In Australia a Woke tech-billionaire has decided to “keep” the coal assets in AGL in order to destroy them (like that’s the “free market” at work) . But in the rest of the world, coal is $400 a ton and everybody wants it.
Maybe Australians will get so rich selling coal they can afford to use electricity from unreliable generators instead?
Not behaving like a stranded asset. Trading Economics
Britain could keep coal-fired power plants open this winter
LONDON (Reuters) -Some of the British coal-fired power plants slated for closure this year might need to stay open to ensure electricity supply this winter, the government said on Monday.
Countries across Europe are drawing up contingency plans against potential disruption to flows of Russian gas because of the war in Ukraine. Russia typically supplies about 40% of Europe’s gas.
Britain can generate about 50% of its electricity from gas. Although Russia only meets about 4% of Britain’s gas needs, a significant disruption in supply would affect prices in Europe and make it harder for Britain to secure gas from others.
How screwed is that market when they have to “devise” a framework to keep the cheapest reliable generators running?
The government has asked the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) to devise a framework to encourage plant operators to keep the power stations running, according to a letter seen by Reuters from energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng to National Grid ESO.
Is that new “framework” the plastercast that saves the limb which has a plastic pin-and-plate fitted on a bone that didn’t need to be broken?
How many times do our politicians have to be told?
They are ruining our nation. There’s no excuse for the level of ignorance or wilful avoidance of the truth.
471
royal commission will be required when this clown show finally collapses.
90
The Australian (Tikky Fullerton): “The (AGL) group’s board exodus and the abandonment of its planned demerger should be a warning to all companies that are going slow on energy transition”.
Transition to what exactly? There’s no alternative to coal apart from a mix of Gas, Hydro and Nuclear.
110
transition to energy poverty, probably.
10
The departing board was heard to say…so long, and thanks for the fish.
00
“markets” don’t, of course, devise anything. This is but another word in a language destroyed by one side changing the meaning of words so they could so one thing and pretend it was another. A market is a device for discovering price information when a willing seller and a willing buyer freely agree upon a transaction, which takes place. The folks running the “market” have no need to discover information, since they already know everything.
230
In principle yes … the thing you are missing is that every market must have rules, if nothing other than basic property rights rules, but generally a bit extra.
For example: you need a method for the buyer and seller to express a contract that describes what they are buying and selling. For example, if a buyer orders apples and the seller delivers what looks a lot like a banana, then the buyer needs recourse to someone, somewhere, to arbitrate and ultimately possibly even to litigate.
With electricity, it’s easy enough to define an instantaneous spot price, but what people want is both electricity and also reliability in which case you need to bundle the electricity with a mini insurance contract … I promise to deliver this much electricity, over this period of time, and if I fail to deliver at any time during the agreed period, then I owe you this much money. Also known as a penalty clause.
The current electricity market has no mechanism for packaging any reliability concept into the price. Wind generators can stop delivering without penalty, to the best of my knowledge. That means the buyer and seller cannot find an agreement, because they cannot describe the product within the bounds of the existing market.
It’s also a distorted market up the whazoo thanks to LRET, Green Loans and a bunch of other things, but let’s temporarily put those things to the side, and we are talking about the UK which has different distortions.
20
Well summarized Tel. I couldn’t agree with your assessment more!
The lack of a sensible energy Policy that works from the consumers interests back, NOT from the industries interests, is IMHO the root cause of the predicament that we now find ourselves in here in Oz.
00
China thought they were so clever not accepting Australian coal to punish us, when coal was $70 per tonne. After numerous blackouts in China, they panicked and searched the world for additional coal only to find the supply was limited and the competition fierce, with coal prices tripling in a relatively short period. Europe’s reliance on Russian energy has only added to this dynamic. We can always count on China and Russia to make us rich, while the Greens work to make us poor again.
371
That really worked out well for them didn’t it.
10
The Australian: “AGL implodes as switch from coal to green looms.”
Switch? Now it’s not even a gradual transition. Looks like an “off” switch to me. Stand by for rolling blackouts when Liddell and Bayswater close.
370
I am sure it will be a seamless transition to “renewable” energy for NSW. Never forget it was the wnderful Michael Cannon Brookes that bought it to you.
I mean just look at the ACT, its obvious the 100% renewable totally works.
