Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Major discomfort for representatives of Aussie coal mining districts; will they defy the government and support the vote to make coal eligible for climate finance, or will they face the wrath of their voters, many of whom are coal miners?
Craig Kelly may back Barnaby Joyce CEFC amendment to allow coal investment
Former Nationals leader announces he will try to amend his own government’s legislation
Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp and Adam Morton
Wed 17 Feb 2021 10.35 AEDTThe outspoken Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly says he will look at an amendment from Barnaby Joyce that would allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in coal.
Joyce took Liberals by surprise on Tuesday night by proposing an amendment to the government’s CEFC bill intended to allow for new investment in “high efficiency, low emissions” coal-fired power.
Just before the House adjourned for the evening, Joyce told the chamber he would be moving an amendment to his own government’s policy because he was willing to put his “name to the paper” and stand up for jobs in the coal sector.
To quell a potential rebellion within its own ranks, the government withdrew the bill from the order of business for Wednesday.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/16/barnaby-joyce-pushes-clean-energy-finance-amendment-to-allow-coal-investment
The Australian Federal Government’s hold on power is precarious. In the House of representatives their majority is 2 – the government holds 77 out of 151 seats. So the two members who have said they will rebel is potentially enough to stop bills being passed.
The hold in the Senate is even more precarious – the government controls a minority of senate seats, 36 out of 76, and needs at least three allies from other parties to pass bills. Some of the usual senate allies like the One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts are outspoken climate skeptics.
The government might be able to get a bill passed with the help of opposition parties – but opposition politicians would demand a heavy price for their support, and it would be a huge and possibly politically fatal embarrassment for the Prime Minister to have to turn to his opponents, to overcome opposition from his own party. And of course, some opposition MPs represent coal mining districts – so the decision of what to support is just as much of a dilemma for them, as it is for the government.
Yet if the government does not pass a climate finance bill, the money for renewables projects could dry up. Despite ridiculous claims that renewables are cheaper than coal, we all know what happens when government life support is withdrawn from wind and solar projects.
Let us hope the Aussie rebels stick to their guns. I’m looking forward to the delicious spectacle of Aussie PM Scott Morrison talking up his climate record on the world stage, while back home his government is financing the construction of a coal plant – a possible outcome of this rebellion.
Unless Australians want to embrace electricity blackouts for climate virtue that means nothing in the big scheme, then they must embrace coal and or nat gas for electricity. It really is as simple as that.
Australia’s CO2 emissions, with or without coal, is a pithy trivance compared to China’s and India’s emissions growth.
Renewables don’t mean blackouts… blackouts are caused by extreme weather. The Australian grid is now more robust than ever thanks to several grid scale battery schemes.
Seriously Griff, you want to drop a claim like that after what happened in Texas?
Yet wind and solar performed quite well in Texas- the problem was frozen gas lines, transmission lines, poor capacity planning, problems with coal etc. Even the nuke plant capacity dropped. Blaming what happened in Texas on renewables is simply false.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/climate/texas-blackouts-disinformation.html
I’ve got a bridge to sell you!
Why are you Marxists always such liars? You and griff wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the butt!
Here’s a graph of power generation by type in TX yesterday:
Gas and coal were what saved a huge portion of TX from absolute disaster. It was wind/solar that gave up the ghost. There simply wasn’t enough reserve gas and coal to make up the difference.
Unreliable, intermittent wind/solar are disasters waiting to happen. And the higher their penetration the worse the disaster they cause will be. People DIED because of wind/solar. And the Greenies simply can’t admit to that most obvious truth! They have to lie in order to try and shift the blame.
Tim – a commenter on another article stated that one reason for the grid failure was shutting down coal plants over the last few years in favor of wind turbines. He said this reduced the reserve capacity which in this case resulted in frequency fluctuations that caused some number of nuclear, gas and coal plants to trip and go offline. Other commenters stated that the grid was designed to shed heat and not weatherized for the kind of temps TX is experiencing right now and further commented that wind turbines and gas plants continue to operate in northern climates that routinely experience these kinds of temps. I agree that wind and solar are disasters waiting to happen, and as their penetration increases without proper reserve capacity, the worse the problem will become. We are pissing away money on the unreliable boondoggle. Do you have knowledge of the actual impact of shutting down coal plants and the weatherization issue? There is a lot of ignorance out there (my own as well) on how grids work and I sense you may know more than most.
