Guest essay by Eric Worrall
JoNova has discovered that just prior to recent disastrous flooding in Tasmania, Australia, desperate hydropower operators conducted a cloud seeding operation, despite there already being forecasts of torrential rainfall.
The whole sorry mess started, when desperately green Tasmania attempted to go 100% renewable. Tasmania thought they were on a winner, and allegedly got greedy – they may have inadvertently burned out the power cable which connects the island state to mainland Australia, trying to sell too much premium “green” electricity to the mainland.
Hydro Tasmania exceeded safe power transmission levels, Basslink says
BASSLINK owners sought to restrict Hydro Tasmania’s electricity exports and enforce a “cooling off” protocol during the period of the carbon tax to ensure the undersea cable was operated safely and reliably.
The news comes as Basslink prepares to cut the cable today and enable the cause of the fault to be pinpointed.
After three outages in July 2012, Basslink parent company Cityspring Infrastructure Trust sought to enforce what it called a “dynamic protocol” on the service agreement between it and Hydro, which enable it to transmit at “certain elevated levels”.
But the company said the outages came after Hydro transmitted electricity at levels above these in early July.
Hydro and Cityspring then had a protracted dispute which was ultimately arbitrated by former Chief Justice of the High Court Murray Gleeson in 2014.
Opposition leader Bryan Green told Parliament on Wednesday that there was increasing speculation that the $875m cable had been “fried”.
With Tasmania now nearly 100% dependent on hydropower, with no backup available from the mainland, it didn’t take much of an adverse rainfall season to run the hydroelectric dams almost dry.
Hydro Tasmania has confirmed dam levels will drop even lower than earlier projections if rain continues to fall at its current rate.
A day after Energy Minister Matthew Groom said he had asked Hydro Tasmania to review its modelling given the latest delay to the Basslink repair, Hydro CEO Steve Davy revealed modelling had been done based on lower than average rainfall.
It showed dam levels could go as low as 12 per cent.
Hydro had predicted that water storages would not drop below 13.6 per cent by May, but dam levels are already at 13.9 per cent.
Mr Davy told 936 ABC Hobart that was due to receiving just a little over half of average inflows in January, February and March.
“If we received a similar amount relative to average, so a little over half over April, May and June then storages would get to around 12 per cent and stay at that level through to the forecast return of Basslink in the middle of June,” Mr Davy said.
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-30/hydro-tasmanian-revises-falling-dam-levels/7284020
When good rain clouds finally did appear, Hydro Tasmania apparently decided not to take any chances;
Hydro Tasmania seeded clouds before fatal floods, despite forecast
Tasmania’s state-owned hydro-electric power generator could face legal action for damages after admitting it cloud-seeded in or near water catchments the day before disastrous flooding, although heavy rain was forecast.
Hydro Tasmania’s cloud-seeding plane was sent up on Sunday morning and seeded clouds with silver iodide to increase rainfall for an hour and 34 minutes, from 10.57am, despite the weather forecast.
The operation targeted the Upper Derwent catchment, an area that less than 24 hours later saw damaging floods which left one man missing, feared drowned at Ouse and caused major damage to property and stock.
The cloud-seeding also was within about 10km of the Mersey-Forth catchment area, which also hours later experienced rapid and disastrous flooding that killed a woman and inundated dozens of homes at Latrobe.
“We are gobsmacked that the Hydro would do this, considering the weather forecasts as of Wednesday or Thursday last week were saying significant rain between 80 to 100mm or more,” said Wayne Johnston, president of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association. “There is rising anger from farmers who have now lost significant infrastructure, without the loss of livestock and possible loss of life.
Read more (paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/hydro-tasmania-seeded-clouds-before-fatal-floods-despite-forecast/news-story/232439deaf47cfcbf80da868095b3c25
If Tasmania had a sensible backup strategy, involving adequate fossil fuel backup, or a zero emissions nuclear power plant, or if they hadn’t allegedly burned out their connector cable to the mainland through their alleged greed to cash in on premium renewable sales, they wouldn’t be in this sorry mess.
