Essay by Eric Worrall
Aussie Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is confident the grid will remain reliable as dispatchable generators are decommissioned, despite official reports which warn there are big problems.
Chris Bowen responds to AEMO report that predicts energy shortfalls if not enough investment
By ELLEN RANSLEYFEDERAL POLITICS REPORTER @RansleyEllen
NCA NEWSWIRE
9:55AM FEBRUARY 21, 2023Chris Bowen has sought to allay fears the east coast could exceed its energy capacity by the end of the decade.
The Australian Energy Market Operator on Tuesday released an updated Electricity Statement of Opportunities report that warned of electricity supply shortages if renewable projects lagged behind the closure of fossil fuel plants.
…
“Urgent and ongoing investment in renewable energy, long-duration storage and transmission is needed to reliably meet demand from Australian homes and businesses.”
But the Energy Minister is optimistic the government is working fast to ensure there is clean, reliable energy available to fill the gaps left by retiring coal fire stations.
“AEMO is correctly pointing out that there is still much, much more work to do,” Mr Bowen told ABC Radio.
“I mean, in nine months have we fixed every single reliability gap for the next decade? No, there’s more work to do.
“Am I pleased with what we’ve done? Yes. Am I yet satisfied? No.”
…
Read more: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/chris-bowen-responds-to-aemo-report-that-predicts-energy-shortfalls-if-not-enough-investment/news-story/23c45b4b2de359af5a4d01c6a2c122a3
The animated image at the top of the page was excerpted from the following video, in which Chris Bowen explains we can store electricity like water.
The Australian Energy Market Operator warning which triggered this response is available here.
According to Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood, responding to the AEMO warning, “What they are trying to say is they need gas“.
It is obvious to anyone with a grasp of the issues, that renewables and batteries haven’t got a hope of replacing decommissioned coal power plants, on anything like the required timescale.
In my opinion, betting on gas plants to be ready on time to replace the soon to be decommissioned coal plants, while slightly saner than betting on renewables, is still a wildly optimistic position. Australia is not a place where construction happens quickly, especially when construction companies which drag their feet would be in a position to extort large hurry up payments from the government.
Even if the gas plants were constructed in time, where would the gas come from? Gas shortages on the East Coast of Australia are a major issue, thanks to government hostility to fracking.
What can I say? There is a reason I have a big backup generator, and a large, legally maintained private supply of fuel.
All the handwaving in the world is not going to save the Aussie electric grid, if Bowen and his fellow travellers don’t start listening to people who can talk intelligently about the engineering issues, instead of leaping to dismiss concerns with meaningless platitudes.
The world is increasingly ruled by nut jobs or people who have been bought.
“increasingly”?
It actually used to be less than 100%.
If by any chance someone gets to the top who doesn’t play by the rules of those behind the curtain all dirt will be used to eliminate that person. If they can’t control you you’re not welcome in this puppet show. Remember that they can print all they need to corrupt/buy the system. What do you think causes inflation ?
You are absolutely right.
Chris Bowen is not an idiot, but he is a perfect example of being UNQUALIFIED to be in that position.
He knows nothing about the analysis, design and operation of ANY energy systems.
He should keep his mouth shut regarding technology and electric systems
He grew up in Smithfield in Western Sydney, attending Smithfield Public School and St Johns Park High School.
He graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of ECONOMICS.
He has also a Master’s Degree in International Relations and a Diploma in Modern Languages (Bahasa Indonesia).
So…very few investors will sign up without government guarantees. So between taxpayer dollars and consumer costs, this guy is telling you how he is going to make Utopia happen. Has he asked any engineer acquaintances what they think the numbers will work out to ?
He only talks & listens to social engineers.
There are legions of them in the Fabian Society (of which most Labor Party operatives are members).
https://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FabianSociety&C=1.0
He will probably not be around at the end of the decade (hopefully)
Scientists report that Global Warming(tm) will have made Canberra unlivable by the end of the decade.
Population respond by releasing CO2.
Sorry Crying Chris, seems it was worse then we thought and it is already too late. Bye Bye!
(/mock)
we can hope
however he will have done a LOT of damage before we can boot his butt out Im sure
They’re planning all this, but the technology that they suppose will be required for this (net zero by 2050?) has not even been invented yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdYclLoIhpU
And the required upgrades to the transmission systems, also supposedly to be completed by 2030 have not even been costed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN7PXJnXntg
Knowing the speed at which government work occurs, the likelihood that any of this will be completed by 2030 is zero. They will, however, have spent at least the full budget and likely several multiples of it by that time.
And changed the country into a third world dictatorial sh t hole. Covid has proven that they can and will.
“Gas shortages on the East Coast of Australia are a major issue, thanks to government hostility to fracking.”
It has nothing to do with fracking. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of LNG, including big exports from the East Coast network. We produce about three times as much gas as we use. Any gas shortages, as the links note, are due to a decision to export rather than supply the local market.
Fracking would increase the supply, but yahoos favor “conservation” and green prayer wheels.
