Clearing in the Snowy Mountains. Geoff Wise on Facebook, June 4th 2024
It’s just another day on the job to save the world from man-made pollution
In a quest to make the weather a bit nicer in 100 years these trees needed to be cut down now so we can connect up a big hydropower “battery” for holy solar and wind power. The towers will be 75m high and the path through the forest, 140m wide.
When we ran off coal and gas power, we didn’t need pumped hydro. Fossil fuels protect the forests and hills of Australia.
These photos were posted by Geoff Wise on the “High Country of Australia” show us what our clean green future will look like:
“Here is where the power lines from the Snowy Hydro 2, at Lobs Hole, will cross the Tumut River ravine to go to the recently cleared site of the switching station in the Maragle State Forest, before heading north to feed into the National Power grid. The power lines will come from near the distant horizon. Look at the photos for more information. You can see this for yourself, as I was standing on Elliot Way when I took the photos, down hill, to the east is Kosciusko National Park and uphill, to the west is Maragle State Forest.”
Other parts of this project (not pictured here) will even cut through national park. Originally the 330kV interconnector towers were going to be put underground in the Kosciusko National Park, but after costs ballooned it was decided that the Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped storage was “critical state significant infrastructure to NSW for economic, environmental and social reasons” and the National Park was not so significant. Who knew, socially, people in NSW benefit from pumped hydro?
Apparently renewable shareholders have friends in high places. Trees and koalas, not so much.
h/t Roger
Remember small business foresters and farmers are bad people, but industrial hydroelectricity helps the environment. See how caring they are with their clearing…
Geoff describes how extensive these lines are: “One of the power lines from there travels through Maragle State Forest, then Bago State Forest. A second travels through from Cabramurra and next to the new switching station being built. Snowy Hydro 2 may add, 1 to 2, more lines, as two lines are going to the switching station.“
The standard joke on facebook with these photos is “look at the damage those brumbies have done!”:
Clearing in the Snowy Mountains for high voltage lines (from Elliot Way) between Maragle and Lobs Hole.
Because over the hill, feral brumbies are being shot from helicopters to “reduce their impact” on the Alpine wilderness.
Though some wonder if it’s more the high country colonial history that the bureaucrats are really trying to kill.
Geoff also notes the irony that electric vehicles will be everywhere in the renewable future, but they won’t be allowed in the Snowy hydro power station. He wonders, after all the combustion engines are gone, whether they’ll need those horses to pull the carts:
I received an email from a well informed commentator who noted that the Lobs Hole approval notice is allowed to kill and displace all sorts of things:
The Critical State Infrastructure Approval for the Lobs Hole and the Switching Station on KNP allows that no more than:
(i) 9.35 ha of Caladenia montana species habitat
(ii) 89.06 ha of Gang-gang Cockatoo (breeding) species habitat
(iii) 10.86 ha of Masked Owl (breeding) species habitat
(iv) 117.29 ha of Eastern Pygmy-possum species habitat
(v) 59.03 ha of Yellow-bellied Glider species habitat; and
(vi) 1.67 ha of Booroolong Frog species habitat
can be cleared for the development; and the developers have to minimise:
(i) the impacts of the development on hollow-bearing trees;
(ii) the impacts of the development on threatened species; and
(iii) the clearing of native vegetation and key habitat.
Apparently, the sanctioned clearing is offset by contributing or buying offset credits.
The question is, why can’t farmers within the Great Barrier Reef catchment area have the same option when managing their land? At the moment, bureaucrats scan satellite images and if any bare ground the size of a kitchen table is found on their land, they turn up and carry out an audit essentially accusing the farmer of environmental degradation of the Great Barrier Reef.
— R
Some endangered industries are more protected than others.
A man I worked with in the 1970s and 1980s was a NSW State forester. Around 2002, he did a hazard reduction clearance of regrowth under transmission lines in the Brindabellas. He was sacked for that act of environmental vandalism.
Early in 2003, the big Canberra bushfire struck. The hazard reduction he did stopped the fire along one path. He was NOT re-instated in his job.
“Environmentalism” is simply a means to grab political power over “the lives of others”, pushed by deeply ingrained fascism.
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Interesting. That will be on record. Which area was it?
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Probably filed under ACT.
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Look for reports of Boob Carr screeching about “environmental vandalism” in the Brindabellas.
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I meant which area was not burned because of hazard reduction?
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You would need to check the direction of the fire, which was running along the Brindabellas until it came to the cleared area under the power lines.
