Hiding the costs of renewables until after the next election
The largest coal plant in Australia was supposed to close in August next year, but the NSW government decided to buy a two year extension until a few months after the next state election. Now the modeling comes out showing that they decided to keep the Eraring coal plant running to prevent the shocking price spikes from disturbing the voters. Keeping the coal plant will reduce wholesale electricity bills by a few billion dollars. (Why don’t we keep it open for ten years?)
Presumably his reelection chances would be worse if “saved the planet”, and shut the coal plant a few months before the election instead.
They know the voters don’t want the transition. They know it will cost more. And yet they do it anyway…
Bizarrely, this news comes from the renewable industry site Reneweconomy, where Giles Parkinson doesn’t seem to notice this shows coal power is cheap and renewables are hideous. Apparently he doesn’t mind inflicting costs on hapless homeowners, he is just bummed that they couldn’t force more unreliable energy and battery packs on the grid even sooner:
NSW confirms Eraring closure delay driven by fear of pre-election price shocks
The NSW state Labor government has confirmed that its controversial decision to delay the closure of the country’s biggest coal fired power generator at Eraring was primarily driven by concerns over a possible jump in wholesale electricity prices.
The 2.88 gigawatt (GW) Eraring facility on the central coast was due to close on August, 2025, but under an underwriting deal with the state government which could be worth up to $450 million, Origin Energy will now keep at least two units open until August, 2027, a few months after the next state election.
Delaying the closure of Eraring even longer until 2028 could save $4.4 billion:
Modelling that the Minns government relied upon – produced by Endgame Economics and ICA Partners – has now been released (or at least bits of it) – and confirms that the greatest benefit of the delayed closure would come from lower prices.
A summary of the Endgame analysis tabled in parliament on Tuesday suggests that the savings on wholesale market prices would total $4.4 billion, with a relatively small benefit of $300 million allocated to increased energy security and $200 million for avoided system strength measures.
The report says this would outweigh the $1.1 billion negative benefits from higher emissions resulting from the burning of more coal, and other costs of $600 million, including $400 million in payments to Origin. Overall, it puts the net benefits at $3.2 billion to $3.5 billion.
More bizarrely, Giles Parkinson argues that the futures market is predicting even higher prices than the modelers are:
NSW Futures prices Electricity: NEM Review
He views this train-wreck as a bad situation caused by Big Market Players exploiting the market, and they absolutely are. But he doesn’t admit that if we weren’t trying to ram a fake transition down everyone’s circuits with unreliable generators, the Predators wouldn’t have nice juicy price spikes to prey on (and subsidized cushions to land on).
With the true genius of all communists-at-heart Giles Parkinson tells us this has nothing to do with prices:
Again, this had nothing to do with the actual cost of generation or the prospect of a supply shortfall, it was simply lack of competition.
But Giles has no idea what competition even is. If more coal power was competing we’d still have cheap electricity. The market he wants is not a free market, it’s just a different kind of Soviet.
So warn the voters of New South Wales. The Chris Minns Labor government is trying to hide the cost of the unreliables until after the election.
Eraring photo by Nick Pitsas, CSIRO
It’s actually painful to sit here helpless as assorted governments collude to wreck the joint.
670
A Suggestion for Jo to Promote for 100% Renewables ACT/Canberra
The Zero Emissions Grid Demonstration Project Follies
I claim credit for being the first person to demand a demonstration project to show how a zero emissions electrical grid is supposed to work, before trying to build such a thing for our entire population of three hundred million as involuntary guinea pigs.
How could it be that lots of others haven’t been demanding this for years? It’s like everyone has lost their minds.
Before climate hysteria set in, the idea of attempting an engineering project as enormous as a zero emissions electrical grid for the United States, or even for one state, without first having a functioning demonstration project, would have been completely unthinkable.
But under the powerful sway of the fear of climate armageddon, the need for a demonstration project to prove feasibility never seems to occur to anybody.
And thus trillions of dollars are getting spent — wasted — on facilities that anyone with a brain can easily see will never come close to providing a zero emissions grid — although building these facilities will greatly drive up the cost of electricity to consumers.
Let me then welcome an important new voice to the still tiny chorus of those demanding a demonstration project. The new voice is Congresswoman Harriet Hageman of Wyoming. (Ms. Hageman is the woman who took out the former Wyoming Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, in a primary in 2022.).