Thanks
No wind turbine anywhere can operate with ice on its blades. They may survive, they may operate in colder weather, but they are useless when there is ice and snow – or when there is no wind – or when there is too much wind.
I don’t know what you mean by “actual knowledge”. I can look at the generation by type yesterday and coal was the only constant. Gas ramped up but could not cover the loss of wind and solar.
I can only confirm what others have said, we had no major outages in KS (244 people without power yesterday), NE, or SD where the weather was worse than in TX.
So the issue is not just wind/solar that is a problem in TX. But the money that ERCOT has spent on wind/solar prevented winterizing the gas supply and generation. They invested in the wrong thing.
As other keep pointing out – you *have* to have reliable base load generation with enough reserve to cover spikes in demand. ERCOT failed at both reliability and in having sufficient base load.
“coal was the only constant”? Not in that graph, looks like it dropped about 20%.
Gas held its own but failed to ramp up as it normally would do during the daily variation of demand.
Wind fell on its butt and solar failed to get out of bed.
Much of the reason for problems with coal is probably that they cannot even do work to maintain and upgrade plant because of deliberately destructive EPA regulations which block any and all construction permits, it’s a war of attrition.
So greens are trying to make coal as unreliable as renewables. Great play, deaths result. But that’s win-win for Malthusian zealots to want to kill off ( other ) humans anyway.
Power from renewables dropped 93% in the storm. People died from the decision to mothball coal plants and spend money on wind and solar to replace the lost power production.
Keep up your position, and you will be lucky if you are only cancelled when the average person realizes the consequences of your demands.
Yeah! Frosted over solar panels and wind turbines work best.
Tony, why don’t you try to just use your judgement instead of relying on nytimes?
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial disputing the New York Times article.
If you want to refute the claim you need to do better than cite the New York Times. The link is even called disinformation. (I know it probably purports to knock down disinformation but the New York Times is a major trafficker in disinformation.) Find more reputable source please.
WRONG as always
Wind and solar cause issues because they are UNRELIABLE.
They disrupt the grid frequency stability.
Those HUGELY EXPENSIVE batteries , that provide ABSOLUTELY ZERO net electricity to the grid are one of the causes of the excessive electricity prices in SA.
They are paid huge amounts, for producing NOTHING
Why do you INSIST on remaining totally ignorant of basic facts, griff.
griff you haven’t got a clue!
We live 4 kilometres from an 87MW CdTe thin film solar works. It was commissioned in 2019. It was sold before it went live and is up for sale again now! It is contracted to provide 98% of its power to two different entities, not a good move. You can’t promise power that may or may not be there, we’ve had rain most weeks for the past year, less sunshine means less power.
It was also struck by lightning and has suffered component problems, reducing it’s output for a good period of time. It was forced to write down the asset. The owner has another works up for sale too, they are getting out of the Australian market.
Did you know that AGL and Origin have both suffered massive losses due to renewables. One or the other has lost billions and their stocks have halved.
Australia’s oldest construction company, 1898, went bust in 2018 after venturing into the renewables industry. Around 3,400 jobs were lost.
More than 200 backpackers and labour hire employees were laid off by text message at 6.30 am one day last week and asked to vacate their accommodation. So much for ‘good well paying jobs’.
The whole industry is a farce griff.
We have formed a group which has grown substantially, and are fighting the solar that they want to surround our towns with. We have successfully beaten two small installations, 4 and 5 nil. We are currently fighting a 400MW solar works, plus batteries just ten kilometres up the road. This one will be a challenge, the big ones are pretty much rubber stamped. It will be 800,000 to 900,000 panels and the 200MW BESS will only last around half an hour. This project will fence off almost 18 square kilometres of farmland. Most of this will be bulldozed of every blade of grass and any small native animals will be destroyed or displaced.
Added to the existing solar works will mean that 21 square kilometres of land will be fenced off and a good part covered in solar panels. Our beautiful historic town will be dwarfed by this useless infrastructure and we know that there is more planned. Waterways run through both sites.
There are three zones mapped for renewable energy in NSW. We are in zone one. They are looking to install 3GW in each zone as a pilot, this may increase. My guess is it would have to just to replace the coal they are looking to shut down. My point is, just for zone one they will need around 300 square kilometres of land for wind and solar.
