By Jo Nova
Germany is a lesson for the rest of the world
Few countries have placed a bigger bet on “renewables” than Germany, which installed some 28,443 wind turbines, and at its peak in 2016, employed 160,000 people just in the wind industry. But the effect on the rest of the economy is devastating.
The Energiewende Green program was estimated to have cost €520 billion plus and after 20 years of subsidies and effort, reduced fossil fuel use from 84% of primary energy “all the way” down to 78%. And those presumably were the easy wins.
The cost of expensive electricity vandalizes the rest of the economy. The Green policy gamble may change Germany forever. The former economic powerhouse of Europe is coming undone — losing iconic parts to the US and Asia.
BASF — the German historic giant founded in 1865, is the largest chemical producer in the world. In 1913 it bought the new Haber Bosch process that creates ammonia for fertilizer, and thus changed the world — making billions of lives possible. But now, BASF is shifting out of Germany — spending $10 billion on a new plant in China.
Then there is Linde, an industrial gas behemoth that was the most valuable blue-chip company in the country a few years ago, but is now headquartered in Ireland and listed on the NY stock exchange.
…
Thanks to NetZeroWatch for the tip about the long feature in Politico
Rust Belt on the Rhine
By Matthew Karnitschnig, Politico
Germany’s biggest companies are ditching the fatherland.
Confronted by a toxic cocktail of high energy costs, worker shortages and reams of red tape, many of Germany’s biggest companies — from giants like Volkswagen and Siemens to a host of lesser-known, smaller ones — are experiencing a rude awakening and scrambling for greener pastures in North America and Asia.
BASF is not just “a company” when it needed as much gas as a nation of eight million people:
Though wholesale gas prices have recently stabilized, they’re still roughly triple where they were before the crisis. That has left companies like BASF, whose main German operation alone consumed as much natural gas in 2021 as all of Switzerland, with no choice but to look for alternatives.
That was only 2 years ago but energy is so important that a project that large may “evaporate” nearly overnight.
The country’s Green transformation, the so-called Energiewende, has only made matters worse. Just as it was losing access to Russian gas, the country switched off all nuclear power. And even after nearly a quarter century of subsidizing the expansion of renewable energy, Germany still doesn’t have nearly enough wind turbines and solar panels to sate demand — leaving Germans paying three times the international average for electricity.
In order to even get BASF interested in new projects in the motherland, the government has to send containerships of money:
BASF opened a plant near Dresden that makes cathode materials for electric-car batteries just two weeks ago and has pledged to keep investing in its home market. To secure such commitments, however, local and federal governments have been forced to offer generous incentives. BASF will receive €175 million in government support for its new battery operation, for example.
Similarly, in June, the U.S. chipmaker Intel secured an eye-watering €10 billion subsidy for a massive new factory in the eastern city of Magdeburg. That translates into €3.3 million for each of the 3,000 jobs the company has pledged to create.
What a devastating poll:
A recent survey of 128 German auto suppliers by the VDA, an industry group, found that not a single one planned to increase their investment in their home market. More than a quarter were planning to shift operations abroad.
The industrial backbone of Germany may leave and take with them not just know-how, but also industrial families and middle-class risk-taking entrepreneurs. That exodus may change the fabric of the nation. The children of the people that get-things-done will learn another language and be in no rush to return to a land they didn’t grow up in.
“Leading the way” in renewables on the road to nowhere…
After “leading the way” in unreliable power, what’s left? Germany has such expensive energy it can’t even afford to make wind turbines, batteries, or EV’s.
BASF building. | Das Logo der Marke Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge
Really challenging story, Jo. I think it should be a wake up call for everyone but I suspect Germany’s self inflicted problems will be ignored. Something like “we can do it better” will be the explanation. Also hidden in the details would be the environmental damage with that many turbines with their bird and bat destruction and the vast amount of concrete and steel buried in the earth. Sadly here in Australia we learn nothing from other peoples costly blunders with the mob in Canberra aiming directly at same goal. One thing though, so much of our manufacturing has already gone to Asia, so where are we really heading?
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“Rust Belt on the Rhine” – most of German industry was destroyed in WW2. Very few factories there are older than 75 years.
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The Australian MSM, led by you know who, will totally ignore the German industrial implosion in favour of following “ Blackout Bowen “ and the ALP down the same path.
Australian manufacturing was never anywhere near the size of German industry & will sink into the mire of renewables folly much quicker.