Ms. Hageman went public with her demand at a town hall held this past Tuesday, August 6, in Jackson, Wyoming. She proposed that the ultra-liberal town of Boulder, Colorado, step up as the potential guinea pig. Wyoming-based news source WyoFile had the story on August 7, with the headline “Hageman proposes a Boulder, Colorado, fossil-fuel-free experiment.” Excerpt:
[Hageman] proposed a pilot project that would strip Boulder, Colorado, a progressive enclave, of its fossil fuel infrastructure — all to be replaced with windmills and solar panels on the city’s open space.
“The pilot project is, you take out all their gas stations,” she said to a crowd of about 70 people in the Teton County Library. “We take away all their internal combustion engines — cars. We take away all of their highways and streets, because that’s all oil-and-gas-produced.” . . . “They’ve been a no-growth city for decades,” Hageman said, “so they have a lot of open space around them. We fill out open space with windmills and solar panels, and we’ll see if we can actually run a city of 100,000 people [with] no fossil fuels whatsoever.”
According to WyoFile, Hageman’s remarks drew a response of “applause and laughter” from the supportive crowd in Jackson.
390
Top idea, suggest Cant-burra for our guinea p, er test subject.
250
Oh! Come on Ronin, you know very well that Cant-burra already runs on only wind and solar for power. How do I know? Because the ACT government so claims, so it must be true. Not sure how they sort out the coal electrons coming in from NSW, but I trust them, because the are Green politicians and they never lie.
70
Some people are aware. There was a National Rally Againsr Reckless Renewables in Canberra in Feb 2024.
Jo may have written about it but I somehow missed the news..
Our Pollies are not listening.
https://www.thirdsector.com.au/amp/grassroots-community-groups-rally-against-reckless-renewables/
We have to vote minor parties to save the Nation and ourselves.
361
Minor parties were the flavour in the last federal election to ditch the ScoMo/Freydenberg disaster, (and I would suggest that Albo’s destruction of the economy pales in comparison with theirs. ScoMo’s betrayal on net zero still beggars belief, as does Joshie’s covid-flation). Recall that Labor ‘won’ with about 30% of the primary, so unfortunately it doesn’t really make any difference in a two party system with preferential voting. Conservatives aren’t up to gaming the electorate as the Green-Teals did.
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Dutton is not ScoMo, the Libs now have a different agenda, nuclear power is a preemptive strike to unsettle the Teals.
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Reckless Renewable Rally Canberra: https://joannenova.com.au/2024/02/reckless-renewables-protest-in-canberra-australia-on-tuesday/
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Both the major parties are attached to the same “bird”.
It’s just that one does their nastiness openly.
They’re both there for One-World-Grubbnmnt.
And they do not care HOW they get there.
20
How did you score more thumbs down than me? Not fair.
00
Scomo was with the program until he became PM, then someone sat him down and said “if you dont continue to fund renewables, millions of workers will lose all of their superannuation”. He didnt have a choice.
10
Minor Parties?
The Palmer United Minor Party thoroughly tihwarted Tony Abbott’s 90 seat “landslide mandate”..
Remember that?
10
You can bet your house & bank balance that the MSM will not warning the electorate
about the reality of the delayed Power Station closure. After all a Labor government would never tell lies, especially about important things like energy. I mean the PM & his mob are as honest as the day is long 😵💫😵💫💩💩.
Just wondering when & if the electorates in all states will awake from their contented slumber!!
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Graham
About the electorate – not just in Australia …
My fear is that – because an open debate has been stifled, not just by ‘your’ ABC and ‘my’ BBC and their comrades-in-arms – when the electorate [or a large chunk of it] wakes up the reaction may be more than just sending aggrieved emails, or booing at the local fooooter match.
It will probably depend on how long the farce runs – but, here in the UK, we’ve done huge amounts of harm already to manufacturing [energy costs] and defence [energy costs passed on!] – plus other assorted bad policies.
We need to be able to make steel, plastics, concrete and fertiliser – but energy costs are too high.
Can you guess why!?
It would be nice if, at the next elections, sanity [and fossil fuel] returns.
If the realisation comes as a shock, though, there may be a significant physical reaction.