Plot out a 300 kilometre journey griff. Now imagine driving for 300 kilometres with half a kilometre of solar panels and or wind turbines on either side of you. And on this imaginary journey, spare a thought for the animals that lost their lives and their homes for this infrastructure. Environmental vandalism. And remember griff, there are three zones. This infrastructure will all need to be duplicated before end of life griff, for continuity of energy. Do the sums.
My submission against this current application is nine pages long plus references, there is so much that people have know idea about in regard to renewables. Except of course most of the people who frequent this site. So how come you haven’t learnt anything griff? Including this site, there’s a heap of information out there. You only have to ask questions.
griff, did you know that ‘coal’ is an essential ingredient used to manufacture the silicon wafers used in solar panels? Did you know that ‘hardwood’ is also an essential ingredient. And that rainforest from Brazil and from Indonesia are used along with timber from around the globe. I am talking ‘essential ingredients’. And coal is also predominantly used for the processing furnaces. There are three separate processes, at least one of them requires the heat to be maintained over several days. All this, and half of it is wasted when they cut the ingots into silicon wafers.
There is so much more. So much environmental, ecological and economic damage has been done already! For what?
We have had eight blackouts since January of last year griff. We are on tank water. When the power goes out our electric pumps don’t work, so we don’t have water or electricity.
We have a handful of awesome politicians who are brave enough to have a conversation about the need for ‘real’ energy in Australia. And their numbers are growing as the truth gets out there. I hope they don’t take too long to wake up, renewable energy is destroying lifelong community relationships. The only people in the regions who embrace renewables are the landowners who make large profits. What they don’t realise is that they will potentially be left with a very expensive recycling and clean up bill down the track. Them, or future generations. We are being dumped on.
Do some research griff.
where are you and do you have a petition people can sign to support you?
ps throw in the massive thermal radiation from the panels affecting the UHI and rainfall for the surrounded towns too
We are in the Central West Region, near Mudgee. Thanks for the offer of support Oz, but they’ve changed the rules and no longer accept signatures on petitions as absolute numbers. Petitions only count as one submission.
They’ve also upped the ante in regard to numbers of individual submissions, it used to be 25 for it to go to the panel but they’ve upped it to 50. Our population is only 2500, you would understand how hard it would be to get the average country person to sit down and write a submission.
The fact is that most of the town aren’t even aware that it’s on the cards. The blanket statement that politicians and developers make about renewables being generally well accepted in the regions is absolute rubbish. And the community consultation is almost non existent.
We gave the developer 30 questions in regard to the project. They said that they would answer them in the EIS (Environment Impact Study) it was 960 pages long. Yes we read it, they didn’t answer half the questions. I know that you live in the country too, how many people in your town would read a 960 page paper?
The community were largely unaware of the one meeting they did have, we found out by chance. We expected them to answer our enquiries. Us: “What sort of panels are you using?” Them: “We haven’t decided on the brand yet, but they will be tier one, and they are pretty much made of glass”.
They knew nothing, it was pretty much a marketing event. When it became obvious to them that we weren’t in favour of the development the stock standard phrases came out. “We need to reduce CO2 urgently” and “97%of scientists agree”. Pretty much marketing tools.
We have a member in the food bowl of the state, she is soon to be surrounded on three sides by solar, and she grows crops. She is obviously concerned about the heat sink affecting the crops, not to mention how this is affecting her psychologically.
We write to local council, politicians and to media. We have had some success but we don’t get much response. We’ll go down fighting, but not inciting riots 🙂
“So how come you haven’t learnt anything griff?”
grief doesn’t come here to learn Megs, the purpose of his visits is to disinform and spread the lies of his handlers.
I’m sure China approves of the projects, and sacrifice their conscience by building bigger and better coal power plants.
Lrp how is it that China is referred to as a developing nation?
A rhetorical question. They are sending rockets into space, they have the largest army in the world, they have more navy vessels than ports. But that’s OK, they own most of Australia’s and those of other nations. They have nuclear capability as well as nuclear power.
They have more billionaires than any other nation and a large proportion of their population is middle class. They own land and infrastructure right across the globe including Australia.
Developing nation just doesn’t fit. If they are a developing nation then Australia is a third world country!
You are right with your tongue-in-cheek comment about China approving these projects, they own a good number of them here in this country.