In their zeal to be 100% green, Tasmania made a series of decisions which in my opinion were utterly stupid. It looks like Tasmania’s green policies may have caused the death of at least one person, who died in flooding which was likely exacerbated by an unwise decision to attempt to boost an already torrential downpour.
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Climate Persistence / Hurst Kolmogorov Dynamics
The politicians apparently are unfamiliar with climate persistence and its impact on rainfall. The current variation is probably common within the larger picture of “Hurst Kolmogorov” dynamics, precipitation and flooding.
Aaah Tasmaina, Albania of the south.
They have an unbelievable history of stupidity and self-immolation;
Extinction of unique animals,
Total genocide of aboriginals,
It goes on and on to this day.
Forrest,
Wikipedia has a summary:
“Geoffrey Blainey wrote that by 1830 in Tasmania: “Disease had killed most of them but warfare and private violence had also been devastating.”[9] Other historians regard the Black War as one of the earliest recorded modern genocides.[10] Benjamin Madley wrote: “Despite over 170 years of debate over who or what was responsible for this near-extinction, no consensus exists on its origins, process, or whether or not it was genocide”. However, “[using the] UN definition, sufficient evidence exists to designate the Tasmanian catastrophe genocide.”[3]
By 1833, Christian missionary George Augustus Robinson, sponsored by Lieutenant Governor George Arthur, had persuaded the approximately 200 surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians to surrender themselves with assurances that they would be protected, provided for and eventually have their lands returned to them. These ‘assurances’ were false, there is no suggestion that Robinson or Lieutenant-Governor Arthur intending anything else but exile to the Furneaux Islands and the assurances were given by Robinson in order to facilitate the removal of the Aboriginal people from mainland Tasmania.”
Nice line about ‘desperately green Tasmania’ but that’s about all and only good enough for a cheap headline, not up to it to put in a song.
Tasmania is 75% mountainous and has twice the average rainfall of the mainland so hydro has always been prospective and we started the journey a century or so ago, long, long before green marxism took hold. Its also very windy so wind is a more reasonable option. Not that I support wind generally, its hideously capital intensive for the energy outcome, but it makes more sense in Tasmania than most places especially if you use the wind power to pump water uphill, i.e. sharing the hydro energy storage system. The real irony is that the building of those dams was the raison d’etre for the creation of the Greens who viscerally hate our hydro system cos, sniffle, it drowned all those trees. Murderers!
As for the cloud seeding, it has been an effective strategy for decades in Tasmania where our temperature-humidity mix is favourable. In their wisdom and going with the free market model, the Hydro have outsourced their cloud seeding program to a private operator. As it happens we are coming off record low dam levels due to a true blue clusterf%&k of free market punting and a green energy premium payment so the general context was to seed, seed, seed those clouds.
Its a bit of a Tim Flannery moment to be honest (record low dam levels drawing public ridicule by the green-left whereupon Gaia sends a massive rain bearing low pressure system) but the material facts somewhat spoil the melodrama of cheap headlines. The system we have just experienced came from the east with heaviest falls on our east coast. I live in Launceston in the central north which had a 50 – 100 year flood event and thankfully our recently refurbished levees did their job. Latrobe and Devonport, on the next major river to the west, copped a bit of damage and there was a lot of local damage to older rural roads and bridges as well as some loss of life.
Most of our dams are in the mountainous areas of the north, north west and west of the state and none are in the east which is normally very dry. While our smaller, ‘run of the river’ storages are largely full, the big storages at Great Lake (central) , Lake Gordon and the tragedy that is Lake Pedder (both south west) are down in the 10 to 20% full range so cloud seeding in the central highlands and west may well have been prospective.
Jo Nova lives in Perth, Western Australia which is dry as dry compared to Tasmania so maybe this is just a bit out of her area of expertise, sorry Jo 🙂 . In the west it is so dry from time to time and they basically don’t have mountains over there, well none you would write home about. If two guys take a leak together they will declare that a river, get three guys on song and they get naming rights (I don’t know if that rule applies to gals but surely it should). Rather than seed clouds they just drink lots of cheap beer over there.
