Essay by Eric Worrall
As Australia’s climate and energy minister savages the idea of gas exploration, Australia’s Prime Minister is urging gas companies to keep prices under control.
PM calls on gas giants to set ‘appropriate’ prices
Jacob Greber and Elouise Fowler
Oct 14, 2022 – 4.40pmPrime Minister Anthony Albanese has fallen short of backing explicit demands from manufacturers, unions and his cabinet members for lower gas prices, saying exporters should sell supplies to businesses and households at an “appropriate” level.
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Mr Albanese said his government was “very pleased” with the response from the gas companies to pump an extra 150 petajoules of gas next year, three times the shortfall forecast by the competition watchdog in August.
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[Opposition Leader Peter Dutton] “Then we get the AWU that comes out and says that it’s a dud policy. Then we’ve got [Climate Change and Energy Minister] Chris Bowen … calling any suggestion that we should discover more gas in our country ‘BS’.
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Read more: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-calls-on-gas-giants-to-set-appropriate-prices-20221014-p5bpv4
WUWT has previously commented on Aussie Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s scientifically challenged understanding of the energy industry.
With the world experiencing a severe shortage of energy, a minority government beholden to green party support, and greedy Australian state governments savaging the fossil fuel industry with 40% royalties, on top of regular taxes, fossil fuel companies currently have zero incentive to invest in the Australian energy industry.
Australian voters need to demand our politicians get their act together, and implement policies which attract fossil fuel investment, instead of spouting lunatic green rhetoric and nakedly looting any fossil fuel player who makes a profit, otherwise Australia will end up with European style energy shortages.
And they wonder why foreign investors stay away.
The Adani Coal Mine project took over ten years to commence building of infrastructure while the debate and arguments continued including environment court challenges. The red, green and black tape regulations are a nightmare.
It must be sweet for Adani now after the 10 years of GreenLeft lawfare – often State Gov funded – plus Aussie banks pulling out on them – dozens of media articles using terms like “last nail in the coffin for Adani”.
And now with steaming coal at around ~AU$600 per ton – in the name of the prophet it must be sweet.
“World bank getting out of fossil fuel exploration 16Dec17”
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5472
Similar problem in South Africa – we have blackouts (“load shedding”) because we have insufficient fossil-fuelled generation capacity. So, the government attempts to solve it by encouraging private companies to build wind-farms or solar collectors.
Technically, we can store excess power from wind and solar for later use.
Technically, I could get off my couch and climb Mt. Everest without using oxygen.
Technically. Now reality is a lot different.
To store excess wind and solar power, there first has to be excess wind and solar power. Once you get that problem solved, then you need something to store that power in. Finally you have to find the 100’s of trillions of dollars needed to buy those storage devices. And that’s just for a few hours worth of storage.
Chris Bowen-
“the rain doesn’t always fall either, but we manage to store the water-
we can store the renewable energy if we have the investment”
Even stored hydro can be unusable when you get too much rain.
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/06/more-bad-luck-snowy-hydro-cant-run-much-because-it-has-too-much-water/
Now that there is FUNNY.
For me, anyway, I don’t live there.
OOOhhh, he’s going against a recognized Climate Authority with the statement about water! Everyone knows even if the rain falls, it won’t fill Australia’s dams and river systems. Can’t go against Tim Flannery on that one.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/even-the-rain-that-falls-isnt-actually-going-to-fill-our-dams-and-our-river-systems/news-story/5e5fd7afce648e1e9dea889f5fcdca06
They can store the excess energy where the sun don’t shine, as far as I can tell that is the idea.
Technically, I could get off my couch and climb Mt. Everest without using oxygen.
Well Sherpa we can grow orchids on top of Ayers Rock with water from towed Antarctic icebergs but there’s sound economic reasoning why we don’t. Leftys no doubt think that’s only down to bad Rainbow Serpent Dreaming climbing the Rock.
Below Gippsland Victoria more gas than the original Bass Strait gas and oil field when it commenced operations. Even more below Coober Pedy South Australia east of the Moomba Gas Fields now using fracking to extract the remaining gas. Various other locations.
Substantial oil bearing shale fields in Queensland and New South Wales.
