SA govt to spend $100m on diesel generators (but could have spent $8m keeping coal plant instead)

I’d like to thank South Australia for so selflessly showing the world how well renewables work. (And thank we West Australians for paying for it).

To get ready for the shortfalls next summer, the SA government is said to be ordering in 220MW of diesel generation at an expected cost of $114m.

The government has contracted privately owned South Aust­ralian electricity distribut­ion company SA Power Networks to obtain and install 200 megawatts of back-up generation across the state before summer. But despite promising a “detailed costing” would be provided in last week’s state budget, Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis did not offer any such details.

The opposition said the budget had allocated $114m for operational costs in 2017-18 from the $550m energy plan, “indicating the diesel generators are going to be very expensive”.

This $106m sacrifice is expected to reduce global temperature by 0.000C, but will save the premier from being called a climate denier at dinner parties:

“Eighteen months ago the Tasmanian government spent $64m in leasing, site establishment and operational costs for 220MW of diesel generation for three months when a combination of drought and repairs to the Basslink left it short of electricity,” […]

SA will take top prize for Most Expensive Electricity from Denmark on July 1

South Australia has the largest uranium deposit in the world, which it digs up to sell to other countries to make electricity. It also has lots of sun and wind and empty space. If any state can make solar and wind power work, surely it’s there.

And renewables are working for SA, working to put it in top place for Global Electricity Bills.

South Australia power prices to rise to highest in the world on Saturday, energy expert warns

South Australia will overtake Denmark as having the world’s most expensive electricity when the country’s major energy retailers jack up their prices this Saturday.

AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy will all increase their electricity prices from July 1, adding hundreds of dollars to annual household bills. Residential customers will see an average rise of 18 per cent under AGL, 19.9 per cent from EnergyAustralia, 16.1 per cent with Origin Energy. Bruce Mountain, the head of a private energy consultancy firm, said the increases would see South Australia take the lead on world power prices — but for all the wrong reasons.

“After taxes, the [typical] household in South Australia will be paying slightly more than […]

India, China: Clean dust, pollution off solar panels every two months, and still lose up to 35% of production?

How often do you clean your solar panels? Spare a thought for the poor sods in the Middle East, India and China, where migratory dust coats solar panels and hangs around in the air, blocking incoming sunlight. Researchers in India who cleaned their panels every few weeks and discovered that they got a 50% jump in efficiency each time. If the cleanings happened every two months, the total losses were 25 to 35 percent.

The article very much blames human pollution for half the capacity loss, but in the detail, the press release admits that 92% of the dust on each panel was natural. Apparently human made particles are smaller and stickier which makes the 8% human-emitted-dust equivalent to the 92% of other dust.

Either way, real pollution and natural dust will slow the clean-green-energy future in India and China until we get auto-cleaning panels or roof slaves. Unfortunately, cleaning panels also risks damaging them, so the price of solar power really needs to include the cost of windscreen-wipers/slaves, electricity losses, damage to panels, and damage to the panel cleaners too.

But solar panels will definitely power all the other parts of the world that are near enough to the […]

In SA recycling business goes broke due to electricity cost — thank renewables for making recycling impossible

A business processing 15% of Australia’s low grade plastics survived for 37 years with coal fired power in SA, and for one year without:

South Australia’s sky-high electricity prices have forced an Adelaide plastics recycling business to shut its doors, costing 35 workers their jobs, its managing director says. Plastics Granulating Services (PGS), based in Kilburn in Adelaide’s inner-north, said it had seen its monthly power bills increase from $80,000 to $180,000 over the past 18 months.

Managing director Stephen Scherer said the high cost of power had crippled his business of 38 years and plans for expansion, and had led to his company being placed in liquidation. “I hate to think of how many hours I’ve wasted on the AEMO website with tools to monitor spot pricing, to assess the implications of power, the trends of power and the future costs of power.

The SA Government is still in denial:

SA Environment Minister Ian Hunter said it was disappointing the facility was shutting down, but he said the pain of high electricity prices was being felt across the country. Mr Hunter said help was available through the State Government’s energy efficiency programs.

Finally, see “Climate Hustle” in Australia — Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney.

Don’t miss this if you can get there :- ) (And don’t forget to sign that Petition to get Australia out of the Paris Agreement too).