Generators are relatively cheap right now. If you havent got one already , now would be the time.
170
“I am sure it will be a seamless transition to “renewable” energy for NSW. Never forget it was the wonderful Michael Cannon Brookes that bought it to you.’
I hope that pr*ck has tar and feather insurance.
150
“Stand by for rolling blackouts when Liddell and Bayswater close.”
Liddell gone sometime in 2023, if not sooner with Cannon Brookes farting around, it’s coming folks.
70
Mr Cannon Brookes sir, I was just wondering ……
Please, call me Mike.
Oh, okay, nice touch. Mr Cannon Brookes sir, are you saying that we need to shut that Bayswater plant down.
Yep, and call me Mike.
Oh okay. Mr Cannon Brookes sir, I’m just a humble shareholder, but might you answer a question for me please.
Yep, and please, call me Mike.
Oh okay. Mr Cannon Brookes sir, why should we close it down.
Look, I’m on the Board now, and I’m a multi billionaire, and because of that, people listen to me, and please, call me Mike. We need to close Bayswater because of the Carbon Dioxide it emits.
Oh, right. Thanks for that Mr Cannon Brookes sir. Didn’t we just spend many millions of dollars to Upgrade each one of those four Units, and right now, the plant is running like it did back almost 40 years now, when it was new. I know the fourth Unit is still undergoing that Upgrade, but the the other three Units are running at one hundred percent for 24 hours each day for the last few weeks now.
Yeah, but it emits Carbon Dioxide and that’s a worry.
Umm, yesterday the average price for all power was six hundred and fifty dollars per MegaWattHour, so just in those 24 hours of yesterday, the plant grossed, just in the sales of that electricity, umm, thirty one point two million dollars, that’s thirty one point two million dollars for us shareholders, umm, ….. Mike.
That’s Mr Cannon Brookes to you, mate, I’m on the board now, and I’m a multi billionaire. You need to know your place.
THIRTY ONE POINT TWO MILLION DOLLARS … in just twenty four hours ….. MIKE.
Tony.
320
I missed the meeting but appreciated your report.
It seems Mikey has no concern for us ordinary investors.
90
And certainly no concern for ordinary people. !
He has his money, and everyone else can live in the dark, without electricity.
110
Just joking: no money in that drama.
20
Perhaps this might be my being cynical and all that, but hey, sometimes you wonder.
If AGL owns a plant which generates humungous amounts of electrical power each day, as does that Bayswater plant, umm, why not run it 100% flat out for every hour of every day to maximise income from the sale of the power.
I mean, coal fired power ramps up and down each day, following the Load (AS IT HAS ALWAYS DONE) but in these times when wholesale electricity is making so much money per MWH, and we have a plant that actually can operate at 100%, then why not take advantage of that, eh!
But shhhhh! don’t tell the public.
(Umm, why bother Mr Cannon Brookes sir, no one even knows where to look anyway, and even if they did, who is ever going to know)
Tony.
120
Sort of fits here
“The head of Facebook’s fake science fact check group, Science Feedback, is ‘hiding in Paris, terrified of appearing in court’ ”
https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/05/the-head-of-facebooks-fake-science-fact-check-group-science-feedback-is-hiding-in-paris-terrified-of-appearing-in-court/
Via SDA
180
Think how much economic destruction and lives lost have been caused by the lies propagated by the Orwellian “fact checkers” of social(ist) media.
It’s good some of them are finally bring bought to account.
190
Being not bring. An unnoticed and unauthorised spelling correction…
40
You may have missed that “bought to account” should be ‘brought to account”
Being a pedant is a heavy cross to bear
40
Fair enough.
10
I wonder if the next coal plants to be closed in Australia will be destroyed in a spectacular media circus event or if common sense will prevail and they’ll be mothballed?
I suspect that they will be destroyed with great urgency like previous ones because, if not, then the question would be, why keep them because “solar, wind and Big Batteries can supply all our needs”. Plus the sites will be needed for “green hydrogen” or Big Battery projects.
Future historians, assuming there is a future and real historians are still allowed to exist will look at the self-destruction Australia is engaged in and wonder. (But the future is likely Orwellian and there will be no historians and the past will be endlessly revised, just like Australia’s Bureau of Meterology is already doing.)
