The real cost of building a renewables-only power grid is more than half a trillion dollars higher than the Albanese government has claimed, bombshell new research reveals.

According to the modelling, replacing a predominantly coal-fired system with mainly solar and wind will set Australia back at least $642 billion, not $122bn as Labor has stated.

The more than $500bn hole is due to the exclusion of fixed and variable operating expenses, fuel and more than $60bn of transmission projects, as well as the use of an accounting treatment called “net present value”, rather than actual prices.

The cost of emissions is also cut out, even though a little-known quasi “carbon price” has been introduced at $70 a tonne, which is about twice the scale of that imposed by Julia Gillard.

The new paper, “Developing a base case to assess the relative costs of nuclear power in the NEM”, was done by energy experts Frontier Economics — a group of advisers the ALP has previously used.

It was prepared at the request of the Coalition, which also asked Frontier to crunch the numbers for its plan that includes seven reactors. That report has yet to be made public.

The Opposition – which did not pay for Frontier for either piece of work – said the initial findings on renewables were so damning that the Prime Minister and his team now had to “own up” to the full scale of the financial burden being imposed on households via taxes and electricity bills.

“There has been a deliberate attempt to hide the real cost from the Australian people,” Shadow Climate Change and Energy Minister Ted O’Brien told this masthead.

“All that’s been said is that it will cost $122bn, but now we know the truth is it’s going to be five times that.”

News Corp readers have reacted to the news of the report, with many critcising the approach to energy policy.

“Labor deliberately out to send the country broke and destroy Australia. The more wind and solar the higher the power prices which forces up prices and hurts the workers, families and pensioners and union leaders are supporting this attack by Labor on our living standards,” one reader Paul wrote.

Another reader, Troy, posted: “To be honest I this is still well under estimated the actual cost of renewables. While this figure is gobsmaking by the time it is completed I believe the true figure will run into the trillions.”

“Labor has failed in math calculations, oh we will look to the taxpayer, but guess what the taxpayer has nothing to give,” reader Faye also wrote.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly said the total cost to 2050 of the new generation, storage and transmission required to reach net zero emissions is $122bn, citing the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2024 Integrated System Plan [ISP].

In federal parliament in June, Anthony Albanese taunted the Opposition with AEMO’s ISP, waving around the document at the dispatch box and characterising it as his government’s plan.

At the time, the Prime Minister also said an earlier version of the ISP was “the basis” of the plan Labor took to the 2022 election.

The new research by Frontier uses AEMO’s current ISP as its starting point.

In its work, Frontier noted the cost cited by AEMO and Labor was the “net present value” for only some of what was required by mid-century.

“Consumers do not pay the net present value,” Frontier said. Instead, they paid the “real cost” in full, including at least a further $62bn for transmission, the advisers added.

Mr O’Brien highlighted Frontier’s comments on the impact of the new “Value of Emissions Reduction” carbon price, or VER.

He said a $70 a tonne VER, which took effect in May, was being applied to project assessments to make renewables appear better and make coal look worse.

“Suddenly, the case for projects that would otherwise in some instances not stack up and never be approved let alone receive federal funding are suddenly treated as really important and even accelerated to get them into the system,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Labor did not take a carbon price to the last election, which is why this has been done by stealth.”

The VER is set to rise to nearly $420/t by 2050.

Frontier’s report said “the VER is not a price that has to be paid directly by consumers, but the investments the VER make appear to be economically cost efficient do have to be paid by consumers and/or taxpayers.

“In this sense, the VER is, in effect, a carbon price that all consumers pay for through the economic costs caused by the use of the VER in planning the energy system even though no government has agreed to or legislated an explicit carbon price,” Frontier said.

“The 2024 value of the VER of just under $70/tonne is about twice what the 2024 dollar value would be of the Gillard carbon tax at the time it was abolished” in 2014.

Mr O’Brien is due to deliver the 2024 Bradfield Oration in Sydney on Friday, in which he will say Australia is at a “genuine fork in the road”, where a choice must be made about the pathway for the nation’s energy future.

“We choose the right path, and our children and theirs will inherit an Australia that is rich, strong and fiercely independent,” Mr O’Brien will say in his speech.

“But [if] we choose the wrong path, they will inherit an Australia that is poor, weak and dependent on foreign powers whose interests do not align to our own.”

It is not known when Frontier’s costing of the Coalition’s nuclear path will be released.

Cont'd...

Cont'd...

Mr Bowen has accused opposition leader Peter Dutton of inventing costings amid reports the true cost of building a renewables-only power grid will cost $642 billion.

Mr Bowen defended the government’s costings as fully costed, backed by the experts and could be read on the energy regulator’s website.

“Peter Dutton and Ted O’Brien have made up costings for every single policy except their own nuclear scheme,” he said.

“It’s time for Peter Dutton to be upfront with Australians about what his plan to keep the lights on and bring down emission is going to cost Australian households in higher energy bills and high taxes.

“Experts say Peter Dutton’s taxpayer-funded nuclear plan will cost $600 billion, take twenty years to build, only deliver 4 per cent of our energy needs and push up emissions by extending coal.

“The Government’s energy plan is fully costed and backed by the experts and available on AEMO’s website.”

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/labors-renewablesonly-grid-will-cost-at-least-642-billion-not-112bn-as-claimed-new-report-says/news-story/9a14da1c5a8f8e77763ee20a94c667c9

gee, a report by the libs is claiming labors costings are out ....  :D :D :D

Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report?

Wouldn't the money have been better spent obtaining actual costing for their nuclear proposal? :D :D :D

Is anyone really, honestly surprised that Labor has lied about the true cost of their plan and lied on such a massively colossal scale? The opposition has used the same advisers (energy experts Frontier Economics) the ALP previously used to correctly cost Labors plan, so no one can accuse them of shopping around for costings to fit their narrative. It's time for Labor to scrap this prohibitively expensive and unreliable renewables fantasy and get behind nuclear power before our coal fired power stations all close down.

John Smith wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 11:49am:

gee, a report by the libs is claiming labors costings are out ....  :D :D :D Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? Wouldn't the money have been better spent obtaining actual costing for their nuclear proposal? :D :D :D

Reading is not your forte, is it?

The new paper, “Developing a base case to assess the relative costs of nuclear power in the NEM”, was done by energy experts Frontier Economics — a group of advisers the ALP has previously used.

The Coalition have done costings on Labor's renewable plan without releasing the report for scrutiny but have not provided any costings on their own Nuclear plan....Until both sets of costings are released no fair comparison can take place....How much power will each project produce for the cost invested....How much will each policy affect investment....Which policy delivers the best enviromental outcomes....Until Dutton releases the Coalitions costings any comparison is bullshit!!!

::) ::) ::)

Armchair_Politician wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 11:51am:

John Smith wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 11:49am: gee, a report by the libs is claiming labors costings are out ....  :D :D :D Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? Wouldn't the money have been better spent obtaining actual costing for their nuclear proposal? :D :D :D Reading is not your forte, is it? The new paper, “Developing a base case to assess the relative costs of nuclear power in the NEM”, was done by energy experts Frontier Economics — a group of advisers the ALP has previously used.

I didn't ask for a base cost to assess relative cost of nuclear. I asked for a costing of the liberal parties nuclear policy. Let me know when you figure out the difference.

John Smith wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 11:49am:

Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report?

so you absolutely did not ask this question? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Liberals nuclear fantasy is exactly that

Labor majority government wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 4:59pm:

Liberals nuclear fantasy is exactly that

As a result of cost with these new figures? Please provide your figures. ;)

Labor majority government wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 4:59pm:

Liberals nuclear fantasy is exactly that

I suppose we could always have wind farms as far as the eye can see. It would only take the first lightning bolt strike on one of them to put the financial benefits into debt.

https://youtu.be/pUwsnDF-4BA?si=w9qhylK3gFfOditE

‘The Real Cost of Net Zero’: Chris Uhlmann delivers sneak peek into new documentary

Sky News political contributor Chris Uhlmann delivers a sneak peek into his upcoming documentary which investigates ‘The Real Cost of Net Zero’.

“It can’t work without a dispatchable fuel source, at the moment it’s coal,” Mr Uhlmann said.

“If we’re going to replace that, it will have to be something like gas.”

The exclusive Sky News Australia documentary is set to air on Tuesday, November 19 at 8pm.

https://www.skynews.com.au/business/energy/the-real-cost-of-net-zero-inside-the-albanese-governments-renewable-energy-push-and-what-it-means-for-struggling-australians/news-story/109d8f491328db7ca8248aff8845c64e

lee wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 12:44pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 11:49am: Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? so you absolutely did not ask this question? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat. :D

John Smith wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 12:01pm:

lee wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 12:44pm: John Smith wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 11:49am: Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? so you absolutely did not ask this question? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat. :D

I’m only just reading this thread and thinking John has valid point (with out the pathetic insult).

Regardless I’m totally in support of nuclear and can’t quite understand why we can have nuclear submarines but not power generation?

John Smith wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 12:01pm:

what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat

It was your question petal. ;)

lee wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 2:36pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 12:01pm: what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat It was your question petal. ;)

Quote:

Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report?

nothing to do with armpits response .... petal

John Smith wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 5:04pm:

lee wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 2:36pm: John Smith wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 12:01pm: what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat It was your question petal. ;) Quote: Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? nothing to do with armpits response .... petal

You mean the firm also employed by Labor? Why don't you ask the same question of them?

Frontier economics are doing costings on nuclear due in a few weeks factoring inflation in as well so that should swing the pendulum ...

lee wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 5:30pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 5:04pm: lee wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 2:36pm: John Smith wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 12:01pm: what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat It was your question petal. ;) Quote: Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? nothing to do with armpits response .... petal You mean the firm also employed by Labor? Why don't you ask the same question of them?

Cause the OP isn't about them ya dumbarse :D :D :D :D

Armchair_Politician wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 11:45am:

The real cost of building a renewables-only power grid is more than half a trillion dollars higher than the Albanese government has claimed, bombshell new research reveals.

Yes, so it's time politicians started looking past the lies of mainstream economists, and inform us the reality: the issue is mobilization of resources, not money,  necessary to transition to net zero, ie, the Oz government is not limited by Oz dollars (which it issues), but the resources it can marshall (and pay for).  

The cost for a currency-issuer is not monetary, but opportunity costs** of resource allocation.


Quote:

“Labor has failed in math calculations, oh we will look to the taxpayer, but guess what the taxpayer has nothing to give,” reader Faye also wrote.

(Well, park to one side the fact there ARE many taxpayers including national and international companies who DO have 'plenty to give'... )

But guess what: the Coal-ition's nuclear policies will also cost $half a trillion - to be funded by - you guessed it, the "taxpayer".  

** see the latest MMT post re "opportunity costs".

......

The penny (!) will drop if AGW-CO2 climate catastrophes keep increasing enough to counter Trump's 'climate hoax' theory, and governments are forced to mobilize resources on a global scale, without pauperizing low income groups with silly carbon taxes beloved by obsolete mainstream economic orthodoxy. 

"Taxpayers" rejoice, your money isn't needed by a currency-issuing government,  if the government can command, or purchase,  the resources it needs.  

Mainland Australia’s last wind tower manufacturer will be forced to mothball its plant in a major embarrassment for the ­Albanese government after cheap imports using heavy-polluting Chinese steel have destroyed the local industry and cast a shadow over Labor’s domestic renewables policy.

Keppel Prince has blasted the federal and Victorian governments after a long-running lack of certainty and failure to deal with heavily subsidised Asian steel imports forced the Portland-based manufacturer to close its wind tower manufacturing facility, once one of the nation’s biggest.

Keppel Prince executive director Stephen Garner singled out Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen for criticism, saying he had been to the plant and was well aware of the challenges facing local producers who are [highlight]competing with China, where there are generous subsidies for producers that have crippled Australian competitors[/highlight].
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/china-subsidies-smash-australian-wind-tower-builder-signalling-end-of-last-major-player-keppel-prince/news-story/3f0afc4af1a4fbc49285795c3064bd74


Bowels or Albo- which one is more insincere and stupid?


Asked where the Prime Minister and Mr Bowen fit in the closure, Mr Garner said: “They’ve got to look really bad that they are losing the only tower manufacturer accredited to build the things.

“The federal government continues to say, like Albanese says, we want to get back to manufacturing. Here we have a manufacturing facility already in place.

“It’s set up for renewable energy, which is what the government talks about every day of the week, and yet we’ve got to mothball it because we can’t compete with China because our government won’t do anything about it.

“It’s just so disappointing that the government is doing literally nothing to stop China from dumping into Australia.’’


Mr Tehan said the government’s pledge to build Australia’s manufacturing base was in disarray. “What a complete embarrassment,’’ the member for Wannon said. “Their renewables only policy has been such a success it has closed our last remaining wind tower manufacturer.

“So the government is not in breach of its own misinformation and disinformation laws, it needs to immediately pull its Made in Australia ads that proudly displays a wind farm.

“It would actually be funny, if workers weren’t losing their jobs because of such incompetence.’’

At one point, Mr Garner had considered Chinese steel but it was being offered at double the price of that being given to his overseas competitors.

“For many, many years I feel like I’ve been the pied piper,’’ he said. “I’ve been standing on a soap box preaching this for so long, that China has been subsidised. We know that (in) China the government gives a 12 per cent subsidy for every tower that they export. And if that’s not dumping, then what is?’’




