Essay by Eric Worrall
Power prices are rising, despite recent political promises they wouldn’t, and renewable investment has stalled, despite frantic government efforts to attract new capital.
‘Profound slowdown’: Alan Finkel quits Victoria’s SEC
Patrick Durkin BOSS Deputy editor
Jun 23, 2023 – 5.00amFormer chief scientist Alan Finkel has quit his role advising Victoria’s State Electricity Commission, as the organisation’s chief executive warned energy prices will rise, despite Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ election promise the SEC would bring down prices.
…
Chris Miller, appointed interim CEO of the SEC, acknowledged on Thursday the energy transition would cause a large uptick in energy prices, despite Mr Andrews’ election claims.
“We know that getting to 95 per cent renewables in Victoria will require a large uptick in
billedbuild rates [see AFR correction below],” he told the conference.…
But Mr Miller pointed to warnings by the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Daniel Westerman, and data from the Clean Energy Council that shows “a profound and recent slowdown in new financial commitments for large-scale user generation projects”.
“In fact, in the first quarter of this year there were no new financial commitments across the nation despite a strong pipeline of projects.”
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/profound-slowdown-alan-finkel-quits-victoria-s-sec-20230622-p5dijw
Part of this slowdown might be a perception that China’s economy is about to fall off a cliff. Australia is heavily dependent on the Chinese economy.
The problem afflicting China is for decades Chinese local officials have been running a Ponzi scheme, borrowing heavily to hit fake economic growth targets, squandering the borrowed money on useless infrastructure projects – to the tune of at least $18 TRILLION Dollars in outstanding Chinese local government debt. Much of that money was spent on purchasing raw materials from Australia to build all that pointless infrastructure.
But now, thanks to their crazy Covid lockdown, China has abruptly run out of cash. The Ponzi scheme is now fully exposed.
Prospects for Australian mineral exports to China are looking a little shaky.
We can only speculate why this public debt fuelled Chinese Ponzi scheme was allowed to grow to the point it threatens the stability of the Chinese state. I suspect it remained concealed for so long, because as local officials were promoted to central committee jobs on the basis of their fake economic achievements, their highest priority has been to conceal their personal financial malfeasance. They couldn’t expose their former underlings continuing the Ponzi scheme, without their own misdeeds being exposed. This has likely created a web of lies and concealment stretching all the way from local governments right up to the central committee.
In Western countries a free press usually uncovers and exposes such public sector financial disasters well before they become a national disaster, though arguably the Western press have been asleep on the job lately, at least when it comes to their handling of Democrat political scandals.
The dire financial distress in China has left Australia flailing. Most current federal and state governments are committed to massive expenditure on greening the Australia economy, but who in their right mind wants to lend money to a country which could be about to lose their biggest customer? As interest rates rise, as the Chinese economy falters, businesses across the country are tightening their belts in anticipation of the coming crash.
As for China, about the only move left in China’s playbook is to create a distraction big enough that people don’t notice their government has squandered all their money.
Whatever China decides to do, none of this bodes well for the Australian economy.
Of course the rapid approach of the Chinese export crisis hasn’t stopped our financially illiterate politicians from spending borrowed money like water, pushing forward with their Nut Zero plans. They’re still demolishing real power stations, offering what’s left of Australia’s manufacturing industry up like a grizzly Aztec sacrifice, perhaps in the hope the gods of green energy fantasies will smile on their mindless abasement.
h/t Nick – AFR has issued a correction: “Correction — An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that interim SEC CEO Chris Miller referred to “a large uptick in billed rates”. The correct reference should have been to “build rates”.” But given elsewhere in the article the AFR quotes an SEC estimate of $320 billion for Australia to transition to renewables, I don’t see how that changes anything. The $320 billion will have to be paid by consumers, either through increased bills or via increased taxes to service government borrowing.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It was only a matter of time before engineers and economists called Australian government’s bluff, over the high cost of renewables versus conventional energy generation, so that energy prices had to rise steeply. Labor governments simply can’t keep lying about the high cost of any major energy transition being contemplated, when plenty of examples across the planet have shown the folly of depleting one’s dependable fossil fuel energy generation, before an efficient, reliable new technology alternative emerges.