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During the 2003 bushfires, contractors attempted to create a firebreak along the Broken Cart Trail. Unfortunately a consequent fire burned through to the Brindabella service Road, didn’t stop at the adjacent transmission line easement, and crossed onto the range where it changed direction, heading north.
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Nope. A bit of cleared land does not and did not stop a fire like that.
02
I was at Canberra, January 2003. I was part of a Fire NSW, support taskforce.
Approx 450 homes and 80% of the ACT burnt.
What most don’t know (and you won’t find it on Wiki-p) is that in trying to “control” the three separate bush fires, incendiaries were dropped via aircraft.
Imho, it didn’t work well.
Why didn’t they tell the public that?
It’s buried deep in the coronial report….. and they kept it that way.
The public is only told what they want you to know.
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Clearing like this is disgusting.
Locally we had unprecedented Bush fires because local “authorities” banned the removal of undergrowth from our reserves.
No doubt a lot of money was “saved” by not attending to road verge and Bush maintenance but I’m sure this wasn’t done to enable trips to UN sponsored talk tests by Local Governments Officials.
Nothing has changed in the last decade
https://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/chile-cancels-un-climate-conference-weeks-out-cop25-forced-to-move/#comment-2213433
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That was a very interesting diversion KK. There’s been a small amount of hazard reduction burning in this area but nothing like what is needed. As for the roadsides around here, they are disgraceful and a big fire hazard. They look thoroughly scruffy too. Wildlife corridors will be quoted as the reason and yet the monstrous clearing for so-called renewables is encouraged. We are ruled by greed and corruption.
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I understand selling carbon offset credits is a growing business in Nigeria!
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And if Snowy 2 is never completed it will all have been for naught?
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At least nature will replace the trees etc over time. Makes a mockery of bans on logging of state parks which has set our timber industry back so far as to needing to import timber goods.
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All available pounds of flesh will be extracted.
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The Snowy wormhole digger will probably remain insitu, an underground monument to Turnbull’s folly.
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They’ll disassemble it somehow and replace it with an army of Wombats. They are common in that area and can be induced to help with roots,shoots and leaves.
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“The Snowy wormhole digger will probably remain insitu, an underground monument to Turnbull’s folly.”
Turnbull’s folly is still progressing albeit slowly
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It was Australia’s bad judgement and folly to have trusted him, ever.
He always, always intended this as another
“up yaws” to the nation he despised.
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Bit premature lads! Snowy 2.0 may never reach maturity but here they are clearing land for the proposed powerline corridor. Where is the Green Outrage? Who the hell is going to measure the decimated flora as specified in the approval notice cited in the subject article? Talk about building roads to nowhere.
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Charles Darwin recorded how important was his voyage on the Beagle* in influencing the subsequent course of his life, of the parallel’s he discovered in South America’s fossil record and the nature of its living animals and plants that first intimated to him the organic evolutionary possibility of life on earth. Darwin’s visit to Australia also promoted questioning, as revealed in a note in his journal during a trip across the Blue Mountains:
‘I had been lying on a sunny bank and was reflecting on the strange character of the animals of the country compared with the rest of the world. An unbeliever in everything beyond his own reason might exclaim, “Two distinct creators must have been at work; their object, however, has been the same, and certainly the end in each is complete.’
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I’ve read that last bit five times, and I can see a couple of interpretations.
🙂
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When will Australia have its own Drax Power Station? The lunatics in Canberra should love the idea.
Some CO2 emissions are classified as “Renewable” while others are not – go figure!
Drax Power Station provides 11% of the UK’s “renewable power”, providing a secure, reliable and flexible source of “renewable energy” to support more intermittent renewables, such as wind and solar
The site near Selby in North Yorkshire provides the most “renewable power” of any single location in the UK, some 14 terawatt-hours (TWh) or enough electricity to power the equivalent of five million homes
Drax has taken £5.6bn in subsidies from energy bill payers but business secretary says practice is ‘not sustainable’
About 80% of the wood pellets burned by Drax come from North America. Kwarteng said: “There’s no point getting it from Louisiana – that isn’t sustainable … transporting these wood pellets halfway across the world – that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.” Since 2019, when Kwarteng became an energy minister, Drax has received £2.5bn in subsidies for its power station, which previously burned coal.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/11/burning-imported-wood-in-drax-power-plant-doesnt-make-sense-says-kwarteng
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And it leaves the UK short on power for their grid- they imported £3.5 billion worth from their mainland European neighbours last year
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/19/uk-electricity-imports-hit-record-wind-and-solar-power/
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Drax is sitting on masses of excellent coal. Some time ago I read that Drax burns 50,000 tons of wood pellets a day. The equivalent energy from the close at hand coal would require 36,000tons of coal. Utter madness.
