not making a profit, they are just being used to ‘enable’ a bad idea.
160
When it comes to “churnalists”, experts and “white knights,
NEVER ascribe to stupidity what is ALWAYS MALICE.
You may just live better, longer; ditto your offspring.
80
The biggest problem are western leaders who can be bought relatively cheap. There are Billions and in some cases Trillions of dollars in play. With Billions and trillions at stake the players are not about to let a few with integrity ruin it for them. The players are not going to let elections happen without guaranteed outcomes. There has only really been one or two western leaders who could not be bought come to the fore in recent years, and for that reason they had to go.
151
However, there has to be a name on the piece of legislation or regulation that changed the system to favour green electrons (I like this term) over all others. I suspect the ghost has his hand on this pen.
30
Idiots with $Billions are insulated from reality.
50
The economics of coal-fired generators are all to do with capacity utilisation.
Looking an anero.id for February, the NSW plant capacity factors oscillate daily from 40% to 75%, forced to curtail output every day due to solar and the variability of wind.
Solar has a capacity factor of about 20%, and wind 30%, but their variability imposes on the rest of the generators.
Some key issues need to be addressed.
Last night at 7pm, the AEMO grid provided 26,300 MW to keep the lights on. Solar provided 1.3%, wind 10.9%, hydro 11.4%, batteries 0.1%, gas 15.8%, and coal 60.4% or 15,900 MW.
Now can anyone please explain how coal-based generation of 1,300 MW from Eraring, 350 MW from Liddell, 1,350 MW from Bayswater, 1,100 MW from Vales Point, 2,800 MW from Loy Yang, and 950 MW from Yallourn can be replaced with wind by say 2030? That’s a total of 7,850 MW to be removed in NSW and Vic, ignoring the Qld coal generators.
If that was to be replaced with wind generators, at an average 30% capacity factor, new wind generation capacity required would be 26,000 MW. That compares to current wind installed capacity of 8,600 MW that delivers on average 2,600 MW, and on occasion less than 1,000 MW.
An efficient grid used to have peaking gas stations and hydro with base load coal stations.
650
It’s exasperating to tell people that they will have no power at this rate – or what power is available will cost the heavens. When the grid was supplied almost entirely by coal-fired stations we had abundant cheap energy. That changed with privatisation. You will pay more was the union slogan. Too right.
310
You missed the bleeding obvious. Whilst the windmills can produce at 30% average production, there are times when they produce zero. Nothing, not a cracker. How many windmills would you need to build, when there is no wind, to replace reliable cola power?
Why does everybody fall back to the 30% average when the elephant in the room is the days without wind?
221
Maybe reliable but the menthos aren’t free and there is a giant carbon dioxide footprint.
08
What’s so bad about that?
Carbon Dioxide is plant food — it’s good for the harvest.
100
But did they move the elephant?
12
The Greens lawfared Redbank out of business.
It’s “currently awaiting a restart of operations…” (Wiki).
200
Thanks Ted1. Sigh. I had not kept up. But for the purposes of showing how cheap electricity can be Redbank still stands. I think it was only a 150MW capacity. A little baby generator, yet it could still manage 8c/kWh for a deal which was 20MW. Imagine the economies of scale on big generators that are well maintained.
70
Jo, all the coal plants sell for 8c/kwhr on the ameo grid (it would be 3-4c without RET).
The reason we pay 26c is two fold:
-To pay all the gold plated transmission, distribution, retail, etc.
-The grid is socialised though power prices. Instead of paying 8c/kwhour plus a daily fee for the connection (for transmission/distribution maintenance and payback it would be around $5 to $10 per day per user connection), instead we over pay for power (26c) in exchange for a cheap daily connection charge ($1/day),
This was deliberately done so that low power users are subsided by high power users to try and cheapen the bills for those that need a little power from the insanely expensive grid.
The truth is for a free market in Australia power would be at about 4c/kwhour and then you would be paying over $10 a day to connect to ameo grid, who would of course be instantly under cut by competitive alternatives.
10
That, of course is Gillard’s “excuse” for high power prices.
Anyone here think their service is “gold plated”? Mine was once when I was surrounded by shopping centres and a Commonwealth call-centre just down the road. Now I’m in the ‘burbs any outage lasts hours.
10
There’s a good background about Redbank at Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbank_Power_Station?wprov=sfla1
I don’t understand the green claim that it produced too much CO2. If coal is fully combusted it will produce a certain amount of CO2 according to the specific energy content of the type of coal. Nothing can change that. So I am wondering what the lawfare claim was about?
20
Been said a thousand times, but the only thing that windmills and solar panels generate on a consistent basis is subsidies. At this moment in Alberta, wind is generating 29 MW out of installed capacity of 2269 MW (1.3 %) while solar is contributing 77 MW out of installed capacity of 777 MW (9.9 %). It’s the middle of the day here. He may be a billionaire but he is clearly unable to do simple math.
630
How do you think such people become rich? It’s because of the subsidies and the CAGW scam. His maths is top notch.
500
Thank You Thank You Thank You
Jo and the other contributors.
Absolutely Undoubtedly Assuredly Brilliant.
A short, easily digestible rundown on many aspects of our modern Weirded-Up society.
Immediately post World War two we lived in the Real World.
That time of reality lasted a short twenty years before the blood suckers began to drain and enslave us
and now, as David M suggested recently,
the time has come when we must acknowledge that we face disaster Now, Today, Immediately.
We must confront those who are leading us to our doom through the inappropriate application of modern Faerey Tale Green Dream Pseudo Science.
If we can’t learn from this outline of the 42 year old MCB’s “otherworldly” life then we are doomed.
:
The espoused Green Solution to a non existent problem is the ultimate contradiction of everything that is claimed; and surely, that is the ultimate insult to all decent hard working people.
KK
420
“Time of reality” = twenty years.
I was there to see it.
Born in 1944 I grew up in a society which set a very high value on personal freedom.
It took just twenty years for a new line of thinking to appear, where the primary concern became not so much that “I” be free, but that nobody else should be more free than it suits me to be today.
For some time now this has been the prevailing sentiment.
280
David’s comments.
“This is everything rational thinkers have been warning about the Left for decades and the nightmare is all coming to fruition in Canada right now.”
It’s here; our moment of truth.
A new level of pushback is needed right Now.
130
Warren Buffet is one of the largest wind farm owners in the world. A few years ago he admitted frankly that without tax credits and subsidies wind farms make no economic sense.
520
Indeed he did!
170
These are not Buffett’s comments about taxpayer subsidies of some years ago but he reiterates them here in this recent video.
https://youtu.be/bIqeoDnf-2U
For him, it’s about harvesting tax credits.
20
The message often neglected is that all Western governments are hell bent on reducing our emissions to zero. We all know that’s not possible unless we go fully nuclear, which would take decades. In the meantime we are shutting down our coal fired power stations one by one. Then there is the elephant in the room whereby other countries are building in total hundreds of new coal fired power stations as we speak. So, closing down all our coal fired power stations will in reality achieve nothing other than destroy our economy and send us begging to perhaps China to assist us, who will only build coal fired power stations anyway as that’s the obvious thing to do given our rich supply of high quality coal. Now, if the Australian public really wanted to stop this madness then DON”T VOTE FOR THE MAJORS! It’s that simple. If anyone still doesn’t get it and still complains about the madness but still votes for the very same polices that drives that madness, then I’m sorry but we deserve the governments we have and we need to stop complaining. We put them there.