Most posters are ignoring the ‘fried’ $875 million cable.
I bet the cable was the fault of a manager looking at the ‘big picture’ from 30,000 feet and ignoring the advice of her engineers.
Here’s what I think is a similar accident. Canada’s military brass didn’t like the weight limits of their Griffon helicopters operating in Afghanistan. Since they out ranked the engineers, they obviously knew better and increased the limit by more than a thousand pounds. The rest was predictable. link
The “fried” $875 million cable debacle was basically covered here previously.
I can’t believe how stupid the human race has become in the past 40 or so years, what seemed to be lining up to be a “Golden Century” is quickly becoming the dark ages. But when I watch the current crop of kids from 5 to 30 chained to their tv’s, computers, hand held’s etc , it is no wonder . The level of critical thinking has all but hit zero.
I think you will find it’s was more greed than green. Hydro Tasmania (state owned) were flogging our states resource to the mainland to make as much money as they could to bolster the states coffers. They almost run us dry and left the state powerless. Tasmania may have been where the green movement started in Australia but we are not all out of the same mold.
P.S. Basslink cable has now been repaired and is due to be placed back into service on Tuesday 14\06\2016.
Lets see if they have learned anything.
“I think you will find it’s was more greed than green.”
Provide the Green incentive and they will come.
“Tasmania may have been where the green movement started in Australia but we are not all out of the same mold.”
Neither are we all in South Australia with our copious bird killers and the dearest power prices in the world, but unfortunately with half the population of Oz now living off the other half and having the vote, we can be outnumbered too.
We may soon be in a similar predicament having made Leigh Creek brown coal and Playford Power Station uneconomic and now having to rely upon interconnectors to Victorian brown coal power stations, with their State Premier promising to be fossil fuel free by mid century, or some such nonsense. Western Civilisation lives in interesting times.
IMHO, anyone that has watched any of the 1,000’s of time-lapse videos of thunderstorm formation, and still believe spraying something into that maelstrom will change anything, must be romantics of the most hopeless type.
u.k(us),
Well, I think it unlikely the Air Force white paper I linked to above was produced by hopeless romantics, and it’s got things in it that seem to . . beg to differ.
“This study by William M. Gray, et al., investigated the hypothesis that “significant beneficial influences
can be derived through judicious exploitation of the solar absorption potential of carbon black dust.”
The study ultimately found that this technology could be used to enhance rainfall on the mesoscale, generate cirrus clouds, and enhance cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds in otherwise dry areas” …
“Numerous dispersal techniques have already been studied, but the most convenient, safe, and cost-effective method discussed is the use of afterburner-type jet engines to generate carbon particles while flying through the targeted air. This method is based on injection of liquid hydrocarbon fuel into the afterburner’s combustion gases. This direct generation method was found to be more desirable than another plausible method (i.e., the transport of large quantities of previously produced and properly sized carbon dust to the desired altitude).
The carbon dust study demonstrated that small-scale precipitation enhancement is possible and has been
successfully verified under certain atmospheric conditions.”
Like I said, hopeless.
Wow, the godman speaketh ; )
The astute electricity market watchers over at Wattclarity do some figuring over the costs of flogging Tassie hydro power into the artificially stage managed Green power market and likely frying Basslink in the process-
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2016/06/update-on-cost-of-tassies-energy-crisis/
You might like to think of Tasmania as the California of Oz but sadly without the international IT income to support their idiocy or the warm climate. The one great comfort energy rationalists can take from this typical Green debacle is when the bird really hits the fan, the powers that be couldn’t roll out the diesel gen-sets fast enough.
Question is, what will they do with those gen-sets once BassLink is fixed and the dams are full. 🙂
observa, you a need to observa da facts.
Tasmania started going hydro in 1895 with the Dcuk Reach PS in Launceston’s Cataract Gorge, a completly natural 30 – 50 cumec annual average riverine flow. Tasmaania has twice the average rainfall of mainland Australia (which includes some very, very wet tropics) so you can see how the idea cottoned on and it was much more to do with industrializing the State rather than ‘greening’ it.
