While geniuses are bragging that the Australian grid survived two normal hot summer days without falling over, they don’t mention the flaming spectacle of the cost.
Tom Quirk and Paul Miskelly, after a couple of suggestions from me, have calculated the full staggering electricity bill at $119m for SA and $267m for Victoria, making it nearly a $400 million dollar bonfire — for two days that were neither the hottest ever, or records for peak electricity use. See their work and details below.
To put this in perspective, a whole new gas plant could have been built for around $230 million. Instead of vaporising this money, Australians could have constructed one whole new gas generation plant, paid it off, and had money left over to give away free electricity.
Every household of four in Victoria just lost something like $170 of productivity for two days of electricity, and in South Australia, $280. Respectively, $45 per Victorian and $70 per South Australian. While businesses also share this burden, ultimately companies are made of people, and this is productivity lost to both states. The losers are shareholders, customers, and employees. Some will be interstate, but the pain flows back. The price is also paid in higher cost items, lower investment, and fewer jobs. Coles and Woolies still have to cover the cost of keeping the fridges running. The money will be squeezed out of citizens one way or the other.
And this is not the total bill, it’s the excess electricity bill above and beyond the normal but inflated January prices of the last few weeks. Even normal prices now are twice what they were in 2015. Back then, the average price in Victoria and SA was $35 per megawatt hour and the average peak price was $49/MWh. Now the average on a January day are $82MW/h, and $87/MWh respectively.
But wait, it’s worse than that. Even above this excess electricity price, there is the price of buying the diesels (a secret ’til the $400m bill was revealed), plus the cost of all the businesses which bought their own diesel generators (aren’t we a first world country any more?), plus the cost of all the “Demand Response” — the mini blackouts required to stop the system breaking (more on that tomorrow).
Then, then, there is the awful cost of all the businesses that were affected — the stress, the lost production, the investments that won’t happen, and the bizarre spectacle of Australia not having enough electricity to keep the lights on at our hospitals. We are leading the way to the third world!
Ponder the bureaucrat brain that asked hospitals to turn off spare lights
Victorians were using nine billion watts of electricity at the peak on Friday. How much difference was it going to make to turn off some 100W lights at hospitals? (Aren’t they using the horrid blue-white sleep-destroying-LED’s, in which case, how many 18W globes do you need to turn off to save a state? It would take 2.7 million globes to get 50MW of safety margin). At this point, the people making decisions were either desperately afraid of a meltdown, or not very good with numbers. Either way, it’s bad. The message has gone out to the world that this leading vanguard of renewables doesn’t have enough electricity to run lights at hospitals. A “gift” to skeptics. (Yeah, thanks a lot).
Fergoodnesssake?! Why didn’t the SA government run those diesels — Could’ve saved millions?
Businesses everywhere were running their diesels. Yonniestone reports that ” Fairfax press rural Victorian factory had two shipping container sized diesel powered generators running complete with black exhaust smoke.” (They were probably printing newspapers telling everyone of the evil of fossil fuels, and advising they turn their air conditioners down.)
Can South Australia waste even more money? Yes. it. can.
Meanwhile, the SA Energy Minister seems proud that the diesels “weren’t needed”. Reader Andrew writes: What if they’re right, and while BHP et al turned on the diesel, Weatherill didn’t, to preserve his “battery miracle” story?? That would mean he has spent $400m on diesel – diesel that is purely decorative and he never plans to use! Electricity at $14,000 a MW? Not an emergency. Load shedding? Not an emergency. Businesses like smelters closed? Not an emergency. Economically, the diesel should be on whenever the price reaches $300/MW.
Stupid piled on stupid in the quest for virtue signaling. How much is too much to spend to “look green” and achieve nothing?
Who wants to run a business in South Australia?
Mark M writes about a story in the Advertiser:
More than 800 properties in North Adelaide were blacked out just after 5pm on Friday. Businesses and pubs in North Adelaide were forced to close their doors on a night owners say would have been one of their busiest of the week.
Co-owner of Lion Hotel Tim Gregg said it was hard to have to ask customers to leave after the lights went out. “It is disappointing when you have got people booked in for a meal and you can’t call them because their details are in a system which doesn’t work when the power is out,” Mr Gregg said, sitting in the darkened and empty restaurant area which would have been just starting to fill if the power was on. “We have to ask people to leave because of OH and S issues. It is lucky that it was between lunch and dinner service but the bar would be losing in the thousands of dollars. Mr Gregg said he had more than 40 staff who were at a loose end until the power comes back on.”
