Santa’s arrived! Australia drops new Renewables Targets, will meet “Paris”, stop blackouts, reduce costs

This is good news but Turnbull still wants to have the Paris cake and power the fridge with the crumbs

Faced with national bill shock, dismal Newspolls, and even leadership rumors, Turnbull is, at last, dropping the deadweight Finkel Clean Energy Target. The biggest poisoned-band-aid will not be plastered on, though mini bandaids will be.

Too much regulation is never enough and the energy market is still being micromanaged.

Cabinet dumps Clean Energy Target for new ‘affordable, reliable’ power plan

[ABC news] A Clean Energy Target recommended by Australia’s chief scientist will not be adopted, with the Federal Government instead proposing a new plan to bring down electricity prices.

The details have not officially been released, but the ABC understands Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will argue his policy will lower electricity bills more than a Clean Energy Target (CET), while meeting Australia’s Paris climate change commitments.

And they wonder why no one wants to build a coal station here, despite finding 1,600 other places to build them in 62 other countries:

Cabinet is also keen to adopt a generator reliability obligation, which requires three years’ notice of closing a power station, in order to prevent a repeat of the sudden closure of Hazelwood power station in Victoria in March.

The answer to pointless overdone, intrusive and clumsy regulation is apparently to do even more of it:

Power Guarantee to Fix Crisis

[The Australian] Energy retailers will be forced to buy a minimum amount of baseload power from coal, gas or hydro for every megawatt of renewable energy under a drastic intervention into the energy market by the Turnbull government to drive energy bills down by $115 a year.

We forced people to buy renewables, and now we force people to buy the antidote too.

The only subsidies we are ending are the ones that haven’t started yet:

Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will today announce a “national ­energy guarantee” as the centrepiece of an energy plan that will end new taxpayer subsidies for ­renewable energy from 2020 and ­impose a 0.2 per cent reliability regulation on retailers to inoculate the system from blackouts and give a lifeline to coal power.

The savings (if they happen) are small compared to the increases:

A senior government source confirmed that the policy signed off by cabinet last night and to be taken to the Coalition partyroom today, is estimated to cut ­retail ­energy bills of between $100 and $115 a year.

We are just aiming to wind back a tiny part of the pain.

John Stone — Abbott simply speaks the truth now that he is free to do so:

[The Australian] …It is those untruths Abbott has called out.

And the response from his critics? Personal abuse, distortion…  the Prime Minister snidely refers to “it being Mental Health Day”; a minister (Josh Frydenberg) who resorts to the self-demeaning criticism that, as prime minister, Abbott defended the renewable energy target and signed up to the Paris Agreement, both of which he now criticises.

Of course he did, because, despite his long-held view that this new paganism was “absolute crap”, a Turnbull-led majority of his cabinet, to their eternal discredit, had gone along with it and tied his hands. Being at last free to speak the truth, should he be mocked for doing so?

The fact is, as Terry McCrann said (The Daily Telegraph, October 12), Abbott’s speech was “a seminal event”.

The global bullies are trying to tar Abbott by reminding everyone of what he said as a PM and contrasting it with what he says now. But it’s unlikely to do much harm.  Millions voted for him when he made a “blood oath” to remove the carbon tax. He didn’t win more over when he spoke with the wooden tones, constrained as PM. Indeed, the critics just give Abbott a chance to talk about why our national conversations are so constrained by the politically correct box…

 To pursue the renewable grail,
With Australia’s great coal wealth for sale,
To be burned up abroad,
Is a policy flawed,
And reduce power prices, would fail.

–Ruairi

h/t David B, Scott of the Pacific, Pat.

PS: Headline edited. Was “Christmas already.” (or something like that). Now it’s “Santa’s arrived”.

9.4 out of 10 based on 87 ratings

202 comments to Santa’s arrived! Australia drops new Renewables Targets, will meet “Paris”, stop blackouts, reduce costs

  • #

    Remember, this is Malcolm Turnbull talking.

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    • #
      amortiser

      Absolutely right. It’s Malcolm talking.

      They have been punching us in the face three times a day with a promise to increase that to 5 times a day as their renewables march continues. All this change does is promise to to reduce those punches to 4.

      It’s only future subsidies that will stop. From what I can see, the renewable Energy Certificates will continue. The percentage of renewables still increases under the policy with the requirement to continue to reduce emissions. There is still no statement about what benefits this will provide.

      This is all smoke and mirrors. There is still a huge bias against coal fired generation with them floating the requirement to give 3 years notice for closure of coal fired power stations.

      The continue to pile regulation upon regulation to “fix” the problems caused by previous regulations.

      Christmas may be coming but there is nothing in Santa’s sack.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        No matter who you vote for, you get the same globalist wrecking-of-Australia agenda….

        Now why is that?

        Could it be Australia is in affect a one-party state?

        That is Communism.

        QED.

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        • #
          tom0mason

          Australia seriously needs to get rid of its ‘base-load’, the political ‘base-load’ that is.

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        • #
          graphicconception

          Could it be Australia is in affect a one-party state?

          I think the US and UK are also, effectively, one party states. It is one of those globalist ploys to make us think that we have a choice where, in fact, none exists.

          50

      • #
        Peter C

        Christmas may be coming but there is nothing in Santa’s sack.

        I am hoping for a lump of Coal!

        70

    • #
      Geoffrey Williams

      In acrobatic terms this is half somersault combined with a backflip, both badly executed. Only 3 out of 10.
      And that’s being generous!
      Regards GeoffW

      220

    • #
      turnedoutnice

      IPCC physics has been fraudulent since 1976. The 33 K GHE claim is false, based on fake physics buried in the text of R D Cess 1976, backed up in the same year by fake ‘negative convection’ in GISS 2d modelling, admitted by Hansen to an AIP interviewer 25 years later.

      The real physics is defined by self-absorption of atmospheric GHG molecules. The self-absorbed GHGs near the surface turn off about 60% of surface radiant exitance because of the equal IR density of states across the boundary. That transfers each band’s IR emitting surface to be at whatever altitude loses self-absorption, about 20 km for CO2 15 micron. There is no atmospheric heating from surface IR.

      Furthermore, subject to constant tsi, there can be no GHG warming of the surface; the temperature is held constant by negative feedback from the very strong dependence of partial self absorption by 16-23 micron water vapour GHG bands. plus other feedbacks including 15% more green Earth.

      For 40 years we have had a group of scientists connected with various state organisations who have been pushing the GHG warming concept to trace [CO2] variation, when it doesn’t exist. The true PID control system is subtle with new physics including enhanced extinction factor for rain clouds missed by van der Hulst and Hansen in the late 1960.

      This is a new phlogiston: that theory collapsed in 3 years; same for CESS’ claims, which no professional accepts, no matter the insults of those who have ridden the grant gravy train for 40 years and made terrible mistakes. E.g., Goody and Yung’s bidirectional photon diffusion theory failed to understand the Planck 1913 assumed a vacuum and that a pyrgeometer signal, >95% from a theoretical calculation of internal reference S-B emission, is a radiant exitance, not an energy flux.

      30

  • #
    David Maddison

    For the consumer the only useful outcome is a bill reduction of $115 but I bet they’re lying about that as well.

    351

    • #
      Alice Thermopolis

      And aware that they are too, David…..

      “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” (J K Galbraith)

      Quoted by Josh Frydenberg during ABC RN interview on PM, 17 October 2017

      http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/most-effective-and-reliable-policy:-josh-frydenberg/9059570

      “It is important to understand we sought and received the best advice that is available…Their combined wisdom and advice is that households will see a savings on their power bills by $110 to $115 per annum, as a result of our policy; which is a higher number than the saving [$90] that was promoted under the Clean Energy Target.”

      ABC RN PM: “OK. You’ve taken advice. But do you have modelling and can you guarantee it?”

      “Further modelling will be undertaken. But I am familiar with the saying of John Kenneth Galbraith that when it comes to modelling it is designed to make astrology look good. So it always depends on the inputs to get the outputs.”

      50

  • #
    David Maddison

    As usual, the details have not been thought through. Will this mean all wind and solar subsidy farms have to be battery backed and at whose cost?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    It’s sad how Turnbull and the media are promoting this as the solution to the energy crisis when all it mostly means is not starting with additional subsidies that haven’t yet started in any case.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    No wonder they are building that huge fence around Parliament House. They fear the peasants are about to revolt.

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  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Politics is a dirty business.
    The headlines will read:

    * electricity costs will come down.

    * baseload power to be supported.

    The reality however is that the changes will have no effect.

    We are still looking at big trouble ahead.

    KK

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    • #
      Dennis

      Most if not all political fixes are crafted to get past the next election, and beyond that they will deal with the issues arising as they arise.

      And keep shovelling the mushroom fertiliser.

      260

  • #
    David Maddison

    How can any company do business if they have to give three years notice of the closing of any real power station? The conditions that drive it to close are unlikely to exist three years in advance. What will be the penalty if they don’t because they can’t afford to run for another three years? The whole idea is insane.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      And what if notice is actually given? How will they replace the capability and low power cost of a coal power station in that time?

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        They cant – the real aim is to cripple the industrialized west to protect the mythical “Gaia”

        As I have said many times – this is a *religious* war – the rest of humanity vs the Establishment-based Gaian worshippers…..

