Guest essay by Eric Worrall
While Federal politicians bicker, South Australia, the world’s renewable crash test dummy, has wasted no time demolishing their last viable coal power station, to lock in their pursuit of an energy free future.
Senate inquiry sparks ideological fight over Australia’s energy supply and climate change
By political reporter Angelique Donnellan
A Senate inquiry report into Australia’s electricity supplies has descended into a slanging match between members, prompting questions about its value for taxpayers.
The Select Committee into the Resilience of Australia’s Electricity Infrastructure in a Warming World heard from 60 witnesses in Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne, including major energy generators, retailers and industry regulators.
But in the committee’s draft report released today, Federal Greens senator and chairwoman Sarah Hanson-Young took aim at the Coalition and its policies.
“The introduction of a market-based carbon trading scheme would effectively end the decades-long subsidy that coal has received in the electricity generation market,” she said.
…
South Australia’s last coal-fired generator at Port Augusta shut down last year and is being demolished.
“Coalition senators reject the proposition contained within the chair’s report that the Coalition Government is responsible for the ill-informed and misguided decisions of the South Australian Labor Government in destroying the supply of cheap energy for households and businesses in that state,” they said.
…
Alinta Energy offered to give the Port Augusta coal station to the South Australian government for free. The offer was rejected.
Port Augusta power station giveaway ‘a bad deal’, South Australian Treasurer says
By Tom Fedorowytsch
Updated 30 Mar 2017, 3:12pm
It has been revealed that Alinta Energy offered to give away the Port Augusta coal-fired power station for free.
The company approached the South Australian Government to take ownership of the plant under a “walk-in, walk-out” basis during negotiations in 2015, where it had also sought $25 million in subsidies to keep it running until 2018.
Alinta’s offer is referred to in a letter from chief executive officer Jeff Dimery in 2015, obtained by the ABC.
…
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said despite the apparent free deal, the Government would have taken on huge costs.
“Alinta would have walked away without having to pay any of the money for the clean-up of the mess that they had incurred and legacy liability they had taken on which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.
“So it’s not free, it’s actually hundreds of millions of dollars.”
He said the price of taking on the plant’s liabilities would not have cancelled out the impacts of job losses or the cutback of thermal, baseload power.
…
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/port-augusta-power-station-giveaway-a-bad-deal/8398898
My heart goes out to the power engineers, including those who run the power companies.
For decades they thought their job, their responsibility, was to deliver stable, reliable power to the people.
Now their job has been made impossible by idiot politicians whose future energy plans are based on harnessing sunbeams and unicorn farts. The reward for years of service in often hazardous conditions is utter disdain and contempt from green fanatics who despise them as planet wreckers, green fools who never pause to think about what makes all the modern conveniences they take for granted possible.
It would not have caused any harm to leave the coal plant intact for a few years, to delay the demolition and cleanup, just in case.
Go with grace guys – what will happen next is not your fault.
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Queue up Styx “Point of no return”.
Whoops, that would be Kansas “Point of no return”. Better than Exposé anyhow 😉
How about Styx “Nothing Ever Goes as Planned.”
Maybe “Grand Illusion” or “Fooling Yourself”. Both Styx.
In the case of the Greens it should be Grand Delusion
I love this old time song “What good’ll it do me”
http://www.allmusic.com/album/what-goodll-it-do-me-mw0000722889#no-js
track #14
Getting warmer. Kansas “Point of Know Return”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_Know_Return
One wonders how they managed to elect enough fuckwits to do this.
The Labor party only needs about 47% to 48% of the vote to win government. The majority did not vote for this lot.
I can already feel the air getting cooler this morning.
Of course the South Australian politicians have no liability for the results when they fail to deliver reliable power. When is the next election in South Australia? There should not be enough Koolaid drinking greens to keep them in office given their performance thus far.
The irony. What you see falling in the video is actually the SA economy.
That happened under the Labour lead federal Govn’t lead by Rudd, Gillard, Rudd. Made the car making industry leave SA almost instantly. I suspect the aluminium smelter will go soon, so will the last person to leave SA for any of the other states please turn the lights out. Actually, they won’t need to bother, they’ll be off anyway.
Australia, the dumbest country!
In Canada we have our own SA called the province of Ontario and Alberta playing catch up.
The car industry left South Australia under the liberal government. Holden is 6 months away and Mitsubishi only held on till a few months after election in 2007. Their production volume had withered away as their single model lost favour.
I wonder how the polls are in SA. In Ontario the Liberal government is so low in the polls that it would lose official party status if an election were held today. link
The previous Liberal premier shut down the coal plants and was involved in a scandal about moving a partly built gas fired plant at great expense to the public. Kathleen Wynne has doubled down and done some grindingly stupid things. Regardless of the mess she inherited, she has made things much worse. Compared with that, Rachel Notley in Alberta is doing really well. 🙂
South Australia has a 54/46 gerrymander. It is hard to get rid of a leftist government.
The other problem is that there is no effective opposition as the “conservatives” are a captured organisation.
We have a saying: we’ve got the Labor party, and the “Labor Lite” party.
“duker April 10, 2017 at 11:32 pm”
The very first car maker to leave Australia, I don’t care what state, was Ford under Labor citing energy and labor costs as factors in their decision. That sent ripples through the industry. Who was in power at the federal level is irrelevant after that, car makers were saw the signs. Ford and GM Holden cited that, IIRC, it costs 4 times as much to build a car in Aus than in Asia and 2 times as much as a car in the EU zone. GM got the jitters because Abbott hinted that the subsidies were going to be drastically slashed, and pulled out.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/who-killed-the-car-industry-20151112-gkx1c8.html
Ontario’s problem is that the Real cause of our electricity problems is Not being discussed by any political party (except the tiny Greens):
– NUCLEAR supplies 61%!