And, as always in those circumstances, the right people will not always be tarred and feathered.
Auto
See also D Maddison, @ #5, below
20
Canberra would be perfect for a 100% renewables experiment, it’s a standalone rural area, there are already multiple wind factories nearby, plenty of hills surrounding for more sight pollution and a captive audience who are used to the good things in life, so we would be ‘notified’ immediately when the hot water is too cold for a shower, or the battery car doesn’t get charged overnight, or, heaven forbid, there is a round or two of ‘load sharing’.
130
Duplicity is not limited to NSW! It is alive and well in all jurisdictions and at every level of government!
240
Funny how they try to scare and alarm people with imaginary events in the future, always seem to beleive in some magical technology or cost reduction which is also in the future, but will also fund coal plants into the future if it helps avoid reality at least till the election (echoes of SA’s rapid pre election gas generator deployment a few years ago)
Best to keep everything nebulous and uncertain, and perhaps add a few look squirrels! Lest the public see the shell game being played.
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Yarpos Here is some sanity on that subject!
H. L. Mencken, the sage of Baltimore, described early in the past century: “the whole point of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be lead to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
&
Benjamin Franklin – “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”.
John
150
SHUT IT DOWN NOW!
I’m sick of this long drawn-out slow motion train wreck.
The sooner the grid collapses, the better
It’s the only way people will wake up to this renewables madness.
MEANWHILE, China is building two coal power stations per week with no end of stopping in sight.
They already have 1142 according to Statista.
Unlike short-lived disposable wind, solar and Big Battery plantations, each coal plant has a service life of 50, 60, 70 years or more.
Australia shutting down coal plants will do nothing, even if they anthropogenic global warming fraud were real.
411
Join the club, bud.
80
What ‘load shedding’ looks like: https://www.lusakatimes.com/2024/07/21/living-on-the-edge-the-impact-of-power-outages-on-dialysis-patients/ – at first, there is a kind of published timetable, then, they don’t worry about that any more….
10
“The sooner the grid collapses, the better”
The Au PM has no idea about how hard it is to restart a grid. You cannot just reconnect a region to a power source due to a number of complicating factors of the physics of electrical systems. A simple heater element in your water tank draws voltage and current in a steady understandable fashion (say) 240Volts @ 15 Amps to give a steady 3600Watts but a household water pump presents a more complex picture when it turns on. At the grid scale there are problems with reactive loads and the AEMO (grid operator) has to work hard to maintain enough power at exactly 50 cycles a second.
At the present time we have enough reserve in the coal units. The grid operator can tweak individual coal units up or down from their central office to maintain stability. Mt Piper has fitted a steam turbine with variable pitch blades on one end so that electrical output can be varied quickly and easily. Coal units also have a remarkably simple spinning balls device like the governor on an old traction engine. The faster the vertical shaft spins, the more the pair of balls centrifuge outwards on their arms and move levers which restrict steam pressure to the turbine. In essence, a grid of power stations is in a state of dynamic equilibrium which has to be monitored and adjusted all of the time or the entire system “falls over”.
When one coal unit breaks down we will be ridding a dangerous precipice and rolling 4hr power outages will become the norm in Eastern Au. I recommend you all buy a small power unit that contains a Lithium battery. Ecoflow sell neat but expensive portable units which contain charge regulators for either solar, 240 mains or 12 Volt (a car) and have a small inverter to run fridges and essentials like IT gear.
https://www.ecoflow.com/au/power-backup.
An 1800W unit could run your fridge 24/7/365 if you can find a few second-hand solar panels. You don’t need a AU$14k Tesla battery and huge solar array to tide you over a one day power outage. Add up your vital Watt Hours of consumption and cater for that.
Remember, your are on your own in this mess. When the present administration moves on, the new one is unlikely to be technically competent either.
10
In a genuinely competitive energy market, prices would be set by the lowest-cost, available source of energy. But in our fake-competitive market, prices are set by the highest-cost available source of subsidies.
150
They are set by the lowest cost as it’s really a ‘contract market’ which is cleared by the spot price. The lowest cost generators are fully contracted and so on up the cost curve for each asset/fuel type.
