Essay by Eric Worrall
As ordinary Australians reel from skyrocketing energy prices, and our electricity network hovers on the brink of collapse, the Australian Government is moving to block future coal and gas projects.
Climate impacts could block fossil fuel projects under Plibersek change
By Mike Foley, Laura Chung and Nick Toscano
Updated November 4, 2022 — 5.43pmThe global warming impact of fossil fuels will, for the first time, be factored into the federal government’s environmental assessments as Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek opens the possibility of coal and gas projects being blocked due to climate change.
…
Until now, federal government assessments only considered a project’s impacts on native wildlife and ecosystems.
However, prompted by a potential legal challenge being launched by the Environment Council of Central Queensland, the government will now consider public comment on climate impacts on the projects, which are all seeking federal approval for their proposed developments.
…
The coal and gas projects to face greater environmental scrutiny are worth billions of dollars, including Whitehaven’s Narrabri underground coal mine extension in NSW, BHP’s Saraji metallurgical coal mine in Queensland, Glencore’s proposed Valeria coal mine and Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal Alpha North mine in the Galilee Basin.
…
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said there would be enough supply to prevent blackouts over the weekend, but Mining and Energy Union Queensland vice president Shane Brunker said the outages created a risk of blackouts if wet weather disrupts other electricity generation or if hot weather increases power demand.
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Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/labor-will-reassess-approval-of-almost-20-new-coal-and-gas-projects-20221104-p5bvke.html
Phrases like “lunatics running the asylum” come to mind.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s comment about enough supply for the weekend is a reference to a severe outage of all four units at Australia’s decrepit Callide coal plant. The plant is scheduled to close in 2028.
The plan is to replace the plant’s 1.7GW of dispatchable output with renewable energy.
One unit of Callide has been out of action since last year, when a hydrogen coolant explosion crippled one of the four power generation units, leading to widespread East Coast power outages.
Australia is that close to grid failure, that an outage at a single coal plant could cause the East Coast grid to collapse – and the people in charge want to throw even more roadblocks in the path of resilience and supply.
Excellent, although I do feed bad for the Aussies. But they did vote for this. Democracy!
I prefer it when disastrously bad Progressive policy is experimented with very far away from me.
You are right, everyone who voted Labor, Greens or Teals, this is what you were promised. So when the lights go out, the govt tells you to drive a EV, you can’t afford your groceries, mortgage or fuel, suck it up and remember you are saving the planet.
true but the sane among us did NOT vote for them
that said I see the campaign against dans hotting up
Seems the majority are into a Gummint of symbolic gestures at present-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/reckless-coal-firms-plan-climate-busting-expansion-study-finds/ar-AA13Ln2c
A few serious summer power Greenouts will sort that out but in the meantime existing fossil fuel extractors will clean up with barriers to entry.
And with plenty of uranium deposits, still no nuclear power plant.
Nuclear is too expensive, according to Australian politicians. They ignore nuclear success stories like France.
But one is not to ask what wind and solar are costing, let alone storage.
Storage? What storage.
Storage is mostly vaporware.
Nuclear Powered Water Reactors (NPWR) of the Uranium type are expensive because they are all designed different. There is a cheaper type of nuclear reactor and that is Molten Salt Reactors.
Molten Salt Reactors For the win.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Just buy a standard turn-key Korean reactor, like the Emirates did.
“Uranium type are expensive because they are all designed different.”
And Molten Salt Reactors are all one design? From your link:
Some designs use U235 rather than thorium anyway, but the main point is that the designs are all vapourware, because not one is producing any electricity anywhere. They are cheap because they don’t exist. The only one close to maturity is the Chinese TMSR-LF1, and that is a 2MW experimental prototype, initially U235 powered.
Not to be too negative, I do think the idea has a lot of promise but really doubt we will see one providing over a GW of electricity in this decade.
When I was in a university studying physical chemistry I learned from a Nuclear Chemist that a prototype molten salt reactor had been developed at Oak Ridge but that the US Federal Government had discontinued funding because it didn’t offer a reasonable pathway to weapons grade fissile material–this was more than a half century ago. Politics killed American Molten Salt Reactors.
Dan Kurt
Molten Salt Reactors means several types and in addition these MSR’s will still be cheaper than the existing PWR’s or LWR’s, because they will not have the pressurised components. In addition, MSR’s have numerous other benefits as well.