However, a more important issue remains. This is simply that there is no climate emergency that requires any rapid transition in power generation, as CO2 does not control atmospheric temperatures, and is not a pollutant in any event. It is the gas of life along with oxygen that all plants and animals need to survive!. We should be celebrating CO2 not vilifying it!
A little bit of real science in the climate debate not concocted alarms from computer models would go a long way to educate the public and politicians that we fiddle with energy matters at our peril, cheap reliable energy is the basis for our modern prosperity, all reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear. You can either have renewables and poverty, or fossil fuels and prosperity, take you pick.
It is exactly the same in the UK.
Meanwhile, in Germany today (from CNN):
Siemens Energy shares plunge more than 30% as wind turbine worries deepen.
Reality is brutal and takes no sides. Magical thinking is the fentanyl of politics and industry.
Now down 37%. The drop is tied to component failures. It seems like a pretty safe bet that Siemens disclosure will lead to an industry review of other manufacturers components exposed to the same stresses. Hopefully, for the sake of the international economy, this is the beginning of the end for this unreliable and wildly variable spinning trash.
(deleted by author)
Reality doesn’t change just because you have crossed a political border.
It needs pointing out to the world at large that the moderate warming & increasing CO2 levels that we have experienced have been beneficial to the planet.
“beneficial to the planet”
Evaluation of that proposition requires word definitions. What is the goal? For whom?
Let’s see. 1) If you can go outside and tell me within 1 degree what the temperature is with no foreknowledge at all, you would be very lucky. Humans can not sense such small temperature changes. 2) Last frost and first frost dates have expanded over the last century. That IS a good thing for agriculture allowing longer maturing species with higher yields. 3) Less energy spent during the winter heating domiciles.
I could go on, but it isn’t necessary. Now it is up to you to let everyone know what OBSERVED detrimental effects have occurred in the biosphere. If 1 – 1.5 degrees of warming have not incurred reality based major detrimental impacts, it becomes difficult to believe predictions that the next 1 degree increase will have catastrophic impacts.
That is a generous view Eric, I would say they are willing accomplices and accessories.
‘You can wake a man only if he is really asleep. No effort that you make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending to sleep’ (Gandhi).
Sometimes it works. Even if the mainstream press these days acts like a lapdog, there are still independent voices like WUWT, Heartland, Climate Audit, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Jo Nova, lots of others.
Such independent voices simply wouldn’t be possible in places like China, or at the very least would carry a hideous risk.
I’ve already had a small taste of what it’s like to be a dissident in China. In Hong Kong back in the noughties my name was called out from a list of 3 people, the other two of whom missed their flight. My crime was to be travelling on to Taiwan to help the Taiwanese Government. I was led into a room by a Red Army guard in full uniform, who glared at me for a minute before waving me to the door.
I can take a hint, lets just say mainland China is no longer on my travel itinerary.
“Such independent voices simply wouldn’t be possible in places like China”…..
Places like the USA, the EU, the UK, Australia, NZ, etc places like that Eric?…
Not that bad, yet.
However as the socialists gain more power they are getting bolder.
Their #1 weapon is currently law-fare.
So far as I know none of AWs content writers has been executed in USA, the EU, the UK, Australia, NZ, etc this decade. My biggest worry is not big government but rather big employment. Some speech is very, very not free.
“Sometimes it works. Even if the mainstream press these days acts like a lapdog,”
I have noticed a little change from some in the Leftwing Media: Some of them are starting to ask Joe Biden questions about the handling of his son, Hunter’s, legal problems.
But that is the exception rather than the rule for the Leftwing Press.
And of course, the Leftwing Networks have given zero coverage to Joe Biden’s supposedly accepting bribes from foreign nationals. So they are still running interference for the Democrats. And, I assume, always will.