– the failed CANDU technology is costly to refurbish (always over budget), and
– we should be buying surplus from Hydro Québec (as does our competitor New York State) when our generating stations reach their Bad After dates.
Wind barely provides 5%.
Solar is <1%.
Gas is ~2%
http://www.gridwatch.ca
Ontario has a Nuclear elephant:
– unaffordable
– uninsurable
– undisposable
-/-
The USA has 50% of its states with Mercury air, water & soil pollution warnings from … Coal.
Yes, it's cheap but wouldn't be if health costs weren't subsidising it. Since Ontario provides public, single-payer, basic health insurance (Medicare) from taxes, It was therefore worth our while to shut Nanticoke, the largest coal-fired generating station in North America to be replaced by conservation and renewables.
How was Coal subsidised in South Australia, in addition to the specifics noted in the above article?
Unfortunately, our Liberals have made a mess of their Green Energy Act with
– poor design
(No community support as in Germany & Spain)
(No mandate that every new building should incorporate Solar where possible)
– political meddling
(With every protest, they made a change; those prevented offshore Lake Ontario wind farms will cost us millions under a recent NAFTA challenge)
– corruption (feeding friends: just ask T Boone Pickens)
Australian motorists face, to put it mildly, an uncertain future. What major car company will be willing to produce a very small number of vehicles cars that are designed to be driven both upside down and on the wrong side of the road?
“Chris Riley April 11, 2017 at 4:21 am
Australian motorists face, to put it mildly, an uncertain future. What major car company will be willing to produce a very small number of vehicles cars that are designed to be driven both upside down and on the wrong side of the road?”
I am sorry, but even up-side-down, we *DO* drive on the right side of the road.
Lorne White, what a pile of neo-progressive bullocks. Ontario’s Nuclear is the only thing keeping our electricity prices even remotely affordable. The green-power-acolytes have driven 60,000 Ontarian s into energy poverty all based on the cAGW climate-change-fear-narrative
Lorne White, You think that the cancelled wind farm off the Scarborough Bluffs would be able to replace the 61% of generation we get from nuclear power plants? What sort of fantasy world are you living in?
I had a great plan to lead a life of leisure. First, I quit my job, replacing the income with poverty. My car was replaced with “staying home.” Food was simply replaced with hunger. Easy!
Of course my wife left me. But I quickly replaced her with loneliness.
“In Canada we have our own SA called the province of Ontario and Alberta playing catch up.”
The sooner Ontario becomes unliveable, the better. They’re dragging the rest of Canada down into the abyss.
And the Alberta government will be out at the next election. Every Albertan I know hates them, and they only won because the opposition was too divided for one party to get a majority.
History tidbit – ‘Will the last person leaving….’ was originally coined in Seattle, after the demise of Boeing’s Super Sonic Transport (SST) pilot project:
http://www.boeing.com/history/products/supersonic-transport.page
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/iconic-will-the-last-person-seattle-billboard-bubbles-up-again/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2009/02/01/2008695907.jpg
I was a very young lad during these events, but they are still a part of my memories growing up in the area.
A bit of a sidetrack to the original post topic, but gives a bit of background to the expression used in the post by Patrick MJD 10 APR 17 @ur momisugly 9:10 pm…
Regards,
MCR
PMJD,
You said, “I am sorry, but even up-side-down, we *DO* drive on the right side of the road.”
And here all along I thought that Aussies drove on the LEFT side of the road! How can the left side of anything be the correct side?
@Michael C. Roberts at 8:50 am
I grew up in Denver, son of a “missile-man”. Everyone who spend their careers getting things off the ground knew of that “lights off” billboard.
Freddie Mercury? Pretty sure he’s been dead for a long time.
That’s misleading. Read Willis Eschenbach’s “Mercury: The Trickster God” (2012) at:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/01/mercury-the-trickster-god/
Also, search in the search box for “mercury” to find more.
Lorne
I assume you are advocating German style abrupt closure and demolition of all Ontario’s nuclear power stations, and replacing all this capacity with wind and solar?
Please, Please, PLEASE do this!!!
Please get all your watermelon friends to make this happen.
Then we can sit back and watch the show (at least in the day we will be able to see something).
Please say that you’re going to make this happen!? 🐶
“Compared with that, Rachel Notley in Alberta is doing really well.”
What you should have written is – Compared with that, Rachel Notley in Alberta is doing really well [for Notely]..
Let’s see, solar in Toronto with a capacity factor at 13.6% and a cost of 39¢ per kWh over 20 years? Ontario the dumbest Province??
Watching that demolition I wonder how many people could have worked there to DISMANTLE it piece by piece and recycle the material ? Just as the greens always champion?? And not caused that huge air pollution just this small explosion created!
Sounds a good plan. But you obviously know nothing about demolition.
A team of men working on a tower of uncertain residual strength, at height, lowering components to the ground one by one, risking coal-dust fires if they use hot cutting? An absolute safety nightmare! Far more risky than erecting new steel.
And quickly blowing dowing down causes a minor cloud of coal dust which will fall to ground within the site boundary.
Dismantling safely will take for ever and cost a fortune.
Recycling? Every fragment will be recycled to new steel.