Expensive generators are run at times of narrowing supply and demand which is supposed to signal/encourage new investment in supply (I doubt if anyone would build large generators without government guarantees). If the low cost baseload generators are removed then the contract cost will rise significantly and set a permanently high price plateau that is then passed on to consumers along with the threat of black and brown outs.
Rather than closing the coal plant down we should be investing in extending its life.
30
There is also the crippling of coal-fired plants with (approx) $45 Certificates for each MWh which costs around the same.
30
It’s the craziest market for a necessary product, the last to bid gets the highest price which then is ‘gifted; to all comers.
00
Sounds like they’ve set up a scheme that starts with a P
and has a Z in it OR an elaborate Laundry.
10
First Ford Motor Co and now solar. Wind power will be the next to fade into obscurity!
https://principia-scientific.com/aussie-solar-industry-seing-increasing-hesitancy-from-investors/
80
From your link:
” ” Who wants to invest $10 million or $12 million in a project that’s supposed to have a life of 30 years, and have the rules changed on them with a change of government? Why would you do that?” ”
30 years? Sounds a bit optimistic to me.
80
They don’t even know where Eraring is. It’s Lake Macquarie, not the Central Coast.
81
True. Gosford has ne’er a ring to it.
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Pretty subtle distinction for most of the country outside the Sydney bubble. At least the got it on the correct side of Sydney.
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I’ve lived my life in and near the Hunter, and I would say thlat Lke Macquarie is the middle of the Central. Coast.
30
I did my rookies at Rathmines and loved the area. It was never to be but I could easily have lived there and that is high praise from me talking about anywhere south of the Tropic [OK, Bundaberg].
00
Uh-huh. You’d better re-educate cartographers and Lake Macquarie council with your brilliant insight then.
00
The CSIRO reference confused me, until I realised that it was supposed to be the attribution for the first photo.
31
Me too. I was about to ask – “Who the hell are Giles Parkinson and Nick Pitsas? “.
10
Nick Pitsas is manager Multimedia at CSIRO Publishing and the other fellow is behind RenewEconomy.
00
Hi Jo,
Well done again. As always.
Re Giles Parkinson’s site:
I love it that the Stop These Things site’s folks
long ago re-named it “RuinEconomy”.
So apt.
Worth noting too that unlike here at Jo’s site,
Giles suppresses any dissenting comments
as a matter of course.
Cheers,
Paul Miskelly
160
Let me second that.
I have lost count of the number of times I have made a Comment at that site, only to find the Comment does not even get posted.
They most definitely do not want to hear that the Capacity Factor (CF) for wind generation is under 30% over the long term, now six years.
More worryingly, that CF figure for the most recent 12 Month period (the last 52 weeks, and adjusted every week) is only 26.8%.
Apparently, the one time a comment actually did get up, around a year back now, one response was that I’m just making it all up. (I tried to get sneaky and make it sound like I was agreeing with the ‘thrust’ of the article in question, one not posted by Giles himself.
When I pointed that particular responder to their own OpenNEM site, and worked out the CF from that, it was actually lower than mine, and I explained that my figure was higher than that because I Update the data with every new addition of Industrial wind plants to the grid. There was no response to that.
Tony.
210
Thanks again for the latest wind CF Tony, but is solar CF still about 15% in Australia and is Qld wind even lower CF than NSW and Vic?
70
It’s a deceptive ploy by Albanese and his hard-left cronies to use fossil fuel generated energy to maintain the grid in order buy time for their ongoing destruction of Australia’s energy economy with renewables only policy. Meanwhile, with the complicity of the treacherous media, Dutton’s sensibly practical nuclear option gets a ‘bum rap’ in the kangaroo court of public opinion due to media propaganda.
80
Reality will win out in the end whether the Electricity Grid comes to a partial or a grinding halt, or, that the Pollies suddenly realise what they have done to stuff everything up.
Personally, I would bet on the former. In any event, Reality trumps (no pun intended…..lol) pipe dreams.
70
Some would argue that a “partial” halt is already occurring in Australia , when “demand management” is used to cut supplies to big consumers in times of high demand.
That is a sure sign of a critical situation.
But, with gradual decline in capacity, the effect of time is to make such events appear normal
40
We really need to have the inter-connectors opened,
and locked open, so those crazy states can stew in their own juices.
Ask Tassie about that.
When their life-line to the mainland was broken in 2016
AND they were very low on water, they brought in LOTS of Diesel Generators.