To give you an idea of how nutty people are oregardingwhatever happens in Tasmania regarding the environment, I recall an incindiary letter to the editor some years back from an interstate visitor regarding a section of clearfelled forest alongside a highway on said visitor’s route back to the ferry terminal at Devonport. I imagine the visitor’s family were all utterly traumatised by the scene of buchenwald like devestation. The poor children must have needed monthes of counselling ( ‘there were just tree stumps everywhere, sniffle sniffle’ )
Do you know what this scene of environmental mass murder of trees actually was? A plantation of 30 y.o. radiata pine! An effing pine plantation!!
Giva me a breaka, obeserva!
sorry for typos, ‘observa’ got me pissed off
Relax. I know full well what motivated my parents and grandparents and yours with the development of Oz a bunch of ignorant ingrates take for granted now. Also I have to put up with their idiocy in the windmill capital of Australia and the mendicant retirement village Adelaide’s become. If anything Tassie is beginning to have serious second thoughts about their Green overlords and turning that around whereas we haven’t even reached the introspection stage. I shouldn’t provoke the Gods but we don’t even rate a half decent ISIS terrorist plot. Perhaps a Muhammad bin Quixote tilting at windmills might liven things up around here.
Welcome to the windmill state-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/agl-hikes-sa-electricity-prices-10pc-blames-power-station-closures/ar-AAh4lr8?ocid=spartandhp
Why don’t we give the greens their own state ? Move em all to Tasmania so they can live like hippys and we can sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show .
they pretty much HAVE..and the poor locals now have bugger all industry or means to make a living
all the govvy depts moved there..and theyre majority bleeding heart shit for brains warmists!
“Basslink has located the fault in the undersea cable which connects Tasmania to Australia’s power grid but the discovery of further water damage has pushed back the repair date.”
“Faulty sections of cable identified and removed Basslink cable expected to be out of action until mid-June Cause of initial breach in cable’s protective coating unknown A tear “the size of a human thumb” was responsible for shutting the cable down for more than three months and was a “one-off” event, according to Basslink operators.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-29/basslink-pinpoints-fault-in-undersea-cable-tasmania/7280820
It seems to be nearly fixed.
All fixed, as of 7 hours ago
Hydro Tasmania (HT) was in the list of the top 500 carbon polluters. During the first year of the “proice ohn cahbon” HT made an extra AU$50mil profit.
What does a power producer, in a country where we don’t have that many power producers, making the top 500 list of carbon polluters, actually mean according to you? What’s the importance of this information?
It was the information used to support the carbon tax.
I still don’t understand the importance of that information. How was the fact that Hyrdo Tasmania made the top 500 list used to support the carbon tax, and why does it matter?
The fact that it highlights the CO2 scam (Renewables, wind, solar, hydro ALL emit CO2 at every stage of manufacture, construction and power generation). Fairly obvious to me.
Few people are aware that hydro produces more CO2 per GWH than a gas fired CC installation. Creating a reservoir provides for the accumulation and decomposition of plant and animal matter, after all.
True. But that is not through burning fossil fuels, the whole point of the carbon tax.
Patrick MJD writes “Hydro Tasmania (HT) was in the list of the top 500 carbon polluters.”
Reference?
Here is a reference about profit as a result of the carbon tax.
http://www.hydro.com.au/about-us/news/2013-10/renewable-energy-exports-drive-record-profit
And strangely enough, I cannot find a Govn’t link listing the top 500 polluters, which actually dropped to about 250.
Get a 404 on the link to public government data, I wonder why?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/mar/20/who-are-really-australias-top-climate-polluters
[blockquote]Patrick MJD June 11, 2016 at 9:08 pm
Get a 404 on the link to public government data, I wonder why?[/blockquote]
Worked fine from New Zealand right now with Chrome on Win 10.
Oops sorry about the dud tags.
Worked fine from New Zealand right now with Chrome on Win 10.
I am using Chrome too, but I am in Australia. If I recall correctly HT Was about 250th in the list at a Govn’t website when I read it before the tax was introduced. It surprised me enough to make posts about it here at WUWT. I don’t recall if I posted links, though I probably would have.