The funny thing is that in his next breath, Nick will tell you about how CO2 is killing the planet, so we must do everything possible to eliminate CO2 emissions.
I know a lot of farmers who arent on the short green bus who want to use their land n water safely. you might get paid for use of land for mines etc in usa but we? get stuff all but the inconvenience
Yet the Pillaga / Narrabri gas project, earmarked for use within NSW, has been help up for ages by the Greens and other anti-energy morons.
Australia has let 90% of its gas reserves be controlled by a mere handful of large companies with LNG interests. It should work to create a properly competitive market with more suppliers. It could then hope to replicate the US situation.
Are you saying Aus gas is controlled by crony capitalism, not free enterprise?
free enterprise?
oh yeah like the monopoly control you have in usa?
some dude manages to do ok then buys up all competitors and controls the market and then govt by stealth…gates zuckie bezos style?
yeah thats SO free and fair..
theres damned good reason to control the size of corporations
downunder our dairies are going under like no ones biz and a LOT of that is the very few corporations buying them up trashing them and moving on
Fonterra is the worst offender but canadian and chinese are well into it as well.
butter today 4.50 per 125 grams EIGHTEEN$ a kilo
thats what the better aged cheese cost this time last yr
cheese is now moving to 30 or so at the speed of rises recently
It’s your fiat currency that is printed into worthlessness. It is the hidden tax all Big Governments use to not pay their debt. Killing everyone’s savings in the process.
1) Monopolies are impossible without government support.
2) There is no monopoly in anything in the US.
3) When are you going to stop putting ideology ahead of reality?
Nick, the Australian grid didn’t need all the gas being extracted when the export contracts were entered into.
The were sufficient reliable coal-fired power plants still working & producing all the electricity required.
And the wind & solar grifters came onto the scene, and it’s all (predictably) gone to shit since then.
Here is a plot of gas production vs consumption. It is hard to imagine at what stage someone wrote all those contracts and then said, hey, we never thought you might need some too. In fact gas production expanded to provide for export. Victorian gas, which had supplied locals for fifty years, is now being depleted for export.
More production would solve the shortages. There is a limit to how much can be exported.
What is the limit? They have shown great ability to increase exports so far.
If there are shortages when we produce three times what we need, why would that be solved by producing four times what we need?
The number of LNG ships available to move the gas, the capacity of terminals to fill said tankes?
There is a physical limit to all transport systems.
They have built a lot in a short time. They can build more.
Then keep drilling and building – remove the restrictions on fracking and exploration.
So long as domestic production stays comfortably ahead of export, both domestic and international customers could be supported.
And build at least one new modern coal fired power station in each state.
Then gas wouldn’t needed for electricity !
That’s right. Drill more gas. Bloody hell Australia has substantial gas resources. Offshore, conventional and unconventional reserves.
Drill it, frack it, get it out and into the bloody grid. Approve more coal mines, build coal fired power stations, invest in nuclear
Australia a “green superpower” – what a joke….
Bowen is a fool..
They have built a lot in a short time. They can build more.
“Say you have no professional engineering or manufacturing experience without saying you have no professional engineering or manufacturing experience.”
Bit like the otherwise sane Jo Nova. She leap all over the ‘Trust the Experts’ when Fauci Flu started back in 2020 to the extent she claimed (and then late repeated) that is was a ‘no brainer’ to turn all of Australian manufacturing over to producing respirators and face masks.
Yeah. NO. Not how industry works.
we had and still have some rather good engineer and manufacturing types with skillsets required
most have aged and been thrown aside when OS corporations who came here moved off to china
the UK steelworkers we had in the 50s and onwards were damned talented tradesmen, we let apprenticeships slide too;-((
in WW2 the poms stuffed us round over planes so in a very short time we could tool up and build our own
Canberra bombers and wirraways etc
push come to shove Id hope we would manage that again
Can you build a ship today to export gas, using only renewable energy in the entire supply chain to build it. Shipping not allowed after – what 2030? – Cargo ships – – diesel.. Just stop oil..lol!!
Only allowed green ships to export gas…gets even more ludicrous doesn’t it…
pipes to ONshore processing n stores would benefit US
Exports can only increase when there is someone who wants to buy.
yup
OFFshore productions fine with most aussies except the bleeding heart greens
Downvotes make no sense. It’s data!
Context is everything. Data in isolation is just pretty graphs.
“Here is a plot of gas production vs consumption. It is hard to imagine at what stage someone wrote all those contracts and then said, hey, we never thought you might need some too. In fact gas production expanded to provide for export. Victorian gas, which had supplied locals for fifty years, is now being depleted for export.”
What data in the above are you referencing.
There is no infrastructure connecting the East Coast market to the place where most of the gas is produced, north western Australia.
Yes there is . Major gas fields are in central Queensland which are linked to the gas grid connecting Brisbane Sydney Adelaide and Melbourne
Major export port at Gladstone in Qld where 3 different companies have separate LNG conversion trains
Well, it’s true that WA is not connected. But yes, Eastern Australia relies on gas produced here, and competes with exports from here. Separately, WA is also a big exporter.
ha thats shipped to asia or piped there
its a goner for aussies to manage use of
Nick,
About your graph of gas prices.
