Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Glencore and other major players in Australia’s mining and heavy industry sectors are threatening to shut mines and factories, and divert all investment elsewhere, unless Aussie energy prices fall back to internationally competitive levels.
Manufacturers warn of more Glencore type decisions
Australia will be denied new investment and will watch more of its refineries and smelters close unless the price and security of energy can be resolved, business leaders warn.
Speaking after Glencore warned it may shut its Mt Isa copper smelter and its Townsville copper refinery within a year, big manufacturers like BASF and the Tomago aluminium smelter respectively warned there was limited chance of new investment in Australia and that further job cuts were likely.
Tomago chief executive Matt Howell, who runs Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, said the company was considering cutting production due to “ridiculously high” wholesale electricity prices which would result in job losses.
“It is under active consideration,” Mr Howell told The Australian Financial Review. “We’ve been quite clear with the government that if the wholesale prices do not come down we will have to reduce our load, exactly the same as [Rio Tinto’s] Boyne smelter in Gladstone had to reduce load which means shedding jobs and contractors which we don’t want to do.”
…
“The prices are still way too high. They should be coming down by half or more than that,” he said. “We should be an energy super power with the cheapest and most reliable electricity in the world. We’re not seeing that now.”
…
A mining and heavy industry walkout would be catastrophic for the Australian economy. While mining only comprises 7% of GDP, it is widely acknowledged to be a significant source of economic growth, as well as a provider of famously well paid jobs for blue collar workers.
Mining is also a major source of export earnings used by the Australian government to service Australia’s small but rapidly growing government debt.
Electricity prices have skyrocketed in Australia in recent years, thanks to ideologically motivated roadblocks to Australian domestic gas exploration, regulatory hostility towards the Aussie coal power industry, and government attempts to favour the use of unreliable renewable energy over stable baseload fossil fuel sources.
YES!
http://nypost.com/2017/05/31/trump-expected-to-pull-out-of-paris-climate-deal/
If the Paris Accord had allowed nuclear power to be counted as an acceptable power source, maybe Trump wouldn’t have ditched it.
The green purists won and won until they lost.
+1
Thank God because coal is fantastic. How would we feed 15% of the world if we stopped burning coal?
And don’t let anyone tell you we’ll run out of coal. Not in my grandkid’s lifetimes. There is between 3 and 23 Trillion tonnes beneath the North Sea alone. We’ve only just extracted a tiny bit of that close to the coast. Global annual consumption is somewhere around 7-8 Billion tonnes, from memory.
It won’t be too long before we have a shale-gas revolution in coal which will disrupt the industry and make coal the cheapest fuel by a long shot.
If the Paris accord allowed trees as CO2 absorbers….
About one fully operational NPP shut down for each year Obama was in office.
How much is that going to increase CO2 emissions? More than the savings from new Solar/Wind for the next 10-20 years.
“It won’t be too long before we have a shale-gas revolution in coal which will disrupt the industry and make coal the cheapest fuel by a long shot.”
That is impossible. Oil is a liquid, natural gas is a gas. Coal is a solid.
Chris – it’s not impossible as coal can be converted to gas using an in situ gasification process. In theory this allows the energy to be extracted from very deep coal seams that are otherwise not economic to mine. See more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_coal_gasification
No, relax.
We have been subjected to endless amounts of “expected to” and “going to” for months.
Trump tweeted “next couple of days” about the decision.
As the great American philosopher Yogi Berra noted:
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Nearly everyone who makes these decisions about electricity have nothing to do with either the development or efficient production of it.
And they don’t understand it.
What worries me just as much is that the people/industries who do understand it were so silent for so long.
The greenery frequently talk of the lobbying power of industry but all I see is capitulation in the face of sythetic media outrage and environmental ‘concern’. You don’t have to work in the energy indutries to be impoverished by their disappearance. People often talk of industry’s duty to the environment, not so much about industry’s duty to the wellbeing of humans.
I can’t wait for further reports about Trump pulling out of Paris accord.
Should shake things up in Australia.
How? our media report negatively on him daily. He would just be meeting their expectations. They will probably say we need more windmills because we need to make up for the US (stupid I know, but no more stupid than everything that has gone on up until now)
If the solution for Australia is more windmills, we will not have to wait long for the morons to be voted out of office.
