This was the glorious green future that just collapsed today.
But it’s a win for the rare Typhonium plant, and possibly also for millions of crabs around Indonesia who might have been hypnotized by undersea cables like the ones near the UK are. And who knows what that cable would have done electromagnetically for turtles, dugongs, whales and dolphins? Where are the Greens when giant experimental industrial parks span 5,000km of wilderness?
Today the massive Sun Cable project collapsed into voluntary administration four years after promising to build the world’s largest solar power plant in the Northern Territory. Sun Cable was a $35 billion project supposedly to collect those sacred green electrons on a 12,000 hectare “farm” in Australia (120 square kilometers) and send them to Singapore via an 800 km land cable and then a 4,200km undersea cable. It was theoretically going to be nine times bigger than the largest solar plant in the world, and use a cable 6 times longer than the longest one ever built.
So this was ambition-on-steroids, and had economies of scale up the kazoo, and possibly as much sunlight as any place on Earth, but it was still obscenely uneconomic and expensive. Allegedly, environmentally, it would have achieved the equivalent of taking 2.5 million cars off the road each year, in other words, virtually nothing or even less. For $30b they were reducing the small Australian car fleet by… 12%.
The numbers never made sense unless the world valued green electrons so much more than black, brown, blue, red or white ones. That’s $30 billion for just 3.2GW of reliable energy? The same money buys quite a few nuclear plants that will last five times longer and reduce CO2 by vastly more. But it was never about “saving the world”, was it — just about building bigger subsidy farms, and winning a fashion contest at inner city dinner parties.
The numbers never made sense.
Ultimately the project was supposed to supply 15% of Singapore’s energy needs and also make 800MW for Darwin initially. When finished there would be “20GWp” in toto (or Gigawatt-peak). The plan also included 36-42 gigawatt hours of battery storage too, no doubt providing more jobs for child slaves in the Congo.
The legacy media is a defacto PR team for unreliable energy, so they’re selling this collapse as the fault of “Big Egos” — not because the solar project was a stupid idea.
Duelling billionaires burn Sun Cable
Chnticleer, Australian Financial Review
It is feasible the world’s most ambitious solar energy generation project will go ahead. But don’t expect billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest to both be involved.
Sun Cable said the appointment of administrators followed “the absence of alignment with the objectives of all shareholders”.
“Whilst funding proposals were provided, consensus on the future direction and funding structure of the company could not be achieved,” it said.
Sun Cable must have been under considerable financial pressure leading into the end of 2022 judging from documents lodged with the corporate regulator about a series B preference share issue.
Assuming this preference share issue is not related to the capital raising announced last March, Sun Cable was forced to raise $28 million in late December through the issue of 11.9 million series B preference shares at $2.34 each. It is difficult to understand why a company such as Sun Cable, which is in the regulatory approval stage of its evolution, is apparently burning through so much cash.
In essence, Sun Cable’s strategic value is really at the mercy of the choices made by the Singaporeans, including how much they are willing to pay. Whoever buys Sun Cable will have to have deep pockets, because something of this scale and ambition will inevitably lose money well into the 2030s.
h/t Scott A, David B, Graeme#4, David Maddison
The project lost their only Singapore client back in October 2021. Singapore’s current domestic energy cost to consumers is A$0.29/kWh. Perhaps they should be selling power to Australia.
661
A very quick check shows they are mostly running on natural gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Singapore
Imported by pipeline from Malaysia and Indonesia.
400
Now, that makes a lot of dollars and sense (cents)………………….
120
And who was it that lost the money? Not the World Famous Losers of all time – The Australian Taxpayer (I do hope not and not again)……………Pink Batts, Clunkers for Cars, The Ejucashion Revolution. the NBN, the, the, the…………….
230
It’s not clear whether the govt agency NAIF put any taxpayer money into this venture. Another $2bn was given to NAIF by the federal govt for subsidies for NT ventures, but it appears difficult to determine exactly where and what NAIF is doing with the handouts.
120
The taxpayer will subsidise their losses via losses carried forward.
90
You did not have to be smart to see this was a fishing exercise for grant funding and woke investors !
800
Yes Chad.
How much of OUR money was laundered in this operation?
210
Australian SUPER contributions from your UNION dominated fund managers. It makes you want to spew.
270
If you can find out from the NAIF website, you will have achieved a lot. Good luck.
50
According to Alan Moran in The Spectator on 16th Jan 2023, (https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/collapse-of-the-35-billion-sun-cable/) taxpayers down Under coughed up a tidy $A14M of OUR ‘hard earned’ in favour of this Boondoggle!
00
Forest was on the verge of bankruptcy a few years ago and being ridiculed in the MSM for the abject failure he was, and then he got on the green bandwagon and now he’s revered as “Australia’s richest man” because of that pesky, non-conformist woman that should not be named. So yes, one can rightly ask how much of our money went into this – the stuff still doesn’t grow on trees as far as I can see…
180
From personal experience, it’s difficult to convince entrepreneurial CEOs with technical arguments that their new pet project may not fly.
90
The staff turn-over at FFI (Make of that acronym what you will) has been the focus of much media attention recently. Eighteen top level departutures over the last two years 9see page 2 of “The Australian” of Tuesday 10 January 2023:
Andrew Forrest loses another senior executive, with Fortescue CFO Ian Wells to leave
Andrew Forrest has lost another key lieutenant, with the exit of Fortescue Metals finance chief taking the number of executives leaving the billionaire’s mining and hydrogen group to close to 20.
Chief financial officer Ian Wells on Monday said he would leave at the end of the month, shortly before the company is due to deliver its half-year financial update.
His departure will do little to calm the nerves of Fortescue investors concerned about the rapid rate of executive turnover at the company, extending the run of senior departures over the past two years that has completely reshaped its most executive ranks.
Where there’s smoke there generally a battery.
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Apologies for the formatting.
I got excited again.
[Fixed that. No worries. – Jo]
40
When the main CFO leaves, regardless of the reasons put out by the company, it’s certainly time to take notice of what’s going on.