        Let that sink in…..

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    • #
      Dennis

      The com pan’s lawyers could surely write a termination of business notice to cover the three year period, and then leave it to the engineers to comply.

      40

  • #
    TdeF

    The RET makes it cheaper to buy wind at 9c kw/hr without having to pay 8.5c kw/hr just for the right to buy coal or gas power, plus the coal or gas power at 4c or more. So retailers buy wind at every opportunity. That is the entire idea of the RET, Renewable Energy Tax.

    So instead of removing this ripoff on consumers, the government will force them to pay more. Coal and gas electricity producers will get more but so will wind producers. Now how will this reduce our electricity prices?

    This proves my life long lesson that lawyers cannot add, know nothing about money and could not negotiate their way out of a paper bag. To actually tell Australians that this will make things cheaper is either gross deceit or gross incompetence.

    The other is to fix the power shortage caused by forcing coal power out of business by paying people cash or theatre tickets to not use power they need. This is the American system of paying people to get off the overbooked plane or to leave the overbooked hotel. Unfair on both the people who leave and the people who stay, but a typical lawyers solution with other people’s money.

    This is entirely a politician produced problem being ‘solved’ by absurd and costly ideas which make Rudd and Gillard’s thought bubbles look like genius.

    Malcolm, you are a lambchop short of a picnic.

    Can we please have Abbott back?

    530

    • #
      el gordo

      Yesterday he told Ray Hadley that the only way he could become PM again is by being drafted.

      http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/10/16/tony-abbott-ex-leader-drafted/

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      • #
        TdeF

        An even better sign is that Julie Bishop has said that not one of her colleagues has suggested bringing back Abbott. She is now in denial. That in political terms means she has been sent out to quiet the troops.

        Of course half the cabinet owe their positions to Malcolm Turnbull, lead of the now revealed ‘Black Hand’ which is politically more Green than the Greens, more Left than labour. They would rather lose the election as Ministers and retire than be relegated to the back bench and lose anyway. They would rather take the country with them and get their massive indexed pensions. Remember Brownyn Bishop is on $240,000pa, indexed for life. Who needs to win an election or fix a problem? I’m all right Jack.

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        • #
          el gordo

          Yep, nicely said, but my money is still on Dutton.

          ‘While no one is counting at the moment, there have been discussions going on in some Liberal Party circles about Peter Dutton being the one to topple Turnbull. Sections of the Right, including Tony Abbott, are pushing Dutton’s barrow.’

          — The Australian, Graham Richardson, Political Columnist, 3 March, 2017

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          • #
            Yonniestone

            Hey I picked Dutton ages ago but my greatest hope is hes not just another player in the parliament theatre and has the right amount of mongrel in him.

            Yeah I know wishful thinking Yonnie.

            40

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘…has the right amount of mongrel in him.’

              In his early days as a Queensland cop he picked up a ‘tradie humour’, which has kept him in good stead ever since.

              Still, if Dutton wants the big seat he’ll need to be fully briefed on climate change and borrow some of Tony’s lines like ‘global warming has been good for us.’

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    • #
      Ted O’Brien.

      We need to have a lot .more “pushback” yet.

      We have a major problem with the investments that have been made with the “certainty” provided by Al Gore’s contribution in the Abbott government’s slightly reduced RET. A lot of those investments have been made by politically activist fund managers, but all could claim compensation, both directly and indirectly at the ballot box through aggrieved fund members, should a change in policy cause losses.

      Time to study the words of those fund managers.

      30

  • #
    David Maddison

    I wonder if any of our politicians actually have the intellectual capability to understand the implications of wht they’re doing? There is certainly some very evil people advising them who do not what they’re doing.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Oops. What not wht. And fourth last word know not not.

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    • #
      ivan

      NO. And the way politicians are selected they never will.

      30

    • #
      AndyG55

      “There is certainly some very evil people advising them who do not know what they’re doing.”

      And some that DO know very well what they are doing. !!!

      And are doing it intentionally.. true evil. !

      (or is that what you meant to say?)

      😉

      81

    • #
      toorightmate

      David,
      Stop wondering.
      None of our politicians have any intellectual capability.
      Power prices will not return to proper/appropriate/sensible levels until all subsidies are scrapped.
      The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.

      170

  • #
    David Maddison

    Alan Jones on Radio 2GB gives very good commentary on the whole subject. If not in Sydney you can listed to him on the 2GB App or from their website. This morning I posted him a link to this story (Jo’s).

    http://www.2gb.com/show/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/

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  • #
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Very interesting study out this week on “renewable” energy in Minnesota:

    “Green” Energy Fails Every Test

    Minnesota has a population only about 10% larger than Queensland. In summary:

    – They have spent roughly $20 billion Aussie on wind energy
    – Actual CO2 emission savings were approximately zero
    – The only reductions in CO2 emissions were due to the GFC and a failure at a coal plant which took 2 years to repair
    – Electricity prices went from 18% below the US average to above the US average

    This is just what we have been saying for years: in real world operational experience renewable energy CO2 emission savings are a myth. The pain of higher electricity prices is completely unjustified even if you believe in CAGW.

    Which also isn’t happening in the real world.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Bruce of Newcastle:

      Look at Germany where the last 2000 wind turbines resulted in a slight INCREASE in emissions. Actually just an artifact from poorer wind conditions but for all the 27000+ wind turbines they’ve installed they cannot show any reduction in emissions.

      40

  • #
    Dennis

    Prime Minister Tony Abbott did not sign or ratify the UN Paris Agreement.

    He was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull is September 2015 and the Paris Conference got underway at the end of November 2015.

    The deception is that he was involved is establishing the emissions target and other issues prepared by the Australian Government to be taken to Paris. Abbott would not agree to the target many of his cabinet wanted and in that respect he was involved, but he did that with no other option since Rudd Labor ratified the Kyoto Agreement that was only signed by the Howard Government.

    Too much political spin deployed against Tony Abbott by his political opponents.

    300

  • #
    Dennis

    On ABC National Radio this morning presenter Fran Kelly quizzed Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, in part about the government’s new energy plans. I could not believe her interjections as Bishop answered questions. In particular her angry comment that renewables are not being supported.

    This is the biased style of too many ABC journalists.

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    • #
      toorightmate

      I remember the old days when you could have a gay time, sit on a poof and suck on a fag.

      130

    • #
      Geoffrey Williams

      Too right Dennis – they deserve a kick up the backside for their rudeness and their stupidity!
      I am not sexist but whenever I hear that high pitched, and whinning voice of Fran Kelly (a talking head if ever there was one) I am honestly moved to pity the poor devil who has to listen to her every day. I gave up listening to her voice on the radio decades ago.
      Regards GeoffW

      40

  • #
    RickWill

    Queensland is now spending big on large scale solar and storage.

    Renewable energy is booming in Queensland!

    + $7 billion to be spent on renewable energy in Queensland;
    + 6,500 new jobs per year;
    + 1,200 Megawatts being installed right now,
    + Gigawatts to follow …
    The Powering Queensland Summit is the place to find out more.

    https://www.solar.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/171026-Powering-Queensland-Summit-program4-1.pdf

    Hard to imagine electricity prices will go down when $7bn is already in the pipeline for grid scale energy projects. All these projects can hope to do it to displace a little low cost coal with mostly high cost gas. So a cheap fuel gets substituted by a very expensive fuel most of the time. Agreed there are periods when the substitute fuel comes at zero cost but it requires huge up front capital that has to be replaced in maybe 25 years.

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    • #
      Antoine D'Arche

      Anna P is going to lose govt with ON becoming the balance of power in Qld, come the next election. When that happens, say goodbye to investment in renewables

      240

      • #
        Dennis

        Former Prime Minister Howard recently pointed out that voting trends now indicate that the historical 80 per cent of voters supporting the major parties, including swinging voters, has now fallen to 60 per cent (maybe less) which makes the task of forming government much more difficult, as Gillard Labor discovered after the 2010 federal election and resulting hung parliament. They had to seek alliance partners to form a minority government.

        Maybe the next (2019?) election result will be the opportunity for conservatives to form a minority alliance government?

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    • #
      David Maddison

      I hate how they keep quoting the nameplate capacity of the unreliables they are installing. In this case the “1200MW” will be a third of that or less. And it will be dirty mostly useless power.

      262

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        David Maddison:

        Dirty power? No, the backnotes for the suppliers will be clean new ones and freshly ironed. Useless of course and likely to cause a rush to diesel generators as in the UK, Tasmania and South Australia etc.

        40

  • #
    Antoine D'Arche

    another small step away from the precipice, which is good. Unfortunately, we’re still standing on the cornice…

    100

    • #

      Is that definition 1 or 2? The first sounds impossible to stand on so I’ll assume the second. We are on hard snow.

      cornice
      ˈkɔːnɪs/
      noun
      noun: cornice; plural noun: cornices

      1. an ornamental moulding round the wall of a room just below the ceiling.
      a horizontal moulded projection crowning a building or structure, especially the uppermost member of the entablature of an order, surmounting the frieze.
      2.
      an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a mountain precipice.

      Origin

      51

  • #
    David Maddison

    Snowy Hydro 2.0 will supposedly store 350GWh of power at one hundredth of the cost of batteries.