Regardless of whether the MSR’s exist or not at the present stage, they will be built and MSR’s designs are vapourware? Absolutely wrong, Oak Ridge National Laboratories built one in the 60’s and produced heat. If heat is produced then electricity can be generated from this heat.
You rightly mentioned the Chinese TMSR-LF! and it has been given permission to start up. They are also involved with more designs for the future.
China is not the only country in the process of building or designing MSR’s. Indonesia’s TMSR-500 is being built or just about to start[1]. There are at least 17 other countries that are in involved in the design or research of MSR’s [2][3]
Not too negative? With a throw away barbs like “They are cheap because they don’t exist” and “but the main point is that the designs are all vapourware”. Yes you are being totally negative. MSR’s will be built and show a lot more promise than solar or wind, ever will.
Regards
Climate Heretic
[1] <a href=”https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/01/174503.html”>Indonesia’s MSR</a>
[2]<a href=”https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/17-countries-cooperating-on-molten-salt.html”>17 Countries</a>
[3] <a href=”https://aris.iaea.org/sites/MSR.html”>Other Countries</a>
Climate Heretic, thank you for elaborating further. Perhaps we are more in agreement than I thought, and I didn’t mean to imply the technology can’t work.
But – none the less, they still don’t exist yet. The Oak Ridge MSRE experiment produced no electricity and was only ~8MW. Perhaps it was killed by politics as Dan Kurt suggests, but it wasn’t taken further in the US. From your link, the UK had a go and that too was canned.
The technology is still too immature IMHO. There is not one running today, so the promise that they are cheaper is all it is. So – I’m standing by my belief that there will not be one producing significant amounts of electricity before 2030.
Best wishes to you.
Thank you for your reply. It was appreciated. Yes, I agree with you it will be a long while before MSR’s will take over. However, they will take over eventually. Why? Because fossil fuels will run out eventually.
In the articles and videos politics was mentioned as one of the reasons MSR’s at ORNL was canned and at the time the technology was not mature enough.
Fifty years have been wasted. Cost or production of electricity for MSR’s can be determined on the basis from Indonesia and China foray into MRR’s. Only time will tell how successful MSR’s will be.
I reiterate that China has one ready to start (consider it as working) and a 373 MWt by 2030.[1] 373MW is not insignificant!
Best wishes to you also.
Regards
Climate Heretic
[1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-molten-salt-reactor-cleared-for-start-up
Recent news on that front, the French government wants to build six new EPR’s (Evolutionary Power Reactor) in France and to speed up the process they are proposing to simplify the administrative rules. (Don’t hold your breath on that one)
A bill integrating all these measures was presented to the Council of Ministers last Wednesday.
Deceased long-term Labor prime minister (1983 – 1991) Bob Hawke saw the potential for Oz to act as the world’s “safe harbour” for uranium mining, transportation, use and storage of spent fuel.
The geography and relatively stable uranium-rich geological status of the continent made it ideal for becoming a nuclear “safe space” that the whole world could avail itself of.
Now I think that Hawkey had too many misplaced socialist leanings, but on the nuclear topic he was clear-eyed and rational.
Pity he led a party of imbeciles, many of whom still wield influence in the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
As is starkly evident now.
Mr
As one who discussed the Australian uranium scene with Bob Hawke and his colleagues at the relevant time period, I can assure you that he never intended to support or promote uranium.
I am not turned on by two-faced, insincere people with snouts in the trough and personal morals of alley cats.
You are free to differ, but if you rely on what you have been fed by the media, you are quite distant from reality. Geoff S
I guess we’ll never know now Geoff.
Ahh… those were the days, when Australia could still elect a World Beer-Drinking Champion as prime minister.
How the mighty have fallen.
and while we sell a lot of it we STILL cant get a storage facility done cos of greens and aboriginals
The whole idea is NOT to having a functioning economy so nuclear can’t be used as it will mean retaining normality.
I live in Melbourne, Victoria. It’s criminal that a resource rich country like Australia, is being driven into the ground by green dreams, while our politicians refuse to acknowledge the energy disaster in Europe. Insanity We have become the dumbest nation in the world, and it tales a lot of beating to take that title from New Zealand!
Michael, do you think there any chance Dan will get the boot on the 26th?