Albo and Bowels - a pair of useless, stupid wrecker.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

Poor tgd, marketing his MMT's BS again. Not getting enough traction? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

John Smith wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2024 at 7:56am:

Cause the OP isn't about them ya dumbarse

Labor are the first party mentioned. Why isn't it about them? ::)

Brian Ross wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2024 at 12:25pm:

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

I am going to call you a cun't every time you yawn, you cun't.

And I invite every other member to do so.
You cun't.

Let's see who gets censured and banned first for being a cun't.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Nov 15^th, 2024 at 11:45am:

It was prepared at the request of the Coalition, which also asked Frontier to crunch the numbers for its plan that includes seven new nuclear reactors, which so far have not been close to being costed. So, that report has yet to be made public.

This is because Dutton, Littleproud - and the LibNat Party - are still yet to let Frontier Research know just how they'd like the results of this research to read



.

lee wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2024 at 2:03pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 22nd, 2024 at 7:56am: Cause the OP isn't about them ya dumbarse Labor are the first party mentioned. Why isn't it about them? ::)

any reports labor may or may not have previously commissioned have nothing to do with the OP you dumbarse . What are you brain damaged?

Frank wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2024 at 12:02pm:

Mainland Australia’s last wind tower manufacturer will be forced to mothball its plant in a major embarrassment for the ­Albanese government after cheap imports using heavy-polluting Chinese steel have destroyed the local industry and cast a shadow over Labor’s domestic renewables policy.

Er.... Oz doesn't have an operational  green steel plant yet. 


Quote:

Keppel Prince has blasted the federal and Victorian governments after a long-running lack of certainty and failure to deal with heavily subsidised Asian steel imports forced the Portland-based manufacturer to close its wind tower manufacturing facility, once one of the nation’s biggest.

China is the world's largest steel producer; the only way Oz can compete is with its own subsidies.


Quote:

Keppel Prince executive director Stephen Garner singled out Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen for criticism, saying he had been to the plant and was well aware of the challenges facing local producers who are [highlight]competing with China, where there are generous subsidies for producers that have crippled Australian competitors[/highlight]. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/china-subsidies-smash-australian-wind-tower-builder-signalling-end-of-last-major-player-keppel-prince/news-story/3f0afc4af1a4fbc49285795c3064bd74

'The Australian' is a hot-bed of Conservative ignorance, personified at Ozpolitic by lee....


Quote:

Bowels or Albo- which one is more insincere and stupid?

They are attempting to abide by global agreements made in Paris in 2016


Quote:

Asked where the Prime Minister and Mr Bowen fit in the closure, Mr Garner said: “They’ve got to look really bad that they are losing the only tower manufacturer accredited to build the things.

Well.... yes, because they are signed up to the obsolete small government/low tax/ balanced budget maintream economic orthodoxy.


Quote:

“The federal government continues to say, like Albanese says, we want to get back to manufacturing. Here we have a manufacturing facility already in place. “It’s set up for renewable energy, which is what the government talks about every day of the week, and yet we’ve got to mothball it because we can’t compete with China because our government won’t do anything about it. “It’s just so disappointing that the government is doing literally nothing to stop China from dumping into Australia.’’

Examined and explained above.


Quote:

Mr Tehan said the government’s pledge to build Australia’s manufacturing base was in disarray. “What a complete embarrassment,’’ the member for Wannon said. “Their renewables only policy has been such a success it has closed our last remaining wind tower manufacturer. “So the government is not in breach of its own misinformation and disinformation laws, it needs to immediately pull its Made in Australia ads that proudly displays a wind farm. “It would actually be funny, if workers weren’t losing their jobs because of such incompetence.’’ At one point, Mr Garner had considered Chinese steel but it was being offered at double the price of that being given to his overseas competitors. “For many, many years I feel like I’ve been the pied piper,’’ he said. “I’ve been standing on a soap box preaching this for so long, that China has been subsidised. We know that (in) China the government gives a 12 per cent subsidy for every tower that they export. And if that’s not dumping, then what is?’’

If that is true, then Albo should certainly be taking it up with Xi. But it's probably NOT true: why would China charge Oz double the price for its steel, compared to buyers in the rest of the world.  The "dumping" of windmills is a different issue.   


Quote:

Albo and Bowels - a pair of useless, stupid wrecker.

And you are misled by The Oz's well known penchant for GIGO....

lee wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2024 at 2:01pm:

Poor tgd, marketing his MMT's BS again. Not getting enough traction? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Poor lee, marketing his 'climate hoax' theory, and 'healthy  air pollution' theory. :-(

Fact (not theory): money is created out of thin air, unemcumbered by the now obsolete gold standard.      

Quote:

as well as the use of an accounting treatment called “net present value”, rather than actual prices

This is why journalists should go to school.

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 10:35am:

Poor lee, marketing his 'climate hoax' theory, and 'healthy  air pollution' theory.

And still no attribution. The headline reading dummy, just KNOWS things. ;D ;D ;D ;D

If I’m understanding this correctly our clean energy windmills are being brought from China because they are cheaper than locally built due to a tariff?
These same windmills steel is made from burning of Australian coal?

Why do we supply other countries with our coal but we aren’t allowed to use it here?

Quote:

Why do we supply other countries with our coal but we aren’t allowed to use it here?

What makes you they we aren't allowed to use coal here?

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 1:43pm:

What makes you they we aren't allowed to use coal here?

That is the plan in demonising coal, isn't it?

Coal fired power stations are designed to run flat out and with such a significant feed in from rooftop solar sustain major damage when they aren't able to . They  don't work well together...Gas is available flick of the switch and should be part of the balance until sufficient storage options are in place for solar feed in . I'm not entirely sure how nuclear and renewable energy would work with each other

lee wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 2:41pm:

freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 1:43pm: What makes you they we aren't allowed to use coal here? That is the plan in demonising coal, isn't it?

Did you cover present, past and future tense in school? Or do I need to explain how it works?

Metallurgical coal will probably never be phased out.

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 5:25pm:

Did you cover present, past and future tense in school?

Yes.
freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 5:25pm:

Metallurgical coal will probably never be phased out.

It is what the pollies and greens want. ::)

lee wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 7:04pm:

freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 5:25pm: Did you cover present, past and future tense in school? Yes. freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 5:25pm: Metallurgical coal will probably never be phased out. It is what the pollies and greens want. ::)

Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions?

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions?

No. I've got you to give the dumbest possible answers. ;)

As it did with the Indigenous voice referendum, the Albanese government is drifting towards a catastrophic failure – this time over its blind commitment to an accelerated net-zero carbon emissions economy, which has been central to every major decision being taken within months of an election.

Labor is consumed with a take-it-or-leave-it belief in the implementation of a renewables-only energy policy as the underpinning of a caring and inclusive economy and the creation of Australia as a global renewables superpower.


Again, as with the voice proposal, this redoubled effort on renewable energy is supported by every Labor minister, MP and senator without question or query. There is an acceptance of the dangerous political premise that Dutton is unelectable, that the vocal support for renewable energy from leading public figures represents a popular public view and that unsupported claims or broken promises about energy costs will be forgiven.

The danger for the Prime Minister is that support from the “institutional elite”, as former Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon called them, for the new caring and inclusive economic solution will further delude Labor.



Then Chalmers dropped his own renewable surprise announcing that Australia’s first and only sovereign wealth fund, the $230bn Future Fund, would have its investment priorities changed so that Labor’s pet projects – renewable energy, housing and infrastructure – had to be considered for investment. The highly successful and strongly performing investment fund – which covers unfunded public service superannuation and contributes to the budget bottom line – had never been directed before and it was clear Chalmers wanted renewable energy investments included.

Again, in the wake of global post-pandemic anxiety and Chalmers’ own warnings about threats to economic stability, how does Labor not think voters will look at a raid on the nation’s nest egg as anything else but a grab for gold to fund pet projects?

Chalmers, in the face of fierce criticism, tried to argue that nothing had really changed and that the new priorities he inserted as Treasurer wouldn’t risk the golden egg.

But Peter Costello, the treasurer-founder of the fund and later its chairman, pierced the obfuscation, declaring that if the changes didn’t do anything, then why introduce them?
“When governments direct savings to particular areas they usually end in political decisions that lose money,” he said on Thursday. Costello said Labor was claiming the new ministerial direction would not change anything, but “you don’t change things to keep them the same”.



Deluded. Bowels, Albo, Marles, Wong. Deluded.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

In an enduring irony, the world’s ability to feed most of the eight billion people on the planet is due to the work of a German war criminal. Fritz Haber pioneered the use of chlorine gas in World War I and invented the process for making fertiliser from the air.

An unexpected casualty of his research on chemical weapons was his wife, Clara Immerwahr. An equally gifted chemist, she was so horrified by her husband directing the first use of chlorine gas at Ypres that she took his pistol and killed herself.

The same man, working in the same lab, invented a process that produced ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen. This is the foundation of modern synthetic fertilisers, which revolutionised food production. Without it, billions would starve.

So, despite what some activists say, you can, and do, eat fossil fuel. Canadian energy savant Vaclav Smil has calculated the embedded energy in a 125g Spanish tomato bought in a Scandinavian market at five tablespoons of diesel.

And, as noted here before, a paper in the American Journal of Public Health records that “nearly 99 per cent of pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents are derived from petrochemicals”.

So, to quote the energy experts at Doomberg, energy is life. Harnessing fossil fuels, particularly oil, drove a warp-speed leap forward in human development in the past century.

The wealth of nations is directly linked to their access to coal, oil and gas. Your standard of living is a product of the amount of energy you get to use. Just because you can’t see the process doesn’t mean you are not using it. Poor nations and poor people are energy poor.
...

Do not listen to what nations say at yearly climate jamborees, watch what they do.

Last year coal, oil and gas consumption hit record highs. The only thing that has changed is where the fuel is burned. No matter what it says, China will continue to greedily burn every molecule of hydrocarbon we don’t want. So will Russia, India, Indonesia and countries in Africa.

And while the Biden administration lectured Australia about carbon emissions, the US grew to become a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia and to extract more gas than Qatar. Under Donald Trump America will “drill baby drill” and pull out of the climate accords. Argentina will follow it.

So what on earth are we doing? We have a choice: harness the energy under our feet, stay rich and use our wealth to adapt to a changing climate; or beggar ourselves and adapt to a changing climate.

And for those hellbent on the second path, who rage against the evils of fossil fuel, it’s past time you began living out the true meaning of your creed.

Start small. Spend just one day a week actively avoiding everything derived from hydrocarbons. Call it Fossil-Free Friday. There already is a TV show that will give you a sense of what that looks like. It’s called Naked and Afraid.

lee wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 7:54pm:

freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:47pm: Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions? No. I've got you to give the dumbest possible answers. ;)

Lol. He got you there FD ;)

Frank wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 8:18pm:

In an enduring irony, the world’s ability to feed most of the eight billion people on the planet is due to the work of a German war criminal. Fritz Haber pioneered the use of chlorine gas in World War I and invented the process for making fertiliser from the air. An unexpected casualty of his research on chemical weapons was his wife, Clara Immerwahr. An equally gifted chemist, she was so horrified by her husband directing the first use of chlorine gas at Ypres that she took his pistol and killed herself. The same man, working in the same lab, invented a process that produced ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen. This is the foundation of modern synthetic fertilisers, which revolutionised food production. Without it, billions would starve. So, despite what some activists say, you can, and do, eat fossil fuel. Canadian energy savant Vaclav Smil has calculated the embedded energy in a 125g Spanish tomato bought in a Scandinavian market at five tablespoons of diesel. And, as noted here before, a paper in the American Journal of Public Health records that “nearly 99 per cent of pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents are derived from petrochemicals”. So, to quote the energy experts at Doomberg, energy is life. Harnessing fossil fuels, particularly oil, drove a warp-speed leap forward in human development in the past century. The wealth of nations is directly linked to their access to coal, oil and gas. Your standard of living is a product of the amount of energy you get to use. Just because you can’t see the process doesn’t mean you are not using it. Poor nations and poor people are energy poor. ... Do not listen to what nations say at yearly climate jamborees, watch what they do. Last year coal, oil and gas consumption hit record highs. The only thing that has changed is where the fuel is burned. No matter what it says, China will continue to greedily burn every molecule of hydrocarbon we don’t want. So will Russia, India, Indonesia and countries in Africa. And while the Biden administration lectured Australia about carbon emissions, the US grew to become a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia and to extract more gas than Qatar. Under Donald Trump America will “drill baby drill” and pull out of the climate accords. Argentina will follow it. So what on earth are we doing? We have a choice: harness the energy under our feet, stay rich and use our wealth to adapt to a changing climate; or beggar ourselves and adapt to a changing climate. And for those hellbent on the second path, who rage against the evils of fossil fuel, it’s past time you began living out the true meaning of your creed. Start small. Spend just one day a week actively avoiding everything derived from hydrocarbons. Call it Fossil-Free Friday. There already is a TV show that will give you a sense of what that looks like. It’s called Naked and Afraid.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

Most sitting days a small band of activists gathers outside federal parliament, around an array of hydrocarbon-rich signs, demanding an immediate end to all fossil fuel.