60
Isn’t this cable route through a very active volcanic zone?
Electricity transmission companies generally use multiple routes to ensure reliability.
Do these renewable folks just never learn how important reliability is ?
580
Sure they know, what reliability is ??? 😀
240
They just care about the reliability of the subsidy money and nothing more…
180
Correct Russell –
As I have said elsewhere –
Proposed cable to Singapore running along then crossing one of the great ocean trenches on Planet Earth -the trench is location of colliding tectonic plates subduction zone – heightened seismic activity – plus elevated volcanic risk think Krakatoa -Even the comparatively tiny Basslink cable has been a financial disaster for Tassie taxpayers and TasHydro.
440
Correct – it’s the long junction between the Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates, and close to the Sumatran fault line, the area that generated the tsunami that killed around a quarter of a million people.
110
The words reliability and redundancy are not in the Green dictionary. The word cost refers you to ” see taxpayer “.
290
What a splendidly stupid idea!The heat loss must have been huge with a 3000 mile long cable.
350
Don’t be too smug, the two billionaires have a big fat tax write off.
470
Not really. It calculates out to around 20% for the total 5000 km distance, and this figure is close to the 24% determined by Graeme No 3 back in 2020. But then the is the battery charge/discharge and conversion losses to add to this 20%.
50
I had calculated around 15 per cent loss.
15 to 20 per cent is a v large loss to have to absorb.
The laws of physics cannot despite the subsidies wasted be ignored…
10
One of the crazier plans I have seen.
220
https://rclutz.com/2023/01/11/esg-fell-to-earth-in-2022/#respond
Environmental, Social and Governance,ESG, Investing down in value in 2922. GOP House Members
now advised to refer to Wind and Solar as not Green, not clean and empowering to China and Russia.
110
Beth
“Environmental, Social and Governance,ESG, Investing down in value in
29222022 by the look of it.Wouldn’t want anyone to think you were speculating
60
Oops! And Philip Tetlock shows that we’re not good at predicting.
30
crazy indeed.
For $30b they were reducing the small Australian car fleet by… 12%.
Is that assuming that an ev car 100 percent saves all the pollutants from the manufacturing and operation of an ICE? Likely, and if so, it is far far less effective than that already pitiful number. More likely zero percent, when one considers the cost of producing all those ev cars and batteries.
30
Why is it that they never give the total cost of the unreliable energy projects? They always seem to forget to include the cost of reliable energy needed to supply power when the unreliables fail, like at night for solar or when there is not enough, or too much, wind for the bird choppers.
470
The Augean stables festers and stinks as always and it will take someone bigger than Hercules to sort this rorting out. Like most things done in the political world it unravels big time down the track – such is expert advice, and no one will be held to account for the mess. C’est ca change….
100
The solar project out Woolooga(QLD)has had a third of their solar panels damaged in a storm a short while ago,which has put smiles on the locals faces.A bigger eye-soar you will not find(well in the Gympie region anyway)How anyone can say that these monstrosities are good for the environment is beyond me.
30
That’s because it would give the lie to their mantra that it’s ‘cheap’, it is not and also why do they give power output in x number of houses, very amateurish.
330
Only 120 square km.?
Should have been 120,000 square km – then it would have gotten some support from Bill Gates and the WEF.
200
I would have liked to have seen the Enviromental Impact Study by…………………Errrrrrrrr. Looks like that was never done. And wot’ baat’ the local peoples? Money for something and all that…………………Or is that nothing……………..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRDgihVDEko
50
Reminds me of the solar farm they built on the way to Palm Springs, California that went bust a number of years ago.
It needed to import natural gas just to get it running up to temperature and it still was an abject failure.
So, I just have to LMAO with glee!
391
Do you mean Ivanpah? Its on the way to Las Vegas. Impressive to see in person.
I think its fine as far as a technology demonstrator goes which is what it is, – runs on solar during the day to heat steam to 550C, but uses NG to get up to temperature in the morning.
If that gas was used in a CCGT plant it would have generated ~125 GWh versus the ~420 GWh Ivanpah puts out.
I’m no greenie but I think it was worth investigating the concept.
I think the issue was the capacity factor of the plant is only around 28% so admittedly not great.
Would have been interesting if it was linked to a proper CCGT plant so then regardless it could provide power 24/7 and be ‘solar-assisted’ during the day to save on gas.
But maybe then simply not worth the expense unless cost/unit could be decreased.
132
Ivanpah demonstrated clearly the limitations andimpracticality of their technology choice..
Concentrated Solar (tracking mirrors), and hot salt energy storage .
Another “Green” Brain fart !
280
Is Ivanpah still running? I must admit I haven’t ever bothered about the project as I knew that similar (smaller) projects in southern Spain had all collapsed into bankruptcy.
160
Here is a USGS video of Ivanpah frying birds and insects in flight.
https://youtu.be/SXAdpRlvh6g
70
Thank god Forrest and MCB didn’t get their hands on AGL and retire the remaining coal plants on the false premise that their eco-scam was viable and come to fruition any time soon.
If only their egos could be tapped for power, the nation would never run out.
580
Do I understand that the golden shovels never got used?
The web page looks impressive, but apparently it is all digital graphics — no dirt turned, no panels, no cable.
290
Only to shovel BS John
121
Give it nine months and see if this isn’t just some way of squeezing out some of the equityholders, leaving the big stakeholders in better shape.
170
Andrew Forrest seems to have lost a number of senior executives from his companies recently. Dumped because they couldn’t do the impossible or because they foresaw that his ideas were impossible?
220
18 senior departures in the last two years. Only 2 of the 11 senior team profiled in 2021 now remain with the organisation.
80
Surprised the enterprise isn’t even profitable enough to provide green transortable hydrogen in the form of ammonia.
That says a lot.
150
Raving,
Thank god . Ammonia is fatal level toxic . What could possibly go wrong ?