The Coalition will aid the disaster with their less than enthusiastic reaction. Softly, softly policies will see the demise of what’s left of our manufacturing base as the LNP party room ignores reality and the heat on mining & agriculture will intensify! The Voice will be final blow in killing off any entrepreneurial activity.
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I wouldn’t bank on the coalition saving us.They were quite happy to let our”Automotive Manufacturing”leave Australia.They seem to think that we’ll forget about these things.I sure as hell won’t.
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The massive subsidies into the auto industry destroyed by union demands and work practices was unsustainable.
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Someone should start building a basic Ozzie car. Hybrid power, simple upgradeable layout for a diy incl flat replaceable paintable panels, minimum lights, sedan or tray back on the same chassis but all with quality components.
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No one would buy it.
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Would never pass the current safety or environmental “rules”
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Sounds a lot like the Volks Wagon of the 30s.
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Newcastle State Dockyard was destroyed from within.
The union leaders, I suspect, were the only ones laughing when it was over.
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The unions did the same thing to Detroit Michigan.The place is a ghost town now.
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Voting for the Coalition is a waste of time. Too many like Birmingham and Archer are complicit in this transition. “Blowhard” Bowen will further weaken this country if he doesn’t wake up. As the man is obviously a half-wit, I can’t see any volte face.
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Gamblers are always losers in the long run.
There wouldn’t be gambling establishments if the expectation wasn’t for the gambler to lose in the long run.
The Elites profiting from ignorant nations betting on unreliables are no different. They (the gambling establishment) win, the country and its people (the gambler) lose.
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Germany is just repeating the Nerobefehl, the Nero Decree, the order from the leader of the National Socialists to destroy all useful infrastructure at the end of WW2, partly as punishment for the German people failing him.
In a rare case of National Socialists refusing to “just follow orders”, Albert Speer declined this one.
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Time for Bavaria to cut loose from the sinking ship.
John Deere was making very good tractors in Mannheim.
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Remember thyat Munich is its capital
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AS a Deere user, I would say WERE making very good tractors. ALL the Vehicle Manufr’s are following this stupid green agenda AND aiding/abetting the AI movement.
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The Germans will be fine … a while back they invested a bunch of money in Greek bonds and these should pay back an excellent return.
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Forgive my ignorance, but is that sincere or sarcasm? I genuinely know little about bonds and finance.
Greece is basically a meme for nonproductive economy, not viable and hasnt been for a long time. So I assume sarcasm? Or is buying into bonds of even a busted wreck like Greece an assured return or grab of wealth?
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Sarcasm surely.
Although they might be able to sell those Greek bonds to some other nation run with even more gullibility / stupidity. Curiously 2 names come to mind, Biden and Bowen.
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In today’s world ANYTHING is possible. There appears to be a “ race to the bottom “ so don’t worry . Soon Greek bonds may be a fantastic store of wealth if the Anthony & Chris show is not ditched!!
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Payback time?
The twelfth of never comes to mind.
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Not your fault.
Recently, on this site, and others I see a lack of respect for Poe’s Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
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Thanks for the education: Poe’Law. so often overlooked.
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Sadly Greece is now on fire , again!
Photos show firefighters ploughing through waist high scrub: exactly the same as the last fires just a couple of years ago.
It’s thought that the German Bonds you mentioned may have gone up with the scrub.
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Carbon Credits, anyone?
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Why should I give Carbon ANY credit ?
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Chris Bowen says he follows what is happening in Europe but is he up to date? He must be still reading the 2020 version of Germany’s energy policy.
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Bowen hasn’t progressed past the last time unreliable and expensive wind and animal energy was rapidly abandoned over 300 years ago as soon as the first practical steam engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen.
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“Blackout Bowen” cannot read as he wears rose coloured glasses and has blinkers on.
The joke is that he has an open mind. Knowledge goes in one ear and out of the other without sticking around.
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Couldn’t happen to a better bunch – directly responsible for much of the problems in Europe and beyond. Their aspirations to raise a forth reich through the EU is beginning to unravel.
And BASF, really ! The apparent manufacturers of Zyklon B who profited massively from WW2 and its use of slave labour.
Never forget.
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Degussa manufactured Zyklon B
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Degesch, a subsidiary of IG Farben, made Zyklon B. IG Farben became part of Bayer not BASF. There are plenty of German companies with Nazi links such as builder of concentration camps, Hochtief. To be fair it would have been hard for a company not to be involved in something but looking deeper some of the families behind the companies still have questionable views and histories.
