…
Dear Australians, people are sneaking into your house and stealing your money every year. You may have no idea because the theft comes in one thousand little instances, hidden within labels like “electricity bill”, “peas” and “soccer fees”. It’s also hidden in your income tax. Pagan fantasy plans to stop storms and hold back the tide are being funded by you, whether you like it or not.
Solar panel installations are partly paid for by their neighbors who don’t have solar panels, it’s hidden in their electricity bills. When a wind farm is built out past the Black Stump, shareholders of the wind farm don’t pay for the high voltage line to connect themselves to the grid, you do. When the new unreliable generators wipe out the midday profits from the old reliable plants, the old essential plants still have to pay their capital costs, insurance and staff. So they just have to charge more for the hours they do run. The new vandal plants make the old reliable ones more expensive than they would have been. (See Stacy and Taylor) You pay that bill too.
When the soccer club pays higher electricity charges for the night lights they pass that on to your eight year olds club fees. And so on and so forth for the peas, the cheese, the ham and everything that’s heated or cooled or moved in the supermarket.
If a government official knocked on your front door and demanded the “Climate-changing-cash” in a single payment, there would be hell to pay. Alan Moran has added up the numbers and it works out to $15.6 billion a year in Australia, and that’s about $600 per man, woman, and child.
The grim cost of firming up solar and wind
So lets have a referendum on whether we should be trying to change the weather. Let’s ask the people if they would rather have cheap electricity and a trip to Bali, or knock 0.0 degrees C off global temperatures in 2100AD? Would they rather buy a new fridge or pretend they can reduce the floods coming in one hundred years time?
We know 98% of the public say they “believe” in climate change, but we also know the renewables industry will never ever campaign for a referendum to ask what the people want. They know, we know, and the politicians know — the people don’t want to buy “the transition”.
Burglar image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay | Thieves online image by Hyperslower from Pixabay
Yep, we are from the WEF/BIS/WHO/UN’s Government & we are here to help you lose all your assets.
Govern me harder Daddy!
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You’ll have nothing and be happier for it.
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So at my home the power bill is about $1,000/annum. Now the renewable bill is $600/annum/person. For me that is $1,200/annum. My renewable bill is bigger than my power bill and I have no renewables.
It seems to me the government could just give me the power for free. I have already paid them for it!
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It is not just in your electricity bill. Notice that just about everything has increased in price in the last couple of years.
Cooling costs are a big component of consumer costs in Australia. Nearly all fruit that ends up in a supermarket has been in cold storage. All dairy has to be heated then chilled for transport. All involves energy. I cannot find figures for Australia but this link covers supermarkets in the USA:
https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/buildings/tools/SPP%20Sales%20Flyer%20for%20Supermarkets%20and%20Grocery%20Stores.pdf
Those with a place of work will also being paying some of the cost. Ultimately it gets levied on households through whatever the business sells.
Governments are big users of energy and that is paid for through taxes of many varieties. Much of the funding listed comes from programs drawing funds from general revenues. There is no direct cost recovery. And many of those programs produce dead ends like geothermal electricity and ocean wave electricity.
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I’m definitely all-in for Referenda! But can you imagine any of our current political elites proposing, let alone facilitating such a fair and liberating policy? Of course not! They’re all too busy preparing to safeguard their Parliamentary pay cheques and pensions!
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The Australian
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/sitting-ducks-the…
The super tax bureaucrat backlash takes off | The Australian
21 hours ago · Government bureaucrats on defined-benefit pensions want nothing to do with the plan to introduce a 30 per cent tax on super earnings for balances above $3m …
https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/1bysoru/sitting_ducks_the_super_tax_bureaucrat_backlash/
From the Comments
An unlikely coalition of public servants is making a last-ditch attempt to avoid being caught in the government’s new super tax for high earners.
Government bureaucrats on defined-benefit pensions want nothing to do with the plan to introduce a 30 per cent tax on super earnings for balances above $3m and are pushing back hard on government plans.
The ACPSRO – Australian Council of Public Sector Retiree Organisations – representing around 700,000 public servants says they should not come under the new tax because they will not be able to avoid it, while most retirees with pensions at risk on the market can move money out of super if they wish.
‘We are sitting ducks here, we do not have the options to move money around – we are being treated as if defined benefits were some sort of gift, but we want to make it clear that we are taxpayers, and we never got the tax concessions of others in the system,’ says John Pauley, president of the ACPSRO.
Meanwhile, judges are claiming that the legal system itself could wobble if they don’t get exemptions.