50
I was thinking of this: (CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/wind-energy-timelines-canada-germany-deal-nl-1.6558549
20
Ammonia is toxic. We have had enough artificial ice rink tragedies here but at least it is low pressure and a good candidate for bulk transport. Expect that transporting hydrogen under high pressure is more challenging.
20
The most terrifying thing is that the Australian federal government or the Northern Territory government will step in and take over this failed project. The NT government was counting on it:
https://ntrebound.nt.gov.au/news/2022/propelling-the-sun-cable-project-forward-with-new-legislation
I would also like to know:
1) How many tax dollars (if any) have already been spent on this?
2) How many tax dollars will be lost due to Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest being able to legitimately claim tax deductions for losses they may have incurred?
3) How much money, if any, did the taxpayer-owned Infrastructure Australia spend on this?
362
Oh,GEEZ, I was going to comment that please don’t tell Chris Bowen about this project otherwise he will propose Australian govts invest in it. From your comment it would appear that is already happening.
100
Where were the engineers to speak out about this inevitable disaster?
Probably the same place a vast majority of medical doctors and scientists were who didn’t and won’t talk about the covid vaccine disaster.
Cowering under their desks!
490
Im sure there were engineering ( and financial)advisers making comment….
…..but there were no ears listening !!
240
There was a very good technical analysis on WUWT by Michael Darby on 2 August 2020, titled “Flogging Unreliable Energy By Extension Cord To Singapore Looks Like An Outrageous…”. Lots of data and calculations to peruse.
As well as pertinent comments by Chad, Graeme No 3 and IanC of the Ponds here at JoNova on 16-17 March 2020. Chad summed it up by saying “The numbers don’t add up”.
70
Imagine the cost of keeping the panels dust-free for optimum performance!
10
Why is it automatically assumed that anything marketed as supposedly “green” is good?
The mantra of the eighties “greed is good” is now “green greed is good”.
360
You have to admire their sales and marketing people, everything “green” is good, “renewable” energy, wind and solar “farms”, national parks “for future generations”, etc
150
And yet they are making future generations heavily in debt.
180
Ah, always amaze me that they can sell the “for the kids” mantra to the gullible punters who vote for these schemes, but if you raise the topic of “for the kids” about fiscal discipline and less debt then you can’t get traction, and the parents then seem not to care. And it is right there where the green cult loses me.
90
There’s going to be plenty of energy available after they have finished (if ever) killing most of us off.
10
Think of the huge labour cost just to constantly clean those 120 sq km (46 sq miles) of solar panels. (Or perhaps a robot or other machine would do it.)
151
DM
IIRC that big solar farm in North Africa uses something like 200,000 l/day on their panels
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
“The design uses wet cooling and the need to regularly clean the reflectors means that the water use is high – 1.7 million m3 per year or 4.6 liters per kWh.[15]”
210
So do they have unlimited clean water in NW Australia for this?
20
These are the high tech ‘green jobs’ the left keeps talking about.
100
Solar energy’s burger flippers?
40
If this crazy project did go ahead, would its owners be eligible for ongoing taxpayer subsidies?
There has to be an economic motivation for this much insanity.
It just doesn’t make sense that it could possibly work in a free market.
260
That is a certainty David. None of these schemes could operate without them. Criminal waste. Again.
100
Indeed, the new “carbon trading” scheme ramped up by our PM would help to fund nutso projects like this. It would mean that companies that need to buy credits would send money to these white elephants that the free market would never provide.
80
IIRC Doesn’t Warren Buffett reckon that is the only reason to be in them?
70
It’s amazing that the Greens never ever find (or never even look for) a spotted frog, banded skink, purple bellied finch or culturally significant Aboriginal rubbish tip where solar panels or windmills are to be built. Just lucky I guess?
520
Yes, it’s interesting how there was nowhere on the 120 sq km site or associated power line route that didn’t threaten some supposedly endangered species or sacred aboriginal site like all other development projects do, no matter how small.
190
If it did go ahead, then that would have been a trigger to cover much of the NT in solar panels to supposedly power the rest of Australia, and why not NZ as well?
After all, the Sydney to Auckland distance is only 2155km, less than half the Sun Cable distance, LoL.
And what about the humongous amount of batteries this whole exercise would need?
The Left love nothing more than a failure to waste taxpayer money on.
361
On talkback radio yesterday a bright caller advised power stations are no longer needed because houses will soon have batteries.
180
Bright? Seems quite dim to me.
100
After 5 cloudy days on a windless winter night?
10
What these people who have battery storage in their homes don’t know is when the power outages occur the power from the solar panels automatically switches OFF,including power FROM the battery.
10
a bright caller advised power stations are no longer needed because houses will soon have batteries.
Long Life Evereadies, of course.
00
Another question, why did it have to be built in Australia rather than a much close country with even more sun, like Indonesia?
The reason is that the “investors” probably thought that no other government would be stupid enough to possibly offer subsidies.
Ultimately, the owners had to be expecting subsidies of some kind from the Australian or NT Government. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
421
Land area, access and hours of sunshine.
It also appears to be far enough inland that cyclones should fizzle out before reaching the site.
80
“It also appears to be far enough inland that cyclones should fizzle out before reaching the site.”
Take a drive down the Barkly stockroute east from Elliot and marvel at the stockroute bores with mill towers still erect and the headworks in a screwed up ball of metal across the flat. So I wouldn’t be too sure of that.
80
There was an earthquake that went through the area that destroyed a lot of the gas pipe and the region is prone to quakes , the biggest problem may be the heat in the area and the efficiency losses associated. There are Bilbys in the area and most likely indigenous artefacts and possibly sacred sites . I’m sure there was a story about the local indigenous elders not wanting the landscape changed visually by the massive project .
70
Are they from the tail-end of cyclones, or from some of the rip-snorters of willy-willies they get out there?
Those would make a mess of a big solar or wind installation, but on a fairly narrow track compared to a cyclone.
