Essay by Eric Worrall
The Aussie climate change clown show continues, with state and federal politicians arguing about whether to allow some gas projects until the battery backup is ready.
Blackout warnings lifted for weekend as national cabinet weighs up energy solutions
By David Crowe and Mike Foley
June 17, 2022 — 7.30pm…
Soaring coal prices and multiple plant failures meant 25 per cent of coal-fired power capacity was offline, forcing the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to take the unprecedented step of suspending the National Electricity Market on Wednesday so it could command when and where electricity supply should be directed.
But AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said on Friday “the outlook from today is much more healthy than it was a couple of days ago”.
Westerman said the chaotic week demonstrated the need for investment to bring on and back up more renewable energy. The operator’s renewables road map was still “absolutely the right pathway for Australians to have access to the lowest cost, most reliable energy”.
“These last couple of days are a reminder that the pace of change is high and that we actually need to make sure we’re investing in renewables, in firming, in transmission and then take those longer-term actions,” he said in an interview.
…
Albanese told a climate summit on Friday night that high prices for gas and coal made the shift to renewable energy even more urgent.
“Australia recognises that climate change is not only a problem to be solved but an opportunity to be embraced,” he said in an online address to the Major Economies Forum hosted by United States President Joe Biden.
“With gas and oil prices soaring, the case for transitioning to secure, reliable and affordable clean energy has never been stronger.
“Our policies mean renewables will contribute 82 per cent of our National Energy Market by 2030.
“My ambition is for Australia to be a clean energy superpower.”
With the energy regulator forecasting peak winter demand for gas may exceed supply in the long-term, federal and state political leaders have been unable to reach a consensus on whether Australia should develop Narrabri or other gas fields.
…
Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King backed the Narrabri project this week but was criticised for doing so by the Labor Environment Action Network, Greens leader Adam Bandt, Greenpeace and others. King also said the Victorian restrictions on gas were a barrier to future supply.
…
Read more: https://theage.com.au/politics/federal/blackout-warnings-lifted-for-weekend-as-national-cabinet-weighs-up-energy-solutions-20220617-p5aum7.html
The Narrabri gas project is not due to come online until 2026. Renewables are supposed to solve Australia’s problems by 2030. But Australia’s 2022 energy supply is still very much in peril – any further failures, during what is promising to be a very cold winter, will reignite the threat of blackouts.
The previous federal government planned to build a $600 million gas plant, to replace the 1000MW Liddell coal plant, which is scheduled to close in 2023. This wouldn’t have fixed 2022’s problems, but at least it would have been a step in the right direction – providing enough gas could be found to run the plant. I somehow doubt Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intends to upset all his green friends by continuing with this plan.
Private energy companies currently have zero incentive to address these issues. Our new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to shut down emissions by 2030, which effectively means he intends to shut down fossil fuel power companies. There is no talk of compensation.
The only rational commercial response is to spend the absolute bare minimum on maintenance, invest nothing in new capacity, and extract what remaining profit can be extracted from our crumbling power generators, until the day they finally break down for the last time.
Update (EW): h/t TonyL; The guy at the top with the fiddle is our national Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Note this is a satirical photoshopped image.
Australia’s new Labor Minister for Energy Chris Bowen has stated that just as we store water, so we can store electricity. Problem solved?
This is the same genius that said you can charge you EV overnight from solar. I for one am tired of having such stupid people in our Govt.
he should have said we can also store candles !
Go short on whale oil.
I think you meant go long?
Perhaps some economic history would help here.
Back before our socialist paradise, capitalists would short a stock or “go short”, if they expected it was overpriced and about to drop. This was a method of exploiting the masses.
It meant that they borrowed shares from a broker in order to sell the shares before the price dropped. Later, the evil capitalist, extracting blood from widows and orphans, would have to settle accounts by covering their nefarious short sale. That means buying shares to return to the broker. (A broker was a kind of parasite facilitating buying and selling stock). The bet was that they sell high and then buy low.