One of their number identifies as a marsupial, kitted out in an ill-fitting polyester suit made from petrochemicals. She/he/it and the other millenarians congregate on a path, made with cement sourced from a coal or gas-fired kiln, as they urge passers-by to repent their carbon addiction or face oblivion.

One ominous black sign warns: Coal Kills Kids. Let’s check how the kids were doing in BC: the era before coal. The Australian Bureau of Statistics records that in 1900 there were 103 deaths in every 1000 live births. A century later that number had dropped to a tick over five per 1000. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that children born in 2022 can expect to live around 30 years longer than those in 1891.

There is more than a casual link between widespread, affordable electricity and the increase in life expectancy.Of course, there are other factors driving it, such as access to plentiful food and better medical care.

The Telegraph is a Murdoch outlet

Since you can't provide a link to the story (because it's behind a paywall) I'm going to assume the author is Andrew "half-shot" Bolt.

We've heard this opinion a thousand times.

lee wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 7:54pm:

freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:47pm: Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions? No.

Didn't think so. Perhaps now we can get back to Dave explaining why he thinks we aren't allowed to use coal in Australia.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 2:24pm:

Regardless I’m totally in support of nuclear and can’t quite understand why we can have nuclear submarines but not power generation?

I'm totally in support of nuclear too.

But I can see that nuclear-powered submarines have an advantage over land nuclear. They can head out to sea, or be towed out to sea, and sunk somewhere deep.

Aurora Complexus wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 9:35pm:

The Telegraph is a Murdoch outlet Since you can't provide a link to the story (because it's behind a paywall) I'm going to assume the author is Andrew "half-shot" Bolt. We've heard this opinion a thousand times.

I did provide the link.
It is The Australian, not the Tele. And it's Chris Uhlman, not Bolt.


Reading the two long is excepts I provided, you should be able to think of something more substantial than a Bbwianesque yawn or an equally enervated 'I'm not talkin' to no Bolt'.

Belinda Jones lives a short drive and a world away from Parliament House in Canberra.

The chasm between her life and political platitudes is written in the latest electricity bill of the mother of three and full-time carer.

“This is what I call a payday killer,” Ms Jones told Sky News, as she used a wooden spoon to point to handwritten calculations scrawled on the bill.

“It’s come in at $1073.31. My pay, which is the pay of most age pensioners, is around $1144. This leaves me, after I pay this bill, $71 and nine cents.”

Ms Jones recalls Labor’s election pledge of cheaper, greener electricity; with prices driven down by the low generating costs of wind and solar power.

“It will see electricity prices fall from the current level by $275 for households by 2025, at the end of our first term,” Anthony Albanese said when launching Labor’s energy transition plan from opposition in December 2021.

Since then power prices have marched up to the point where the Albanese government was forced to give every household a $300 bill subsidy in its May budget.

Ms Jones is enraged by the $75 in government relief, written as a line in her quarterly bill, because she sees it as tokenistic and the polar opposite of what was promised.

“Seventy-five dollars when I was at uni fed us for a week,” she said. “Seventy-five dollars now is worse than anything I’ve ever seen, because it buys you next to nothing. So that’s why we are forced to shop at the food bank.”

Ms Jones is highly educated but when her husband suffered a brain injury at work her family’s life was up-ended, as they were driven into poverty.

“That turned me into a full-time carer for him, and raising the kids,” she said. “He’s not on (National Disability Insurance Scheme), so we are just making do. So I’ve paid my taxes, I’ve done my time, and now we’ve hit bad luck. So that’s where it’s at.”

An investigation by Sky News into the actual costs of the energy transition set out to test the government claim that more wind and solar generation will drive down retail electricity prices. The documentary team focused on the evidence of similar electricity transitions in the US and interviewed experts who run electricity systems, or who have real-world experience in energy.

All pointed to a series of reasons the Albanese government’s pledge of cheaper power was always going to fail in the real world.

Replacing fuel-burning generators with weather-dependent energy harvesters means the new system must be massively overbuilt and spread over a vast amount of land. Turning that on-again, off-again generation into a 24/7 electricity system means it must be backed up by a complex life-support system of batteries, hydropower and gas. Then all the widely scattered generation has to be connected to towns and cities with an extra 10,000km of transmission lines. Each step adds costs.

Queensland University professor Steven Wilson has worked in energy in 30 countries for more than 30 years. He says it’s fanciful to claim that gathering electricity from nature is cheap.

“So you’ve got to turn it from the raw form, of wind or sun, which is free, into the desired form, electricity, which is definitely not free,” Professor Wilson said. “And you’ve got to move it from the place where it is to the place where the customer needs it. And you need to time shift, from the time that it’s coming in to the time that the customer needs it. So achieving all of that requires a larger, more complex, more expensive system than the system we grew up with.”

Richard McIndoe ran Energy Australia for a decade and has been in the energy business for 35 years. He said transmission lines made up about 9 per cent of the cost of every electricity bill. Building more of them would drive power prices higher.

“So if we have to double the amount of transmission to interconnect all the new generation on the grid, then that’s going to be part of your bill for the next 25 years as that investment is paid off,” Mr McIndoe said.

He feared an even bigger cost would come closer to home, if the poles and wires of the distribution system had to be rebuilt to cope with the growing stress placed on the system by rooftop solar and electric vehicles. Distribution costs make up 35 per cent of every electricity bill.

“Now that network of distribution is hundreds of thousands of kilometres across Australia connecting all the homes and businesses across this enormous country,” he said. “The need for more capacity and more infrastructure on the poles and wires along our streets is going to add to the cost of our bills.”

The government pledge also failed to account for the fact that the eastern grid, the National Electricity Market, is exactly as advertised: a wholesale electricity marketplace.

Daniel Westerman, chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator, told Sky: “Most people probably don’t know that energy in Australia is bought and sold every five minutes, and we manage the buying and selling and settle the trades just like the ASX.”

In that marketplace the highest cost of generation, not the lowest cost, sets the wholesale price of power. And because wind and solar leave large supply gaps in the morning and evening hours of peak demand, the price is more often than not set by more expensive forms of generation. As the low-cost generators of brown and black coal are retired, the wholesale price will, more often, be set by the higher prices of gas, hydro power and batteries.

Wholesale costs make up 35 per cent of every electricity bill.

And then there is a relatively new line in all bills, for green schemes. They make up 10 per cent of most bills, building money to subsidise large and small renewable energy schemes. Since 2013 Australian electricity customers have contributed $14bn to subsidise large-scale wind and solar developers, and another $11.5bn for households and businesses installing rooftop solar.

Jim Robb is chief executive and president of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Appointed by congress, his unique job is to oversee the reliability and security of the bulk power system across the entire interconnected American grid, which includes all of the US and parts of Canada and Mexico.

“There’s a line that a lot of people will latch on to that as we move toward more renewable sources of energy, that costs will decline because we don’t have to pay for fuel,” Mr Robb said. “But we do have to pay for the capital required to convert free wind and free sunshine into electricity. We’re going to have to pay for the capital to distribute it to customers, and we’re going have to pay for the creation of those reliability services.”
Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill told Sky News that the real problem with the transition was that politicians and activists were not levelling with the Australian people and they were using aspirations, not data, to make their case.

“I actually worry about the Australians who are battling it out every day,” Ms O’Neill said. “Those are the ones who are going to feel the greatest impact from power price rises from blackouts. You know, those are gonna be the households that are struggling when their energy prices are rising.”

Belinda Jones is the face of that struggle. She is angry pledges of cheap green power turned out to be empty as she struggles to make ends meet and her family shiver through Canberra’s long, cold winters.

“It’s not just about me,” she said. “It’s not just about the budget, it’s about my family. I’m a mum, I’m the CEO of this family, and I’m responsible for putting food on the table, paying the bills, and keeping it all together.

“And it’s really full-on. My kids have grown up … and now I’m struggling to feed them. They’re embarrassed by me giving this interview because they feel shame. But I don’t. I see this as a political issue. I see it as a structural issue. I consider that when mothers are dumpster-diving to feed their families, that’s not okay.”

The Real Cost of Net Zero airs on Sky News Australia on Tuesday, November 19 at 8pm.

“I want people to really understand what’s happening with the electricity grid and why the promise of a greener and cheaper future … was never going to happen, even at the time it was promised,” Mr Uhlmann told Sky News Australia.

“The cost of electricity is not set by the lowest cost of generation.

“It is set by the highest cost of generation.”

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/labors-greener-and-cheaper-future-will-never-happen/video/5316706759db716d344469652f415034

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 10:29pm:

lee wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:54pm: [quote author=freediver link=1731635153/37#37 date=1732355228]Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions? No. [/quot Didn't think so. Perhaps now we can get back to Dave explaining why he thinks we aren't allowed to use coal in Australia.

It’s my understanding we are in the process of closing down our coal fired power stations primarily because of there age and climate damage ( if you believe it).
This  assists us in meeting the Paris agreement.

The buzz wording is “ transition away from coal”.
So while coal cannot in the future be used to generate electricity in this country because it’s bad for the environment it’s perfectly ok for us to ship it overseas to be used to generate electricity.

Just like uranium, coal under goes some miracle at sea which means it’s no longer a dangerous pollution source?

Sorry the late reply, been walking the cat.

The astonishing cost of our net-zero delusion
It is impossible to overstate the stakes if our energy transition runs off the rails. Red lights are flashing here and around the world.


“There’s a line that a lot of people will latch onto that as we move toward more renewable sources of energy, that costs will decline because we don’t have to pay for fuel,” Robb says. “But we do have to pay for the capital required to convert free wind and free sunshine into electricity. We’re going to have to pay for the capital to distribute it to customers, and we’re going have to pay for the creation of those reliability services.”

This is no surprise. Anyone watching the cautionary tales of South Australia, Germany and California could read the signals years ago that the rhetoric of a cheap, reliable green power was a fraud. It was obvious when Labor produced its energy policy, including the mythic figure of a $275 drop in power prices. Bowen was privately warned not to claim prices would fall.

And the dirty little secret in the construction of the green grid is that it cannot work as an electricity system without gas.

“We will have batteries, we’ll have pumped hydro,” Westerman says. “But we’ll have times like we’ve seen earlier this year where there’s not much wind and there’s not much sun, and the gas-fired power stations are really required to back up the reliability of the grid. They are there as the ultimate backstop.”

The energy transition road map is the Integrated System Plan developed by AEMO. It shows that, as coal retires, 15 gigawatts of gas will be needed for the eastern grid to operate securely to 2050 and beyond. This is not just a little bit of gas, it’s enough to power 15 million homes. As a future grid dominated by wind and solar generation cannot form a reliable electricity system without gas, the fossil fuel’s role is more backbone than backstop.

This plan is being built on the railroad tracks laid down by the government. And, lest we forget, last year Bowen told the world climate summit that “fossil fuels have no ongoing role to play in our energy systems” if the Paris targets are to be met.

One begins to wonder if the minister understands that words have meaning. The distance between what he says and what is real is as vast as the generation gaps Labor’s decarbonisation ambitions are punching in the electricity system.

There is another, terrifying, possibility that would explain this reality gap: that the minister, his staff, his department and all the states and territories that have been pushing ambitious renewables targets for a decade have no idea what they are doing.

That Australia’s political class, and the bureaucrats who advise them are breathtakingly, stunningly energy illiterate. That they have been ruled by virtue signalling and not facts.

This is now my working theory. Here is the evidence.

If any of them did understand the limitations of the technologies they champion, then all states building a wind and solar-dependent grid would have also vigorously pursued the development of domestic gas supplies.

As they raised their targets for more wind and solar, they would have raised their ambitions to secure plentiful gas. More supply would mean lower electricity costs and would have buttressed the grid, to allow for the orderly retirement of coal generation.

They did the opposite. Victoria imposed a ban on gas exploration and NSW did nothing to encourage it. Worse, energy ministers demonised the fuel. The critical gas shortages all now face is entirely a product of not just bad, but culpably ignorant, policies.

If any of the energy ministers who signed up to Labor’s Capacity Investment Scheme actually knew what they were doing, then gas would have been on the menu of vital technologies needed to support the energy transition. Yet they delivered a plan which specifically excludes gas. Uniquely in the world, Australia has a capacity investment scheme which forbids investing in dispatchable capacity.

If the politicians and bureaucrats had paid attention to what is happening in any jurisdiction attempting a similar transition, then they might have picked up a pretty significant signal.

In June 2022, The New York Times reported that the EU had “endorsed labelling some gas and nuclear energy projects ‘green’, allowing them access to hundreds of billions of euros in cheap loans and even state subsidies”.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-astonishing-cost-of-our-netzero-delusion/news-story/3fc40d39e4c55ce263ac811255f91bc9

Matt Kean (gawdelpus) was the NSW energy minister and is now Climate Change Authority chairman. As recently as last month he said “people calling for gas to be included in the capacity investment scheme are trying to stop renewables”.

“That just seems like a recipe for much higher electricity bills for Australian consumers, and they’re bills that we can’t afford to pay,” Kean said.

So one of the key figures pushing for a weather-dependent grid appears not to have read, or does not understand, the future system plan he champions.

For his benefit we will return to Westerman: “What we know is that as we get to a net-zero system, it’s really expensive if we don’t have a dispatchable source like gas.”