In a submission to a Senate committee, the Australian Judicial Officers Association suggests that the implications of a reduction in judicial pensions could ‘erode the perceived independence of the judiciary.’
Under current arrangements, judges receive a hefty 60 per cent of their former salary once they retire. The judges say they have ‘profound concerns’ about the new tax.
Defined Benefits schemes were dropped in 2004 but anyone lucky enough to be entitled to such pension arrangements gets a set payment due every year regardless of the fortunes of investment markets – in other words a stock market crash would mean little difference to their income which is not ‘at risk’.
The tax requirements on DB payments are complex. However, many former public servants are on capped DB incomes which are tax-free up to $118,750 per annum.
Senior members of the public service, politicians even senior executives at government corporations such as the ABC, can be entitled to DB pensions for life based on their former salary level, At the heart of the upsurge in advocacy for government-funded retirees, is Treasury’s confirmation of a formula to capture DB members in the new tax.
Most calculations on the value of a DB pension will now be based on existing calculations used in family law when DB pensions are included in divorce settlements. Treasurer Jim Chalmers will be hoping the move to copy family law calculations achieves a so-called ‘commensurate’ treatment between high earning public servants on DB pensions and wealthy retirees in conventional account-based super, including those in Self Managed Super Funds.
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N.I.M.B.P!
[ Not In My Back Pocket — gets louder the closer you work to the BIG Round-A-Bout (State Circle Canberra)]
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State Circle is great, it lets you bypass that big source of hot air. I refer to Parliament House as the Castle in the Air, which is as real as any of the policies coming out of it.
10
The generous Defined Benefits scheme for Senators and Members of Parliament was closed to newly elected Senators and MPs by John Howard in 2004.
However Albo was first elected in 1996 and Peter Dutton was first elected in 2001 and so they also will be looking for a “special exemption”.
https://www.finance.gov.au/government/superannuation/parliamentary-superannuation/parliamentary-salaries/parliamentary-contributory-superannuation-act-1948-parliamentary-contributory-superannuation-scheme-pcss#:
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Public servants are not taxpayers – they are recipients of salaries provided to them by taxpayers.
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Gary S. Two bureaucrats are walking along when one sees an old-fashioned pay-packet (an envelope) lying on the ground. It’s been wet so the name is illegible, but the amount of pay is easily read.
There’s a couple of thousand in the pay-packet but the bureaucrat becomes enraged “WTF?” he shouts “Look how much of my dough they took in tax!”
60
One green from me.
30
$2,400 sounds too little.
Taking into account overall economic destruction of unreliables, it must be much more than that.
Plus massive immigration beyond any reasonable capacity to socially or economically absorb such people, tends to hide the economic destruction by artificially raising GDP. The economy superficially looks like it’s doing OK but everyone who goes to a supermarket or who buys other goods and services knows that inflation is much higher than claimed and the standard of living is relentlessly decreasing for non-Elites.
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This is also causes Australia’s CO2 emissions from energy to start rising again after peaking at 417.4 million tonnes in 2008 and falling to a low of 370.4 in 2021.
90
Correct. Nick has a good summary but it misses a few things such as regulatory benefits. Wind and solar are not despatchable but they are allowed ranking in the Nem if they are available. Retailers must also use more and more renewable in the mix of power purchases. This would add a substantial amount per annum. In addition the transmission and distribution system build outs add to the cost. They are regulated and everyone will pay. These extra costs have already started.
Then of course there are other regulatory burdens like the new basix codes in nsw. These will add $10 to 20k for a new build house. Thank you Matt Keane.
All of these add up to easily another lazy couple of billion.
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It’s OK.
They can just print more….
/sarc
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An earlier figure said that based on the entire transition cost ($1.5T?), the cost per household would be $120,000. Don’t know what the end date was supposed to be – 2030 or 2050?
40
It is like painting the Harbour Bridge. By the time you get halfway through, you have to replace the first ones. So the process never stops.
I doubt any part of a wind turbine is re-usable. Even the “concrete” bases have a lot of steel and that steel will corrode and fatigue. It is one of the reasons so many fall over. So even if there was a standard design like the 747 that lasted for decades, they would be very expensive to replace because the foundations have to be excavated and broken up. The aggregate and rebar may be recoverable but very high cost and not suitable for re-use without starting from scratch, Feeding the steel into a furnace to melt it, purify it and alloy it.
The mounting frames for solar panels may be reusable and you would probably replace existing panels as they deteriorate with new panels on the same frame.
Power stations can go through many rebuilds and upgrades over their operating life but basically on the same footprint.