Sometimes the ‘invisible hand’ becomes . . . more visible.
It is always visible if you look for it. Some would rather not and some (politicians) do very well by ignoring it’s existence.
Or maybe remains invisible but still becomes quite tangible when it starts to “slap you silly?”
This is what you get when clueless bureaucrats try to run the economy instead of allowing the economy to run itself.
Unrestricted Free enterprise. It works every time. Aussie politicians should try it some time.
But first they have to get over their irrational fears of putting CO2 in the atmosphere. Maybe Trump can help them out with that.
They need to wise up fast otherwise they are going to lose all their businesses and will become an example of what *not* to do with regard to the economy, energy, and the irrational fear of CO2.
It is not clueless bureaucrats – it is part of an an ideology to foment unrest/social chaos, in order to eliminate Nation States which would then allow for governments to solve the problem (again) for the problem they initiated (again) by establishing a one-world government.
They know exactly what they are attempting – the millions of male migrants (not refugees) are also part of the plan.
Unrestricted Free enterprise.
============
in practice it doesn’t exist, because it leads to boom and bust cycles, as competition is driven out of the market leading to monopolies, windfall profits, increasing inefficiency, new competition. The boom and bust cycles lead to demands that the “government do something”.
If boom and bust, driven by government manipulation of energy prices, with consequent job losses and increasing national debt is the answer, it’s a pretty unsatisfactory one.
The Aussie government are heading for a train wreck and a national backlash against green socialist incompetence. Assuming Trump pulls out of the Paris accord, the average Aussie will be screaming blue murder.
My best mate, who has lived in Australia for the past 30 years, summed it up nicely in an email to me last night:
“My major issue is that no-one seems to realise that the biggest growing “industry” is government.”
Nonsense ferd. The boom and bust cycle is always due to money printing and the bastardisation of the store of wealth, unit of account and medium of exchange. As for trickle down helicopter money printing, there’s only the scraps from the table after the tax-eaters, grant takers and bankers have had their fill of crony capitalism.
“This is what you get when clueless bureaucrats try to run the economy instead of allowing the economy to run itself. Unrestricted Free enterprise. It works every time.”
Your comment makes no sense. The Fortune 1000 wants the US to stay in the Paris agreement, and has been lobbying Trump to do just that. He is going against the collective interests of corporate America if he exits the agreement.
Big government and big business in a symbiotic relationship, seeking their mutual interests using other people’s money (OPM). It makes a lot of sense for them, but not the country.
Corporate America hedges their investments. During the Obama Admin – and anticipating a Hillary Admin -they invested in green enterprises. They don’t want to lose on those investments regardless of what is good for WE THE PEOPLE
Mining is actually 19% of the Australian economy.
The deadenders don’t learn these policy lessons until it gets to the point of money and people voting with their feet. It repeats itself over and over again around the world. Greece and Venezuela are the other active cases today, at least among the places without fences, guns, land mines, and guard dogs keeping them in.
California, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan…
Apologies. The mining economy was 23.7% of Australia’s total gross value added in 2011/12.
That’s a really big chunk.
http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/reports/Att_8-2__2013-04-24_Coal_Economy_report-Sinclair_Davidson_report.pdf
Is that the direct contribution without the supporting sectors and induced spending by consumers?
And, true to form. wind enthusiasts continue to claim wind an economically competitive (low quality) powers supply. It’s not enough that the green beanies are so dumb about the effects of carbon, they also have to be equal stupid about the strategy to reduce the stuff, as well as the need to do so yesterday. 360 degree dumb. And they consider themselves intelligent climate thinkers, although unable to explain any of their failed predictions, past and present.
Coal miners love wind turbines. Big users of coal. Coal in cement, coal in steel. Need replaced every 12 years. Need coal backup power.
Wind power is good for coal.
And how!
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
Eric, I take exception at you calling our government debt small. On what planet is $700Bn* “small”? Especially when you consider we’ve one of the highest household debt burdens in the world.
*includes all the “off the books” debt for govt white elephant infrastructure projects.
Well it is small – when you compare it to the insanity that is the US debt! We are approaching 20 Trillion dollars of on-the-books debt with some 100-500 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. Politicians will be the death of us all yet.
America has 15 times Australia’s population. That still makes us twice as much in debt as they are. Still, a bad shape all around since we don’t want to even be in this competition.