As you know, I spent decades finding new resources in Australia. Maybe I gained insights into the mood of successful exploration.
In the main, the big global resources companies have been poor explorers. They have grown mostly by buying out smaller successes.
In the hypothetical case of minimal political involvement in exploration we would today see a number of smalls actively following the success of fracking shown by USA in the last 20 years. Did not happen, because of some formal bans on fracking in Australia and strong informal discouragement like pollies saying Aussie fossil fuels are dead, stranded, etc.
If these smalls had been encouraged, they would now be producing fracked gas in Australia to sell to local markets. The big resource companies would be playing international pricing without much effect on the new small locals.
Who would be harmed? Nobody.
Who would be helped? Every Aussie battler.
You seem to be supporting cruel regressive economics for reasons I know not.
Geoff S
Geoff,
“If these smalls had been encouraged, they would now be producing fracked gas in Australia to sell to local markets.”
If frackable gas exists (no evidence yet), then like all other producers they will sell to the highest bidder – ie for export overseas.
In fact, coal seam gas has been much more promising in Australia, and a number of new entrants to the market have developed those. 10 companies are involved, and CSG makes up over a quarter of our total gas production. And, of course, most is exported.
Incidentally, hydraulic fracturing is part of the CSG extraction process.
ah yes like the “massive oi/ gas” find in sa a couple yrs back?
raved up for 6mths then crickets
and all the useless govvy gits could say was we would need OS corps to run it for us.
suddenly the word is they were wrong we didnt find much yadda yadda coverup
the dark complected would have hysterics if we dare touch it…Id hazard thats a large part of the tale of woe
So which State governments didn’t lock in supply?
State Governments can’t lock in supply, since Vic, SA, NSW and Qld are connected by pipeline. Only the feds can do that via export permits. There is provision in the law for doing that, but Morrison gave a guarantee that that would not be exercised before 2025.
State governments can lock in supply. It depends on the contract. WA did it. Why couldn’t the others. Also there are new fossil fuel sites available.
os comapnies Nick, they never gave a rats about the source of supply needs for us at home
it always was about max take for least cost to them
So why not let the government control the gas market? The government bureaucrats can surely do a good economic job allocating production amounts, sales, and cost of consumption of gas, right? Socialism/Communism HERE WE COME! It’s worked so well whenever and wherever it has been tried! We just need intelligent and compassionate bureaucrats to command the economy, right?
Increased extraction could easily just lead to increased exporting unless local markets outbid the extremely active foreign markets.
Fungible
Andy,
I think not. There would likely be small explorers unable or unwilling to get into international shipping. Cottage industry sector fracking gas close to local generators, able and willing to use short pipelines. Remember the US had lots of companies fracking early on, not just big guys of export size. Geoff S
It doesn’t matter whether they are big or small; they will have to put their gas into the national pipeline network. Then there is nothing to stop it going to the export terminals in Qld, where it can be sold for export.
Even the 50+ year old Bass Strait field, which in that time has supplied Victoria, has gas sent via the NSW connector to Sydney, then via Moomba in SA and on to the Qld export terminals. Bass Strait is now rapidly depleting.
Nick belongs to that group of people who believes that everything belongs to government, therefore government has a right to dictate how other people use their property.
Selling to the highest bidder is not permitted, not when government can use your property to buy votes.
Who do you think the gas belongs to? Did they make it?
The gas belongs to the individual states, who extract significant money from explorers and producers throughout the bidding for access and royalty streams.
Once the government allocates the leases to the successful bidders, they continue to get paid through the royalty schemes, through things like payroll taxes.
But once the lease is allocated then effectively the government has handed over “ownership” to the producer, who has a certain time in which to extract gas/minerals from the lease before it expires.
Some areas have schemes which allocate some gas to local markets.
The reason this type of arrangement works well is the governments get money from an asset which would cost them a huge upfront cost to develop. The capital is put into the asset by the producers who make money from that investment. They also run the asset in a much more efficient manner than governments, who allow all sorts of other issues to intrude into the management of the asset. There are numerous examples of how bad governments are at running this sort of business.
No . The gas in ground is owned by the state, offshore it’s the national government.
Those that have a production license still don’t own the gas just a license to sell it under the variable conditions and royalties.
Western Australia for example had a license condition that they set aside a certain gas quantity for local use and aren’t seeing the supply problems in east
In other words, all land and everything in and under the land belongs to government. All hail the one world communist government.
So who do you think it should belong to?
govt IS the people(or should be) so YES people here should have a say and control over OUR nations resources going to us first.
usa produces enough oil gas etc for you at low prices and good supply
so?
why the hell are YOU running short and paying through the nose at home too huh???
Government is the people? You actually believe that nonsense?
What other people make and produce belongs to everyone?
I really love the way socialists/communists eventually out themselves as being closet totalitarians. It’s just that they are stupid enough to actually believe they are going to be the ones in charge.
Our energy prices are rising because sacred government refuses to allow production.