Patrick MJD writes
The Hydro buys and sells carbon credits so perhaps the list of “polluters” is driven simply by the number a company has. Also Hydro has contracts on the mainland and buys and sells mainland (Coal based) power to cover them. Such is the nature of being a player in the national market.
While doing a bit of a search, I found a comment that, to the best of my understanding, means that when we sell coal to India, India is charged for the CO2 emissions, but as we have supplied the coal to create the emissions, they are also to Australia’s account. Sorry, cannot recollect which site I found this on. Sounds like double counting to me.
All I recall is HT was on the list of the top 500 carbon polluters at the time the carbon tax was introduced. Seems all trace of that has been removed. And it is sad that I now cannot find a reference. Well, it was 6 years ago now…and Govn’t likes to hide stuff.
Yes, every connection to the list seems to have been erased !!
https://www.crikey.com.au/2011/07/13/carbon-tax-hit-list-naming-australias-biggest-polluters/
Whilst I can’t provide the reference, Hydro Tas transformers use a aerosol that leeches into the environment that has a far higher impact than CO2.
As such it is considered as an effective carbon emission – similar to methane.
Hence, a top 500 polluter
During a drought in California, Hatfield was hired by the San Diego city council with a four-to-one vote and promised $10,000 in a handshake deal if he could make it rain.
Although Hatfield was considered a rainmaker, his original profession was a sewing machine salesman.
He convinced people he had the methods of creating rain from a chemical cocktail he formulated.
To inject his rainmaking concoction into clouds overhead, he built a 20-foot tower in the area and burned the chemical mixture from the top of the structure. Witnesses claimed he shot the chemicals into the air like bombs, spurting fumes and smoke to ascend into the sky and convince the cumulus clouds to send down rain.
He preferred the title “moisture accelerator.”
Hatfield inspired the 1956 film “The Rainmaker,” starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn.
On January 1, 1916, the rain started in San Diego and it didn’t stop for the entire month, resulting in 30 inches of rain. The floods destroyed the dam, washed out roads, lifted railroad tracks, caused property damage across the region and killed an estimated 14 to 50 citizens.
Hatfield never got his money. The city council claimed the floods were an act of God, not an act of Hatfield.
So Greens hate hydro power, but are quite happy to take the carbon credits when they’re on offer? They don’t like dams because they flood koala homes, but a year before the World’s Biggest Carbon Tax it’s OK to run the dams up to 99% by burning coal instead. Then use all the water and burn out the cable (plus let the water drop to 13%).
Doesn’t sound like they have many principles that don’t involve the words “tax” or “subsidy.”
Surprised that no one has explicitly mentioned the East Coast Low that caused the flooding and destruction. This storm started near the Gold Coast and gradually moved south along the coast, eventually creating the flooding in Tasmania. Suggest you look up the Wikipaedia article on them. Also suggest you look at this article – at least it is up to date: http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/east-coast-low-drenches-nsw/520323
A bit of history and geography. Tasmania has mountains and high rainfall (normally). As such, hydro power is ideal, and Hydro Tasmania developed dams here there and anywhere that one would be viable. This meant that industries that consumed large amounts of electricity could be built based on cheap power. Eventually the Hydro Electric Commission made plans to build the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam, resisted by the nascent environmental groups. This was eventually given the go-ahead by the High Court, as the area had been determined to be a World Heritage area under a UN Convention, and thus fell within the “external powers” given by the Constitution to the Commonwealth government. During this, the then Attorney-General, Gareth Evans, obtained the nickname “Biggles” for authorizing an RAAF surveillance flight over Tasmania. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Dam_controversy for details of that imbrogolio.
What can be fairly certain is that as a result of the non-building of the dam, industrialization in Tasmania was, and is, held up, resulting in Tasmania being the poorest State in the Commonwealth. It is also plausible that had the dam been built, there would have been sufficient hydro capacity to provide for Tasmania’s needs during the last six months.