Wind power is a function of airflow cubed. And the forces are a a square of the windspeed. They are a high fatigue cycle because you are trying to design a machine that will give maximum output in 10m/s of wind but may have to survive 40m/s, which is 16 times the loading and 64 times the power density. Then you are trying to build economically. Obviously you do not need much to go wrong to cause destruction. It is like putting a rocket engine in a glider. A very wide operating envelope.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turbine+falls+over&t=osx&iax=images&ia=images
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Except for rare countries which are blessed with plenty of hydro or geothermal, there are no countries that run on “renewables”.
Even then, it’s not fair to classify hydro or geothermal in the same genre as wind and solar.
Hydro and geothermal are properly engineered systems and designed to produce cheap, reliable power 24/7 (when properly managed). (Real geothermal, not Flim Flammery’s “hot rocks”, and real hydro, not SH2.)
The are only four countries that run on 100% renewables or close and they are not substantially industrial countries and do not rely on wind or solar.
-Albania and Paraguay 100% from hydroelectricity,
-Iceland is 72% hydro and 28% geothermal.
-Norway obtains 97 oercent of its electricity from hydro.
Australia has two failed attempts to run two islands on wind and solar, Flinders and King Islands in Bass Strait. Those failed experiments ought to be lessons for Australia and the world that it can’t be done at any reasonable cost or indeed at any cost.
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Fossil fuels are required for much more than just producing electricity
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/share-electricity-final-consumption.html
20
Not Albania, as it has to import around 20% from other countries, according to Wikipedia.
30
The following source says 100%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy?wprov=sfla1
30
Try Googling “Albania electricity imports”, and you will see many websites discussing this topic. These include:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/albania-spent-e213-million-on-importing-energy-in-2021-so-far/
And these statements: “Albania imported 1.4 billion kWh of electricity during 2022 at a total cost of 503 million euros, while the country’s exports in April and December were 194 million kWh with revenues of 38 million euros, as the export price was significantly lower than the price of import.
Albania had to import less than 11% of its total consumption at a very high cost. Electricity consumption in Albania decreased last year compared to the previous year, but not enough to reduce the need for imports. Consumption decreased by 5.4%, of which all the reductions were caused by the business supplying the open market at real prices.”
From website: https://politiko.al/english/e-tjera/birn-shqiperia-shpenzoi-500-milione-euro-per-import-energjie-vitin-e-kal-i479339
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Just an FYI, Australia has 15.4 million active individuals’ Tax File Numbers, or personal taxpayers.
So this climate scam/shakedown in this article represents $1,012 per taxpayer.
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Ardlaw, any idea how many of those taxpayers are private enterprise, the producers, and how many,in total, are receiving wages/salaries/ emoluments from Federal,State, local governments,quangos etc,etc.You know the whole shebang from the Prime Minister/Governor General down to the tea ladies et al. Asking for a friend.
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I would say that there are relatively few net taxpayers in Australia. Even if someone pays tax, they may be a net wealth consumer such as if they are a public serpent or they might work on wealth-draining projects like anything to do with wind and solar or SH2 or any of Vicdanistan’s “Great Leap Forward” Mao-esque “Big Build” projects.
80
About 20% of us pay net tax.
Basically you need to earn well over $80k to be paying net tax.
This is why the scroungers were so upset about us getting a tax cut – if we pay less tax, that’s that much less scrounging they can do.
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Yep, that’s the same percentage I was going to offer.
40
Hi David, what I would like to know is that as governments only have the money they take off private enterprise taxpayers first,by force/threat of imprisonment, before they redistribute that money for their vast spending commitments just how many private enterprise taxpayers are there supplying the governments finances? Just a simple straight up head count.
30
Wait a moment … there must be equal amounts of nett tax paid in as pulled out. Otherwise where does the extra come from?
Thing is that tax in Australia is higher than most people think … add in GST (almost everyone pays that) and payroll tax, and the many little import duties, mineral royalties, fuel tax, tax on your Super fund, road tolls, alcohol tax, etc.
Then add onto that the massive number of jobs that are not exactly government jobs … but only exist to satisfy some make-work programs that are imposed by fiat … various inspections and compliance requirements, special safety officers, and the constant political lobbying that every corporate needs to keep doing … because the others are doing it.
Then there’s more revenue raising via endless traffic violations that get more complicated every year until you are sure to make a mistake sooner or later. Fines for getting paperwork wrong or if a form goes in late.
And on top of that there’s the inflation tax … I mean when government prints money to cover their deficit, it isn’t free, the rest of us pay via higher prices.