Most of Australia is not exploited for natural resources because governments will not allow it, too bad about the owners, the voters who elect the representatives who behave like a mob of sheep owned by globalists and the well meaning representatives sidelined for not supporting the mob.
There is 100 years of gas in East Gippsland alone. Not allowed to drill it…
Ditto off the coasts of South Africa. Not allowed to do seismic blasting because “it may disturb the rest of the ancestors’ ghosts who live under the sea”. Yep – a bunch of locals (plus activists) got a court order on those grounds.
The Ozzie Fed Gov of which Albo is the PM does have power over exports. It is a big stick that they would rather not be forced to use hence he is talking softly but I bet the gas exporters execs & accountants understand his meaning exactly.
By the way, at a Labor Party Conference this weekend the PM repeated his never ending story about being raised by a single mother living in a rented public housing dwelling, no mention again of his age pensioner grandparents who held the lease.
The poor lad.
I forgot, how many millions is his property portfolio, now?
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how many houses in Labor politicians’ investment property portfolios have solar panels installed?
He’s back in public housing…It’s called “The Lodge”, the official residence of the Australian Prime Minister in the A.C.T. 100% paid for by Australian taxpayers. Finally, Aussie Joe is “back home”…
And the PM’s second official residence, Kirribilli House alongside Admiralty House Sydney on the norther shore of Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour, almost opposite the Sydney Opera House and Botanical Gardens.
How is it he was able to go from rags to riches? Did he have a lucrative career before entering politics?
“After completing his economics degree in 1984,[34] Albanese took on a role as a research officer to the then Minister for Local Government, Tom Uren who became a mentor to him. In 1989, the position of Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party became vacant when John Faulkner was elected to the Senate. The election to replace him was closely disputed between the Labor Left’s Hard Left and Soft Left groupings, with Albanese being elected with the backing of the Hard Left, taking on that role for the next six years.[ In 1995, he left the position to work as a senior adviser to New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.
In 1990 Albanese bought a semi-detached two-bedroom house in the Inner West Sydney suburb of Marrickville.”
His former wife was a Labor Deputy Premier of New South Wales.
In short, no private sector involvement reported.
Thanks, Dennis.
A friend of mine at the director level in one of the US’s largest oil companies said one and done. They participated in a huge oil development project there, and said the costs of so doing were so extraordinary they would never go back. Workers and government were absolute vampires.
Industrial relations laws and unions = workers.
State and local governments are the major problem, Federal not so much but still not helpful most of the time, particularly Union managed and controlled Labor governments and Greens.
I did some maths this morning for doing 2 days of battery storage for Australia. The answer $132 trillion or thereabouts at least. Based on the 100MW battery that cost $90 million. Not price rises due to expanded usage.
Don’t forget, it’s a recurring cost! That’s $13 trillion a year forever. Over half a million dollars from each man woman and child in Australia. Every year.
No worries, she’ll be right, mate!
How on Earth did it come to cost that much?
It’s now possible to get a big lump of LiFePO4 battery at a, delivered to UK, price of 28Watt hours per GBP (16 pieces of 320Ah at 3.2Volts is quoted at £578)
So I get, for 2 days storage, a cost of GBP44 Billion
and for a whole year = GBP8 Trillion
For cells reckoned to be good for 4,000+ cycles
My error that should be billions.
The starting point for storage for a wind and solar grid for NEM is at least 10TWh. Installed cost is around US$500/kWh, so that would be US$5 trillion. Every 10 years, until the lithium runs out..
I believe the government English Lit. graduates assume they will recycle lithium and all the other needed materials.
Alby fiddling while Australia burns (does not burn?).
That was 6 months ago.
(South-east) Australia has moved from being a land of “droughts (and/or wildfires)” to one of “flooding rains” … again.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/gallery/2022/oct/14/australia-floods-again-a-week-of-rain-around-the-country-in-pictures
“That was 6 months ago.”
2019 was the year of the last good burn-off.
Doubt you could get anything to burn on the Eastern coast at the moment… its all water-logged.
I’m sure they feel able to delude themselves when you get reports like this
https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/resilient-low-carbon-energy-system-possible-by-2035-but-increased-demand-flexibility-needed
Note it is calling for increased power cuts already, and it only covers a single day in winter and a single day in summer. It is completely silent on what happens when you get a 10 day windless cold spell, let alone a year with below average wind speeds. It’s delusional stuff, but politicians fall for it.