Go long means that you buy shares expecting them to increase in price. Buy low, sell high. Allegedly in capitalist theory, prices could rise because of constrained supply or higher demand, but we now understand that evil greedy capitalists just arbitrarily raised prices until too many customers died and government had to intervene.
Of course this “go long” idea is obviously also immoral, involving evil profit motive. Socialists everywhere know that only governments (in transition to communism) may appropriately “invest”.
This means government dumps money on a connected crony as a payback for campaign contributions that help socialists win elections until elections are ultimately eliminated. It can also “invest” in “infrastructure” which means giving free stuff to client voters to continue to secure their votes until such time as elections can be eliminated.
By creating money from thin air, government happily inflates the currency, which is excellent because the evil rich who accumulated wealth through a lifetime of selfish self-reliance will see their savings melt away, while the client populations are given things for free. Once the rich have been eaten and everyone depends entirely on government, elections can be eliminated and we are all equally poor—except of course for our dear leaders who are a bit more equal.
Hope that helps understand the mysterious ways of pre-utopian economies.
Thanks Rich.
I’ve already gone immediate on gold.
go gold
Nick Stokes has their back.
Chris Bowen (Minister for Climate Change and Energy) tweet May 1, 2022:
“An Albanese Labor Government will build an electric vehicle charging network across our highways.Under our Driving the Nation policy, there will be an EV charger on average every 150kms across the country”.
The Australian clean energy superpower road network is over 823,000km in length needing 5,500 charging stations all connected to the fabulous clean energy network serviced by clean reliable and affordable solar and wind power in a mere seven years, what’s not to like.
I am not sure you know how big Australia is or did you forget the sarc tag
An EV charger will not be sufficient to recharge the multitude of vehicles using Oz roads.
Start buying roadside cafes for the poor peasants to use while waiting several hours for a recharge or access to a charger
Not just cafes. Buy motel stock for those residential owners that can’t charge at home and must do an overnight stay at a motel with chargers.
(people living in multiple dwelling buildings as an example)
Where will they get the electricity to charge 6 million cars and trucks?
Err…try 19.2 million registered cars and trucks in Australia according to the ABS in 2016-
How Many Cars are There in the World? | CarsGuide
We like our cars.
I’m positive Aussies love their cars but that 19.2 million ice cars will become less than 6 million EV’s when the raw materials get scarcer and scarcer. Doesn’t matter what the intention is, they will never be able to replace all of the ice vehicles with EV’s – simply not enough raw materials in the world to do that.
Obama stores propane for primary and backup at his ocean side vacation house.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-fossil-fuel-fan-obama-orders-2500-gallon-propane-storage-vacation-home
Of course he does.
He knows that weaning off oil, diesel, gasoline, propane and gas are strategies for the rubes that he conned into voting for him.
Probably has at least one generator too.
probably not necessary for individual homes as the islands own utility has 5 x 2.4 MW diesel back up generators as well as the 4 undersea power cables for standard supply. They were thinking of a 15MW battery storage project but cancelled that for yet another under sea cable
Power cables here, backup generator locations unknown
Problem is , they can’t even store water properly .
Haven’t built a dam that works in decades despite population and consumption doubling .
Aussies have been indoctrinated by the misleading MSM to believe anything they are told .
The crazy Greenees have turned people into lemmings .
Yes. Doesnt know that the stored water can be released on demand over a long period and generate AC power at a steady 50 hz. he thinks that the same as what batterys do.
‘…at a steady 50 hz.’
“Rest assured, this government will not rest until it achieves 0 hz.” – Future political campaign slogan?
Good one . Net 50Hz … I like it
Same as electricity supply is a State Government responsibility and State planning approval is necessary same applies to water storage dams, and gas fields, coal mines, uranium mines on shore, all require State Government approval.
if greenpeas or bandt like it?
run a bloody mile the other way!!
yeah but water stores stay useful for more than 1hr or so
The headline reads (my boldface), “Australian Government: More Committed than Ever to Renewable Energy”
Anyone pushing renewable energy should be committed to psych wards.
Regards,
Bob
I agree but they will continue pushing the ‘green dream’ which will turn into a nightmare.