No Nick, the gas exported was always above what the domestic market required. Then socialist premiers decided to close down coal fired power stations without opening up more gas fields to meet the shortfall.
“the gas exported was always above what the domestic market required.”
But Eric keeps telling us we have dreadful shortages.
“without opening up more gas fields”
As the graph shows, Australia’s production has been increasing very rapidly, far outpacing consumption.
According to energy.gov.au
The figure shows Australian electricity generation fuel mix in shares from 1995-96 to 2020-21 and calendar year 2021. Fossil fuels contributed 71% of total electricity generation in 2021, including coal (51%), gas (18%) and oil (2%). Coal’s share of electricity generation has declined from 83% in 1999-00 while the shares of natural gas and renewables has increased. Renewables contributed 29% of total electricity generation in 2021.
……………..1995–96 2000–01 2005–06 2010–11 2015–16 2020–21 2021
Black coal ..59.8 ……60.0 …….55.9 ……..46.1 ……44.4 ……40.0 ……38.9
Brown coal 22.2 …….23.4 …….23.4 ……..21.8 ……19.0 ……12.8 …….12.5
Natural gas .7.0 ………7.7 ………9.8 ……..19.3 ……19.6 …….18.7 ……17.8
Renewables 9.4 ………8.0 ………9.3 ……..10.5 ……14.8 …….26.7 ……29.1
Other ……….1.6 ………0.9 ………1.5 ……….2.3 ……..2.2 ……..1.8 ………1.8
Fossil fuels contributed 71% of total electricity generation in 2021, including coal (51%), gas (18%) and oil (2%). The share of coal in the electricity mix has continued to decline, in contrast to the beginning of the century when coal’s share was more than 80% of electricity generation.
Renewables contributed 29% of total electricity generation in 2021, specifically solar (12%), wind (10%) and hydro (6%). The share of renewable energy generation increased from 24% in 2020.
In the period 1995-6 to 2020-21 total generation has risen from around 210TWh to around 270TWh
It would appear that coal has been replaced by renewables more recently and by gas from 2005-6 to 2010-11.
Indeed so. Here is the figure:
Context? You have provided us a pretty graph but haven’t even labelled it.
What is this? Cause of accidents per industry? Grud those renewables people are clearly not doing their risk assessments correctly.
Or is it your personal investment breakdown?
Did you make this graph yourself? What is the source?
Provide us more context to this data you are throwing at us, please 🙂
It is the graph which Ben Vorlich referred to in the previous post, giving the text which explained it, and the link, but not the graph itself. I thought it might help if I showed it.
But Eric keeps telling us we have dreadful shortages.
“without opening up more gas fields”
Did you even read my post??
”…socialist premiers decided to close down coal fired power stations without opening up more gas fields to meet the shortfall.”
Which in my way of thinking is the domestic market needing more gas to replace coal. Our socialist Labor politicians created the mess we are in now
“Did you even read my post??”
Yes. Did you read mine? The point is that we don’t need to open up new gas fields to increase gas generation. We produce three times what we use domestically. We can choose not to export; even if that means paying the world price for domestic use. If we don’t pay the world price, then gas from new gas fields will just go to the highest bidder – ie export.
Exports are good. Provides economic growth, employment, balance of payments and generally can contribute to a higher rate of exchange in global markets.
Businesses strive to make profits and the bigger the profits the better.
so a very few make mega bucks profits at the detriment of the other 99%
huge profit rarely benefits any but the few owners and a few shareholders it doesnt benefit workers who get kept on low pay and the rst of the society struggling to purchase the goods they make for others
big biz without controls is no better for the masses than outright communism was/is
Yes they make mega bucks…I have no problem with it.
Without entrepreneurship, capitalism, a free market and companies making profits over the last 150 years making “mega bucks” – you would not have a device or the technology to type your comment.
Would you like my “snail mail” address so you can send me a letter in reply?
Socialists believe everybody should be paid exactly the same amount, regardless of how hard they work, or if they bother to work at all. Reality doesn’t matter as long as the theory sounds good.
It really is fascinating how socialists manage to convince themselves that economic activity is evil.
As long as government is not involved an individuals pay will always approximate the value of the work they provide. Competition guarantees that. Which is why socialists hate the free market.
Mark — I’ve posited this question many times.
——————
At what point does a company become evil? Large successful companies are evil, but what about the family business that employs say 10 people and turns over a couple of million bucks a year. is that business evil? After all they are profitable.
What’s the threshold for the left? Is it an arbitrary number (like AGW 1.5-2.0c global temps?) . Do the left think that a profit of X$ is ok, but if you grow your business and start providing work for many people (and thus increase their standard of living) anbd your profit grows to Y$ that’s bad?
When does an acceptable buck become an evil capitalist “mega” buck?
Exports provide the money to buy imports.
Of course most socialists believe in self sufficiency, no matter how much the peons have to sacrifice.
“Exports provide the money to buy imports.”
Yes. You can export gas to buy cars or phones. But then it is no use complaining of not having gas.
