Essay by Eric Worrall
In 2021 the Australian State of Victoria enshrined a fracking ban into the state constitution. Now they are paying the price.
Victoria uses 13pc of entire year’s gas budget in just three days
Angela Macdonald-Smith and Ryan Cropp
Jun 13, 2025 – 5.00amVictoria has used more than 13 per cent of its expected gas for energy generation for the entire year in just three days as breakdowns at a coal power plant and feeble renewable generation force it to rely on the fossil fuel vilified by the Allan state government to keep the lights on.
A technical problem that reduced supply from Esso’s Longford gas plant, which is the state’s main source, became the latest hitch on Thursday, raising the risk of shortages in a system creaking under the strain of a cold snap and weather conditions unfavourable to wind and solar.
…
The situation has exposed the vulnerability of Victoria’s energy security when coal power and renewables are reduced and has triggered spikes in both gas and electricity prices.
The state’s wholesale power prices peaked at over $10,000 a megawatt-hour on Thursday morning, almost 140 times the average in the March quarter, and were forecast to top $15,000/MWh on Thursday evening. Gas prices passed $15.50 a gigajoule – almost double Monday’s level – with no easing expected until Saturday.
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/victoria-uses-13pc-of-entire-year-s-gas-budget-in-just-three-days-20250612-p5m6v7
The problems in Victoria have triggered a war of words with the Queensland Natural Resources Minister Dale Last, who lashed out at Victoria’s “bad decisions”;
‘Bailing out bad decisions’: Queensland slams Victoria over gas supply
James Hall, Angela Macdonald-Smith and Sumeyya Ilanbey
Jun 13, 2025 – 5.55pmVictoria cannot rely on pulling more gas from Queensland to shore up an energy system pushed to the edge by a cascading set of breakdowns and concerns over the reliability of renewables, with the pipeline flowing south already at full capacity.
Queensland’s Liberal-National government remains staunchly opposed to further propping up the southern state’s energy grid, saying it doesn’t have the gas supply capacity to keep “bailing out Victoria’s bad decisions”.
…
“Queenslanders should not be penalised over unscientific decisions down south that favour ideology over economics and engineering,” he said.
“We don’t have the pipeline capacity to keep bailing out Victoria’s bad decisions. The solution to the southern state gas crisis is for the southern states to develop their gas reserves. We’re not asking them to do anything we haven’t done ourselves.”
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/bailing-out-bad-decisions-queensland-slams-victoria-over-gas-supply-20250613-p5m762
Aside from the decision to run Victoria’s decrepit coal plants into the ground, instead of building new coal plants, one of those “bad decisions” is undoubtably green Victoria’s decision to permanently outlaw fracking of their extensive gas fields;
Enshrining Victoria’s Ban On Fracking Forever
Published:Friday, 5 March 2021
The Andrews Labor Government has listened to farmers and regional communities and banned fracking in Victoria for good, enshrining the ban in the state’s Constitution.
The Constitution Amendment (Fracking Ban) Bill 2020 has passed through the Upper House and Victoria’s Constitution will now be amended, safeguarding our regions from the threat of practices that could harm the environment.
…
Quotes attributable to Minister for Resources Jaclyn Symes
“No other government in the world has gone as far as enshrining a coal seam gas and fracking ban in their constitution – but we’re determined to make this a permanent decision.”
“We’ve listened to our rural communities who have told us they do not want the unacceptable risks that fracking brings that could impact our farming and tourism sectors.”
…
Read more: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/enshrining-victorias-ban-fracking-forever
Victoria has some of the largest coal and gas deposits in Australia, but exploitation of these energy supplies has been retarded by the green ideology of the politicians who run Victoria.
Update (EW): I forgot to include the cold snap article.
Australia is in for an unusually warm winter. So why was the beginning of June so cold?
By Emily Bennett 7:28am Jun 14, 2025
A cold snap left millions of people shivering across parts of Australia over the King’s Birthday long weekend.