The recycling needed is of ignorant, hubristic politicians. Let’s try a few technically and economically literate people who have earned a living in the real world.
asybot was being ironic.
It would have been interesting if a coal dust explosion had occured. Ideal conditions shown in the video. I doubt they considered the possibility.
They might have got much more “bang” for their buck!
The dust cloud occurred after the demolition detonations, but if there had been an ignition source, the explosion would have been spectacular. It’s incredible that the site safety engineers let the coal dust build up that thick. They should have been continuously rinsing off the structure.
Mike, coal dust settles into areas that cannot be cleaned easily. Also, note that the films of the incident show water had been applied and was being applied. Not apparent but likely, the whole area was wetted before demolition.
The safety point here is that the dust shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Of course my only experience is following a safety engineer around grain elevators.
It would make more sense to ban all power sources but batteries. No more ugly towers, turbines, or lines anywhere.
Batteries are not a power source. They are a type of storage. The power still has to be generated.
And you always get less power out of a battery than you put in, thanks to the Thermo2 taxman. Portability, not storage, is the chief advantage of batteries. Building a battery too big to carry defeats the purpose. 😐
The pain would set in quicker than the current trend. Now that fanatics rule the process of conversion to perfection will continue – first coal is banned, then what? Another fossil fuel? Or dams that interfere with natural flow? (yep, I needed a /sarc with the first comment)
Every “source” of power is “stored energy”.
Fossil fuels – stored chemical energy…hydro – stored gravitational potential energy….solar – stored nuclear.
All we manage to do is siphon off some of that energy to perform useful work as we convert it from one form to another.
Time to buy KOL!
Hard to fix stupid. To actively destroy a perfectly good generating asset under present circumstances should be a crime, and as you mention, why not put the facilities on care and maintenance until a long tern solution is available?
It is ignorant politicians such as these in SA that completely ruin things for the entire people of the state, but hopefully this example shows to the majority that you most certainly never, ever, want leftist ideologies implemented by dead brain politicians who have never worked an honest day in their life. Good riddance to these aholes next election. And if you don’t kick them out this time, then you probably deserve them.
It’s doesn’t matter who, Labor, Liberal/National, Green, Independent, is voted for in Australia, they are all cut from the same corrupt and stupid cloth.
Maybe Conservative? Hopefully they have some middle of the road sane quasi right wing party that can stitch back some common sense into things. Not that familiar with SA politics, but seems they are itching to become a third world country very soon. I keep reading about insane polices in OZ about lots of stuff, but particularly in SA. Is there maybe something in the water?
Ron, the Liberals are the conservative party in Australia, sort of. They are (or were) classical Liberals in the mould of 19th century British Liberals, who were conservatives in the modern Anglo-American sense and they were called Liberals because they objected to the reactionary policies of Ancien regime Europe, as does every American Republican.
It is important to remember that the people who call themselves Liberals in the U.S. aren’t liberals in any meaningful sense. For the most part those who call themselves Conservatives aren’t conservative either. The terminology has become totally detached from reality, making accurate political discussion impossible, and in ways which consistently benefit the left.
You have to remember, there are two factors involved in every election, besides politicians running for office. You have the financial sources that have there own distinct concerns, and are willing to “buy” the politicians that are for sale. On the other hand. you have an electorate, people that are supposed to be concerned with their governments, what they are doing, and who is and who is not “for sale.” When you have both parts functioning properly, the governed are, in fact, the government.
When the second group is too lazy to do their “homework,” and it really doesn’t take that much time to get to understand the people that are running for office, or stay home to watch the TV while the first group continues to function at peak performance – and they will – you end up with corrupt, stupid politicians, regardless of party affiliation. The only people that can ever be blamed in a “democracy” if they have a non-representative government, are the people that vote or not vote.
Australia is not unique in having an electorate too absorbed in their own circumstances to be bothered with insuring the direction their government takes, we in the US are probably worse and most of the “western world” is their with us. We care more about sports, movie stars, and TV than what is really important in our lives. At least the rich that buy their government pay attention to detail – like feeding us BS on the TV, and dumbing us down with movies, toys, and “recreational possibilities.”
Western civilization is at war with itself. The premature destruction of this generation facility is a clear example of the scorched earth strategy being employed in that war.
Reminds me of the Taliban blowing up those statues of Buddha.
Amen (if I can say that) Chris Riley.
I’m 80 and won’t live to see Muslims take over what’s left of the world, but between Western leftists and Muslims, climate change will be the least of the world’s problems.
Was that plant still viably operational, or was it past the point of diminishing returns? If the previous owners were willing to “give it away” one should question the value of such a plant. The real crime arises from not having plans to replace the facility as it aged.
It was no longer viable under the current regulations.
To put it more clearly, it was viable until the regulations were deliberately changed with the sole purpose of making coal uneconomic.
.. it was viable until the regulations were deliberately changed with the sole purpose of making coal uneconomic.”
Yes. Julia Gillard was honest enough to say so. (Actually, not so much honesty as brazenness. Talk about a fish-wife!). There is a lot wrong here but one of the things that has got lost in the debate is that Australia’s coal burned domestically is mostly brown coal which really does cause awful pollution – and I don’t mean CO2. The two issues of pollution and CO2 have been conflated. You see the same in respect of green energy in China or even Malaysia or Indonesia. China wants to reduce pollution as a higher priority than reducing CO2 emissions. Conflating them enable China to appear virtuous in fora addressing CO2 reduction.Some green measures achieve both even if not either in an optimal way but conflating these issues frequently suits the green campaigners and those who use them as useful idiots.