Never forget the point of all this suffering. All these householders, spending up to two or three hundred on electricity for two days, are paying to make the weather nicer in 100 years, according to a theory that no official ever did due diligence on.
Hands up, who thinks residents would pay this kind of money if the government knocked at their door and gave them a choice? Anyone?
Jo
h/t also to Pat, Dave B.
__________________________________________________
Analysis of electricity costs for 18 and 19 January heat wave
Guest Post by Paul Miskelly and Tom Quirk
The cost of electricity for the 18 and 19 January two day heat wave may be found from data on the AEMO website. For January there are half hour demand and price tables for each day. The extra cost of 18 and 19 January can be estimated by finding the cost differences from the average daily costs over the period 1 to 17 January after adjusting these costs to match the higher demand on 18 and 19 January.
The changes in prices can be clearly seen in the figure below with South Australia and Victoria having price spikes at the same time (AEMO data). New South Wales and Queensland had no such trouble.
….
The table below shows an estimate of the extra cost; The AEMO website dashboard gives average daily prices that are not weighted by the change of demand and price during the day. There are high prices with high demand and low prices with low demand. The costs have been calculated using the weighted electricity prices.
| State | South Australia | Victoria | |||
|
24 Hour averages |
From 30 min data |
AEMO* |
From 30 min data |
AEMO* |
|
| 18 January | Average MW |
2,016 |
6,444 |
||
| Average price/MWh |
$1,404 |
$1,074 |
$1,210 |
$905 |
|
|
Total day cost |
$68,015,878 |
|
$187,279,332 |
||
| 19 January | Average MW |
2,091 |
6,878 |
||
| Average price/MWh |
$1,195 |
$1,012 |
$648 |
$523 |
|
|
Total day cost |
$59,917,331 |
|
$106,777,887 |
||
| 1-17 January week day average | Average MW |
1,409 |
4,865 |
||
| Average price/MWh |
$91 |
$87 |
$84 |
$82 |
|
|
Total day cost |
$2,865,478 |
$9,817,774 |
|||
|
Total day cost |
Scaled to 18,19 January demand |
$4,177,600 |
|
$13,450,111 |
|
|
|
|||||
| 18-19 January | Extra costs |
$119,578,009 |
|
$267,156,997 |
|
The total extra electricity cost is some $400 million. This is an amazing example of the problems resulting from the introduction of too much renewable energy and the closure of coal burning power stations.
___________________
UPDATE: Alan Moran discusses these costs at Catalaxy and argues that with extra coal back up, the loss of any one unit would not cause a price spike. As I mentioned, looking at those forecast graphs, the AEMO was predicting prices to hit the peak cap of $14,200 in SA, and $8,500 24 hours before the single generator failure at Loy Yang B.
Commenter David Bidstrup asks some valuable questions about the way our electricity bidding system works:
- Why does the market call “bids” every 5 minutes instead of contracting for firm power over a longer period, say a year?
- Who decides that “bids” of 160 times the going rate should be accepted when it is clear that they are just predatory bids made when the generators know the market is caught with its pants down?
- When are those who “lead” us going to realise that their policies are destroying the country and making ordinary folk electricity paupers?
- When will the leaders realise that renewables are the problem and not the solution, and when will they realise that there is no climate change problem to “fix”?
- When will the realisation hit that the electricity crisis is a creation of stupid policy decisions and is a technical problem requiring folk who actually know something about power generation. It is not one to be fixed by intellectually challenged politicians, economists and pet scientists who push their own agendas, egged on by renewable rent seekers and rabid left wing greenies.
- The physical market (i.e. the NEM) is set around 5 minute dispatch due to the need for supply to meet demand instantaneously. Contracting for longer periods of time occurs in financial markets either via over the counter agreements between counter parties or via the ASX electricity futures exchange. These markets are settled purely financially and while they influence what happens in the physical market, they are not a direct component of it.
- The market decides. A true market however would not place price controls like in the NEM. High prices provide information to entrepreneurs to direct capital investment in the market (i.e. where to build more poles and wires and/or power plants). Labelling the behaviour of generators as predatory seems to imply they should be prevented by force from doing so. This will simply distort the market and lead to adverse outcomes.