““A profound slowdown” in Renewable Investment in Australia”
As always, no data. Here is the reality for 2022:
“Large-scale wind and solar farm investment commitments grew nearly 50% in 2022, with 4.3 gigawatts (GW) of large-scale renewable energy capacity achieving a final investment decision (FID).”
To put that in perspective, Australia averages 30 GW, so even if you discount the 4.3GW by a factor of 4, that is still adding 3% of total generation.
Here is the plot of growth of actual generation. Still growing fast.
I think I prefer the word of the new acting head of the Victorian SEC over your graph. Somehow it seems more likely his information is up to date.
It isn’t my graph. It is from the 2023 Q1 report of the AEMO, released April. There isn’t anything more up to date. Chris MIller is a lawyer who has been interim CEO of the SECV for about a week. He is quoting AEMO data.
G’day Bruce….
Still full on with the nitpicking, I see.
Eric,
Australia’s largest wind farm – Golden Plains, 1.3 GW, with 300 MW battery, was approved in April 2023. $3 billion AUD investment.
Golden Plains was approved in early 2019.
“In early 2019 the Victorian Minister for Planning approved one the largest wind farms in the southern hemisphere near Rokewood in the centre of Golden Plains Shire.” – https://www.goldenplains.vic.gov.au/business/investing-golden-plains/renewable-energy
The approval “process” pre-dates 2019..This disgusting use of agricultural land for meaningless wind “energy” has been around since 2016..
“Golden Plains was approved in early 2019″
That is government planning approval. The approval that counts is when people decide to put money into it and start work.
““In fact, in the first quarter of this year there were no new financial commitments across the nation despite a strong pipeline of projects.””
New vs pipeline.
Something that has been on the drawing board for years, sounds like “pipeline”, more than “new commitment”.
Why don’t you write to the Financial Review and explain to them their story is all wrong, and that Golden Plains, which they obviously did not know about, is the proof of it?
See if they publish it.
Yet again you’re offering a counter example which has no bearing on the accuracy of the story.
You might note the AFR correction below. It looks to me like they have sent a junior journalist along to a technical conference.
From the statement Mike Jonas links to:
“Depending on the timing of approval of supporting plans, construction may occur from late 2021. “
Nick says it “was approved in April 2023”.
I’m having a bit of a mental issue with the project.
There seems to be a lot of paperwork but the “golden shovels” and VIPs in white hats have not yet arrived at the construction site – Shire of Golden Plains. Can someone hustle over there and have a look.
“construction may occur from late 2021″
They said “may”. Maybe not, as it turned out.
In 2022, Australia used just under 200 terawatt hours of electrical power. That’s about 50 tWa per quarter. The under 5 gWh for wind and solar shown in your plot is barely into rounding error territory. It’s not obvious that the rate of ‘growth’ shown in your chart will even make up for population increases.
Sorry Eric, I intended the reply to be to Nick
“The under 5 gWh for wind and solar shown in your plot”
The plot shows average 5 GW. That makes 5*24*365=43800 GWh.
Units… engineering math stopped making sense to most educated people around the time of Newton. I do think “ 5*24*365” is a bit hopeful, especially when applied to “and solar“.
The average power is the average over day and night. You multiply by the number of hours in a year to get GWh/year.
Totally ignores operational impacts of no generation at all. 0 averaged for a day with 100 for another day gives 50. Yet you can’t ignore the variance in the average you are computing. Same with temperatures. Climate science just ignores the fact that an average MUST also have a variance to be understood. What is the variance in your calculation?
The title of your plot says “energy”. Why is it then showing a graph of intermittent power, for which the reader must assume some sort of repetition rate?
Hmm Commitments 2022 vs NEW commitments 2023. 😉
Wow, I did not even notice that. Good catch.
VRE: Virtual Reality Electricity.
Disclosure: I don’t know anything about Australia.
But just on the logic, you have produced a chart showing energy generation since 2018. Whereas the point the post was making was about investment going forward.
I went to the linked Financial Review site to check, and it seems to bear out what the story is saying. Here are some quotes.