And to think that we were once called the lucky country. Who knows what we are known as now.
“transitioning to secure, reliable”
Umm, wind/solar generation is the exact opposite of secure and reliable. The evidence is staring everybody in the face.
People vote for these clowns.
They are clearly not our friends.
Only way back is to have a lot of blackouts
Thats what they are heading into, just hastening the reckoning Wait till the actual peak power demand summer.
@ Eric Worrall
Eric, can you help us out here.
Is this SA, that has been featured here before. Or is this more national in scope?
Here in the US, we do not know the various players.
Thanks.
Albanese is Prime Minister. Sorry, new face, I’ll add more detail.
The previous PM wanted to use the governments own generator – Snowy Hydro- to move to base load gas power at the site of a closed ( or closing) coal generator in NSW when announced last year – to the derision of the usual clowns. But nothing further came of it – as electoral politics meant hundreds of millions promised for small ‘earmarks’ and pork barrelling.
A SA style total blackout is where they are heading to however- as they had removed or were left with one last fossil fuel generator that was offline at the time.
South Australia’s electricity plan was inspired by Cortez when he landed in the Americas and burned his ships so nobody could pursue any return journey options.
The main outcome of that was to leave the native folk with fatal diseases and little else.
So South Australia blowing up its last functioning coal fired power plant was very Cortes-esque.
PM Morrison and Cabinet proposed 4 gas generators: 1 each for Victoria and Queensland and 2 in New South Wales. So far only 1 for the NSW Hunter Valley has been approved by the State Government.
One HELE coal fired power station was proposed for North Queensland and mindful of the reluctance of banks to finance fossil fuel involved projects the Federal Government also proposed under writing the finance.
Thanks for that .I could only find details for the $600 mill Kurri Kurri generator in NSW
Still won’t be enough. The power plants are still only part of the problem – unless international prices come down or they use some form of subsidies for domestic use coal and gas then this will keep happening every time there’s a spike in demand. They need to do better, much better.
Electricity supply is the primary responsibility of our State governments, they privatised what were publicly owned power stations and transmission line assets and only they can give planning approval for new projects for construction.
it seems that in the separate electricity market of West Australia they solved the problem around 20 yrs ago
All the new gas projects for export had to reserve around 15% for domestic supply with its market. It seems there is no spike in prices there
Why is Australia copying Joey Biden’s dumbass programs? Do the opposite of Joey and you will WIN WIN WIN!
‘Idiocrasy’ was not a parody. It was a documentary.
AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, has been the body dictating rules for energy producers.
AEMO was set up by COAG, Conference of Australian Governments, a mix of Federal, State and Local Governments.
Some COAG history is on Wiki –
“COAG was established by agreement between the Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers in 1992 but enjoys legal recognition neither in the Constitution nor by statute…its existence necessarily remains tenuous.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=date+coag+started&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU911AU911&oq=date+coag+started&aqs=chrome..69i57.6472j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Soon after the Federal election on 21st May, the new Federal Government on 2nd June changed COAG to NFRC, National Federation Reform Council.
COAG becomes National Cabinet | Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (pmc.gov.au)
We now have our electricity supply and future planning decided by a group that bypasses the historic way that we have been governed. Before, in a matter like this, the Federal Parliament would decide if a matter was Federal or State by the Constitution. If it was Federal, it would make laws that involved the government and opposition elected Members of Parliament debating in the House of Representatives, plus the House of Review, the Senate. If it was a State matter, the State would go through a similar routine.
By recent changes, we have COAG, now NFRC, which is a semi-commercial body, more like a company than a Parliament, making the rules. Some of the NFRC members are not elected by voters, but are appointed by diverse governments. The Federal Government has a commercial share in NFRC, possibly a controlling share, but there is no compulsory room for an Opposition presence, as I understand it. (I could be wrong, since matters are moving fast.)