Is it not just a tad disturbing that Kean’s views are so profoundly discordant with the analysis that underpins the system he is promoting? Again, for his benefit, his preferred grid does not work without gas. And, without gas, it will be even more expensive.

Kean also clearly has no knowledge of what’s happening in other countries attempting the same transition, unless he now believes that by subsidising gas the EU is “trying to stop renewables”.

It gets worse. Under questioning before a recent Senate estimates hearing, Kean repeatedly asserted that the system plan “is a look at the counterfactuals as to other sources of generation to provide the cheapest replacement cost of an existing system”.

This is wrong. Examining the cost of coal and nuclear power is explicitly prohibited because the plan is confined by the guardrails of every state and federal policy, including the 82 per cent renewable target. What is being built is not the cheapest system for consumers, it’s the “lowest-cost pathway”. They are two very different things, which is why Westerman will not follow his political masters’ lead in promising lower power prices.

The thought that those leading the net-zero charge might be clueless has clearly occurred to another inhabitant of the real world, Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill.

“One of the things that I think has been challenging is we’re not using data to have the conversation,” O’Neill says.

“We’re using aspiration. We’re using goals. But the fundamental data that will help us understand what’s required to get to the place we want to be, that’s not been laid up for the Australian people.”

And how much back-up of gas, batteries and pumped hydro will be needed to support the so-called net-zero grid?

“What we’ve seen is that you need to manage those zero output hours from wind and solar,” Caravaggio says. “Unfortunately they always happen. So you need essentially a hundred per cent back-up for different periods to cover that need. That is an evolving challenge to figure out the economics and how to make that affordable. Right now, what we typically see is a significant gas build out.”

One hundred per cent backup.

So we are building two systems. The one being advertised and the shadow system needed to ensure the security of supply. And, in a profound irony, the crucial second system has been actively undermined by those championing the first.

In an electricity system, the term for a catastrophic event is cascading system failure. It begins with an initial fault which amplifies through the grid and ends in a widespread blackout. The lights can go out within a minute.

If the mob wakes up to the fact that what was promised by Bowen can never be delivered, or the lights go out, then Labor will learn what a cascading system failure looks like when it is applied to politics. It will put the lights out on the government in a heartbeat.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-astonishing-cost-of-our-netzero-delusion/news-story/3fc40d39e4c55ce263ac811255f91bc9

Bowels and Keen - Gawd 'elp us.

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Brian Ross wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:03am:

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

You didn't understand any of it.

It doesn't matter what the topic, it is way over your head.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2024 at 1:38pm:

If I’m understanding this correctly our clean energy windmills are being brought from China because they are cheaper than locally built due to a tariff?

Not due to any tariff, there are none between Oz and China (, at least after the Morrison era trade kerfuffle ended).

As stated in the OP, Chinese windmills (and steel) are cheaper than anyone else's, because China, with its vast local market and advantage of scale,  subsidizes its industries  (which is why China  also has developed the world's most competitve EVs; Oz doesn't build cars anymore, so no fight with China over cars). 


Quote:

These same windmills steel is made from burning of Australian coal?

Yes. 


Quote:

Why do we supply other countries with our coal but we aren’t allowed to use it here?

(apart from the fact the Oz Labor govt is still allowing coal development in Oz, despite "not being allowed")

1. Because it's Oz's 2nd largest export earner.

2. The Paris agreement says the entire world must stop using coal.

So the Oz government is conflicted: how do we replace the lost export income?

3. In the meantine, Asia is still addicted to coal, even though China is now the world's largest producer of renewable energy; and yet China, being the 'world's factory', has a vast appetite for energy and is still building coal plants, so Oz is happy to oblige....

4. Fossil fuel companies are addicted to their massive profits from extracting fossil fuels, so are massively conflicted about transitioning to green - and governments are addicted to fossil royalties.

Hence the massive police intervention against climate protestors  trying to disrupt the world's largest coal exporting port - Newcastle.
......

So back to the lie: of course the globe has to spend well north of $100 trillion to transition to green (with or without nuclear, though some nuclear base-load is probably necessary); the question is: who will pay.

The dummies at COP-29 think the private sector will pay; they are dreamin'  because the private sector can make more money out of fossils than renewables....

Australia is confronted by three big changes in our strategic circumstances that are making our steady-as-you-go approaches to security and economic development untenable.

We face a markedly increased risk of war in the Indo-Pacific; the global economy is restructuring rapidly in adverse ways; and the Australian economy has stalled with essentially zero productivity growth, declining international competitiveness and a flight of much-needed investment.

If we ignore these fundamental changes in our circumstances we will see Australia reduced to a weak and vulnerable backwater state within a decade. We urgently need to recalibrate, develop a new vision for our future and launch serious reforms.

...

The second strategic challenge is the rapid restructuring of the global economy, driven by China dumping its vast manufacturing surpluses into global markets.

This, in turn, is triggering tariff and other emergency protective measures to be taken by the US, most of Europe, democratic Asia and increasing numbers of developing countries. The origins of this global economic crisis lie in the decision of the Clinton administration in the US to support China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. At the time it was widely assumed that Beijing would abide by the WTO rules, its economic opening would lead to political liberalisation and China would become a “responsible international citizen”.

In joining the WTO, China promised to lower its tariffs, eliminate non-tariff barriers, protect the property rights of foreign investors and open its markets to American and other international producers. However, China kept very few of these promises. Instead, it heavily subsidised its own industries and used a wide range of other mercantilist practices to penetrate, and ultimately dominate, key foreign markets.

This has led to the widespread de-industrialisation of the US, Australia, Britain and most other developed economies. Entire industrial regions in the US and elsewhere have collapsed, and millions of people have lost their jobs. The strategic impact of this vast industrial transfer has been huge. In 2004, US manufacturing output was double that of China. But by 2020 Chinese manufacturing output was double that of the US. This industrial imbalance has grown worse during the past three years. When China’s economy failed to recover fully from the Covid disruptions, its housing sector contracted, consumption fell and many Chinese businesses stalled. This led Beijing to stimulate the economy in part by encouraging many manufacturers to continue expanding production capacity.

In several key product categories, including electric vehicles and solar panels, China has now built more production capacity than is needed to supply the entire globe. However, with domestic demand weak, the only way for many manufacturers to stay afloat has been to send their growing production surpluses into overseas markets at low prices.

This dumping of China’s manufacturing surpluses is considered intolerable by the US, most of Europe and many other countries. The tsunami of cheap Chinese products is destroying the strategic industries of many countries, undermining their economies and rendering them more vulnerable to any new economic or geo-strategic shocks.

Not surprisingly, a strong fightback is under way. Western investment into China is at its lowest level in 30 years. Many American and European companies are reducing their footprints in China and some are leaving entirely.

Tariff and other protective measures are proliferating. The US already has 50 per cent tariffs on Chinese semiconductors, solar cells and medical products. It also has 25 per cent tariffs on Chinese steel, aluminium and batteries, and 25-100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Trump’s policy is to impose a 60 per cent tariff on all Chinese goods, with a possible 20 per cent additional tariff following.

Nearly all of Europe is introducing 27-48 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and 20-48 per cent tariffs on Chinese steel and other metals are being considered. Canada has imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and India has imposed 15-125 per cent tariffs on Chinese vehicles. India also has announced 30 per cent tariffs on most Chinese foods.

A rising number of developing countries also have joined the push back. Indonesia has imposed 200 per cent tariffs on Chinese textiles and other light manufactured goods, Turkey has introduced a 40 per cent tariff on Chinese electrical vehicles, and Brazil and Chile have announced tariffs on Chinese steel products.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/business-as-usual-on-china-will-ruin-us/news-story/f3b7b3aa54ca25be7a1728327ebae465

Frank wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 9:49am:

The astonishing cost of our net-zero delusion. If any of them did understand the limitations of the technologies they champion, then all states building a wind and solar-dependent grid would have also vigorously pursued the development of domestic gas supplies. As they raised their targets for more wind and solar, they would have raised their ambitions to secure plentiful gas. More supply would mean lower electricity costs and would have buttressed the grid, to allow for the orderly retirement of coal generation.

A couple of errors.

1. The current supply of gas is sufficient to ensure grid stability, in a scenario where the rollout of renewables is massively increased,   eg ten Suncable equivalents with UHV technology to transmit the electricty to where its needed.

And the massive midday excess (over Oz energy requirements) could be transmitted to Asia.

2. Massive subsidies of home batteries for rooftop solar, and VtoG EVs all interconnected would be a huge grid stabiliser.

Chris Uhlmann can't see past his navel.   

Frank wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:18am:

Brian Ross wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 11:03am: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif You didn't understand any of it. It doesn't matter what the topic, it is way over your head.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

Frank wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:40am:

Australia is confronted by three big changes in our strategic circumstances that are making our steady-as-you-go approaches to security and economic development untenable.

 

O dear ... here comes The Oz.....


Quote:

We face a markedly increased risk of war in the Indo-Pacific; the global economy is restructuring rapidly in adverse ways; and the Australian economy has stalled with essentially zero productivity growth, declining international competitiveness and a flight of much-needed investment.

1. Because of the West's delusional 'freedom values' ideology; note: China doesn't want war,  and Taiwan is part of China. Suck it up, you "freedom or death" neandertal f**kwits. 

2. because the global financial system is based on debt, servicing greedy money-lenders.

3. because free markets don't work without intelligent government intervention; as for low productivity in Oz,  robots should be rolled out ASAP, and a three day week introduced. Private investors can go f**k themselves, the nation doesn't need their greedy arses.

The rest of the article is GIGO, as with most Murdoch rags.

 

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:09pm:

Frank wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 11:40am: Australia is confronted by three big changes in our strategic circumstances that are making our steady-as-you-go approaches to security and economic development untenable.   O dear ... here comes The Oz.....

The article's author:



Dr Ross Babbage AM

Ross Babbage is the Chief Executive Officer and a director of Strategic Forum.

He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in Washington, D.C. and Managing Director of Strategy International (ACT) Pty Ltd.  In addition, Ross is Founder of the Kokoda Foundation and a Founding Governor of the Institute for Regional Security, Chair of the Academic Council of the Australian Business Academy, a member of Accenture’s Advisory Board and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Menzies Research Centre.


Dr Babbage served for 16 years in the Australian Public Service holding several senior positions, including Head of Strategic Analysis in the Office of National Assessments and leading the branches in the Department of Defence responsible for ANZUS and global strategic policy and then Force Development. During the 1990s he held senior executive positions with ADI Pty Ltd, that was then Australia’s largest defence manufacturing and services organisation. In 2003 and 2004 he served as Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Dr Babbage was a special advisor to the Minister for Defence during the preparation of the 2009 Australian defence white paper. He was also served on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London for a maximum six year term. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2011.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 9:31am:

freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 10:29pm: lee wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:54pm: freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:47pm: Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions? No. Didn't think so. Perhaps now we can get back to Dave explaining why he thinks we aren't allowed to use coal in Australia. It’s my understanding we are in the process of closing down our coal fired power stations primarily because of there age and climate damage ( if you believe it). This  assists us in meeting the Paris agreement. The buzz wording is “ transition away from coal”. So while coal cannot in the future be used to generate electricity in this country because it’s bad for the environment it’s perfectly ok for us to ship it overseas to be used to generate electricity. Just like uranium, coal under goes some miracle at sea which means it’s no longer a dangerous pollution source? Sorry the late reply, been walking the cat.

You are inventing the contradiction. It is OK to ship coal overseas, now. It is OK to use coal locally, now. Note the consistent use of present tense, which results in an entirely consistent set of actions. Most other developed, and even some developing countries, are way ahead of us on the transition. Your misunderstanding and childish misrepresentation of a mish mash of other people's opinions only needs to be explained by you, not by anyone else.

Why did you shift from metallurgical coal to thermal coal? Can you tell the difference?

Frank wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:17pm:

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 12:09pm: Frank wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 11:40am: Australia is confronted by three big changes in our strategic circumstances that are making our steady-as-you-go approaches to security and economic development untenable.   O dear ... here comes The Oz..... The article's author: Dr Ross Babbage AM Ross Babbage is the Chief Executive Officer and a director of Strategic Forum.

So, at least not  the ASPI institute: "freedom values" f**kwits to a man.


Quote:

He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in Washington, D.C. and Managing Director of Strategy International (ACT) Pty Ltd.  In addition, Ross is Founder of the Kokoda Foundation and a Founding Governor of the Institute for Regional Security, Chair of the Academic Council of the Australian Business Academy, a member of Accenture’s Advisory Board and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Menzies Research Centre.

And Andrew Leigh is a Harvard-trained economist, which is the very reason WHY he is blinded by neoclassical "scarcity" dogma.


Quote:

Dr Babbage served for 16 years in the Australian Public Service holding several senior positions, including Head of Strategic Analysis in the Office of National Assessments and leading the branches in the Department of Defence responsible for ANZUS and global strategic policy and then Force Development.

Sounding more and more like a neanderthal ASPI f**kwit, willing to immolate the world over Taiwan's sovereignty.


Quote:

During the 1990s he held senior executive positions with ADI Pty Ltd, that was then Australia’s largest defence manufacturing and services organisation. In 2003 and 2004 he served as Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Dr Babbage was a special advisor to the Minister for Defence during the preparation of the 2009 Australian defence white paper. He was also served on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London for a maximum six year term. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2011.