20
The cyclones that sweep through the NW of Australia of end up going right down to the Great Australian Bight, if not as cyclones, then strong rain-bearing depressions. Everybody forgets about them when they leave the coastal settlements, but they often keep going right down through Australia. One of these flooded an ancient riverbed near Naretha, destroying a section of the Trans railway line in 1963, where the line builders hadn’t considered putting culverts in. Another one I know of picked up an empty 30,000 gallon tank off a stand from a railway siding on the Nullarbor Plain, which was last seen bowling southwards across the plain, never to be seen again.
70
That’s what I meant about fizzling out. They still rain like all get-out, but the wind speeds have dropped off to below cyclone levels.
10
Even with Bass Strait Powerlink, which is only 370km long problems abound! The Basslink group, the companies in charge of connecting Tasmania to the national energy market, have entered voluntary administration after disputes with Hydro Tasmania and an unsuccessful sale. Not to worry let’s just build a second one so we can ferry some unreliable wind energy from Tasmania to Victoria. But first, we’ll need to destroy the picturesque NW tip of Tasmania with white sticks and several hundred kilometres of farmland between Cape Grim and Launceston to feed the National Grid.
230
Errr ?….. Tassie power is mostly HYDRO generated !
71
Except when the almost run out of water…..
Like they did in early 2016, when they brought in
over 150 diesel generators to power up the grid.
Oh, the piece of electric string from the mainland
was also cactus at the same time.
They were lucky with the diesel generators, able to off-load them to
South Australia later that year when they also ran into generation
and “borrowing” problems.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?
220
part of the proposal was that a second Basslink would allow “greater investment in renewables in Tasmania”
70
The idea was a large wind turbine installation on the NW tip. This needed some way to ship the resulting electricity to where it could be used.
Give Bob Brown some kudos in that he opposed the scheme because of the detriment to migratory bird life.
110
NIMBY…
90
An alternative meaning of that acronym is “Next Idiot Might Be You”
(Ando – I am making no implication there!)
60
Yep. This is the Proposed 122-turbine Robbins Island wind farm, that if built, will have to shut down for five months every year because of migrating endangered orange-bellied parrots. You couldn’t make this stuff up…
110
The Tasmanian Wedge Tailed Eagle is suffering numerous deaths by existing wind turbines in the NW.
To paraphrase “We had to wipe out the eagles in order to save them”.
40
“will have to shut down for five months every year”
Want to guess that the subsides continue year round?
30
What about the dust that would get on those panels,
who would clean them and with what.
120
Electric helicopter drones.
80
One of the projected benefits of the scheme was to be the creation of many thousand jobs….
….. so maybe a whole new window cleaning employment oportunity ?
But, automated robotic cleaners and autonamous Drones to blow off dust, are both proven methods in existing solar plants.
So not really a potential problem……just an extra cost !
60
The red pindan really fine dust might need washing to get off the glass especially if the have a lot of wind during the day then a cold and windless night which can lead to dew which will then mean the panels will have to be washed . I can see Murphy and his laws playing havoc with this project .
110
Love to know how the they get the drone blown dust not to settle on the adjacent or downwind panels. Tricky stuff.
10
He should be held to these words as a measure of his business acumen-
Cannon-Brooks-
““We are confident Sun Cable will be an attractive investment proposition and remain at the forefront of Australia’s energy transition.” “Sun Cable has achieved so much since it was founded in 2018. I’m confident it will play a huge role in delivering green energy for the world, right here from Australia. I fully back this ambition and the team, and look forward to supporting the company’s next chapter,”
Forrest had more sense than to say anything.
180
ps: after due consideration and evaluation the Liddell Power Station must be demolished.
100
Should have stuck with software, I dont think real things are his forte
200
Based on that statement, he should personally reimburse anyone who lost money, including the taxpayer if taxpayer funds were involved.
181
“reduce CO2 by vastly more”
There is no evidence connecting CO2 levels with human activity.
Still the anti CO2 story persists. The world wide lockdown had no impact.
But “Each year, human activities release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than natural processes can remove, causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to increase.”
This is NOAA!
This is entirely wrong, an outrageous statement, anti science. ‘Natural processes’ implies the biosphere, plants. They are irrelevant.
Elements Carbon and Oxygen are numbers 6 and 8 and in great abundance. So is Carbon Dioxide the gas and all the carbonates. But unlike oxygen it is extremely soluble and compressible so 98% is in the ocean and every month more CO2 dissolves in the ocean than the entire output of humans. Ocean water evaporates and gives rain. CO2 evaporates as fast as it is absorbed. It’s called equilibrium. And it obeys Henry’s law for dissolved gases.
The opportunity for the purveyors of doom is that no one knows any science. And real scientists are cowed into silence.
The idea that humans are responsible for the 50% increase in CO2 is made up, demonstrably wrong, a political and opportunistic lie. And the increase in tiny CO2 cannot possibly change the weather, unless there is an amplification which has proven to be non existent.
And without this, there is no man made Global Warming or Climate Change or Climate Armageddon. And no $2,000,000,000,000 a year. Around the world scientific organizations and universities are silent. They live in fear of their communist administrators.
Still the Alabanese government is proceeding to introduce a carbon tax on companies who will be forced to buy carbon indulgences.
This self immolation solely of Western Democracies and engineered by the UN has to stop.
651
An excellent summary.
201
The source of highly soluble CO2 is the vast deep ocean which cover the planet.
However the source of insoluble oxygen is the atmosphere and the plants which produced it over millions of years.
All living things are made almost entirely from CO2, trees, humans, fish, insects, bacteria. And they get their energy by producing CO2. An 80kg man will produce 240 tons of CO2 in a lifetime just by breathing. Life is not carbon neutral.
And CO2 levels are what is released from the water. More CO2 means more life, something which has been confirmed by NASA and the CSIRO, a greening of the planet as much as the whole of Australia. NASA is wrong however to call CO2 a ‘fertilizer’. It is the tree. Which is why all living things burn and rocks do not.
Storing CO2 in trees is ridiculous, scientific nonsense. More CO2 in the air means more trees. More trees do not reduce CO2.