If even Once Great Britain can understand that you can’t run a society on wind and solar alone, why can’t Australia?
How much worse do things need to get in Australia before someone in the GreenLibLab uniparty understands or cares?
250
I think that in many ways things are the other way round to the way they are portrayed. Our mainstream politicians (that does not include green or teal) appear to be driving the country relentlessly towards renewables and ‘net-zero’. But I think those politicians are weaklings, afraid to stand up to the juggernaut that is driving them. That juggernaut consists of extremely wealthy people who are prepared to destroy other people’s lives in order to enrich themselves. Mostly they don’t seek publicity for themselves and find others (like greens and teals) to do their bidding. Mr Cannon-Brookes is a wealthy person who has joined the bandwagon, and isn’t afraid of publicity. He thinks he is onto a winner with AGL, but is he really? One possible future is (a) AGL kills its coal, (b) the lights go out, (c) Mr Cannon-Brookes gets the blame from all those politicians who couldn’t stand up to the juggernaut but find they can stand up to Mr Cannon-Brookes because suddenly they desperately need someone to blame.
Australia has a difficult winter ahead, but it could be the start of the big political turn-around. Is Mr Cannon-Brookes the weakest link?
270
“How much worse do things need to get in Australia before someone in the GreenLibLab uniparty understands or cares?”
They are incapable of understanding or caring.
90
Is this a case where the government should have stepped with an energy policy which preserved the use of coal as a power source – I would have supported that.
But we have had decades of market theory and a ideology of small government, with not a skerrick of strategic policy, particularly around energy security
516
Peter, you and your comrades have been told REPEATEDLY that industrial civilisation is UNSUSTAINABLE on wind, solar and Big Batteries. Your excuse is NOT ACCEPTED!
In today’s information age, even with information censored by your Pagan Green Gaia-worshipping comrades IGNORANCE IS A CHOICE. You have been visiting Jo’s site for a long time. Why did you not understand?
You have been played a fool by the “leaders” of your Leftoid movement, some of the richest, most corrupt and most evil people on the planet. You are a member of their slave army promoting Green Paganism for their own financial fulfilment but do you really think they care about you or the fact that your may freeze in the dark? Of course they don’t!
There is nothing wrong with the market place. Decades of Pagan Green interference with market forces is what has got us into this mess. Had it been up to the market place, there would be no shortage and no excessive costs. In fact, in a free market, the natural tendency is for prices to be driven downwards.
I guess as the Green disaster becomes ever more obvious even to ignorant people, we are now going to see a lot of Leftoids saying “WE DIDN’T KNOW”. Well, yes you did, and you were told. Repeatedly. EXCUSE NOT ACCEPTED!
260
Don’t ever lump me with your fantasies, debate the statements, not the person.
I’m surprised you did face moderation for such an ad hom filled rant
[Peter, I don’t even understand this reply. you’ve been reading this site for years (or commenting but not reading) and we’ve done hundreds of posts on energy policy and strategy, and you think it’s reasonable to say you haven’t seen a skerrick? It’s just bizarre… – Jo]
53
I am not a comrade, or any of that ad hom crap that Maddison posts. And I have pointed out out multiple times that I support coal generation.
What I was trying to say was that Australia should have a long term energy strategy, and that strategy should have been implemented years ago. All we have seen is short term fads like subsidies for rooftop solar.
Even now we have this plan for net zero, but no clear path, no indication of what our energy mix will be. If our political class had even one backbone between between them….
With a strategy, that would form the basis of a discussion, as it stands the current plan is trying to be all things to all people
03
There should be no plan for “net zero”, it is an unobtainable unicorn fart dream.
There should be a plan to build 1 new big HELE coal fired power station in each eastern state, maybe 2 in NSW.
And yes, they should have been built ages ago.
But the anti-CO2 twerps, like you and the greens, keep getting in the way.
It is you and anyone that supports the anti-CO2 agenda that is responsible for not allowing these things to happen.
Furthermore, it is people like you at espouse the anti-CO2 meme that will shut down further coal fired power stations causing even more problems.
We will NOT let run away from the responsibility of your actions.
30
“or any of that ad hom crap”
I see no comments that aren’t a direct description.
Home truth hurting you ?