Megs,
400 millions is the size of China’s middle class. They live and consume pretty much as we do. They have cars, travel by air internally and internationally, so their per capita emissions are the same as ours. And that’s why I find the metric per capita emissions to be flawed. If bringing up the middle class of one country means pauperising the middle class of other countries, in the name of stabilising or reducing CO2 emissions, then the concept is fundamentally flawed.
Lrp
We have a good Chinese Australian friend who invited us to visit his family home in mainland China. It wasn’t always middle class but it certainly is now, though not a tourist area. We went to a coffee shop there called ‘Jack and the Magic Pea’ 🙂
So close to being a perfect name, somewhat lost in the translation.
People are people the world over, politics, power and greed, along with more than just a few elites and you have the end of what used to be a pretty awesome planet.
China is extraordinary, the CCP are doing their best to destroy it.
The SA battery could run the state for 6 minutes.
not the state , about 18k homes at best I think
Less than that. The cold temps experienced in Texas dropped battery capacity by 60 percent.
That’s all they need. SA doesn’t need an economy
Correction, does not have one. I know several SA’a who had businesses now all closed (To be fair that is mostly due to the COVID-19 sc@mdemic but high costs were another reason I’m told).
On another thread, it became obvious that renewables do cause blackouts because they divert funds from better uses, like hardening the grid, etc. So, yes, renewables do cause blackouts when extreme weather happens, which is guaranteed.
As for the batteries, their storage is measured in minutes, not weeks. You should be ashamed of yourself for even mentioning that.
“…divert funds from better uses, like hardening the grid…”
Exactly. Texas had two prior events in the last decade that should have generated an effort to harden their grid against severe cold. Instead, they built transmission lines for wind turbine operators.
At some point, hopefully, rate payers, including ordinary citizens, will wake up and start attending rate commission meetings to object to the Green Blob continually raising their electric costs. Because that’s exactly what’s been happening.
Hahahahahah
I forgot the hehehe
Griff, more correctly, the Australian grid is now more COSTLY than ever thanks to several grid scale battery SCAMS.
I know of only one grid scale battery installation that actually runs. There are others planned but not installed and running AFAIK.
What are the batteries doing there? How much electricity do they supply and for how long? Do the solar panels work at night? How many wind turbines do we need in Australia?
Please enlighten us from your vast knowledge and experience
I wasn’t aware that a windless night is ‘extreme weather’, as that would cause a blackout if we were 100% renewables.
Your definition of ‘robust’ also needs some rethinking
“griff
The Australian grid is now more robust than ever thanks to several grid scale battery schemes.”
Several? Care to name them?
Please… let it happen. !
NSW is continually dragging electricity from mainly Queensland, but occasionally Victoria, because we don’t have enough of our own RELIABLE supply installed.
Its embarrassing that one of the world’s largest coal exporting states, can’t provide its own electricity.
And no, wind will not help, too erratic…,
…. neither will solar, because our peak usage is usually in the early evening, when there is very little solar.
… and Texas, a veritable Saudi Arabia of oil and gas, allowed wind turbine Green virtue to bring its electricity grid to its knees when the real cold hit.
The lesson is: Go Green, Go Dark.
Go woke, go broke.
Wind in NSW has been too strong for quite sometime so it would have been no use anyway.
Best plan for Australian electricity security, would be to build a new high efficiency coal plant near Liddell in the Hunter.
Coal is there,
water is there,
transmission lines are there.
Let AGL have their little gas replacement for when they close Liddell, great for peak demand.
…. but complement it with a new expandable coal fired plant for NSW base load.
Then later, once marxist Dan is removed (if Victorians ever wake up to reality, and gain some common sense….. very questionable if they ever will, though)
…. Victoria can build a new high efficiency coaly to replace Hazelwood.
Long before the New South Wales State Government sold electricity assets, when the Electricity Commission were the operator of those assets, plans were produced to add new generator units at various coal fired power stations.
Liddell was handed to private sector owners when they purchased nearby Bayswater coal fired power station, the two power stations share water storage and a coal mine nearby.
JoNova has pointed out that Liddell is worth more to the owner if demolished than to continue operating it. Reason being the ridiculous government favouritism towards wind and solar installations (farms is such a greenism). Governments seem to ignore the feeder transmission lines needed to main grid from each installation, back up generators “firming”, storage “batteries” and other support systems added to the cost of the turbines and panels.