Jo says:
The market is already hugely distorted by the RET and other subsidies. It’s not a free market, and will not act like one, and will not send useful price signals anyway. It’s predetermined to send the signal to close coal and open wind farms. It is “succeeding” for bureaucrats and renewables companies, but failing for consumers.
At the moment all the successful bidders are paid the price of the highest successful bidder. So it is in every bidders interest to have price spikes, and for the low cost supply to be insufficient. Why do we have that system? Is there any disadvantage in paying only the successful bidders exactly the price they bid?
*Correction: The per capita cost in SA is $70 per head, not $80 as first written. (Though for lots of reasons the real cost is far larger, but specifically, for these two days, it is $70pp. Thanks to Stephen H).
_______________
*AEMO estimates: These are the official AEMO costs, but they assume each hour is equivalent during the day. Quirk and Miskelly instead weight the charges according to the load each hour of the day to reach a more accurate average cost.
great article Jo …this should be front and centre of every newspaper and TV feed
Fairfax made me chuckle ..worth giving it to them in the comments section of the Age
320
Ha ha. They are full of bashing President Trump. Just watching the 9NEWS …………… Bash Trump!
160
I think we should give Victoriastan a new label ( considering it is basically a failed state under a Marxist leader )….
On the state border we need a sign that says:
“Welcome to Zimbabwe”
120
Just a matter of time before we reach the first one BILLION dollars.
We know this is ALL caused by Donald Trump.
He turned off the free money.
Now its not free.
Any bets on it reaching ten billion before anyone does anything.
Not sure what the pain point for the MSM is in Australia. May even be $100 Billion. This is probably going to exceed the NBN.
If we start tomorrow we may be able to get government approval to build a coal fired power station in about two years. Say three years to do the build, that is five years from tomorrow.
The maths tells me its too late to save our economy. We need to build three of them starting tomorrow.
260
Who would build a coal-fired power station in Australia—privately?
Who would trust government to maintain the regulatory environment that would make such a venture economically feasible?
In NSW, in the early or mid-1980s, the government of Neville Wran, on environmental grounds, forbade the owners of a plantation forest cutting their timber as planned decades earlier. Everything to that point had been perfectly legal. Now, suddenly and quite arbitrarily, the investment was no longer legal.
With ‘climate change’ now in the DNA of intellectuals—and so that of the political parties—who could trust government, even if it did, in a fit of good sense (or at electoral pressure) permit such a construction? Only government could build such a form of electricity generation—which it won’t.
The problems deepen inexorably. The issue is power, not electricity.
240
Don’t count on it. Why are your State governments going down the path they are?
Those generation plants cost lots of money to construct. They have to be financed.
The World Bank won’t lend for any coal project. Every project they finance has to run a gamut of sustainability and renewable assessments …
Their pages are full of this: “… aims to prompt governments, donors, the private sector, civil society organizations, and practitioners to develop interventions to close the electricity access gap by integrating lessons learned with insights drawn from emerging innovative business and delivery models”
and similar language.
Loose translation: “do exactly as we say.”
“Sustainable” and “renewable” are two words whose constant repetition make their pages read like some Orwellian gobbledegook propaganda … which, if you think about it, it is. I’m surprised they use colours other than bilious shades of green. Yuk.
90
Jo,
Can I ask some simple questions?
1. Who got paid $400,000,000?
2. What did they do to earn the money?
3. What sort of a stupid system would pay so much?
4. Who were the IDIOTS who created such a rort?
5. How can we get them sacked?
6. Who do we trust to replace the rort with something fair that works??
7. When is the next bus to fairyland???????
151
The money will largely go to the rent seekers in the renewable energy scam. The idiots who created this mess are mostly in the Commonwealth and State parliaments and the army of bureaucrats who also live off the tax payer. The best way to sack them is to vote them out of office but the Australian public still seems reluctant to do this. This is largely because all of the main stream fake news media are still invested in the eco narrative that all of this so called renewable energy will suddenly, as if by magic, become inexpensive and reliable.
150
I talk to as many people as possible letting them know about how the grid is on track to crash….
110
I have given up talking to them
21
CameronH. California is taking a path similar to SA and Vic. I somewhat understand Calif. The left wants more and more illegal aliens and more people in poverty (cruel and inhumane)so that the leftist (Democrat Party)can maintain one party rule. And the Democrats have essentially turned California into a one party socialist state.
Here are some recent (~2016) statistics for California.