One more opportunity for green sighted humophobic politicians to read the very clear writing on the wall and make some sensible decisions. Not holding my breath. Australian voters need to speak up for affordable energy and against the Global Warming/Climate Change religion with its false beliefs.
have a read of some of this trash if you have the stomach for it –
http://www.climatechange.sa.gov.au/case-studies
one thing i noticed about the so called case studies is the key theme of anti capitalism, growth and GDP. they state clearly for eg in the “Carbon Neutral Adelaide” document –
“Barriers:
Current economic drivers, capitalism and GDP are seen as barriers for quick transiting into a carbon neutral society;”
and
“KEY THEMES AS NEGATIVE DRIVING FORCES
Capitalism, GDP, growth”
consultants paid for by the SA state government to suggest the state should see its growth as a “negative driving force”. how pathetic is that? i mean no-one will read any of that junk i am sure, because everybody knows it is just junk designed to support some greens fantasy, but that stupid government is implementing these “plans”. they are deliberately destroying their economy.
being a QLD resident, I am quite please that SA are taking the lead on this new world order. it looks like it will crash and burn faster than our politicians can get ink to paper. though just recently I heard of our premier pushing for a 50% renewables target by 2030…
50% renewables target by 2030
=============
how will that help? we were told repeatedly that we only had 10 years left to act. that time is long past. why bolt the door after the horse has left the barn?
if it is past the time to take action to stop climate change, it makes no sense to take action to stop it. you are much better putting your money into adapting. And what better way to adapt to climate change is there than cheap, plentiful power so that you can heat and cool artificially?
If the climate is changing, would you rather live in a 3rd world economy with unreliable high priced power, or in a first world economy with rock solid cheap energy?
If you are a businesses would you rather set up shop in a 3rd world economy with unreliable high priced power, or in a first world economy with rock solid cheap energy?
What good is renewable energy if you cannot get a job to afford it?
What do you mean”if the climates is changing”? The climate has been changing since the World began, and will continue to do so until our Sun expires.
One human trait is likely to prevail. Human’s cheat. We do it all the time, such that it is second nature.
Consider this. The counties of the world agree to cut fossil fuel use. The price of fossil fuels drops.
Which strategy is likely to work best:
1. Keep your promise. Cut fossil fuel use and replace it with high priced alternatives
2. Cheat. Say you are cutting fossil fuel use, but do the opposite, to take advantage of lower prices.
In the long run, there is no advantage in option 1, because your contribution will not measurably affect the climate. There is a huge advantage in option 2, as you will be able to take advantage of the lower prices to out-compete other countries and gain economic advantage and the power that goes with it.
History shows this to be true. It is much easier, cheaper and more profitable to cut fossil fuel use through creative accounting than any other method.
No. 2 = business as usual in India
The only real question now is how fast will the politicians reverse course. Will they be stubborn and crash the economy first or get the message and avoid much more damage?
Indeed, Gary. That’s the question that concerns all of us. We, the bunnies in the headlights of government policy that’s driving this destructive farce, are the ones who suffer the most.
Gotta love all this Rogue behaviour….
PMK
“A mining and heavy industry walkout would be catastrophic for the Australian economy. “
Well, something is going on here, but it isn’t the cost of green energy. Yes, there may be some threat to aluminium exports, worth $3.8B/year, and even copper, worth $6B/year, though copper is less energy intensive. But the cause is the massive recent development of gas export, due mainly to the new terminals in Qld, now worth $16.5B/year. It’s more lucrative to export the gas directly rather than use it for Al production, and that is reflected in higher local energy prices. This development may be bad for Al investors, but it isn’t a catastrophe for the economy.
Nick, aluminium smelters are powered by electricity, not natural gas. The natural gas export market inflates local NG prices for sure, but that’s not what the heavy industries are complaining about. They are specifically complaining about expensive, unreliable, solar-and-wind-generated ELECTRICITY. And that IS a catastrophe for the economy. Good try at diverting attention from the real problems, though.
“They are specifically complaining about expensive, unreliable, solar-and-wind-generated ELECTRICITY.”
They are not. Here the complaint is from Glencore in Mt Isa about ENERGY prices. In fact, MIM isn’t on the NEM grid; their energy source for electricity is a direct gas connection to Ballera, which is also linked to the gas export terminals. They are exposed to gas prices, not solar/wind.