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Conflicting news from today’s Australian:
CEOs don’t want Dutton’s nuclear disruption For business, nuclear represents a solution to a problem that is set to be solved by the time the first reactor goes online
Business leaders have criticised the Coalition’s rollout of an uncosted plan to develop a major ¬nuclear industry, airing significant potential hurdles to the power station plan.
Strategy would plug holes in planning for subs Peter Dutton’s plan for Australia to build a nuclear energy industry provides the best chance of the AUKUS agreement actually delivering something for Australia.
Peter Dutton has declared the next election is a referendum on nuclear energy and power prices, outlining his plan to build seven atomic generators by 2050.
Government-owned and built is a sensible thing to do High High-density, continuous and centralised power beats low-density, intermittent and decentralised power every time. In other words, nuclear beats renewables.
Early thumbs up in rural seats where reliable power is far from guaranteed The electorates of Callide and Nanango, both held by the LNP, are open – to different levels – to the idea of nuclear plants in their backyards.
No wonder Australians are confused. The truth is all of the above may be true?
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The Australian gives $60 Billion and the total estimated costs for the Coalitions Nuclear Plan
The following is stated:
However, the missing Elephant in the Room is the cost of battery back-up for unreliable wind and solar power.
In the example I previous posted the with current wind energy capacity which on an annual basis provides 13% of NEM demand, the cost of battery back-up for a 6 day period of low wind as occurred in May comes to around $200 billion.
If many more wind turbines are added to get wind to 50% of NEM demand, then the cost of battery back-up goes to $800 billion.
The coalition must control the narrative and not the clueless lamestream media.
This battle is not between “Nuclear vs Renewables” is a battle between “Nuclear vs (Renewables + Battery Back-up)”.
Control the narrative and the Coalition can easily win the battle – but are they smart enough?
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Yesterday’s Australian had a n energy supplement that largely supported renewable energy. Chris Uhlmann contributed positively, giving a political history of the transition period. Still, most commentary stuck on carbon reduction and sequestration- a stupid concept.
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“Yesterday’s Australian…largely supported renewable energy…. a stupid concept.”
Not unusual, I can’t understand why they have such an inflated opinion of themself as a newspaper. Just another rag with delusions of grandeur.
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The claims that nuclear is uncosted is ridiculous when compared to the fact that all the renewables costs are unknown.
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Reports suggest that someday Snowy Hydro 2 will work in the manner of throwing a ball in the air and having gravity bring it down again. When the ball hits, a snippet of the energy is retrieved, and the ball is thrown up again. The concept makes sense.
Nothing else about this Robinson/Goldberg scheme does.
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Turdballs thought he was approving a perpetual motion machine.
All that was needed was a law, as he assured us that the laws of Australia take precedence over the laws of physics and mathematics.
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We’ve all noticed that nobody talks about ‘global warming’ anymore. Attempts to revive it with ‘global boiling’ fell flat, because the narrative has moved on. ‘Climate change’ was useful for many years subsequent, particularly as it could encompass literally any natural event. But even ‘climate change’ has become stale and not often mentioned anymore. The buzzword narrative now is ‘net zero’. Everything is about ‘net zero’. What does this accounting trick even mean? It doesn’t matter. Soon people will have forgotten why ‘net zero’ is even a thing, it’ll just be something we have to ‘do’. But at least it is getting closer to the truth. Net zero is a cronyist system specifically designed to profit rent seeking corporations and empower the state at the cost of middle class treasure and private ownership. Socialists are very good at controlling and maintaining narratives to achieve a collectivist state in which only the powerful are meaningful.
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I have only worked out one meaningful interpretation of nett zero. Biofuels. Which is behind the DRAX absurdity. And the ABC lauds the use of deep fryer oil to charge electric cars on the Nullabor with generators.
In the fantasy world, CO2 from oils or wood grown recently do not add to CO2. They are nett zero fuels.
Otherwise Nett zero means nothing less than no fossil fuels. The fuels which power 90% of Australia.
And all this based on a fantasy that fossil fuel CO2 is special and hangs around in the atmosphere/biosphere. And the 98% of CO2 in the ocean below 100 metres just stays there. It is a bizarro world contradicted by the new science of Radio(Active) Carbon Dating 66 years ago in 1958. And 36 papers since. It is a world populated by people who make a living from Climate Change.