When we see you facing other truths.. like
a) CO2 is only beneficial to the planet
b) wind and solar are a grid scale parasite. All RET, subsidies, co-payments, carbon certificates, mandates etc should be removed immediately.
c) renewed coal investment is the best way forward.
Then we will believe you have de-woked.
You and your comrade greenies have a LOT to answer to. !
10
Don’t get too excited PF, my green was for Jo.
40
“with not a skerrick of strategic policy, particularly around energy security”
That is totally because of the greenie agenda which you and your fellow “believers” are brain-washed with.
All that money and time WASTED on unreliable electricity non-producers..
.. could so easily have been spent on a new large HELE coalie in each of the eastern state.. maybe 2 in NSW
There is only one thing to blame for the current situation, ..
… and that is the idiotic anti-science, anti-CO2 AGW agenda that so many have been brain-washed with.
170
“All that money and time WASTED …”.
It wasn’t Wasted;
it went somewhere very specific and was thoroughly appreciated.
100
Some tried and were shouted down. I do dispute your “not a skerrick of strategic policy” statement. These policies were in place in the rational back offices. However, they take 10-15 years to implement and could not politically survive the daily social, mainstream and “our ABC” media onslaught.
As we have found out, it is the will of the comfortable people that have created this self-inflicted wound. I hope that the conversation will not turn to concentrate on how bad the previous Govt. may have been while the winners bask in the glory of a 30% mandate – that is history. What are the new all-inclusive group going to do to fix the coming energy poverty problem that is here now.
120
You dont have to have large government to have strategic policies, that is patently absurd.
60
That last paragraph says it so well: complex, but with a little effort the full analogy is there.
“Is that new “framework” the plastercast that saves the limb which has a plastic pin-and-plate fitted on a bone that didn’t need to be broken?”
And, don’t forget, that all of this Global Climate Warming theme has been rigidly and relentlessly and inhumanely imposed so that the general population can be crushed and enslaved for the benefit of our betters, currently hiding together somewhere in Davos land.
CO2 doesn’t “heat the earth nor fire “photons” back at us from on high.
That’s the science: if only the Bankers would lift their ban on confirming this.
How many scientists in gaol now:
set them free to speak science.
KK
141
The current crop of solar panels and wind turbines were built using coal bought for $100/tonne. Most of the value is in the energy embodied so with coal at $400/tonne, the cost of solar panels and wind turbines is going up.
Governments in Australia will need to fund electrical infrastructure from general revenue. The days are gone when the added costs from the dumb idea factories can be dumped onto consumers. This will be highly inflationary as money gets created to pay for all this stuff.
150
Mate, there is no general revenue.
https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/government-budget
We have not seen a positive budget in this country since 2008 and the GFC fallout. The days are gone when governments in Australia could fund anything, and with ALP in charge the next three years will be going out the fiscal back door even faster.
This is going to be a generational learning experience, but I don’t even know whether this lot are capable of learning much.
10
Alan Jones spoke a truism many years ago-The nations problems were all caused by government in the first place. Government has the chance to correct it’s many problems with energy by doing one simple thing-GET OUT OF THE WAY. Let the market function as it was doing so successfully two decades ago.
220
The global greenies are actually cheering sky high coal prices as they think it will make it too expensive to burn coal to generate electricity, thus leading to plant closures. Maybe, maybe not. I would assume utilities mostly are buying coal at far cheaper prices under long term contracts. Russia would like to sell more coal but rail capacity constraints are stopping extra supplies from getting to ports for export. Solving this requires time and billions of dollars in capex, whilst the average Russian oligarch prefers to stash his capital safely offshore.
Energy prices are subject to wild swings. One would imagine coal prices to stabilize and soften as markets regain equilibrium. The largest private coal producer in the world, US giant Peabody Coal, has been in and out of bankruptcy several times. It’s how the coal industry rolls.
I read somewhere recently that one of AGL’s coal generators due to shut in 2030 may keep operating until 2035. There are 80 year old coal generators still going strong overseas. Grounds for optimistism if economic rationality prevails over the greenistas like Mike Cannon-Brookes.
100
Germany has restarted at least 2 coal-fired power plants Italy two active coal-fired power plants would temporarily be “brought up to full capacity” if there is “an absolute lack of energy.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina have extended the life of 2 current plants and might build a new one.