Add it all up and a heck of a lot gets collected.
50
I forgot about Capital Gains Tax … another important one because as more money is printed assets go up in price … but you still have the same asset, not a better asset.
They then tax you for selling at a “profit” and this prevent anyone holding assets to avoid the inflation tax. What’s more, governments are getting so greedy that they want to tax CGT even before you sell!
00
The OECD countries have WASTED trillions of $ on TOXIC W & S etc over the last 34 years and all flushed straight down the drain.
But what will be the extreme WASTE if Aussies have to build thousands more KLMs of towers and wires in the DECADES ahead?
But who actually BELIEVES this will stop their delusional ravings or stop any bad weather events or SLR or floods or droughts etc?
We already know that Aussies live in the SH and therefore we are NET SINKS for co2 emissions , so what’s their point? See CSIRO.
Anyway what will be the HORRENDOUS ongoing cost in $ to the Aussie ENVIRONMENT ONSHORE and OFFSHORE if we’re stupid enough to pursue this left wing LUNACY?
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Meanwhile, China permits two new coal-fired power stations every week! Adn India which has overtaken China in population is fast catching up.
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Under the Paris Agreement, Australia has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030
Reality Check:
In 2005 global CO2 emissions from energy was 28,203 million tonnes per annum – by 2022 this had increased by 22% to 34,374 million tonnes per annum – an increase of 6170 million tonnes per annum
Meanwhile in Australia CO2 emissions from energy decreased by 1.7% from 382.9 to 376.3 million tonnes or a reduction of 6.6 million tonnes per annum – this is a long way short of the Paris Agreement committment.
However, Australia’s reduction of 6.6 million tonnes per annum has been swamped by a global increase of 932 times of Australia’s reduction!!!
It’s all pain and no gain.
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We should never forget that TOXIC W & S have a very short useful life of about 15 to 20 years and then the entire TOXIC mess has to be torn down and we start all over again.
So how do we pay for these RUINABLE disasters and the clueless batteries over and over again?
And why would anyone want to WASTE TRILLIONS of $ on these disasters when they only have a capacity factor of about 15% for SOLAR and 30% for WIND?
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But Bowen’s “Scientists for Sale” at the CSIRO have stated that “firmed renewables” are the cheapest form of electricity – so who are we peasants to doubt these authorities?
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It ain’t a pretty picture . . . .
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Aidan Morrison has been busy over the last few months and here’s one of his submissions in FEB 2024 and his concluding remarks to AEMO and the link has two more submissions to AEMO.
Let’s hope he can make a difference, because all energy consumers need an informed person to support them ASAP.
https://www.cis.org.au/publication/submission-to-draft-2024-integrated-system-plan/
“The ISP also has a crucial role to play with regards to the Feedback Loop. We emphasise that the passing of Feedback Loop notices for both HumeLink and VNI West based on the unscrutinised draft ISP is both in breach of the National Electricity Rules, and also a breach of public trust that due process and consultations will be adhered to in the energy transition. The minimum mandated consultation under NER 5.22.15(c) is a 30 day consultation, as specified in the Forecasting Best Practice Guidelines. This is the only opportunity that the public has to scrutinise the optimal development path prior to it being used for the Feedback Loop, which is the final and only protection for consumers from over-investment in transmission”.
“We further find that the ISP and the analysis in Appendix 6 does not support the advancement of HumeLink according to the schedule proposed by TransGrid, and the modelling of benefits associated with a substantially different timeline is grossly deceptive. Other inconsistencies and omissions in the cost benefit analysis cast doubt on the objectivity of the analysis. The Feedback Loop Notices for HumeLink and VNI west, and the Update Notice to the 2022 ISP should be recalled and proper consultation concluded on the draft, so that the public scrutiny of the Draft ISP can be used and the final 2024 ISP suitably amended before significant costs are passed on to consumers”.
Aidan Morrison
Director
Centre for Independent Studies Energy Program
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BTW this link for Aidan Morrison at the CIS has all his submissions in 2024.
https://www.cis.org.au/person/aidan-morrision/
20
The European Union will forge ahead with the development of small modular nuclear reactors with a view to deploying them by the early 2030s, its energy commissioner has stated, as the Albanese government shuns the uptake of the technology.
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/european-union-presses-ahead-with-smr-technology-as-bitter-nuclear-feud-deepens/news-story/9b03e654e1ad56de4bc6e7423ee7ab89
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It’s a shame this article wont make the MSM. Occasionally you will see a piece by Alan Moran, but not very often. Last night on The Project they interviewed an advocate for people squatting in vacant homes. That’s the level of journalism we face. If in fact this article was published the details and numbers would be defended by the climate alarmists quite easily. They would say the figures are highly inaccurate, then that Alan Moran is a schill for the oil industry and if that failed then ” $2400″ is a cheap price to pay if we’re saving the planet”.