590
People really need to read some simple stuff:-
“The World Is Not Going To Halve Carbon Emissions By 2030, So Now What?” – Roger Pielke
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/10/27/the-world-is-not-going-to-reduce-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-50-by-2030-now-what/?sh=29aef6d33794
“Net-Zero CO2 Emissions By 2050 Requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/09/30/net-zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-2050-requires-a-new-nuclear-power-plant-every-day/?sh=6211252a35f7
320
It’s not really about climate change (nor the virus). It’s all about Western governments trying to take over our lives such that we don’t have a say any more in what they do (we are almost there anyway given so many voters are still asleep in spite of what’s been happening of late, such the truckers protests – thanks partly due to the MSM). In other words an Orwellian like future. Even if and when climate change becomes a non issue one day, they will have come up with something else to try and achieve their goal. It’s actually already started with the Russia-Ukraine misdirection. It’s a great diversion for leaders like Biden to take people’s mind away from reality.
480
Its not Western Governments, its the °Global Preditors°.
Covid-19 and the Global Preditors: we are the prey, Peter Breggin & Ginger Ross Breggin
110
OK, but the Western governments as I stated many times before are their puppets. We can break that nexus by voting accordingly. Will we though? We shall see in our next federal election.
90
I think that you will find that Klaus Schwab is directing precedings here and abroad.He has been working on this (along with the UN)for quite some time it seems.
110
So, with due consideration for the preferential voting system we are stuck with and related two-party preferred unofficial system of selecting a government how could voting for minor parties be useful? We end up with either a Liberal National Coalition or a Union controlled Labor government, or an alliance is possible as in 2010 when Gillard Labor recruited alliance partners and formed a minority government, with their Greens comrades an essential Senate link.
In January 2022 polling support was 1% for Palmer Party and 3% for Hanson Party, 7% for the Greens. At the 2019 Federal Election the Greens helped Labor to win 15 seats on preferences, the difficult to understand trickle dow lottery that often results in a candidate with the most primary votes losing.
Regardless of how we feel about the two parties seeking government in my opinion the Union controlled Labor with Union funded Greens is our worst possibility.
Voters also need to realise that character assassination and smearing of political opponents is a a globalist and Labor specialty, notably the PM (and remember PM Abbott under attack as Christopher Monckton warned Australians about before PM Abbott was replaced as PM).
For example, PM Morrison and Cabinet are never given credit for stopping Australia from donating to “UN green funds” beginning from 2019. For trying to have new power stations built – gas fired for VIC, QLD and NSW with the NSW generator finally State system approved a month ago for the Hunter Valley. A coal fired power station the federal Government has offered to underwrite is still not processed by the QLD Government. There are many examples.
Glasgow Conference COP26, Australia refused to ban coal mining, refused to increase the Paris Agreement emissions target and would not commit to net zero emissions by 2015, the PM said Australia will have “an aspirational goal” and if achieved by new technology and without damaging the economy in the process.
With 26 million population and just over 2 per cent of the Global economy, with export trade of vital importance to our economic prosperity, with defence reliant on allies including UK and US that tried to force our PM to commit to the above COP26 items, the Australian Government must manoeuvre cautiously, be diplomatic and stand firm where possible ….. another example telling the WEF Davos Conference by video link that Australia will not adopt the WEF economics model and will continue to support businesses and free enterprise.
103
Dennis,have a look at this vidio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS3IfC-i6I
50
Again jelly34, this only pans out if the “freedom Parties” get 25-20% between them, and that accumulates and then pushes one of the two “blocs” into 3rd spot so that they have THEIR votes redistributed.
Can’t see the 25-30% happening in a lower house electorate.
13
Should be 25-30% between them.
03
No, you missed the point, MY. The deal is to be in the second spot in the three horse race. No1 and 3 hate each other so will preference each last. This is exactly how that shortarse green got into the lower house. The Liberals preferenced him over the ALP. This was a deliberate choice by the coalition because all elections previous both sides preferenced the anti-humans last. Topher’s video is sound. We just need enough like minded freedom parties to put up candidates. It matters not who gets the number 1 only that each freedom party gets 1 to 4 from as many voters as possible. In fact, there should be some sort of advertising campaign on social media explaining same as simple as possible.
40
What you are saying then is not enough voters are disgruntled with both major parties, so it’s no point bothering to vote for the minor parties. Those who think that ALP+Greens will be worse are of course right but so what? The only difference is we crash and burn somewhat sooner than under the LNP. Big deal! I rather get it over and done with if we are never to have some of the good minor parties involved in the policies of the federal government. Let’s do the real reset and start over. I hate dragging things out only to suffer a longer period of pain.
10
I recall watching a video with Monckton warning about it. I wanted to watch it again. I cannot find it anymore on youtube. Do you have any leads as to where I might find it?
00
What I can’t stand is the ridiculous notion that I can purchase 100% renewable supplied internet or groceries !
Can’t people see how stupid claims like this made nightly in TV ads are ?
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
450
It has been discussed before; mass formation psychosis. It’s so easy for it to start and keep it alive when we have major political parties pushing the same agenda on emissions reductions assisted by the MSM. The only ones that see through the nonsense and the lies are those who do their own research and visit alternative sites, such as Jo’s blog.
330
Most of the people I talk to when this topic comes up, although frowned upon as a dinner conversation, do not wish to look at detail. Too difficult for them so it is a short discussion. It’s easier to change topic and discuss the latest soap opera or fashion trend.
Perhaps this is the result of years of woke education – feelings are more important than maths, logic thinking, looking at both (or more) sides, science, etc.
Why is it that opting for ‘green’ electricity on just about every power plan I have seen costs more if renewables are cheaper?
180
If ‘unreliables’ had to meet the same criteria as a coal fired station ie, power into the grid has to be dispatchable, of the correct voltage and frequency, then there’s no way they could be cheaper.
100
John in Oz, maybe you could set up the conversation to have your power switch turned off during dinner and then loudly complain on your choice of only 100% renewable power for your home. Damned smart meter makes the choice for you 🙂
20
Recently the MCG announced that it would be the first stadium in the world to be powered by 100% renewable energy. BS. Cut the ground from the Grid and see how they go playing a night game of footy on renewable lighting.
130
Yes, it’s total BS.
50
Its a sleight of hand, this story from 2017 gives a glimpse of the tactics.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-households-to-help-power-melbourne-stadium-in-new-pilot-64081/
10
Rosco. There are so many issues driving voter decisions that this one might just go through without any thought at all….
Be wary of asserting the masses are unable to know BS when they look closely. Example: when masks were dropped in NSW (15th Decewmber-22nd December) at least 60% stopped wearing them immediately, which indicates they were not afraid of Covid19 at all. When ordered to put them back on, most did…rather than be fined, not because they believed the BS.
As for renewables, what property owner installing panels doesn’t know they only work with subsidies? They already get it….as do the wind and solar farm developers.