A footnote on the ECL, my brother lives a few miles west of Frankston, on the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay. He told me that the ECL had passed to the east, giving areas a few miles east the drenching downpours and winds which so much wrecked Sydney and other coastal areas, but he got no more than a very light shower or so.
The cable’s been a disaster for Tasmania. With it the magnificent hydro system’s no longer a benefit to the broader Tasmanian public as a cheap clean energy source. Tasmania used to be a very industrious state. The low cost energy resulted in suitable productive employment for anyone who wanted it.
Now Hydro Tasmania has effectively been hijacked with the cable. Before the benefit was a thriving productive economy. Now Tasmanians have high cost energy and the benefits from the hydro system flow straight to state government coffers and do little other than feed a growing public sector.
Once Hydro Tas was run by engineers. Now it’s run by types described as having “business acumen”.
Go figure.
The worst of it can be seen in the local papers every week. In the stories of growing drug, crime and violence problems in certain areas. These people are what remain of the industrial class. Now with no industry and the structure and purpose it gave them their quality of life declines into mere existence. They are the innocent victims of it all.
JamesL writes
The cable allowed Tasmania to properly enter the National Energy Market. Tasmanian’s no longer pay “Hydro” prices, they pay national prices. Prices derived largely from coal based energy production…
Indeed. In fact the spin originally was electricity would be sold to the mainland at peak rates and bought back at off peak rates.
Entering the national energy market hasn’t been anything like the boon it was spruiked to be.
What was built to benefit Tasmanian industry and households has become just a cashcow for the state government. It’s been hijacked.
The State Government has always owned the Hydro. All profits were always paid back to the State Government both before and after the Hydro’s entry to the market. Nothing has changed.
Everything has changed.
The purpose of the HEC was to underpin a productive private sector with reliable energy at cost. That meant the public sector consiously relied on a vibrant private sector.
Now that Hydro Tasmania is just a direct cashcow for the state government the public service perception is that the private sector doesn’t matter and with energy prices being higher national market prices any energy advantage Tasmanians had no longer exists.
That along with horizontal fiscal equalisation has made Tasmania a Green basket case with a bloated public sector that’s hostile to most private endeavour.
JamesL writes
The HEC hasn’t been in existence for decades. The Tasmanian Government has been receiving returns from the Hydro from well before Tasmania and the Hydro joined the NEM.
Yes with the addiction to the cash getting worse and worse. The cable and the running out of of the dams and consequent frying of the cable was just the junkie chasing a bigger hit. Damn near a fatal overdose.
Perspective, the Tasmanian Hydro system’s just the public generator for the island state. Linking up with the national grid’s just worsened it’s diversion from purpose.
The Hydro map of the seeding is at this site-
http://www.hydro.com.au/system/files/cloud-seeding/2016/CloudSeeding-2016-06-05.png
The wind is at 40kts, approx ENE. How far should the clouds have been driven in a few hours.
Hey it worked.
http://www.hydro.com.au/water/cloud-seeding/flight-maps
Sorry NNE
About 150 kilometres – nearly 1/3 of the state lower!
Apologies – I’ve found this post late. (Exam marking!)
There are several things wrong with this post, I’m afraid Eric — and not just the photo of the Tasmanian Devil! (Devils are black and white, and if the British museum specimen has faded to be THAT brown they should seek a new specimen -– or a new taxidermist). Let me deal with some of the problematic statements in your post.
‘Tasmania thought they were on a winner, and allegedly got greedy they may have inadvertently burned out the power cable which connects the island state to mainland Australia, trying to sell too much premium “green” electricity to the mainland.’
No – the cable failed on 20 December, well after the abolition of the carbon tax removed the premium for renewable energy.
‘With Tasmania now nearly 100% dependent on hydropower, with no backup available from the mainland, it didn’t take much of an adverse rainfall season to run the hydroelectric dams almost dry.’
No – the record dry spring (caused by El Nino) came BEFORE Basslink failed. They were the reason the long-term storages (Great Lake and Lake Gordon) were no recharged after selling hydro energy at a premium while the carbon tax was in place. The cause of the cable failure has yet to be disclosed (if known), but it is likely it was importing thermal energy into Tasmania when it failed.