An obvious opening for a franchise of this
“Asshole Consulting
Want to be lied to? Hire a regular consultant. Want the truth? Hire an asshole.”
https://assholeconsulting.com/
When you dig behind Regen you find it is a National Grid sock puppet, with NG staff on its board and NG funding. Of course, you will note that the proposed solutions require copious investment in grid assets.
I’ve used that image as one of my profiles, Fox News.
Easy. In 7 years the UK will deploy new, currently undeveloped technologies, wildly expensive and inadequate existing technologies, rebuild the entire grid and get residential, commercial and industrial customers to radically and completely change their lifestyles, business practices and retool all industries.
Have they never heard of the Iron Law of Politics? You are not getting reelected by inflicting pain on voters. Push will come to shove soon in the UK and EU. You will have the Leftist zealots that have been running things vs common voters. Right now the Leftist zealots can get you defeated at the polls if you don’t toe the Marxist line. It is my belief, however, that 2022/23 will be a watershed moment; they can’t hide the pain nor convincingly blame others.
Someone should explain to him that the “appropriate” price is the one determined by a free market for the commodity in question. A government created shortage necessarily increases the “appropriate” price.
It’s astounding that a PM would think that a producer could “set the price”. Is Econ 101 not taught Down Under?
Albo is a socialist.
Any CEO attempting to reduce profits will get booted by the stockholders. In the commodities businesses one must earn enough in the good times to carry one over the lean times.
Renewable drivers, Green energy blight. Reduce? Reuse? Recycle?
“Australia will end up with European style energy shortages. ”
Seems to be “their” plan ….
They want to have their cake, eat their cake, and find even more cake waiting afterwards. We are electing spoiled children, not critical thinking adults.
I thought we were getting authoritarian overlords elected by any means necessary.
They lie, cheat, and steal elections. It has been proven to be the case in the U.S. (see the movie 2000 Mules), at least to my satisfaction, and it may be in other countries as well.
I have a hard time believing that these politicians are elected in fair elections.
Nah, there are that many clueless voters. A little cheating always helps, though.
Either you have a poor estimation of the populace or I’m overly optimistic.
It is the propaganda we are constantly fed. Now that the lamestream media is full-on Leftist and aligned with the Democrat Party and the social media platforms, that’s the only “information” the average voter sees.
“Renewable” Energy
“Ephemeral” energy
Good, but, now, the qualifying ” ” are not necessary, so,
Ephemeral Energy. 🙂
How long are the Australian people going to put up with these crackpots?
It’s almost like Australia is being experimented on for compliance to a new world order. Their C19 lockdowns were draconian and complete with military patrols, drone surveillance of residential neighbourhoods, locking people into apartment buildings while also restricting their online purchases, and gratuitous police violence. All with a compliant populace.
Now in a country with vast energy resources, they are told to expect blackouts and intermittent energy while spending extra trillions for those crumbs. What’s wrong with Australians?
That was Victoria. They’re a peculiar lot.
Thanks for the C19, Elliot.
Unfortunately, Australian voters continue the great tradition of electing a majority of Drongos to the Australian Parliaments.
That’s so they can continue the great tradition of complaining about the useless politicians.
… because the increasingly welfare dependent / enslaved tend to “vote” for yet more and bigger “givernment” rather than good government?
Former Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, who left the party to be an independent in frustration about the mob mentality prevailing said recently on his Sky News programme that unless MPs do what they are told they are sidelined, they will never be appointed to Cabinet.
There are several like him in Federal Parliament today and others in State Parliaments, they do speak out in opposition to the prevailing political nonsense like climate hoax but have no influence within the parties that supported them to be elected as candidates for the electorates they represent.
Australia uses most of the UK Westminster system of government with some US system included, the voting system in the UK is first past the post or primary votes only required.
In Australia compulsory preferential voting is used and often in marginal electorates particularly a candidate with the most primary votes loses to another candidate with fewer primary votes but a large share of preferences distribution.
And in the Senate the States each have an equal number of Senate seats so in low population states and with preferences distributed minor party candidates and independents have a much better chance of winning a seat.