[Let’s not get too far from the post topic of Germany and renewables and economic decline. – Jo]
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This is such an important post.
The situation is clear and incontrovertible; the narrative around CO2 induced Global Warming and death by incineration due to human origin CO2 has done its job and Smashed the technological advances of the last sixty years.
We can see this destruction in Germany, but like the Germans, we have kept the blinkers on when assessing our own nation.
Most of us have worked our butts off to build a better world, but now see imminent collapse and a return to ground zero.
Make no mistake, this was planned by an evil almost beyond measure. The leaders shouldn’t be hard to identify; gaites, O’Biden, sauros, murkle, tawdry anhydrous, you get the drift.
The swamp is now so extensive that there’s very little dry land to rebuild on.
Don’t forget, don’t forgive, prosecute!
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I have absolutely no doubt about that.
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We’ve been quoted 12-18 month lead times for parts from german suppliers. When pressed they admit the german factory is shutdown and the delay is commissioning new sites. Cursorily the location being moved to is usually somewhere south east of Bohemia but still in EU.
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Australification of Germany
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you’d better explain: some may not understand.
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And the developing NON OECD countries will be emitting much more co2, while the OECD countries close up shop.
How we could have such a moron like Bowen in charge is just unbelievable and he’ll never wake up until everything collapses around his ears.
Just think of the TOXIC mess we’ll have to clean up in another 15 years and the environmental disaster left to repair and then they have to start all over again.
Sensible people know we should only build RELIABLE,BASE-LOAD energy and ASAP if we want a secure prosperous future for future generations.
The latest Coal, Gas, Nuclear power stations will last 60 years if they’re properly maintained and no need for thousands of Klms of new infrastructure to link up the REMOTE, DILUTE, TOXIC W and S rubbish that ends up in landfill.
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It’s strange that the germans , who are usually good engineers can’t spot that “renewables” don’t work . Its not rocket science….
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But understanding ideology is.
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As we’ve seen, ideology trumps engineering.
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I expect it is like most Western countries, German Engineers are good Engineers, but once they enter the Political Bubble they are infected with the certainty of the Arts and Humanities graduates, because, if they don’t, we will never hear of them again! 🙂
In the UK’s Energy ministry, the various flavours of History or an Oxbridge PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics) are popular subjects to have studied at university. 🙂
I suppose anyone with the appropriate knowledge wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, and that is the problem.
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This Everything Climate site could be another handy resource to check out the extremist’s nonsense.
https://everythingclimate.com/earths-temperature/
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n American only ? still updated? Hadda look … not overly impressed
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Australia’s banks are helping us head in the same direction.
This is from today’s SMH, paywalled, sorry.
Under the heading ” Banks refuse to refinance $1b debt for coal miner” :
“Australia’s big banks have turned their backs on the country’s largest pure-play coal miner, refusing to refinance a billion-dollar debt in a major rebuff that will force Whitehaven Coal to source loans offshore, sending a worrying signal to other large coal producers and potentially speeding up the demise of the sector.
Whitehaven revealed its funding problems in a quarterly update yesterday , saying it has managed to source credit for mine rehabilitation , clean-up costs, port, rail and other activities, but could not to get a $1 billion finance facility renewed. ”
cheers
Dave B
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David-of-Cooyal. China will oblige with gusto and laugh all the way.
The extreme leftists are all laughing. They simply cannot believe just how stupid and naive is the West whom they all thought had a lead in education and knowledge on everything for the last 200 years. They now just keep putting up more and more extreme ideas and sit back watching the comedy as they find gullible idiots aplenty in the West to take up their traps. What’s a woman? Heeeee or shesheshe titter. Nobody in the West apparently knows anymore. That’s how successful has been the takeover of our education systems. Even our women about 50% of the population don’t get up in angry defence of their position in society. Every woman could bring this whole transgender ‘equivalence’ to a sudden halt, simply by writing to their MP’s demanding they tell the women what a real woman is or they get no female votes ever again. Then they demand the Parliament sit up take notice and bring a halt to this wokist movement and knock it on the head or again, no votes.
All this stuff on climate and wokist c..p is all coming with the one aim. Destroy the West. You will own nothing and be happy! Even that’s not challenged in our asleep msm.
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Good take down of the clueless Kerry and he is certainly a Grifter and a con merchant.