He is certainly qualified to join the f**kwits at the ASPI....doubt he can match Leigh's economic qualifications ( anachronistic as they are...)

https://globalnews.ca/news/627069/the-coal-facts-thermal-coal-vs-metallurgical-coal/

Are you suggesting when our transition is completed and we no longer burn coal in Australia that the entire export of coal from our shores will cease?

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:52am:

1. The current supply of gas is sufficient to ensure grid stability, in a scenario where the rollout of renewables is massively increased,   eg ten Suncable equivalents with UHV technology to transmit the electricty to where its needed.

And even when renewables are not rolled out. Providing that the greenies don't manage to stop research and mining. 8-)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:52am:

And the massive midday excess (over Oz energy requirements) could be transmitted to Asia.

So the bloke with no engineering says. You haven't stated where these renewables are located. What time zones? Time Zones? Those things that cause variation in output. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 11:52am:

2. Massive subsidies of home batteries for rooftop solar, and VtoG EVs all interconnected would be a huge grid stabiliser.

Stabiliser? When you want to start your EV in the morning? Rooftop solar is just too variable. They generally don't use tracking. And then of course there are plenty of those mounted on East or west side facing. What is the output timeline on them daily?

Just another example of you just reading the headlines. ::)

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:33pm:

https://globalnews.ca/news/627069/the-coal-facts-thermal-coal-vs-metallurgical-coal/ Are you suggesting when our transition is completed and we no longer burn coal in Australia that the entire export of coal from our shores will cease?

I don't think Paula Baker posts here Dave. That link is to a different website.

freediver wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:21pm:

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 9:31am: freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 10:29pm: lee wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:54pm: freediver wrote on Nov 23rd, 2024 at 7:47pm: Do you have a point Lee, or are you just trying to ask the dumbest possible questions? No. Didn't think so. Perhaps now we can get back to Dave explaining why he thinks we aren't allowed to use coal in Australia. It’s my understanding we are in the process of closing down our coal fired power stations primarily because of there age and climate damage ( if you believe it). This  assists us in meeting the Paris agreement. The buzz wording is “ transition away from coal”. So while coal cannot in the future be used to generate electricity in this country because it’s bad for the environment it’s perfectly ok for us to ship it overseas to be used to generate electricity. Just like uranium, coal under goes some miracle at sea which means it’s no longer a dangerous pollution source? Sorry the late reply, been walking the cat. You are inventing the contradiction.

Not really, though I'm not sure he saw my answers to his quesions.


Quote:

It is OK to ship coal overseas, now. It is OK to use coal locally, now.

No it's not (if AGW-CO2 is real, and a climate catastrophe is emerging; as a majority of the world's climate scientists are claiming.....and increasinly appears to be true)


Quote:

Note the consistent use of present tense, which results in an entirely consistent set of actions.

No it doesn't.

Oz is the one country in the world - a vast sunny desert with windy coastlines, and a small population - which could transition to near zero emissions within a decade. 


Quote:

Most other developed, and even some developing countries, are way ahead of us on the transition.

Yes.   


Quote:

Why did you shift from metallurgical coal to thermal coal? Can you tell the difference?

Admittedly I had to answer some fairly basic questions from him...

Re metallurgical coal, its days are also numbered,  as green hydrogen fired smelters come on line.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:33pm:

https://globalnews.ca/news/627069/the-coal-facts-thermal-coal-vs-metallurgical-coal/ Are you suggesting when our transition is completed and we no longer burn coal in Australia that the entire export of coal from our shores will cease?

Well, we along with most of the world  are signed up to zero emissions by 2050, China by 2060, and India by 2070 (...the US?...who knows....but the US doesn't need Oz coal).

lee wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 12:41pm:

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 11:52am: 1. The current supply of gas is sufficient to ensure grid stability, in a scenario where the rollout of renewables is massively increased,   eg ten Suncable equivalents with UHV technology to transmit the electricty to where its needed. And even when renewables are not rolled out. Providing that the greenies don't manage to stop research and mining. 8-)

Poor lee: "climate hoax" theorist extraordinaire.


Quote:

So the bloke with no engineering says. You haven't stated where these renewables are located. What time zones? Time Zones? Those things that cause variation in output. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Speak to the Singapore govenrment (who have access to some clever engineers); they have aleardy signed an agreement with Suncable.


Quote:

Stabiliser?

Yes; some homes will largely power themselves  24/7 (given battery storage) during periods of sunny weather; and other homes will do same in different areas of the country at different times; grid interconnection is required of course.   Excess renewables can be exported overseas, with UHV tranmission.

I just want to make sure I understand exactly where Albo is taking us-

We as a nation transition to renewables.

We then cease mining and export of coal.

We lose a estimated 91 billion dollar industry and its payment of royalties.

NSW government alone gains 2.7 billion a year in royalties. Which disappear.

Ok, that’s what Albo is taking to the election!

Just a question, how do they plug the black hole in the budget that losing billions in royalties will create?

The job losses, what the mining industry is going too transition into hospitality?

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 1:20pm:

Poor lee: "climate hoax" theorist extraordinaire.

And yet you haven't quantified where these renewables will come from. Nothing to do with climate. RENEWABLES. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 1:20pm:

Speak to the Singapore govenrment (who have access to some clever engineers); they have aleardy signed an agreement with Suncable.

And the Suncable haven't got the renewables. But it is a CONDITIONAL agreement. You know what CONDITIONAL means? It means there are CONDITIONS attached. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 1:20pm:

Yes; some homes will largely power themselves  24/7 (given battery storage) during periods of sunny weather; and other homes will do same in different areas of the country at different times; grid interconnection is required of course.

Household solar doesn't stabilise the grid. Extra are needed. Funded by whom?


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 1:20pm:

Excess renewables can be exported overseas, with UHV tranmission.

Wow Now you are going to have UHV transmission to every hub. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Once again doesn't read beyond the headlines. And doesn't even read the headlines correctly. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

“The total value of Australia's energy exports in the 2019-2020 financial year was $115.5 billion.”

“https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au ›

So to achieve net zero Australia will not only fund Chinese made windmills but are certain to lose 115.5 million dollars in revenue by closing our mines and cutting off our export market?

We need to have a adult conversation.



I see we have only three options if Albo survive the next election-

Rise taxes.

Decrease services ( we can balance the budget if we do away with police, schools, hospitals.)

Or a combination of both.

Consider, what could possibly go wrong-

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61028138.amp

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 1:29pm:

I just want to make sure I understand exactly where Albo is taking us- We as a nation transition to renewables. We then cease mining and export of coal. We lose a estimated 91 billion dollar industry and its payment of royalties. NSW government alone gains 2.7 billion a year in royalties. Which disappear. Ok, that’s what Albo is taking to the election! Just a question, how do they plug the black hole in the budget that losing billions in royalties will create? The job losses, what the mining industry is going too transition into hospitality?

So your argument is that climate change is a hoax and coal will continue to be exported at the current rate....As the world moves away from fossil fuel how do you expect Australia to maintain it's current levels of exports....The Coalition are taking more fossil fuels and no investment in renewable energy to the next election....Australia cannot afford Peter Dutton and the Coal industry running the country???

:-? :-? :-?

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 20^th, 2024 at 2:24pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 20th, 2024 at 12:01pm: lee wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 12:44pm: John Smith wrote on Nov 15th, 2024 at 11:49am: Why did the libs bother with a report when the outcome was always going to say that. Do the libs own shares in the company funneled taxpayer funds to prepare this report? so you absolutely did not ask this question? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D what has my question got to do with armpits response you dopey twat. :D I’m only just reading this thread and thinking John has valid point (with out the pathetic insult). Regardless I’m totally in support of nuclear and can’t quite understand why we can have nuclear submarines but not power generation?

I'm guessing  you are asking these questions tongue in cheeck....

Ozzies are scared of nuclear energy, and won't even agree on  where a nuclear waste dump should go.

Governments want to win the most votes, not govern sensibly.

Though  the nuclear subs - a result of the paranoid "China threat" theory - will present a much smaller nucear waste problem, so the people will go along with them (waste from 8 small mobile nuclear-sub reactors).

philperth2010 wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 11:57am:

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 1:29pm: I just want to make sure I understand exactly where Albo is taking us- We as a nation transition to renewables. We then cease mining and export of coal. We lose a estimated 91 billion dollar industry and its payment of royalties. NSW government alone gains 2.7 billion a year in royalties. Which disappear. Ok, that’s what Albo is taking to the election! Just a question, how do they plug the black hole in the budget that losing billions in royalties will create? The job losses, what the mining industry is going too transition into hospitality? So your argument is that climate change is a hoax and coal will continue to be exported at the current rate

That's their basic argument, despite the fact China is already reducing the proportion of coal in its energy mix ; indeed in nominal  terms,  coal's use in China  will continue to grow until about 2030 (because China's energy use is growing so fast,  as per capita income rises in China) - peak coal,  after which it will fall to zero by 2060 (on current plans).



Quote:

.Australia cannot afford Peter Dutton and the Coal industry running the country???

Exactly. Dutton's nuclear plants  certainly won't be useable  by 2030, when China's use of coal wil begin to decline rapidly.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 8:24pm:

“The total value of Australia's energy exports in the 2019-2020 financial year was $115.5 billion.” “https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au › So to achieve net zero Australia will not only fund Chinese made windmills but are certain to lose 115.5 million dollars in revenue by closing our mines and cutting off our export market?

Well, with subsidies we could build our own windmills and PVs; but why would we waste Oz resources in a competition with China's productive capacity (ie when the Chinese  can provide them much more efficiently, due to advantages of scale in manufacturing)?

So the question is: how to replace the lost export income from coal and gas; note: NOT from closing iron ore mines, the largest earner for Oz.

As for exports funding Oz schools, hospitals, polce, etc, (apoint you address below in regard to  balanced budgets) ,  Oz has all the resources needed to build and service all those necesaary public services, so the OZ government can fund all thise things without relying on export income, by deficit spening, given that the resulting Oz government debt will be owed to itself...


Quote:

We need to have a adult conversation.

 

Yes..the problem is the adults having the conversation....


Quote:

I see we have only three options if Albo survive the next election- Rise taxes. Decrease services ( we can balance the budget if we do away with police, schools, hospitals.) Or a combination of both.

Yes, and what's wrong with raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, and stopping insane subsidies for the fossil industry?

But don't worry, Albo is too timid to raise taxes - or rather, ANY government with the balls to  raise taxes - even on the wealthy and corporations, all of whom squeal like slaugtered pigs at the mention of taxes - won't get elected because we are all self-interested, rather than thinking about the common welfare.

But re your mainstream balanced government budget' orthodoxy:

Rush Limbaugh (!) said : "Everyone knows balanced government budgets are nonsense..." 

And our own Alan Kohler agrees (google it).

You of course think the constraint on your own household budget apply to the currency-issuing government's budget, it's time to educate yourself.   


Quote:

Consider, what could possibly go wrong- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61028138.amp

Sri Lanka borrowed money in foreign currencies which Sri Lankan banks can't create;   when terms of trade turn against a country which has debt denominated in foreign currencies, the result is a debt-servicing disaster.

lee wrote on Nov 24^th, 2024 at 3:39pm:

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 1:20pm: Poor lee: "climate hoax" theorist extraordinaire. And yet you haven't quantified where these renewables will come from. Nothing to do with climate. RENEWABLES. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

This sentence alone shows what we are dealing with in lee ...(low IQ?): "renewables,  nothing  to do with climate"..... 

And this little lee 'gem':


Quote:

And the Suncable haven't got the renewables.

The Sun Cable solar farm in the Northern Territory is 12,000 hectares:

The Sun Cable project is a large-scale solar farm and energy transmission system that will:
Generate renewable energy
Provide electricity to the Northern Territory and Singapore
Store electricity in a 40 gigawatt hour battery
Connect Australia to Singapore with a 4,200 kilometer undersea cable.

And China has already shown the way (though lee probably thinks Chinese engineering isn't applicable)

  The world's largest solar power plant is located in China's Xinjiang province and is called the Xinjiang Midong solar project:
Location: The solar park is in a desert area near Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
Capacity: The plant has a capacity of 5 gigawatts (GW).
Size: The solar farm covers 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres).
Panels: The plant has more than 5.26 million panels.
Electricity generation: The plant can generate about 6.09 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.
Powering: The plant could power the entire country of Luxembourg or Papua New Guinea for a year.
Investment: The project cost 15.45 billion Chinese yuan (about $2.13 billion).
Transmission lines: The plant has 129 miles of transmission lines.
Panels: The plant features monocrystalline bifacial double-glass PV panels.
World's largest solar plant goes online in China – pv ...
China is a world leader in renewable energy generation capacity, including solar power. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that China commissioned as much PV capacity in 2022 as the rest of the world combined.


Quote:

Household solar doesn't stabilise the grid.

See the latest 'Household solar woes' post.


Quote:

Now you are going to have UHV transmission to every hub

No, just to distant hubs, dummy.

China shows the way again:

https://www.tdworld.com/overhead-transmission/article/20972092/worlds-biggest-ultra-high-voltage-line-powers-up-across-china


(Bloomberg) -- State Grid Corp. of China has started up the world’s longest and most-powerful ultra-high voltage power line from its far northwest to the heavily populated east.

poor lee,  needs to employ some competent engineers...