    But where will this surplus power come from to pump the water up hill? It would take the entire 2.6GW output of mighty Bayswater 134 days of coal burning power to fill it up just once and that’s assuming 100% efficiency. Pumped hydro is around 80% efficient in reality.

    http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-scheme/snowy20/snowy-2-0-faqs/

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  • #
    PeterS

    Turnbull the man who despises and criticises what Abbott said yet Turnbull is now trying to walk the same path back to coal? He is a fake, and most intelligent people know it. What he is now saying is similar to what Gillard said when she promised there would be no carbon tax under the government she leads. The only thing that would convince me he has changed is he initiates the building of several new generation coal fired power stations followed immediately with construction and building that are visible and real, not some half baked promise or thought bubble to do it.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Why build new power stations? Why not fix what we have instead of blowing it up? If you want 6% higher efficiency. upgrade.

      1. Why not buy back Liddell and fix it? It was ‘sold’ for nothing. We cannot afford for Liddell to go off line.

      2. Similarly fully functional Hazelwood which was simply closed and ran the last month flat out at near design capacity.

      Like Pelican Point, Enron/Mitsui will just wait for Daniel Andrews to get desperate and go back on the silent payments system they were on for years, to hide the fact that they could not make money under the RET.

      As even Alan Kohler said, factories and power stations do NOT have a use by date. In fact they just require maintenance. Windmills however are fundamentally replaceables, not maintainables.

      Every cent spent on building windmills is a cent wasted. That’s our money. Not the government’s.

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      • #
        Ross

        I did not catch the guy’s name but David Spears was interviewing a guy on Sky yesterday who was saying for half a billion they could refit the better (ie not the very old ones) coal fired power stations to “HELE standards” reasonably easily (ie no need to build brand new ones). Spears appeared to be dumbfounded at the suggestion.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Can new HELE units be added to the existing infrastructure at coal fired power stations?

        Or is the feed technology too different ?

        Anyone know?

        62

        • #
          David Maddison

          I believe you can but you have to replace the boiler because they run at much higher pressures and temperatures.

          We should be careful to point out that the only reason you would want to do this is fuel efficiency gains for which the extra cost may or may not be worth it and nothing to do with reducing CO2 emissions which are not a problem anyway.

          In fact, reduced CO2 emissions are a problem because it means less plant food.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            I’m saying to add extra units, not replace old ones .

            Use the current supply infrastructure.

            Is the coal milled differently. things like that.

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            • #
              TdeF

              This was a point made by the Guardian which railed that the world was not building 610 new coal power stations but 610 units. As if that mattered. We are building none.

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          • #
            TdeF

            Plus you are talking only a 6% efficiency gain. The way people are talking you would think you could produce energy without combustion.

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            • #
              PeterS

              Actually it’s a lot worse than that. There are many who really think we can generate energy just by imagining it. It’s part and parcel of being left these days. Of course the reason is they are mindless fools. Mind you not all of the left are like this. There are some decent thinkers there too but their numbers are diminishing and soon will be an extinct species as the cancer keeps spreading. It’s Darwinian devolution in action.

              60

            • #
              AndyG55

              My thoughts are that gradually building up the higher efficiency fleet will be a good thing as the old clunkers start to get long in the tooth.

              We SHOULD have been doing this anyway !

              31

      • #
        sophocles

        If the crooked and corrupt can be removed from your parliament, then the solution for these coal-burning generators is quite simple, a blast from the past: Nationalise them.

        70

        • #
          Kevin Lohse

          That cure is far, far worse than the ailment.

          30

          • #
            sophocles

            In what way?
            The current owner of the Liddell station seems to be trying a form of blackmail, because they see they have a potential monopoly. It would serve them right if they were forcibly nationalised.

            20

  • #
    TedM

    It may be time for the younger commenters on this blog to learn about the methods that those of us that were born during or just post WW11 used for keeping food fresh. The meat safe and the Coolgardie cooler. That’s right I can remember life without a fridge or freezer… My friends and I still use a simple Coolgardie cooler for keeping perishable food items fresh for a couple of days when we are camped out bush, especially when we are marroning. The Coolgardie cooler kept salads fresh and the lettuce crisp for days, and you could even set a jelly in it, as long as there was a bit of a breeze.

    To be honest I don’t think that the power situation is likely to get that bad in the short term, but we are heading in that direction.

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    • #
      Dennis

      I spent many happy weeks visiting a Sheep Farm during school holidays near Goulburn NSW when I was a child, the original stone house had been ruined by fire and the family lived in town. The accommodation at the farm was a three room timber cottage with no bathroom, just a living room with fireplace, a table used to prepare and eat meals on, simple bush furniture, a saddle room and one bedroom with four WW2 Army stretchers and grey Army blankets.

      All cooking was done over the open timber fire in cast iron pots and frying pan, toasting done using fencing wire fashioned into a fork. The meat safe was the old hessian covering flyscreen wire sides but I forget the brand name. Lighting was kerosine lamps and firelight. Bedtime was soon after dusk and rise at dawn.

      I suspect that most modern children would be horrified.

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      • #
        Chad

        Even those of us that have been there, lived that life style, pumped our own well water, battery lighting etc etc….we do not want to go back !
        Fond memories maybe, but not a life sty

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        • #
          Another Ian

          As my mother used to say “She couldn’t recall much good about the “good old days””

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          • #
            Dennis

            As a child it was fascinating to travel in a Willy’s sedan with the back seat removed and the area used to carry farm needs, boot lid open used like a trailer and Dogs chained to the rear transmission tunnel.

            No air conditioning or automatic transmission, not even power steering.

            50

    • #
      Another Ian

      Don’t forget Tilley lights.

      And they are still made if we get really despatate – but expensive.

      50

    • #
      GrahamP

      Wow, we must have been very modern. We had an ice chest and every day the ice man with his horse drawn cart would deliver a block of ice. We had electric light and a gas cooker. Prospect, Adelaide SA. circa 1950

      80

      • #
        Dennis

        And then decades later Weatherdill became your Premier

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        • #
          GrahamP

          The rot set in about the time of Don Dunstan and its been steadily downhill since.

          Fortunately I left in 1962 when my old man was transferred to NSW and haven’t been back since. His first job as a post war Engineering graduate in Adelaide was with a large chemical company in charge of the Company’s own powerhouse. He will be turning in his grave over the current stupidity.

          30

    • #

      Ted I wish you were going around schools and on kids shows teaching them how to make and maintain a Coolgardie Safe. Not because I think we’ll have to use one, but so they can understand just how brilliant electricity is, how lucky they are and how different life used to be. It might put snowflake behaviour in a different perspective and add a tiny bit of respect for the hard work that built the nation. Screen kids have no idea.

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      • #

        How about a boot camp for kids — a week in the bush without electricity?

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      • #
        TedM

        A couple of times a year, one of my mates, his adult sons and their sons go bush to one of our favourite spots. We make a coolgardie cooler, draw our cold drinking water from near the bottom of a deep pool in the river, cook over a fire, and if the weather is suitable we sleep under the stars. The kids are all into scouting so it’s more an opportunity to put what they have learned in scouts into practice with a greater degree of independence.

        Of course we now all have LED headlamps and modern lightweight camping gear. However it’s an experience for the kids and nice for us geriatrics to revisit the skills and experiences of the past.

        There is a little hunting and gathering as well.

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        • #
          Dennis

          And, hopefully, no internet connection devices?

          [wink]

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          • #
            Yonniestone

            The NBN drops out in major cities you’ve got Buckleys hope in the bush!

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            • #
              Dennis

              After 200,000 Kms of travel mostly in “the bush” in all states and territories since 2013 I have had only two campsites where internet connection was poor, middle of Nullabour Plain and in the Victorian high country in one location.

              30

              • #
                robert rosicka

                Oodnadatta and William creek are exclusively Optus , our Telstra internet utterly useless , a lot of Kakadu forget it , only connection you’ll get in the Vic high country is maybe up high .
                Most towns have some sort of coverage but if you’re not in town and travelling good luck .
                Only signal we got between Birdsville and broken hill was the few towns we passed .

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            • #
              Graeme No.3

              An approximately 16 kilometres west of Bendigo for Telstra 4G.

              20

          • #
            TedM

            Correct Dennis. No mob either. We are about 2 hours walk from the nearest open road. Hardly the outback but we have a genuine degree of isolation.

            30

            • #
              robert rosicka

              We are about 4 kilometres from Glenrowen and mobile phones were useless here until about a year or so ago when they put in a tower for the nbn .
              Some houses here were in a shadow for wireless and mobile phone .

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  • #
    TedM

    Gabbling Fran Kelly on our Aetheist Bolshevik Conspirators gloating that Tony Abbott had been debunked as only 7% of the cost increase in power was due to green schemes.

    Fran in her usual ignorance in any matters of anything other than the most simplistic nature did not understand that “green schemes” did not apply to the actual cost of power production. The boast was most of it was due to the increasing Network costs.

    Fran does not understand that the network has increased significantly in size due to the sprawling nature of so called renewables sources of power and as a result so has the cost. Add to that the cost of stabilising an inherently unstable power network.