BTW: Here’s a typical website making it very clear that subsidies are the go…https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/consumers/buying-solar/government-programs#:~:text=There%20are%20federal%20and%20state,and%20installing%20a%20solar%20system.&text=You%20can%20search%20for%20federal,Federal%20Government's%20energy%20rebates%20webpage.
20
During the Tokyo olympics last year Coles supermarkets were big on their Clean energy goals etc. Their ads featured solar panels and wind turbines. The usual stuff. Except that the vision of both showed the solar panels in the dark and wind turbines with motionless blades. Which pretty well sums up the whole false renewable energy story.
90
If the premise that what western governments intend is that western civilization will continue to in some way resemble what we have had, then their actions are plain insane and illogical. So it does appear on multiple fronts that what western governments really do intend is to crash western civilization as we know it. I think Jo’s motto up top is a prescient one “A perfectly good civilization is going to waste…” Take away electricity and the internal combustion engine and the result is piles of dead people – simples.
390
Your point has been raised by so many over the past few years, and is an accurate one. The question then is who are our real enemies? China, Russia or our own governments? Putin isn’t the nicest of people but I trust him more than any of the current crop of Western leaders some of whom are hell bent on outdoing China on the tyrannical front.
291
I call them The Gnomes of Oxbridge.
The Gnomes of Oxbridge issue a proclamation, (e.g. “Stop eating meat”,) the Pixies of The Press run with it, and the Sheeple in governments enshrine it in legislation.
80
That is the plain truth, Jane.
Green energy, pushed by Big Business and rewarded by Big Government, is Corporatism, otherwise known as economic fascism, and its intention is the destruction of our civilization.
211
If only it were Western civilization.
These people believe that humankind itself is an abomination.
And that purification is required.
It is an apocalyptic religion.
Barely steps from requiring sacrifice.
110
“the result is piles of dead people – simples.”
Isn’t that what the ‘elites’ want, to eliminate half the population, why not the unproductive half.
50
As we speak, wind and solar are generating 4% of the demand in Queensland. Coal and Gas are generating 91% of the demand. Has Mr Cannon-Brookes ever looked at the AEMO dashboard? Who is he getting his advice from?
Clearly he has no idea how an electricity grid works.
430
I wish Cannon-Brookes would just go away and spend his enormous wealth on play things. Why do these people have to intrude on our lives and ” save ” us ?
We seem to have a conga line of wealthy idiots…Turnbull, Cannon-Brookes, Rudd….to name a few, that simply cannot mind their own business !
420
I wish he would go have a bath then a haircut and a shave, he irritates me no end.
100
There is a sort of improvement. Years ago he looked a right dag, now he looks trendy. Still, I reckon he might be carrying a few invertebrate hitchhikers
10
Why do these people have to intrude on our lives and ” save ” us? I think it’s guilt at how they have acquired their wealth in most cases. The woke posturing makes them feel better about themselves, their cars, mansions and frequent plane flights. The rich fools pushing this nonsense dont suffer the consequences of course. Purchasing a massive diesel generator for them would be like your average joe purchasing a smartie.
70
They have satisfied all their other needs and have found life rather pointless. To feel good about themselves they need to save the planet/the opressed/endangered species, it really doesnt matter as long as it looks good.
As the have money earnt in a certain field, they feel this annoints them with a high level of general intelligence that means the can talk down to the masses.
40
Cannon-Brookes does not need advice, he has no need of engineering or scientific principles, he has something better- image. Look again at the photo profiles, he has modeled an image on the work of the classic Renaissance painters in portraying Jesus, he is a savior.
00
He plugs it from his own fundamental orifice!
00
Yes. Yes. Yes.
But the government doesn’t trust the people. They know a free market won’t work because even people who say they believe CO2 is harmful will still opt for cheaper electricity.
True enough. The thing is that there is a free market worldwide. Each country is free to choose. And a little news for our government: even countries that say they believe CO2 is harmful might still opt for cheaper electricity. China makes Australia’s actions (and Britain’s, etc.) futile and foolish.
If we really believe in the dire CO2 problem, we should declare war on China to convince them to stop burning coal.
It might take a little while to prepare for that, so let’s have a free market for ourselves while we work out how strongly we believe.
180
I think
Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate emergencyetc. is just a cult with brainwashed followers. Endless repetitions of the mantra Carbon cause warming, renewables are cheap, we must change our way of life etc. They are worse than the Hari Krishnas, the Moonies and Kevin Rudd all rolled into one.Cannon-Brookes sees the opportunity to be their treasurer (until there is an audit).
240
Yes Graeme 3 I also think it is just more idiocy and even the CHIEF alarmist Dr Hansen agreed that Paris COP 25 was just more BS and fra-d and he and his greedy mate Al Gore actually started this nonsense in 1988.
Of course he was correct and 2015 Paris co2 levels were 400 ppm and yet increased to about 414 ppm for Glasgow 2021. That’s an increase of about 2.3+ ppm per year.
101
If the MSM were doing their job properly they could make this latest crazy billionaire look foolish.
But who cares if we’re wrecking our energy grid or how much it costs the poor and elderly every month?
Even a very small hybrid generator like King Island can only achieve about 60+% S & W generation over 12 months.
And the extreme unreliability of that type of mixed power supply would be a killer if tried across a big city or a country.
BTW Matt Ridley has another interesting article this month about the benefits of global warming and here’s a quote and the link.
https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/how-global-warming-can-be-good/
“My article for Spiked”:
“Global warming is real. It is also – so far – mostly beneficial. This startling fact is kept from the public by a determined effort on the part of alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency. The goal of Net Zero emissions in the UK by 2050 is controversial enough as a policy because of the pain it is causing. But what if that pain is all to prevent something that is not doing net harm?
The biggest benefit of emissions is global greening, the increase year after year of green vegetation on the land surface of the planet. Forests grow more thickly, grasslands more richly and scrub more rapidly. This has been measured using satellites and on-the-ground recording of plant-growth rates. It is happening in all habitats, from tundra to rainforest. In the four decades since 1982, as Bjorn Lomborg points out, NASA data show that global greening has added 618,000 square kilometres of extra green leaves each year, equivalent to three Great Britains. You read that right: every year there’s more greenery on the planet to the extent of three Britains. I bet Greta Thunberg did not tell you that”. END of quote.
201
Plant food mkay?
70
Do you remember the scene in the Schwarzenegger movie “Total Recall” about the people begging for air on a Mars settlement?
https://youtu.be/X8lT-Sn-HqE
Australians begging for electricity is like that.
110
Is he stupid or just wants to wreck us?
Scum rises to the top.
160
I would be happy to run off solar and forget paying the energy companies.
The problem is simply one of decent batteries that won’t break the bank.
I watched this last week:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GD7ZJESjHDA
Storedot is now teaming up with Vietnam’s Vinfast EV manufacturer to supply batteries.
The really interesting fact is their VFC nature as they can go from flat to full in mere minutes. More like supercaps!
Forget EV’s – the residential energy market needs them more.
Only 10 minutes of sun? No problem. Your battery is charged.
16
John I had a look at the video and all very slick,but I wonder about the cost and the 5 minute charging time for the batteries.