39.5 million people, 14.3 percent in poverty, median per capita income $31,500/yr, household income $63,800yr, median home price $524,000, median home rental $2500/mo.
California Ave monthly residential electricity costs $0.184 kw/h (lowest Louisiana $9.28 kw/h, highest Massachusetts $19.94 kw/h)for continental US. Our two fastest growing states are Idaho $0.101 kw/h (small state, 1,700,000) and Texas is $0.111 kw/h (2nd largest state 28,300,000).
Source for electricity rates. https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/. Other sources, wiki and census.
20
The people responsible for this huge fraud are not the politicians. The people responsible are the throngs of idiots in both states, not to mention the rest of the country, who actually vote to be exploited & defrauded. This sort of thing is standard behaviour for a left wing politician as well as a large portion of he conservative side. Remember to try to understand what policies mean in the long term i.e more than 2 weeks post elections.
So if this is what the majority really want they’ll keep voting the parasites into power. When industry & business emigrate either offshore or to states with a little more intelligence the electorates of SA & Victoria may awake from their comatose state. Doubt it somehow?
And of course the pollies keep telling the Australian electorate how smart they are???
30
No-one has been paid yet. The invoices will go out from the generators to the retailers and then the howling will begin. The energy retailers will get bailed out by the government. Its an election year in SA and Vic. This will be passed onto all tax payers. State governments will receive an increase in GST.
Generators bid on a future supply time block. Not enough available supply pushes the price up. Its a silly way to run an electrical grid modeled from other privatized markets with a lot more generation options (interconnects) for sudden generator problems like no or too much wind, cloud or unscheduled maintenance. It made many soft science public servants who did nothing wealthy in the newly created private sector and screwed the engineering class in the public service and training of the electrical trades.
The system has caps but they are ridiculously high.
The system was created with “good” intentions in desperate times but like all such systems has been taken over by people with very bad intentions (communists) or rent seekers (banks, super entities, corporate ASX elite).
The political class is just not bright enough to take on the beneficiaries of the “Grid”. They do not have a core engineering group that could build or run a large power station.
There is no-one we can trust to take this mess over before it collapses.
The only thing end users can do is buy a generator.
160
Geoff:
That collapse might come sooner than you think possible. Josh Frydenberg has announced that electric cars are to be introduced without any clue about where the electricity to charge them will come from. In The Australian will comments from the clueless saying that household solar would charge the cars – charge by day, drive by night. Others think that with more wind turbines all would be well. They still haven’t worked out that intermittent means not all the time.
Apparently we aren’t allowed to prosecute politicians for their disastrous economy wrecking policies, but I do wish we could have compulsory sanity checks.
120
” where the electricity to charge them will come from”
Liddell and Hazelwood power stations, of course ! 🙂
80
Yep, every car to have bonnet/rooftop/bootlid solar cells to charge at every traffic light and during the day at the parking lot while the owner works/slaves …
Lot’s of sun during the day, especially in Australia if the Gold Coast Real Estate ads are to be believed 🙂
30
Answers
1. The generators will get paid the money – mostly coal fired and hydro do well. Lack of wind caused the shortage so wind generators only get a small share of this rather large pie.
2. Own and operate fossil fuelled power stations.
3. The NEM in Australia. The marginal cost of electricity in a short term supply squeeze is very high. For example, what price for a freezer full of food. What price keeping the Australian Open open when the world is watching. What price for an aluminium potline not freezing.
4. There is no design to the system. It is the result of an unhappy alliance of the ignorant and greedy.
5. Little prospect in this particular democracy – Tony Abbott was hopeful but failed miserably.
6. Yourself – you can make your own power cheaper and more reliable in any number of ways than any network reliant on wind and solar power. I only stay connected to the grid to sell power back at exorbitant prices but sadly I am not operating in the wholesale market where there can be windfall gains like those last week.
7. The buses are not running at the moment. Fairyland is closed down for the holidays and does not reopen till 5th February – timetable here:
https://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/58%20Sitting%20Calendars/2018/2018%20Parliamentary%20Sitting%20Calendar%20PDF.pdf?la=en
60
Seems to me closing Hazelwood was smart ecomomics.
Doug
30
Smart for suppliers.
Not for users/consumers
40
Liddell next. !
40
Seems to me that if Wind power was only running at 20% capacity, but earning $14,200/MWh they would do better than nearly every other day of the year.