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

This sentence alone shows what we are dealing with in lee ...(low IQ?): "renewables,  nothing  to do with climate".....

So tell us how renewables "heal" the climate. By how much does it need to "heal"? ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

The Sun Cable solar farm in the Northern Territory is 12,000 hectares: The Sun Cable project is a large-scale solar farm and energy transmission system that will: Generate renewable energy Provide electricity to the Northern Territory and Singapore Store electricity in a 40 gigawatt hour battery Connect Australia to Singapore with a 4,200 kilometer undersea cable.

Yep. And as of now they have NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA

A 40 GW hour battery? You have heard of the NT right? Monsoon season. Dark both early and late. Overcast with thunderstorms. Hail. And we know hoe solar panels like hail.

But you are probably talking about averages again. ;)

"Under the project, Sun Cable is building the 4,300 kilometer Australia-Asia Power Link that aims to deliver more than 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2030 from a solar farm in northern Australia to customers in Darwin and Singapore. "

https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/mike-cannon-brookes-30-billion-solar-project-wins-approval/

NOW, as before, 20GW is NAMEPLATE capacity. So the discounted rate should be about 14 GW. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

See the latest 'Household solar woes' post.

I have and you talk schist as usual. ;)

Nothing there about a stabvle grid. You must have smudged glasses. Your reading betweeen the lines is once again a failure. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

No, just to distant hubs, dummy.

So rooftop solare is not a source of excess renewables? I guess then they won't be exporting to the grid.
thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

This sentence alone shows what we are dealing with in lee ...(low IQ?): "renewables,  nothing  to do with climate".....

So tell us how renewables "heal" the climate. By how much does it need to "heal"? ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

The Sun Cable solar farm in the Northern Territory is 12,000 hectares: The Sun Cable project is a large-scale solar farm and energy transmission system that will: Generate renewable energy Provide electricity to the Northern Territory and Singapore Store electricity in a 40 gigawatt hour battery Connect Australia to Singapore with a 4,200 kilometer undersea cable.

Yep. And as of now they have NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA

A 40 GW hour battery? You have heard of the NT right? Monsoon season. Dark both early and late. Overcast with thunderstorms. Hail. And we know hoe solar panels like hail.

But you are probably talking about averages again. ;)

"Under the project, Sun Cable is building the 4,300 kilometer Australia-Asia Power Link that aims to deliver more than 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2030 from a solar farm in northern Australia to customers in Darwin and Singapore. "

https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/mike-cannon-brookes-30-billion-solar-project-wins-approval/

NOW, as before, 20GW is NAMEPLATE capacity. So the discounted rate should be about 14 GW. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

See the latest 'Household solar woes' post.

I have and you talk schist as usual. ;)

Nothing there about a stable grid. You must have smudged glasses. Your reading betweeen the lines is once again a failure. ;)



thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

This sentence alone shows what we are dealing with in lee ...(low IQ?): "renewables,  nothing  to do with climate".....

So tell us how renewables "heal" the climate. By how much does it need to "heal"? ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

The Sun Cable solar farm in the Northern Territory is 12,000 hectares: The Sun Cable project is a large-scale solar farm and energy transmission system that will: Generate renewable energy Provide electricity to the Northern Territory and Singapore Store electricity in a 40 gigawatt hour battery Connect Australia to Singapore with a 4,200 kilometer undersea cable.

Yep. And as of now they have NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA

A 40 GW hour battery? You have heard of the NT right? Monsoon season. Dark both early and late. Overcast with thunderstorms. Hail. And we know hoe solar panels like hail.

But you are probably talking about averages again. ;)

"Under the project, Sun Cable is building the 4,300 kilometer Australia-Asia Power Link that aims to deliver more than 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2030 from a solar farm in northern Australia to customers in Darwin and Singapore. "

https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/mike-cannon-brookes-30-billion-solar-project-wins-approval/

NOW, as before, 20GW is NAMEPLATE capacity. So the discounted rate should be about 14 GW. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

See the latest 'Household solar woes' post.

I have and you talk schist as usual. ;)

Nothing there about a stable grid. You must have smudged glasses. Your reading betweeen the lines is once again a failure. ;)


tbc

cont.

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

No, just to distant hubs, dummy.

You have to COLLECT all the "excess renewables". I guess that means you don't think rooftop solar will provide excess. So much for exporting energy to the grid. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:31pm:

poor lee,  needs to employ some competent engineers...

Nope, Conceptrs are not proof of concepts.

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." Richard Feynman.

And renewables haven't proved capable of maintaining a modern society. ;)

lee wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 2:06pm:

Nothing there about a stabvle grid. You must have smudged glasses. Your reading betweeen the lines is once again a failure. ;)

""But aggregated across thousands of households, these technologies can enhance system reliability and security."

ie stability.

Poor lee: low IQ, and low comprehension, says  it's impossible when the rest of the world is getting on with the job of acheiving net xero by mid-century. 

And 3 desperate crippled-brain  climate-denier posts, to try to refute what everyone else except AGW deniers know.

....3 desperate posts to reply to half a dozen points:  me thinks I spy an obsessive compulsive personality disorder as well, on top of your low IQ, a tragic condition.   


Quote:

A 40 GW hour battery? You have heard of the NT right? Monsoon season. Dark both early and late. Overcast with thunderstorms. Hail. And we know hoe solar panels like hail.

Er - the climate is different around Tennant Creek (one thousand kms below Darwin). And then there's wind to harvest if no sun. And UHV long distance transmission from drier, sunnier desert areas if necessary, as China is doing.    


Quote:

Nothing there about a stable grid. You must have smudged glasses. Your reading betweeen the lines is once again

"But aggregated across thousands of households, these tchnologies can enhance system reliability and security."

Poor lee, limited comprehension skills further crippled by his denial of AGW-CO2 climate science.

philperth2010 wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 11:57am:

So your argument is that climate change is a hoax and coal will continue to be exported at the current rate....As the world moves away from fossil fuel how do you expect Australia to maintain it's current levels of exports....The Coalition are taking more fossil fuels and no investment in renewable energy to the next election....Australia cannot afford Peter Dutton and the Coal industry running the country??? :-? :-? :-?

I don’t believe climate change is a hoax. The science is there, the history of the planet clearly shows the climate is constantly changing.

I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse.

We need a mix of energy sources but there is only two schools of opposing thought and that’s unfortunate.

Quote:

I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse.

Is there any thought behind this? If so, what is it?

freediver wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 9:53am:

Quote: I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse. Is there any thought behind this? If so, what is it?

I believe human history is littered with examples of humans believing they were helping the environment and unfortunately the exactly opposite was the result.

For all our technology and engineering expertise and good intentions I’m cautious of backing only one path forward.

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

""But aggregated across thousands of households, these technologies can enhance system reliability and security." ie stability.

So now we know you don't know what stability of supply is. Thanks for that. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

Poor lee: low IQ, and low comprehension, says  it's impossible when the rest of the world is getting on with the job of acheiving net xero by mid-century.

Promises are like kisses they disappear into the wind. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

And 3 desperate crippled-brain  climate-denier posts, to try to refute what everyone else except AGW deniers know. ....3 desperate posts to reply to half a dozen points:  me thinks I spy an obsessive compulsive personality disorder as well, on top of your low IQ, a tragic condition.

And you haven't refuted any of them. ;)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

Er - the climate is different around Tennant Creek (one thousand kms below Darwin).

And further away fro Garwin and Singapore. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

And then there's wind to harvest if no sun.

But we have already discussed solar AND wind droughts. No wind, No Sun, NO renewables. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

And UHV long distance transmission from drier, sunnier desert areas if necessary, as China is doing.

Then let China do it. Don't give any subsidies to Cannon-Brooke etc. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

"But aggregated across thousands of households, these tchnologies can enhance system reliability and security."

Yes we established you don't understand stability of the power grid. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 9:48pm:

Poor lee, limited comprehension skills further crippled by his denial of AGW-CO2 climate science.

You still haven't explained, even though requested many times, exactly what climate scientists agree on. What they don't agree on and on what they admit they don't know.

Give real world examples, not climate models which are not proof of anything. ;)

lee wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 12:54pm:

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26th, 2024 at 9:48pm: ""But aggregated across thousands of households, these technologies can enhance system reliability and security." ie stability. So now we know you don't know what stability of supply is. Thanks for that. ;)

Stability of the GRID, dummy.


Quote:

Promises are like kisses they disappear into the wind. ;)

China just connected the world's biggest solar and wind farm, located in the Gobi desert,  to the eastern seaboard manusfacturing centres, using UHV techonlogy.

Not a promise, but delivered.


Quote:

And further away fro Garwin and Singapore. ::)

The issue is the hours of sunshine in the Tennant Creek region, not Darwin or Singapore, dummy.


Quote:

But we have already discussed solar AND wind droughts. No wind, No Sun, NO renewables. ::)

Not all and everywhere at the same time, dummy.


Quote:

Then let China do it. Don't give any subsidies to Cannon-Brooke etc. ::)

Why not? We can, and should, build 10 Suncables in Oz, to exit the the filthy fossil industry.

I wouldn't mind a decent nuclear plant near Roxby Downs (with the world's largest uranium deposit) , to 'hit the final nail in the coffin' of filthy fossils including gas, if nuclear  proved cheaper to ensure supply in all ie, including infrequent scenarious - like your 'sun and wind droughts' everywhere at the same time -  than by building overcapaity in renewables storage.   


Quote:

You still haven't explained, even though requested many times, exactly what climate scientists agree on. What they don't agree on and on what they admit they don't know. Give real world examples, not climate models which are not proof of anything. ;)

Are you Senator Roberts by any chance?

Even Dutton reckons we should replace coal with nuclear, a very expensive exercise in itself, to be funded by...you guessed it, the public sector.

I wonder why? 

 

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 10:57am:

freediver wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 9:53am: Quote: I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse. Is there any thought behind this? If so, what is it? I believe human history is littered with examples of humans believing they were helping the environment and unfortunately the exactly opposite was the result. For all our technology and engineering expertise and good intentions I’m cautious of backing only one path forward.

Do you think that burning up all the underground carbon deposits we can find is not an intervention in the global climate, but refraining from doing so is an intervention?

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

Stability of the GRID, dummy.

Stability of supply is stability of the grid. If you don't have stability of supply then the grid is NOT stable. But spoken like a true believer. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

China just connected the world's biggest solar and wind farm, located in the Gobi desert,  to the eastern seaboard manusfacturing centres, using UHV techonlogy.

And what? It is going to supply the whole of China? I guess they don't need those new coal facilities or the new nuclear ones either. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

The issue is the hours of sunshine in the Tennant Creek region, not Darwin or Singapore, dummy.

The issue is connectivity. If you don't have connectivity you have an islanded project. You know like the islanded Coal plant that the greenies insist is coming. ::)


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

Not all and everywhere at the same time, dummy.

To have them all everywhere you need the renewables eveywhere. Trailer mounted? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

Why not? We can, and should, build 10 Suncables in Oz, to exit the the filthy fossil industry.

Oh 10 Suncables at $18 billion or was that $30 billion a pop? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:10pm:

Are you Senator Roberts by any chance?

No, but you sound like Bowen. ;D ;D ;D ;D

"It was prepared at the request of the Coalition,..."
And they got exactly the result they wanted.
Let's face it, nobody requests any research without hoping to get the result they want.
Did the Coalition also set the ToR???

Lobo wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 3:05pm:

Let's face it, nobody requests any research without hoping to get the result they want.

But did they get the results they requested? ;)

freediver wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 2:51pm:

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 10:57am: freediver wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 9:53am: Quote: I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse. Is there any thought behind this? If so, what is it? I believe human history is littered with examples of humans believing they were helping the environment and unfortunately the exactly opposite was the result. For all our technology and engineering expertise and good intentions I’m cautious of backing only one path forward. Do you think that burning up all the underground carbon deposits we can find is not an intervention in the global climate, but refraining from doing so is an intervention?

I quite honestly believe that Australia contribution to world is so small to be irrelevant.

For all the fist pumping we are a isolated country with a very small population and economy.

In world terms if they blink Australia wouldn’t be on the map

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 26^th, 2024 at 1:11pm:

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 24th, 2024 at 8:24pm: “The total value of Australia's energy exports in the 2019-2020 financial year was $115.5 billion.” “https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au › So to achieve net zero Australia will not only fund Chinese made windmills but are certain to lose 115.5 million dollars in revenue by closing our mines and cutting off our export market? Well, with subsidies we could build our own windmills and PVs; but why would we waste Oz resources in a competition with China's productive capacity (ie when the Chinese  can provide them much more efficiently, due to advantages of scale in manufacturing)? So the question is: how to replace the lost export income from coal and gas; note: NOT from closing iron ore mines, the largest earner for Oz. As for exports funding Oz schools, hospitals, polce, etc, (apoint you address below in regard to  balanced budgets) ,  Oz has all the resources needed to build and service all those necesaary public services, so the OZ government can fund all thise things without relying on export income, by deficit spening, given that the resulting Oz government debt will be owed to itself... Quote: We need to have a adult conversation.   Yes..the problem is the adults having the conversation.... [quote]I see we have only three options if Albo survive the next election- Rise taxes. Decrease services ( we can balance the budget if we do away with police, schools, hospitals.) Or a combination of both.