The $ invested so far are tiny,but we’ll just have to wait and see if they’re really powering cars big time by 2025 and the initial cost, reliability, TOXICITY, changeover costs, etc.
So far it all seems too good to be true. Who knows?
80
Rick Will has written quite a lot about solar and batteries.
He says an off grid system can be made at a modest cost if you have a petrol generator backup for the cloudy months.
80
Having seen videos of lithium batteries go up, if I ever looked at installing a battery, it would be lead acid only.
Ive built a DIY electric scooter , and despite using off the shelf commerical batteries in proper e-bike rated enclosures, will never ever park it inside a commercial building, in case the batteries go up. Outdoors only. Now ponder having a monster lithium incendary device bolted to your house….no thanks.
If youve ever seen video of a electric car go up, they just drop them into a water filled dumpster and let them burn for 3-5 days.
100
John connor II,
Even if the claims for the battery are all true, there’s still a big problem: where’s this solar power coming from?
Say your house uses a fairly modest 20kWh per day, packing that in in 10 minutes requires 20 × 60 ÷ 10 = 120 kW of power over that ten minutes. A quick Google shows that 120 kW of solar panels require 8,600 sq ft: that’s a square about 92 ft per side, or 28m per side. That’s quite an investment in material and space for some godforsaken place that only gets 10 minutes of sun per day (I’m thinking Manchester).
00
“Only 10 minutes of sun? No problem. Your battery is charged.” Presuming that you have 10 acres of panels and some sort of super regulator.
00
?
00
Batteries will never be the answer. They simply can’t store enough power for long enough.
20
O.T. corrupt big pharma for 30 years, says Kingston https://balance10.blogspot.com/2022/02/corrupt-big-pharma-for-30-years-says.html
30
Putin delivered a speech denying Ukraine’s right to sovereignty and nationhood
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2022/02/putin-delivered-speech-denying-ukraines.html
00
The Left keep telling us that wind and solar is cheaper than coal, despite the obvious fact that Australia has gone from some of the world’s cheapest electricity to the most expensive due to Australia’s fanatical commitment to the unreliables (which appears to be getting even more fanatical).
So, as more and more coal power stations are shut down and immediately demolished to be supposedly replaced by wind and solar installations, why isn’t there a continual drop in prices?
And why haven”t any “journalists” asked this simple question?
190
How many times do I have to point out it’s not just the left. The LNP has announced for some time now that we must reach zero emissions by 2050 (or some other rubbery date). Of course one could argue that the LNP has shifted to the left as well, and one would not be wrong. What’s puzzling is as you say how come the [MSM] “journalists” haven’t asked that simple question? Well, the answer is fairly obvious. The MSM are also of the left. I actually like to see the “left” defined more clearly for our discussions. It’s not accurate to say it’s communism albeit many do favour it. After all, China is lead by the CCP and yet they are building a large number of coal fired power stations. Also, some would say China is no longer a communist country but more of a fascist one but as was discussed before, it’s really much the same thing in the end. I prefer to call the “left” a special bread of Westerners who are against the traditional old values of the West that it was founded on, and pro-authoritarianism, be it of any nature such that libertarianism is crushed to oblivion. That would be a better description of both our major parties.
170
Importantly, coal is still king.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/22/record-coal-demotes-net-zero/
‘I actually like to see the “left” defined more clearly for our discussions.’
Yes sir, I’m a utopian socialist and we are lumped in with the left, but its inaccurate.
40
Yes, once upon a time, I would have rated the LNP as being slightly centre right. In the last 10 years they now rate ( in my mind ) slightly centre left -with a tail wind !! Which is why now, I will not be voting for any of the major political parties. Mind you, I’m not in a good frame of mind today. Yesterday I listened to Joe Rogan podcast with Maajid Nawaz and I’m feeling a little uneasy about everything government. Our people’s representatives have been penetrated, infiltrated, coerced, bribed and basically grifted their way into power.
100
David correct again and I’m sure there are many more questions like yours that we haven’t thought of yet.
That’s why I’ve repeatedly compared Human well being and life expectancy, wealth etc, since we started to use FOSSIL FUELS.
Why did we rapidly overcome the under 40 years life exp that was the norm for the previous 200,000 years?
How has poor Africa increased their population by 1 billion more people since 1970 and today their life exp is about 64? Yet in 1970 their 363 million pop had a life exp of about 46 years.
Yet L W loonies told us at Glasgow that we’re facing an EXISTENTIAL THREAT or climate crisis. And people actually believe this lunacy.
141
Do you think any of the Elites that promote windmills and solar farms ever worry about their electricity bills? NEVER!
Do you think normal working people with a mortgage or rent to pay worry about their electricity bills? ALL THE TIME!
And yet the Left pretend to stand for the latter and not the former, but as is the nature of evil, the reality is that the opposite is true.
210
And yet the
Leftmajor parties pretend to stand for the latter and not the former, but as is the nature of evil, the reality is that the opposite is true.Fixed it for you to be more accurate.
70
And yet the “normal” people keep voting for these idiots. Aussies are not as smart as some people give them credit for and this is more lucky than people would like to admit it seems. Sometimes look like prosperity is despite the population and the leaders efforts and not thanks to it.
90
Its more than most people have never had the downside explained to them. The media are lefties and appear to promote energy fuedalism ( by stealth ) and most people have no idea of the engineering or cost down side.
Its all puppy dogs and unicorn farts, not ugly energy Stockholm Syndrome that the left are pushing by stealth.
80
Thanks Rupert. I’m tiring of a couple or so here who keep prodding me to answer the question what we should do about it when the answer is so obvious. It’s such a simple solution to stop the rot. I suppose things have to get a lot worse before enough people wake up and see the solution is staring in front of their noses even though it only happens at every election time. It’s called the ballot paper. It is sometimes said the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, in this situation the pencil is mightier than the sword, although a pen is allowed to number the boxes.
30
Ways to change society:
The soap box
The ballot box
The ammo box
Please use carefully and in that order.
90
Nice and succinct. Ways not to change society and let it decline to oblivion:
Vote for the same old major parties.
Vote for the same old major parties.
Vote for the same old major parties.
20
Yeah, the commies will fix it.
11
It seems unlikely that Mike Cannon-Brookes could possibly run AGL into the ground more effectively than current AGL management.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/AGL:ASX?window=5Y
Their share price has been trending down for years, their revenue has shrunk since 2019 despite their core product (gas) going up in price and their secondary product (electricity) also going up in price. They actually managed to make a loss in 2021.
Now that Cannon-Brookes has openly attempted a “friendly” takeover he still has the option to declare a hostile takeover bid … and if he is patient IMHO he could probably get control of the thing at a share price significantly lower than current price. The AGL shareholders have nothing good to look forward to on the current trajectory.
170
Everything you have said also applies to Origin Energy as well. Lack lustre performance, sluggish share price, poor dividend payouts.
90
I saw that and would be interested to know how AGL have managed to un-create so much wealth. What is it that — despite all the subsidies — is losing so much money?
I don’t have time to do an analysis on the AGL bottom line but I would be interested if anyone finds one.