In a simple view, we seem to be now working outside the constraints of the Constitution. That, by section 51 and others defines that the Federal Commonwealth has the power to make laws in respect of a number of activities. It does not state that Parliament can farm out this law making to a commercial enterprise in which it holds shares. Lawyers might note if it does not prohibit such action either. Then there is each State with its own Constitution or equivalent, which adds diversity to what a particular government might or might not be authorised to do.
I am not a lawyer, but I have had experience with governments “going rogue” to disadvantage us. It seems to me that we have started on another, rather serious episode that eminent Constitutional lawyers might want to study. Geoff S
I understand your concerns, however the AEMO is no different to the Reserve Bank of Australia dictating interest rates, thats not mentioned in Constitution either but gets by under more general powers to regulate commerce and trade.
The power companies are free to sell their product directly to larger power retailers or industrials ( and they do for 75% of power supply) , howver if they wish to sell power inside AEMOs own market trading mechanism then as they say ‘our game, our rules’
Same applies to RBA bench mark interest rates , a person or business is free to make what ever interest rate they like when lending money.
However the RBA interest or ‘cash rate is the interest rate on unsecured overnight loans between banks’ and more importantly use of the RBA own money on overnight transactions.
Duker,
Thanks for the comment.
Two wrongs do not make a right. The Reserve Bank pickle is just as bad as the AEMO structure. The Reserve is now in the hands of some dedicatees climate change pushers with links to WEF and so on. Decisions are made by unelected people with no debate by both Houses as the Constitution describes. My severe experiences showed how despotic this can be.
The question is, what advantages to pollies see in this informal structure? Remember that what is good for pollies is often bad for voters. Geoff S
“Soon after the Federal election on 21st May, the new Federal Government on 2nd June changed COAG to NFRC, National Federation Reform Council.
…
By recent changes, we have COAG, now NFRC, which is a semi-commercial body, more like a company than a Parliament, making the rules.”
This is muddled. The change to COAG happened on 2 June 2020, and was a response to Covid. It is not a commercial body; it is a consultative forum for leaders. I think the muddle is that COAG had some role in the original establishment of AEMO, which is a commercial body with defined structure. It operates the market, and so of course makes and enforces the market rules. It notes from time to time that more generation is needed, but it is not the energy planning body.
There is no constitutional issue about the role of either COAG, NERC or AEMO.
Nick,
Thank you for the date correction 2020 not 2022. The original report I read had the typo.
The rest is essentially correct. Geoff S
I cannot speak to Oz but there certainly are Constitutional issues with NERC. They have regulatory authority without being subject to the laws that govern the regulatory process, such as the Administrative Procedures Act.
This a great news. The shift to renewables has made the power system more unstable so the answer is more renewables ! Added the physical stability required of HVDC grid it also now needs financial stability, another factor to cause disruption
( its not expropriation as some think any more than the government setting of interest rates by fiat- the finance industry has a product for that , called hedging)
It just hastens the inevitable – a complete blackout like they had in south Australia when an unexpected event -like a period of very high wind ( yes really) led to sudden loss of wind generated power and the loss of grid frequency stability mean interconnected HVAC supply ( stabilised by fossil fuel) was cut by computer control to protect their system.
Energy, economy, equality, justice, education, health care — the refrain is always the same:
“The reason our Communism isn’t working is that we aren’t Communist enough yet!”
Ah, but you dare not call it communism or even socialism. Until the day you wake up in the gulag.
‘And how we burned in the camps…’
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
“We didn’t love freedom enough….. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.“
“The operator’s renewables road map was still “absolutely the right pathway for Australians to have access to the lowest cost, most reliable energy”.
Renewables? Reliable? Are they kidding me?
If wind and solar pushers had the same problem as Pinocchio, a lot of noses would stretch halfway to the Moon by now.
But AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said on Friday “the outlook from today”, in a refreshing outbreak of honesty, admitted that supply ….. remains extremely precarious, dependent on unquantifiable but obvious contingencies of weather and plant failure.[sarc]
This moron wants to get to more than 80% renewable fallacy in Australia by 2030, 8 years away. Australia produces more gas and coal than any other country. It also has the largest reserves of uranium, yet we can’t use it. Madness.