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We have lost what little control over the representatives we elected and now face the final countdown.
If you feel cramped, restricted, fearful for your children’s future, apprehensive about vaxxine damage in reproduction and life expectancy, angry at politicians and public serpents then, don’t give them an inch.
Kleen out the system and install honesty and integrity, it’s just a stones throw away.
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Putin and Russia are a little more tha a stones throw away.
40
Peta Credlin recently talked to Nick Cater about Labor’s disastrous RUINABLES and EVs etc policy and this is definitely worth 6 minutes of your time.
B O Bowen is definitely a WOKE clueless loony and should be sacked ASAP if Aussies can hope to see any light at the end of the dark tunnel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFFBs3p_To
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The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming freight train….
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There is no light at the end of any tunnel at Snowy 2.0
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Correct.
The borer is blocking the way.
Maybe they could flush it out?
Just a thought.
30
IIRC it is too big to come out of the tunnel down hill by flushing
30
It’s worse than that. They are lining the tunnel walls behind the borer with concrete. So the tunnel is a bit smaller than the hole the borer drilled. It can’t go back.
The borer is embedded in the Snowy Mountains. They either had to get it working, or disassemble it …
20
The cost is way more than calculated here in that it doesn’t account for the lost GDP from businesses such as smelting that have become uncompetitive. The loss of businesses that have deferred plans to set up here . The cost to the economy of rising electricity costs on inflation as it impacts supermarkets , farmers , providers of most services.
Whilst instinctively you know these costs are there whether that is real or opportunity the ability to quantify them is not easy. All I know is that we are way worse off than if we continued our energy supply as before.
90
Snippet from Jo’s article:
I find it bizarre that people might “believe” (or not) in climate change. When discussing the climate change narrative with younger people, I have angrily been asked, “Don’t you believe in climate change?”. It’s a stupid question. I usually respond with, “Do you mean climate change cause by humans?” Which I then answer for them with an emphatic “NO” before they can respond.
There is absolutely no doubt that the climate changes, over tens of thousands of millions of years. Nothing we do will change this fact.
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It is like asking “Do you believe in earthquakes?” or “Do you believe that volcanoes can erupt?”
40
Humans are a tropical species that has established a liveable environment well beyond the tropics. Look at what is happening in Mongolia right now and you see what energy poverty means. Humans survive outside the tropics because they have learnt to build stuff that primarily keeps them warm and stores their food supplies.
All the resources now being wasted on useless stuff cannot be recovered in any economic way to improve chances of survival when the climate does what it has done repeatedly at the end of an interglacial period lasting 12,000 to 15,000 years. Northern Africa is going to be a lot more inhabitable than Russia, Canada and much of Scandinavia.
In the last week or so, I have been looking at a lot of data on climate change and am surprised by how fast things like atmospheric water are rising. The linked charts shows the rate of change of precipitable water.
https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNiABfAbM7HJZVJcnV?e=K6Puu5
The region just north of the Equator is increasing around 3% per decade- already up by 6% this century.
Still decades or even a century or so before the changes are highly visible but it will come. Snow in the NH will be an ever bigger problem. Many new snowfall records again this year and they will be a feature for thousands of years to come.
One thing humans have learnt so far is that wind and solar are energy sinks. Their only place is in remote locations where the cost to transport fuel or energy is high.
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At least you got your tax money’s worth like you did with lockdowns and vaxboosters.
Net Zero and lockvaxxing … it’s about saving lives.
Here in the USA, we’re getting our tax dollars worth saving Ukraine.
Which is good since we finished saving Afghanistan and were getting bored.
Plus, I understand we’re busy saving some other places most American’s have never heard of.
At least Iraq is safe now.
And hopefully Joe Biden will save Democracy from Americans that vote undemocraticly.
Otherwise he’ll have to bring some of those country savers back to the save us from those enemies of Democracy in the American South and Midwest that Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have warned us about.
Hopefully we’ll have enough left to provide free gender affirmation surgery to everyone that wants it.
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Honk, thumbs up for the sermon! I think it is right on.
80
Sarcasm when used well is a great counter argument.
Yours was spot on!
Loved it.
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Honk, don’t worry, Australia has also donated to Ukraine and gifted them some military equipment. Our PM did the photo thing with Zelensky as well, like all the other idiots.