The state Liberals are in lockstep on climate issues.
Unlikely Eric. But you never know!
Who for? Nobody knows the name of the guy who’s running against him.
Michael thank you for conceding that you have won the race to the bottom .
I don’t really think that either of our nations are dumb, but we sure have some dumb politicians between our countries who have duped the voting public .
The most useless of politicians are helped by a compliant news media which publishes every scare story about climate.
Our Prime Nut minister on her first week in office announced that she had a ‘nuclear moment ” promptly stopping any further oil and gas exploration and development off our coast here in NZ .
What a useless virtue signal that gave her publicity around the world .
What the world is not told is that when we have a year with less rain Huntly Power station has to be used to generate electricity to prevent power cuts.
Some generators are on gas piped from Taranaki but most are still on coal .The station sits above a major coal field but most mines have been closed .
Over a million tonnes of poor quality coal had to be imported from Indonesia to run the station .
The emissions from the coal plus the shipping and cartage would be twice as much as converting all the generators and using the gas that is piped from Taranaki.
The idiots in charge were going to demolish the Huntly Power station but this has been extended to 2025 ?
Politicians in both our countries are elected to do the best for their country .
They are not elected to bow and scrape before the UN.
They are failing to run our counties .
Australian federal politicians are suckers for international approval and flattery, they love nothing more that hobnobbing with the great and the good at international conferences and are easily ‘duchessed’ by foreign leaders who don’t necessarily have Australia’s best interests at heart.
I am sure that they only have their interests at heart .
Nice reply Graham.Agree its the politicians. I have 2 great NZ buddies living in Sydney. It troubles them what is happening to their beloved country. Will Adern win at the next poll?
I hope that the opposition grow some ”” and tell the electorate that the world needs food that New Zealand can produce with the lowest Carbon foot print in the world .
When Ardern was first elected to our parliament she was the President of the International Union of Socialist Youth.
That should raise a red flag for electors . She has support from the cities as they believe that she will protect them from climate change .
She has very little support in the rural electorates as she and the crazy Green Party cohorts want to destroy New Zealands agricultural exports in the name of
saving the world from climate change .
Her government want to plant the back country farms into pine trees which will never be harvested called Carbon farming.
This will destroy communities and reduce exports of food and wool to the world .
You can’t get much more stupid than this .
Straight from the socialist play book.
Eric, watch the results of the November 8 USA midterm election to see how to deal with pretentious schist heads. Alarming how the supposedly civilized countries are spiraling downward, totally out of control. November 8, wait for it.
I hope so Ron.
Ron, I agree with you. Isn’t it amazing how many of our world leaders seem to be nut jobs? I may soon be persuaded that a conspiracy is at the bottom of this all this craziness. Let us hope we US voters put a crimp in their plans Tuesday. VOTE!
AGW defector Michael Shellenberger describes the WEF and its Davos conferences as –
“a festival for incompetent narcissists”
In a sane universe Klaus Schwab would be a parody.
Don’t get your hopes up too high, there will still be Collins, McConnell, Murkowsky, and Romney, all of whom are likely to side with Biden on a bipartisan failure instead of doing something good for the working & middle class voters.
The DoE is gearing up to stop production of gas heating units for homes. Don’t think the Rs will throw a huge wrench in that. Another swamp project that can bubble along under the surface to emerge when the political winds blow the other way.
Eff the DoE (I used to work for the clowns) and everybody else in the ruinables game. I locked in a sweetheart deal for the local utility to buy my desert SW-generated excess solar at above-market rates in perpetuity. Highly efficient A/C means I buy minimal power from the utility in the summertime. I sell alot of winter-generated solar to them because I heat with cheap gas. I assume that before everything goes tits-up we will have a majority of politicians scrambling to get voters what they demand in food and energy.
You may have to wait longer than November 8. Mail-in ballots will “take much longer” to count (read: fraudulently alter) them. There are already signs of another election debacle. It may trigger some serious violent protests.
🏃Looks like the “climate change” migration will be from developed countries committing economic suicide to 3rd World countries still willing to use fossil fuels.🏃
The Marxists have spent a century embedding their ideology around the world. Their plan now is to destroy Democracy and the people along with it so they can build their Socialist utopia. AGW is just one vehicle to accomplish their goal.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
~ Sir Winston Churchill.