That’s sad to see on so many levels.
On the bright side, eventually we will have to have the Chinese build new ones. They seem to be pretty good at it. When sanity returns to the self appointed guardians of the earth.
Every time I talk to them, I think they are, umm, nuts. I had an exchange with one today, and I have to make mental note… don’t talk to them. I fear for the planet. Not from warming, from the loose marbles rolling around on it. Oh, good idea blowing up a functioning power plant. We won’t need it if it ever gets cold. Om , permanent drought, Om permanent drought…
The Chinese are giving up on building coal power plants… 133 cancelled in the last year, substantial overcapcity still remains
They scheduled 2100, cancel 133. And from this Griff concludes that the Chinese have given up on coal.
1) Yes they currently have overcapacity, which is why they have slowed down the rate at which they are building new plants.
2) Demand is still growing.
Seriously, I do not see why you are arguing with Griff. He wants to think Coal is dead. The facts show otherwise. Since he is an alarmist, he is seeing what he wants to see. So let him!
The market will decide when Coal is dead. Not Griff. If he wants to cherry pick the facts, that is fine. It still will not change the market. Alarmists do not realize that tampering with the data does not change reality. Only their claims on it.
Griff, the poster child for “Idiots ‘R Us.”
China is also building about one nuke per month for the foreseeable month.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx
Hey, Griff is right! (He just left out a minor, unimportant detail. In many ways, this is also the story of climate science activism/alarmism.)
@Griff, I really fear for the future. Of Barclays.
PhilJ
The market for US coal is dead…
How many coal power plants building in the US?
How many new ones announced this year?
How many scheduled already to close by 2020?
How many of those closures announced this year?
Griff, your pronouncements are worthless. You can declare the moon is made of green cheese, but that does not make it so. if you had even BOTHERED to read what I said, the market will decide. not you, Not any pronouncements from me. The market. You have proven that you are totally ignorant of basic economics, so please excuse me if I ignore your hand waving.
If you are so sure the market is dead, short it. But you will not. For 2 reasons. You have to have money to do that. And you have to have confidence in your opinion. Neither of which is evident from your apparent lack of familiarity with the English Language.
But Mark, a year ago they hadn’t cancelled any and were still adding to the total.
And 10 years ago, no one was building windmills.
The market changes Griff. And no one is telling it to. It does due to changing circumstances. The market is not a Ferrari. It is more like a freight train. 90% of what you are seeing today was planned a year ago when Obama was actively killing it. A year from now, that will be less than 50%. And in 5 years, Obama’s EOs will have the effect of Dodos on chickens.
And we are already seeing activity in the market. https://www.usnews.com/news/pennsylvania/articles/2017-02-19/new-coal-mine-to-bring-70-jobs-or-more-to-pennsylvania
Get government out of the way and then see which players win. But even with onerous burdens, coal is still around and viable. And nothing you say can change that.
“And 10 years ago, no one was building windmills.”
Not true. I first went to Perth, WA, in 1986 and saw for my first time a full-scale wind power generator. As an engineer I was excited by it but I cannot remember now whether it was built by CSIRO or the WA State Energy Commission or a joint project. Obviously there are much bigger and better now, but they definitely existed and were built to investigate wind power generation.
Griff, so what?
In your world, economic projections are always 100% accurate and conditions never, ever change?
regardless, reducing the number of projected plants because economic growth rates haven’t matched projections is not evidence that the Chinese are abandoning coal.
As always, Griff continues to claim that any trend that exists at the moment, must extend to eternity.
At present, they aren’t building any coal plants. The the Grifter, this is proof that no coal plant will ever be built, anytime in the future.
China has banned the building of any more windmills.
The LIGHTS go out for South Australia.
The politicians should be liable for all and any tragedies that result from this stupid decision.
I wonder how many pensioners will freeze when the next big storms come up from the nearby Antarctic. You can only stay in your bed for so long.
This is the power station I mentioned in another thread yesterday that was shutdown last year because “It could not compete with renewables” as was stated on a newscast last night.
Yay! Go Australia!
That gives you the intelligence level of the new media, if you average report has an IQ above the average I would be surprised. My guess is even the “bright” one would top out above 110.
That is a misdiagnosis of the problem, I’m afraid. The human tragedy is that intelligent people are MORE likely to believe in ridiculous ideas. Intellectuals like to “rise above” the practical, and are more adept than the less intelligent at justifying bad ideas in a plausible manner.
“Thus, the gun culture is actually a cause of the loss of freedom . . .”
Project much?
“I am an English conservative”
And I thought American conservatives were lame . . .
Once universities started accepting around 50% of all youngsters, the game was up.
Right now, the IQ level in civil/ mechanical/ electrical/ aeronautical/ chemical engineering courses is so much lower than it was 40+ years ago that almost anyone can qualify. In these classes, the guys (they are still nearly all males) who are most vocal and most sure of their rightness tend to be those who don’t spend much time studying. The smart ones are heavily outnumbered and tend to keep quiet and avoid confrontation with the idiots. Many of the smart ones are Asian and confrontation is not a part of their culture.
The idiots also go into student politics, run the student union, the newspaper and the clubs.
@alfredmelbourne
Intelligence and stupidity are not two ends of a continuum; it is often the case that the intelligent are stupid;
or, put a better way:
“Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.”
Stephen Vizinczey, An Innocent Millionaire
hence, Nassim Taleb’s IYI designation of this modern “intellectual yet idiot” class of left-wing elitists first deciding/setting policy and then paying (on the taxpayer’s dime) for the NASA-NOAA–Academic climate pseudoscientists to churn out the junk science to justify it.