They were lucky.
Because later that year South Australia had a huge catastrophe and they needed those same generators.
See, that’s what happens when you do not have coal fired power power stations OR
you blow them up.
Let ’em suffer for their “principles”.
10
When the sun goes down the wind picks up. At least that’s what they say on the telescreens.
50
They forget what causes the wind.
50
Nope, it does not work that way. Unless there’s a storm blowing in, the wind stops a little while after the sundown. It will get going again after the new rising sun starts to stir the atmosphere with the next daily heating. That’s the way it usually works, just about everywhere on the planet.
90
Certainly true here.
50
Correct Dave,
Typically it a very calm just after dawn. If you happen to be up at that time you can often see clouds moving overhead. The wind at altitude is still blowing, driven by the large scale pressure patterns but the surface wind drops during the night.
00
Government “subsidizes” wind and solar, but “underwrites” coal and gas. Ha ha ha! Semantics!
62
“British Government: Young People Should Pay for Climate Action.”
I wonder when the youf of today might wake up to this scam, it’s all on their shoulders.
80
I’m stuck inside because of the wonderful rain so maybe I’m going nuts. I speculate that neither Albanese or his government, Chris Bowen in particular, have never heard of Schrödinger and his cat. But is it possible that they wants us to believe that opposition leader Peter Dutton is going to shut us in a box and feindishly do small-modular nuclear experiments on us?
20
If China and India etc are building 100 + new coal plants every year we should leave our Coal plants open for another 20 years at least.
By 2044 everyone will know that toxic, unreliable W & S are super expensive and would need to be replaced at least 2 more times by 2044. Think of the cost?
Of course zero change to temp or climate or weather over that time interval. But by then well over 20% more voters should’ve woken up. But I could be wrong about the voters in 2044. Who knows?
60
The truth is that we could save thousands of klms of our wild areas if only a few percent of clueless Labor + Greens voters really understood the data and evidence.
But this seems unlikely by 2025, but I’ll be very happy to be proved wrong at the next election, probably before May ’25 budget next year.
The data and evidence are very easy to understand yet the Labor + Green’s voters are completely clueless.
60
Just build HELE Coal Powered Power Stations here and get on with it. BUT, the Authoritarians wont do it. They would rather play their Fantasy Games of everything working on pipe dreams. And CO2 is Plant Food.
Hopefully, Reality wins before everything Crashes and Burns.
140
They would get frowned at when on their UN approved jollies, can’t have that.
40
JR,
I’ve been taking readings of Power DEMAND and Wind Power PRODUCTION
for the Eastern states at about 8.10 pm most nights and work out the percentage
supplied by the Wind Power. Since April this year the best for Wind production
was the 20th of July at 25.42%.
The worst was on the 13th of June at 1.29%.
There are lots of single figure Wind production readings.
This is why we MUST HAVE 100% back-up for these ruinables.
And that back-up ain’t batteries.
00
According to OpenNEM, over the last 30 days in NSW, coal supplied 68% of electricity demand.
And last night at 5.30pm, coal and gas generated 85% of demand.
Shut that down and watch the lights go out.
90
Lights going out.
A bug?
Or a feature?
Auto – just askin’
30
Again here’s OWI Data OECD co2 emissions since 1990 to 2022= a slight decrease per year.
And here’s NON OECD co2 emissions 1990 to 2022 = an increase of over 14 billion tons per year by 2022.
Why can’t our wooden top Labor + Greens loonies understand these very simple Kindy sums?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~OECD+%28GCP%29
30
Capitalism vs socialism, Liberal (LNP) vs Labor (+ Greens), Republican vs Democrat, subsidies vs tariffs. There is no good / bad choices, it’s the lesser of two evils most of the time. For example, no one should say capitalism is perfect , it’s just way better than socialism. For energy supply in Australia it’s the present NEM/AEMO model vs the old state based set ups. So Victoria it was the SEC, for SA ETSA and whatever the NSW one was. The old state based systems had their problems (eg.union dominance) but they all had a creed of supplying the cheapest, most reliable electricity and gas to their constituents. Because the old bureaucrats and politicians knew this creed allowed their states to prosper. Plus, in most cases it provided dividends back to the states coffers. Additionally, it provided competition between the states. So, in a choice of 2 evils, I pick the old state systems any day. The present setup is just a dogs breakfast that favors those smart enough to game the system.