Palaszczuk and Plibersek are both leftist Ecoloons bent on Social and Economic destruction in Australia.
So who, pray tell, elected them????? You get what you pay for.
Let us remind ourselves here that Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 by way of a democratic election in Weimar Germany. As much as we all might believe in democracy, it assumes that voters know what they are doing when they go to the polls. The current U.S. president might be seen as another example considering his cognitive issues.
It has been said that democracy is self-correcting. We will have to wait and see to what degree that is actually true.
Not exactly. He came to power in a series of backroom deals once “democracy” in Germany sort of ground to a halt (The NDSAP never garnered more than about 30% of the vote). Sort of like scum rising mysteriously to the surface of a murky pond. Then once safely in power he used emergency powers, and a very convenient Reichstag fire, to end democracy in a democratic way.
Hitler never believed in democracy he just used it to take over Germany .
Just like a lot of these eco loons masquerading as greens .
They dupe people telling little old ladies that they will look after the environment but without affordable energy and affordable food many people will perish which is in their master plan as they believe that there are far to many of us on this planet .
“Sort of like scum rising mysteriously to the surface of a murky pond.”
Like Biden in 2020.
William
It is related to:-
In hard times we need strong leaders.
Strong leaders create easy times.
Easy times create weak leaders.
Weak leaders create hard times.
In Australia we have had an unprecedented run of easy times.
There is a whole generation of new voters , who have never experienced hard times. Sooner or later this block of voters is going to experience the change to hard times.
Well said Waza.
true the hysterics over 5% interst rates is amusing me I had just bought in 91 at 7% and a yr later it was at 14%
amazing how many older folks have alzheimers on that and the young have no idea at all
Don’t forget blowin Bowen who has no idea about grid systems yet he wants to make Australia 100% renewable. He is just an ignorant green zealot.
Are you sure thats her name Pli Berserk?
It seems Australia and the UK are in competition for the most loony support of climate policies.
GO AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!!!
The UK’s second place is the first loser.
At least it is warm in Australia – when I read the political winds a decade ago, that was the deciding factor.
Any updates on the power bill situation?
I was considering spending some time in Aus when I retired last year. Changed my mind after I saw what happened during covid.
No change on the energy front here. Very mild October though.
mild? nights at .3 to 4 c isnt mild days around 15 at best
How about banning climate science fraud, agenda science, and science censorship?
The irony here is that the mines are being blocked under the guise of “duty of care”. However, the CO2 generated by these mines would be immeasurable to the climate, whilst the ecomonic impacts to all Australians would be enormous.
Anyone under age 60 should start learning Chinese !!
Mandarin or Cantonese?
Or Russian?
Regards
Climate Heretic
We here in Australia had a Prime Minister who could speak fluent Mandarin. I think that is when he sold us out to the Chinese.
With winter approaching Biden is promising to replace coal and oil with wind and solar.
He also repeats the lie that wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-says-coal-plants-all-across-america-will-shut-down-replaced-with-wind-solar
Back in April annual coal export values were expected to break a record of AUD 110 billion but the most recent forecast is AUD 122 billion:
Thermal coal AUD 62 billion.
Metallurgical coal AUD 60 billion.
‘For me but not for thee’ has been reversed in Australia, when it comes to cheap abundant energy it is OK for export markets China Japan India etc. but not for most Australians, that is government policy.
Can’t believe what i see ‘consider public comment’ So instead of deciding what is right to do and leading the way the government will trawl through twitter and find what the ignorant think about it
DAB
Thanks.
It is terrifying.
And, here in the UK, at least (elsewhere, too, perhaps), the politicised Civil Service aids and abets with slanted [or ignorant] briefings, like the Attenborough Special on ‘Climate’ they gave Boris – who still can’t tell a MWh from a Macaroon even with the help of Twenty Questions.
Auto
DAB – “consider public comment” means that government goes through a process that appears to be gathering public comment, then does what they were going to do anyway.
Mad Max documentary movies coming to a theater near you soon.
Watch out, Australian fishers — you may find these jackasses expect you to bring back and sell wishes.
It’s criminal.
… There ought to be a law
(h/t ac/dc)
The whole kick fossil fuels movement reminds me of the Prohibition Era. Sounds great on paper but outcomes won’t be as promised.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t last 13 years before the real enlightenment occurs.