Not many men have the luck to marry an extremely wealthy woman and this donkey couldn’t care less about ordinary US citizens.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/17/john-kerry-devastated-at-house-hearing-on-climate-by-scott-perry/
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Kerry is from a wealth family. His middle name is Forbes. A family known in Boston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin
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That short sentence is loaded with truth.
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Australia’s anti-energy minister Bowen was spawned in 1973 so well within the age range to have received a full dumbed-down “education”/indoctrination.
He is a dangerously ignorant, stupid and incompetent individual.
As far as I can see, he’s never had a proper job.
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A great example of his handiwork was during the last labor reign when he was minister for boatpeople.
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A very accurate assessment David. Next we must ask who gave him this most sensitive position and if that person is also dangerously ignorant, stupid and incompetent? The answer is surely yes. It would be interesting to know if Bowen’s constituents are happy that their power prices are going up and that they may be forced out of their ICE cars because of his decisions. When he was minister for alien invasion his errors did not materially impact his voters but this time is different. The man is a goose and soon will be cooked.
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Germans have historically been championed for their efficiency. The fact is Australia has achieved the target of ‘managed decline’ in a shorter period and without as many renewables. We have achieved ‘Net Zero Middle Class’ with legislation such as the Fairwork Act, Superannuation Guarantee Charge, Tax laws, town plans etc. These pieces of paper are arbitrary and open to interpretation allowing our Uni-party to reward, punish or destroy whoever they choose.
There is a simple solution – capture the Great Reset off the Davos Crowd and reset the political system back to pencil and paper ballots, scrutineered in the school and community halls, Politicians compensated not remunerated to be elected for 2 years, with only two consecutive terms. (they would spend more time in their community, family and business and less time driving around to get the Facebook photo) Magistrates to be appointed from Clerks of court or Justices of Peace so we have real experience and not activists or political operators enabling lawfare.
Our destruction of industry and services has been that efficient and complete it would have left the Luftwaffe green with envy.
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AGAIN here’s the OWI Data co2 graph and check out the NON OECD and OECD difference since 1988.
I’ve included Australia to prove that Dr Finkel was correct about our co2 reduction impact on their BS and nonsense.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?facet=none&country=OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS
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Voting for the Coalition is a waste of time. Too many like Birmingham and Archer are complicit in this transition. “Blowhard” Bowen will further weaken this country if he doesn’t wake up. As the man is obviously a half-wit, I can’t see any volte face.
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OK, so you don’t vote for the libs, how does that help?
There is a possibility they may have an epiphany, what are the odds Bowen will come to his senses?
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They don’t get the $3 from the AEC for being a number 1 choice. Eventually they will get the vote as
per our voting system but I get satisfaction out of them not getting the AEC $$$.
Who knows, if more people voted for the smaller conservative parties the Libs might wake up sooner.
As for the possibility of a Liberal epiphany??? Dream on.
The Libs still push the renewable energy garbage in the insane hope of pulling voters away from Liebor and the Greens. I can’t contemplate returning to the Libs while they are on this crusade.
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Hanrahan, in a nutshell. The LP has been taken over by the ‘progressives’ the left march through.. . It would appear their selection committees have been too much chasing the woke in the hope of taking the Labor right, ignoring the shedding of their own base whom they considered has nowhere else to go.Just as Labor chases the greens to get its base back. All not voting for the LP has done is give Labor the freedom to do as it pleases, or in the case of WA’s opposition rump, sit back and smoke cigars and laugh. The only way to change the LP is to become active members or hope Dutton has seen enough light that if he changes back to Liberal values and stands against the left media flood of nonsensical ideas, and points out strongly the destruction being brought down on the nation because of them, he will get somewhere. The harder life becomes for the people the greater the chance that they will become more open to listening to alternative views. I would imagine that’s why Albo is bringing down censorship on the nation’s media. He is quickly losing control of the narrative. Even his own side has people saying he cannot last.
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Himmel! The ballistics results are in. Germany limping out of renewables paradise after shooting itself in the foot with renewables ammo.
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What’s more important? The planet or money?
/soy
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In that case nuclear regardless of cost is the only viable answer.
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No one’s harming the planet.
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I started following the science but ended up in the bank.
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One of the main factors in all of this is ….. how much power Industry consumes.
Now, when reduced to averages, sometimes you can get an incorrect perception, but sometimes, it’s all we have.