60
According to The Australian this morning, wind only contributed around 10%.
20
The $14,000/MWh was only for a couple of hours and the wind generators were way below capacity. There would have been no power squeeze if they were anywhere near capacity. For the other 8758 hours that they can produce they get $90/MWh on top of the going wholesale price for everything they do produce. That is what makes them viable.
The short period peak rates help the coal fired stations stay in business. When there is a shortage of something, in this case RELIABLE generation, it can command a high price.
10
The Tesla battery worked well then …. hope the MSM in the UK, Europe and US are following and reporting this.
140
You have a great sense of humour.
20
Roger:
Let us see how they get through this coming (holiday) week end with a hot Friday (Fryday?) followed by 2 days forecast to reach 42℃.
20
” .. the people making decisions [are] not very good with numbers.”
That’s being too kind – basically they are innumerate when it comes to anything remotely technical.
230
Never go into hospital now without a headtorch.
The people making incisions are not very good without lights.
130
StefanL,
How can you be numerate when you do not posses a brain?
80
What has numeracy got to do with economics, with Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young attending the World Economic Forum in Davos this week? When you can posture & emote convincingly what good are numbers?
80
But she hasn’t sorted out her expenses from previous claims knocked back by the Department of Finance with a please explain note attached, according to media reports.
20
I have this image of a nurse with her mobile phone looking for a scalpel on the equipment tray in the operating theatre….
Victoria the Advanced State…..yeah Team Communism!!
191
More like North Korea in the making.
Just spent the whole weekend on NASA talking to the warmist believers. When asking for a proof of the AGW after the initial normal abuse I got the answer: “everywhere”.
150
Being evident “everywhere” might sound like an appeal to common sense but I suspect all they can seriously mean would be everywhere in the compliant media bubble they inhabit.
70
We’re the initial talented Engineers with their feet on ground that staffed NASA later replaced by a generation of gifted enthusiasts with their heads in the clouds?
90
‘They’ proclaim “everywhere” when they explicitly refer to the ‘settled politics’ of the ‘consensus. However, their implication lies elsewhere, with the climate, the weather or whatever the subject happens to be, just attach the ‘eco-‘ prefix. The ideologically fueled destruction of industry was identified a long time ago by Monckford and many others along with the cost of mitigation versus adaptation.
What we currently witness and have historically predicted unfolds precisely as foreseen. This is no act of intellect. It is the intentional suspension of intellect.
My profound concern is the same concern others share and have described. The ideologues have moved beyond the mundane realms of corruption into the hallowed halls of the absolute. With it comes immutable self-deception. They no longer recognise the ballot box —- just look at the EU, the US, Germany, France and the UK.
And in the middle ground, the patrician Watermelon Pope proclaiming open borders and launching the UN / UNEP ‘transformational’ Agenda (September 2015) while telling all in Amazonia to ring fence jungle tribes of indigenous people and presumably incarcerate them in their ignorance and poverty. This from a pecksniffian who is head of the wealthiest walled state on Earth (The Vatican), that takes no ‘refugees’.
This cannot end well. Indeed, it seems inevitable that it will not end well.
80
I just start in on them…ask them basic questions like:
“How many of the predictions based on IPCC models have come true?”
“Can you explain the MWP incontext of the since proven innaccurate hckey stick graph?”
If they yell and scream you just change tack and say “emotion is not an argument, its avoidance”
By this stage they are incandesceent, so you go back to the start ….by which stage they will storm off , exposed as ignorant…..works every time….
80
The sooner it doesn’t end well, the better.
We can then get back to rebuilding what was smashed by the incompetents.
To survive it you and your family need a personal financial strategy to go with your personal energy security strategy.
30
“Hands up, who thinks residents would pay this kind of money if the government knocked at their door and gave them a choice? Anyone?”
There used to be a thing called a ballot box,
Unfortunately the is NO choice offered in SA or in other states
They are somehow all in the thrall of the anti-CO2, anti-LIFE, AGW Agenda.
And not much choice Federally, either.
Let’s all hope that the Australian Conservatives hold some sort of balance of power after next election.
281
I was going to suggest that the labor governments will be reelected in most states next time around [Qld was the leader] OR it will be in coalition with further left parties.
Are Australians STUPID? Seems so,
131
‘Are Australians STUPID?’
When practically all politicians are under the green umbrella, there is nobody to vote for.