Temperatures plunged in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania before it was Queensland’s turn to experience a blast of frigid weather.
Residents were told to expect minimum temperatures to drop five to 10 degrees below the seasonal average.
…
Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/national/winter-temperatures-in-australia-forecast-what-to-expect-everything-to-know-explainer/00e46453-86c5-46fc-98ca-248427c4fb0a
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I’d like to make some snide comment like you reap what you sow, but I won’t.
But retarded and green ideology do go hand in hand.
“Victoria’s Renewable Grid Buckles Under a Brutal Cold Snap”
What a beatup! I live in Victoria. We did not have a brutal cold snap, and the grid did not buckle in any way.
All that happened is that a coal station broke down and so they had to burn some gas.
Victoria had plenty of gas. Any worry about future supplies is because our gas has been recklessly pumped north to sustain massive LNG exports from Queensland.
Added cold snap reference to the article.
That reference is about a forecast cold snap in QLd. It gives this evidence:
Most of Victoria was between average and 2°C below. The coast, including Melbourne, was above average.
I would have thought the minimum was more relevant during a cold spell in winter.
If there’s no cloud, the overnight minimum gets lower and the afternoon maximum gets higher.
I’m quoting Eric’s source for the supposed claim of “brutal cold snap”.
But I quoted min and max for Melbourne below. Nothing special there. Some frosty mornings, as usual. I still haven’t heard anyone give an actual date for this brutal weather.
For comparison, here are the same days of June 2024
It’s been pretty fresh here (western Sydney) of a morning since the start of June.
It’s warmed up later in the day, though.
That’s pretty much what you’d expect with the high pressure systems kicking about.
It looks like Melbourne has been quite mild.
How do you get frosts at those minima?
P.S. Looking at the daily temperature spreads, has it been overcast for most of the month?
I’d expect a daily spread of at least 10 degrees C. We’re getting at least a 15 degree spread here.
OK, I’m not sure about literal ice. But we do get frost on the grass at temperatures above zero (it almost never goes below). It’s colder at grass level than at the 1.5m where thermometers live.
We’ve had a lot of sunny weather.
Frosts are very unusual with air temperatures above about 3 degrees C.
Still air does make a difference, but those minimum temperatures seem quite high for frosts.
I’ll bet there were some good frosts at Bendigo, though.
We have had 4 frosts at 1C, 3C, 0C and 1C. That has not happened in 20 years.
OK have it your own way. It’s just an expensive net zero average winter then with the July1 price hikes being announced by the retailers.
Aussie mum’s $1,200 electricity bill shock sparks warning for millions: ‘Outrageous’
Ah Melbourne and UHI, what’s not to love. 😉
And as everyone keeps telling us Melbourne is Victoria.
Melbourne is the main consumer of electricity.
Glad the smelter doesn’t know that. As a single user, I think it does a grand job.
Probably not weather dependent or at least it wasn’t till it had to be a ‘virtual generator’ when the grid gets stretched.
Portland consumes less than 10% of Victoria’s electricity.
So therefore it is colder in Melbourne? lol.
This is what the ABC wrote…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-14/australia-weather-brings-more-snow-drough-relief-cold-winds/105415076
Yes. Nothing there about Victoria.
The map says it shows max temp anomalies, not actual (nor homogenised) temps
Garbage. I live on the coast. This is the coldest winter since I’ve been here. 20 years.
We have already had 4 frosts. The most ever and winter has only just started. I suspect at least a dozen more this year. You and/or your BOM references are full of crap.
Now all the rain as gone, and we are getting clear nights, the Hunter is getting pretty darn cool overnight.
Don’t you read weather reports Nick?
The snow that was never going to fall again according to Neville Nichols, blanketed most of the alpine areas. I live closer to the equator than you, and it has been atypically cold all the way north beyond Brisbane.
But according to the trusty Bureau of Meteorology, it only feels cold, its not really cold in fact they say we are headed to another record warm winter after all.
Stay cosy. burn some wood and release some CO2!
Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
No snow here!