250
This continual exchange of gases at the ocean surface over 72% of the planet, gases evaporating and being absorbed drives all life on earth. Water is also a gas at 1% of the atmosphere. Same mechanism.
Now consider the fish all of which live on oxygen. Where do they get it? How does it get in the water?
Anyone who has owned a fish tank know that Oxygen needs to be pumped continually into the water or the fish drown. However a little goes in naturally based on Henry’s Law. In the ocean, it is the storms and waves which continually push vast quantities of air into the top layer of water. It is also estimated that the phytoplankton which are plants on the surface generate about half of the replacement oxygen, or all the oxygen would be gone. For plants, oxygen is a waste product but they also need it when the sun does not shine.
It amazes me that we are told CO2 does not dissolve and rapidly. We are told that only the CO2 in the very top layer of the oceans is involved in this rapid transfer.
However there is vast evidence that this is not true. Measuring the age of CO2 age in water at the bottom of the ocean, far from our world, a land of no oxygen and no sunlight, dating gives 350 years. For this to be true, that CO2 has to have been in the atmosphere 350 years ago. But only 2% of CO2 is in the atmosphere, so the time to exchange the CO2 must be around 350/50 or 7 years. So CO2 changes totally every 7 years, not the ‘thousands of years’ quoted by the IPCC or even the ’80 years’ quoted as the half life of the exchange. This is also confirmed by the total vanishing of the doubling of atmospheric C14 after 1965. It’s all in the ocean now and long term C14 equilibrium levels have been restored. The evidence of the rapid exchange of CO2 is undeniable.
It staggers me that simple science is ignored. But the IPCC conclusions are written by politicians, not scientists. And atmospheric scientists long ago moved from agreeing with man made rapid tipping point Global Warming. It’s not true and the IPCC scientists now agree.
Still our government wants to shut down manufacturing, agriculture, fertilizer, concrete, steel, transport, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, kangaroos, camels. Breathing will be last. After they ban termites for their methane output. And China is building more Coal fired power stations per year than our entire output and currently output more CO2 than all other countries combined. Where is their warming? And why does no one mention this?
370
I am always searching for the simplest way to make this point.
The only reason we have a substantial atmosphere at all is that O2 and N2 and argon are not very soluble. Conversely there is very little CO2 in the air because it is very soluble, being just as polar as H2O. Henry’s law determines how much of these gases are in the air and how much is in the water. It’s called equilibrium.
There is a huge soda water fountain called the ocean which contains 98% of all CO2.
The atmosphere is the lid with 21% Oxygen 78% Nitrogen 1% Argon and a tiny 0.04% CO2.
If it was not so very soluble and compressible, CO2 would be 2%. 98% of CO2 is in the ocean. And it’s no one’s fault.
Consider that if we could suddenly take all the CO2 out of the air, it would be back very quickly from near infinite reserves.
What is laughable were schemes to sequester or bury CO2 deep in the ocean. They have failed as the CO2 at such high pressure turns to a solid and blocks the pipes. In fact as no water in the ocean is much under 0C, the highly compressed CO2 is a liquid, sloshing around with the water but it is not tied to the water and CO2 can rise from the bottom.
Mankind has absolutely zero control over CO2 levels, up or down. More CO2 just means the ocean surfaces are on average a bit warmer.
Otherwise you would think that while the Industrial revolution might have been 1850, it did not affect much of the world. Since 1900 though everyone has cars, planes, factories, agriculture and world population has increased from 1 billion in 1900 to today’s 8 billion. You could think this should be visible on the graph of CO2, but it isn’t.
Here’s another graph showing 1800 at 275ppm and 2020 at 420ppm. Once again they leave out the X axis so it looks steep, but it’s a tiny growth of 50% over a massive 220 years. And you cannot see ANY evidence of the exponential human population, car, plane, train, ship, engine, electricity, transportation, manufacturing since 1900. Or frankly anything else, like the world shutdown in 2020.
So if someone says CO2 is man made, where is this sky rocket graph?
170
And in the graph, you can see how they play with the vertical axes. Methane looks to have gone up just a little bit compared to CO2.
But if you read the scales methane has more than doubled when CO2 has only gone up 50%.
These are very deliberate games with graphs. Neither graph shows an exponential x8 increase in human population and say x20 in human CO2 output. It is pure chicanery to leave the X axis off a graph. It’s a bit like Alan Ladd walking next to Sophia Loren when they had dug a trench for Sophia. Deceit.
And in absolute terms CH4 at 2ppmv against CO2 at 420ppmv is 1/200th of the amount. While the story is that CH4 is 30x the greenhouse effect of CO2, even doubled it is still 1/6th of the effect. Banning cows and pigs and ruminants generally is crazy. Such animals existed in vast numbers long before humans. Ban the termites!
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I understood that before cattle that there were milions of large herbivores on the prairie in the USA.
Similarly in eastern Africa.
And if Global Warming© was really as high as some hysterically claim, why haven’t termites taken over the UK?
It surely cannot be that it isn’t warm enough, esp. as last year was “the warmest ever” (at least since 1999). It was a whole 0.08℃ average higher in 24 years so that the DREADED 1.5℃ Warming** would, at that rate, occur in 2210.
** Figure plucked from thin (but still cool) air.
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And you do know who will pay that Tax, right? Certainly not the evil Big Business Companies, but us the consumers.
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Apart from the liklihood of juicy taxpayer subsidies, what was ultimately behind the decision to go ahead with this non-sensical project?
Well, it was circular reasoning of a kind.
Infrastructure Australia, a woke taxpayer-funded entity to promote infrastructure said it was viable, therefore it was. Just like magic.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/investment-ready-billionaire-backed-sun-cable-s-clean-energy-project-gets-another-tick-20220623-p5aw7c.html
https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/funding-financing
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We do not accept advice from engineers or cost accountants for “green” projects because they are always cheap and the perfect solutions to problems that don’t exist.
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Well for once they’ve met their charter. The collapse of this venture IS the best outcome.