U.S.-based CFACT, along with its Australian partners, is hosting a showing of its new groundbreaking documentary, Climate Hustle, and you’re invited! Following each event, join film director CFACT Executive Director, Craig Rucker and film host and publisher of ClimateDepot.com Marc Morano, for a question and answer session. Get the behind the scenes scoop on both the film and the US’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.

This could be the antidote to the Al Gore effect. As Tim Blair says “Get out of Melbourne while you still can — the notorious serial chiller is coming. Let’s see if Al can break Melbourne’s 2015 July chill record.”

We are pleased to be working with the following organizations: Australian Institute for Progress | Galileo Movement | Australian Environment Foundation | Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance

July 12- Melbourne, Australia Village Roadshow Theatrette- State Library of Victoria Doors open at 5:30 PM, film to start at 6:00 PM Reception and Q/A session to follow Get Melbourne TICKETS here

June 27th, 2017 | Tags: | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Climate change will make your plane late, imprison you at home, buckle roads, boil asphalt

It’s the end of the world, and kittens will probably die too. Here’s another round of Global Panic. Horror part I: you will get stuck at airport-world

Earlier this week, nearly 50 flights out of Phoenix were cancelled. At 120 degrees, the temperature forecast exceeded the airline’s 118 degrees maximum operating temperature.

It’s difficult not to connect the delays to climate change….

It’s difficult not to blame climate change, after a generation of brainwashing.

So Phoenix got to 48.9C which made it nearly as hot as Marble Bar, Australia, last year (when it was 49C). After 80 years of deadly global warming both towns were nearly as hot as Marble Bar was in 1922.

As the world continues to warm, such plane delays will become more common, says Camilo Mora, an associate geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And that’s just the beginning.

And imagine what associate professors of geology might forecast on flight patterns circa 2080? You’ll never know if you read Fortune, where anyone can forecast climate bad-news, but prize-winning atmospheric scientists remain invisible if they stick to things they know, like […]

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Al Gore says climate change is like slavery

Al Gore’s new move is to wrap the global warming religion in with a bucket-list of “moral movements”, evidently targeting the naive souls who seek an Instant Life’s Mission, and / or approval from sorority girls:

Al Gore: battle against climate change is like fight against slavery

The fight against global warming is one of humanity’s great moral movements, alongside the abolition of slavery, the defeat of apartheid, votes for women and gay rights, according to the former US vice-president and climate campaigner, Al Gore.

He forgets to add the defeat of Hitler and eradication of small pox. Though he gets points for finding a way to quote Martin Luther King Jnr: “No lie can live forever”.

Gore piles on the “industrial revolution” — apparently confusing actual working steam engines that move twenty thousand tons with solar cars whose weight is measured in kilograms and whose load bearing capacity is not even mentioned:

The battle to halt climate change can be won, he said, because the green revolution delivering clean energy is both bigger than the industrial revolution and happening faster than the digital revolution.

But he mixes up the exponential theoretical prospects of renewables with […]

Sign a petition for Australia to pull out of the Paris Agreement

Let’s get Australia out of the pointless Paris Agreement which will cost trillions, hurt the poor, send Australian manufacturing overseas, kill birds, bats, whales, raise electricity prices, and not change global temperatures by any measurable amount. This is a very well reasoned petition written by someone very familiar with the details of IPCC proceedings. It is an official petition, and alas, needs to be limited to Australian signatories.

Jo

_______________________________________________________________

An electronic petition for the House of Representatives requesting Australia pull out of the Paris Agreement.

Petition Number EN0264 Petition Address To the Hon. Speaker of the House of Representatives and Members of the House of Representatives Petition Of Certain citizens of Australia Petition Reason (a) The damage and impairment to the Australian economy and the financial pain inflicted on our citizens and residents caused by inflated energy costs will be very significant and are very likely to be increased in future. (b) Australian greenhouse gas emissions are insignificant and have no measurable influence on global average temperature, meaning that Australia’s involvement is merely a political gesture. (c) The ratification of the Agreement seems to have ignored the following statements of IPCC’s Fifth Climate Assessment Report (5AR) of 2013: (i) […]

If only Yes Minister had done the global warming thing (oh look…!)