70
Somalis have never felt more saved.
00
Serial pest, Tim Flannery, is still making BS predictions
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13285821/Push-ban-Australian-buying-petrol-powered-cars-just-12-years.html
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‘…forced to buy replacements..’ Tells you all you need to know about their mentality and their intentions.
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The replacements will be made in China with Chinese software in the car control systems
What could possibly go wrong!
90
Like a typical Leftist Elite, Flim Flammery is unaware that ordinary working people don’t have seven figure incomes like him and his kind and can’t afford to go out and buy a new fleet of cars every year, EV or otherwise. And certainly not a brand new car in any case. And even if they could afford an EV, how would they afford the electricity and high purchase and insurance costs for EVs?
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Further to my post at #20 people will be forced to recharge their EVs from 11.00 am to 1 pm when output from solar panels is highest and demand is much lower and does not peak until late afternoon.
The idea of coming home from work and plugging in your EV to recharge at 6.00 – 7.00 pm will be made super expensive.
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But the PM and Chief Engineer Albanese said solar panels work at night and charge EVs for free…
https://youtu.be/vyS9uqRLbB8
I bet all Labor/Green voters believe that.
80
Gary they won’t force us to do anything…we’ll have a choice of buying electric or walking./sarc
Just like there was no coercion re the wuflu vaccine…
I mean “no jab, no job” isn’t coercion right? Right?
Flim flam and his ilk are costing us $$$billions and the idiots in parliament are happy to go along with it.
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For the next generations of Australians it’s a case of “Welcome to North Korea and have a nice day”. The great irony is that it’s the younger generations that are supporting these draconian policies and they will wear the enormous consequences. If/when the progressive left has it’s way, we’ll all be living in tiny cramped housing commission flats, all being paid a standard minimum living wage and be totally controlled by the state in every aspect of our lives via a social credit system. Property and vehicle ownership, travel and meat consumption will only be allowed for the elite ruling class. For everyone else it will be a life of serfdom hoping you’ll die young to end the misery.
50
For somebody who pretends to be an economist, Alan Moran sure has trouble counting.
An investment isn’t a cost.
If he wants to calculate how much CEFC is costing us, he would need to figure out the opportunity cost of diverting money away from, say, handing out cash to dole-bludgers, or giving sex-offenders $million$ houses – and instead into, say, infrastructure that has a payback period that is counted in just months.
In this case, the $20billion managed by the CEFC could in fact be a net financial benefit, if only somebody who can actually count wanted to analyse what they do with their funds.
Similar comments apply to most of the rest of his list – it’s not even pretending to be a competent analysis, it’s the kind of innumerate trash you’d expect from The Age’s latest sub-educated diversity-hire work-experience kid.
I’m now starting to consider getting a 2nd battery for my house – the first one, together with some other infrastructure (solar panels, new hot water) totalling $30k is providing me with about $6kpa in benefits so far (20% ROI). Plus the house is cooler in summer and warmer in winter because I can use the reverse-cycle much more than I used to now it’s running on free electricity – how do you cost increased comfort? Let’s call that another $10kpa for a total ROI of over 50%.
I’ve bought one EV so far, just for the work commute, and it’s using free electricity from home – if I had a second battery it’d probably be saving me about $7kpa, which would be a 9% ROI. Plus I’m now driving the fastest car I’ve ever driven except for the Ford XB V8 Coupe back in the 80s. How do you put a value on having way more fun on the road? Let’s call that another $10kpa for a final ROI of 21%.
All this moaning against renewables is economically unjustified.
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Life is easy for the woke wealthy elite who swan around virtue signalling in their Telsas running on batteries produced using child labor (Africa) and slave labour (China).
Is a private jet now on your shopping list?
151
How many renters will be asking their landlords for $30,000 for solar and batteries so they can cut their electricity bill?
Many Australians are now struggling to meet mortgage payments before finding $30,000 for solar and batteries
Almost one third (31%) of Australian households rented their home in 2019–20, a decrease from 32% in 2017–18. Around two thirds (66%) of Australian households owned their own home with or without a mortgage, unchanged from 2017–18.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-occupancy-and-costs/latest-release#:
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No money is being diverted from elsewhere, all of this cash is being added as extra debt with ongoing service commitments or is reducing the surplus and helping retain more existing debt. Reading the rest of your comment, it’s obvious that you live in the inner city and only travel short distances. Driving speeds are also limited to speed limits and if you obeyed road rules there would be no speed difference or “fun factor” difference. There is also no free electricity, as Alan notes in this assessment, unless you have fiddled with the wiring in your meter box.