But almost nine months after the plan was announced, Mr Miller said it was yet to find its first project, as major renewable investment dries up.
But Mr Miller pointed to warnings by the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Daniel Westerman, and data from the Clean Energy Council that shows “a profound and recent slowdown in new financial commitments for large-scale user generation projects”.
“In fact, in the first quarter of this year there were no new financial commitments across the nation despite a strong pipeline of projects.”
No new renewable energy generation projects reached a final investment decision in the March quarter, despite more than 200 gigawatts of proposed future generation projects.
The Financial Review is saying what Eric posted: investment is drying up. Has dried up. And it supplies links to evidence to back up what its saying.
You cannot refute this by citing how much generation has grown over the last five years. Its irrelevant.
More intellectual dishonesty.
We can brew very good beer.
That is if you do not drink the mass produced commercial swill..Our craft beer is quite good
“We can brew very good beer.”
Then, please do. Fosters and Castlemaine surely don’t count?
My understanding was that Australians don’t drink Fosters on principle, if not on taste.
That’s right. They don’t count, with the exception of XXXX Gold.
Nick Stokes and intellectual honesty are strangers to one another.
It is a very rare day indeed that Nitpick Nick ever says anything relevant. It’s all about deflection and distraction. Hide reality and protect the Green dogma.
In what way it is “no data” to cite zero financial commitments in the entire first quarter for the entire country, Nitpick Nick won’t explain. Maybe it’s customary in Australia that all the bankers are on holiday from the end of December to the end of March?
Well, let’s see the data for approvals. As I noted above, by far the biggest wind farm in Australia was approved in April.
Oh my mistake. The first quarter Down Under must be February through April.
There is an annual cycle for planning, with the FY starting July 1. State and Federal budgets are in May.
As I noted above, that wind farm was approved in early 2019. It’s a standard government tactic to announce the same projects several times.
“tactic” -> “policy”
Rather than broaden a specific topic to cover broadly everything.
They’ve plucked the low hanging fruit with the existing grid infrastructure Nick and now the hard yards really begins-
“We must move quickly:” CEFC gets $20bn to put renewable transition back on track | RenewEconomy
Fighting the NIMBYs all the way while the power bills are sapping enthusiasm everywhere.
Nick
You trust the info put out by Bowen?a proven liar (your reference )
Bowen is putting out an official statement written by his department.
And there you have it, proof that there really were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. All the evidence you need is “official statement written by his department”.
Regarding Iraq, both weapons and weapons programs were found after the hostilities ended.
And Saddam Insane used weapons of mass destruction prior to the Gulf wars by gassing thousands of Iranian troops.
During the war, Saddam told anyone who would listen that he had an active WMD program. Even many of Saddam’s generals said, after the war, that they thought Saddam had an active WMD program.
It would be to Saddam’s advantage to have people think that way. Or so Saddam thought. He ended up being very wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against_Iran
Saddam Insane was a murderous psychopath who should have been eliminated by George H.W. Bush. Instead, George left it to his son, and thousands more American troops to finally depose this maniac in the Second Gulf War.
Sometimes you can be too nice, H.W. You let the serial killer out of jail, and look what he did after that. Just what we would expect him to do: murder many more innocent people. But you were standing on principle, weren’t you, H.W. We’ll tell that to the relatives of Saddam’s victims.
Lol!! – Sure…
Bow-wow to dept head.. “I want a statement that says .. such and such”
You truly are a naive little fella, aren’t you Nick 😉
Yep.
Just watch “Hollow Men” and “Utopia”.
Not comedy programs, in reality – documentaries.
If it’s being said by an agent of the government. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts that is nothing but a denier and will be scheduled for re-education.
…it depends on what that info says….
Even the fan club are panicking and clutching at straws Nick-
Transmission tunnel vision: There’s a lot of space for wind, solar and batteries on local networks | RenewEconomy
Woke crony capitalism has latched onto the traditional large hub and spoke grid system as early adopters and even that has pushed up power bills painfully with their economies of scale. So now the spaghetti and meatballs grid needs to be built and paid for as those tasked with keeping the lights on recognise the next step with nut zero in mind. That capital cost is bad enough but the numpty fan club reckon it’s all a conspiracy theory and the answer is an even finer and finer spaghetti and meatballs grid lacking even the aforesaid economies of scale.