Parlington,
I long ago concluded that the major difference between Mensans and the rest of society was that Mensans were far more capable of articulating their rationalizations for their irrational behavior.
“The human tragedy is that intelligent people are MORE likely to believe in ridiculous ideas.”
In my experience, it’s the midwits who are most likely to believe ridiculous ideas, because they’re smarter than the average bear, but not smart enough to realize how little they know.
““The human tragedy is that intelligent people are MORE likely to believe in ridiculous ideas.”
In my experience, it’s the midwits who are most likely to believe ridiculous ideas, because they’re smarter than the average bear, but not smart enough to realize how little they know.”
It’s the art of sophistry. For masters of philosophy only. I like this quotation from Isaac Asimov: “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
Intelligence has nothing to do with common sense. There are some incredibly smart people around today who still believe the earth is flat and astronauts didn’t go to the moon. It seems emotion still trumps most other stuff going on in our brains, including reason.
Very, very sad.
First they take away the guns.
The Left says it is for your safety.
– The people are silent.
Next they take away your reliable elctricity.
The Left says it is to Save the Planet.
– The people remain silent.
Next they will come for your Free Speech. Your internet blogs.
The Left will say it is for the truth.
-Will you remain silent?
While Americans were clinging to their guns the U.S. government used legislation and IT to undermine their freedom in ways which guns cannot counter. Thus, the gun culture is actually a cause of the loss of freedom because it distracts Americans from what is really going on and creates false comfort that you have an effective means of protecting yourself against state power.
(I am an English conservative, btw.)
Disagree.
Throughout the history of man, state and government collection of and banning of weapons from the hands of freemen have always been the first steps of a depotic government. While many people regard our 1st Amendment as our most representative ideal of our Founding Fathers, it was the 2nd Amendment that was and is the most audacious and empowering. That is why the Left in the US are so rabid it their attempts to first destroy the 2nd.
And thesimple loss of privacy to the collection state is worrisome, yes. But the real power is the power to silence. And to silence means to control. What they cannot control, they cannot silence. At least in the US, we are a long way, way, way, away from that now. Especially with the newly seated JusticeGorsuch now on our Supreme Court, and more like him likely to follow.
An English Conservative is somewhere to the left of Billary and to the right of Bernie. When I hear the right honorable Theresa May repudiate AGW I’ll revisit my assessment.
There have been times in English history when it was compulsory for all men to train in martial arts, especially archery. I have always thought the armed population kept the aristocracy in check. yes/no?
WRT my comment @April 11, 2017 12:25 am: let’s try that again – sometimes I misread numbers when I get annoyed, and few things annoy me as much as sanctimonious anti-gun blather . . .
“Thus, the gun culture is actually a cause of the loss of freedom . . .”
Project much?
“I am an English conservative”
And I thought American conservatives were lame . . .
The first rule of totalitarianism, disarm the people! When a guvment fears its people, one has democracy, but when the people fear its guvment, one has tyranny!
“Thus, the gun culture is actually a cause of the loss of freedom . . .”
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams.
Here is the real reason for the divide between the left and right over guns. The right is still, for the most part, a moral and religious people. The left cannot say the same. That is the simple reason why the United States Constitutional freedoms threaten the left.
glad to hear warnings from someone who doesn’t have freedom of speech and or freedom to protect himself … tell us all about how you lost those freedoms …
When I had no power after 010911 , I started reading Churchill’s memoirs of WWII . A pervasive worry thru a number of chapters in the first volume is worry about the the ship getting thru with the first lend-lease deal , a million WWI Springfields with 10 rounds each to arm the population along the coasts .
What a change in the relationship between the State and its people just since then .
“Thus, the gun culture is actually a cause of the loss of freedom because it distracts Americans from what is really going on and creates false comfort that you have an effective means of protecting yourself against state power.”
I don’t really have a fear of the state becoming totalitarian, especially now that conservatives are back in the driver’s seat. Any political danger would come from the violent Left. They are the facists, not the Right.
What I would want a gun for is to put it on my nighttable where it’s handy in case some idiot decides to bust through my door. I actually had that happen once. The idiot walked up my hallway to my bedroom and turned around and ran away just as fast as he could when he heard me cock my handgun. I didn’t even have to shoot him.
One of our Supreme Court Justices (Breyer) says he doesn’t think Americans should be able to keep a gun on their nighttable. I would have to disagree vehemently for very practical reasons. And also, because the U.S. Constitution says I can have one, no matter what Breyer thinks.
One thing private ownership of guns in the U.S. does is serve as a deterrent to other nations who might otherwise plan to try to enter U.S. territory in an act of conquest, imo. Americans will defend themselves, and they have the means to do it thanks to the U.S. Constitution.
Breyer and his family currently have an armed Federal Protection Service detail 24/7. Even after (if) he retires from the court, it’ll return if he gets threats.
He has no concerns that many Americans live with everyday.
Parlington,
Only time will tell if your assessment is correct. However, I have given much thought to the attempts by the American Left to demonize and ban firearms and the only conclusion that seems to make sense is that they fear a future revolution where the average citizen is armed nearly as well as the military. Hence, they lie and exaggerate (Where else have we seen that?) to try to convince the public to support disarming everyone except those employed by the government. It isn’t too surprising that the kind of cultural mindset that would allow the government to confiscate Australian’s firearms would also look the other way when the last coal-fired power plant is demolished.