    Germany spent well over $1B Euros on stabilising their network, thanks to so called renewables.

    Germany’s emmissions continue to increase.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Last year she was ignorant about what base load means and as I recall her comments was adamant that wind and solar alone could service Australia’s electricity requirements.

      200

    • #
      gnome

      I hope Rod Sims clarifies that point when he brings down his final report. It won’t be easy to get through to journalists who proudly know nothing at all about anything at all but he needs to try.

      I heard his interim speech at the Press Club, where he made it clear that “green schemes” were the subsidy schemes for rooftop feed-in and tiny experimental projects, and not additional generation costs resulting from the RET, but none of the journalists had the intellectual skill to pick it up.

      140

  • #
    mobilly2

    Just lipstick on a pig

    110

  • #
    TdeF

    You may have noticed the latest spin. Rod Sim, ACCC. No “silver bullet”. Scott Morrisson. No “Silver Bullett”. THe problem of paying the world’s highest prices for electricity cannot be solved. No one knows how it happened. They are truly sorry and it is very complex and being studied closely.

    Absolute rubbish. Remember the boats ‘could not be stopped’.

    Remove the Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001. It’s that simple. Watch the prices crash. Listen to the cries and howls of anguish from the Greens and the Bankers and the opportunists.

    After spending $40Bn of our money on windmills, enough is enough. If they do not work now, why will they ever work? If they need batteries, why was that not the case in the first place? More spending. More laws. Stop the madness. Repeal the RET.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      TdeF:
      The latest Spectator Editorial puts it bluntly “The next election will be won in a canter by the political party – and leader – that ditches the Paris Agreement, and scraps all ‘clean’ energy targets, and cancels all renewables subsidies.”

      2 years to go (for they were talking of Federal politics) and who knows what the landscape will be. If Mt. Agung erupts in a big way as is predicted then any “Global Warming” will disappear and a lot of current talking heads will be scuttling off the sinking ship.

      40

  • #
    AndyG55

    Hardly Christmas.

    More like Uncle Bob’s 68th birthday !

    Maybe a slice or two of dry cake. !

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  • #
    TedM

    I particularly liked this satrical but accurate paragraph by John Stone.

    “That “provocative” appellation notwithstanding,The Australian ’s coverage of the speech has been an object lesson to the intellectual pygmies in the Fairfax press, the ABC, SBS and most politicians from the Prime Minister down.”

    Bolding…mine.

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  • #
    John

    Why delay till 2019?

    Why not an immediate start?

    This so-called fix is a poor imitation of a band aid and won’t have any real impact.

    The quoted saving of $100 to $115 per year – big deal!

    100

  • #
    Ross

    I’ve spent a bit of time in Malaysia in the past couple of years. There is a tremendous amount of residential building going on (probably similar in most SEA countries). The one thing you note is all the houses and apartment blocks are largely concrete. Like Queensland the traditional houses were wood, off the ground and well ventilated to keep them cool. So these new “heat sinks” need lots of energy to run the air conditioners to keep them cool. All largely coming from coal fired power stations. So it is good for the Aussie coal industry although they probably compete with Indonesia.
    My point is why is Australia “rowing against the tide”? The rising middle class in SEA is not going suffer in the heat because of the beliefs of the religious zealots in your ABC newsrooms.

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    • #
      John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia

      Same in Indo, Ross. Production of cement is about 10 times higher than Australia. Apartment blocks and new buildings all overall over due to a growing middle class. They don’t give a stuff about climate change as long as their lifestyle improves.

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      • #
        Ross

        John
        My brother in law has lived and worked in China for past the 12 years. He told he read a year or so ago that there had been more concrete poured in China in the past 10 years than there was poured in the USA during the 20th century.

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  • #

    On the contrary. Insist on regulation and bans.

    Coal is to be compulsory in most of Australia. Gas allowed regionally, but only if the numbers add up. Nukes and nuke waste industry to be fostered in SA. Hydro to be used prudently, no green or bodgie ‘market’ quotas.

    Old and useless niche technologies like battery, wind and solar to be banned as mainstream power. Dismantling the renewable junk should be done at the cost of the globalist carpetbaggers who inflicted it on us. To achieve this assault on the power of globalists it will be necessary to ignore, ridicule and and turn off all of the mainstream media, now so heavily corporatised and centralised as to be worthless for information, comment or even the simplest reportage.

    Diesel used as mainstream power must be condemned as threat to national security, which it is. This is a particularly urgent measure and needs to be taken with ruthlessness to match the ruthlessness of the globalists behind such bogus collectivist agendas as “sustainable development”. A single jump in oil price in a single day could spell disaster if imported oil is being depended upon for electricity while coal lies unused in our back yard or is shipped offshore to those who, unlike Aussies, can add up.

    Perpetual war, endless debt and population replacement are the old and new goals of Empire, and crummy old bloated Empire is all globalism can give us once its disguises are stripped away and it is seen in its full-blown mediocrity. Only a strong nation state with a strong sense of sovereignty can be an alternative to Empire.

    So let’s start banning and regulating now. But start with Big Green.

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    the sting

    Years ago, it was Barnaby Joyce who talking about the carbon tax coined the phrase ” it’s a tax coming out of your power point ”. That was easy to understand and perfectly described what was happening . Now we need a similar simple way of describing what is happening with renewables[intermittents] and the electricity supply and costs . I ask all the contributors to this excellent blog to come up with a short phrase so we can arm Barnaby and others with it, to try to help save our country.

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    • #
    • #
      Will Janoschka

      SLAVERY

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      This idea can work! Some months ago (and some readers here may remember this) I implored you all to stop talking about “renewables” and instead refer to “intermittent and unreliable” power sources. The language is so important.

      About the same time I wrote to Tony Abbott and suggested that he do the same and never refer to wind turbines as “renewable” but use the terms I suggested above. I am not sure, of course, if it was because of my entrities or not but I was delighted to note that he now refers to intermittent and unreliable power sources and did so in his GWPF speech.

      The Green Blob changed “global warming” to climate change, carbon dioxide emissions to “carbon pollution”, which is extremely effective with the ignorati who have no science training.

      Language is the key to getting the message through. Over and over again. Join me and repeat “intermittent and unreliable power sources”.

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  • #
    sophocles

    The answer to pointless overdone, intrusive and clumsy regulation is apparently to do even more of it:

    This has long been the junk economics cure:

    If the cure works even worse than the problem, then it’s because the cure doesn’t go far enough and even more of the cure is necessary.
    If the patient dies, well, they shouldn’t have gotten sick in the first place.

    –The World Bank

    … a notoriously tender hearted and compassionate institution, whose sole reason for existence is to reduce world poverty. It seems there is insufficient world poverty for it to reduce, so it has to create it in order to reduce it.

    80

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Its a UN body…the cure for the disease is worse than the disease….

      The UH has demonstrated it is anti-Israel which makes it anti-God and anti-Christian. It cant be trusted and is accountable to no one…

      Now why would anyone touch it with a barge pole….?

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  • #
    Ruairi

    To pursue the renewable grail,
    With Australia’s great coal wealth for sale,
    To be burned up abroad,
    Is a policy flawed,
    And reduce power prices, would fail.

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  • #

    It’s sometimes funny when you start reading something which is supposed to be rooly rooly serious, and because of that, you assume a serious demeanour as you start reading. And then part way through you just burst out laughing.

    [The Australian] Energy retailers will be forced to buy a minimum amount of baseload power from coal, gas or hydro for every megawatt of renewable energy under a drastic intervention into the energy market by the Turnbull government to drive energy bills down by $115 a year.

    FORCED TO BUY?????

    They already are.

    Retailers purchase power which is available on the grid.

    75 to 80% of that power is being generated by coal fired power.

    (Oh except in SouthAus and Tassie that is, but hey that’s barely 12% of the market anyway)

    Tony.

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    • #

      Yes, that’s an odd one. It’s like being allowed to buy jellybeans only if a minimum amount of the purchase price is for confectionary.

      I’m sure there’s an accounting or actuarial fiddle in there which I’m missing. Maybe retailers can declare that they want power from coal rather than subsidy-heavy fairy dust so the value of fairy dust goes down but not its quantity, thus reducing its subsidy while meeting Paris?

      And we all want to meet Paris Hilton.

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    pat

    16 Oct: RedState: Scott Pruitt Ends EPA Welfare Payments to Environmental Groups
    One of the most egregious things about the EPA has always been the way it operated for the benefit of the large “environmental” groups and against the interests of states, communities, and individuals. Perhaps the worst part of this criminal collusion was the way the EPA used lawsuits against the EPA, coordinated with environmental groups, to short-circuit the rule-making process, deprive the public of a their right to petition the government, and keep the coffers of environmental groups topped off with EPA cash.