Yes they are. “Tomago chief executive Matt Howell, who runs Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, said the company was considering cutting production due to “ridiculously high” wholesale electricity prices which would result in job losses.”
Tomago accounts for 12% of NSW electrical grid consumption according to Wikipedia.
If Trump withdraws from the Paris Agreement, these industries could migrate to the U.S. Otherwise, to places like China, India, Brazil, Argentina. If I were representing one of these countries, I would do my best to persuade Trump to stay in the P.A.
Despite almost limitless natural advantages compared to many countries, Australia always seeks to be a non value adding quarry or pumping station and minimise income wherever possible.
Nick
It’s the jobs. Repeat: the jobs, the direct jobs and the multiplier in jobs depending on the primary ones.
The starkest example of what Australia is facing is Germany. Like SA, Merkel went whole jog for renewables in the process shutting down nuclear. Electricity prices are now 300% higher than in the USA and guess where BASF, Mercedes and even Airbus have been relocating their next-gen plants.
Some 10 years and USD 800 billion in wind and solar subsidies later, the so called “energiewende” is an acknowledged disaster – Der Spiegel calls electricity at current prices a “luxury item”, there is wide spread energy poverty in the lower income groups [no longer denied by government] and the unions are up in arms because Germany has lost some 125,000 high paying jobs. Last year the country came within 1 minute [!] of a country wide black out.
Outcome? The un-mothballing of 6 older coal fired plants and as many as 8 new coal fired ones coming on line – some of them fuelled with brown coal, the dirtiest of all coal.. Meanwhile Peabody and the other US coal majors that have come out of Chapter 11, many miners who voted fro DT are back at work and the US [yes Josephine, life takes strange turns] is shipping coal to Germany as we speak – to make sure the lights stay on.
All the while Chancellor Merkel crying crocodile tears over that bad man DT who is planning to kill Paris.
“It’s the jobs.”
It’s the economics that supports the jobs. If it’s cheaper to send the bauxite and the gas to China, rather than smelt the Al here, then that is what will happen in our system. And is happening.
Exactly. Make the electricity expensive enough, and will be cheaper to send the bauxite and the gas to China.
“Last year the country came within 1 minute [!] of a country wide black out. ”
Would you be able to post the link to that report. I missed it at the time and would like to read it.
Nick,
somehow, in the face of irrefutable evidence from global corporations complaining about stupidly high energy prices in Australia, you split hairs and seek to justify what is an impending train wreck of the Australian economy.
Amazing.
“what is an impending train wreck of the Australian economy”
There is no evidence of a train wreck here. I’ve shown below the graph of energy production, which just goes up and up. People are making more money exporting than using it locally. Inconvenient for us, but the economy is fine.
It’s bad enough for the local economy here in the Gladstone region where one of those aluminium smelters has had to shut down part of its production due to unaffordable electricity cots – and the plant even owns a share in the local power station, making it even more ridiculous.
My own small business relies on the disposable income of the local population. Each time an industry here closes down or down-sizes, it affects my own business income. So it goes for all of us locally, and then there is the lost revenue to government at all levels.
The exports from the now-completed gas terminals on Curtis Island have no benefit for local businesses, aside from a couple providing technical support. It’s all very well for government revenue to be generated by those exports, but there are very few actual local jobs, and it’s not as if the governments spend any revenue thus raised at all wisely – “renewable” energy generation subsidies being a very painful case in point.
Nobody wins when productive industry is driven out by stupid government “policy”.
“the plant even owns a share in the local power station, making it even more ridiculous”
Exactly. The plant is shedding tears about the “unaffordable electricity costs”, but the power station is still generating the same. They are choosing to sell power on the market rather than use it for smelting.
And why is the market price going up, Nick, so that’s more profitable?
Price of gas – we’re competing with export prices.
When gas exporting was proposed, there was an oversupply of gas sources. This would have kept prices down. However, the green LNP/Labor Governments State and Federal have “locked the Gate”, ie stopped drilling for gas, so now, despite massive gas reserves, Australia has a gas shortage.
Part of the deliberate de-industrialisation of Australia.