‘It looks like Tasmania’s green policies may have caused the death of at least one person, who died in flooding which was likely exacerbated by an unwise decision to attempt to boost an already torrential downpour.’
That is a very long stretch. The 80 year old farmer at Ouse who is missing went out to feed his sheep and slipped into the floodwaters. The cloud seeding (a long standing practice that Hydro Tasmania estimates increases catchment yields by around 5%) took place just to the NE of Great Lake (see Lee’s map), one of two major storages, not just because of the volume of water, but the very high generating head (758m rated head). (The generating station is at the bottom of a very high escarpment). The weather system came in from the NE heading SE. Any enhancement of rainfall would have assisted both Great Lake and Lake Gordon, which is directly SE of Great Lake – and therefore would have assisted the restoration of levels in the two main storages. (Storages are now back to around 25% capacity, run-of-the-river dams are spilling and Basslink is repaired and commenced operating today – EXPORTING 112 MWh to the mainland).
The seeding barely touched the Mersey catchment (again, see Lee’s map) and would be highly unlikely to have played a part in the death (the only confirmed death) at Latrobe (an elderly and infirm lady who perished in her house because her husband could not lift her to safety upstairs). The other (unconfirmed) death was at Evandale, through which I happened to pass yesterday. The gentleman rather foolishly attempted to cross a rather low bridge. The Bridge was still closed yesterday, but there is a higher and safer route he could have taken (and I took).
The famers are long-standing opponents of cloud seeding, as they blame it for reduced rainfall in the east of the state (the prevailing westerly winds bring most of the rain).
Perhaps the tax on air was gone, but the idiotic RET remains, with its REC’s (Renewable energy certificates) which is even more devastating.
True Karabar, but Hydro Tasmania can generate RECs by selling peak power at a premium. I think it was the introduction and then pending abolition of the carbon tax that created the incentive to maximise revenue before abolition by running down storages. I think this is mainly a carbon tax and carbon tax abolition story: maximise profits while the tax was in place and then refill the storages later by importing thermal from the market. I think that led to the move away from the strategy of selling peak hydro at a high price on the NEM and importing cheaper base load at a low price. (Marcus’s excellent blog – of which I was previously unaware – has a nice graph showing this). The mistake was in not recognising the risk of Basslink failing, compounding the effects of El Nino.
Western Tasmania is one of the wettest areas in the world and virtually uninhabited, why not build more dams and hydropower there?
Were about too at one stage but were stopped for green votes.
The gordon below franklin stage was to be the second stage of the gordon developement. Would’ve given us a second crack at the water from the gordon.
Miserable wet place the west of Tasmania is. It may as well be dammed in every place possible.
Back after the gordon below franklin development was stopped a popular line was “dam the Derwent below Hobart”. With Hobart being Greens central it sounds like a better and better idea as time goes on.
You obviously have little or no appreciation of the wonderful world in which we live, James L. There is good development, and there is dumb development. Damming the Franklin would be the latter.
As someone who has actually rafted the Franklin, I can assure all readers that it is an absolutely magnificent place. Yes it’s wild, uncompromising, wet, cold and people die in it. But it’s priceless not worthless. It should be left alone, un-dammed. There are other better options, such as nuclear or coal or (sensibly) imported power from the mainland.
If you need limestone for building purposes or to make cement, you don’t go ripping into the Great Barrier Reef. If you need power in Tasmania, you don’t dam one of the best wild rivers in the world. That would be dumb.
When the original proposal to dam the Franklin was put forward in the 1970’s, over half of Tasmanian houses didn’t have insulation. Tasmania’s a cold place. Back then the Hydroelectric Commission (HEC) and Premier “Electric Eric” were totally out of control, looking to dam (and damn) anything they could, and the Franklin was simply next in line. What Tasmania needed then was smarter thinking. Same applies now.
BTW, I work as a geo in the oil industry and I’m not a greenie at all. The Greens have made Tasmania the poorest state in Australia with their anti-development stance on everything but on the Franklin they were and are right.