Here are the numbers for Melbourne for June, where the average max is usually 14.1°C. Average so far for this month is 14.9. Where is the brutal cod snap?
Dear dear Nick,
Snow at Hotham & Dinner Plain, not that far away, Maybe snow at the Buffalo Chalet too. However, the clever-dicks at the BoM say it only feels cold, its not actually cold – in fact another record hot winter on the way!
Those 60-litre Stevenson screens and electronic thermometers have certainly warmed the weather tho!
Not to mention that the Melbourne site moved from Carlton (now closed) to Olympic Park – which average are you talking about? Ummm pick the difference:
Carlton June AvMax 14.1
June AvMin 6.9
Olympic Pk June AvMax 14.8
June AvMin 7.8
Olympic Park is warmer on average by about 0.8 degC.
So here is a good idea, why not compare Olympic Park data with the average for Carlton – no bias there!
Cheers,
Bill
Yes, of course there was snow at the ski resorts. It is ski season.
When do you think this “brutal cold snap” happened?
But Nicholls promised there’d be no snow after 2000 – snow would be a thing of the past, don’t you know. Well the past is now – in fact it is 25 years past – quarter of a century; yet despite Nev tinkering with his models, there is still snow!
Heaps of fluffy, white stuff all over the resorts, and even the mountains.
Which average did you use to convince yourself it is actually hot in Melbourne!
Cheers,
Bill
Maybe it didn’t happen this time, or maybe its not as bad as the piece suggests. I know nothing about Australia. But the question remains, and its a simple one.
Take the UK as a test case. What do you think will happen one of these Januaries, when they have got peak demand up to about 60 GW,
90GW of wind is producing about 5GW, 45GW of solar nothing, because its after 4pm, interconnect is not delivering because this is a wide area calm and Europe needs all it can get. Your gas plant has reached end of life, your nuclear has been shut down after the last possible extension and the new plant is still under construction. And even when it comes online you’ll be lucky to get 20GW from it all.
Tell me where the power is going to come from.
It’ll be a Stoke of Luck if those exact events never happen
👍 X1000
The questions that should pepper every idiot that thinks the grid can be powered by wind and solar.
It is clear from the ongoing demand to shut down domestic energy extraction here in the UK that we have crossed the line into totalitarian authority. The needs of open free society have been ignored and we have been forced to conform with policies that will destroy our economy, our health and possibly our people.
The lame late decision by Miliband to support investigation into small modular reactors is knowingly decades late and will be decades before any SMR power is fed into the grid.
The international agencies that now control all of the UKs decisions are removing freedom of national choice. That removal (freedom to act) is not just attacking the UK, but attacking every national government. Any push back, any demonstration of resistance to the demands of the international policy amalgamation particularly Net Zero is deemed “Far Right” by the captured MSM news makers.
This amalgamation of international policies designed to destroy national sovereignty must be stopped.
Michel, you keep presenting this believable scenario to Nick and asking where the power will come from. He never replies because he is a believer himself. He believes, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that you can run a modern grid on sunshine and wind. It is his religion!
Sounds like you’re doing great! Winter hasn’t even started yet, and you’re down only 13% of your gas reserves in case this happens again. If I were minister of resources there, I definitely wouldn’t do any energy development beyond more windmills and solar. Winter isn’t as bad as fall there anyway, is it?
It isn’t down 13% of reserves (which are huge). It is down 13% of budgetted electricity usage. That is not much, because Victoria normally uses very little gas for elctricity generation.
Reserves are huge but they’re not allowed to be tapped.
Victoria extracts all the gas it needs, and supplies NSW, freeing up gas for export.
There is no evidence of large unexploited gas reserves.
Not to mention Moomba and the gas pipeline to Sydney, with off-takes for Dubbo, Bathurst, Wagga, Canberra, Newcastle – oh wait, Moomba is in the Cooper Basin, South Australia – a long way from Victoria.
Do you have a map of Australia Nick?