Andy is hopeful the ACP will rise up and make a real difference, but I don’t believe in miracles so I’m voting INFORMALLY.
21
So many times in the past I’ve voted for a party and platform, to have them reverse their decision and do the exact opposite within 6 months. It’s like a hydra, you vote for a face, but it’s the same beast.
110
Correct. This is by design, and how the Elite ( globalists / The Establishment ) maintain power by not giving the bulk of voters a choice, as most voters dont think outside the square.
Actually, there is a choice – you vote for every little 2 bit party that isnt in the green camp, and derail the globalists ….easy…. yes it will create some instability, but a population bolshie enough to throw out the main parties is not to be messed with….
Democracy ( yes, for benefit of the pedants, I know its not the text book version… ) is a powerful thing.
40
Well if voters keep voting for either LNP or ALP and expecting a different result then it’s no longer a matter of just calling Australians stupid. Such a pattern of voting is a common definition of insanity, something that’s far more serious than stupidity in terms of the future of this once great nation.
60
“so I’m voting INFORMALLY.”
Miracles take work, elG
If people don’t vote for them , how can they rise. ??
30
One nation have now turned on themselves and no longer an option for me , maybe Cory Bernardi
60
Bernardi comes across as the only politician that has Australia’s future in mind, and not his career. All the rest only care for themselves, and could not care less about the future of this once great nation. Given Bernardi is extremely unlikely to ever rise to the level of becoming PM any time soon, we need a total flush of the LNP, which might as well come with a name change to remove as much of the rotting stench of what’s left of the party thanks to the likes of Turnbull.
80
If Bernardi could gather One Nation and other outliers under a coalition tent it might make a difference, speculative and highly unlikely.
10
As long as our elections remain Beauty Contests, there’s little hope that those who have coherent policies and who are actually competent will be able to form a majority in any house of parliament.
50
Bilateral Orchidectomy performed on the Northern Power station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwrG_xY47Ac
60
RB5550 – are you perchance a doctor (of medicine) or a nurse? 🙂
20
No, but some in the family though.
This ETSA PR film from 1954 may be of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMKPz-kVgcc
Shows the opening of Playford A power station, the first of three powered by Lee Creek coal.
Tom Playford himself appears briefly in the film.
A brief history of the complex is here
http://flinderspower.com.au/augusta-power-stations/
I imagine that buying back the complex and keeping it going, is looking pretty cheap by now. 🙂
What’s the bet that some quiet lobbying is going on to delay the de-tumescence by dynamite until after the state election?
30
“Bilateral Orchidectomy performed on the Northern Power station.”
I see what you did there!
00
Ouch! That wold smart somewhat.
10
So, all the bureaucrats are having a party to celebrate the fact that the grid didn’t fail?
What they should be doing tomorrow-(but won’t), is asking themselves this: “why were we scrambling for power”?
If industry was fully up and running they would not have been able to supply the power. So much for building those 12 “dudmarines’!
I will happily vote for ANY party that puts this renewably energy garbage “front & centre” in their policy. I don’t care if it’s the ‘JoeBlo’ party! This idiocy is going to drive Australians, and Australian businesses to the wall! As has been pointed out, it’s not just the direct cost, we also have the run-on effect of inflated costs for everything we purchase.
Once, there was a conservative party in Australia that I was proud to say I had voted for, for all of my 60 years. Never again! Liberal, Labor, Green- all tarred with the same brush!
241
Apparently, the the SA government didn’t use the emergency diesel gensets it is leasing/purchasing. Im curious to know if they have actually been commissioned yet. Does anybody know?
40
On NEMWEB I have seen the SATGS1 run for a couple of hours a couple of weeks ago.
Just noticed: Help! nem.mwheeler.org is at risk of shutting down forever. Donate at Patreon to help save nem.mwheeler.org.
00
Here’s a reason to despair a little.
I’m only aware of support for Green Blob, Musik Man, the War on Coal etc when I spend Christmas around inner-urban professionals.
Up here in the bush, the plumber, the chippie, the plasterer, the publican, the bloke behind the counter, the bloke without a job…they nearly all see the connection between effective industry and reliable, affordable power. They know what they chew up in the way of electricity and fuel. They know where it all has to come from, like they know there’s a dam up-river or tank out the back pushing water into their taps.