    This is how it worked…READ ON

    In fulfilling his promise to end the practice of regulation through litigation that has harmed the American public, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued an Agency-wide directive today designed to end “sue and settle” practices.
    “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt…ETC
    https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/10/16/scott-pruitt-epa-sue-and-settle/

    16 Oct: WashingtonFreeBeacon: Elizabeth Harrington: PBS Airs Anti-Pruitt Documentary Funded By Environmentalist Group Backer
    Documentary paints Republicans as ‘climate deniers,’ ‘extreme’
    The documentary features interviews with numerous Obama administration backers, including Gina McCarthy, the former EPA administrator, and Betsy Southerland, a former EPA director making $250,000 who claimed earlier this year she resigned in protest because of the Trump administration’s budget. Southerland was eligible for early retirement and told coworkers she was retiring because of family issues.
    Southerland tells PBS that Pruitt’s EPA is a “clear and present danger to public health and safety in this country.”…

    The documentary calls critics of the Obama administration’s wide-ranging regulatory actions targeting the coal industry and nuclear power plants “climate deniers” and “extreme.” The PBS narrator refers to Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) as “the Senate’s leading climate change denier” and features Jane Mayer, a journalist with the New Yorker, calling the Trump EPA “radical.”
    “What you see now in the Trump administration is the triumph of the anti-environmental movement,” Mayer says. “They are now in control of the government and in control of the regulatory process in a kind of a brazen way we haven’t seen before.”…

    Kendeda has donated to numerous environmentalist activist organizations, including: $70,000 to the Sierra Club, $50,000 to Earthjustice, $50,000 to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and $500,000 to the U.S. Climate Action Network in 2015.
    A spokesperson for WGBH, which put on the documentary, told the Free Beacon that the Kendeda Fund did not directly fund the documentary.

    “The Kendeda Fund provides support to many organizations and groups, including schools and military families, and they have provided funding to WGBH under their People, Place, and Planet program for use in a variety of WGBH programs,” said Jeanne Hopkins, vice president for communications. “Some was used to support this FRONTLINE film, along with its many other funding sources. They did not directly fund this program.”…

    The group also donated $250,000 to the New Venture Fund, which also supports environmentalist organizations. The same year, New Venture Fund donated $515,000 to the Sierra Club Foundation and $95,000 to 350.org, which vows to “stop fossil fuels.”…
    http://freebeacon.com/politics/pbs-airs-anti-pruitt-documentary-funded-environmentalist-group-backer/

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  • #
    Robdel

    All these policies and parliamentary obfuscation will go nowhere as usual. The only thing that will bring all parties to their senses is when the regular blackouts begin. Our pollies will run for cover then but none will be found. Beware the wrath of the plebs at that point.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      I am concerned that the blackouts might not happen because as industry shuts down due to high power prices more electricity is liberated. Also, the government keeps adding diesel and other ultra high cost generators and I’m not even sure there are public records of what they have added or where.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        There’s also the possibility of a cooler than expected summer which could see a slight downturn in AC/refrigeration use just getting us over the line.

        Even the BOM last week gave a grudgingly admittance to a La Niña event in the ENSO wrap up, first the excitement of,

        “The surface of the tropical Pacific has warmed over the past fortnight as a result of weaker trade winds. This has reversed the cooling trend that had been observed since mid-winter.”

        but then,
        “While unusual, it is not unheard of to see La Niña develop this late in the year. Of the late-developing La Niña events, their effect on summer rainfall has been mixed, with some leading to widespread above-average falls across eastern Australia,”

        Oh dear now natures a denier…

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        • #

          …..which could see a slight downturn in AC/refrigeration use just getting us over the line.

          This alleged proliferation of household air conditioning has little to no consequence whatsoever on electrical power consumption.

          Because that is such an outrageous thing to say no one has ever believed me or will ever believe me, even when I can prove it.

          There are not very many people who leave for school and work each morning and leave their aircon unit running all day, not very many at all. It only gets turned on when they get back home or on weekends.

          However, there is one day a year when virtually everyone is at home, and all workplaces schools etc are closed down, so, theoretically, because everyone is actually at home in mid summer, then it stands to reason that household air conditioning is actually running all day.

          That day is Christmas Day.

          On that Christmas dawning, the Base Load is 2000MW plus lower at 4 AM than on any other day. As usual it rises for the morning Peak at around 8AM, and then there is also the usual PM peak at around 6PM, and both Peaks are also around 8000MW lower than they normally are, and that’s understandable as everything else is closed.

          However, as is usual with Summer power consumption instead of power usage rising after that morning peak to the usual Summer peak at around early afternoon, on Christmas Day, power consumption actually falls after that morning peak, you know, as the day is warming up, and people are firing up their air conditioning units.

          In fact power consumption on Christmas Day as opposed to the usual Peak on a normal December working day, is 12,500MW LOWER, from 9AM till 6PM, across the board of all those hours.

          12,500MW.

          LOWER.

          The only day when home aircon units are running more than usual, and consumption is 12,500MW lower.

          Home air conditioning is most definitely not the problem it is perceived to be.

          It’s a furphy spread by Greens supporters and their co-followers, who would like you to think that home comfort is something that we should feel guilty about.

          Even on mid Summer weekends, power consumption is lower than for any other day of the week, and the Sunday, every Sunday has the lowest consumption of any day of the week, the day when more people are at home for most of the day than on any other day of the week, and the day when more home aircon units are running across most of the day.

          Next time someone tells you that home air conditioning is causing power spikes in Summer, just laugh at them, and then explain the above, and then, trust me on this. No one will believe you.

          Tony.

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  • #
    King Geo

    The “litmus test” will be the March 2018 South Australian state election. If ALP’s Weatherill prevails then that would indicate that the SA electorate put “saving the planet (a myth many believe in)” ahead of a healthy economy & jobs for their youth. In fact I would like to see the current stats of what % of uni graduates in Oz get a job commensurate with their training – I know the numbers are ugly here in Perth chatting with friends of mine – I would imagine the stats in SA would be worse & likely to further deteriorate as coy’s dependent on cheap & reliable electricity desert the state in their droves – I believe it is already happening.

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  • #
    TdeF

    More from this morning’s Australians as the energy tsars try to spin their way out of the public anger at the world’s highest price for electricity.

    “No quick fix for energy: ACCC”
    “problems ‘may take a decade to repair'”
    “The state with the highest electricity bills is Queensland, not South Australia”
    and of course
    “No silver bullet”

    Yesterday we had that only 7% of the price was ‘environmental’.

    The Australian Energy Regulator said the appeal process need to be abolished as energy networks had ‘gamed the system’ and added almost $11Billion to energy costs since 2008. The ‘limited merits review’ had ‘not fulfilled its purpose and was contributing to the increase in energy prices for consumers and escalating costs for network operators.’

    So there is no RET? If there is, it costs nothing? The $6Billion paid for nothing is inconsequential? What is it that Rod Sims, Finkel, Turnbull, AER, AEMO and friends are not saying.

    If the RET Is not working, doing what it was intended to do, drive out coal power, what is it doing? Nothing?

    The RET does not even rate a mention. There is no elephant in the living room. Nup. Elephant free.

    Again, capitalists, gamers, greedy people, opportunists, poor regulation, not enough laws. No end to the blame, but the RET just rolls on regardless not mentioned by anyone. We will now build/import giant batteries.

    Repeal the RET. Like turning the boats around. It would work overnight.

    A money grab at wholesale is doubled at retail. $3Billion a year goes overseas from the RET. Another $3Billion stays in Australian hands. We pay windmills be to built and to turn, even if we do not want or cannot use the power.

    Most importantly (Andrew White, CONSUMERS), Queensland has the real problem with annual household electricity costs of $1955, $30 more than the $1925 in South Australia! No mention of the fact that half of Queensland is in the tropics, unlike South Australia which is freezing in winter. They also have factories. However the implication is that there is no real problem in South Australia after all. We are just imagining it.

    This is like the idea that Australians are the worst ‘polluters’ in the world, per capita. If we could harness spin like this we should not need windmills.

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  • #
    Dennis

    The Finkel Finger of Fate?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    O/T

    The toxic Green nightmare in China. The windmills of the West don’t come without a disastrous environmental cost. But it’s only in China so that’s OK…

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

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  • #
    Graeme#4

    Read all the articles this morning, but I still don’t know if any RET changes are being proposed. Somebody care to enlighten me?

    40

    • #
      Robber

      Turnbull says bills will reduce by up to $115 by 2020. But then come the weasel words – bills will be cheaper by $115 than they would be under the RET or CET.
      Retailers must provide a proportion of their electricity from sources that have low greenhouse gas emissions – that sounds the same as the RET.
      The plan will force energy retailers to buy a minimum amount of baseload power for every megawatt of renewable energy – well, duh, if they didn’t buy from coal/gas generators the lights would very quickly go out.

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  • #
    crosspatch

    The question these people should be forced to answer is “what problem are you trying to solve with all these expensive ‘renewables’?”

    By my (possibly incomplete) count the entire country of Australia has around 30 coal power plants. China alone is set to build 70 per year for the next 10 years for a total of 700 new coal power plants in China. Shutting every single coal plant in Australia would make exactly ZERO measurable difference in the rate of global atmospheric sea level rise. Australia’s CO2 emissions amount to about as much influence on global CO2 content as my pissing in the sea would make on sea level rise.

    It will not slow the rate of rise of atmospheric CO2 by any measurable amount. Force them to admit that and then the only reason they have left for these policies is the shoveling of cash to “green energy” rent-seekers.