”But then it is no use complaining of not having gas.”
But, that is the issue, we have plenty of gas. Just warmist governments don’t want open more wells.
”We can choose not to export;”
What a stupid thing to even suggest.
Nicks 100% right on this
we sold our gas at insane cheap prices early on into longterm contracts
meanwhile WE pay far more per unit than we sold for
been a bone of contention for the aware for decades now.
theres NO shortage of gas- theres a excess of OS companies making disgusting profits at our expense!!!
we got the bums rush to swap cars to gas public transport some trucks etc
as soon as the numbers rose? cost for gas conversions doubled overnight(govvy subsidies pushed it) and price at pump tripled in a few short yrs.
just because usa is raking megabucks for frakked gas to eurodopes, theres ZERO reason WE should be paying such stupid prices at home.
all the crap about not being beholden to russian gas so its just fine to be begging usa for theirs at triple or more cost? and your security of supply is nowhere near secure as Russias is.(when youre not busy sabotaging others supply lines)
So there’s plenty of good reliable dispatchable gas in Australia for both domestic and commercial consumption, and export. So let us just stop all of that because if we don’t de-carbonize, we are all going to die..
Love the socialists actually seem to believe that any outcome they don’t like is by definition unfair.
Are you arguing that long term contracts are wrong?
Are you arguing that your oil companies gave away gas at cheap prices because they wanted to make less money than they could have?
Are you actually complaining that retail prices are higher than wholesale prices?
I’m going to ignore the rest of your paranoid rantings, let me know when you decide to rejoin the real world.
You are correct Nick that fracking is not responsible for the gas shortages on the East coast.
Nor is the LNG industry based in Queensland that is taking much of the coal gas supply. It is government policy in NSW, Qld and SA that is preventing known non fracking gas resources coming onto the market. Green lawfare in NSW is preventing the Gunnedah basin gas resources from being commercialized, plus in Victoria they have prevented exploration for gas, and the known vast shallow conventional resources in East Gippsland around Sale are rejected as not even existing, when they were drilled out by ESSO 25 years ago.
So, it is mean Green policies that rule in these recalcitrant States, that are scared of fossil fuel power, because of the unsophisticated climate science being employed by their agencies, the BoM and the real big time guilty party the IPCC UN socialist clique. It is past time that the third-rate science employed by UN agencies is taken to task by independent, qualified scientists. As even a cursory glance at modern temperature observations and the CO2 keeling curve show that since 2000, there has been no correlation between the two, with the slowdown of temperatures as we move into the next solar minima. Therefore, there is no pending climate emergency or need to mitigate Co2 emissions, it’s just a very expensive beat up by climate alarmists who are pushing other agendas, using climate drama as their excuse to make us all poorer, but happier- Ha Ha! The whole business is very sad and very stupid on our part to put up with this crap.
“ Green lawfare in NSW is preventing the Gunnedah basin gas resources”
The effective opposition to the Gunnedah region exploitation comes from farmers who are understandably worried for their future. CSG exploitation is very intrusive. It was a group of farmers, the “lock the gate” alliance, who mounted the successful case in a NSW land court.
Without mineral rights, there is no upside for the farmers.
There is also a quite effective scare campaign about either depleting or polluting the sub-artesian aquifers they rely on for stock water. Depending on the depth of the gas reservoirs, there may be some validity to that.
And how does that eliminate CO2 emissions ?
“long-duration storage”! Er, slight spanner in the works there I fear. What long-duration storage?
Well ilma, New York State has announced their plan to use DEFRs for that purpose and Australia could as well I suppose. DEFR stands for “Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource.” Perhaps they have a catalog of such things although I have never seen one – still waiting for my copy.
Solar calculators with wires hanging out the back?
The big player in new storage in Australia is Snowy 2. It appears it will be really long-term. The tunnelling machine Florence, now the critical path, has moved 120m in 12months. A minor surface subsidence, estimated between 50 and 70m, has halted progress for a while.
“A minor surface subsidence, estimated between 50 and 70m” minor??
The director of the project did not use the term minor but downplayed it when asked to explain poor process at a senate hearing.
https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/bogged-snowy-2-0-in-a-hole-lot-of-trouble/
He termed it a surface depression with connection to the tunnel. He was reluctant to use the word hole or machine being bogged.
halted progress
ah yes reports are the machine is well n truly stuck down the hole
roflmao
and the costs already soaring over budget as usual
“Climate and Energy Minister.” Is the Minister really responsible for climate?
Australia surely can ruin its energy, but the climate as well?
“What can I say? There is a reason I have a big backup generator, and a large, legally maintained private supply of fuel.”
Here in rural NY it has always been for the risk of weather-related outages that I have kept a small portable generator and a small quantity of gasoline on hand. It only serves for essentials like well water and refrigeration. I can heat with wood if necessary. But now, with the insane push to eliminate all electricity from fossil fuels from the state, it might be time for me to go bigger and more automatic.
$5,500 for a 22kw generator that runs on LPG or natural gas.
1000 gal LPG tank would last for probably 900 hours.