60
I know this is a difficult question to answer, but how do we have enough electricity to power a city or state when we have a week long wind drought or even longer?
Again how do you both use the back up batteries and charge them at the same time? This seems to be an impossibilty.
Never forget that Lithium batteries shouldn’t be allowed to discharge below 20% or above 80%, so a further penalty of 40% of each battery’s capacity.
Anyone have any ideas how we’re supposed to keep the lights on? And at what cost to our safety and our standard of living?
50
We have lived through that situation in recent mo ths with large highs sitting ove the country. So the answer for the moment is yes.
If you meant to say storage ie batteries then no, and really as far as I can see battery installations are more about stability and FCAS services and not bulk supply. It only seems to be the media and deluded politicians that think mega battery packs can somehow power the country when sun and weather dependent generators go to sleep. If we keep spending money and sprinkling fairy dust.
40
‘Anyone have any ideas how we’re supposed to keep the lights on?’
I’m pretty sure they will build gas fired power stations to firm up unreliables. The idea isn’t new and should be adopted by both sides of politics, giving the majors a chance to squeeze the Greens and Teals.
Recently the PM dragged all the multinational gas producers into a room to demand they give gas supplies to Australians at a reasonable price. Socialists drive a hard bargain, but they unanimously agreed with the idea.
40
Vic and SA have banned gas exploration!
20
But they perhaps still burn it?
00
Yarpos is right. I will add that thermal generation can meet demand but is not being paid to have spinning reserve so if a gen. set trips, there is a short term shortage and the media will scream about unreliable coal. It takes many hours to bring a thermal generator to high capacity from a cold start and boilers have a finite number of cycles before the kiln needs to be relined, so operators will NOT fire up cold boilers on a whim. By choice they will run flat out 24/7 with modest reductions for low demand times. Loy Yang B2 has been running @ 110% for at least a month when I have been looking with only minor drops when the sun is shining and the wind blows. Loy Yang is also the cheapest power in the country.
40
I searched page for the word “drought” – Lead me to here so I assume Neville was the first to mention “…a week long wind drought or even longer?” Try 3 months Neville.
The Great Apr-May-Jun 2024 NEMwide Wind Drought – WattClarity have posted much on this – no need take my word for it.
Premier Minns decided to keep Eraring open in the depths of the Great Apr-May-Jun 2024 NEMwide Wind Drought.
40
Neville,
It seems that many of the bulgy-brained academic/artists running Australia [and the UK, and probably elsewhere] believe, in their very core, that the wind always blows somewhere.
And, of course, the Sun will do its stuff 24/7/365 [366 this year!].
And therefore it is for mere engineers, techies, and ‘ordinary folk’ to arrange it so the lights stay on.
Lots more bat-busters and slaver panels will do the job – obviously.
The Big-Picture decision – to go green – has already been taken by these intellectual giants.
Unless, of course, they also know full well that their present course will be catastrophic for Australia and the UK [and more], and that is actually their intention.
To end Western civilisation, in fact.
It may not be perfect [hah!] – but the civilisation we have is very much more comfortable [for ordinary folk] than the present regimes in cities like Kabul, Caracas, Tientsin, Minsk, or Saana etc.
Just saying.
Auto
30
Why do you think there would ever be such a situation ?
If backup power is needed from the battery, thre obviously is not enough generation to support demand,..let alone charge batteries !
And if there is a surplus of generation over demand to ensble battery charging, …then supply from the battery is not required.
10
>then supply from the battery is not required.
If you watch the dashboards of the “renewable” energy success stories, King Island and Flinders Island you’ll see the batteries are superfluous anyway. They’re just an expensive useless add-on. They’re too feeble to provide backup and there’s seldom surplus generation. For example now at 10:25am King Island 83% Diesel, 13% Wind and 2% Solar. Flinders Island 82% Diesel, 18% Solar.
30
More fairy dust and Unicorn BS down at King island and the Diesel has been flat out supplying the 1800 residents.
Diesel jumping from 60% to 90 +% and the Sun will soon take a bludge for another 15 hours or so.