It’s like this with unreliables generation and distribution Nick. Their fuel is dirt cheap but the capital cost is exorbitant and hence the uglier and uglier power bills with the nut zero vision splendid. The climate changers can’t keep obfuscating and lying about the power bills reflecting the simple economic truth.
Your paymasters will not be very satisfied with today’s dissembling Nick.
It hardly distracts anyone to dispute that investment has dropped off a cliff with zero commitments in Q1 to show a chart of what happened prior to that. It’s like showing the velocity of the crash test dummy all the way up to but not including the crash and then claiming that all is well, the dummy is cruising along nicely.
Oh, and I notice that you didn’t even attempt to tarnish the quote that rates have risen and much higher rates will be charged to reach 95% ruinables despite Labour’s promise that rates would go down.
I suppose that when you’re dealt crap cards, bluffing is your only option.
I like this Tweet
https://twitter.com/EnergyWrapAU/status/1671827096946225152?s=20
Nick, your graph does show things slowing down. Both the green and yellow bar show less growth from 22Q4 to 23Q1 than from 22Q3 to 22Q4.
Isn’t that a slowdown in investment?
Oops. I mislabeled the bars—but it’s still a slowdown.
“Still growing fast.”
Along with electricity rates.
“”a grizzly Aztec sacrifice””
Surely, that’s ‘grisly’?
Grizzlies can get rather grisly at times.
I blame the schools
No, no, it was a bear sacrificed.
Russia?
Why does it matter if the victim was naked at the time?
Hey it passed the spellcheck… 🙂
You need better AI, Eric!
LOL 🙂
Well, who would have thought that. A slow down in investment and build out of renewables, err sorry unreliables. – You can read that as — A reality check for the long-term viability of companies investing in this fairy land green infrastructure.
As I, and many others have commented here before, economics, engineering, and quite simply immutable physics will simply limit the ability of unreliables to do what every green climate alarmist says they will do.
People such as Chris Bowen – the Australian left/labor/green/UN puppet & federal minister for energy poverty and climate catastrophe, simply think that companies will happily spend endless amounts of money to build Australia’s unnecessary new energy infrastructure. That is what you get from a career lefty idealogue politician (aka talking head) — living in LaLa land…
Yesterday in the UK, this is what wind did. From a faceplate parc of 28GW.
minimum: 0.678 GW
maximum: 1.982 GW
average: 1.118 GW
Look at last month. From the 24th May to the end of May it barely rose above 5GW. I keep citing the same site because its so easy to see immediately what is going on, and that is, wind is failing.
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind
The more wind is installed, the more obvious this is going to be, and private investors are going to stop investing in it. I don’t know if this is happening in Australia. But at this point no rational investor, looking at those charts, would back this technology anywhere, absent huge government guarantees.
And in the end, even governments are going to balk at investing the huge sums required in projects which are not delivering.
Solar by the way is different but no more useful. 7 or 8 hours a day, if the weather cooperates. And come November it vanishes.
“even governments are going to balk at investing the huge sums required in projects which are not delivering.”
Not necessarily….
“A review of a troubled £5.5bn armoured vehicle programme has highlighted “systemic, cultural and institutional problems” at the Ministry of Defence.“
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65927736
You should check out the new aircraft carriers….
“HMS Prince of Wales reduced to scrap yard after key parts ‘cannibalised’ for sister shipThe aircraft carrier is losing “good parts” to support the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which remains in operation.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1761579/hms-prince-of-wales-scrapyard-queen-elizabeth
Greece and Italy surviving 2008 has consequences.
“Yesterday in the UK … faceplate parc of 28GW … average: 1.118 GW”
I want honest numbers, but who should be responsible for correcting customers who assume “faceplate” and “average” mean the same thing?