The CO2 reduction Paris Agreement based focus is ridiculous, subsidising unreliable energy producing UP TO about 12 per cent of Australia’s world’s largest interconnected electricity grid cannot possibly be cost effective and is definitely not clever engineering.
They are being forced to keep it running by the very same Govn’t that want’s it gone. It’s not being maintained and when, not if, it does go, there will be very strong demand for domestic generation. Sadly for those who cannot afford nor can install roof-top solar subsidise those that can.
we have to remove diktator Dan asap
But he belongs to Victoria
Yep but should have done it 10 yrs ago
Sadly Fred, Victorians are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome with Dickhead Dan in “control”.
Great work, Barnaby! And thanks to Senator Bridget McKenzie for Victoria, Nationals Senate Leader, for co-authoring [with Senator Matt Canavan, NT] the Nats’ new, epoch-making Manufacturing Policy – the reversal of many decades of suicidal national de-industrialising vandalism. National Party Manufacturing Paper – Senator Matt Canavan
EVERYTHING in that paper appears to be total and complete COMMON SENSE.
The greenies and leftist/socialist stooges will NOT like it at all !!
Lefty lunacy
Remember, they are politicians and (I suspect based on calls from employment agencies) there will be a Federal election called this year.
Australia is a gold mine of resources .
They sell to overseas for 1/2 price , then buy it back refined for double the value .
Luckily for Oz is what they sell in volume is far more than what they consume in imports .
This will not last for much longer , but the population is being educated to not see this .
Out of curiosity, who do you think will replace Australia as the world’s “gold mine of resources”?
Eric,
Jurisdictions with less regulation, and a political environment that doesn’t bend with the winds of each passing fad. Certainly West Africa will be a major competitor in the iron ore market, with China putting many billions of dollars into mine development and infrastructure.
Coal – through a great example of soft diplomacy, Australian expertise taught the Indonesian industry how to compete. They no longer need ex-pats, and are doughty thermal coal competitors throughout Asian markets. Twenty years ago I worked on a coal project that took two years to go from the first drill hole to coal on train – now that process is a minimum of ten years, and many many millions of dollars (if you get it over the line at all).
Aluminium – Weipa has one of the largest and highest average grade bauxite deposits in the world – but Australian smelters are really struggling, largely due to the insane energy markets that have been forced on us to accommodate the rent seeking renewables industry.
Australia is or was a great place to mine, we had appropriate legislation, a well trained workforce and scale. Now, well, I’m retiring, and its not a moment too soon.
Gordo that brings a smile
“Coal – through a great example of soft diplomacy, Australian expertise taught the Indonesian industry how to compete.”
Many years ago I was offered a transfer with an Oz major ( you can probably guess) to an Indo coal project but was told I had to train up a local to take my job, fair enough, but was told most didn’t or wouldn’t get their fingernails dirty, difficult for a geo
Aussie iron ore is not going to run out for a long long time
….. and will always be needed in big quantities especially for greenie ventures 😉
If you want to use iron ore, you need lots of coal. 🙂
A wind generator requires 100 tonne of steel for every MW of rated capacity. Australia is presently selling iron ore into China for USD162/t. It cost less than AUD10 to mine it.
Rio announced yesterday that it is returning $9bn to shareholders; not bad for a year depressed by Covid woes.
Biden creates dollars, US uses them to buy wind generators from China who need Australian Iron ore paid for in USD. It will not be long and Australia will be competing with China to buy the POTUS. I wonder what the POTUS will be worth in 2024.
Australia’s current account has never been better. All the raw material exports and no offshore travel so money is staying in the country. Hopefully Australia will keep its “climate ambition” well hidden from the UN.
Australia’s Union controlled Labor Government (Whitlam PM) in 1975 signed a UN Lima Agreement to effectively handover most of the nation’s manufacturing industry to “developing nations”, one example China. Australia exports raw materials (also jobs and tax revenue) and buys back cheap goods while ignoring the adverse impact on the economy of Australia.
And the Union Movement since 1975 has failed to inform union members that their future job prospects are poor.
President Trump said Make America Great Again. Again – after taking back manufacturing and other places of employment and tax revenue from China, a developing economy now a serious rival for world dominance as an economy???