The Flannery led Climate Council for example charge $1200 for a talk. And in one recent case refused to debate me. It’s all about the Voice from Authority. And the very qualified CO2 Coalition of senior scientists are supposed shills for the fossil fuel industry?
I do not follow that. The fossil fuel industry is doing better than at any time in history. They have no need to pay anyone. The anti fossil fuels are no problem at all. In fact oil and gas executives are fully on board. Why not? It makes them richer.
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Global warming? yes its is a rarity in the MSM – but I was totally shocked today by page 9 of the Herald Sun (yes a news ltd paper) in an article headlined – “Olympics on Extreme Heat” Quote: “The study adds to a growing number of calls from sports people to adjust the timing of events to take into account the physical strain of competing in higher temperatures caused by Global Warming” end quote – no by-line – but that journalist should be taken out and shot for that heresy! Perhaps they felt that Climate Change or Net Zero didn’t quite cut it?
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Paris usually empties in August. It is traditional for Parisians to go away on holiday at that time as the city tends to be hot and stuffy! So it made complete sense to hold the Olympics there in August, of course! So blame it all on CC, what’s new?
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People do not realise how hot places like Colorado, London, Paris and even Moscow get and how humid. I had weeks in Colorado +38 all day and 42C at night. 95% humidity. And time sweltering in Moscow at 37C at night, high humidity. The ‘continental’ climate is so different to the Australian experience on the coast of sea breezes, much lower temperatures and lower humidity.
I remember the old black and white films set in busy offices in New York where it was usual to see men with their shirt backs wet with sweat. Then airconditioning arrived. Now people get upset at temperatures which were quite normal then, as if there was a magic time when we didn’t need airconditioners. And people worked in any temperature and conditions. They wore a hat, took off their jackets and ties and opened the windows. The job had to be done and on time. No one complained. There was no dropping tools and going home.
As these memories fade I detect that people are starting to think that hot days are because of fossil fuel. It’s ironic when it was fossil fuel and airconditioners which made people so soft. They are blaming the airconditioners for the need for airconditioners. Amazing. All encouraged by the UN/Democrats/Labor/China. If you’re hot, it’s your fault.
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Yes and how did those people in the Middle East survive thousands of years ago? Did the buildings have air conditioning?
No of course not. They were built to resist/insulate the heat and to induce cooling air flows. How clever of them.
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TdeF,
When you said this earlier, I wondered. Will ask this time:
It can certainly get hot, but humid? Where in Colorado were you? Steamboat Springs? A sauna? Doesn’t look like you were anywhere like Denver at any rate.
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Fort Collins. I had an office there 1988 through 1993. It was equally cold in winter. -40C. The humidity was so high three air-conditioner would turn into ice blocks. So I moved all night. Shopping centres were a relief. Shopping at 4am
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Snap. I worked in Fort Collins ’96-’98. I wouldn’t have called it humid, and neither does the graph here (admittedly Cheyenne, not FC). Swamp coolers were popular there, and they’re not much chop in humid places.
40
I remember it all very well. But this is ten years before. And I was amazed that it was hotter at night than during the day, something that I had never experienced. As for airconditioner cores freezing solid, that was also new.
Australia is not a cool place, a good proportion being in the tropics. But the heat in Fort Collins was beyond my experience in the desert or the tropics.
In this extremely hot weather, people said ‘at least it’s not Texas’
And in the -40C winter with inches of ice on the road and cars buried under snow, people said ‘at least it’s not Alaska’.
Coming from a temperate zone where it is never under 0C/32F, it was all a bit of a shock. And yes I had experience 113F but usually close to zero humidity. The whole Continental climate business was amazing both in the US and Europe/Russia. I have no idea why people like the climate in Colorado.
But from reports, the place is cooler. And my home town Melbourne, Australia is much cooler too. We used to have most days over 30 in January. For years now it has been one or two. And in February many over 37, usually a whole week at a time. These days it’s non existent. And no days of 47C/116F
The Southern Hemisphere is much cooler. Sydney, a hotter more humid place did not have a day over 32C for three years. But our weather bureau is always telling us that we are wrong, that the place is heating rapidly. Except that as in the UK this week, the hottest May in history no one believes it. And it turned out that the nights in the Scottish highlands had cloud cover which raised temperatures at night by 3.5C and this caused ‘the hottest May in recorded history’. Which shows what people can achieve with averages.