Cheers,
Bill
You’re going to find stuff-all evidence if you are discouraged to look.
Thanks Nick, for your contribution to this debate. As a Victorian can I say that there is no evidence of large unexploited gas reserves because WE DON”T LOOK for it.
There was continuous exploration up until 2014 – found nothing.
More recently the Otway basin was developed, with encouragement from the State government. It turned out there wasn’t much there.
Thats a series of total lies Mr Stokes. We all know about the East Gippsland onshore reserves drilled before BHP came into the Bass Strait fields. Labor has rejected these resources but can’t disappear them. Victoria only needs more gas because it has failed to support the cheapest form of energy generation- brown coal which was supplying electricity at 5c/kwh in 2014, what price now?
I am in the UK and so have no direct knowledge of Australian politics. But I do find it hard to understand that the politicos say they are opposed to using Australia’s plentiful supply of coal to power Australia, because of climate change, whilst at the same time encouraging those coal producers to export abroad where it will be used to power other countries.
Australia has 46 coal mining for export projects underway, according to the IEA, This is almost half of all such projects in the world. It includes 16 new projects, 28 expansions of projects and 2 re-openings!
The next highest number of such projects is 9 in both Canada and South Africa.
As far as I can see a lot of Australian politicians are hypocrites.
IEA ‘Coal 2024 Analysis and Forecast to 2027’ (Dec. 20224)
They were drilled, but there was nothing commercial (else they would have been developed).
What is funny that you actually showed by accident how weak their system is.
So much nit picking and obfuscation.
For the benefit of those who do not live in Australia I can vouch for the fact that the weather so far in June in the South East(includes Victoria, NSW and part of Queensland) has been relatively COLD. The news has been full of these reports and the Ski resorts have seen some of the best snowfalls for many years. Some folk may have missed all of this but it is a fact. Maybe Nick does not believe the weather reports if they do not match his expectations?
In case I am accused of being too local in my observations I can add that I have just returned from Ireland where even the locals are depressed at the continuous cold they are experiencing there, even though it is summer. There was an outbreak of optimism for 2 days early May and then it all faded away.
“Maybe Nick does not believe the weather reports if they do not match his expectations?”
I actually quote the weather data – see above. There was no brutal cold snap in Victoria. The Victorian grid did not have difficulties.
Sounds like typical “Main Stream Media” reporting. “It didn’t happen.”
Thu 12 Jun 2025 NEMA had total fuel mix for all eastern states & SA wind & solar at 4%
I live in Victoria to Nicki and it has been at leat 6C below normal for many days in central Vic
It’s always somewhere else, isn’t it? But the big electricity market is Melbourne.
Here is the month so far in Bendigo, which normally ranges from 3.6°C to 13.4°C. This year, the average max is indeed 13.4°C, but the min is 8.7°C! There was one cold day with max 4.7°C below normal.
So, you are suggesting they are all lying…….
Really you are increasingly despised for your search of a lint….
I just show the data.
Yeah, the BOM adjusted temperature data, while real people posted their LOCAL conditions which you keep pushing against.
It isn’t adjusted. These are just the June temperatures, as measured on the day and posted.
The lowest maximum was 8.7, but the average minimum was 2.5, which is 1.1 below your stated minimum.
It’s all too cold for me, in any case. I’ll bet the dogs didn’t like having ice on their water dishes, either.
Yes, thanks, I mixed up the figures.
S??t happens 🙁
Thu 12 Jun 2025 9pm NEMA reported total fuel mix for all eastern states & SA wind & solar at 4%
More proof that they need another NEW coal fired power station.
Thanks Nick !
Wind and solar often provide little to none, even if not struggling from old age and lack of funds for maintenance.
Same thing is coming to the UK one of these winters. Same thing will happen to every country or region that tries to run its economy and society on intermittent electricity generation technology.
Trying, as the UK is trying, to move home heating and transport to electricity at the same time guarantees it.
And then they have the mad idea that somehow in the middle of this they can make the country a home for the most power intensive industry there is nowadays, AI. Are they insane?