North Macedonia declared a state of energy crisis last year, and is importing coal. Serbian President said the government is looking to import lignite to make up for the shortfall from their mines
Romania said this week that the country would temporarily restart idle coal-fired power plants, citing a force majeure and the plans to reduce dependence on gas and oil imports from Russia.
It predicted that Europe’s coal-fired power generation would increase 11% to 641 TWh in 2022 if natural gas prices keep high and gas supplies to Europe are disrupted due to the Russian-Ukraine conflict.
100
Sadly, not an option for Australia as standard procedure is to urgently destroy them as soon as they are shut down.
140
Wholesale gas prices capped after 50-fold surge
An extraordinary spike in wholesale gas prices in Victoria of up to 50 times normal levels has prompted the Australian Energy Market Operator to intervene and impose a price cap in a widening of the fall-out since the failure of NSW gas retailer Weston Energy last week.
AEMO has capped prices over the past few days in the Sydney and Brisbane markets. On Monday, it imposed a price limit in Victoria after spot prices were set to soar to an incredible $382 a gigajoule.
The crisis that has gripped the east coast gas market since the failure of Weston adds to the deteriorating situation around energy prices across Australia, where wholesale electricity prices have also surged and are feeding through to higher prices for households and industry.
The extreme gas prices will be beyond the reach of many manufacturers reliant on spot prices to source their gas because they were unable to lock in contract rates at prices they thought were affordable at the time.
They come as Weston’s hundreds of customers along the east coast were transferred to “retailers of last resort” such as AGL Energy, where many were put on default tariffs linked to wholesale prices, but with an additional mark-up.
Textile makers and others have said they cannot continue operating at the high tariffs and will have to consider whether to close plants as they plead for government action to rein in prices.
The elevated prices are similar to the shocking gas and power price spikes in Britain last northern autumn that caused closures of energy-intensive industrial plants and squeezed dozens of smaller energy retailers out of the market.
Melbourne breaks threshold
Josh Stabler, managing director of energy adviser Energy Edge, noted that three of the four east coat domestic gas markets were now being administered by the AEMO under imposed price caps.
Prices started to be controlled in the Sydney and Brisbane markets last week, at about $28/GJ in Sydney and $40/GJ in Brisbane, Energy Edge said, based on rules triggered when Weston’s customers were transferred to “retailers of last resort”.
Then on Monday, Melbourne’s market broke the cumulative high threshold for prices allowed over a seven-day period under the energy market rules, causing its market price to also be capped at $40/GJ.
A ministerial direction in NSW issued on Monday would result in the cap on the Sydney price rising to $40/GJ as in the other states, Mr Stabler said.
Victoria’s situation was being exacerbated by very cold weather expected to hit over the next few days from a so-called “polar surge”, resulting in forecast gas demand for the retail market of 1247 terajoules a day, exceeding last year’s peak, Mr Stabler added.
He said the intervention by AEMO meant prices that were due to reach $85/GJ in Melbourne on Tuesday and $382/GJ on Wednesday would – “thankfully for the beleaguered energy markets” – be capped at $40/GJ.
90
Sitting on some of the major known gas reserves on the planet, and we do this to ourselves. Aussie genius knows no bounds.
160
And what was the price in Western Australia?
10
doesnt really matter as it affects so few people. It is an example though that things can be done given the political will.
00
As I have mentioned before, in Vicdanistan there are apparently at least SOME people advising government who seem to have a clue that we are heading toward grid collapse.
At huge and unpublicised taxpayer expense Vicdanistan is offering to replace home electric hot water heating and home heating of any kind (gas, electric or even reverse cycle more than seven years old) with more energy efficient new systems.
Not only that, for shops and cafes they are replacing display fridges free of charge, with ones that are supposedly energy efficient. Mostly they are not needed or wanted as existing fridges are typically owned by drink companies anyway and are also efficient. My local bakery had one dumped on them and they don’t know what to do with it. Many are being taken home and used there although they are too large for typical home use and don’t have a freezer section.
100
Man, that’s really weird stuff.
Has that government overstepped it’s boundaries?
Do the victaxpayers appreciate that this is on their mounting government deficit for them to pay off?
And, Dan’s Uncle does Not own the refrigerator company pushing out these freezers.