70
Yesterday, Jo made an excellent comment for the wealthy woke….
160
Capital costs in the renewable economy are not trivial. How many people living in social housing could afford an EV?
About 15 years ago I read an article about how much could be saved by properly retro fitting commercial buildings to a “proper” insulation/environmental standard.
But in the end the loss of rental income during the “retrofit” would mean the return on the investment would always be negative.
Being a person living in regional Australia, one of the great disadvantages of the EV propaganda is that at least locally, used vehicles are generally available in the $2000-$4000 which provide transportation to the probationary drivers attending their first employment. I suspect pre-owned EVs will cost ten times that or be worthless.
70
Could you provide a breakdown of that, please?
Solar capacity, battery capacity, electricity usage.
We’ve been going through a similar costing exercise for a caravan.
A good passive house design will do the same.
40
Craig, I don’t believe anybody can cost-justify a solar system with one battery, let alone two. If your calculations and data show otherwise, please share them with us.
If you’re not prepared to justify your assertions, including saying that others cannot get their cost calculations correct, then your assertions have to be regarded as baseless.
So let’s see those calcs and figures. Then you might be taken seriously.
51
Don’t think Craig’s ‘fastest car I’ve ever driven’ will be much use in his 15/20 minute city. It’ll never get out of second gear.
The sheep are sleepwalking to the abattoir.
30
Instead of “Sleeper Electrishity” we are getting Demand Management and massive Bill increases if we do not obey
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-09/energy-companies-under-fire-over-time-of-use-rates/103655324
40
Electric car crash: The American EV industry has hit the wall
Unsold Lightning pickups piling up in the Detroit parking lot
Something big is happening in the US market for battery electric vehicles (EVs), and it isn’t positive for the industry that makes them, or for the Biden administration’s subsidised dreams.
During the final few months of 2023, the market saw sales slowing, unsold electric vehicles piling up on dealer lots, Tesla struggling to get a handful of its much hyped CyberTrucks onto the market after five long years of promises, pure-play EV companies like Fisker teetering on the financial brink, and traditional automakers like Ford and GM announcing delays in their plans and investments for future EV development.
Things have not improved across the first quarter of 2024. If anything, the industry appears to be moving into something of a crisis mode now.
In recent days we have seen the following:
– First
– Second
– Third
– Fourth
Ford says that after three years of making massive investments in new plant and equipment needed for the production of its F-150 Lightning and electric Mustang Mach E models, it will now focus on developing hybrid options across its entire model lineup.
This places Ford on a strategic path similar to Japanese giant Toyota, which has become an object of scorn and ridicule from the climate alarmist left and globalist policymakers in the US and Europe for its stubborn, ongoing focus on making and successfully selling hybrids rather than pure EVs.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the ongoing push by Western governments to force EVs onto mostly unwilling consumers with trillions of dollars in debt-funded subsidies has gotten way out ahead of what the market is really willing to bear.
The results at Ford have been stark. Even though the company reported an overall profit of $4.3 billion for 2023 thanks to strong sales in its traditional gasoline- and diesel-powered passenger and heavy truck lines, it managed to lose $4.7 billion in its Model e EV division.
40
Toyota was right about hybrid cars all along
https://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-hybrid-cars-ev-sales-growth-prius-bz4x-2024-2
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24,000 EVs vs 750,000 ICEs – Game Over
The 24,000 in Ford Lightning EV sales is still a small fraction of overall Ford F-series pickup sales. The F-series is Ford’s best-selling product line and has been the best-selling vehicle of any kind in the United States for almost 50 years. Last year, Ford sold more than 750,000 F-series trucks.
The price of a Lightning starts at about $50,000 and is eligible for $7,500 in federal EV tax credits. Even with the tax credits, the price remains higher than the $34,000 base price of the gas-powered truck.
The range of Ford Lightnings drop dramatically when used for towing
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-electric-truck-towing-test/
We had been warned to expect the range to be cut in half when towing, but the effect of towing these travel trailers proved even more significant. With the smallest and lightest trailer, we measured a range of just 115 miles. That figure fell to 100 miles with the middleweight camper and sank to a mere 90 miles with the 7,218-pound Grand Design trailer.
70
Rail transporation has used hybrid power for many years – the term diesel-electric should be familiar.
Hybrid automobiles? 3 cyclinder turbo diesel running at 100% optimal power powering an electric gen-set and in wheel electric motors. Auto stop/start when not moving. Add a battery set large enough to use regenerative braking and travel perhaps 20-30 km.