Australia has vast reserves of gas fields on shore that State Governments refuse to approve for development.
The Victoria Gippsland Gas Field for example is claimed to be larger that the off shore Bass Strait oil and gas that opened during the 1960s.
A new gas field at Narrabri NSW has been held up because of Land and Environment Court challenges by Greens groups appealing against the development approval, and all of that gas is for local use, no export.
Near the Moomba Gas Field in SA under Coober Pedy is another huge reserve the State Government has not been willing to approve for development.
Add the vast shale oil deposits in NSW and QLD locked from exploitation.
“The Victoria Gippsland Gas Field for example is claimed to be larger”
by some spruiker. Very dubious
“Land and Environment Court challenges by Greens groups appealing against the development approval, and all of that gas is for local use, no export.”
So someone says, maybe. But once it is in the pipeline network, it can go anywhere. No-one imagined that Victorian gas might end up being exported via Sydney, Moomba and Gladstone.
The Court challenge was by local farmers, not Green groups.
“Near the Moomba Gas Field in SA under Coober Pedy is another huge reserve the State Government”
Coober Pedy is not near Moomba. But here is Linc Energy walking back their original hype.
“Add the vast shale oil deposits in NSW and QLD locked from exploitation.”
In Qld, at least, they are not locked from development. There was a huge effort to develop the field in the 1990’s. It just couldn’t be made viable technically or commercially, and the firms went broke. QER has taken over the existing site and permits, but also seem to have trouble making it viable.
“No-one imagined that Victorian gas might end up being exported via Sydney, Moomba and Gladstone.” That’s the trouble with politicians. Most show either none or a few way too much imagination. 😉
Victorian gas doesn’t go for export, they have their own ports as the gas comes from under Bass St. It does supply gas to the Sydney domestic market which has its own pipeline to gas fields in SA
“which has its own pipeline to gas fields in SA”
which also connect to Gladstone. But that pipeline flow has at times been reversed. So Vic is supplying Sydney and export.
How long would Vic gas take to get there… 2 weeks ? . In practice it isnt going to happen as gas doesnt work like an electricity grid.
Victoria gas has major consumption at Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane before it could possibly ever make Gladstone. Dominant flow is from Qld to South Australia
“How long would Vic gas take to get there… 2 weeks ?“
Wut? The relevant question is how long it would take to reverse the flow.
‘“Land and Environment Court challenges by Greens groups appealing against the development approval, and all of that gas is for local use, no export.”
So someone says, maybe. But once it is in the pipeline network, it can go anywhere. No-one imagined that Victorian gas might end up being exported via Sydney, Moomba and Gladstone.
The Court challenge was by local farmers, not Green groups.’
The Yarrie Lake /Bohena Creek challenges were apparently by a combination of local stock owners who were concerned that the development would damage the shallow aquifers and green groups.
I don’t know the depths involved, so don’t know how well founded the concerns were.
From artesian bore drilling logs, the natural gas is quite deep, but I am given to understand the coal deposits for CSG are much shallower
The Maules Creek open cut coal mine would certainly have a large impact on the shallow aquifers, but don’t know the radius of this impact.
One major difference between the US oil and gas industries and Australia is that the State owns all of the mineral rights here, so there is lots of hassle but no up side for the land owners.
Water is also a scarce resource in most of Australia most of the time, so most stock water is from comparatively shallow sub-artesian aquifers.
Distance from Coober Pedy, SA to Moomba Gas and Oil Field, SA
542 km337 miles292 nautical miles
The straight line distance is shown in above table.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/trillion-shale-oil-find-surrounding-coober-pedy-can-fuel-australia/news-story/6335561639bd7f5c2f87c27d843c0bd3
Yes, that is the hype. And again here is the let-down, in the same paper
“THE company sitting on potentially significant shale oil reserves in the state’s far north has dismissed its previous claims to deliver a US-style economic boom for Australia.“
That was 2015. One year later they were put into administration.
Nick,
I don’t comment on coal, oil or gas matters because my experience is dominantly in other minerals like ,Cu Pb Zn U Au W Ni Pt Pd Bi. For most of these we found and/or worked world class deposits.