And this is supposed to be some of the best potential wind areas in Australia? Are they playing some sort of sick joke on us? And at what cost?
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
50
It’s certainly a success story for whoever has the contract to supply the diesel fuel.
30
Australia’s biggest power station burnt more coal in the past 12 months than in any year since 2019, underscoring the difficulties of weaning the electricity grid off the polluting fossil fuel amid delays plaguing the renewable energy rollout.
The giant Eraring coal-fired generator on the shores of Lake Macquarie in NSW ramped up output by 2.1 terawatt-hours to 14.3 terawatt-hours in the year to June 30, the plant’s owner, Origin Energy, revealed on Wednesday.
I just did the sums, that’s 40 gWh/d.
50
So about 1.66gW.
24/7/366.
Auto
20
As at 19:00, Eraring has only two units on line providing about 1200Mw.
10
Eraring Power Station is a coal-fired power station consisting of four 720 MW Toshiba steam-driven turbo-alternators for a combined capacity of 2,880 MW. [Wikipedia]
Hanrahan’s reported 40 gWh/d is way below Eraring’s capacity of 69 gWh/d.
10
I have to again bring up the belief system of the true believers. The Royal Society etc truly believe that we could remove all Human co2 emissions today and we couldn’t expect a change in co2 levels for thousands of years. This is also parroted by “The Conversation”.
Here’s part of their quote and the link to their question 20 and using Zickfeld et al study 2013 as their source.
Never forget the temperature and the co2 levels wouldn’t return to the LIA conditions for thousands of years.
Does this make any sense to anyone? And why are we wasting endless trillions of $ on this lunacy? Here’s their question 20 quote and the link.
20. “If emissions of greenhouse gases were stopped, would the climate return to the conditions of 200 years ago”?
“No. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases were to suddenly stop, Earth’s surface temperature would require thousands of years to cool and return to the level in the pre-industrial era”.
“If emissions of CO2 stopped altogether, it would take many thousands of years for atmospheric CO2 to return to “pre-industrial” levels due to its very slow transfer to the deep ocean and ultimate burial in ocean sediments. Surface temperatures would stay elevated for at least a thousand years, implying a long-term commitment to a warmer planet due to past and current emissions. Sea level would likely continue to rise for many centuries even after temperature stopped increasing [Figure 9]. Significant cooling would be required to reverse melting of glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, which formed during past cold climates. The current CO2-induced warming of Earth is therefore essentially irreversible on human timescales. The amount and rate of further warming will depend almost entirely on how much more CO2 humankind emits”.
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-20/
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BTW here even “The Conversation” parrots Zickfeld et al and the Royal Society.
Just so we all understand their full blown idiocy and the horrendous cost to our country and all for zero gain. See their “slam on the brakes” BS at the link.
https://theconversation.com/what-would-happen-to-the-climate-if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-today-35011
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Again King Island is running on Diesel tonight and little wind, no battery and of course no toxic solar for another 16 hours at least.
Check it out and think about this horrendous trillions of $ lunacy if we’re stupid enough to believe this is our Aussie future.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
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I note that the battery is being charged again!
I wonder how much fuel would be saved if the battery was disconnected?
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Meanwhile, in the offsetting: https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/in-cambodia-indigenous-villagers-lose-forest-land-amid-carbon-offset-project/
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[…] published JoNova; But the financial model which demonstrates coal is cheaper is a state […]
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[…] they lie. It’a reoccurring here:https://joannenova.com.au/2024/08/smart-but-deceptive-nsw-govt-keeps-big-coal-plant-on-until-just-af…See: […]
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[…] From JoNova […]
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Refer this paper…
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4dc8
Someone did the calculation for Australia. Australia’s Annual Load is around 200 TWH so storage required would be around 22 TWH for reliable power. The Akaysha battery (Third largest in world) will store 1660 MWH at a capital cost of $650 M.
This implies battery capital cost to back-up Australian grid of approximately $8.6 Trillion in 2024 or 3 to 4 times Australia’s GDP plus you make the assumption that there will actually be enough minerals and the cost of said minerals does not increase. Net zero is an insane fantasy when confronted with physics, math’s and a dose of reality.
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[…] So warn the voters of New South Wales. The Chris Minns Labor government is trying to hide the cost of the unreliables until after the election.Jo Nova Blog […]
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