100
Our local supermarket has replaced all its open cold goods shelves/displays with enclosed glass door cabinets.
I was wondering if subsidies played a role or if it was just plant ageing out.
70
If you Google “free display fridge” without quotes be amazed at the number of hits you get. I am not sure if your IP address needs to be in Vicdanistan.
60
” At huge and unpublicised taxpayer expense Vicdanistan is offering to replace home electric hot water heating and home heating of any kind (gas, electric or even reverse cycle more than seven years old) with more energy efficient new systems.”
That would be the type of HWS that can be switched off in an instant if they get into ‘difficulties’ with power, that indicates the power mob can’t keep the network stable any time of day or night.
60
Probably. The technology is called DRED (Demand Response Enable Device). They can turn your DRED equipped appliances off at will.
I wrote an article on it.
https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2017/April/DRED%3A+they+can+turn+your+aircon+off%21
40
Mind you, since Vicdanistanians were forced to have ‘smart’ meters installed on their premises, they can be switched off for any reason any time day or night.
30
Ronin,
When Victorian smart meters were being installed, I declined and fought a paper war.
We kept the old meter. The govt could not make smart meters mandatory.
Geoff S
10
That’s good to hear GS, but they tried.
00
When I look at those “free display fridges” – to me that signifies the Vic Govt sucking up to all the small cafes etc that they shut down or adversely affected during COVID lockdowns. Its a PR program to get back votes prior to the next state election.
50
President Trump warned about Europe’s over-dependence on Russian gas and they all mocked and laughed at him.
Let the Europeans freeze in the dark then…
110
What will happen when the current crop of rooftop solar panels age and need to be replaced, will the govt be there to keep subsidising them, my panels were installed in 2009, they aren’t getting any younger.
Will there be a huge ‘hole’ in daytime power output.
60
Good point. Australia will soon be too poor to offer taxpayer-subsidised replacement panels. They will have to be installed at full market price so few people will bother. They will become expensive eyesores and disposal nightmares. And where is the 10am to 2pm summer daytime electricity going to come from?
80
” where is the 10am to 2pm summer daytime electricity going to come from? ”
No worries. The answer is the same “coal” as covers for them overnight now.
30
Doubt it. As its so distributed and subject to so many individual decisions , nothing much will happen quickly.
10
I’m not so sure, remember the massive rush when these schemes were unveiled, true, they won’t all get old and fail on a Friday afternoon, but it will get noticed, would you pay full freight for new panels and inverter and installation, I could but likely wouldn’t.
30
And new systems are still being installed. I agree it will have an impact but more of a trend than anything. Most people being lazy and/or cash limited many systems will just be left on roofs slowly degrading.
I would replace faulty or degraded panels if they appeared. I dont have a central inverter so dont need that supplied or installed. My system is AC from the roof down.
20
Ronin,
Rather than ask questions here, why not become actively involved and DO THINGS.
Like I have written to Vic minister d’Ambrosia, asking for details of the Acts on which they rely when giving a cash gift to those who buy rooftop solar, but not to those who cannot or will not. I divided their estimate of total subsidies by the number of Susie’s ang gave our bank account details, asking for an equivalent $$$ amount and an apology for attempting to punish us when we had done nothing bad.
When a substantial number of people act, things can start to happen. Geoff S
10
Whilst I admire anyone who can devote the time and energy to pursue issues with govt departments , and I have had some little success chasing issues with local govt, I find communicating with big govt somewhat difficult and time consuming.
20
Global warming: a quest for truth
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/05/global-warming-a-quest-for-truth/
10
At least the British are mothballing the plants then and don’t blow them up to show how progressive they are like other parts of the world.
60
I think the price of small generators will soon go through the roof. I am thinking of upgrading mine for home use for the purpose of keeping some refrigeration, lighting, heating or cooling going.
By way of reference I saw a 5.5kVA (continuous) four stroke air cooled silenced diesel unit for A$1650. If there is a fuel shortage I guess it can be run on vegetable oil if there is no food shortage.
During grid outage it is unlikely phones or Internet will work for long if at all due to lack of adequate backup by providers. No one will be able to make emergency phone calls when the grid goes down.
90
Yes, some of the “features” of IP Telephony are still to be enjoyed. Nobody envisioned wide scale grid outages I guess….except maybe the designers of 1960s telephone exchanges with centrally powered telephone lines, massive lead acid batteries and back up diesel generators. Disaster resilience is expensive and boring; and really nobody wants it until they really need it.