Yes, and what's wrong with raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, and stopping insane subsidies for the fossil industry?

But don't worry, Albo is too timid to raise taxes - or rather, ANY government with the balls to  raise taxes - even on the wealthy and corporations, all of whom squeal like slaugtered pigs at the mention of taxes - won't get elected because we are all self-interested, rather than thinking about the common welfare.

But re your mainstream balanced government budget' orthodoxy:

Rush Limbaugh (!) said : "Everyone knows balanced government budgets are nonsense..." 

And our own Alan Kohler agrees (google it).

You of course think the constraint on your own household budget apply to the currency-issuing government's budget, it's time to educate yourself.   


Quote:

Consider, what could possibly go wrong- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61028138.amp

Sri Lanka borrowed money in foreign currencies which Sri Lankan banks can't create;   when terms of trade turn against a country which has debt denominated in foreign currencies, the result is a debt-servicing disaster.
[/quote]
I’m unsure of some of your assumptions.
Last I heard Australia is three trillion dollars in debt due to lnp mismanagement and labor is working hard and delivering surplus in budget to push back.
Losing Royalties will leave a massive hole in the budget.

I’m also NOT in favour of any tax increase wealthy or not.

By all means go after corporations not paying tax ( hello google) but the fact that someone is gifted, works hard, had a lucky break in life doesn’t make them fair game to pay more for all of Australians woes!

I’m firmly in the middle income bracket so it’s no skin off my nose but the saying “ a fair go “ should work both ways.

Just because someone is achieving success shouldn’t mean they are held responsible for political parties failure to plan for the future nor should we expect they should pay for it!

Bowen hasn't been honest on the cost of this renewable rubbish.

What do we use when there isn't enough wind on a cloudy day?

---

Why are my electricity bills going up these assclowns said we would have cheaper electricity?

---

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 7:30pm:

freediver wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 2:51pm: Daves2017 wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 10:57am: freediver wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 9:53am: Quote: I’m doubtful that any intervention by ourselves is going to change that and could possibly make it worse. Is there any thought behind this? If so, what is it? I believe human history is littered with examples of humans believing they were helping the environment and unfortunately the exactly opposite was the result. For all our technology and engineering expertise and good intentions I’m cautious of backing only one path forward. Do you think that burning up all the underground carbon deposits we can find is not an intervention in the global climate, but refraining from doing so is an intervention? I quite honestly believe that Australia contribution to world is so small to be irrelevant. For all the fist pumping we are a isolated country with a very small population and economy. In world terms if they blink Australia wouldn’t be on the map

Are you having difficulty understanding the question Dave?

Quite possible? What are you asking exactly that my answer hasn’t answered?

I’m happy too expand if you give me the direction for what your seeking and after I bathe the cat.

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 29^th, 2024 at 7:06pm:

Quite possible? What are you asking exactly that my answer hasn’t answered? I’m happy too expand if you give me the direction for what your seeking and after I bathe the cat.

Do you think that burning up all the underground carbon deposits we can find is not an intervention in the global climate, but refraining from doing so is an intervention?

Baronvonrort wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 7:51pm:

Why are my electricity bills going up these assclowns said we would have cheaper electricity?

Assclownery is correct:

Chris Bowen’s energy plan threatens to leave us in the dark
Chris Uhlmann


The evidence was explicit in words of NSW Premier Chris Minns – who has a disarming habit of appearing competent and honest – when advising his people of the need for energy rationing.

“Solar production in the energy markets starts to come off at 3pm, at exactly the same time as people return home from work,” Minns said. “If you can not run your pool filter, not run your dishwasher, not run your washing machine, this afternoon between 3pm and 8pm, you’ll help the grid.”
...
As coal exits, the growing burden of turning wind and solar into a reliable electricity system will fall on a complex mix of batteries, hydro power and gas.

That’s a pretty shaky mix. Batteries and hydro are not energy sources, they are energy storers. If wind and solar don’t generate excess power, there will be no battery storage to call on. And grid-scale batteries are very expensive and their capacity is not deep enough to run cities for long.

As weather-dependent generation rises to become a dominant form of power production, the only source of reliable, dispatchable power will be gas. If we have gas.

This is the actual plan.  The man behind the plan is Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

...


On Wednesday evening at 7pm in NSW 60 per cent of generation was coming from coal. Solar was contributing zero power and wind 9 per cent. In fact, across the past year, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s data dashboard records that brown and black coal supplied 64 per cent of the eastern grid’s electricity and gas 6 per cent. So 70 per cent fossil fuel then. Wind delivered 15 per cent of generation across the same time and grid-scale solar 8 per cent.

So coal is far and away the most reliable generator on the eastern national electricity market.
...
the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest consumer price index figures record “electricity prices fell 17.3 per cent in the September quarter and 15.8 per cent in the past 12 months”.

It then notes this was entirely due to massive federal and state government rebates doled out to protect consumers from the huge electricity price increases they can see written in their bills.

The ABS also notes: “Excluding the rebates, electricity prices would have risen by 0.7 per cent in the September 2024 quarter.”

To use an old saying, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. And then there is Chris Bowen.

In Bowen world, pouring taxpayers’ money into electricity consumers’ pockets to shield them from enormous price hikes is proof that his plan to build a wind and solar-dependent grid is cutting the price of power.

Hard to argue with that. Mostly because it is nonsensical.

There is one thing the minister said that did make sense: “Australians will judge us on what we have done.” It’s up there with: “If you don’t like our policies, don’t vote for us.”

freediver wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 11:07am:

Daves2017 wrote on Nov 29th, 2024 at 7:06pm: Quite possible? What are you asking exactly that my answer hasn’t answered? I’m happy too expand if you give me the direction for what your seeking and after I bathe the cat. Do you think that burning up all the underground carbon deposits we can find is not an intervention in the global climate, but refraining from doing so is an intervention?

Ah - ha, FD - some typical confusion/obfuscation in your question there....

The first proposition is of course an "intervention" which is changing the climate, if AGW-CO2 is real.

But the second proposition is ALSO true; leaving  fossils in the ground is an "intervention",  to save the planet's climate, if AGW-CO2 is real.

...another naughty question from FD.  :-( 

Baronvonrort wrote on Nov 27^th, 2024 at 7:51pm:

Why are my electricity bills going up these assclowns said we would have cheaper electricity?

Because they forgot to say it will be expensive to rollout the required new green technology, BEFORE prices can come down.

Frank wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 11:38am:

As coal exits, the growing burden of turning wind and solar into a reliable electricity system will fall on a complex mix of batteries, hydro power and gas. That’s a pretty shaky mix. Batteries and hydro are not energy sources, they are energy storers. If wind and solar don’t generate excess power, there will be no battery storage to call on. And grid-scale batteries are very expensive and their capacity is not deep enough to run cities for long.

All correct, except sufficient wind and solar WILL - in the aggregate - generate excess power, in a connected two-way grid storing and producing energy with solar and/or  wind always capable of producing excess renewable power.

The question is: will nuclear be cheaper to guarantee against  rare shortfalls, than building the excess renewable production and storage.

Albo shouldn't be getting bogged down by Dutton and his boot-licker Uhlmann, he should say "right, lets spend a few million examining the timeline and costs for building nuclear plants in Oz, and in the meantime speed up the rollout of green technology which will be required regardless of whether OZ can in fact benefit from a nulclear industry. 

We can't keep burning coal and gas if the first big nuclear plant can't begin operating before 2040. 

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 12:03pm:

Frank wrote on Nov 30th, 2024 at 11:38am: As coal exits, the growing burden of turning wind and solar into a reliable electricity system will fall on a complex mix of batteries, hydro power and gas. That’s a pretty shaky mix. Batteries and hydro are not energy sources, they are energy storers. If wind and solar don’t generate excess power, there will be no battery storage to call on. And grid-scale batteries are very expensive and their capacity is not deep enough to run cities for long. All correct, except sufficient wind and solar WILL - in the aggregate - generate excess power, in a connected two-way grid storing and producing energy with solar and/or  wind always capable of producing excess renewable power. The question is: will nuclear be cheaper to guarantee against  rare shortfalls, than building the excess renewable production and storage. Albo shouldn't be getting bogged down by Dutton and his boot-licker Uhlmann, he should say "right, lets spend a few million examining the timeline and costs for building nuclear plants in Oz, and in the meantime speed up the rollout of green technology which will be required regardless of whether OZ can in fact benefit from a nulclear industry.  We can't keep burning coal and gas if the first big nuclear plant can't begin operating before 2040.

Great post !
Why must green power and nuclear power be mutually exclusive?

I’m wondering if the clear complete failure of labor privatisation of electricity will ever be apologised for?

I’m wondering if once the trillions of OUR money is spent on these projects will they remain in public hands or sold off ( cheap, but we won’t be told as it’s confidential) to be managed by private companies?

Maybe even the same companies that have achieved huge profits over decades but done nothing to maintain their equipment?

Can we have this discussion?

Will our new future power grid remain in public hands or privatised again?

Shouldn’t we have a right to know BEFORE we spend trillions?

Sending a big shoutout to Kristina Marie Kerscher Keneally and Peter Douglas Beattie  for failing not only their respective states but the nation so appallingly.

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 11:43am:

Baronvonrort wrote on Nov 27th, 2024 at 7:51pm: Why are my electricity bills going up these assclowns said we would have cheaper electricity? Because they forgot to say it will be expensive to rollout the required new green technology, BEFORE prices can come down.

Oh?! They forgot, did they?   :D

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 12:03pm:

Frank wrote on Nov 30th, 2024 at 11:38am: As coal exits, the growing burden of turning wind and solar into a reliable electricity system will fall on a complex mix of batteries, hydro power and gas. That’s a pretty shaky mix. Batteries and hydro are not energy sources, they are energy storers. If wind and solar don’t generate excess power, there will be no battery storage to call on. And grid-scale batteries are very expensive and their capacity is not deep enough to run cities for long. All correct, except sufficient wind and solar WILL - in the aggregate - generate excess power, in a connected two-way grid storing and producing energy with solar and/or  wind always capable of producing excess renewable power.

“Solar production in the energy markets starts to come off at 3pm, at exactly the same time as people return home from work,” Minns said. “If you can not run your pool filter, not run your dishwasher, not run your washing machine, this afternoon between 3pm and 8pm, you’ll help the grid.”

In the words of Michael Caravaggio, a director of research and development at the world-leading Electric Power Research Institute: “The fact that the sun sets every night isn’t a problem if I have 5 per cent of my energy from solar. It’s a significant issue if I want to get 100 per cent of my energy from solar.”

His point is self-evident: the more heavily any system relies on weather-dependent generation, the more its significant technical limitations are magnified.

So with some dispatchable generators offline for scheduled pre-summer maintenance and breakdowns in some ageing kit, the crunch came in NSW with the setting of the sun as solar harvesters clocked off.

Recall here that the central design feature of the future electricity system is that the fuel for 82 per cent of power generation will be sunshine, wind and hydro power. Right now its share is about 38 per cent. Today the profound limitations of weather-dependent generation are disguised by coal and gas.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/bowen-plan-threatens-to-leave-us-in-the-dark/news-story/c34777df2f0a4915f9f5244d98b8b7c2

thegreatdivide wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 12:03pm:

All correct, except sufficient wind and solar WILL - in the aggregate - generate excess power, in a connected two-way grid storing and producing energy with solar and/or  wind always capable of producing excess renewable power.

Just how much overbuild is "sufficient"? Looking at NSW, 3 times overbuild is not enough. ::)

Anthony Albanese has spent the past two and a half years with his head in the culture wars rather than focusing on Australians' economic wellbeing

With an election on the horizon, Australians should be asking what exactly Labor has done for them except sacrifice the economy at the altar of pet activist projects, writes Rocco Loiacono.



If a first world country cannot supply enough electricity for times when there is peak demand, well, as Chris Uhlmann put it, we are on a pathway to poverty while Bowen and his cronies conduct an experiment with the most essential of services, and destroying arable land and forests in doing so.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

Our energy-rich nation now nobbles itself by artificially creating an energy crisis and Bowen giggles like a schoolboy on Sky News this week trying to pretend that Labor is meeting its promise to reduce annual electricity bills by $275 because its electricity rebates are cutting costs by $75 a quarter. Labor promised its renewables push – “the cheapest form of electricity”– would deliver lower prices but instead it is spending $3.5bn of taxpayer money to fiddle them a little lower for a year before they jump again when the rebates end, after the election of course.

Truth and reality have long ceased being relevant to the renewables zealots. Bowen blamed this week’s electricity shortage on a “massive heatwave” when the temperature across most of Sydney was in the mid-30s for two days. No matter how much burnt orange and deep purple the weather bureau lathers on to its heatwave maps it can’t shift the mercury higher (even after it “homogenised” earlier temperature records downwards).

Most media chimed in, predicting turmoil and providing ingenious tips about drinking water and seeking shade. It makes you wonder how the early settlers survived without social media survival tips.