It’s the Sydney professionals, the doctor, the lawyer, the architect, the banker, who conform to the Blob and seem shocked that there are people so ill-informed that they are unaware of Tesla’s heroic saving of South Australia after the failures of durrrdy coal. Don’t we read the Guardian up here? No ABC?
Maybe they have no choice if they want to keep dining out close to the harbour. But it’s disturbing. These are not stupid people. However they got into that green bubble, it’s a hard bubble to pop.
331
Never go into hospital now without a headtorch.
“The cautery device being used had a battery backup, but the surgical staff still couldn’t see.
Cellphone lights were used to illuminate the area of Coughlin’s incision and the procedure was successfully completed.”
50
A despairing read but again I ask how do you stop these lunatics. When any incoming liberal government does nothing more than maintain the status quo.
In Turnbuls case federally. He not only maintained that status quo. He actually heaped misery upon misery by destroying a conservative voter base. In following his socialist mate Shorten down the global warming armagedon path. Introducing his own CO/2 tax under the guise of an emissions trading scheme. We now will probably have to buy “carbon credits” from country’s that burn our coal. Just to keep the lights on here. Am I missing something here or is just me that’s having trouble accepting this stupidity being forced upon us!?
I’m to old to fight. I can only gaurante that my vote will not end up in the pockets of these lunatics. I despair at a younger generation that think they are actually achieving something by destroying a capitalist society that has served them well. They will have nothing but debt into the future to those they are helping to destroy it. History should be telling them it is a fantasy.
250
I too am too old to fight, and I’m thousands of Ks from the seat of powe anyway. I am, however, thankful that my kids have robbed me of the pleasure of grandchildren.
The young today are doomed to waiting table for Chinese millionaires or, if lucky, digging up stuff to export.
Without a Trump we are doomed and there is no way the sheeple would vote for him anyway.
140
I am in exactly the same position. No grandchildren and my son reads the Guardian! I cannot discuss agw with him as he thinks I am off my rocker. That is how bad the Green infection is.
70
Grandsprouts are much more wonderful to enjoy than your sprouts! They are so eager to learn! Wiggle your finger sideways! Watch them frown; then learn that you are insisting that they feel good from your attention to them! Watch them smile, then poop! Time to give it back to parent! Turnabout is fair play!
All the best!-will-
30
Actually, Leigh, the problem is waste, which leads to poverty. The key is keeping each individual productive, which a centrally controlled economy is incapable of.
50
They are not lunatics but clever, well paid communistic banksters wishing to control all! What all? Any thing they can subvert; mainly you, and often by first subverting your own children! All are created; not equal, but instead wanting! Adult/parents love them because are so wanting; food, hugs, love, learning all, freely willing to return giggles for not wet!!
Your banksters view them only as opportunity for profit! Stealing not from children but instead from gulable you; just from your blind love for your own children!
The pattern repeats throughout history; “I owe my soul to the company store” Children want what other children have because ot that brainwashing “ALL CREATED EQUAL”! No never NOT AT ALL; all created different\unique, never ever to be replicated!
ONLY BANKSTERS treat Earthlings as cattle; to be herded, told what to do, what to think! The best gift to your child is your demonstration that neither YOU nor THEY shall accept COWS/cattle!
The banksters along with the media only try to sell you what you cannot afford; thereby entrapping you unto (debt), their system of dominance over you! SHOULD BE A CRIME!
All the best!-will-
10
Will,thanks for your opinion and thoughts but I respectfully disagree with your observation,”they are not lunatics”,
The Cambridge dictionary defines lunatic as such.
lunatic
noun [ C ] UK /ˈluː.nə.tɪk/ US /ˈluː.nə.tɪk/
someone who behaves in a silly or dangerous way:
He drives like a lunatic.
00
Hammurabi rules –
it’s about feedback,
like the cricket,
no ducking consequences,
or like when a bridge
collapses – oops, or when
the pub has no beer. Whereas
in cloudy towers, behind the
double-glazing, you’ll find
‘Yes Minister’ prevarication
prevailing.
40
I own a small job shop in the US. We run 6 days a week and it’s critical that we have steady throughout the day and night. Power interruption of even a few minutes will cause hours of recovery and some loss of work in progress. When we have a major winter snowstorm in the winter or a hurricane bearing down on the area, we stop all work in anticipation of power losses. (Fortunately only had to do that 3 or 4 times in 15 years.) I could only imagine the adjustments needed if you tried to make production schedules knowing that power would not be available in the afternoons to early evening. You’d likely need to run at night only with production and have sales and technical support staff working from home during the day. Owners and managers would like have to be available day and night. Any downtime between shifts would be spent looking at where to relocate.