50
yarpos,
Change “nobody wants it until they need it” with “nobody wants it until after they need it”. As happened in that Texas cold spell.
Cheers. Geoff S
30
Winton Council geothermal plant hasn’t generated a single watt, cost millions.
Another green fail.
60
Construction finished 2 years ago, $4mil spent and not a single watt generated, Marvellous.
30
And with a water temperature of a mere 86C, how did they practically expect to?
30
E.g. with a hot temp of 86C and a cold temp of 30C the Carnot efficiency is only 15.6%.
They used to teach that sort of thing, back in the day.
30
Maybe Winton Shire Council were told that $4mil would overcome that deficiency.
30
Sounds like a con job of the highest order.
20
I wonder when NZ will start dismantling their hydro dams and water supply like Commiefornia? And why not decommision their geothermal plants as well because they are cooling the interior of the earth? NZ needs more windmills, solar and Big Batteries.
70
Natural gas prices in the US today are $8.67 per MMBtu, still far short of their insane peak in December 2005 of $15.78.
Oil is a different story: Brent is $122 today. WTI not much less at almost $118. Good times for Houston realtors, I imagine. Canadian oil the laggard at $99, keeping the Koch Brothers’ Pine Bend Minnesota refinery profit margins at their accustomed high levels. You don’t get to be the fifth richest family in the US by buying expensive oil. It’s nice when you can tell Canadian suppliers: this is my price bub, take it or leave it. 😀
Thermal coal down nearly 8% today to $304, well off those $400 highs. Looks like that equilibrium I mentioned in an early post might be on its way! Only six years ago coal was sub $50 and miners were going to the wall. Coal shares are not for the faint hearted. Whitehaven Coal may be $5.20 today, but its low for the year was $1.56.
41
Gabriel Friedman
Publishing date:
Jul 07, 2021 • July 8, 2021
“When you’re making an investment in something like coal mining, you need to have your eye out on where the coal market is going to be in a decade,” Jeyakumar said. “I don’t see how one can say that the trajectory is not declining.”
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/why-canadians-exports-of-the-fuel-of-the-previous-century-continue-to-surge-for-now
Someone’s eye wasn’t out.
50
“The gargantuan deep blue blob of 3 kilometer thick salty cold water promptly rises up and sucks the warmth out of the sky.”
Who is starring in the film?
10
Whoops! Wrong story.
20
Can an economist please tell us how our domestic electricity prices rise when international coal prices go up like when war in Ukraine?
We have electricity generators built next to big coal mines, on purpose. How does world coal price affect this cosy, efficient cottage industry?
Geoff S
20
We oldies can still remember the golden years when fossil fuel was king and electricity was $50 a unit, not the $250 a unit is is today. When the supply was reliable, with the main cause of blackouts being commie miners strikes. When the landscape was not made ugly by large windmills making a resurgence after once being found technologically inferior. When we had no people working in non-productive paper shuffling under names like Australian Energy Market Operator,AEMO, the Energy Market Regulator and other alphabet soup money pits at State level an Federal. When our cheap and reliable power attracted global industry like smelters and car making and ship building, actually making objects when today hordes of people think that jobs exist within social media bodies that produce nothing of lasting value. And so on and so on.
Why can we all not write to politicians and to energy companies, over and over to repeat the seductive allure of how much better it was back then, how simple it was, how easy it will be to embrace that well-tested system again.
Here we all are sitting around looking stupid like a chook staring at a snake, being told it is impossible because global warming when nobody can or will tell us why global warming is so important that there are no cost limits for fighting it?
Why do we have to accept that renewables are cheaper than coal when we know that proper comparisons are seldom done, let alone shown to we the public?
Many of the bloggers here on Jo’s blog are excellent writers who have grasped the essentials of our giant power fraud.
Go beyond writing about it to each other. Write to influencers of policy. Do what you can to get cases before Courts. I spent a lot of my younger time highlighting the drivel of bad science, fighting corrupt bodies like parts of the United Nations in courts, befriending pollies of like mind, supporting bodies like IPA who also understand the rot.
You, dear reader, can probably do it better than I did.