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  • #
    Ian1946

    I have been watching the AEMO dashboard NSW and Vic have not generated enough power to cover demand for the last few days. The Bass Link cable is flat out and SA is supplying Vic. NSW is relying on Queensland to meet demand. If the wind drops in SA I predict that both SA and Vic will have blackouts.

    The supply difference appears to be what Hazlewood used to produce 24/7.

    Does anyone know if maintenance schedules are affecting the supply side at the moment

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    • #
      amortiser

      Over the past month or so since the coming of milder spring weather coal fired units generating 5000-6000 mwh have been progressively taken out of service for maintenance before the summer peaks.

      Check out TonyfromOz posts in the Weekend Unthreaded posts which explain what is happening on the grid at the moment.

      https://papundits.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/australian-base-load-electrical-power-week-ending-14th-october-2017/

      They are going to need all the coal fired units firing at full efficiency to get us through the summer with minimum grief.

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    • #
      Robber

      Ian, I think that one of the factors that has changed is that AEMO is now more concerned about keeping the lights on in SA. So when the wind is strong in SA, they mandate more gas supplies in SA to keep the network stable, and by doing that they create a surplus that is transferred to Vic. But what I don’t understand is why Tas hydro seems to be cranking along at 1200-1600 MW throughout the day and night, when normally it is cranked up to cover morning and evening peaks. Surplus water in Tas?

      60

      • #
        robert rosicka

        Robber it is noticeable how much the states rely on Tassie hydro power , I thought they would have learnt their lesson not to empty the cup but maybe it’s the AEMO calling the shots .
        Since I’ve been watching the dashboard it’s become obvious that one huge juggling act is in process , since the hotter weather it’s become more obvious how they struggle with the balancing act .
        Add a few high pressure systems with no wind and they really struggle now , what’s it going to be like with a true Aussie summer ? No wonder they’re trying to bribe users to switch off .

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  • #
    Amber

    As an outsider who hopes for the best in Australia it has been hard to watch .

    The climate con game is an assault on the poor and middle class. What a shame .

    Careful … when governments get addicted to that kind of cash the only thing
    that is going to stop it is an election pounding .

    Right now they want to minimize some squawking and hope it is enough .

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  • #
    pat

    16 Oct: UK Times: Emily Gosden: Dirt cheap coal poised to make a comeback
    PHOTO CAPTION: (NO PRIZES FOR GUESSING) Drax coal power station in Yorkshire. Coal had been less than 5 per cent of the power mix in recent months could rise to around 10 per cent without an increased carbon price.
    Polluting coal-fired power plants could make a comeback unless the government increases the carbon tax, new analysis suggests…
    A report by Aurora Energy Research has found that the carbon tax, which penalises dirtier coal more heavily than gas, has been “instrumental” in this change, along with cheap gas prices..(BEHIND PAYWALL)

    16 Oct: BusinessGreen: James Murray: How the UK is risking a coal power revival without a higher carbon price
    Aurora Energy Research report warns that plan to phase out coal power in the UK could falter unless Treasury increases carbon price
    The government’s new Clean Growth Strategy could face its first major test as early as next month, after the publication of a new report today warned coal power could be revived in the UK if the Treasury fails to increase the government’s carbon price floor…
    The report (LINK) said the carbon price, which currently stands at £23/tonne, has been the critical factor behind the collapse in coal power in the UK in recent years…

    The relatively low cost of gas power and falling renewables costs have been widely credited with driving the shift away from coal. But Aurora’s analysis credits around three quarters of the fall in coal use since 2013 to the impact of the carbon price floor.
    It highlights how in continental Europe, where gas and renewables prices have also fallen, coal remains a major part of the energy mix, largely because the carbon price set by the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) stands at around just €6/tonne.
    “For example, coal and lignite power stations make up 40 per cent of the power mix in Germany,” the firm notes in a blog post (LINK) accompanying the new report…

    “If the government decides to maintain the carbon price at current levels, this risks a substantial increase in coal generation in the 2020s,” the firm states. “The competitiveness of coal generation is expected to improve post 2020 relative to gas – as recent restrictions on coal production in China ***are eased, and the current global glut of LNG gas clears.”…

    The underlying problem for the government remains the over-supply of emissions allowances in the EU ETS, which has led to consistently low carbon prices across the bloc. It is a challenge that was again highlighted by French President Emmanuel Macron who last week reiterated calls for a minimum carbon price across the whole of the EU, coupled with a border tax to ensure fair competition with other countries. “If in the years ahead, we don’t have a significant price of carbon per tonne to allow for a profound change in our economies, then it would be worthless,” Macron said in a speech unveiling a raft of proposed reforms to the EU. “We must work towards that horizon. From today, we must organise ourselves and do it. It is indispensable.”…

    The carbon price is expected to increase through the 2020s, but is likely to remain well short of the level the UK has shown is required to force coal of the grid unless further reforms are embraced…
    https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/3019237/how-the-uk-is-risking-a-coal-power-revival-without-a-higher-carbon-price

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    pat

    ***Aurora Energy Research quoted here as well:

    16 Oct: Reuters: UPDATE 1-Germans to pay slightly lower surcharge for renewable energy in 2018
    A surcharge levied on German power bills to support renewable energy will fall by 1.3 percent next year, but the relief to consumers from the move will be limited, the country’s network operators (TSOs) said on Monday.
    The surcharge under the renewable energy act (EEG) will amount to 6.792 euro cents (8.01 U.S. dollar cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2018, down from 6.880 cents this year, the four TSOs that collect the fee said in a joint statement…
    (LOL)Consumer portal Verivox said that an average household consuming 4,000 kWh a year should save only 4 euros ($4.72) next year through the move, arriving at a bill of 1,127 euros for 2018.

    ***The fee makes up a fifth of consumers’ final bills.
    It represents the biggest and most symbolic spending block for Germany’s Energiewende policy to transition to renewables…
    The eventual cost depends on weather patterns — which govern how much renewable energy is produced and entitled to support from the EEG account — once it is fed into the grid.

    The figure partly reflects the increase in renewable installations, mainly wind turbines and solar panels.
    These receive above-market payments in order to make them competitive with conventional energy generation whose output is priced by the wholesale market…
    “A sustainable fall in the surcharge can only be expected for the early 2020s when the EEG payments to the first generation of extremely highly subsidised installations of the early 2000s expire,” said Manual Koehler, managing director of the German branch of Britain’s ***Aurora Energy Research.

    Utility industry group BDEW said the government should give thought to ways to “relieve the power price from the ballast of state-induced charges.”
    https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-renewables-fee/update-1-germans-to-pay-slightly-lower-surcharge-for-renewable-energy-in-2018-idUSL8N1MR1NQ

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Pardon me if I ask a dumb question. But why should anyone pay so much as one cent’s worth of surcharge for renewable energy? If renewable energy can’t support itself then it should die like anything that can’t make it in the marketplace.

      Who would prop up the average German citizen if he started a business and it was a financial flop? No one, that’s who. Why then is electricity any different? There were working systems in place for a long time before anyone ever heard of renewable energy. Then suddenly renewable is shoved up everyone’s backside as though it was a mandate from god almighty. And all the turmoil it has brought on has proved without a doubt that it’s not a mandate from god, more like from the devil.

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    Roy Hogue

    Being a less government is better government type, what are the chances that Abbott’s exposing Turnbull’s idiocy can get the Australian government out of the electricity business altogether?

    Sorry but I had to ask. You can’t have government messing with something and also have a free market in it. And from what I read, you desperately need Canberra and state capitols all to get out of the electricity business and stay out of it. And that includes coal. the main fuel keeping the generators turning.

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    Ian George

    Sorry, Jo (OT alert)
    Can any one in Gladstone tell me what’s going on with the rainfall totals?
    Gladstone has received 48mm today (so far) yet the airport shows nil rainfall.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/observations/qldall.shtml?ref=hdr

    Gold Coast has only received around 12mm yet areas close by have received over 50mm since the rain started on Saturday.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      BoM data cannot be trusted, as they are known to alter it to support the invalid hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.

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      toorightmate

      Ian George,
      Be fair to the poor folk at Gladstone who read the rain gauge.
      They don’t want to get wet.

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      Chad

      Not your fault George…. But this site badly needs reconfiguring into a decent forum format so we dont keep having random changes of topic in these threads.
      We need better structure of topics into different forums which would make following a discussion much easier.

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    TdeF

    All over the Australian. Abbott challenges Turnbull to a discussion on the politics of his proposal. No answer.

    Abbott wants to know about the plan for coal. No response.

    Turnbull is surrounded by his Black Hand ministers, like a Praetorian guard. So far he has sent out Brandis, Bishop, Morrison to attack Abbott plus the usual Savva and Van Onsolen and his entire ABC, but to no avail. Abbott keeps asking sensible questions to which everyone in Australia wants the answers. Now that is disruption and disloyalty such as Turnbull has never experienced. Unacceptable.

    You might also notice that Abbott has the tight smile of a man in combat mode. You would not get in a ring with him at present. Then you have Joyce and the election Turnbull cannot win and the $1.7Million the Liberal Party owes him, unless it was a generous gift from a helpful banker.