I am sure readers here know the politics, and like me would like to see the rear end of politicians who sell their nation out, globalism, socialism, new world order.
and the free uni mobs are NOW the same greentards/activists that got govvy jobs inc aunty abc in their droves and want to remove decent paid productive work from whats left of aussie workers!
This Aussie summer will be remembered as the year without a summer.
Been pretty “ordinary” hasn’t it. ! 🙁
The land of droughts and flooding rains.
well until the last 4 days it was, bloody warm right now in Vic
Bloody cool here in WA
Been mild all summer here in Sydney. One or two hot/humid ones that’s it with a couple of weeks left of summer.
Au Federal Government owned Lumo Energy (via Snowy Hydro) is charging the highest electricity prices (net of taxes) in the World in AusNet’s distribution area in Victoria particularly Melbourne’s East. Federal coalition hypocrites! Lumo’s profits go the the Federal Gov. If you wanted to buy Lumo you’d have to get permission from the Federal Gov. BUT there’s nothing they can do about the prices! ScoMo & Co are fraudsters . . .
Wrong, and showing a complete ignorance on how the grid pricing works.
Hydro wants a certain return, so they don’t bid until the price is where they want it to be.
That is usually when South Australian wind is low.. like now.
They are only a small portion of the grid, and are incapable of providing peak amounts of electricity at constant rates like GAS and COAL are capable of doing.
Tassie hydro does exactly the same thing.
At the moment Tassie is raking in the funding as it feeds hydro to Victoria so South Australia can have some electricity, wind is SA is only 560MW and GAS and the Victorian interconnect are carrying most of the demand of about 2.6GW..
Price in SA $75, Victoria $39, Tassie $11
Fred you’ve gone mad! Fed owned Lumo are simply extracting max from VDO awarded to AusNet by Labor State Gov authority. Don’t you see the irony given conservative rhetoric? Read comments with comprehension and knowledge before blindly attacking.
Poor Warren. Still not knowing.. so sad.
What don’t you comprehend about running a business. !
You think its meant to be non-profit ??
And no, they are not CHARGING high prices, they are taking high prices when available
Sorry you choose to remain ignorant.
Poor Fred more like it!
You think price-gouging is OK?
You think it’s OK that Eastern Victorian consumers are forced to pay near the highest electricity prices in the ‘first’ World?
Forced . . . because the Chinese/Singaporean (large political donors) who control AusNet have an enduring market monopoly which they’re increasingly abusing.
If you understood the AER mechanisms you’d understand the AusNet VDO can only be based on corruption and now the Federal Gov’s Lumo and Red Energy are taking full advantage of it.
But you’ll blindly defend ScoMo & Co because that’s what fundamentalists do. Are you also a Sino apologists?
By the way, I own an energy-intensive manufacturing business in Victoria; what do you do?
Yawn
Lumo is owned by Snowy Scheme
Absolutely NOTHING to do with Scott Morrison etc
That is just your manic leftist hatred and victim status on the boil.
Your little nil-educated mind is obviously TOTALLy ADDLED.
A leftist loser on steroids and hallucinogens.!
Lumo produce electricity using only hydro, gas and Diesel generators and are not overly expensive according to Choice.
You have a MANIC IRRATIONAL bee-in-your-bonnet about something.. who knows what, but can’t get off your high-horse about it !
https://www.choice.com.au/shopping/shopping-for-services/utilities/articles/lumo-energy
Canada has experienced American blackmail over using the tar sands. That’s a big problem because the two economies are so intertwined.
I was going to worry that Australia would be blackmailed by the US if it expanded the use of coal. In fact, Australia has a big trade deficit with the ‘States so maybe it could ignore the pressure. If America were to slap a complete embargo on Australia, it would hurt some but it doesn’t look like it would be devastating.
Australia’s biggest trade partner by far is China. China is now blackmailing Australia but that’s a whole different can of worms.
Australia could ask them to vacate Pine Gap.
Not sure who that is hurting more, China or Australia. !
The UK and the USA are the largest foreign investors in Australia so both have good reasons to look after their investments.
The US has a very important military base, Pine Gap near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory (US territory) used for many purposes including surveillance and communications. The US Military now shares Australian Defence Forces Bases and many personnel and assets are rotated in and out regularly.
Asia Pacific is important to the US and Australia is very useful as a base. There are defence agreements, one of the most recent was signed by India, Japan, Australia and USA. From about 1990 one was signed between Japan, Australia and USA. The ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States of America) was signed decades ago.