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Once entrepreneurial CEOs get these great ideas into their head, it’s very difficult to convince them that for technical reasons it’s not going to work. Know this from personal experience. And the stupid thing is, then they go onto other companies and repeat the same disasters. They never learn.
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Eric Newby’s “A Book of Traveller’s Tales” has the story of a brave soldier who told Alexander the Great
“Sir, if there is one thing above all others a successful man like you should know, it is when to stop”.
Bravery is probably not on any of the job specs.
50
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George Bernard Shaw … commie.
Sneaky Fabian commie at that.
I doubt he knew much about Napoleon, but was happy to borrow the name for his own purposes.
30
One of the primary flaws of MBA degrees
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Maybe the new Victoria Electricity Commission, Federal Labor Government shareholders plus other True Believers including Union Industry Super Funds can take over?
sarc.
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Don’t give them any ideas!
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I hate how this is not being spun as a technological failure, and a likely failure to secure taxpayer subsidies but as a result of:
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/singapore-australia-sun-cable-import-clean-electricity-energy-collapse-3198241
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In layman’s terms: “at least one backer wasn’t prepared to continue to sink his own money into this fanciful project indefinitely.”
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It was spin all the way from the start , so its fitting that it ends in spin
I expect some of the Hydrogen Super Hubs will go the same way
Offshore wind probably should but I fear it will go ahead.
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Yes, a recent article in The Australian, again authored by the clueless Perry Williams, is suggesting the same thing. But the more-than-1000 comments clearly have a different opinion.
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Mike Cannon-Brookes should stick to software and funding Teal candidates for Australian elections.
Bet he didn’t lose any of his money though – just other peoples, including Australians tax and superannuation funds.
Parasite extraordinaire!!
Cheers,
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The biggest tragedy about this collapse was that the project wasn’t further advanced and that shareholders didn’t lose billions more. The role of certain billionaires ability to stuff up our economy knows no boundaries and their bankruptcies would be something to celebrate. Its just a start to getting the general population to see who are the real nutters in the climate wars.
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Must have been great while lasted lasted though. A consultant feeding frenzy, travel boondoggles to Singapore to smooze the govt and grid operators and to Europe and China for study and feasibility tours. The Powerpoint would have been epic.
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Hahahahahahahahahaaaa……
Stupid is as stupid does.
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For Singapore, it’s a buyer’s market.
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/sun-cable-enters-administration-firm-has-mega-project-to-supply-solar-power-to-s-pore-from-australia
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You have to ask the obvious question.
How could importing expensive solar electricity 4200km (2609 miles) from Australia be more attractive than importing what would be obviously much cheaper “green” electricity from countries very close by, e.g. hydroelectric which is competitive in price to coal and gas and a legitimate means of generation?
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Never forget that this TOXIC, so called Green lunacy wouldn’t change the Temp or climate or weather by 2050 AT ALL.
And today Human life expectancy is 73 years for the 8 billion people now living on our planet.
Since the first Humans existed about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago their life expectancy was under 40 years, but all this changed since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
So for the first 99.9% of time for Human existence nothing changed, but since the last 0.1% (since 1800) 7 billion more people now enjoy the legacy of fossil fuelled BASE-LOAD energy. And still 80 + % of our total global energy today.
THINK about it.
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12,000 hectares equals 10km x 12km.
Destruction and pollution on a massive scale.
The idea of course is out of site and out of mind . .
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I am continually amused by the assertions that each of these improbable and wildly expensive projects is anticipated to turn Australia into a renewable energy ‘superpower’.
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All this marketing hyperbole rolls of the tongue so easily. They probably believe it themselves.
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Perhaps the next step is to be “The Saudi Arabia of wind power”?
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Just ask Chris Bowen…
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Hydrogen is the biggest joke of the lot.
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Yeah, this project might well be the dumbest one I have seen yet.
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Another recent theory of a “Human genetic bottleneck” after the Toba Indonesia super-volcano explosion about 74,000 years ago has been explored by a number of scientists.
Certainly we’d have very big problems today if this was replayed again and clueless undersea electric cables to Asia would be the least of our worries.
Here’s Wiki’s coverage of the Toba explosion during the last glaciation. Who knows?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
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Dont get too carried away just yet guys,…
..the project is only “in administration”..ie looking for more backers,..and the are still plenty of suckers out there that may throw green fairy dust into the pot for a moment in the news !
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Sky news is reporting the project is going to go ahead .
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Mind you they are also reporting its collapse into liquidation.
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But they want $30,000 million. I think even BowenArrow might baulk at that.
10
Unbelievable.
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Probably, into the washing machine and then to private off shore acounts with no acounting. Poof, like magic.
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Dave,
A bit like investing in Ukraine ATM. I hear weapons futures are booming…
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Glossy brochures cost a lot, yet the ROI is great.
10
If there is a Corporate Darwin Award, I nominate these guys.
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Since Forrest got into this and started having Hydrogen fantasies he has lost 20+ of his senior people. The didnt want to be on a sinking ship.
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Canberra’s own solar farm in receivership.
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2022/05/09/mugga-lane-solar-park-to-sell-after-administrators-appointed/
Fact: The A.C.T. boasted they were 100% renewable in late 2019.
Sunshine and wind was going to save the planet and save them some money.(definitely not a fact)
Fact: They have higher electricity prices than Melbourne & Sydney & the administrators have moved in.
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Lol! They built it, ring-fenced the subsidy money out of it and now its gone broke… Doesn’t worry them, they have plans to repeat the whole exercise on an even bigger scale! Get the Govt money and then crash it!
“Maoneng has confirmed that its 13MW Mugga Lane Solar Park in the Australian Capital Territory is up for sale after being placed into voluntary administration.
It is understood the Sydney-headquartered Maoneng had been seeking to refinance the facility, which is backed by a long-term offtake agreement with the ACT government.
Maoneng, which has plans to build more than 2,000MW of utility scale solar and battery energy storage system projects across Australia, said the situation at Mugga Lane will not affect it development plans.