Everyone who lives in a country or region where this craziness has taken root should do a careful inventory and plan. What will it be like, and what will you do, when power goes out in the coldest and darkest time of the year, and stays out for a couple of weeks? Plan now, because its coming towards you.
Eat cold baked beans and put on your down jacket and woolly hat and long underwear? Fine for a couple of days, and then? It will be dark from 4pm till 9am the next morning. What are you going to use for light? And don’t say, solar battery charger. At the UK latitudes in December or January? Think your mobile will work? Good luck with that, where do the towers get their power? And the landline, if you have one? It will be digitized and will need a working router. You have gas or oil heating? Right, and what powers the pump and the thermostats? No hot water. No hot drinks. What about the sewage pumps, are they going to keep working? How are you going to get to the store for food, and what will you find when you get there? What do you think their ordering and payment systems run on?
Deluded fools who got liberal arts degrees by writing a few dozen two or three page papers about their reaction to whatever trash is now considered to be literature, and now think they are experts in running a country’s energy policy. Oh, that and saving the planet.
They will finally have saved the planet…from humanity
And the world will become Inhuman
The solution is so simple it shouldn’t have to be stated. Cut off all energy exports into Victoria. What Queensland is currently doing is no different than a friend or family member enabling a drug addict.
Wind and solar don’t work stop building them and remove them from the grid. Fossil fuel and nuclear do work. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear. Build new fossil fuel and nuclear.
It certainly seems an option.
But Queensland has its own problems. Despite Queensland Premier Crisafulli’s encouraging early moves, such as banning a whole pile of useless renewable projects, we’re still not out of the woods.
Queensland’s coal plants are just as decrepit as Victoria’s, and it is entirely possible we could have a string of plant failures like the Queensland Callide C explosion in 2021, which would put Queensland into the position of being a beggar state.
“Cut off all energy exports into Victoria.”
Victoria is the largest electricity exporter.
Then it should have plenty for itself, what is the problem?
Indeed, we do. What is the problem?
Not for long…..
The story is far worse than Eric makes out. Let me give you the drum.
Australia loses a single 370MW coal fired unit at Yallourn power station that is owned and maintained by Chinese interests. The unit is 51 years old and is destined to be retired in 2028. A duct collapsed due to lack of preventive maintenance, which is often the case at the end of life of industrial plant.
Prices in the NEM soared to the cap of AUD17,500/MWh a few times following the incident during morning and evening peaks.
When the prices were highest, the 30GW of rooftop and grid scale solar produced nothing. All the batteries managed 1.4GW for an hour and rapidly declined to under 1GW within two hours. The 13.46GW of wind generation managed 900MW.
Now Yallourn is rated at 1480MW. The 13.46GW of wind managed 900MW so to replace Yalloun would require another 22GW of new wind by 2028 assuming the 900MW was as bad as it can get. The Climate and Energy Minister has already locked in 23GW of new wind by 2028 at great cost to taxpayers. The emerging problem is there will be no power lines to connect the new wind to the grid. The fallacy here is that guaranteed output of wind is ZERO so no amount of wind generators can replace a coal fired power station but very few people understand this – Chris Wright the most obvious exception; labelling wind and solar grid parasites.
Rather than the Victorian Government going cap in hand to the Chinese owners to keep the plant going beyond 2028, they are paying households to get off gas so they become all electric. And given the transmission line expansion issue, the Federal Government has offered household a 30% rebate on battery installations. A lot of Victorians are taking up the offer for obvious reasons – OPM.
So Plan D to have household solar and batteries do the heavy lifting for the Australian transition is now in play. Of course this is also very good for China because they supply the solar panels and batteries.
Australia’s grid has been in mortal decline since the RET was introduced in 2000, The collapse is not far off. Fortunately there are only a few people dependent on the grid for life support. When the grid eventually collapses, it will be deadly but not in the numbers that Texas experienced. Texas is the only region that has legislated in favour of dispatchable generation and specifically excluded batteries from being “generators”.