TA:
George Orwell warned about totalitarianism in his novel titled 1984 and he illustrated it with a description of a far-right (i.e. fascist) government overseen by a Fuhrer known as Big Brother and which asserted
You say
Clearly, Orwell’s warning was correct.
Richard
Funny thing, Orwell himself said his warnings were about left wing governments.
I get the impression that socialists are taught from birth that anything bad is right wing.
Socialism is the belief that if you take money from people who work hard and give it to people who don’t, that will make everyone better off.
Sorry about that, richardscourtney. I forgot you are a little sensitive about how people define “fascism”.
My main point is that the only internal violence the U.S. has to fear will be initiated by the radical Left, not from the Right. The Right won’t initiate violence, although I wouldn’t expect them to stand passively by if being attacked violently. But it will be initiated by the radical Left, if it happens at all.
Animal Farm and 1984 were about political positions, views and ideology. Care to identify which book (Story) with which ideology?
Brians356
May’s government was part of the G7 countries which stuck to their climate change guns at this week’s meeting.
May’s government still is keeping to UK CO2 reduction targets.
I really like the scientific content in this blog, but the cartoon polysci gets irritating.
Most people would agree that bazookas should not be made available to the general public including inner city gangsters and the mentally ill. Most people would agree that an elderly person should not be reduced to begging in the streets just because she was bilked out of her life savings by a scam artist like this one: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/donald-trump-scandals/474726/. Most people would agree that a child with curable leukemia should not die because her parents are afraid to take her to the doctor because they can’t afford it (or because of their immigration status). Most people would agree that society (via the government) has an obligation to prevent these eventualities. Most people would agree that there are practical limits and difficult trade offs in the government’s role too. It’s a matter of degree. Enough of the simpleminded black and white talk about the evils of “socialism”.
We are in the process of dismantling nuclear plants with decades of useful life in California so I guess this craziness is widespread.
lights are going out world wide because stupid is the order of the day. stupid people deserve everything they don’t get.
Hmmm, no comments from Eric about the $25M in subsidies Alinta had asked for to keep the plant running? No comment about the 100s of millions in liabilities associated with the plant, that the government would”ve taken on?
fair point.
if it can’t pay its way, let it go away.
gnomish, shur nuff, t’was a brilliant deduction of ….. “if it can’t pay its way, let it go away.”
Brilliant because that was one of Obama’s “slogans” that he employed in his promised quest to “fundamentally change America”.
Obama et el levied so many new “restrictions” on ALL coal fired generator plants in the US that their owners could NOT afford to implement any retrofitting and still be profitable, thus they were forced to close down.
And that’s exactly what Obama et el and Hillary et el wanted.
gnomish, was new “restrictions” the same reason that Alinta Energy was asking for a government subsidy?
It mentions both of those items in the article…
He does not read nor understand too well…
The relevant issue is the subsidies provided to the “renewables” industry. The conventional power stations are unable to compete with these subsidies; hence their request for subsidies to level the field.
As a side issue: who is going to pay for the removal and site remediation when the wind farms reach the end of their service lives?
Certainly the wind farm developers should be on the hook for removal and site remediation. The same logic should apply to all power sources. Coal fired power would be far more expensive if the operators included site cleanup costs and remediation in their consumer pricing.
Chris, You did read the bit where it was from budget papers? So one could ask which budget papers? But I seriously doubt the Minerals Council’s budget papers would include power subsidies. 😉
The power companies own the coal plant sites that must be remediated to be saleable. Wind and solar are largely on leased land, so that would be largely subject to the lease terms. In either case, the utility has established a grid interface which could accommodate future input. The difference is that the grid connections at the site where the coal plant was are usually closer to their service areas and greater in capacity. The rent seekers might get the shaft from the utilities if the govts quit financing renewables.
Here’s another twist, what about the offshore “pinwheels of peril”?
Chris, Australian Energy subsidies 2013-14 –
Coal – $130m 0.86/MWh
Solar – $2002m $412.11/MWh
Wind – $388m $41.64/MWh
http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/media_releases/Electricity_production_subsidies_in_Australia_FINAL.pdf
Sourced from budget papers.
So how much more than wind would it have cost?
Well done lee, thanks..
From the minerals council, eh? No bias there!
Lee. How can coal generators be considered subsidised in Australia when they have to purchase a REC (renewable energy certificate) at around $93 AUD for every Mw/hr they despatch. I believe these REC’s are gifted to renewable generators for every Mw/hr they generate?
Would coal need subsidies with a 100% rendiment ?
Chris. I personally know the lady who prepared the report. I think you should apologise for what you have implied. This person is above reproach.
So…..Who provides the money that is used to subsidize power generation? If it is to be sustainable, the source of the money must be from some number of economic enterprises who doubtless use some amount of electrical power that is being generated by making use of some driving energy. At its most fundamental level, money is a proxy for energy. Without fossil fuels, will subsidies still be available for providing sustenance for renewables?
I love the way liberals argue. They attack the source rather than the numbers.
It’s a round a bout way of admitting that the numbers are accurate and can’t be countered.
MarkW, sort of an ad hom strawman?
Maybe “killing the messenger” is more accurate.
That figure for wind is way too low. It must be deliberately ignoring the RET subsidy, which is gigantic.
so spending a BILLION on a crappy battery system that might power a few thousand homes for an HOUR is a better deal?
alintas “deal” or govt total retake over would still have been the best option for the state
not only the power co workers but all the jobs from Leigh creek coal the rail and the rest also gone
the fallout is massive
No comment about the only reason it needed the subsidies was because the govt required the grid to take wind and solar first, leaving the coal plant to cycle power load dramatically and run at very low efficiency levels.