When the big aluminum smelters in Australia were built in Australia, the country had cheap coal power. With renewable energy targets, the price of electricity is going up. The real irony in Australia is that it is cheaper to export our coal and bauxite to any other country to be processed, because our coal is cheap and high quality, than to use it here. Our smelters are extremely efficient, labour costs are not an issue.
It is sad that our Left wing Governments (LNP and Labor), are hell bent on killing our economy. It’s collapsing so fast it’s only just starting to show up in official statistics.
From here, a graph of total energy production in Australia (to mid-2015), and the part exported.
Production just goes up and up – no sign of levelling off. Local consumption has, though; the growth is all in exports.
Could local consumption have levelled off because the price has doubled over the last ten years? (in nominal dollars)
Death by regulation.
Would that industry in Ontario Canada would speak as bluntly to the various provincial and federal governments. Rather they are showing their displeasure by simply moving and saying nothing about government stupidity.
David M
Ontario electricity prices are 300% those of Michigan to the south – keep that up and the auto industry in Ontario is dead going into the next investment cycle. Add to that coming changes in the US regulatory and tax regimes and you understand why Proctor & Gamble yesterday announced they’re pulling up stakes and moving south of the border.
In Lotus Land BC where I live we are now going to be witnessing the “water melon” [green outside/socialist inside] NDP/Green coalition try their best to crater the Kinder Morgan pipeline and the Site C hydro dam and introduce a $50-70/ton carbon tax. No one of course asking where the juice is going to come from…
Perhaps we could cut California loose (during a really hot spell) from the 10+TW.H we sell them? https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/snpsht/2017/03-03lctrctxprtbcclfrn-eng.html
Most industry in Australia is simply moving and saying nothing. We lost our car industry for example due to high taxes and bad regulations. Only a few big corporations can afford to speak up, but not one, repeat not one politician will listen. They really do not understand what is going on.
It went due to wages costs, not taxes. Have a look at the annual statements. Holdens workforce shrank by 5% in 2012 and wages costs rose by 10%. Every time there was a federal bailout there was a new “Enterprise Agreement” waiting to soak it up. Seriously, the average wage at Holden was some $110,000 with the redundancy packages worth up to $400,000.
Just like shipbuilding, the unions killed the car industry.
Some of you seem to be confused. De-industrialization of the West is the goal.
Tab,
Yes,
And depopulation of the entire globe.
Target 500-750 million.
Ten percent, or less, of the current 7,500 million (or so).
This site, for example, gives 7,508 million:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#top20
Auto
This is what can be expected when you let liberals take control of your economy and, in this case, your energy sources. Their idealist methods don’t jive with reality which results in these sort of problems.
Thanks Eric. What a damming indictment that single graph of Australian electricity prices is of Australian government policies. All caused by a renewable energy target that mandates 23.5% of supplies must come from “renewables” by 2020.
When it comes to science denying ideology the Aussies take first place in the energy generation stupidity stakes. Can’t do joined up energy science to save their sad little lives. Totally unaware the renewables policies make more CO2 than just replacing coal with gas and nuclear, all that can deliver enough energy to stay developed after fossil.
Dying for their beliefs is far more important to them than prospering from understanding the facts of physics. The worse it gets the deeper the Diggers dig.
You can’t fix stupid. Leave ’em to it. Insignificant empty wasteland with a few eco worrier nut jobs clinging to the coast line. Abbo’s will be glad to see them go, when their wholly unnecessary and avoidable self induced energy poverty puts them back in the pre-industrial age. Such an ignorant lot are ardly worth the effort of typing. Many are just plainf short term selfish subsidy farmers. The people who are really despicable are the ones with brains oushing the economically destructive renewable subsidy habit by law for their grateful handouts from renewable lobbyists. etc.
Wow, you seem to think all of us here in Australia are idiots. You may be surprised to know that these idiotic policies are enshrined in spite of the majority of us, rather than because we think they’re a good idea. In South Australia, the state that is leading the world in electricity generation stupidity, the actual majority of the voting population do not want the government that’s driving that state back to the – literally – dark ages, but due to the rigged electoral system there, the minority green/labor type mendicants prevail and inflict their destructive anti-human policies on the majority.
As for the Queensland premiers’ declaration that she wants this state to be 50% “renewable” by 2030 (less than 13 years from now) – that declaration was made totally without consultation of the population. This is the insanity that passes for government here, but it’s not the will of the majority, believe me.