The AVERAGE industrial ‘concern’ consumes a tick under one hundred times the average daily power consumption of a household residence.
Some of the larger Industries can consume anything up to 600 to a thousand times what an average residence consumes, so, at the high end here (1000 times) then that particular Industrial concern consumes the average residential DAILY 24 hour power consumption every …… 90 SECONDS. That could be a constant 1.25MW available at any single point in time, and that same 1.25MW must be available constantly across the whole day.
Now, when you are consuming electricity at that rate, it needs to be absolutely reliable, and, more importantly, available every single minute.
So, when you have a number of large Industries, you can soon see how much power is needed ….. on that absolutely reliable basis.
If you have Germany where so much wind power has been installed (59,000MW) then the constant access to huge amounts of power becomes marginal, so those Industries will look at places where those huge amounts of power can be supplied absolutely.
Mercedes Benz moved most of their vehicle construction to China in the late 1990s, almost 25 years back now, so they were perhaps ahead of the game.
Tony.
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We had an opportunity, indeed it still exists, to provide cheap and reliable power in abundance. We have the minerals so we could become a manufacturing haven with a government very unlikely to nationalise assets, as the Chinese could well do, and we have room to accept a larger population with a better climate than Europe. What we do not have are leaders with vision. We do have leaders who are naysayers. The potential exists.
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Sun Cable plans to supercharge a $30b 20-Gigawatt solar project with wind.
Australian solar power is heading to Singapore via a very, very long undersea cable.
Several corporate billionaires have decided to sell power to southeast Asia and also sell 800 megawatts of electricity (4%) to the Northern Territory.
It has been said that Australia has the highest electricity prices in the world. This has not deterred these corporate billionaires from spending billions of dollars installing a 4,200 km undersea power cable to export our “cheap” electricity.
A Singapore energy expert said in the link below “It’s going to be hard. And it’s a lot of capital that needs to be paid back. Sun Cable will want a return.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-06/sun-cable-project-sparks-doubts-over-singapore-market-interest/101026162
BTW current investors in Australia are spending billions of dollars on “renewables” will also want a return on their capital.
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Didn’t they walk away from that idea?
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Twiggy walked away,.. over crazy up front costs and no firm sales contracts.
MCB is still dreaming of impractical results.
Singapore have not made any commitment and suggested they may not agree on pricing.
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Apologies for the missing details / Sun Cable’s solar project was put in voluntary administration mid January 2023, but the project has been resurrected from the dead. Grok Ventures and Quinbrook had a meeting with Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles in Darwin last week ahead of an impeding sale agreement. Grok will become the majority owner of the project when the sale is completed.
See….
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/sun-cable-add-wind-owners-032733662.html
Billionaire corporations can run the worlds longest undersea power cable when it suits them. But, local Victorian farmers are being forced to allow the installation of huge transmission towers and kilometers of high voltage power lines hanging over their properties.
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It has been said that Australia has the highest electricity prices in the world.
And when the consideration of continuing inflation is noted, it would seem that the best personal insurance against these costs is to install your own method of electricity generation (or replacement).
If you own the property, PV panels behind the meter may provide the best long term return on investment. Though historically the rural farmers cherished their windmills providing water to location where it was useful. Alas solar powered pumps have less capital cost.
Should all our educational buildings have PV panels? They are mostly used during daylight hours.
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It’s only a 4000Km cable crossing the most unstable tectonic plate boundary on the planet.
What could possibly go wrong 😀
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I don’t know how thick such a cable would have to be to take those Megawatts that distance but I suspect it would take most of the copper available in Australia. Tony help me out here.
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And of course those malevolent state actors – you know, Ruritania, or Grand Fenwick – would never dream of harming that cable.
Not even if they got a bit snarky with Singapore – or indeed Australia – which presumably would get the money from Singapore, for the power.
Even if the money goes fairly promptly to Sun Cable [and the others] – and then to their investors.
Just sayin’
Auto
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So how much enriched Uranium did it take to end World War 2 ? Here’s a quote and the link. That kind of energy density is almost beyond our comprehension.
And I remember that “weight of a butterfly” quote at least 60 years ago.
“How Much Uranium Did It Take to Destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”
“The nuclear chain induced by the reaction between rare uraniums is all you need to achieve to produce an atomic bomb. This frighteningly simple technology had the power to completely wreck Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing Japan’s state of surrender in World War II”.