People with direct experience are better for opinions than onlookers are, no matter how good their mathematics are. Geoff S
“People with direct experience are better for opinions than onlookers are, no matter how good their mathematics are. Geoff S“
I thought that the purported WUWT metric for comments was their quality. I.e., no “appeals to authority”.
That distance is close enough for homogenising temperatures by the BOM so Dennis is right to use it for his purposes
“the outlook from today is much more healthy than it was a couple of days ago”…. Note that this was due to more coal coming back online, not additional renewables…
The politicians who complained that power station owners/operators who put profit before people stand condemned revealed their ignorance, and socialist minds.
And it doesn’t matter that he is an elected official, allegedly a public servant, with term limits, who allegedly is a peer among citizens – those words are that of a god or Emperor. For with the role, he feels that he has complete dictatorial control over all markets, and over the will and the lives of all of his subjects; that his personal ambitions can stand atop a mound of skulls of those who are sacrificed for his vanity.
YOLO only works for one guy. Your hopes, dreams, fortunes, freedoms personal ambitions are dashed to the rocks so that he can pursue his poisonous vanity.
Australians voted for slavery. Australians do not deserve to be considered a part of Western civilization, y’all are slaves and chattel who lives at the pleasure of a malevolent dictator.
To all Australians – PLEASE remember to fill all your petrol tanks, containers etc – prior to September 15th.
That is when this Australian government will re-apply the full fuel excise (currently halved) and radically increase prices.
Just over A$0.50 / litre fuel excise.
PM Albanese: “My ambition is for Australia to be a clean energy superpower”.
That accolade was claimed by Boris, in 2020 he said he wanted the UK to become “the Saudi Arabia of wind”. 😂
But June this year faced by soaring fuel and power bills for millions and the rising cost of food Johnson is prepared to ditch green policies inspired by his environmental activist wife Carrie in the wake of the cost-of-living crisis. 😢
“the Saudi Arabia of wind”
So he wasn’t a big enough blowhard to accomplish that? And we all had such high hopes, too.
You forgot the “Qatar of hydrogen”.. never sell Boris short on his ambitions..
It is very disappointing to read so many negative post here, sure clean reliable energy might cost a bit more (but only if you don’t reduce your use as you should 😠); however think of the positives: by 2030 no more bush fires, no more floods and droughts, cyclones, the Great Barrier Reef finally saved, no more summer heat waves, no more pollution and not least no more climate anxiety. Hurray.
Or, to be really happy, no more GRETA!!!!!!!
The only “clean reliable energy” for BASELOAD CONSISTENT POWER id Nuclear energy!
Green energy is heavily subsidized and you cannot make the windmills/turbines without the use of fossil fuel power! Green energy has no future for consistent baseload power!
Your sarc tag is missing. As is the obligatory straight jacket! sarc
Satire: the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues (Oxford).
For instance when Swift wrote A Modest Proposal he was not advocating that the Irish poor actually eat their children, no one at the time thought he was, even without a /sarc tag.
I somehow doubt Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intends to upset all his green friends by continuing with this plan.[Narrabri gas generator]
Well after bagging the idea noisily in Opposition Albo did do a backflip supporting the plan in the runup to the election. It was clear then he knew he’d inherit the problem of rising wholesale power prices that were increasingly apparent throughout 2022 and post covid lockdowns. His excuse for the backflip was it could run on hydrogen in future so he might tough out the Teals and Greens squawking out of absolute necessity.
Better to suffer some squawks than hear the roar of the lions.
Leak’s Look at that
Leak’s a genius, like his old man.
This builds on the comment by Tony in Oz above on the thread
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/06/in-an-emergency-we-need-coal/#comment-2558993
“Tony
I put this up on Weekend Unthreaded yesterday
“It seems to me –
If you are travelling by an ICE vehicle and you run out of fuel the solution is to add fuel from a fuel can. You wouldn’t think of up-ending an empty fuel can and hoping to continue travel.