Around about 2005-2007 the Australian Federal Government (PM Howard) received recommendations from an inquiry to construct modular nuclear powered generators around the country for future electricity supply. I recall that fifty were recommended.
Australia has substantial reserves of Uranium and exports Uranium, but the left side of politics opposes nuclear energy, the exception is the 1950s nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, Sydney that produces radio isotopes for medical and commercial purposes since the 1950s.
There are also substantial reserves of Thorium and Salt (Thorium Molten Salt reactors).
Australia does not need a Gold Bar reserve because there remains huge deposits of Gold yet to be mined, and Silver.
It is interesting to research the minerals and energy reserves Australia has to offer.
We would love to work with AU and put in place a number of 300 MW High Efficiency -Low Emission Coal Fired Power Plants strategically across the country.
With what AU has available and the desire, it’s time to show the country and the world that Clean Coal is possible. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo
Coal can be combusted and put into the atmosphere less CO2 and other emissions than a natural gas fired power plant. This is done with CCU NOT CCS. CCU provides a Return On Investment.
Let’s bring it on Australia!!
It is good that they have coal as eventually it will be keeping them alive.
There is a strange mental disconnect going on with green energy supporters.
They are offering up the idea that wind and solar are fine and yes there will be occasions due to circumstances (beyond the control of mere men/women). when the grid will go down.
Now this is like a car sales person used to selling ICE vehicles that work reliably and efficiently, trying to sell you a modern woke option vehicle of whatever form. He/she is sure to advise you the new wheels will fail due to lack of fuel reliability, frequently running out of it where none is available within the local break down area.
The honest sales person, ever conscious of his customer’s need for reliability, is able to solve this woke vehicle unreliability issue, by selling you a second vehicle that does not have such inbuilt failure of his grant supported woke option. He even tells you, it is considered sensible to have this second vehicle on stand by at all times, just in case the woke auto doesn’t show up for duty that day…. .
The C.O.G.S. just don’t mesh do they?
We need to be starkly blunt with the Grifs of the world. They must be held accountable for the deaths of people by trying to replace reliable power plants with renewables. People have needlessly died because of the completely avoidable power outages. A few coal plants, even of only used for back-up, would have prevented this disaster, and the cost would have been a fraction of what has been spent on renewables that are worthless in these events.
Just adopt their method of ‘debate’: “we don’t need to listen to you because you are knowingly causing the deaths of others,” and shut the discussion down.
“A few coal plants, even of only used for back-up, would have prevented this disaster, and the cost would have been a fraction of what has been spent on renewables that are worthless in these events.”
Yes, and a little extra electricity wouldn’t have cost nearly as much as this Blackout Disaster is going to cost.
I’m quite frankly disgusted with Morrison’s sudden turn to the left and away from coal. I won’t be voting LNP again anytime soon.
Many Australians are feeling the same way John.
Morrison has betrayed his ‘quiet Australians’ we voted for him because we did not want renewables, the opposition’s (leftists) major platform!
The trouble is John, his party has moved so far left they are once again ‘twinning’ the Labor Party. Morrison has lost touch with his constituents. He is selling out Australia.
One Nation Party might be a minority party but they need to get more candidates out there, they are the only political party right of centre. Pauline Hanson has more than shown that she has what it takes to represent her constituents. She has stuck in there for decades taking undeserved flack, even after being wrongly jailed for matters relating to elections. She was exonerated and has never given up. She was accused of being hard right when in fact she was among the first politicians to have the courage to speak up and speak out. She has earned respect and is quiet an extraordinary politician.
Malcolm Roberts is also an excellent representative of One Nation, as is Mark Latham. Remember too that he was the leader of the Labor opposition 2003 to 2005, so for him to switch to One Nation, they can’t be that far right.
Both these politicians regularly speak out against climate change and renewables.
We will need to consider our options of course, not sure how we win either way, voting for a minority party, the only right of centre party left, may just be a gift to extreme left political parties.
The numbers of politicians speaking out against renewables is growing across all political parties (except the Greens Party of course). There is even one prominent Labor Party member.
People need to be educated about the negatives of renewables, both economically and environmentally. Most people have no clue of the environmental damage that has been done both here in Australia and globally. It’s massive, and it’s going to get far worse. They have no concept of the vast amount of land required either.