Unfortunately, stupidity has been around in Australia for a lot more than 13 years.
Meanwhile here in the US with the midterm elections less than 4 days away, Brandon says: “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America.”
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1588622296171757569/vid/1280×720/VFB3Bx9yZxg7hawv.mp4?tag=14
This after Trump holds a huge rally in Latrobe, PA which is in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal belt.
Well, the engineering and utility scale grid companies think Australia is going to be a green energy pot of gold.
I had a quick look at SEEK jobs under a search I typed I titled “GRID CONNECTION ENGINEER”.
There’re currently 73 positions available for that one engineering skill set from many companies including —
Spencer Odgen
Todae Solar
ADP Engineerinng
Zero Emissions Developments
Tesla Grid
Polyglot Group
Chelion Australia Pty Ltd
…and many others.
I’ve copied part of the description of one of the companies recruiting — Doosan GridTech – from one of their position descriptions.
Principal Engineer – Power Systems / Team Leader
Doosan GridTech™ delivers innovative control and optimisation software and services to electric utilities and independent power producers, helping them turn distributed energy resources such as energy storage and solar PV into valuable contributors to grid reliability and economically. We aim to be the global leader in delivering technology solutions for the emerging digital, distributed grid, a critical component of the world’s clean energy future.
“Well, the engineering and utility scale grid companies think Australia is going to be a green energy pot of gold.”
If you are a “renewable energy” subsidy “farmer” Australia is the place to be. While Germany is pulling down a massive wind farm to extend a coal mine Australia is hell bent on leaving coal, oil and gas in the ground for Australians but happy to sell it to Asia. Grid scale nuclear will never happen in Australia
and not one of them will be aussie owned
So when Australia faeds away to pre-industry, is the continent up for grabs? ‘Cause the UK won’t be coming to their aid with battery powered warships.
The Chinese are way ahead of you there.
But but but . . .
The Royal Navy is investing in some ve-e-e-ry looooooong electric leads.
Provided the Chinese will sell them to us.
Provided we can pay for them, too, I suppose.
Oh, and provided the wind blows here [it’s Britain, so it might not be very sunny, especially at night. Oddly!].
Auto
And provided nobody cuts them.
Thanks for the reminder, Vlad!
Auto, suitably corrected.
It’s going to be a painful mistake, hope it doesn’t cost to many lives.
We haven’t seen anything, yet. This is just the beginning. When this energy (Oil and gas) “crisis” bites fully there is an estimate of 1-1.5 billion people will be on the move. Where to?
The nearest EV charging stations?
There won’t be any capacity in the grid to charge them. And it looks like Australia will follow the UK and impose taxes on EV’s, putting aside the very expensive power needed to charge these things.
I still buy petrol(gas) for my car as I don’t drive much. I wonder how long that will last?
There is a new saying which conjures up something to describe the dumbest of the dumb.
“AS DUMB AS AN AUSSIE”.
Nah. The Brits, Yanks, Germans, Kiwis and Canadians are waaaay dumber the Aussies.
I hope Tanya does just that because it will make Labor’s demise at the next election that much more certain. As electricity prices climb and businesses go bust even the most uninterested will start to take notice. The sooner we hit bottom the sooner some common sense might prevail. It may even give our opposition a stiffer spine to start talking nuclear in a coherent way. Tanya’s attack on mining would of course slow down our move to renewables if, and I stress if, she is really concerned for the environment. Loss of coal and gas income will make it much harder for Labor to fund it’s pet projects. Could be a win win for the conservatives if they have the metal to take advantage.
This is probably just talk to make voters feel better. Or to keep them off the government’s back. I doubt any of this has any substance.
yeah Albos a cretin and following arderrns a**kissing visit and the stupid stupid man as energy minister whos massively UNqualified to evensweep a street
throw in palletstacker and pliebersek and its a losing hand for aussies
we actually NEED the powercos to cut supply and wake em up
id be happy to cook on an outdoor barbie using sticks rather than see this mob get their greentard way.
damn that said Id lose a lot of food in freezers;-((
I actually see this as a good development: The basis of CAGW can be attacked during each and every governmental review of proposed energy generation facilities. Additionally, subsidies for ruinables can likewise be challenged during their environmental reviews.
Never stop your enemies when they are making mistakes. Leftists always push things too far.
We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan before the year is out.