The current prescription for solving the problem of wind and sun droughts for sun and wind (SAW) power is to build more of them – even though those droughts of sun and wind seem to occur over large areas.
But isn’t that similar to attempting to refuelling your ICE vehicle from an empty fuel can?”
From your post above
“The Nameplate for wind is 9854MW.
The Nameplate for Solar Plants is 8506MW
The Nameplate for Rooftop Solar is (around) 17,000MW.
So here we have a total Nameplate from those three renewables of 35,360MW…. a truly HUMUNGOUS total, and delivering 489MW no less, at a Capacity Factor of ….. well, who really cares.”
That is a hell of a lot of empty fuel cans being emptied at the problem!”
Fool tanks, maybe?
At the same time Coal nameplates total about 24,000mW and supplies over 70% of the demand. Renewables will need to increase by 10 fold and still will not supply 24/7.
Lie No 1: Australia recognises that climate change is not only a problem to be solved
Not ‘Australia’, just the political numpties wedded to the power-hungry UN
Lie No 2: “With gas and oil prices soaring, the case for transitioning to secure, reliable and affordable clean energy has never been stronger.
Secure, reliable and affordable clean (renewable) energy is oxymoronic in the extreme
The real reason: “My ambition is for Australia to be a clean energy superpower.”
Not Australia, him personally and we all have to pay for it. Delusions of grandeur
I have changed electricity retailer twice in a month due to their rates doubling or tripling. My new supplier has just announced their rates are increasing from July 1.
At some point, and probably not to far ahead the actual downside of ignoring truth and facts about fossil fuel will dawn on the anti capitalists.
The world is a much safer place to live, thanks to the impact of fossil fuels, When muscle power was all we had to help us, the average age of death usually from exhaustion or disease or both, was less than 40 years.. The Greens avoid ever mentioning the plusses brought to us by fossil fuel, There is a very clear reason why. The Greens/anti capitalist movement never engage in that conversation because they would lose .
They know the plusses are so real, they would not be able to demand ending energy availability, which is the driver of capitalism/wealth
Their ongoing refusal, to concede any positive associated with reliable cheap fossil fuel energy, forces them to keep pushing for green unreliable energy, claiming, it will be cheaper and so abundant for all….eventually. The facts tell us that is wishful thinking at best and downright deception at worst.
There is no way to compromise with the anti capitalist. Their misplaced ideology demands the destruction of society as we know it, that is their prime objective..
When Australia has destroyed its last reliable power generation site, they had better have a good plan in place how to resist a determined very powerful adversary that is standing by watching. That adversary may think a big country with just 26 million people barely surviving, will be an easy acquisition. Who would argue?
secure, reliable and affordable clean energy…..
that would be nuclear and gas then, right?
Fine, time for the people of Australia to force government to stop using electricity, gas and running water.
🕳When you find yourself in a hole keep digging.🕳
24/7 committment to gray energy, when the sun shine is incident upon clear panels at optimal angles and the wind blows within a viable range with nary the avian burden.
World annual Li battery production is around 1TWh. It is tipped to be 5.5TWh by 2030. That’s EVs, storage, phones and laptops. To put it into context, enough to back up the USA for 1hour assuming we divert all production to this task. It is inadequate for any major conversion to EVs let alone grid scale backup for major economies.
I used to love Aussies. The ones I’ve met seemed like the most fun and level-headed people on Earth. After Covid and now their climate lunacy, I think they must be among the dumbest people on this planet. I still love all the ones I know but, seriously, on the whole, they seemed to have lost every bit of sense they ever had. Is it something in the water?
All of the Aussies I’ve met have also been fun and level headed, but I’ve only ever met the ones that travel – I have no information whatsoever on the ‘stay at home’ Aussies.
The endless sequels to Mad Max will keep Mel Gibson busy for decades. The energy apocalypse will be the only successful product of this type of progressive political thinking.
So what do we have?
The only saving grace may be innate government incompetence which means things will progress slowly and in chaos. The terminal nature of the direction may become clear before the country disappears back into the 1800s. Even then full recovery may take decades.