“Mugga Lane Solar Park is a group subsidiary asset operating under a special purpose vehicle structure”
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“Mugga Lane Solar Park is a group subsidiary asset operating under a special purpose vehicle structure”
oh well that explains it then, perfectly clear. Glad to see the corporate weasel word generator is still out there functioning at peak efficiency.
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As part of Albos push for net zero it has been decreed all vacant land owned by defence must have solar panels on it. My response that its not a good idea to put solar panels next to an airport has for the most part fallen on deaf ears.
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We all know that stupid Albo is a religious fanatical BELIEVER in their environmentally TOXIC S & W energy, but building these disasters near your defences is reaching a new low.
How much more of this laughable lunacy do people need before they start to change their vote?
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so many issues, one being glare, you cant point a laser at a plane but you can build a ginormous solar plant to reflect sunlight into the eyes of pilots as they come in to land
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I wouldn’t put it past them to insist that they install Windmills next to airports.
What could possibly go wrong /sarc
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“We all know that stupid Albo is a religious fanatical BELIEVER in their environmentally TOXIC S & W energy.”
It’s how he/they got elected.
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I’m still trying to come to terms with always sleasy and his bunch of deadbeat morons got elected on 32% of the vote.If that’s DEMOCRACY,we have been sold a lemon,a VERY large LEMON.
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Is land adjacent to an airport vacant? I’d think it has a designated use already.
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Federal airports?
More dedicated shopping facilities?
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Lots of spare land on the artillery ranges. Just sayin.
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“Run for your lives, the Sky is Falling!”
I do not buy the idea that Mike Cannon Brookes and Andrew Forrest are concerned about the planet. People who make that kind of money are looking for the next big thing and to lead it. The idea that they are magnaminous investors or Bill Gates for that matter is unlikely.
The planet is not warming by any measure. The sea level rise is negligible, which everyone knows. Half of Bangladesh is only a meter above sea level and surely they would have noticed in the hundred years? The Maldives have built seven new airports and promoters are building in the ocean. In Dubai they are building cities in the shallow water. And how many airports are built on reclaimed land or the flat land near the water? Hundreds?
So the engineers do not believe it. The investors do not believe it. And most of the promoters of a flooded world are buying waterfront property with their profits. And in Melbourne and Brisbane people are building on flood plains to be near the water which is now a vast premium. Florida which has 15 Hurricanes a year has endless building, even on nothing more than sand dunes in the shallow harbours. Does anyone really care? No.
But we are supposed to believe that our billionaires really care? No, it is all about the money. And you can then buy more beach front property.
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And I note the divide and conquer approach of the communists.
Attack coal first, because it is obviously black. Exports of our brown coal in Victoria were stopped because the proponents were going to make it ‘blacker’ by squeezing out the 66% water. $400Million initially to India. A trade forbidden after a campaign by The Age newspaper.
Then oil, because it is also black. “Just Stop Oil”. Run by paid activists in the UK for example.
Then gas, because while it is invisible, it is made from Carbon. Of course it also is used to make many things like Ammonia for nitrogen fertilizer without which
half the world would quickly starve, but it seems there are too many people anyway. In the US the plan is to ban gas ovens. It is just the start.
And the overpaid executives at companies like Shell agree with man made Global Warming and just hope they can retire before the carbon police turn their attention from coal to oil to gas.
“In The Netherlands we have now had two prominent climate cases. In 2015 Dutch NGO Urgenda won its case against the Dutch state, demanding more ambitious reduction of greenhouse gases. Now FoE prevailed against a private company in a climate case. Shell was ordered to adopt corporate policies to reduce the CO2 emissions from the group’s activities by net 45% by the end of 2030 compared to 2019. This reduction obligation applies to the Shell Group’s entire global energy portfolio. Shell must not only reduce its own emissions but also ensure that the emissions of its suppliers and customers (Scope 3 emissions) fall drastically.”
However if Shell stood up to the extortion in court, they could win. There is no scientific proof at all for man made Global Warming. And there has never been an inquiry or public debate, not since man made Global Warming replaced man made Global Cooling in 1988 with the formation of UN’s IPCC. So CLINTEL is trying to join the sweetheart case between Shell and the extremists.
And then the World Economic Forum, the Malthusian organization run by a German contemporary of the Hitler youth from a family who actually moved to the third Reich and Ravensburg now attracts 52 heads of state. Why? It seems obvious they are planning the fate of the world.
Lesser people you see are still Untermenschen, especially the poor of the world in Africa, Asia and South America. This remarkably public and unholy alliance of Capitalism and Socialism was the foundation of Mussolini’s Fascism and Hitler’s Reich. Rule by the rich. And President Zelensky is going to address the meeting. Which is appropriate. Any enemy of Russia is a friend to the UK, France, Germany who have all invaded Russia. They hope to break it up, like the Ottoman empire before it.
World Environmental Fascism is now very big world scale business.
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And Hitler and friends were crooks. Hitler made a fortune by ordering everyone at a public ceremony like marriage had to buy a copy of his book. When a taxation officer demanded tax on the millions he made, Hitler passed a law exempting himself from taxation. The idea that Fascist and Communist and Socialist leaders are acting for the greater good is just fantasy. They are typically crooks seeking power. Global Warming is a means to an end. And at the EU and UN there are 80,000 full time employees who want billions. Universities too, where administrators now often outnumber both lecturers and student. And Councils.
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Aloha! In 1952 Bell Labs in the USA invented the first solar panel. There is a reason it sat around for 50 years with no mass energy interest. If Chevron or Exxon thought it was a supreme viable economic wonder they would have bought the technology and patents and developed the first solar farms in 1960! They didn’t! You can’t force the free market test!
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That may be so but does this ‘death’ apply to the money laundering raison d’être of the world’s largest solar plant?
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They’ll just find another ‘washing machine’ and continue.
50
SOLAR ENERGY IS USELESS
Or perhaps one should say: utility scale solar energy is useless. In northern climates, like where I live, solar panels produce electricity around 18% of the time–not a lot of electricity, any electricity. The vast majority of the time, they are inert.