60
I do not claim to know the answer to that question, but one place might be worth having a look, is TILT Renew-balls which was an ASX listed company that did very well indeed from 2018 up until EOFY 2021, during which time the share price quadrupled.
https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/how-we-source-energy/tilt-renewables
While AGL share price was nosediving, their innovative financing initiative was going great guns. Although the share price was rising, as far as I can discover it never paid any dividends to any of the shareholders, but you can do that when you mention “innovative” three times every morning before breakfast.
But were did this excitement machine finally end up?
During 2021, the NZ assets of TILT were sold to Mercury NZ, while in Australia there was an acquisition of TILT Renewables by “PowAR” … which is also known as “Powering Australia Renewables” and is yet another innovative accounting vehicle ,,, with initial funding from AGL, QIC Global Infrastructure Fund, and the Future Fund. That’s 80% government money, along with 20% from AGL.
Confused yet?
TILT is now gone from the ASX ,,, someone made 4x their investment while it was listed, and the assets ended up mostly government owned.
Not saying what it means, but sounds kinda interesting.
20
I reckon don’t look at the share price so much as for all the friends of friends getting consulting and avdisory roles.
10
I wonder how well that would have gone to hardening the grid and building decent infrastructure for the future?
Do the power companies still get to double-dip for infrastructure? A while back they were getting money from the Govt to keep up on infrastructure maintenance and investment PLUS they got to add to our bills for the exact same reason.
I bet nobody addressed that – those $$ get swamped by the spot pricing that is costing us so much every time a cloud goes over.
And to answer someone above – I don’t think they are all idiots – or if they are, the people behind them calling the beat are not.
No matter how I try to NOT be a conspiracy guy, I keep seeing more and more evidence that there is a long term plan being enacted against us, one that goes back more than a century. A key moment was the US allowing the European bankers back into the country in the form of the private banking cartel called The Fed.
But I’m pretty sure it began before that – The Fed and it’s ability to trigger recessions (there were 2 before 1929) and take over the smaller independent banks changed tha face of world finance and the growth of the US because of the wars the banksters fostered meant they had control of the powerhouse of the 20th century.
My only puzzle is, what kind of threat or promise can the hidden masters give to psychopaths to ahve them enact plans that the psychopaths will not see come to fruition? Can psychopaths really accept playing 2nd (or 100th) fiddle to other psychopaths?
80
wow. [Snip. Baiting.. wow indeed]
ED
311
wow
25
There’s a lot of snipping going on today.
40
OK, I’ll say the the obvious. If Australia has people like this guy effectively wanting to wreck the Australian economy, the Government should nationalise the coal fired power stations to protect the economy.
I know it is totally against the normal thinking of most readers on here and it is against my way of thinking from an economic view point but drastic measures are sometimes needed.
190
Ross, i have previously said exactly the same..
The Federal gov should dictate the shutdown dates , and ongoing performance expectations of ALL the Coal and Gas plants.
Any operations that do not adhere will be penalised and forfeit the facilities ( and any Wind , solar farms) to Govmt (public) ownership and control.
The Electricity Market is too open to exploitation by unscrupulous operators.
Same for Water suppliers.
100
Absolutely! The should never have sold them in the first place and for once I agree with the unions on this, they wanted to keep control of the grid in NSW but Mike Baird sold it – and us down the line.
90
I think AGL should announce that in 6 months (or some similar timeframe), they will need to do 1 month of planned maintenance on Loy Yang, and shut it down. Then, see what happens, both before the shutdown, and during.
Of course, this would never happen, because AGL dont care where the money comes from as long as they get it, and such a demonstration would not be profitable.
130
Why not? Enron turned a nice profit withholding supply.
What Enron did was considered illegal in the US of A but quite legal here, for AGL.
90
It IS very profitable if you have more than one power station, you shut one down, then reap the big $$$ from the other one(s) when the bidding hits the ceiling of $15,000 MWH.
40
Even better – if you can show that shutting one down will crash the system, while claiming it is not economical to keep up the maintenance, then the pollies may decide to subsidise your required rebuild. All the gains, no outlay – perfect!
30
Anybody knows what Cannon-Brookes currently has his billions invested in by chance?:-) I have a feeling I know but would like confirmation… This guy is just another IT geek that luckily got a few billion and now he thinks he knows everything about economics and the world.
190
Where does Simon Holmes à Court fit into this, and why was Robert so controversial? I have simply forgotten about him.
40
He fits in for sure, his Climate200 not political party collective of independent candidates targeting only Liberal and National MPs is an attempt to put puppets in Parliament to try and influence climate hoax based decisions in favour of the Climate200 backers.
80
Good comment by Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie last night on SKY suggested Mr. Cannon Brookes should go to China if he wanted to buy a coal fired power station .
201
If this clown MCB gets his lily white hands on AGL, in spite of what he spruiks, he won’t shut down Eraring, he will continue to run it into the ground and make something from it, then throw up his hands and say he needs help ($$$$$) to decommission it, paid for by the NSW consumer.
It will be a disaster, it seems the only sensible way forward is if the AGLs won’t commit to keep the plant maintained and running until such time as the grid can stand alone, then the NSW govt should legislate to ‘adopt’ the orphans of the electricity industry and give them a home for a few decades.
80
We’ll also won’t need those unsightly power lines. Our electricity will be delivered to us by drones.
140
“We’ll also won’t need those unsightly power lines. Our electricity will be delivered to us by
dronesstage coach.”FIFY
80
I laughed Sean!
30
Before our betters decided we needed to set out on this journey of ridiculosity, we didn’t need giant batteries, or Snowy 2s, or extra interstate connectors, or rainforest bulldozed to build windfarms, did we.
90
It’s not too long ago the majority of Aussies would have not known what a power grid was or how power was generated. They had seen pictures of power stations, maybe with a caption about the smoke. They paid their bill and got on with life.
Thinking about what I just typed they are not really better informed today, except that they whinge about the bill.
10
I had thought it was all dead after Climategate. CRU was toast. How could anyone read the emails and the “Harry read_me” files and still buy anything those people said?
Apparently few people read those things.
131
It’s apparent that few people read them well.
37
It’s apparent that few people
readmassaged them well.70
The gist is that they were trying to cool the past to warm the present, which is untenable.
160
Doubtful that Gee Aye knew how to read them differently until he got a cheat sheet.
40
Basically, no one in government is interested in cheap power anymore or having viable industries to flourish. It’s all been rigged. So, in addition to our health politicians and bureaucrats masquerading as vaccine salespeople, they are also sales reps for green energy and high electricity prices. We are governed by complete nincompoops.
120
Then stop voting for them if you haven’t already. It’s so simple. It’s also easy – with a pencil. No protests or weapons required.
20
Peter, all the things you are promoting will just get us a labor govt, a hundred times worse than what we’ve already got.
61
Not so sure about that. I think I can direct my preferences on election day to favour some of those minor parties. Certainly put any sitting member last in preferences would be a start.
40
That’s only if voters by and large don’t think before voting. We’ve been through it before as to how we can at least have a good go at cleaning up the mess in government. In case you haven’t seen it, here it is thanks to jelly34: https://joannenova.com.au/2022/02/privacy-dissidents-get-doxxed-and-abused-but-supporters-of-the-state-can-hide-away/#comment-2521198
If people prefer to stick with the current majors holding hte balance of power at state and federal levels then we just have to suffer a lot more until the message gets through to the voting public.