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Fort Collins may be a special case because of the terrain. It’s open to the plains to the east, but is otherwise enclosed by towering mountains and a high desert escarpment. Laramie to the north is 8,000 feet above sea level. So in summer the heat gets trapped by the terrain. In winter the cold, high altitude, air flows down into the “hole.”
Yup, the Texans flee by November. And people who have worked in Alaska are amazed that the winters are more extreme in Wyoming than in Alaska. One of the coldest days I ever experienced was in Amarillo Texas once, though. And in summer it can get just as hot in Colorado as in Texas.
Washington DC is the place where it’s 100/100 all summer, as in 100 degrees F/ 100% humidity. Just like Tokyo.
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parisians leave to go and annoy other french people.
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It’s their special gift
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The term ‘Net Zero’ is just as silly as ‘Negative Growth’. It’s Zero. Full stop.
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Johnny,
A collapsed bridge could be negative growth.
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If anything has broken, or is breaking the AGW ‘97% Consensus’, it’s the Pandemic.
The spell that ‘Science’ has had on the average person since the Moon landing/TV and the Internet has been broken by lockdowns and mandates … and the Internet.
Remember all those hero doctor TV shows we grew up with.
Laughable now.
Anthony Fauci has single handedly undone the great narrative that Leonardo Da Vinci created.
We’ve done little with our ‘debate’ about ‘science’, the SOBs just clocked the public one too many times in the back of the head with a hammer and now they’ve noticed.
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Isn’t there is a general name for a scheme which misleads investors by exaggerating the potential extent and benefits of an activity, and which uses sophisticated accounting tricks to fabricate profitability?
30
I note that Dutton is still quoting 18,000 klms of transmission lines for the toxic W & S and yet there’s no howling from the Labor left or the so called Greens?
I thoughts these lefty loonies actually cared about the environment, but it seems when it requires common sense they just look the other way?
How can any sane person vote for these delusional lefty loonies?
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So far as I know the existing Snowy Hydro worked very well.
Then Green governments stopped a lot of the transfer of Eastern flowing water to the West. This for ‘Environmental” reasons.(????)
I don’t know how efficiently it operates these days, but fear that if they opened Snowy 2 tomorrow, they would soon find that they would have to shut down irrigation for agriculture altogether to get enough water to operate it.
What would the price of carrots then be in Sydney and Melbourne?
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A fringe benefit to a “Green” government.
30
It’s a loop … the same water pumped up at one time of day, comes back down again at another time of day.
Some is lost to evaporation of course … but underground pipes are pretty good in this respect and the open lakes in the Snowy Mountains were going to evaporate anyhow, with or without extra pumped water.
00
Unfortunately when the Snowy 2 becomes an unfinished white elephant this destruction of habitat and Forrest will take decades and centuries to regenerate.
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I doubt it. In Europe yes. But the rate at which Australian forest regenerates after fire is amazing. This is a direct result of aboriginal flamethrowing for 50,000 years and the resultant dominance of rapid growth pyrophytic trees.
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But at least the koalas will be able to climb the unused power pylons in lieu of trees! Of course all us truth seekers will likely be dead or infirm and beyond the “we told you so” observations.
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My question is : who is getting the timber ? Massive clear felling of trees – someone is being paid to cart them away and “dispose” of them …….
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Probably someone who paid for them and did something with them. Great question though.
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Most of it goes to firewood, which is a little bit sad in a way … because there’s probably a lot of very nice wooden products that Australia could make but chooses not to.
Australians are enjoying their loungeroom fireplaces before the numbnuts brigade bans everything and leaves us sitting in the cold … for the time being it’s cheaper than electricity … most things are.
If you scroll through Gumtree and various other second hand marketplace sites, there’s all sorts of elegant old heavy wood furniture on sale. You can usually find a carved oak desk around $100 and other pieces at similar prices. People don’t want it … and it’s hard to transport … they all buy Ikea flat-pack instead. Also, hardly anyone can afford a spare room large enough for a grand desk anymore … so they jam a little chip-board workstation in the corner of the bedroom instead. That’s not because Australia is small (like Japan) … there’s vast amounts of empty land, but no one is allowed to build on it, and even if somehow you do get a permit to build, the cost overheads of a building project would be well out of reach of most families.
Two generations ago … there were plenty of Australian families buying a bush block, clearing a few trees and building their own home. Try doing that now and see how it goes.
20
how do you know this?
12
I bother to ask when I’m buying firewood and they are happy to explain their sources … mostly from similar land clearing operations by new developments.