Try it. Geoff S
60
Geoff, I have tried that in any number of ways.
Made detailed written Submissions to one State Government Inquiry, and two Federal Senate Inquiries, all totally and utterly ignored.
Written to Three Senators, one of them three times, and two Members of the House of Reps, and with two of (all of) them, all I got was an automated computer generated response, and nothing from any of the others. Two Government Ministers in Queensland, again, nothing.
My days of doing any more of that are completely finished.
Seriously ….. they just DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.
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Thanks Tony; debate is pointless and dissipates our energy.
Activism is supreme as Zali Steggle has clearly demonstrated. Trouble is you need a paid army to do what she did to Tony Abbott.
Then we also have to consider the very real possibility of irregularities in the vote count, and once again volunteers are essential to scrutinize the process.
40
Tony.
In no way was I critical of your superb effort.
Yes, I am no stranger to the “dosae of quiets” approach from those who do not want to hear opinions contrary to their own.
There is no alternative to try, try again. Sooner or later, when right is on your side, the volume grows so loud it cannot be ignored.
All the best Geoff S
10
The U.K. is producing too much wind power, actually.
It’s a little bittersweet, but the UK actually produced more wind power than the system could handle this week.
Wednesday’s Bloomberg report said a few wind farms in Scotland were asked to reduce output by 25 megawatts, or about as much as two average US households uses in a year. The finance pub says UK grids are having trouble coping with all the power their ocean and land wind farms generate, nor does the country have the ability to store large amounts of it in batteries.
On Wednesday the UK hit an energy production peak that covered more than half of Britain’s power needs, electric vehicles are becoming more accessible and as a species we seem at least somewhat determined to understand and harness nuclear power.
It might not seem like a huge sign of progress, but asking wind farms to slightly reduce production is probably one of many steps on the journey to make Earth sustainable — we need energy production and long-term storage if we’re ever going cold turkey on fossil fuels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-25/uk-wind-power-sets-record-on-gusty-weather
Wind power – whatever..
30
What a lot of wind. Lucky them. 😄
00
The UK has become the poster child for how renewables effect the electric grid, but I really, really want an explanation for these facts:
1) Unexpected drops-offs are routine to wind and solar, that is why they need fossil fueled/nuclear back-up.
Wind and solar need fueled/nuclear, fueled/nuclear does not need wind and solar.
2) The cost pricing corollary to this is: Adding renewables to a grid always add costs and/or prices
Until these factors are openly discussed there will be no change to the lies. Renewables are not cheaper than their backups when their backups are REQUIRED for them to exist.
50
And always remember…so-called “renewables” are NOT renewable at all. Sure, the energy (wind/solar) is renewable, but the technology to convert it into electricity IS NOT.
30
The irony is that burning fossil fuels (CO2 increase) has no significant effect on climate. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uln0HsGdaKwg2dqvo4hoW7pFvIcGsLy-/view?usp=sharing
20
Your TPW graph matches UAH TLT very nicely.
It would seem obvious that temperature drives TPW
It is not logical that human release of WV, which is pretty constant, drives temperature.
The jumps in TWP come at El Nino events.
20
The actual measured water vapor (TPW) increase trend is about 178% faster than what would result from just the temperature increase trend reported by UAH. A graph is shown at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ssnzJADem1mOKH6weJTn21JSYcdkPmSk/view?usp=sharing
Average global TPW has been increasing faster than possible from just average global temperature increase. The ‘extra’ WV is about 90% from irrigation, 8.5% from cooling towers and only about 1.5% from burning fossil fuels.
Average global WV has been accurately measured by NASA/RSS using satellite instrumentation and reported monthly Jan, 1988 to Dec, 2021. It has been increasing at 1.44% per decade.
True, El Ninos produce transient peaks, but the trend prevails. More explanation at https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com
00
Measured average global water vapor increase rate has been more than possible from just average global temperature increase rate. (Planet warming is the net effect of all feedbacks and forcings.) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FsGOBIRZ5b3VmKapPpwUC12iGeQWZvmT/view?usp=sharing Measured WV increase can account for all of humanity’s contribution to planet warming.
10
Why were electricity prices in Aus so cheap over the past couple years, and are only increasing now?
00
As the coalies come offline, the price is going up as the useless windmills can’t keep up
10