30
You really DO want the commies elected don’t you?
How quickly we have forgotten the R/G/R years. I haven’t and am still thankful for the brief Abbott g’ment. He did indeed STOP THE BOATS and AXE THE TAX. But that wasn’t good enough for you, you didn’t like the cut of his jib, or something. Anyhow you ALLOWED him to be assassinated by the worst liberal leader and no one mourns his passing. You allowed it to happen, suck on it.
You guys whinge about the quality of leaders. What do you expect? The two best were dumped in quick time: Abbott and Campbell Newman. Why would an honourable man open himself to this ridicule?
50
Just a little note about voting.
As an E vil Deplorable American, and victim of a ‘fortified’ election process, voting by a misled public may not help.
Miscounted votes is a distraction. A tactical feint.
I believe our election was stolen by a coordinated media/Deep State campaign.
(See infamous Time magazine article on ‘fortified’ election. They don’t even try to hide it.)
Hiding info like Hunter’s laptop and child fathering with an exotic entertainer. (Zilch curiosity from the press. We don’t even know if Joe’s unacknowledged grandchild is still alive.)
Imagine the media onslaught if this was Trump’s son.
And there’s Russiagate, a fabrication of the Clinton campaign (fact known to the FBI in 2017).
The Dem congressdemons knew this as they stood on floor of the sacred Capitol and lied.
My Uni Party Democratic state is so tightly controlled that I have very few opposition candidates to vote for.
You think Canada is gonna see anything resembling a open choice election when Trudeau is finished?
Wrong opinion, no banky.
Voting our way out of this, is like the lone movie hero punching is way out of a fight with a dozen ninjas.
A fantasy.
I would prefer to think otherwise.
And we’re up to two of Jeff’s buddies terminating in jail.
10
For individuals one of the questions worth asking is what energy choices can they make to minimize costs for reliable supply.
So what would the choices be now for reliable residential supply? Solar panels with/without battery storage? Or just a diesel backup generator?
Are there people who have done the sums for various reliability scenarios? For example to protect against grid blackouts during windless nights.
30
One thing, solar is useless without the grid, so need a battery.
40
Roof top solar is just not practical for every one.
First you eed to have he cash ,..or credit history,.. to afford it
Then you need the roofspace ..suitably oriented to suit..
And you need to be sure there are no trees close enough, now or future,.. to shade the panels especially in winter when the sun is low !
A suitable location for a battery and a back up generator for long sunless periods
You would also need to maintain, clean, and replace components as they fail.
Note… you need to be fully “off grid”. Or you solar will be shut down when the grid goes off.
Obviously few in apartments could do this..even if the costs were not excessive.
A “Utility Grid “ supply is by far the best and cheapest solution for the majority of consumers.
60
It is a complicated answer, Forrest. I’ve run the numbers several times.
1. To provide your own power generation equivalent to mains capacity and reliability will cost between $0.70 and $0.90 / kw, whether you use solar + batteries, or diesel generators, + Inverters, Storage, maintenance, transfer switches, etc. It isn’t possible if you aren’t handy with fuel storage, genny maintenance, electrical wiring, constant attention, battery maintenance, load balancing, etc.
2. Minimizing loads to bare necessities ( refrigerator, LED lights, phone chargers, modem/router, NO aircons, NO electric heaters or water heaters, no electric dryers, no electric cookstoves, etc ), you can probably get by with a 3 kW inverter generator, but it is the fuel and lube oil that will cost you. Probably about $10 / day.
3. If you are “very handy”, the optimum is a low speed diesel engine. Lister-Petter or oilfield pump jack engine type running a variable output generator into a battery bank with a set of hefty inverters, plus some means of absorbing waste heat for heating or hot water. You have to be “mechanically minded and capable” or this isn’t an option.
4. The cheapest way is to freeze jugs of water and use them as temporary refrigeration for food, use a few deep cycle batteries plus inverters to provide minimal mains power to absolute necessities via dedicated extension cords, and whatever affordable means of charging batteries that you might imagine, be it solar, tractor PTO generator, inverter gas/diesel generator, etc. It is not fun, it is exasperating, expensive, dirty, and partial at best.
The smartest thing to do is to block all wind/solar projects as possible. Perhaps get enough shareholders to buy the coal/gas plants being closed and form a private utility, sell power at peak rates, and such.
There’s no easy answer unless you like 1830 lifestyle living. That Coal/Gas/Nuke power is a bargain. Just try doing it yourself.
100
Thanks Ronin, Chad and Lance. I think this topic will grow in urgency as the electricity supply becomes less reliable.
10
If China does a sneak attack on Taiwan under cover of Ukraine, do we as a nation continue shipping energy to them as in coal, LNG and iron ore.
90
I am not promoting this website but provide the link for information purposes, in particular note that Australia, Federal Government rated worse than our State Governments for climate action (I add climate hoax).
Note near the bottom of the page net zero emissions – not mentioned is the Prime Minister’s comments that Australia has “an aspirational goal” subject to new technology and without damaging the economy.
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/australia/
10
I know you keep defending Scotty, Dennis. But now I’m thinking our dear PM doesn’t have the last say on any of this. Basically what you’re saying is that Morrison has been endlessly talking about “Net zero” for the last 6 months but in reality its only window dressing. I would rather he actually just tells the truth. I really don’t care if he gets criticised on social media or his ratings drop. I would rather he went out swinging and was actually true to himself. Because eventually you start to disbelieve everything he says.
90
Ross, Australia has been committed to reducing emissions for decades, Kyoto Conference “greenhouse gas emissions” before the climate hoax marketing department chose to focus only on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and deceptively refer to it as Cabon (C) “pollution”. The Paris Agreement signed by the Turnbull Government after the end of 2015 Paris Conference in April 2016 in New York, USA, specifically referred to CO2 reduction. The Turnbull Government rushed back to New York in November 2016 to ratify the Paris Agreement after POTUS Trump was elected and he stated that he would not support the Paris emissions reduction agenda. Unfortunately Australia, now with PM Morrison, does not have US support and POTUS Biden is a climate hoax supporter, as is the UK PM. And therefore, politically positioned, our PM has little room to manoeuvre in. So “an aspirational goal” for net zero emissions by 2050 but declining from signing a commitment was really Australia’s only fallback position.
I understand your frustration, it’s mine too, but public perception and politics rules politicians and what we think is probably not what the other half of voters think, considering that governments here succeed or lose elections by tiny margins plus or minus 50 per cent. And worse, and I refer to numerous blog commentators as evidence, and letters to editors, many or most cannot explain the areas of responsibility and powers at each of the three levels of government. For example, that when the Federal Government proposed and committed to underwrite the cost of a new coal fired power station to be constructed in NQLD the QLD Labor Government showed no enthusiasm and today have still not processed the development application and related requirements like Environmental Protection Agency approval. In fact mines, the Adani coal mine in NQLD for example, took many years to get through the State red tape requirements to gain approval before infrastructure construction added years more before coal mining began.
It’s federalism, Federation of States formed the Commonwealth of Australia and Federal Government. The former Colonial Governments retained most of their areas of responsibility and powers, and retain them today.