But if you don’t trust word of mouth, you can easily check the statistics and Australia produces very little hardwood timber. The number of hardwood sawmills is about a quarter of what it was 20 years ago, and the volume trend is downwards. We are basically at the stage of boutique specialists only … and they aren’t going to be interested in scrappy trees.
That leaves pulp mills … yes Australia exports hardwood pulp, but the mills are very cautious about public opinion and they list all their sources on their web pages. Like this map for example.
https://www.midwaylimited.com.au/sustainability/
I’m not making a guarantee that the pulp mills don’t take any of these clearing operations … but they have been beat up so many times by Green politics they will be very reluctant to move outside their well established territories.
20
I should also point out, right now there isn’t money in woodchips and pulp in Australia … Midway (ASX:MWY) has not made a profit in the past 4 years and their stock price never recovered from the 2020 crash.
https://fwpa.com.au/news/australian-pulp-production-falls-to-seventeen-year-low/
The production volumes are falling. Australians actually use imported wood pulp. Visy are still doing OK but pulp is a sideline to their main packaging business.
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A landowner was recently fined #135,000 for clearing a lot less than that. They should be given their money back.
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Yes, as when the bushfire came, the whole town sheltered on the property.
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Those sacrificed trees would have sequestered tons of CO₂ naturally via photosynthesis. But not to worry. If Snowy 2 ever gets operational, some of the power could be used to help force the excess CO₂ underground into our aquifers thus saving the planet by politically sanctioned anthropogenic methods, alternately known as Bowen’s hypothesis.
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So why do lefties want to destroy the environment and over and over again, every 15 to 20 years?
We know that Nuclear is the safest type of BASE-LOAD energy and it requires only a tiny area and can last for at least 80 years.
Just think of the extreme, ruinous cost of toxic W & S every 15 to 20 years and the entire toxic mess has to be buried in landfill.
Here’s the historical safety data for Nuclear Energy from OWI Data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbeKtcTfMbY&t=2s
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Sorry that was the link to the new Finland Nuclear plant.
Here’s the OWI Data historical Nuclear safety link.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
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Did anyone think to protest to the Chinese Premier, about all the new coal fired power stations, they are opening weekly in China? “Don’t mention the coal plants!”
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“Don’t mention the coal plants!”
00
Leftards don’t protest against other leftards.
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It’s insane. Destroying National parks to save the environment? Why is it that because of fear mongering about a tiny possible increase in temperature, whatever the cause, we throw environmental protection out the window?
Of all the problems with the environment, why is this problem and only this problem exempt from all environmental safeguards? Is it just the vast amount of money involved in preventing the sky from falling? Why does UN dictated boiling seas and highway to climate hell get a free pass against every environmental law?
This is quite apart from the fact that it is rubbish science.
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And it’s not just this specific case. There are another 10,000km to be installed. Purely because of windmills with a 20 year life span and no warranty.
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They also need a massive graveyard for all the fibreglass turbine blades that cannot be easily recycled.
50
Here is another case of “We have to destroy the Environment in order to save it”
I tip my used cooking oil down the sink!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/19/net-zero-aviation-targets-driving-mass-scale-fraud-and-deforestation/
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Even today we know that over 80% of global energy is supplied by fossil fuels and yet we want to destroy our land and sea environments and the wild life for nothing?
Alex Epstein was correct when he made the MORAL case for fossil fuels.
And fossil fuels also play a part in almost everything we use today.
Here’s a quote from OWI Data (plus the link) about Human life expectancy since 1950 when population was only 2.5 billion and over 8 billion today.
And their data updates for life expectancy since 1950 are supplied by the UN.
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-globally
“Now, let’s look at the change since 1950. Many of us have not updated our world view. We still tend to think of the world as divided as it was in 1950. But in health — and many other aspects — the world has made rapid progress. Today most people in the world can expect to live as long as those in the very richest countries in 1950. The United Nations estimate a global average life expectancy of 72.6 years for 2019 – the global average today is higher than in any country back in 1950. According to the UN estimates the country with the best health in 1950 was Norway with a life expectancy of 72.3 years”. End of OWI Data quote.
BTW our poorest continent Africa had a life expectancy of just 36 years in 1950 and a population of 227 million, but today Africa’s population is 1490 million and their life expectancy is 64 years.
When will we start to think and wake up to these con merchants and liars?
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The latest UN updates for Africa shows that their population is nearly 1495 million and the rate of pop growth has fallen from 2.9 % in the 1980s to 2.36 % today.