50
Wind drought blackout: Do you feel lucky, punk?
Wind advocates are prone to dismissing concerns about the intermittency of their preferred generation source by claiming, without evidence, that the wind is “always blowing somewhere,” and building more transmission will fix the inherent problems with variable generation.
These wind droughts don’t just occur during extreme weather events. Wind droughts can happen at any time and are fairly common.
As regions of the country become more reliant upon wind turbines producing electricity during periods of high demand, they become more prone to electricity shortages during these wind droughts. This situation leads us into the realm of gambling on the weather to ensure the reliability of the electric grid.
We call this Dirty Harry Energy Policy™, harkening back to one of the most famous scenes in movie history, begging the question, “Do you feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?
Wind Drought
Center of the American Experiment has been warning about the impact of wind droughts on electric reliability for years. One of the most severe wind droughts we have found in our research occurred in the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) region in January 2020.
As we noted in our 2022 report, the region experienced an 82-hour wind drought during which all of the installed wind capacity on the 15-state MISO grid—22,040 megawatts (MW)—generated less than 10 percent of its potential output during this timeframe. Of those 82 hours, 42 straight hours saw wind capacity factors below 1.5 percent, which you can see in the graph below.
Conclusion
The wind isn’t always blowing somewhere. Any system that relies on wind and solar to meet demand will face this reality head-on and risk its reliability.
Dirty Harry is a fun movie, but it will not be a fun energy policy when the grid faces widespread blackouts due to a lack of wind production.
70
Anton’s figures, accumulated over more than three years, have proved very revealing. They show that dunkelflautes regularly occur across the entire eastern network, on average a bit more than one every three days, with durations up to 48 hours.
If a dunkelflaute occurs when solar is also out of action due to a very cloudy day or days, then the amount of storage backup required becomes so large that it’s neither available or affordable.
70
Anton who? This is important information that determines how many $Trillion will be required for back-up batteries. Do they apply to Australia?
Link Please
10
Anton = Anton Lang also known as TonyfromOz, who comments here regularly and writes a blog about the Australian grid at papundits.
https://papundits.wordpress.com/author/tonyoz/
Australia is so flat we get High pressure cells that cover the entire Eastern NEM grid killing wind turbine production for a day roughly twice a month.
The solution — obviously — is to install another mountain range around Mildura to Bourke or Broken Hill. Something big enough to break up those weather patterns…
70
That has in fact been proposed in 1979.
I can’t wait until those genius engineers Albanese and Chrissy Bowen get onto this.
At least an artificial mountain range would be more useful than windmills and solar panels.
40
Instead of building mountains, could we enhance the SA hydropower options by connecting the Southern Ocean with Lake Eyre? Or is 15m not enough a pressure drop?
Perhaps the dug up ground would be enough to start the mountain building project.
Note: previous studies were apparently more interested in downwind rainfall increases.
10
The very good 2015 article on Stored Hydro “Pump Up the Storage” https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
contains the calculations that show how height varies the energy.
20
Thanks Jo
20
Thanks Jo. I have Anton’s relevant comments on file. As you say, they are VERY relevant if you want to correctly plan backup storage requirements for renewables. And from the GenCost data, it’s also clear that the CSIRO has no knowledge of this very good research. Another organisation attempted to monitor dunkelflautes over a much shorter period, but stupidly they only used data from one wind farm.
Anton also recently provided the average large-scale solar efficiency – only 16.26%. I thought this was too low until I checked my own solar system, which had efficiencies of 23% for February and 19.6% for March.
30
It’s probably been said before on here, but this is my explanation about one hidden cost of solar energy that everyone immediately understands.
To export its product, a solar installation must increase its product to more than what is on the power lines outside, limited at an extra 10% which easily becomes the “going” Voltage where there’s a cluster of solar installations.
The “poor” folks without solar panels get this extra 10% through their meters and are forced to pay for it.
40
Aren’t you glad that we have engineering geniuses like Albanese and Chrissy Bowen and the senior public serpents who tell them what to think in charge of Australia’s energy supply?
80
How many do you think would know what a spanner is?
20
Depends on which definition you are referring to. One definition is: “A stupid or unintelligent person, one prone to making mistakes”. Is that the relevant definition?
10
I doubt they would know that one either
10
A top-end spanner. Possibly.
I will explain –
In the old days, before ring pulls on beer cans, we had metal keys with triangular ‘beaks’, that were used to open said beverages.
Two openings, on opposite sides of the top.
One – beverage out.
T’other – air in.
Auto, showing my age, I guess!
10