You can buy the LPG at the lowest seasonal prices since you are not using it for every day heating, water heating, etc.
I always wondered where King Canute’s descendants had ended up.
Cnut knew he couldn’t control nature, it was his courtiers and hangers on that thought flattery gets yoy anywhere that needed convincing. As always it’s the ear whispers that are the danger
“[T]he rain doesn’t always fall either, but we manage to store the water – we can store the renewable energy if we have the investment”
I am not a scientist or an engineer, but I will hazard a guess that there is a sizable difference between storing water in a reservoir and storing electricity in batteries.
If Mr. Bowen doesn’t understand that, then Australia could be in a lot of trouble with its grid in the years ahead.
There is very little technical reality that Bowen would ever be capable of understanding.
No Mate, he could, but he doesn’t want to- crucial difference!
Bowen has been deluded by the powerful climate alarmist clique, who are making a lot of money from the confected climate crisis. He truely believes the utter rubbish they put forward as climate science for beginners. Their story has not changed for 40 years, but the real science has. The verdict on CO2 is in, it has only a small atmospheric warming effect and no capacity to increase substantially as the AGW theory requires. Therefore, we don’t have a greenhouse gas problem only an ideological problem, and an investment problem for fossil fuels. Easily solved if these in authority showed some gumption to take on the climate lobby, to prove their case or shut up!
Storing coal in a big heap is easier still.
Bowen is a first class arrogant drongo.
There is a huge difference.
If a person needs water for a day, you would store say 150 litres. In Australlia, and other places around the world, you can buy, and have free delivery, of a 22,000 litre storage tank for about $3000. That will provide your needs for about half a year.
If a person needs electricity for a day, you would need maybe 5kWHr. Even optimistic battery pricing will put that at $1000 per kWHr, (inclusive of storage and AC-DC-AC conversion). So one day is going to cost $5k. And that same half a year is out to $700k.
Of course you can store electricity, just like water. It’s just that you can’t afford to do it.
You couldn’t store electricity in batteries long enough to make a difference. You’d just be pushing your consumption up “topping up” the batteries (making the dangerous in the process because keeping the charged up near capacity is “bad” for them) so that you’d have a chance at getting through a blackout before you depleted the battery.
Batteries are a non-solution to the problems caused by the non-solutions wind and solar to the imaginary “problem” of “climate change.”
You are talking to the converted. If the temperature is ideal, (ie not requiring electrical heating or cooling), then a lithium battery would lose approximately 2% per month. You could also allow some for the electrical BMS.
For a 6 month storage, (between seasons), you could expect to lose 6%. So for a 5kWHr per day, (per person), you would need a storage of approximately 900kWHr and could expect losses over those 6 months to be 54kWHr.
54kWHr per per losses would of course have to be added to the bill. And also added to the storage so that you maintain the same ultimate available energy.
900kWHr in lithium cells with an energy density of say 200WHr per kg would require a battery of 4.5 tonnes. And that is for one person. Just how many tonnes of ore and overburden would be required to form that battery is for others to guess but upward of several thousand probably isn’t off the rails. And then you get to do it all over again when the battery needs replacing.
Note to those who think I can’t do 2% per month by 6 months, (I stated 6% loss above), the answer is because the battery is being drained from day one, so some will have no loss. This assumes that the battery can be recharged relatively quickly and not kept fully charged all year. If it was, then the losses WOULD be 12%.
new low prices for feedin rooftop solar are as low as 3c or less
some states want to charge you to feed in now
and stand alone isnt subsidised qld wanted to charge service fees for anyone building new stand alone if the grids available but NOT connected to regardless.
same as water companies do if you disconnect you STILL get charged as if connected in Aus
Batteries also loose charge through internal parasitic loses. Newer designs are more resistant to such loses, but not immune.
You’d have to continually top-off the batteries just to maintain charge.
Chris Bowen is a fool. He is a product of the system. A Labor lifer – all he has known is political life. Went to Uni and started work as an employee of a local council and now he is in government. He is a vacuum of intellect, and he is a socialist, green warrior… There you have it..
Not quite Steve. Bowen is a product of his limited background, like any politician he is capable of listening to facts if presented properly, by people who know the facts, not his current alarmist advisors from the BoM, CSIRO, Climate Council etc.
Remember, you are only as good as the data you are given, just like the stupid climate models- GIGO!
FFS we dont even have enough damns to store the bloody water!!!
so much of the floodwater this yrs gone to sea its cruel
and the greens are moaning the decent flushout the rivermouths finally got after decades, polluted the ocean n killed some fishies
cant make it up
and cant win
When all this nonsense goes sideways, I predict mob lynching will have a renaissance.
I’ve coined a phrase for the inevitable power outage and blackouts. I call them Anal-Bowen* events. Government directed stupidity leading to otherwise completely avoidable collapse.
In April another large coal fired plant goes off line. It won’t signal the end of the grid but it will raise prices on all weekdays due to the increased call upon more expensively fueled generators to fire up. Diesel fuel in Oz is going to be in short supply once they start regularly burning it to keep the lights.