The average age of Africans is very low or about 19 years according to the UN data.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/AFR/africa/population
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I seem to recall that the capital cost of Loy Yang B was $1.2B in 1999. It was built on time and under budget by the SECV. Why can`t this occur today? Even with escalation to 2024 dollars, this was a good deal for 1000MW.
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Exactly. A more certain result than windmills. If the objective is genuine.
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In Scotland, 17million trees were removed to make way for windmills. How environmentally illiterate is that?
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Don’t you worry about that. The ABC has everything in hand to make sure nuclear is killed off so that more bush can be cleared to make way for alternatives and their disastrous consequences.
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How Russia is using nuclear power to win global influence
Despite sanctions, Russian companies are building more than a third of the new reactors around the world, which is gaining Moscow new friends
Rooppur in Bangladesh’s far west may seem an unlikely place for a Little Russia. Yet in this enclave, shop signs are written in Russian, Bengali vegetable vendors haggle over “kartoshka” (potatoes) and “morkov” (carrots), and Russian expats can have their teeth examined at Russ Dental Care.
The explanation sits a few kilometres down the road where Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear giant, is building the first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. At an estimated cost of about $12bn, it is one of the largest ever infrastructure projects in the nation of about 170mn people.
With the aim of bringing the country’s share of electricity generated by nuclear power from zero to 10 per cent in less than 10 years, Rosatom is doing “amazing work”, says Sama Bilbao y León, director-general of the World Nuclear Association (WNA).
Bangladesh’s government says the 2,400MW plant, expected to begin trials this year, will address power shortages and blackouts crippling Bangladesh’s otherwise fast-growing economy, including its garments export sector.
But, for Moscow, the project serves another purpose: to bind the two countries together for decades and expand the Kremlin’s influence in Bangladesh, as it has done with other nations that do not have their own nuclear capacity.
Despite sanctions on its economy, Russia continues to be an unrivalled exporter of nuclear power plants. It is involved in more than a third of the new reactors being constructed around the world at the moment, including in China, India, Iran and Egypt.
The relationships that Russia forges through nuclear projects surpass even the lengthy contracts for pipeline gas supplies.
Nuclear plant construction takes about 10 years, with a reactor lifespan of 60 years for newer plants.
In Turkey, Russia is building the country’s first nuclear power plant, a 4,800MW facility in Akkuyu which is expected to begin producing electricity this year. Russia often uses a build-own-operate model, which involves an even higher degree of co-operation as Rosatom provides everything, including the plant’s staff, during the lifetime of the project.
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Cold snap and lack of renewables trigger gas supply shortfall warning
A lack of renewable power generation at the same time as an east coast cold snap is creating a possible shortfall in gas supplies, the energy market operator has warned, with the industry told to maximise production to prevent a major crisis.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has issued a “threat notice” warning of the potential for gas supplies to run short, triggering reminders from the industry that too little has been done to address repeated warnings of a looming shortfall.
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G’day OO,
Even the ABC has the story!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-20/aemo-warns-of-immediate-gas-shortage-risks-in-se-australia/104003166
And it’s quite detailed.
Cheers
Dave B
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The crux of the matter.
“The lack of investment, and some would say outright hostility to gas industry investment in the southern states has left south-east Australia closer to gas supply shortfalls,” Mr Wilkinson said.
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It’s not environmentalism, it’s ecofascism.
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MichaelSmithnews.com is on the ball!
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/06/bowen-labor-say-all-these-people-are-wrong-and-so-are-labor-themselves-with-the-aukus-nuclear-submar.html
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/06/ole-faithful-labors-abc-with-the-holy-talking-points-according-to-an-energy-analyst-this-is-the-word.html
And just for laughs an item about a manhunt for a trangender
https://www.infowars.com/posts/transgender-double-murder-suspect-captured-after-lengthy-manhunt/
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I think SH2 is so ill-conceived that even the fully woke Labor Government will abandon it. They can always blame Turnbull.
Ultimately consumers, if they want 24/7 power and heating, cooling and electric cooking, will be required to provide their own battery backup to take power from the grid on those rare occasions it will be available, with some possible supplementation from rooftop solar (if not living in an apartment).
If the consumer can’t afford a full size battery, they will have the option of a small battery for a few lights and an internet-connected appliance to receive government propaganda plus maybe the the ability to warm a daily ration of insects and gruel.
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Dick Smith supports Dutton/Liberals on Nuclear and calls for Labor/Greens to reverse course in the National Interest
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/we-need-everyone-supporting-nuclear-dick-smith-endorses-peter-duttons-nuclear-energy-push/news-story/a8d3b16ccbaa60fe5a0aaac6fdf5d1b6
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The claimed capacity of SH2 is 350GWh but the reality is it will be about 40GWh.