    My guess is that Turnbull will stamp his feet, spit the dummy, dump his friends and save himself the ego smashing embarrassment of turning Abbott’s landslide victory into the greatest drubbing in Australian history. Even the Labor party would not want him then. Still like Rudd, he is very rich so he can write his memoirs about how great he was in battle and his great achievements like stopping the boats and removing the Carbon tax and closing Manus island by presuming on Donald Trump’s friendship with Australia. He can put it on the same shelf as Hillary Clinton’s fantasy.

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      PeterS

      You make one big assumption. You are assuming Turnbull’s real plan is not to destroy the LNP. After all he is a leftist and wanted to join the ALP at first.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Graham Richardson claims to have put the kibosh on Turnball’s Labor dreams saying he hadn’t done the hard yards politically and wasn’t going to just hand him the reins, then the Lib’s got him….. 🙂

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    pat

    17 Oct: ABC: Clean Energy Target dumped by Coalition in favour of Malcolm Turnbull’s new plan, a National Energy Guarantee
    By political correspondent Louise Yaxley
    A meeting of the Coalition party room has agreed to ditch the Clean Energy Target (CET)…
    The new scheme does not provide subsidies for renewable energy, but does include an energy intensity calculation.
    This calculation would mean retailers will have to buy power that is efficient enough to ensure Australia is on track to meet its Paris target.

    Compliance rules for companies that fall short of their obligations have not yet been set, but it is likely they would be able to make up a shortfall the following year.
    The head of the Government’s Energy Security Board, Kerry Schott, explained how this would help in terms of reducing emissions.

    “The obligation to have a reliable power system is now intimately linked with an emissions reduction target,” Dr Schott said.
    “And if you don’t have those two things linked together, you have a danger of an increase in intermittent renewables without having a reliable and dispatchable power to go with it.
    “And it’s very important that you always have dispatchable power where you have intermittent resources.”…

    Unveiling the new policy alongside Mr Turnbull, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said: “This is a credible, pro-market policy that delivers lower electricity prices. It means no subsidies, no taxes, no trading systems.”…

    Dr Finkel called today’s plan “a credible mechanism” and said he was optimistic that power bills would go down as a result…
    The new plan would need the support of states and territories before it could come into effect.

    South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill denounced the plan as a “complete victory for the coal industry”.
    Mr Weatherill accused the Prime Minister of being unable to act in the public interest.
    The Premier said it was a capitulation to former prime minister Tony Abbott, who supports a new coal-fired power station being built.
    He said he expected the Federal Government would set the new mechanism at a level that would be too low to be effective and would ensure the only benefit would go to existing coal-fired power stations.
    Meanwhile, John Grimes from the Australian Solar Council is threatening to run a multi-million-dollar campaign against the Turnbull Government over the plan.
    “I will go back and talk to our industry but I think you will find there may well be an appetite to run a very pointed political campaign against this disastrous policy that finishes the job that Tony Abbott set out to achieve,” Mr Grimes said.
    He said ending the subsidies for renewables could cost more than 10,000 jobs in the sector…

    ***(LINK) TWEET: Tony Abbott: Progress at today’s party room. The Clean Energy Target has been definitively dropped…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-17/coalition-signs-off-on-new-energy-plan-to-replace-cet-proposal/9057026

    ***check the type of replies Abbott is getting on Twitter. plenty of partisan hacks.

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      robert rosicka

      If Weatherill doesn’t want coal fired power just pull the plug on the interconnector and you’ll soon see a hypocrite in action .

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    pat

    AP, like ABC, shows no concern for the consumer:

    17 Oct: AP: Australia rejects clean energy target for cheaper power
    The Australian government has rejected a plan to generate 42 percent of its energy from renewable sources and will instead pursue cheaper and more reliable power.
    Conservation groups on Tuesday condemned the ruling conservative coalition for rejecting the renewable energy target for 2030 that was recommended this year by Australia’s chief scientist to comply with the Paris climate change agreement…

    There would be no more subsidies paid to wind and solar generators from 2020, in a move to reduce power bills for consumers.
    ONE COMMENT ONLY:
    by b: Cheaper and more reliable power,How dare they
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australia-rejects-clean-energy-target-cheaper-power-050538351–finance.html

    theirABC today – NOTE THE GUESTS:

    ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Is the Coalition’s new energy plan just another chapter in Australia’s energy wars?
    Under the plan, electricity retailers will be forced to buy a mandated amount of ***so called ‘dispatchable’ power — namely coal and gas.
    Guest: L Kane Thornton, Chief Executive of the Clean Energy Council

    ABC The Word Today: David Coady: Renewable energy sector responds to scrapping of Clean Energy Target
    The renewable energy industry is scratching its head, about what a new energy policy might mean for its future.
    And it’s worried that a renewed focus on coal and gas generation will slow the growth of renewables.
    Featured:
    Kane Thornton, CEO, Clean Energy Council
    Michael Gartner, managing director, Photon Energy Australia
    David Green, partner, Lyon Group
    Phil Livingston, founder and managing director, Redback Technologies
    ***Oliver Yates, former CEO, Clean Energy Finance Corporation

    FUNNY ABC DOESN’T MENTION YATES IS NOW WITH CLEAN ENERGY DERIVATIVES CORP OR WHATEVER.

    ABC The World Today: Stephanie Borys: CET ditched, replaced with “National Energy Guarantee”
    But Labor says it’s appalled the Government has dumped plans for a Clean Energy Target – as recommended by Australia’s Chief Scientist.

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    pat

    ABC Nightlife with Philip Clark had “Adani, Yes or No?” as the Issue of the Day” last nite.
    some callers definitely sounded like StopAdani activists, reading from scripts.

    most of it is fact-free, with Clark only questioning the opinions of the few who had something positive to say about coal or Adani.

    begins at 3hrs 01mins in to 3hrs 31mins:
    Clark: rain stopped ceremonial opening today. is the rain divine intervention or something?
    plays Richard Di Natale quotes. later praises Charlie Veron – half of Gt Barrier Reef corals dead in last few years, etc.

    around 3hrs 14mins in, an interesting caller who used to work in a coal-fired factory in Beaudesert, Qld. (hope that is the correct way to describe the factory).

    AUDIO: 16 Oct: ABC Nightlife with Philip Clark
    http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/nightlife/9032628

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    pat

    17 Oct: news.com.au: AAP: Greens interrupt Senate over energy plan
    An attempt by the Greens to suspend standing orders in the Senate to debate climate change has been defeated.
    Greens leader Richard Di Natale has interrupted the Senate to slam the federal government’s plan to abandon a clean energy target.
    Senator Di Natale proposed a suspension of standing orders to debate climate change on Tuesday, saying the prime minister should hang his head in shame over the scheme.
    “What we are seeing today is the total and complete capitulation of Malcolm Turnbull to the hard right of his party and his big coal donors,” Senator Di Natale told parliament.

    Attorney-General George Brandis dismissed Di Natale’s attempt as another Greens stunt.
    “(Senator Di Natale has) every gesture, every posture of a left-wing hipster pretending to be a champion of working Australians,” Senator Brandis said.

    Labor senator Kate Gallagher said while the Turnbull government’s energy policy was a failure, a debate was premature and would waste parliament’s time…
    The government and Labor opposed the move which was emphatically defeated, with Mr Turnbull announcing the plan a short time later.
    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/greens-interrupt-senate-over-energy-plan/news-story/3ace01c428c708a566576cdcb91d05b9

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  • #
    AndrewWA

    So the RET stays in place in it’s current form until 2020 and then phased out by 2013.

    If Turnbull thinks that an annual saving of only $150 is enough to buy my vote or even create a ripple then he’s totally delusional.

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  • #
    Ian1946

    Does anyone have a link that shows what dispatchable power is available in each state. That is coal, gas and real hydro ( not pumped)

    20

  • #
    Ian1946

    Does anyone have a link that shows what dispatchable power is available in each state. That is coal, gas and real hydro ( not pumped)

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  • #
    Mark M

    “Abbott famously stated in October 2009 that the science of climate change was “absolute crap.”

    That did not prevent him from becoming PM in 2013, but on becoming PM he substantially toned down his position on the issue.  

    Within a couple of years, he lost the job to his colleague Turnbull.”

    http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2017/10/10/two-big-developments-in-the-world-of-climate-hysteria
    . . .
    I have yet to see or hear anything Tony Abbott has done that tells me he won’t go soft again if given the chance.

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  • #
    Mark M

    “Abbott famously stated in October 2009 that the science of climate change was “absolute crap.”

    That did not prevent him from becoming PM in 2013, but on becoming PM he substantially toned down his position on the issue.  

    Within a couple of years, he lost the job to his colleague Turnbull.”

    http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2017/10/10/two-big-developments-in-the-world-of-climate-hysteria
    . . .
    I have yet to see or hear anything Tony Abbott has done that tells me he won’t go soft again if given the chance.

    10

  • #
    John Watt

    Surely Malcolm’s announcement is a significant step in the right direction. It could well put the brakes on the headlong rush towards renewables. Warren Buffett let the cat out of the bag when he identified windfarms being a good investment when the subsidies are flowing. Given these things have a relatively short life (about 12 years ) we should be free of their expensively intermittent supply in a decade or so if the subsidies are discontinued for new renewable projects.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      The big thing about our PM is that anything he says is said for one purpose, to get him through the next week.

      On a good day he might be a little more thoughtful and craft an announcement that will get him through two weeks.