Especially with decades of data accumulating.
I predict this will be a harbinger of the future. The upcoming recession or even depression will finally kill Renewable Energy as funds become short and banks tighten their lending.
or given the same doom scenario…
people with money will turn to rooftop solar panels to have “anything” to charge their laptop.
“ acknowledged on Thursday the energy transition would cause a large uptick in energy prices”
I see the AFR now has a major correction. Oops
“Correction — An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that interim SEC CEO Chris Miller referred to “a large uptick in billed rates”. The correct reference should have been to “build rates”.”
Changes nothing. The article mentions the SEC estimates Australia transitioning to renewables will cost $320 billion. Unless the Aussie government has a secret gold spinning leprechaun, that $320 billion will have to be borne by consumers, either through increased taxes or increased electricity bills.
Eric,
The article does not say the SEC said that. It says that someone said the AEMO said that. But they didn’t. When you drill down, it is AFR journalists all the way. Who, as this correction indicates, do not have a brilliant record of getting stuff right.
It will be both..
Oh, more “nitpicking” Nick. As in you’re correcting millions/billions conflations in earlier posts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjYoNL4g5Vg
Mr. Stokes: Good catch, this show customers will only see a large uptick in billed rates if the RE is built!!! If we don’t build it, those large upticks in billed rates can be avoided. So, now you are opposed to RE? You convinced me!
“build rates” -> “billed rates”
Laughing. Brilliant.
An honest mistake.
Back in the day, I got caught out singing along with Simon & Garfunkel to –
“The Sounds Of Sirens“
The ants are my friends
Take me to the river.
Watch me drown.
I wouldn’t put it past David Byrne to have sung that 🙂
And the correspondent and editor have been dealt with in a manner appropriate to the gravity of the blasphemy. Their names will not be released until their next of kin have been notified.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/23/siemens-energy-scraps-profit-outlook-as-wind-turbine-troubles-deepen.html
All 5 of Europe’s wind turbine makers have been making huge losses over the last 30 months and Wind Europe has recently told the EU that it does not have the capacity to build all the turbines it wants to install by 2030.
Without Government subsidies (stolen from the pockets of taxpayers, of course) the entire Renewable Energy sector is dead.
Perhaps Nick Stokes could explain why subsidies are necessary in the first place for such an exciting, transformative technology.
Cool, rational, financially savvy investment icon Warren Buffett concluded –
“without the subsidies and tax breaks, wind & solar make no sense at all”
Over a year ago, my State of Oklahoma voted to stop subsidizing all new windmill farms.
This caused an unusual development: An Oklahoma Energy provider wanted to build windmill and solar farms and they decided to build them in the States of Texas and Kansas, rather than in Oklahoma, with the goal of shipping the electricity produced to Oklahoma.
I presume the reason they want to build in Texas and Kansas is because they will get subsidized there, whereas they won’t get subsidized in Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma legislature said if Oklahoma continued to subsidize windmills and solar, that it would bankrupt the State, so they voted to stop subsidizing.
So maybe Warren Buffet is right (we know he is:).
Is Nick still trying to push the line that wind and solar are the cheapest source of power out there?
Of course. because the fuel is…………..”free”..
This may help explain the welcome paralysis: “Global wind developers are facing major challenges due to rising interest rates and supply chain costs over the past year. Sven Utermöhlen, chief executive of RWE’s offshore wind business, told the Global Offshore Wind 2023 conference in London this week that the costs of developing offshore wind have risen 20-40 per cent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He added that he did not expect costs to fall anytime soon.”
https://www.ft.com/content/4621f549-85dc-4731-b3ad-6d76969c31d4?mc_cid=3cbd42925d&mc_eid=7f17b09564
At this cost the subsidies are not big enough to make the projects profitable without big power price increases.
Hilarious – they need more access to Russian fossil fuel to make renewables economical.
All 5 of Europe’s turbine manufacturers have been making huge losses over the last 30 months.
But their ESR scores must be fabulous.
Yeah, making leaders into eunuchs is a proven moneymaker.