10
Dennis, I’m not sure why you are giving me a history lesson. Most people know those details already, including myself. Plus I’ve been driving past big ugly wind turbines now for over 20 years.
00
Currently, the only billionaires I can think of who aren’t members of the Elites’ club are Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Can you think of anyone else?
80
Maybe there are, but they stay relatively anonymous, particularly if they are in India or some of the asian countries like Indonesia , Malaysia etc. Clive Palmer – is he a billionare? I wouldn’t put him in the “elites” club, but after his Al Gore stunt I’m not so sure. I think he would like to be.
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As long as you can use the environment as a dump, coal power is attractive.
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Dump ,..for what exactly Peter ?
120
Fly ash is sold for cement making, CO2 feeds anything green, men have jobs and support families, the bricks, mortar and steel and copper used to build a power station keep working for 30 to 50 years and are all recyclable.
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Don’t feed the trolls.
70
As long as you like food poisoning, blackouts, chaos, poverty, disease, and violence, Wind and Solar can provide that for you.
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What is dumped, Peter?
All by-products from coal plant are used for something useful.
Flyash has already been mentioned but also CO2 is used to feed plants, water vapour goes into the atmosphere as part of the hydrological cycle and even gypsum as used in “Gyprock”, (US = dry wall) comes from flue gas desulphurisation systems. In many places waste heat is also used for heating. In Vicdanistan the warm Hazelwood Power Station cooling pond supported year-round boating and recreational activities and also introduced tropical fish such as barramundi and Amatitlania nigrofasciata. All the fish were murdered when the power station was shut down.
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The barra would require annual restocking. They only breed in salt water.
10
I dump very regularly.
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Acid Mine Drainage
Sulphur and Nitrogen oxides
Particulate Matter
Heavy Metals, eg mercury
Methane, Carbon dioxide
Groundwater pollution
Waste heat
just to name a few
Yes some by products are used, but it is not 100% of fly ash produced, and the laughable assertion that C02 is beneficial, why is the rise of C02 exactly equal to the amount dumped into the air.
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And mining for lithium , cobalt , copper etc etc is actually much better for the planet !
80
But for much of it you can use cheap child slave labour and keep the cost down.
51
Shows how clean green and ethical mining to finished product the renewable industry is .
As a footnote used to work in a copper/gold mine and they use some nasty chemicals .
20
Our tinning plant used a cyanide bath as prep for the wire.
When past its use by date it was dumped in the local river.
20
Gold recovery was only done when high grade deposits came through the mill , but for the most part it went to the tailings dams for extraction after the mine closed . Tailings dam became so heavily contaminated they deemed it unviable after the mine closed . I had not a lot to do with the gold recovery process but sounds similar except no river in the Tanamai desert .
20
“why is the rise of C02 exactly equal to the amount dumped into the air.” Errrr, it isn’t PF.
Fairy tales.
20
All we need do is to put the Engineers back in charge of the Electricity Grid System. Keep the “Pollies”, the Greens, “LayBore” and the Bureaucrats well out of it.
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“As long as you can use the environment as a dump, coal power is attractive.”
Wait for 15 to 20 years and see what a dump the place will be with worn out solar panels and windmills littering the landscape.
180
Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/news-releases/2020/renewables-still-the-cheapest-new-build-power-in-australia
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Also confirmed by BNEF: https://about.bnef.com/blog/scale-up-of-solar-and-wind-puts-existing-coal-gas-at-risk/
026
Check your bill.
50
So we keep getting told.
So why can’t it operate in a free market?
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Ok. now. Price in the subsidies, transmission line extensions, storage, backup power, line and distribution maintenance, frequency and reactive power and voltage compensation costs, and you might have a point.
Excluding those costs and passing them off to utility power generation is at best an “artful dodge” and at worst, deceptive lies.
Everything is simple to the willfully or practically ignorant.
Everything is cheap as long as someone else is paying the costs.
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🙂 🙂
100
applies equally to coal
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See Jo’s comment at the bottom of this;
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/02/things-are-bad-when-even-romanians-are-warning-you-that-your-leader-is-a-tyrant/#comment-2521435
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“Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.”
Then why has the cost to the consumer tripled or more since we began this illfated journey. ??
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Because it’s cheaper that’s why .
20
If you bother to read the report…not easy as it is built on abbreviations anf new terminology..
…you will find in table B 8, (assumptions) ,.. that they have costed Coal and Nuclear with a life expectancy of 30 years, with Wind and Solar at 25 yrs !
Also CF for wind is assumed at 0.44 , Solar at 0.32, whilst coal and Nuclear are only 0.80 ?
There are similar distortions of other input data
CSIRO seem to have designed their analysis to provide an outcome to meet a particular result.
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I intended to add..
The CSIRO report also included the “cost of Carbon” ,….which of course only hits coal and gas.
Why cannot they just stick to the science and technology costing, and leave the political add ons and subsidies to others. ?
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It didn’t say that at all, Simon. She said-
“solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind continue to be the cheapest new sources of electricity for any expected share of renewables in the grid ”
She did NOT say “Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.”
She just said they were cheapest for the little share of electricity generation that renewables are expected to deliver, which is easy to see.
If CSIRO had confidence in their missives, they would allow comments, just like Jo does.
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Apx Table B.8 Data assumptions for LCOE calculations
Some “interesting” assumptions needed to make them “cheaper”.
Amongst them:
* An assumed “carbon price” (leaning on the scales, as it were – and getting progressively worse) [2020: $18.10 – $30.70/t | 2030: $29.50 – $129.00/t | 2040: $48.1 – $220.30/t | 2050: $64.60 – $386.70/t] – quite a range across that lot;
* Assuming Coal and Nuclear have only 30-year economic lifecycles (more likely double) and Wind and Solar 25 years (more likely closer to half);
* Nothing factored in for decommissioning and disposal (plenty of unrecyclable toxic waste in wind and solar);
* Overly optimistic assumptions about technology capability, improvements, and cost reductions over time (mainly for battery, wind, and solar).
* Laughable capacity factors (0.22-0.32 for solar | 0.35-0.44 for Wind | 0.6-0.8 for Coal & Nuclear)
* Lip service to transmission and stability (ah yeah, we considered it but we didn’t).
But then, this was more about giving the eco-fascists a headline and some talking points to repeat ad infinitum, wasn’t it.
Then again, maybe the “models” are right. Maybe “Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation.”. So, no need for subsidies then, or regulations to hamper their competition. Let’s take the gloves off and let the market decide.
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Uuuummm – before I decide, just how sexy is the sexy electricity?
50
I haven’t read all the comments. Did anyone come up with the reasoning for needing to buy the coal power plants and shut them down to get cheap renewables? Most free markets work buy luring customers to new products. We actually have laws stopping a monopoly being created in the manner suggested and it’s never done to provide a cheap product (to buy rather than make).
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It is strange how all of these people with large amounts of money all seem to have the same agenda.
Anyone would think that they all belonged to the same club.
One also supposes that they have some intelligence but they seem strangely incapable of or unwilling to actually looking beyond the NWO scenario WRT climate nonsense. Or do they have no choice?
?”you are either with us or against us” with sudden demise being on the table.