As always, liberals create a problem, and then cite the fact that others aren’t able to handle the problems the liberals created as an excuse to shut them down.
That is indeed the signature of how liberals operate in business. Create a problem by destructive interference in an organisation or business, then use the problem they created to justify their pre-planned agenda.
I worked for AEA Technology plc in Harwell, Oxfordshire, before they went bankrupt. This organisation originated as the UK’s atomic energy civil service laboratories but was then turned into a private company by politicians (with predictable results). I worked in the medical research section, a small group that had formerly researched health effects of radionuclides but following the end of government funding for this, it re-targeted its lifescience expertise to pharmaceutical drug trials and contract research for Universities. This lifescience research involved rats and mice as animal models.
Business was going ok and we were bringing in contracts, around the year 2000. But then Andrew McCree joined the board of AEAT and he was ideologically opposed to medical research with animals. So when a couple of large study contracts came in, he withheld authorisation for them to go ahead. So the customers had to go elsewhere. Then he told our manager “your order intake looks so bad that I’m giving you six months notice of closure of the medical research section.”
This reminds me of how Germany in 1939 got their invasion of Poland 🇵🇱 started. They took some male prisoners, clothed them in German army uniforms and shot them dead. Then they filmed their bodies for the news near a border post and claimed that an armed incursion from Poland had killed German soldiers. The rest is history.
“…no comments from Eric about the $25M in subsidies Alinta had asked for to keep the plant running”
It was nothing compared to the billion that was lost in the state-wide power blackout.
This is actually an excellent piece of news. The sooner South Australia gets frequent and prolonged power-outages, the better. Already, the electricity bills for consumers have risen dramatically. When it hits consumers in the pocket and in job-losses, they will get rid of the current crop of politicians and their advisers.
Here are 3 websites which have data that is constantly being updated which can inform readers of the current situation in Australia:
1- Live Generation (by state and by type)
This illustrates the massive dependency on wind and solar in South Australia. Yesterday, there almost no PV in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. It was very windy and many wind-farms seem to have been turned off – presumably so as to prevent them getting damaged or destabilising the grid.
2- Australian Energy Market (map)
This shows the individual large-scale generators and their level of activity.
3- Australian Energy Market Operator Dashboard
This shows the wholesale electricity price in the fake “market”. It seems to fluctuate wildly in South Australia – depending on wind and solar conditions.
Check out the “Medium term Outlook” button on that AEMO Dashboard for SA and Vic. Next summer is looking like a disaster. You can’t say we have not been warned.
Agreed. Facts and reason don’t work in politics. Only the experience of a big, big failure of all those things that even ardent “greens” take for granted will shake people out of their complacency. I mean the aircon (in SA), the washing machines, the cooker, the TV, the smartphone charger … etc etc. I am personally glad this is happening in SA, and not Old England, where power system failure means no heating in winter (even gas and oil burners having electric control systems). But we are running close, as astute observers may know, and getting worse, under the influence of our delusional Climate Change Act. Big time power system failure in SA, followed by the necessary political corrections, might just make it through the censors of the BBC and give us some advance warning. Sorry about SA.
AirCon: That sounds like a convention of oxygen bar owners.
I have been saying this for a while. Until we get constant blackouts our politician masters are safe. But when the electricty price skyrockets needlessly and power is intermittent the populace will understand the lesson better than anything else. So the sooner this crisis happens the better for all of us.
A suggestion: Henceforth the term ‘Renewable’ to be replaced with ‘Intermittent’.
‘Renewables’ are already known as ‘Ruinables’ and ‘Unreliables’.
Anyone know if this offer of Storage (always needed by Renewables, even at Niagara Falls) from Elon Musk to South Australia has been accepted?
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/news/energy/blog.html?b=business.financialpost.com/news/energy/tesla-motors-inc-to-begin-supplying-los-angeles-with-energy-after-winning-california-utility-storage-contract&__lsa=0592-777e
Elon Musk’s trans-Pacific panic shows that he realises the danger posed to his cause by grid failure in SA caused by green politics. So now the SA electricity supply will soar like a SpaceX rocket! (O wait.. )
As long as the other Australian States – Queensland, NSW, Victoria & (the other basket case) Tasmania can turn off the switchs on the “extension cords & double adaptors” when they need their own power for themselves, all is well.
https://youtu.be/gxhknGARGt4
we have some winters awaiting us: The exhaustion of fossil fuels and the next glacial age
South Australia is now totally dependent on brown coal generated power from Victoria for base load requirements.
The previous Australian Energy Market Operator (now deceased) warned that if the current energy policies in SA Victoria Queensland and nationally are pursued, that “the system must collapse”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/energy-experts-warnings-on-renewables-ignored-by-government/news-story/d5f91f87a23281b0bfc10fd03b7fd911
At the same time Australia is the largest global coal exporter by volume accounting for 30% of global coal trade and second to iron ore in value to the economy.
“Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat”.
Are the revenues from the coal exports that are being used to subsidize generation of “clean” electricity in South Australia? How ARE the subsidies being produced and are they from a sustainable source? At its most basic level, money is a proxy for energy.
It is called the consolidated fund. Basically a big tax “bucket”…
Tom
Oz has a Renewable Energy Target which is a de facto tax on coal and gas power producers. That RET generates $3 billion per year of which $2.8 billion was handed directly to the wind and solar producers as a virtual gift.