We’ll all look back in several years and talk about where we were and what we did to survive the first Anal-Bowen event. Pencil that one into your calendar, summer 2023-24. On a hot day.
*Anal-Bowen event, caused by ANthony ALbanese and chris BOWEN. The Oz PM and his animated puppet.
aus has at best 29days fuel stored
some moron decided america could hold supply for us.
getting it TO us? well that could get interesting in a crisis ie war etc
Good one Ian.
Perhaps we should get up a petition to stop the proposed blowing up of Liddel as AOG plans. That plant with further refurbishment could keep going for another decade, if we can get it out of private hands.
I predict mob lynching will have a renaissance.
Tarring and Feathering
“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”
Any fool knows that building a dam is far easier and cheaper than an industrial size battery system. And the dam creates other values that the batteries don’t- such as a nice lake, recreation values on the lake, habitat for wildlife in the lake, fishing, etc. Oh, and of course, flood protection.
I’ve been reading a lot of good things about the Snowy 2 dam.
What is the meaning of “good things”?
Snowy Hydro boss resigned over the delays and other issues with Bowen. The TBM now on the critical path has not moved in 12 months. The budget forecasts have similarity to the length of a piece of string.
Good things like how the associated money keeps growing larger and larger and how flexible the schedule is.
read something else then..its NOT good and not likely to be of much use to any aussies
rather like the NBN notbloodyneeded high cost low value internet we dont really have in most spots, or the 5g push when most cant get 4g yet
let alone reliable mobile phone cover in rural areas
The dam will last a lot longer than the battery will.
And it doesn’t burn, emitting toxic fumes.
Joseph Zorzin said “Any fool knows that building a dam is far easier and cheaper……”
For nearly 3 decades now Australian population has been outstripping the volume of dams – see Graphic at
Chart stunning success Greens anti-damism
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=6306
Despite 9 years of LNP Fed Govt no significant new dams have been built. Anti-Dam public servants rule across the wide brown land.
Well said Wazz. We’re dammed if we don’t!
There is no shortage of useful idiots.
But how far will the supply stretch when you start burning them for the power supply?
The delusion is starting to hit the brick wall of reality
My money’s on the wall
Reality is a ….
Yet another case of a Greenie with too much influence and who is technically-illiterate!
But who is most likely building a a more comfortable retirement than most people will ever experience.
He will have to learn the hard way. Then he gets deservedly fired.
I agree, If the remaining three units at Liddell go off line permanently in April, it will be more than challenging to avoid rolling “load management”. One fully dark event in NSW will lead to Bowen’s job being open for taking by the end of this year.
Rooftop PVs made the largest increase to market share in 2022; up from 11.1% to 12.9%. Both WA and SA are now saturated and have to force rooftop PV generation out of the system to maintain stability. That incentivises rooftop PV owners to invest in batteries and sets them up to go off grid.
Australia could quite reasonably have stranded assets on the grid. The capacity factors for grid scale W&S are in decline because all of the lunchtime power in two states can be supplied by rooftops and other States closing the gap. The wholesale price regularly goes negative and that forces W&S out of the market because the have no way to make up the losses through evening periods of peak demand. Some retailers are offering free energy from 10am to 2pm to try to soak up the oversupply.
In mainland Australia, there is enough sunlight available to power a house off-grid for the cost of a small to medium sized motor car. As rolling outages or blackouts become more common, people will choose the option to make their own electricity.
Most of Australia is bathed in good sunshine for most of the year. The suburban spread of cities is extensive. Melbourne has suburbs 60km from the city centre. Housing blocks are reducing in area but the roofs are generally bigger. Most new and existing suburban houses would have little difficulty fitting at least 6kW of solar panels on the roof.
What none of the academics pushing “renewables” do not appreciate is that there is no benefit of scale with W&S. Any gains in placement and things like tracking arrays are more than offset by the cost of transmission and distribution.
Raising the price of grid-supplied electricity to the point where it is more economical for a homeowner or a small business to go off-grid and install a solar-plus-battery system is an intended consequence of the Bowen energy policy, is it not?
I think his mates at the union super fund would not be aligned with that. They have invested heavily in the grid stuff.
Currently one benefit for Australian consumers is that government are not big players as electrical asset owners. But their buddies in various funds might not like the prospect of people deserting the grid and having to burden the less poor with ever rising grid electricity costs spread across fewer consumers..
still get an obscenely large taxpayer funded pension n perks
Bowen to the inevitable
Rule number one, never put the government in charge of anything. Rule number two stop investing in wind and solar today. There may be a place for it but not for the power grid. If there are communities that insist on wind and solar they can go off the grid and build their own wind and solar generators. The grid must be bullet proof only reliable, dispatchable and affordable power sources can connect to the grid. The grid is to important to be left to crackpot politicians, administrators or bureaucrats.
The most vocal groups voting for W&S are the inner city greenies. Their understanding of electricity grids ends at the wall socket. Any suggestion of wind turbine on a city building would have them out in the streets in protest.