Excellent comedy, if you haven’t already seen this. (Adapted from the Stage Play “Yes Prime Minister”)

Yes Prime Minister Global Warming etc Part 1 from Aris Motas on Vimeo.

Part II

Yes Prime Minister Global Warming etc Part 2 from Aris Motas on Vimeo.

Written by Antony Jay and Johnathan Lynn. BBC. h/t Waxing Gibberish and Friends of Science on Facebook.

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Shocking electricity price rises coming in Australia: Not a failure of energy policy but a complete “success”

The numbers are breathtaking. On the east coast of Australia (which means most households in the nation) they are looking at 15 – 20% increases next month on electricity bills which are already at bleeding point.

Get a grip on these numbers:

Charis Chang, News.com —

POWER prices are set to rocket after three major retailers announced increases of up to 20 per cent and $600 a year for the average customer in some states.

Origin, EnergyAustralia and AGL have all announced price increases for electricity and gas starting from July 1.

Small businesses may be the hardest hit, especially Origin customers in South Australia, which will see prices rise by a whopping $1453 a year when increases to gas and electricity bills are combined.

The biggest increase for residential customers will be for AGL customers in ACT, who will pay an extra $579 a year for a combined electricity and gas rise.

In NSW, residential EnergyAustralia customers will see electricity prices increase by up to 19.6 per cent. Origin Energy customers will get a 16.1 per cent rise.

The price hikes will take effect […]

Now that was “climate change” 8200 years ago — California lashed by 150 years of storms

Don’t tell me that cold is nice and the climate was ever ideal

A few scientists thought that the climate was stable and well behaved during the Holocene until we invented coal power and the Ford Model T and everything fell apart “unprecedentedly”.

But 8200 years ago things apparently got pretty wild. See the GISP graph below where there was a three degree fall in temperatures suddenly (circled in red below). A new study found that at the same time China and California also cooled. Strangely, this cooling effect probably did not produce calm, happy days for the Californians at the time. Instead it looks like they got 150 years of intense winter storms and a lot of wet weather.

UPDATE: This graph shows the ice-core data up until 1855. The last 150 years (1705 to 1855) are highlighted in red to show the warming as the Earth began coming out of the LIA. Obviously that red line would continue up further if it was drawn to the present.

Looks like real climate change….

The reason for the sudden snap is possibly that a couple of massive glacial lakes in North East America collapsed and suddenly drained out […]

Stupid Nation: Australians crave cheap energy, yet think “low cost” renewables need support

It’s like an Easter Island moment for an advanced economy: somehow “cheap” energy can’t compete in a free market without government subsidy. A Nation of Serfs have forgotten what a free market is. Will cheap desirable stuff sell itself, or not?

The contradictions mount. Electricity and gas prices are hitting escape velocity:

The wholesale electricity spot prices was about $35 a megawatt hour during 2011, rose to $58 after the carbon tax was introduced and is now about $130 as gas prices push up energy generator costs.

Not surprisingly 70% of Australians want cheaper, more reliable electricity. Only one person in four would rather cut emissions than cut the bill. Yet the agitprop telling people that renewables are “cheap” has been so pervasive that fully 38% of Australians think the government should raise the renewable energy target, and 23% think it should stay the same. It follows that around 4 in 10 Australians apparently hold the bizarre idea that wind and solar are cheap and yet in need of government support, as if there are no investors willing to put money into supplying something that 100% of people want at a price cheaper than what they currently pay. […]

What is the sound of a dying planet?

UPDATE: It is apparently funded by the Arts Council England. Couldn’t we guess?

A new climate forcing, let’s call it Musikiness, will change the upper trough-o-sphere:

Climate change data is being transformed into beautiful symphonies

What is the sound of a dying planet? Translating hard facts into feeling is the issue of our age – and it is the task Climate Symphony have appointed themselves. A collective of artists and scientists, the London-based team are inspiring action by transforming climate change data into music.

Listen at the link.

Wait til you see what it can do. This is a pretty powerful tool:

“Climate Symphony has developed a side-project – calling out lies in politics.”

“We want to create a formal record,” she says, “A method of fact-checking the things Trump is saying, of finding distortions. It’s revealing. You’re looking at it, and listening to it, and you find that it’s distorted. It’s all distorted.”