They need to know that the toxic waste from renewables is vastly higher than from nuclear power. Not to mention the already unmanageable physical waste.
Agree, although we’re I live is a labor seat, Macquarie.
John,
These people are shameless, and what’s worse is they think we are cheap and easy to trick and buy for a few handouts
It’s not a sudden turn, it has been very planned. They want to win the next election which, IMO, will be called this year. So they are targeting the swinging voter.
Swing voter won’t be any help if the lose their base to One Nation and other non-far-left parties.
Past history suggests that will not happen. Shouty will pull an early election because his voter base is being eroded, hence the focus on “climate” and “renewables” etc. The focus is on COVID-19 and vaccines and climate, and he’s going early. If he doesn’t he will lose to Albo (Save us from that DH).
Modern coal power plants are not “dirty” like they were in the 60s or still are in the case of small poorly regulated coal plants polluting the air around Beijing with REAL pollution.
If green fanatics had not stopped the Brown govt from building a clean modern coal station at Kings North in Kent, England they would not need to be chopping down US forests to feed Drax power station with “bio-mass” wood.
The insanity of green dogma is to cut down living trees to avoid burning trees which have been dead for 20 million years !!
Coal- One thing I do know from reading many technical docs, is that coal isn’t simply coal. The very wide spectrum of types, and the different adjustments made for their efficient combustion, is something to check out and is an education.
For those interested
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780081024188/advances-in-ultra-low-emission-control-technologies-for-coal-fired-power-plants
an old article but still extremely relevant- the great global reset- and their desire to confuse
The biggest source of mistakes: C vs. CO2by Joe Romm Mar 25, 2008 8:38 am
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Probably the biggest source of confusion and errors in climate discussions concerns “carbon” versus “carbon dioxide.” I was reminded of this last week when I saw an analysis done for a major environmental group that confused the two and hence was wrong by a large factor (3.67). The paragraph I usually include in my writing:
Some people use carbon rather than carbon dioxide as a metric. The fraction of carbon in carbon dioxide is the ratio of their weights. The atomic weight of carbon is 12 atomic mass units, while the weight of carbon dioxide is 44, because it includes two oxygen atoms that each weigh 16. So, to switch from one to the other, use the formula: One ton of carbon equals 44/12 = 11/3 = 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide. Thus 11 tons of carbon dioxide equals 3 tons of carbon, and a price of $30 per ton of carbon dioxide equals a price of $110 per ton of carbon.
I confess that in my books I have tried to consistently use CO2, for clarity’s sake, but have failed to embrace that strategy in the blog. I now realize that was a mistake after receiving an e-mail from a long time a reader who was confused as to whether the price I quoted in a recent post was dollars per ton of carbon or carbon dioxide (even though I had said in the post it was “the price of carbon”).
The reason this confusion arises so much is that scientists usually use carbon, because they are studying the carbon cycle, and governments also usually use carbon, because the scientists do. But “carbon” is not intuitive, whereas carbon dioxide is what we all emit — that is why businesses and the public typically report numbers in terms of carbon dioxide. “Point Carbon” for instance, reports prices in the European market for CO2 allowances (in euros, of course).
And, indeed, the central climate number in this whole area is the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The media is typically caught in between, sometimes using one and sometimes using the other, and sometimes making a mistake or not being clear.
So I am going to try to be consistent and use CO2. Where relevant I will also include one conversion to carbon, too, without bombarding you with too many numbers. So hopefully, from now on, if I fail to be clear, you should make the default assumption I am talking carbon dioxide.
I would recommend all blogs and journalists clearly state their “carbon dioxide policy” — and be sure to check when reporting on studies or articles or business action that they know whether they are talking carbon or carbon dioxide.
But CO2 is invisible whereas carbon is black, makes for scary images in the media.
Again, I have been contacted by an employment agency looking to fill positions at the Electoral Commission. There is going to be a Federal election this year in Australia.
With early voting and mail in ballots Patrick?
We may as well kiss our freedom goodbye now.
I don’t have specific details as to how votes will be handled, I suspect, like in the US, there will be a drive to postal votes (Thanks to the COVID-19 sc@m). However, all I can say and confirm is that the Electoral Commission are looking for staff, have been since near end of last year, and that means only one thing. My personal view is Shouty is going early, lets hope Albo (Albanese) has no hope!