“The energy-converted matter in the atomic bomb that caused monumental destruction to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weighed as much as a single butterfly”.
https://fantasticfacts.net/6994/
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This is a case of economic and national suicide, committed in the name of an extreme ideology and will be recorded as such in history for all time. The inevitable collapse of the German economy will bring down the entire EU group of countries and will have lasting economic and geo-political impacts globally. The only plus for the ideologically driven patrons of the fatherland, will be dramatically and permanently reduced emissions, probably on par with those in the early 1700s, but with a lifestyle and existence that returns them to those Medievil times.
The worry down here is that as we watch the German experiment catastrophically implode, rather than learn the lessons of failure, our own pathetic leaders are doubling down on failure to take us over the same cliff.
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Serge. Our problem is the media stays mute on the evidence from overseas. It has as much responsibility in all these destructive policies as have the politicians, the big companies and particularly their loud voice CEO’s. Interestingly it seems people are at last reacting against these CEOs and companies by withdrawing from buying their products and hopefully mobilising their shareholders who are the losers in all this. The CEOs are largely unaffected and the businesses love the profits getting snitched from the backpockets of the citizens that pay the end price for the Albo-Bowen debacles. The shareholders are paying for the greed of their own companies.
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Without wanting to get into a long autopsy discussion on western collapse, i do agree with your comments, but would add that probably the greatest issue is the removal and silencing of the voices of sanity from almost every discussion, ranging from CC to race, gender, sexual orientation, transgender issues and now the “voice”. All we now hear are the ‘approved’ opinions from completely irrational and ideologically driven people, peddling a Marxist and divisive agenda under the cloak of a fake moral crusade. Big rent seeking CEOs support the agendas, hoping to secure lucrative government contracts or are in fear of big government retaliation to any recalcitrant players. The new “ministry of truth”, if it gets up, will finish off the last voices of reason, which are people like Jo, who host the sites and ourselves who post unapproved responses. With the current makeup of the senate we are only 1 minute to midnight on the Orwellian “ministry of truth” clock and appropriately a cuckoo sound will be heard when it strikes midnight, after which time the lunatics will be running the show without any resistance.
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Kalm Keith
July 18, 2023 at 1:42 pm · Reply
In the last thread on Germany we saw how manufacturing businesses were leaving for cheaper and less controlling environments.
We see what’s going on, we know that we’re trapped in the same downward spiral.
The question is; what do we have to do now as the ultimate victims of this mess.
Voting is useless, debate is controlled and “guided”, our legal system is fluffy, expensive and increasingly irrelevant.
What do we do now.
[Why not ask this question on the relevant thread? It’s a good one? – Jo]
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Start a new political party.
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Don’t forget that it is the German economy which underpins the Euro currency and bails out the Med. When that currency comes undone it really will be interesting. I suspect that a major tussle is taking place behind the scenes between the Eurogreens and the Eurobankers.
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As the UK battles the highest inflation in the G20 an economic editor was bemoaning the reduction in the export of goods. The usual thing to do is to blame Brexit, and while there is some truth in this it is not Brexit per se but the incompetent ignorant way under the lying oaf Johnson it was achieved. He was aided by the mass stupidity of Parliament which has not improved since. But what isn’t mentioned is the highest industrial electricity prices in the G20 which make manufacturing too expensive here. Our much heralded reduction in CO2 has been achieved by de-industrialisation.
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Gerry.
The rot in the UK started a long time ago with Thatcher and was then accelerated by Blair. Manufacturing was sold off and out-sourced. Remember the Coal Mining industry was destroyed because the UK could buy cheaper coal from the Germans with their open cast mines, and the defence industry was taken over by the USA, and the NHS is going the same way.
Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Climate is just the ‘coup de grâce’ – death by a thousand (tory) cuts.
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Articles like this just infuriate me about what’s happening in Australia. Like with Covid we had the wonderful advantage of being able to assess the actions of others before we make the same mistake. But the drongos that run our parliament are so obsessed with their solution that they fail to see what is blindly obvious that what they are doing has been tried and isn’t working. Having the opportunity to do the right thing is a blessing both the major parties have but refuse to see. They act as if the false picture painted by the media and academic class is reality when anyone with have a brain could see that the renewables pathway was disastrous. That any politician could claim a cheaper outcome based on renewables is crazy but voters that chose to believe them are more crazy.
Yes Australia because it is a resources rich country had the opportunity to be a renewables powerhouse like China but it is only possible as long as you have cheap reliable energy like you get with coal.
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