It’s not just that solar panels do nothing during the night, as Duke Energy recently reminded its customers following a series of blackouts. In the North, solar panels also cease to function when it snows. Which it does, a lot. Sometimes on days when you want to turn on your lights, watch television or operate an appliance.
This is typical: a vast sea of solar panels, completely worthless because they are covered with snow:
What is most telling is that no one bothers to shovel off the snow. Do you shovel your driveway? Yes, you need to.
But utilities don’t clear snow off solar panels, as one utility executive recently admitted, because they produce so little electricity that paying to shovel them–most likely, paying high school kids–is not cost-effective.
That is the ultimate proof of the futility of utility scale solar power.
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How long would it take to accumulate a good coating of red dust on a Sun Cable type installation, and the labour to clean them off would be mindboggling.
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I’ve mentioned this earlier in the thread Ronin , the very fine pindan dust is like a red dye and the area does get windy at certain times of the year (very windy) . You get this dust on the panel the wind drops and you get some dew on the panels it will take a lot of water to clean that amount of panels .
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and bore water would need to be treated to remove the salts.
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Does Cannon-Brookes really believe his own BS, or is he just in it to harvest the subsidie and forced purchase arrangements of a fundamentally defective “green” electricity product? (Also applies to “green” hydrogen.)
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MCB, is like a overgrown schoolboy with pockets stuffed full of money, in a giant toy store !
And he doesnt care how many other people he has to walkover to get to the next interesting toy that he wants to play with.
20
Two characteristics of Leftoid governments is that they have to force you to:
1) Purchase defective and expensive “green” electricity product.
2) Force you to be injected with a fundamentally defective and dangerous covid vaccine product.
121
Unfortunately,OUR CONsrvative government are just as guilty of forcing US to comply as OUR leftoid government whom WE didn’t elect.
00
Same clueless disaster from the King Island hybrid generator.
TOXIC S & W produce very little and the battery is flat and the Diesel is the only RELIABLE generator most of the time.
So how could anyone BELIEVE that you could run a modern country with millions of people using these TOXIC disasters?
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
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“It is difficult to understand why a company such as Sun Cable, which is in the regulatory approval stage of its evolution, is apparently burning through so much cash.”
It would be interesting to see what a forensic accountant might find.
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Well, the cable did have to pass through Indonesian territorial waters. Maybe people had to be paid off for permission….
And what kept the Greens from complaining about the environmental destruction of 120 sq km of solar panels, maybe they had to be paid off as well?
No doubt other parties wanted their “pound of flesh” as well.
There were likely many snouts in the trough, as with all “green” projects.
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If it’s green it gets a free pass David , the solar farm near me has scar trees / birthing trees etc right in the middle of it but the only opposition came from locals about loss of amenity .
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Any start up burns a lot of cash up front. This would have been a goldmine for consultants doing feasibility and business cases. The corporate smoozing in Singapore alone would have been extensive.
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Matt Ridley tells us we have a very bright future if we use our brains and stop relying on their TOXIC S & W lunacy for our energy.
He is a bit premature about our recent use of untested big pharma vaccines and I’m still not 100% sure about some careful use of DDT.
But he lists all sorts of data and he doesn’t think there is any danger of any mass extinction today or in the near future.
His message is clear that most of our future fears are unfounded as long as we choose the correct path. But for OECD countries I think that’s a very big IF.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11621235/MATT-RIDLEY-worlds-getting-greener-cleaner-healthier-richer-wildlife.html
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It’s a miracle that China hasn’t come out and said ‘ it’s an anti China plot’.
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[…] “Big solar goes Big Bust: Largest solar plant in the world dies before it can be built” – The massive Sun Cable project collapsed into voluntary administration four years after promising to build the world’s largest solar power plant in Australia’s Northern Territory, writes Jo Nova. […]
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An obviously bloody ridiculous concept from the very beginning.
No doubt the ever-pragmatic Singaporean government saw this and were not very interested from a very early stage.
So;
Are Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest really geniuses?
Or, are they simply smart, unprincipled, opportunistic seekers of investment and funding?
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Perhaps the Singaporeans asked the obvious question of where to source energy when the NT is in darkness.
40
No,…they definitely are not smart !
20
A Company with the name: “NAIF”?
It sounds like a sick, arrogant joke.
They are not describing themselves, but their “marks”.
A “naif” is a “gullible innocent’; the word is derived from naive”.
There are some sick puppies out there who want to take your money and control your lives, and those are probably their REDEEMING characteristics.
Or, am I being a bit too “sensitive?
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No, NAIF is the NT govt organisation that is supposed to be tipping taxpayer money into these ventures. Not sure of the relationship between CEFC, who also provide govt money, and NAIF. NAIF obtained another $2bn for this type of funding. But looking at the NAIF website, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much govt money has already gone into this project.
30
This has finally taught me what it means to be a renewable energy superpower.
In plain English it means really large scale intermittent energy sources hooked up to overseas cables.
I saw an episode of Rob Sitch’s Utopia last night. Perhaps renewable energy superpower will get a run in a future series.
30
Go woke, go broke! What did you expect when a delusional idealistic Marxist and a Mining magnet seeing megatons of additional ‘investment’ in the green mining boom!
Wonder whether Cannon-Brooks will cohost the virtue signalling Project again to explain this time why he ISN’T going to save the planet!
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I guess the next failed megaproject after they’ve blown a few billion taxpayer dollars on “green” hydrogen will be “green” steel.
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Isn’t it lovely to read a good news story for once?
100
This is what inevitably happens when our richest rent-seekersare as thick as a block of wood
40
What happened to the kilometre high tower at Mildura? Or Flannery’s hot rocks? That’s only two but I’m sure there is more which I can’t remember. At least those two did not rely on the sun not setting.
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[…] Full article: https://joannenova.com.au/2023/01/big-solar-goes-big-bust-largest-solar-plant-in-the-world-dies-befo… […]
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