Musikiness could replace the US GAO. (Who needs auditors). But I worry about what happens if they use the wrong key.

Finally, twenty years late, EcoWorriers care about transparency and “hard facts”:

“…it isn’t just […]

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This is only 1 percent of a real mass extinction

Peter Brannen argues a real mass extinction doesn’t just wipe out 1% of species, it wipes out 90%.

It turns out humans are not quite as bad as a one-kilometer-deep lava layer covering an area as big as the US.

Earth is not in the midst of a Sixth Mass Extinction

Humans have changed the ecosphere:

So things don’t look so good, no matter where we look. Yes, the victims in the animal world include scary apex predators that pose obvious threats to humans, like lions, whose numbers have dropped from 1 million at the time of Jesus to 450,000 in the 1940s to 20,000 today—a decline of 98 percent. But also included have been unexpected victims, like butterflies and moths, which have declined in abundance by 35 percent since the 1970s.

Is this a mini extinction?

…the only reason we know about mass extinctions in the first place is from the record of this incredibly abundant, durable, and diverse world of marine invertebrates, not the big, charismatic, and rare stuff like dinosaurs.“

So you can ask, ‘Okay, well, how many geographically widespread, abundant, durably skeletonized marine taxa have gone extinct […]

Finkel report destroys baseload coal power economics

Demand enough renewables and you might as well ban coal

There’s a lesson Australia needs to learn from South Australia. When intermittent renewables reach a certain percentage of daily average supply they make baseload power unfeasible. The situation develops into an impossible dead end that can only be solved with container-ships of cash.

The intermittent supply of wind and solar is the immoveable problem. It eats into the daily chart of the cheapest stable electricity supply — which is coal fired. Coal can’t be ramped in and out in minutes. It is a creature that runs best non-stop, efficiently, smoothly, at a high capacity factor (meaning it works best when it is producing around 90% of it’s design limit continuously).

Tom Quirk points out that sometime after these intermittent renewables hit 30% of the average daily supply, as they have in South Australia — locally sourced coal power becomes uneconomic. There are times during the daily cycle when renewables are providing almost all the demand. There is little demand left for the massive coal turbines to supply, so they spin on pointlessly, but costs remain, and profits are zero.

In […]

Surely not: Climate revolt and another Australian PM?

It’s hard to believe Turnbull could fall for this one twice.

Dennis Shannahan warns us:

There is a revolt in the Coalition ranks and there are those prepared to say that Finkel is dead or worse.

More than 20 Coalition MPs spoke against the Finkel report last night, including Tony Abbott, all concerned that the priority is for cutting emissions and not electricity prices.

History repeats?

David Crowe on what he’s heard about the same liberal party room meeting:

Former prime minister Tony Abbott was a sharp critic of the clean energy target and made interjections throughout the ­discussions.

“He was the most sceptical about it — he said it wasn’t going to cut prices or provide certainty for consumers,” one Liberal said.

“He was probably the strongest critic throughout the whole ­meeting.”

One of the senior Liberal figures who took notes on the meeting said last night that about 32 people spoke and about one-third of them were not in favour of the Finkel proposal, while one-third supported the clean energy target and another third asked questions or had suggestions for changes. Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, […]

Finkel: Turn the whole country into South Australia by 2030 — 42% “renewable”

In one of the most massaged spin-doctor sales messages in Australian history, the Finkel Report is here to “take the politics out” and solve our energy instability and out-of-control prices. But it’s actually an aggressive green-left weather-control program where cost and stability are secondary to the unspoken but main aim which is to slow storms in 2100. If Finkel were really aiming for stability and price control he’d let the free market run, get the government out of our electricity grid and look at the evidence that shows that solar-panels and wind farms don’t, won’t and can’t work as global air-conditioners for us or our grandchildren.

Australians, read this line and weep:

“Modelling for the Review estimates that by 2030, 42 per cent of electricity demand will be met by renewable generation.”

This is where South Australia is currently at, but it has a lifeline to coal power in Victoria whenever it needs it. What happens when the whole National Grid needs a lifeline? Pull out your wallet…

How much does an undersea cable to New Zealand cost? It’s only 2,000km.

For the same price we might be able to afford a new ultra-supercritical coal plant and catch […]

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