See:
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=EXH-2536%2120191108T002841.497%20GMT
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And we all know that powerlines are a risk of causing bushfires, so it is only a matter of time until one of the many new lines to hundreds of wind and solar farms starts a big bushfire. Which will be directly and undeniably attributable to ‘renewable’ energy. Nice job, hypocrites.
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The new solar subsidy farm at Winton has had 3 fires so far , lucky it wasn’t a hot windy day .
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Say a government wanted to halve power generation CO2 in ten years. That could be done with high temperature coal power generation. So the real problem is that nett zero forbids coal, even if it supplies a solution. That would buy time to come up with another solution because the windmills installed ten years ago will be going out of use by then.
Not only can’t we install windmills and all their expensive huge power lines fast enough, we will get to the point where we cannot replace them faster than they are going out of service, out of warranty. And increasing the number of windmills just makes this worse.
So if Bowen wants his 50% reduction in 6 years, he has a simple,relatively cheap solution compared at least to Snowy II.
And as 100% is not possible without nuclear, a way to buy time to get there.
But we all now it is not about providing cheap, reliable, commandable, adequate electric power. It’s about not using fossil fuels, no matter what the alleged problem.
And then the ONLY known solution is nuclear.
Even then many processes including crematoriums, ships, trucks, excavators, making concrete, refining metals, making plastics, making fertilizer, making explosives,… involve releasing CO2. Which means it’s all a waste of time unless we shut down all manufacturing and farming. Which seems to be a parallel objective. That is the Safeguard Mechanism Act 2023. No one mentions it.
So if the Albanese government does not actually want cheap, reliable, affordable power and really wants to shut down all industry and agriculture, even sewage and graveyards, you have to ask what their real agenda is? Or is that a secret?
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It’s a bit like The Voice. If it wasn’t really to help aboriginals, what was the real agenda? Or is that again a special secret?
Why do we have a Prime Minister who seems hell bent on wrecking the place (just look at the photos), while pretending to care about the environment?
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Once the post WWII boom infrastructure starts crumbling, reinforced concrete having been oversold as lasting 1000 years now revised down to 50-100, these new dams are just gonna join the piles of rubble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb4Df8CAJB4
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Just plain, total vandalism. No other way to des ibe it . .
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Labor is attacking Peter Dutton over the cost of nuclear powerplants, whether full-scale or Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). But what are the real costs of wind turbines? Let’s take a look:
First, we import all of our wind turbines, mainly from China, as their manufacture locally is infeasible given our labour costs. Having paid for the turbines, there are the costs of shipping them to Australia, almost exclusively by fossil-fuelled vessels. Next, there is the cost of preparing the site of each turbine installation. This often involves the use of bulldozers, usually diesel-powered, to clear each site of trees, and level the soil. The next step is to create the foundations on which the turbine will be installed. This involves hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete per turbine. The concrete must be delivered by diesel-powered vehicles over considerable distances, since the chosen turbine sites are remote from the sources of the concrete. The suitability of the road-beds between concrete source and each site will probably require clearing, bulldozing and provision for the anticipated vehicle loads, once more having a CO2 impact. Now comes the transportation of each turbine to its designated installation site, usually a long way from the ports of entry, as most sites are on elevated sites such as mountain ranges. Most of the trucks used to haul them are diesel-powered, thus causing further release of carbon-dioxide and fuel particulates.
Having established a turbine’s foundations and accomplished delivery, the installation crew will need transportation to-and-from their homes, or else on-site accommodation and services. Subsequently, there will be similar needs for the maintenance crews.
We haven’t yet taken into account of the acquisition costs of each site. Do landowners receive such compensation, and in what form? Is their land purchased outright by the government, or by investors, or is there a one-time payment per turbine, or an annual one, from government or investor?
Finally, when each turbine reaches its expiration date, who is responsible for its dismantling, disposal or interment? Is it the government, the investor, or the landowner? And, if interment, where, and at what cost, and to whom?
All this, so that we can repeat the process at a frequency of 15-20 years, while benefitting from this “lowest-cost” “renewable” energy solution, provided there is some wind, but not too much! History shows that turbines are unlikely to generate more than about 33 percent of nameplate output long-term. What do we do for the other 67 percent of the time?
Bear in mind that, for each mention of “government” above, you, the taxpayer, will be on the hook!
Thank Gaia that air movement and sunshine are free!
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