Is “making losses” a British thing?
Plenty of UK companies are good at making losses. However the major wind turbine manufacturers are all Europe based though some have subsidiaries in the UK.
And, as Adam Smith pointed out, when governments owe lots of money they repay it by debauching the currency, thus robbing their creditors. The debauching of course manifests itself as inflation. Currency used to be debauched by adding base metal to the coinage, but now it’s done by printing it.
“now it’s done by printing it.”
Googling – what percent of currency is printed 2023 gets me to “The FY 2023 print order ranges from 4.5 billion to 8.6 billion notes” which does not really answer my question.
Lazily, I think its mostly unprinted electronic data doing the circulating.
I stopped carrying cash a while back.
Also US gov owns most US gov debt. Except for long term, enormous trade imbalances the total debt of the worlds largest economy is unapproachable – debt held by foreign nations is way smaller than debt in Al Gore’s imaginary lockbox.
You figured they’d have trouble as they kept building them taller and bigger-
Siemens Energy’s turbine troubles to last years, shares dive (msn.com)
Yep. But the 3-D models worked so well.
You would have thought Siemens would have kept a closer watch on one its subsidiaries that involved a Spanish company. The PIGS were pigs for a reason. With Germany no longer able to prop up the Euro going forward, buy popcorn futures. [Musings: Is there popmaize somewhere?]
Sabre-rattling over Taiwan is likely timed just exactly around the expected economic cataclysm facing the CCP government. However if a financial collapse leads to a run on banks and loss of trust in CCP leadership and the entire financial system, all those CCP troops will be needed at home to try and maintain some form of civil control. Even now I am sure anyone who grew their wealth in China is using any possible mechanism to offshore that wealth outside the reach of CCP grasp. There are lessons in all of this for western economies propped up on debt and an expectation of perpetual growth that we should not ignore. Interesting times.
If the past is prelude, they need to be offshoring themselves and their families as well.
One child policy. Gender differences. Population pyramid.
Kevin, are you implying that the ChiCom leadership should fear its population having an excess of males that exhibit toxic masculinity? [I just tell people that, rather than toxic masculinity, I have testy cals.]
Siemens Energy shares plunged over 37% on Friday after the company scrapped its profit forecast and warned that costly problems at its wind turbine unit could last for years.
The company, born from the spinoff of the former gas and power division of German conglomerate Siemens, announced late Thursday that a review of issues at subsidiary Siemens Gamesa had found a “substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components.”
The Siemens Gamesa board has initiated an “extended technical review” aimed at improving product quality that the parent company said will incur “significantly higher costs” than previously assumed, now estimated to be in excess of 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion).
A senior wind turbine engineer once spilled the beans. The problem is the bearings. They can’t make the bearings larger because friction increases with bearing size. But the bearings they currently use are taking too much damage. His words, they need a “quantum leap” In bearing material technology
and other setbacks in the industry being slowly uncovered….
Siemens Energy Falls by Record After Wind Unit’s Woes Deepen (yahoo.com)
“The shares plummeted as much as 36% after the Spanish division found worse-than-expected quality flaws at its onshore wind turbines, delaying turnaround efforts.” More PIGS in space evidence.
“In Western countries a free press usually uncovers and exposes such public sector financial disasters well before they become a national disaster, though arguably the Western press have been asleep on the job lately, at least when it comes to their handling of Democrat political scandals.”
Waffles for breakfast.
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid.
I like to point out what I call ‘tells” by mindless wokies on renewables, climate policy, the science scam and the like. But there is no need with the classical “build-billed” Freudian slip concerning the status and costs of the renewables putsch in Victora state.
I’m sure Nick would buy into this suggestion. Simply by guaranteeing a 12% annual rate of return on all new monies invested in renewable energy projects, the Australian government could, In a bold act of financial commitment, ensure that Australia can achieve 100% wind and solar electricity by 2030 while simultaneously rescuing China’s renewable energy industry, and possibly even the entire Chinese economy as a whole if it is teetering on the brink.