Not all, just most. All my Ozzie Facebook friends beieve this science denial. None are scientists, all believe the propaganda about the end of the world, unsupported by even the IPCC. AND. Government is elected by the majority. All that is reported is the relentless will of S.Australians to go renewable, suppported by the people with solar panels and the government troughers.
No gainsayers except the evil anti christ science denier Plimmer. More technically illiterate science denying zealots per capita in S.Oz than anywhere else – except California perhaps, (Germany just talks renewables, shuts down nuclear and builds coal to cover for the predictable renewable failure).
We can’t hear you. No public voice, or even reports of objectors to solar and wind power? Perhaps the people of S.Oz should get real? Stop supporting the media and voting for politicians who support these things and run the climate change = renewable subsidies protection racket? Good luck with de corrupting OZZIE politicians, or finding any that rise above more than winning the votes of the easily mislead gullibles for the after office rewards of renewable lobbyists, grateful for the laws that enrich them at the p[eople’s expense.
It’s the same. the whole world over….
That statement is f not a reflection of the elected facts. The majority voted for it. The majority who repeat stupid beliefs about renewable energy, climate change, with faith in the received opinions and promises of politicians and lobbyists who act in their own greeedy interests.
The majority, as elsewhere, may be nice and easy going, but that isn’t enough if you elect such leaders. You must understand what you vote for..
On this basis too many are too lazy minded, ignorant of the true facts, and/or gullible to vote, even happy to deny the science and facts of the inconvenient truth/reality with repeated assertions and claims of science denial based on their easy unprovable beliefs, as in most communist and fasist dictatorships. Anyone pointing out the science facts is denied as anti social science deniers by these gullible idiots. Right? You can see how easy it is to establish such regimes – by deceiving the gullible and suppressing the few who take the trouble to understand.
The West does it with a veneer of democracy, which is a clever trick, the numpty’s get to debate and express unknowing opinions on things they don’t understand – and can’t prove, because they are simply wrong in technical fact.
You may be one of the minority who are educated to understand and have made the effort, which is ipso fact not the majority of Australians regarding energy and climate change, on the science facts. Australians are not alone in this, but some of the most delusionally vocal, and self harming economically, along with Californians and Germans, who still have the Kampf in renewables that simply cannot deliver enough enrgy, have the most expensive energy as the cost per unit of renewabes is high by cost and subsidy, and are building coal fired power stations AFAP because, of course, their renewable vandalised with solar PV and windmills countryside is hopelessly inadequate to replace the clean, intense, safe and low cost nuclear they are shutting down. Doh! Inconvenient facts of source energy density and intermittency
All the Trillions of Euros spent in renewables have made NO difference to Germany’s annual CO2 emissions from energy use. What science denial by the masses, controlled by politicians and exploited by cynical lobbyists, is actually doing.
The mass of people are to blame, in Australia and elsewhere, and the cowardly scietists who won’t explain the truth or prefer to support the actual lies they are trained to understand for their own personal gain, the worst being Michael Moore, of course. I would be happy to prove any of the above statements, particulary the well documented facts on energy. You have my sympathy but not my agreement about the mass of people who support these things.
brianrlcatt
As a Brit I find that comment quite offensive to Australians.
In my experience they are generous, pragmatic individuals with a unique charm and wit. Their working population have been conned by socialism and are heading for the inevitable, and frequent, consequences of a succession of largely socialist governments; ironically, high national debt with insufficient productivity to service it.
The same happens in the UK every time a socialist government is elected to represent the workers. The latest idiotic leader of the Labour party here, Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t remember the numbers relative to one of his key election manifesto pledges when interviewed on national radio the other day, nor could his incompetent oppo Diane Abbott a couple of weeks earlier.
Jeremy Corbyn promotes himself as a simple man of the people, in truth, he’s just an ideological simpleton, like all socialists.
So. like so many who believe but never put the effort in to understand, and know? And very sure of the delusions they prefer to what can work in fact, in their easy ignorance. Being nice and friendly isn’t good enough. IMentally lazy. It’s a recipe for disaster if trust and belief is the basis for electing politicians. How Hitler got ito power in fact. You have to understand, test and verify or be deceived or misled by these egotistical self seeking power mad or delusional crooks. Believing their BS and reciting it as fact is what they do in communist and fascist countries, a slippery slope. IMO. Understand, challenge, or lose control.