      He knows that politics is a business where you only need to cater for short attention spans. The ultimate cynic.

      KK

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    • #
      Chad

      Significant step in the right direction

      No,…more like a slight shuffle into a cloud of smoke, whilst everyone is looking at the mirror !
      It is a political jesture to distract attention from the real energy crisis, hoping it will fool eneough people long enough to get through another election.
      But it wont work !

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  • #
    pat

    ABC warms to the NEG:

    17 Oct: ABC: Business backs National Energy Guarantee, but Turnbull’s plan unlikely to stop coal’s demise
    By business reporters Elysse Morgan and Michael Janda
    “Based on initial information we believe it is a solution that has potential, and we look forward to working with governments and energy market bodies to progress it,” said Origin chief executive Frank Calabria.
    AGL described today’s announcement as “an important step forward”.
    “We are heartened by the emphasis on consultation and eager to work with government and our industry peers to make this work,” a spokesperson for the company said.
    “If it gets bipartisan support, we believe it will provide investment certainty.” …

    Reliability requirement doesn’t guarantee coal’s future
    But will any of this investment be in coal?
    “When you look at what a reliability guarantee does, it guarantees you have reliability,” Energy Australia’s Mark Collette explained.
    “It doesn’t guarantee coal, gas or batteries — what it says is that, as a retailer, go and find enough dispatchable power to meet the reliability standards.
    “It gives us the prospect to go and find the cheapest way to supply the dispatchability into the market.”…
    “I’d be surprised if coal is the cheapest way to get there, we’ve just seen other options work out more economically,” he told The Business.
    “If you believe that Australia will meet its Paris obligation then it’s hard to get up the investment to do coal, just because that moves us away from the Paris obligation…

    ***Another industry source said the Government’s move could be a masterstroke if it appeases Coalition backbenchers who want to see investment in new coal power plants, but they will be disappointed when they see the results.
    “The backbench is being led up the garden path,” he said…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-17/business-backs-national-energy-guarantee/9059844

    ******Another industry source? did you mean ***”Another, ANONYMOUS industry source”, ABC?

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  • #
    Analitik

    On tonight’s SBS news, the AEMO’s green import CEO, Audrey Zibelman, stated that

    When you get to certain levels of, uh, renewable, intermittent generation, the system itself becomes less stable

    Well, duh! So it seems all her experience in integrating renewables into the New York grid basically is worth diddly squat. Can someone suggest why she was brought in besides to present a greenwash image to the AEMO?

    40

  • #
    pat

    nothing has changed at MSM.

    Labor, who have provided no costings for their 50% renewables’ fantasy, are shocked Turnbull hasn’t provided any, while Greens’ Adam Bandt takes the crazy talk route:

    17 Oct: Fairfax QueenslandCountryLife: Farmers to assess Energy Guarantee’s impact on pricing crisis
    by Colin Bettles
    But while environmental groups, the Opposition and the Greens predictably slammed the move, the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) said its judgement on the merits of the new energy policy would be reserved until details were examined on its effectiveness to meet the farm sector’s energy needs…

    Dissenting farmer view
    But NFF member group Farmers for Climate Action said of new policy revealed today, the Coalition government’s had “turned its back on a clean energy future that would protect agriculture from the worsening impacts of climate change”.
    The group’s CEO ***Verity Morgan-Schmidt said the government was “walking away from a clear and coherent pathway to a clean energy future and abandoning any pretence of supporting Australian farmers”…
    “It is utterly incomprehensible that any sane government would move away from renewable energy technology and act to deter investment in an industry that could revitalise rural communities, and bring down electricity prices.
    “We’re calling on the government to demonstrate how this approach will adequately address emissions and provide long-term certainty for the renewable energy sector.”…

    … Labor Shadow Climate and Energy Minister Mark Butler said the new policy was “a guarantee without a guarantee” and federal cabinet had adopted a national energy policy without any economic modelling or a Regulatory Impact Statement…
    “It’s quite extraordinary that the Turnbull government has signed off on its latest energy policy without economic modelling and therefore not being able to guarantee a supposed guarantee,” he said…
    “Malcolm Turnbull’s capitulation to Tony Abbott’s hard right-wing agenda for Australia is now utterly complete.”…

    Australian Greens climate change and energy spokesperson Adam Bandt said Malcolm Turnbull’s capitulation to Tony Abbott was “finally complete” and the former PM had “emerged victorious on climate change policy”.
    ***“This is the policy you get when you capitulate to the climate terrorists on your backbench – this is a policy of appeasement designed to please Tony Abbott and the other Trumps on the backbench,” he said.
    “Malcolm Turnbull has served up a policy that means more coal and less renewables, which means more bushfires, worse heatwaves and longer droughts.
    “Renewables mean lower prices because they are cheaper to build, cheaper to run and the fuel from the sun and the wind is free.
    “The rest of the world is moving in one direction, embracing cheap, clean renewables and Australia is stuck in the dark ages trying to rub two sticks together.”

    Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Kelly O’Shanassy said the latest energy plan from Mr Turnbull was a “grab bag of measures designed to placate big polluters and climate change deniers in his own party, while abandoning any credible effort to maintain a safe climate”…
    http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/4995300/farmers-to-assess-energy-guarantees-impact-on-pricing-crisis/?cs=4698

    ***more Verity Morgan-Schmidt:

    17 Oct: ABC: National Energy Guarantee: New policy ‘promising’ for farmers, food processors says Farmers Federation
    ABC Rural By Clint Jasper
    Labor, the Greens and the Clean Energy Council have already cast doubt over whether Australia will be able to meet its obligations under the Paris Climate Accord as it abandons the Clean Energy Target (CET)…
    Farmers deserting electricity market
    Across a range of commodity groups, farmers are looking to renewable energy sources to help them get out of the NEM, but the high cost of battery storage means they cannot leave it completely…

    One farmer that is diversifying his energy mix is New South Wales dairy farmer Adrian Drury.
    Mr Drury will partner with solar investment company Solar Bay to help generate electricity on his 450-cow robotic dairy near Taree…
    Mr Drury said he was waiting for battery storage to get cheaper so he could get off the grid completely.
    “This is just part of the future, you have to become more self-sustainable,” he said…

    But the CEO of Farmers for Climate Action, ***Verity Morgan-Schmidt, told the ABC at the launch of FCA’s Victorian branch that investment certainty was needed to ensure renewable costs continued to decrease.
    “The economics are really starting to speak for themselves and renewables are winning out all the time now,” she said.
    “What we need to see is the government providing the policy certainty to allow for that continued investment.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-10-17/new-neg-energy-policy-promising-for-farmers-says-nff/9055534

    25 Jun: SunshineCoastDaily: Coast woman fighting to save Aussie farmers
    by ***Verity Morgan-Schmidt
    My name is Verity Morgan-Schmidt and I’m a former farm girl calling for action on climate change…
    Growing up in the wheatbelt of Western Australia, dust storms were a familiar sight during prolonged years of drought. My home was 36,000 acres of pure, unbridled freedom – an idyllic setting for childhood adventure and exploration…

    Now I wonder whether my young nephews will ever experience a real winter…

    In our lush green haven on the Sunshine Coast, it’s easy to forget the crippling reality of climate change impacts endured by Australian farmers every day…
    https://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/coast-woman-fighting-to-save-aussie-farmers/3192799/

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    Curious George

    What exactly is a “Paris cake”? A duty to pay millions to a UN-administered climate fund, supporting democrats like Mr. Mugabe, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or Mr. Kim Jong Un.

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    Dave in the States

    I continue to be amazed that policy makers continue to make policy, when they don’t have a clue about basic economics, not to mention the natural sciences.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      It seems Dave, that all anybody needs in the modern world is BELIEF.

      Back here in the real world my heart bleeds for all those who are suffering as a result of this energy religion which totally rejects the most basic concepts of science and engineering.

      The harsh reality is that too many businesses are closing because rising power bills are bankrupting them.

      Where in the media is this National Tragedy being portrayed truthfully.

      It barely gets a mention while those in government continue to demonstrate their contempt for the public they are supposed to be serving.

      Soon we will all be on unemployment benefits and then we can all spend the day at the pub drinking and watching the new real world up on the big screen.

      KK

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  • #
    Kip Hansen

    The “Food Insecurity” issue is a matter of counting one thing and reporting another.

    The same bad (misleading) science is used in the United States to produce billboards that say “1 in 5 American children are at risk of hunger”.

    Details in this essay at WUWT: “What are they really counting?”.

    Socially, it is usually not a matter of “Do we pay the electric bill or feed the kids?” — in most cases, the money has already been spent on beer and other alcohol, tobacco products, illicit drugs (pot, pills, etc), and (at least in the US) lottery tickets and other gambling — then, and only then, is it a choice of the electric or food for the kids.

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    ScotsmanInUtah

    Final bit of renewables investment missing from UK

    The renewables industry will see a drop in investment by 95% give or take 😀

    https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/04/renewables-investment-uk-fall-95-percent-three-years-study-subsidy-cuts-emissions-targets

    The Greens are complaining that it is this key investment which will allow renewables to become cost effective by 2025.

    After 20+ years one would have hoped for a better return on investment

    00