In the case of the SA power station, it was producing power for about $40/MWh and as a fossil fuel producer it was forced to pay a minimum of $85/MWh to wind farms for the right to sell that coal power. In other words coal pays a 200% tax directly to wind and solar. Wind farm operators can just sit back and watch the cash roll in even if their turbines are not spinning. The more electricity coal power stations sell, the more cash they are compelled by law to hand over to wind / solar farms, supposedly to offset coal emissions.
This RET is why Oz power is in such a fragile state now and why our power prices are going through the roof. It was designed to force coal and gas producers out of business and that is exactly what is happening. It is why base-load power stations are becoming unviable. This applies across the country, not just in SA.
“It was designed to force coal and gas producers out of business and that is exactly what is happening. It is why base-load power stations are becoming unviable. This applies across the country, not just in SA.”
And Julia Gillard is from Cardiff where the steel producer almost closed last year thanks to similarly misguided green energy policies in Wales. You’d think she would would have thought about this a bit more. We had the Welsh Wind-Bag in UK and Australia got the Welsh Witch. Should there be a ban on the export of Welsh politicians?
“Peter Gardner April 11, 2017 at 7:34 pm
And Julia Gillard is from Cardiff…”
She is from Barry right next door to Barry Island, where old steamers go to get scrapped.
Patrick, tks for funniest reply on the site. I must remember it.
Chris Hanley, unfortunately this has been the constant theme in Australia for decades right across industry. There is no Australian team. There are numerous little empires, not just the states and federal organsations. I’ve made a longer comment expanding on my experiences.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
South Australia accounts for about 0.15 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
If we shut down the state and evacuated it, the annual emissions saved would be eclipsed by China’s emissions growth within a few weeks. You desert the state forever, leaving it to become a future Angkor Wat, and it would make not the slightest difference to global climate trends.
Yet in order to claim some kind of climate virtue, justify the odd trip to Paris and delude themselves about leading the world, SA’s policymakers have sacrificed their state’s cost of living, undermined its struggling manufacturing base and enfeebled its energy security.
South Australians have the most expensive electricity in the nation by an average of about 40 per cent, yet the power can go missing when they most need it — when especially hot or cold weather triggers high demand.
Tuff times ahead for the SA taxpayer thanks to green centralised planning based on “save the planet” climate virtue singnalling madness.
Climatism “a future Angkor Wat”
Someone with great foresight will come to the rescue. Jurassic Park NOW!
There is another option: cede South Australia to Israel. It would be up and running in a year or two.
Can’t say for sure but wasn’t there a lot of Press about how the EU members suddenly did not have excess to supply into the grid during some cold periods this Northern Winter. That is “… look after ourselves Brother….”.
Well you take ~20% out off the real power base (Hazelwood Coal Fired Power Station) and expect it to have no effect well you are crazy or incredibly lucky.
Victoria (the Australian State in which Hazelwood operated) will battle during this quickly coming Southern Winter. Maybe we won’t have anything to assist the other States on the Grid???
The chances of this happening are good but the pain, apart from harming those least able to deal with it, might just be worth it to illustrate this madness.
One can’t have both:
Intact coral reefs + coal industries.
sad: Authorities-angry-about-great-barrier-obituaries-
http://m.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/behoerde-veraergert-ueber-great-barrier-nachruf-a-1116914.html
nonsense …
100% wrong.
I fixed it for you:
One can’t have both:
Intact coral reefs + fertilizer & sewage runoff
+ sea level drop
The stupidity of the left ideology before practicality one can only hope jay will get voted out
Robert Gottleibsen in The Australian:
“The looming crisis is much worse than I expected. Three state governments, Victoria NSW and South Australia, have vandalised our total energy system. The Premiers of each state clearly had no idea what they were doing and did not sit down with top engineers outside the government advisers to work out the best way to achieve their objectives — whether that be an increase in renewables or gas restrictions.
….
I have been alerted that in the 1995 Federal Criminal Code under Section 137.1 in Chapter 7 there is a section entitled ‘Good administration of government’.”
Given these people wrote the “laws” I am sure they included escape clauses, or if not, their teflon coated shoulders and expensive lawyers will prevent anything from sticking.
When was the last prosecution of the basis of this criminal code?
Here we go: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/10/asia/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching/index.html
If the recent temperature fluctuations in the GBR were so threatening to the existence of coral reefs there wouldn’t be any, they would have died out hundreds of millions of years ago.
And Australian governments can continue policies that will ruin the economy and lives but it will make absolutely no difference to the world CO2 emissions, let alone the GAT.
Well Griff reports that the move to renewables in the UK will reduce CO2 emissions for the UK alone to 1894 levels, in a few decades. Not sure how that was “measured” back then, but he is confident it will do “something”. IMO, that “something” will be to swell vested interests bank accounts and do nothing to “combat climate change” and plunge 99% of people into poverty.
Sadly we have “Chris”, “Griff” and Tony McLoed who support such madness…
It will definitely reduce GDP to 1894 levels. Perhaps that’s what he meant.
Patrick – not WILL but HAS
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-carbon-emissions-fall-1894-first-petrol-powered-car-patent-greenhouse-gases-environment-climate-a7614066.html
And UK GDP has continued to grow while it has cut CO2
http://eciu.net/press-releases/2017/report-25-years-after-rio-uk-leads-g7-in-both-growth-and-carbon-cuts
“Griff April 12, 2017 at 5:06 am”
More twaddle from Griff. Tell us how “carbon” emissions were measured in 1894 Griff?