Meanwhile PM Sleezy is planning a “Productivity Summit” because no one in government can figure out why Australia’s productivity has fallen off a cliff. In China, a tiny fraction of their skilled workforce is planning, building and commissioning a new 2GW power station every week. In Australia, a large proportion of the skilled workforce is installing household heat pumps, solar panels, batteries and wind turbines all made in China using their low cost electricity.
The breakdown at Yallourn happened 7-8 June, but the high prices quoted were about 5 days later, 12 JUne. I actually don’t think they are related. Here is the AEMO. I have marked the high figures of Thu 12 in red. Vic is highest, but only just, and Qld is nearly as high. I don’t believe that is caused by loss of 370 MW at Yallourn five days earlier.
It’s worth noting the perspective provided by daily averaging. Thursday was high, but doesn’t boost a monthly bill by that much.
Of course not. The real cause was spending $30bn on solar that contributed nothing; . $40bn on wind turbines that contributed 900MW when more was needed; $5bn on batteries that do not generate, $15bn on interconnectors for wind and solar that produce nothing when needed; $10bn for holes in the ground that water might pass through one day; $4bn theft from poor consumers to pay to people like me and probably you who do not have electricity bills and ever increasing costs for grid stability equipment and grid mismanagement that do little other than trying to avoid a complete grid collapse.
The reason I was watching at the time of the price surges is that I know how fragile the grid is and expected problems with loss of 370MW of useful generation. I had seen the series of LOR1 notices and orders to SA to crank up gas so knew problems were imminent.
Late June is typically a low wind and sunlight period in Australia so the grid depends on ALL its available dispatchable generation. Lose a little dispatcahable generation and collapse beckons.
The saddest part is that after spending all those billions on new useless stuff from China Australia is dependent on Chinese money to maintain the 51 year old clapped out Yallourn power station. No one could make this stuff up. It would sound too ridiculous.
Collapse was narrowly avoided again so the comedy event of the 21st century continues.
I have attached a screen grab of the generation situation in the NEM when the price cap was reached. The curser is on the date and time on the chart and the table shows the corresponding contribution from each source of “generation”. Australia is stuck in this crazy world where batteries are treated as generators..
This highlights how precarious Australia’s main grid has become. The brown region is just 10% down on where it could be if all lignite plant was available. And it is this loss that put the grid into panic mode. There was some load management invoked to prevent collapse that also cost a bundle but that will not come out for months.
Tomorrow evening is shaping up to be interesting as well but not yet as bad as last week.
https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem#price-demand
$10,000 per MWh isn’t that $10 KWh to the customer?
Yep. But the retail cost will be spread over next year’s retail energy price settlement.
The price reached the AUD17,500/MWh cap a few times. And that is AUD17.5/kWh or USD11.2/kWh. The retailers pay that; not consumers. They usually have some means of hedging against high wholesale price.
There is also an average price cap that can come into play. So far the average price cap has not been breached.
Notice the wording “below seasonal averages” now instead of “above normal” when referring to temperatures “above seasonal averages.”
The reason for the need for extra gas production was not the temperature- though it WAS cold. The real reason was the sudden drop in wind generation from 69 GWhrs to less than 4 GWhrs on top of the cold mornings. Victoria was also a nett importer of electricity for that time. At the same time coal was still supplying 83 to 97 GWhrs. What will happen when coal generation is finished? Good luck with that Nick.
It was a mixture of renewable failure, technical gas failure and cold weather driving demand. My point is if Victoria had a sane energy policy, they could have simply cranked up the coal plants or stepped up gas production to compensate for other problems.
From article:”The Andrews Labor Government has listened to farmers and regional communities…”
Natural gas is used to make fertilizer so why would farmers be against obtaining more of it?
The system didn’t collapse, so there’s that. The electrical grids have done better than one would expect worldwide.
I quote:
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” Sir W. Scott.
Chickens come home to roost, and people get educated whether they want it or not.