There is only one way to ween them of their ignorance. Smart meters for every dwelling. If you choose to be served by all available power sources you don’t need a smart meter, you are billed for what you use. If you choose only wind and or solar your smart meter will be set to deliver the percentage of power produced by wind and solar for your part of the grid. Receiving only a small percentage of power that you would have received had you chosen all power sources would work wonders. These green weenies are beginning to bore me with their Alice in Wonderland ramblings.
That’s it. Without taxpayer subsidies unreliable ruinables (and EV’s) do not exist. Build your unreliable network, then offer the consumer a choice.
You can have unreliable weak power for 5cper Kw/H or you can choose 24/7 reliable on demand FF power for 10cperKw/H.
Australia has its pumped storage project how’s that doing?
…”to reliably meet demand from Australian homes and businesses.”
In my opinion, Chris Bowen has forgotten the main challenge that the australian grid will face very soon: The huge demand of energy the growing fleets of electric vehicles will create very soon.
…”homes, businesses and CARS !”
The extra couple dozen won’t add that much demand. ;-D
A report that is all about a fantasy future where every renewable thing is fully functional long into the 21st century.
Their ‘everything is beautiful’ reliability predictions show exponential reliability for most of Australia.
Double down stupidity.
Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, talk to me when China, Russia and India shut down their own reliable energy.
Until then, go blow on a pinwheel!.
I’d like to see him and evdry other idiot pushing the same Eco-Nazi stupidity bet his life on it.
Instead of wagering with everybody else’s lives.
Should I ever have the opportunity, I will ask him to fill my 25 litre container with renewable energy
You can have treadmills, launched by wind energy, then kept moving by politicians…
See!.. see doubters! South Australia leading the way with the most wind and solar has the smallest reliability gap-
South Australia: Grid with the most wind and solar has the smallest reliability gap | RenewEconomy
Yeah and the average adult human has one large tit and a testicle.
Another day – another gormless moron.
I hope that the day of judgement comes soon enough to make this guy and his fellow deluded chumps pay for their incompetence!
The LUNATICS can wave their arms and pound the table all they want, but they are, and will remain, IDIOTS
Here are some statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics quarterly Consumer Price Index. They compare how all items have increased in price for most Australians, with how the price of electricity has increased, both since 1980.
Note the jumps at 2008 when politicians decided to go Wind&Solar, 2011 when the prices started to be easily recognised as excessive and 2022 as the electricity price headed for the stratosphere.
Blind Freddie can see how we have to scrap W&S and steadily go back to the global cheapest and most reliable fossil fuel generation of pre-2008. Now.
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/cpi2022.jpg
It’s hard to comprehend how the pioneering history and
spirit of Australia has become a land of idiot climate alarmist & renewable energy advocate incompetence and stupidity. Their political “leaders” are pathetic. Time to leave to a place where freedom can flourish until the present socialists are overrun and driven from the country that their schemes have destroyed.
Any place in mind?
Larry,
You are spot on.
The long time image of the irreverent Aussie larrakin man has been replaced by limp-wristed soy boys of average IQ of 50 or so, incapable of changing a car tyre.
No thanks to the power of relentless advertising.
I used to think that broadly, our movers and shakers were largely of right wing inclination, with mainly leftists in the growing bureaucracy. These days, I think the classes are more like straight men in the right wing and queers in the bureaucracy.
As for our females, witness the growth of the shrieking harradin class getting vocal in politics with such ceberal topics as politically correct knitting in teal and rainbow colours. In my young days, females tried hard to keep nice figures, soft feminine voices, clean personal grooming and a willingness to be equal friends with men. Today, I suspect they do not even think much on the way to spend their money on more ice and Botox.
Geoff S.
oh yeah the spiffy clothes n figures n soft feminine voice thing..
emotionally screwed up valium popping neurotic dumbed down mums of the 50s n 60s were soooo wunnerful ( for men maybe)
too scared to change a tyre or fix the washer etc cos it was the mans job..(rural farm women mostly excepted)
for a while we managed to get some guts n grit back(war yrs mostly) then yeah the late 60s commie uni septic-outflow teachers hit the schools and we got back to the useless cows again that now dont even breed, and looking at the IQ thats probably for the best.
Well, that didn’t take long to forget the Tesla Victoria Big Battery fire that lasted four days.
I’d like to thank the Aussies for doing these kind of things (trying to be 100% dependent on unreliables). Your country and several others serve as cautionary tales which make it easier to fight this idiocy in the USA. Well, except for California – too many drug addled brain dead people there.
Sometimes I think the Japanese of old had it right. If a person failed their duty, they would commit seppuku. Would these leader be so self assured if failure meant the loss of their life? I would be willing to let a leader off if they admit what they are attempting might fail and would examine the alternatives but when a leader indicates there is no other way, I think they need to make the ultimate commitment should they fail.
Our tour guide in Japan was showing us a cave where a noted celebrity did seppuku with knife. Her English was quite good, but we chuckled when she explained that the hero went to a carve. Geoff S
pity theres no vax for stupid!
hed require 10 to start with