Joe from Perth is on to it. Even the most wacky eco-loon of them all, none other than Bob Brown, at the time insisted that coal was a better option. Of course in those days CO2 was supposed to be causing another Ice Age. He had the right answer for the wrong reasons.
Correct, Joe from Perth. I did some research on Tasmania’s coal resources at the time and the Wilderness Society loved the idea of coal. Shell had a prospect at Mt Nicholas and CSR a brown coal prospect near Westbury. They even interviewed me for a TV advertisement for the referendum saying that coal was an alternative to the Gordon-Below-Franklin.
Aurora energy sell domestic power for around 21c per kWh. If you want 100% renewable then it’s another 6c per kWh. This is for power sold in Tasmania which would be renewable from Hydro if they didn’t sell the green power to the mainland. The flip side is Aurora then buy cheap power from coal from the mainland and sell that the inflated price of 21c per kWh. We understand that the dam levels were driven down by Hydro Tas selling as much green power to the mainland as it could, relying on power imports if the dam levels dropped too low. If they had just left Hydro power for Tasmania then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The aim of the BassLink cable was to sell expensive power at peak times to the other eastern states, and buy off peak cheaper coal fired power from the Yallourn stations. But with the carbon tax and greed the original purpose of the cable was forgotten leading to 23% of water left in the dams mid December before the cable mis-functioned. Seriously, it is difficult to justify management decisions for this knowing Tasmania is in a winter rainfall zone and the summer months from December until about April/ May can be quite dry.
As to the speculation about cloud seeding causing the floods is just not supported by the evidence. The death of the man at Ouse was because the river flooded due to overflow from Lake Augusta. Liawenee got a 100 mm. (4 inches) over a short period and from a northerly- north-easterly weather pattern which is uncommon.
If you really want to read the best article on how this mess came about, go here (Jo Nova has also referred to it on her blog): https://themarcusreview.com/2016/03/16/tasmanias-energy-scandal/
PS: the total cost of this green energy disgrace has already sailed over $560 million (AUD) and will keep rising: https://themarcusreview.com/2016/06/04/the-cost-of-tasmanias-energy-scandal/
The article doesn’t actually itemize the costs, does it. How much of that cost is as a result of the Hydro having to buy mainland power (potentially at spot prices!) to service its mainland contracts for the 6 months?
That wouldn’t be a “green” problem, would it, nor would it even be a “greed” problem.
why not check before posting??
“Tasmania thought they were on a winner, and allegedly got greedy – they may have inadvertently burned out the power cable which connects the island state to mainland Australia, trying to sell too much premium “green” electricity to the mainland.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-29/basslink-pinpoints-fault-in-undersea-cable-tasmania/7280820
Updated 29 Mar 2016, 8:56am
Basslink has located the fault in the undersea cable which connects Tasmania to Australia’s power grid but the discovery of further water damage has pushed back the repair date.
Key points:
•Faulty sections of cable identified and removed
•Basslink cable expected to be out of action until mid-June
•Cause of initial breach in cable’s protective coating unknown
A tear “the size of a human thumb” was responsible for shutting the cable down for more than three months and was a “one-off” event, according to Basslink operators.
Shhhh. You’ll wreck everything. Never mind that I could find the information that escaped Mr Worrall in about 5 minutes of googling. Never mind that Tasmania didn’t run out of power, and does have backup generators that could have been used if necessary. Never mind that it wasn’t trying to export too much power that caused problems with the cable.
Never mind any of that. The article is just fine as it is. Just put that aside, pull with the team, and get on with laughing or frothing at how stupid greenies are, because it’s the right thing to do.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“It looks like Tasmania’s green policies may have caused the death of at least one person, who died in flooding which was likely exacerbated by an unwise decision to attempt to boost an already torrential downpour.”
Greens – killing the Earth (and people) to “Save” it. Shock news.
Read this latest Green-zealot doozy…
I would suggest that the article should be updated, but there wouldn’t be much left. All that’s left with the “facts” removed is a few insults directed in the direction of greens.