The willingness of Labor, Greens, teals and other true believers to twist reality to suit their ideological fervour is a marvel to watch. They deliberately dismantle our secure energy grid in a delusional attempt to improve the global climate, then blame their energy supply crisis on the same global warming they claim to be tackling.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/renewable-energy-superpower-the-grid-cant-handle-a-few-warm-days/news-story/7168ecf19151d780750f5b0dfd3a740d


Labor, Greens, teals and other true believers, including Liberals like Matt Keen, now renewable energy tsar, are scammmers and swindlers.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif

For decades now, taxpayers have forked out tens of billions of dollars in renewables subsidies designed to drive coal-fired power out of the market, but now so much coal generation has been closed that we do not have enough reliable energy, so taxpayers also are subsidising coal-fired generation in Victoria and NSW to keep it online.

Yes, our taxes are paying subsidies to kill coal. And we are paying separate subsidies to keep it.

Such madness is par for the course in this field. Bowen was fresh back from the UN COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the host president created a scandal by referring to fossil fuel resources as a “gift from God” and where the first seminar at the Australian stand began with a non-Indigenous woman providing an Indigenous acknowledgment of country – yes, an Australian Indigenous acknowledgement of country in Azerbaijan.


Bbwianesque doesn't even begin to describe it.



The climate conference, of course, could not limit itself to climate, it touched all the woke causes. Indigenous issues were brought in with mention of a “holistic approach to climate solutions” and talk of “their rich, distinct values, world views and knowledge systems cultivated through generations of close relationship with Mother Nature”. You cannot help but think science might be more appropriate than “Mother Nature” emotionalism.

Gender got a run, too – but of course. A paper focused on the “disproportionate impact of climate change on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls” – I kid you not.


Mother Nature, the ultimate DEI hire.

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1^st, 2024 at 5:27pm:

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More educated than most here:

https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?action=usersrecentposts;username=Brian_Ross

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1^st, 2024 at 8:34pm:

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fu3ck Bbwiyawn

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I don't think Trolls should be allowed to moderate boards.
Especially this Troll.
Regarding Defence Board

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1^st, 2024 at 10:54pm:

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Yawn at this, cockwomble:

Record number of Australians struggling to pay electricity bills

A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government.

The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year.

The regulator also said those entering so-called hardship payment plans – offered by retailers to those unable to keep up on bills, are doing so with higher levels of debt. The AER said the debt for people on payment plans is $1476.

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2024 at 10:05am:

Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1st, 2024 at 10:54pm: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif Yawn at this, cockwomble: Record number of Australians struggling to pay electricity bills A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government. The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year. The regulator also said those entering so-called hardship payment plans – offered by retailers to those unable to keep up on bills, are doing so with higher levels of debt. The AER said the debt for people on payment plans is $1476.

Yes, deplorable.

And your solution, while Oz decarbonizes?

Frank wrote on Dec 1^st, 2024 at 9:11am:

If a first world country cannot supply enough electricity for times when there is peak demand, well, as Chris Uhlmann put it, we are on a pathway to poverty while Bowen and his cronies conduct an experiment with the most essential of services, and destroying arable land and forests in doing so.

Oz has some of the largest gas reserves in the world: all future gas production should be directed to local use, not exported by international, private-sector profit-seeking  price-gouging fossil companies. 

To secure backup, while renewables are being rolled out ASAP.

Problem solved. 

But Uhlmann is blinded by free-market ideology.

"Markets are good servants, but bad masters, and a worse religion". Amory Lovins.

thegreatdivide wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2024 at 10:31am:

Frank wrote on Dec 3rd, 2024 at 10:05am: Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1st, 2024 at 10:54pm: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif Yawn at this, cockwomble: Record number of Australians struggling to pay electricity bills A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government. The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year. The regulator also said those entering so-called hardship payment plans – offered by retailers to those unable to keep up on bills, are doing so with higher levels of debt. The AER said the debt for people on payment plans is $1476. Yes, deplorable. And your solution, while Oz decarbonizes?

Sack Bowen and Albo.
Cut the stupid talk - "decarbonisation".

All life on Earth is carbon-based.

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2024 at 11:19am:

thegreatdivide wrote on Dec 3rd, 2024 at 10:31am: Frank wrote on Dec 3rd, 2024 at 10:05am: Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1st, 2024 at 10:54pm: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif Yawn at this, cockwomble: Record number of Australians struggling to pay electricity bills A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government. The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year. The regulator also said those entering so-called hardship payment plans – offered by retailers to those unable to keep up on bills, are doing so with higher levels of debt. The AER said the debt for people on payment plans is $1476. Yes, deplorable. And your solution, while Oz decarbonizes? Cut the stupid talk - "decarbonisation".

Priceless.... ;D


Quote:

All life on Earth is carbon-based.

 

Yes but not all life likes it hot..... :'(

https://i.postimg.cc/gcg0FcdZ/Screenshot-2024-12-04-055051.png

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2024 at 11:19am:

All life on Earth is carbon-based.

only a buggeren moron would say that

man is mostly water too .... go live in the ocean you dumb cnut

John Smith wrote on Dec 4^th, 2024 at 1:47pm:

Frank wrote on Dec 3rd, 2024 at 11:19am: All life on Earth is carbon-based. only a buggeren moron would say that man is mostly water too .... go live in the ocean you dumb cnut

:D :D

Thicko as mince-o just called every scientist, indeed anyone who completed year 6, a buggeren moron!!

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The lonely desperate lefty trolls have nothing much to say when they chirp for attention for their deficit disorders
😆

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 4^th, 2024 at 2:59pm:

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I am going to call you a cun't every time you yawn, you cun't.

And I invite every other member to do so.
You cun't.

Let's see who gets censured and banned first for being a cun't

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I was told this is a intellect forum?

Watch my spelling and all?

hyperbéton

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Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has released a new book called Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021.  It deserves a different title: Serfdom: The Cost of Caution.

It is an abiding mystery how a leader who got energy, the economy, defence, foreign affairs and migration so catastrophically wrong still enjoys any support at all.

Early in her tenure the German press dubbed Merkel the Climate Chancellor for championing the country’s Energiewende (energy transition). Since 2000 the nation has spent $1 trillion shutting fossil fuel and nuclear generation and replacing it with wind and solar energy harvesting.

It is an unmitigated disaster. German electricity costs have soared to be the highest in Europe and German carbon emissions per person are about twice that of nuclear-powered France.

A quarter of a century into Germany’s transition, 78 per cent of its primary energy still comes from coal (18 per cent), oil (34 per cent) and gas (26 per cent).

Behind a green facade, Germany hid a lifeline to Russian fossil fuel. In 2022 Berlin relied on Moscow for a third of its oil and more than half of its gas imports. This was a glaring, and colossal, strategic weakness.
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It would be hard to care about Germany’s self-inflicted troubles if Merkel had not worked so assiduously at exporting them. A disturbing number of Australian politicians still cite Germany as the template for their green dream.

And they have put us on the same highway to hell.

Our grid is growing weaker and electricity prices are rising. Ludicrously, energy-rich Australia is now building LNG import terminals, adding electricity to the massive strategic weakness we already have on liquid fuel supplies.

It’s hard to credit the wilful blindness of the mandarin class and hard to see how we don’t follow Germany to Hades.

But there is one iron law of politics: somewhere on the pathway to poverty the people will revolt.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/the-german-chancellors-nightmare-revisited/news-story/4ee6703ece4c59cf89d97e78ec7855c2

Albo/Bowels are following Merkel, taking us down a path to ruin. Idiotic.

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 8^th, 2024 at 12:59pm:

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What exactly is the point of your yawning and shitting your nappies??

What do YOU think you are doing?

He is showing his dementia and incontinence. Nothing more. Ignore.

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lee wrote on Dec 8^th, 2024 at 1:28pm:

He is showing his dementia and incontinence. Nothing more. Ignore.

I know. Everyone else knows.

But I sometimes wonder what HE thinks he is doing. But he lost his marbles long ago to know it himself so we will never know.

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Look at this thread. Every second post is a yawn from the resident moron.  It doesn't matter who posts or what is said, the moron is compelled to yawn.

No ideas, no relevance, no contribution, no critique - just another moronic yawn, another soiled nappy, another pointless Bbwianesque "Look at moi".

Frank wrote on Dec 3^rd, 2024 at 10:05am:

Brian Ross wrote on Dec 1st, 2024 at 10:54pm: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img641/9394/yawnr.gif Yawn at this, cockwomble: Record number of Australians struggling to pay electricity bills A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government. The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year. The regulator also said those entering so-called hardship payment plans – offered by retailers to those unable to keep up on bills, are doing so with higher levels of debt. The AER said the debt for people on payment plans is $1476.

Chris Bowels is following Germany:


“Increasingly more expensive energy in Europe due to exorbitant climate and environmental ambitions may also mean greater dependence in Russian energy sources,” Tusk said. “Hence, I will talk (to Merkel) primarily about how Germany is able to correct some economic actions so that dependence on Russian gas doesn’t paralyse Europe when it needs … a decisive stance.”

Merkel ignored this and other warnings. No one was more strident in his opposition than once and future president Donald Trump. In 2018 he told the NATO summit in Brussels that Germany had become a captive to Moscow “because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia”.

Four months before the war was rebooted, Merkel signed off on a top-secret security assessment on a second gas pipeline from Russia, the Nord Stream 2, which concluded that “granting of certification (for the pipeline) does not jeopardise the security of gas supply in Germany and the European Union”.

Merkel believed the pipeline made Russia’s Vladimir Putin beholden to Germany. Turns out he knew her way better than she knew him. Here’s a thought to ponder: would Putin have invaded Ukraine if he did not believe Europe’s gas dependency was an achilles heel?

Patrick Wintour wrote in The Guardian that in the first two months of the Ukraine war Germany paid “€8.3bn for Russian energy – money used by Moscow to prop up the rouble and buy the artillery shells firing at Ukrainian positions in Donetsk”. Historian Timothy Snyder took to Twitter to note: “For 30 years, Germans lectured Ukrainians about fascism. When fascism actually arrived, Germans funded it, and Ukrainians died fighting it.”

Merkel’s misjudgment of Putin explains her woeful commitment to defence. Here she wagered that the US would do the heavy lifting in NATO. Despite repeated calls for Germany to do more, defence spending stayed at a paltry 1.3 per cent of GDP. Now, on a book tour, Merkel has conceded she “should have reacted more quickly to Russia’s aggressiveness”.

Get energy policy wrong and the economy will soon follow. Germany is now de-industrialising.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/the-german-chancellors-nightmare-revisited/news-story/4ee6703ece4c59cf89d97e78ec7855c2

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I am still waiting on a answer?

Will the Labor party renewables scheme be again privatised by the labor party ( AGAIN)?

And if we go with the liberals ( I no longer count the National party as anything else than a painful pebble in the liberals shoes ) who ends up owning the nuclear power plants?

Lots of talk but no one will go on record saying the failed labor experiment of privatisation of essential services such as electricity will not occur again?!

It’s fair question I ask? I think?

Daves2017 wrote on Dec 8^th, 2024 at 8:00pm:

I am still waiting on a answer? Will the Labor party renewables scheme be again privatised by the labor party ( AGAIN)? And if we go with the liberals ( I no longer count the National party as anything else than a painful pebble in the liberals shoes ) who ends up owning the nuclear power plants? Lots of talk but no one will go on record saying the failed labor experiment of privatisation of essential services such as electricity will not occur again?! It’s fair question I ask? I think?

The renewable infrastructure is going to be more costly than the traditional electricity infrastructure so it is fair to assume that it will be privatised at some point.

Is it a bad thing? That's another question.  Privatisation is not bad in itself.  You dont want government owned department stores or car manufacturers.

But government ownership of infrastructure must be managed in a way that avoids the atrophy of government sclerosis.  A difficult balance but a necessary one.

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Brian Ross wrote on Dec 8^th, 2024 at 9:35pm:

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Is there anything in your self-soiled universe to which a moronic yawn in not your answer?

No, there is not.

Your farthest mental horizon is a moronic yawn. That's all you have, that's all you will ever have.

There is no comeback for you from being a yawning moron. You are done.

Yawn, ****wit, yawn. There is nothing else for you in life. This IS your life.

Frank wrote on Dec 8^th, 2024 at 8:21pm:

Daves2017 wrote on Dec 8th, 2024 at 8:00pm: I am still waiting on a answer? Will the Labor party renewables scheme be again privatised by the labor party ( AGAIN)? And if we go with the liberals ( I no longer count the National party as anything else than a painful pebble in the liberals shoes ) who ends up owning the nuclear power plants? Lots of talk but no one will go on record saying the failed labor experiment of privatisation of essential services such as electricity will not occur again?! It’s fair question I ask? I think? The renewable infrastructure is going to be more costly than the traditional electricity infrastructure so it is fair to assume that it will be privatised at some point. Is it a bad thing? That's another question.  Privatisation is not bad in itself.  You dont want government owned department stores or car manufacturers. But government ownership of infrastructure must be managed in a way that avoids the atrophy of government sclerosis.  A difficult balance but a necessary one.

That’s a thoughtful reply, thank you 🙏

I feel privatisation could be viable if our slime, corrupt politicians could negotiate a win win deal.

Far too often the public puts up all the $$ than it’s magical sold off when it’s proven to be a money maker.

Of course we never know how much for, that’s confidential.

Thank you for your post.

It’s always worth considering other views .

Bowen backs state powers to delay closure of coal, gas plants to keep lights on

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Chris Bowen has backed new state powers mandating the extension of retiring coal-and-gas-fired power plants, sparking Coalition warnings Labor is being ‘dishonest’ about longer-term reliance on thermal generation.  :o