The artcle dramatically understates the problem. All big Australian corporations stopped investing about 18 months ago, with multiple anouncements of massive investments anywhere but Australia.
I live in an industrial/mining region. There are plenty of examples of slow phased shutdown of major industrial facilities. If you ask, you can find out how long the rest will last.
It looks like Australia will lose its entire industrial base in a few years. I am mortified. Its my home.
My home too Peter. Self inflicted insanity.
Chins up lads.
This insanity is coming to a head shortly. In the face of observed global temperatures about to fall below the IPCC’s lowest predictions, with CO2 continuing to increase, they will be forced to revise down their estimates yet again.
That will likely coincide with the next US Presidential election and the UK’s next General Election, at which point the knives will be out to slaughter the sacred cow that is AGW as by that time, the UK will be spunking £14Bn on something that’s not happening.
The temptation to be a political hero and save the country all that money in one fell swoop will prove too much for one party or another. Especially with a nice soundbite like “The IPCC admits Global Warming is over”.
All as a result of hog-tying industry and the headlong tilt at Carbon Dioxide taxes and ruinable energy. Same over here in Blighty, where the lunatics are running the asylum. We keep thinking we’ll get much-needed change, but it’s a false dawn every time. Let’s hope The Donald doesn’t let the side down…
As one from the Australian Mining Industry since the early 1970s, I can state that I wrote many times in the 1970s and 80s that no operator would be likely to invest in aluminium smelting or refining when the main energy source was intermittent, such as wind or solar.
If people want to close their ears to experience, then they pay for it.
Australia has the raw ingredients to have the cheapest electrical energy of any significant country. That it has near the most expensive is a problem for politicians who subsidised renewables, and for green promoters who, time and again have shown themselves incapable of proper project economics.
Geoff, we’re told that Aussie taxpayers “subsidise coal”.
The Minerals Council of Australia says subsidies amount to $63 million (compared to $2, 464 million for wind and solar) – http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/publications/Electricity_Subsidies_The_Facts_March_2017.pdf
Do you happen to know what form those coal subsidies take? Is it just some weird accounting trick? Or a discount on land rates for rail easements? It might be a useful factoid to know when battling greenbeans.
Thanking you in advance, sir.
” Or a discount on land rates for rail easements? “
No need to trouble them with such matters. In Qld, at least, the state government built the lines for them, and Queensland Rail still operates them.
Beliaik, I think they say the cost of producing the coal is allowed as a deduction from tax payable. The Greens and other loons call this a “subsidy”.
I’m looking to flee this penal colony.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/south-australias-absurd-electricity-prices-renewables-are-not-to-blame
Well, we finally have a real hockey stick graph
BTW, when the planet was new the atmosphere was CO2 and water vapour that came out of volcanoes, the dominant gases from such sources. That was all eaten up by plants that evolved to do this until it was mostly converted to oxygen and the plants ceased to increase then reduced as their fuel was cut. The carbon went back into the ground to be recycled by plate tectonics 200M years later. This went on until there was so little CO2, a trace level under 0.01%, that it naturally levelled off. Plants ate all the CO2.
Question: Why would plants stop responding to increases in CO2 because of where it comes from, by consuming it to an equilibrium level where it limits their own growth, as before through geological time? The evidence of planetary existence says that plants ate the volcanic CO2 and the temperatures did not run away. And as we know, all the so called climate science modelling (not real science) debate is about a short period of very small increase within the noise of a very chaotic andunpredictable climate system, far more unpredctable and complex than economic models, with no laws, just numerical modelling that abuses some laws within its sctructure.
Reality is we are towards the end of a short interglacial between ice ages. Coming soon, in the next 10,000 years or so. 12 Degrees K fall, ice sheet on Norther Hemisphere for 80K years and Ocean levels dropping 300-400 feet, coral mountains, ports left stranded up the hill. All very predictable. But VERY slowly, we have time to move the first technological civilisation elsewhere, once we get used to the idea of a changing planet we have to adapt to and cannot control, and dump the delusional pseudo science for profit. Assuming the self seeking delusional ego fuelled idiots people prefer to elect haven’t promoted global catastrophe for humans who follow them by then, of course.
I meant less than 0.1% CO2, sorry.