If they can kill people in high security prisons, removing a recalcitrant billionaire would be child’s play and you could be certain that his heirs will toe the line.
90
Don’t you just wish you had Hindsight and as with Willie Doors’ GigaHard, the world didn’t subscribe to it in defference to any of the other OS’s. Whilst I appreciate the development etc, but as with this newfangled metaverse that the bbc is promoting in a negative way this now, it’s a great shame that those “clever people” have such warped brains and then go forward and turn their gains against those who fed them.
20
‘Gas giant warns of train wreck from early coal exit.
‘The nation’s largest gas distributor, APA Group, tips use of the fossil fuel to surge in the power grid as coal exits accelerate.’ (Oz)
30
Cannon-Brooks says “we have a logical plan that shows why prices would go down”
We have been hearing that for twenty years. Forget price prizes this bloke can pay for billions in spoilt food with the inevitable regular rolling blackouts.
As for Australia’s electricity grid you ain’t seen nothin yet. The “right” leaning government weakly capitulated to the misinformed masses and wishes of billionaires like Cannon-Brookes and signed up to Biden and Kerry’s net zero nonsense. No mention of nuclear energy, just delusion about so called “green” hydrogen and so far uninvented zero emissions technology.
But the level of public ignorance on electricity isn’t limited to Australia. Meanwhile China says send me your jobs and Putin says I’m not playing your game as I have Europe wrapped around my finger with Nord Stream 2.
Yes the world is ruled by idiots.
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Thankfully informed sources are now pointing out that even if so called renewables with back up could replace the coal fired power station it would take decades to achieve, to begin with locating, buying and gaining development approval would take many years.
I wonder how keen C-B would be if told there would be no taxpayer assistance, no direct subsidies for profit, no forcing power stations to adjust generating output to accommodate intermittent wind and solar energy supply as available. In other words a level playing field and all suppliers of energy get no special assistance, not even funding for feeder transmission lines from installation sites to the electricity grid.
Australian Greens are a strange mob, do they ever consider how many new coal fired power stations are being built globally, and specifically in China, and why so?
70
From the Green’s perceptive it’s not just about climate change. It’s about destroying business so that the Greens can implement a socialist system. We are already part of the way there thanks to the two major parties. If the Greens were to gain majority rule (never of course) they would just speed up the process enormously. Perhaps that’s what we need; learn the lesson the hard way ASAP to wake people up. Slow tortured can be worse in the end. So, if the ALP+Greens win the next election then perhaps they will turn off voters no end and only to allow the LNP to change back to the way it used to be, then they could win the following election so well it could end up in power for decades. I think it would be worth it.
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Can you wake up sheep?
Can you de-indoctrinate the naive braindead without doing so the collectivist way?
To break indoctrination spontaneously without being forced requires observation, intellect, curiosity, willpower and common sense. That is why apostates in a certain ideology are so rare. (yes, it IS an ideology. *llah just is the excuse)
The RC church had exactly the same problem with m*slims in reconquered Spain and that was why the inquisition and the Jesuits became bureaucratic institutions. Everything else you read about the former(J*ws, witches, heretics etc.) was only when they had accomplished their primary function and like a “good” bureaucracy who look after their own (NPWS anyone?), they found other suddenly importnat thins for which to waste money
60
Sheeps yes, goats no.
10
Dream on, Peter. I have no confidence that voters will be provided with a reasonable alternative at the next election. For a man who walked into Parliament with a lump of coal, Scomo has done an about face and is unelectable. The problem is the Coalition will have to lose the election to get Dutton as leader, then it is too late.
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I agree Peter P,
Except for;”then it is too late.”
If we can get 3 or 4 FFMP (Freedon Favouring Minor Party) candidates in the lower house and also in the Senate, then a minority Labor Government might be acceptable.
20
You don’t understand even given a few of us have explained the situation. It’s clear now why we are stuck with one or the other main party in full power until we crash and burn. Have fun while it lasts. We get the government we deserve.
10
You are not taking into consideration that State Governments owned the electricity generators and transmission line assets before they arranged privatisation, sale.
That any new wind, solar, hydro, coal or gas fired generators (power stations), whatever, require State planning approval and processing.
The Federal Government negotiated with State Government shareholders to buy the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme in recent years and then obtained State planning approval for the pumped hydro project funded by the Federal Government. They have proposed gas fired generators for VIC, NSW and QLD, four in total and so far one only passed State planning approval, NSW Hunter Valley recently approved so that construction can commence.
A new coal fired power station proposed by the Federal Government for North QLD remains in the State Goverbnent approval system despite Federal Government agreeing to underwrite finance of the new coal fired power station.
For reader’s information the original Snowy Hydro Scheme took more than ten years to be approved by the State Governments, noting that the public lands and waterways were State owned public assets.
Please check the powers and responsibilities of Federal, State and Local Councils.
The PM was making a point of course bringing a lump of coal into the Parliament, but without States agreeing to approve coal fired power stations they cannot be constructed.
10
It depends on how much wreckage the labgreens leave.
00
I am all for Cannon-Brookes doing whatever he wants with his money with two provisos:
1. He does not draw any money from the public purse; and
2. He does not diminish the reliability of the public supply of electricity.
90
May the WEM stay separate from the NEM !
However over the next few years as a retail electricity customer you would be foolish to not install PV panels with an attached battery system (assuming you can find the $$ and nominally own the property on which they will be located). Discrimination? yes
But the process will “insulate” you from the ups and downs of electricity supplied by the grid. And after ten years you would likely be paying less for the power you use.
Would this be better for the grid? Maybe not.
00
The batteries will not “insulate” them from fires. Even insurance companies might start refusing claims. No thanks, no batteries and no solar panels in my house. I rather use a backup generator.
10
You do know that if the grid goes down, it also disconnectsyour solar / battery supply as well !
20
The new systems with batteries will “island” and continue to supply power “behind the meter”. They will disconnect from the grid as a safety measure.
And the newer LiFePO4 batteries seem be be less fire prone. And therefore less restricted where they can be installed.
00
I live in a generally well off suburb. A few doors down the road is a millionaire with two Rolls Royces in the garage and a roof covered with solar panels. Up the road, again by a few doors, is a single mother in an ‘community housing’ home. She doesn’t have any solar panels on her roof, drives an old Japanese car, looks after her disabled daughter, but can no longer afford a week at the beach-side caravan park because her energy bill subsidises the Rolls owner down the road.
I tip my hat to gutless mendacious politicians, the self-centred wealthy virtue preeners and the gormless squad of PC reporters all of whom care nothing for circumstances of those on fixed incomes.
10
Agree. Time to cut middle class welfare.
00
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” — Ronaldus Magnus, 1981
10
People like Cannon-Brookes tend to be amazed by the rapidity of their wealth-growth. At some point, the euphoria/amazement seems to go to their heads. A messiah complex becomes almost a given. So now, he joins the likes of Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg et al, who have had messiah complexes for years, along with elements of the Davos crowd, and certain political leaders.
But the great thing about being a latter-day messiah is never having to say that you are sorry.
Fortunately, there are multi-millionaires/billionaires who don’t get afflicted with the messiah virus. Think Gina, for example.
00