200
Skilled folk are adaptable; will work any shift albeit grumbling. 🙂 Downtime from lack of demand power; must defeat any profit from investment in machinery or the skilled folk now sitting on their buttock, with nothing to do!
That is industry! Wholly distinct from demand retailing; where the cook/server can wash dishes if no customers!
All the best!-will-
00
The good news is that if someone is paying, then someone is being paid. The bad news is that the wrong people are being paid, and they could well have the governments of Victoria and South Australia in their pockets. In either case, these governments are either incompetent or corrupt – which one is it?
Cheers,
Mike
160
The real bad news is that under the Westminster system we don’t sue politicians for gross incompetence/treason.
150
If web tied their salaries to the state or national debts the problem would cure itself.
40
Probably both
20
the CAGW madness is facilitated by the MSM, none more so than the pompous elites at theirABC and BBC. I have only heard the last 20 minutes or so of the following, with Hilton being asked about China still building coal plants domestically – they’re getting a handle on that now, she says at one point. building them elsewhere – not necessary says one of these women, probably Hilton. it’s possible to industrialise developing countries without coal. renewables are a cheaper option blah blah.
Sporton is always willing to pay lip service to cutting CO2, but Bill Raney is flabbergasted by the ideological, anti-coal arguments. at the end Iqbal asks where will coal be in 10 years from now – Sporton quotes IEA saying it will still be needed, Raney says it will be around, and then the three women are given the final words – that nasty, dirty, backward, old-fashioned coal will be stranded assets, and gone.
no real disclosure of who these women are. listen if you will.
AUDIO: 53mins: 20 Jan: BBC Newshour Extra: Does Coal Have a Future?
Presented by Radia Iqbal
President Trump says he is a friend of coal country. He promised to end the “war on coal” and bring back jobs in the coal mines. A year on from his inauguration and he seems to have made good on some of his pledges. Late last year his administration overturned several Obama-era regulations on mining and energy production. But can coal really make a comeback? Coal production remains a source of cheap electricity around the world but it’s up against the rising availability of natural gas and increasingly competitive renewable energy. Could clean coal technology help re-brand a dirty fossil fuel? And how will China’s move away from coal affect the picture?
Contributors:
Bill Raney – President of the West Virginia Coal Association
Janet Redman – U.S. Policy Director, Oil Change International
Benjamin Sporton – Chief Executive, World Coal Association
Dr Sarah Wykes – Climate and Energy Analyst, CAFOD
Also Featuring:
Isabel Hilton – CEO and editor of Chinadialogue.net
Randy Smith – West Virginia Senator (Republican) and coal miner
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvqgj
ChinaFile: Isabel Hilton
She studied at the Beijing Foreign Language and Culture University and at Fudan University in Shanghai before taking up a career in written and broadcast journalism, working for The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, and the New Yorker. In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC’s flagship news program, “The World Tonight,” then BBC Radio Three’s cultural program “Night Waves.” She is a columnist for The Guardian and her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Granta, the New Statesman, El Pais, Index on Censorship, and many other publications…
Hilton holds two honorary doctorates and was awarded the OBE for her work in raising environmental awareness in China…
LinkedIn: Sarah Wykes: At CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), I lead our policy work on climate change and energy, with a focus on sustainable energy access in developing countries…
Campaigner & Researcher, Corruption in Oil, Gas and Mining Campaign, Global Witness, October 2002 – December 2009
Wikipedia: Sarah Wykes
Sarah Wykes is a British human rights activist…She worked with Amnesty International for Corporate accountability and has been part of Oxfam.
Institute for Policy Studies: Janet Redman
IPS associate fellow Janet Redman is the former director of the Climate Policy Program. For more than a decade, her work has supported the transition from an extractive, fossil fueled economy to equitable, democratic and local living economies. To that end, Janet uses research, writing and strategic conversations to develop bold ideas in domestic and international policy spaces that redefine what is politically possible. She also practices nurturing deep relationships with grassroots organizations and networks in the global South and North is necessary to align policy advocacy with the goals of social, economics and environmental justice movements. Janet is currently the U.S. Policy Director at Oil Change International and serves on the board of directors of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
Janet holds a Master’s Degree from Clark University in International Development and Social Change…She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont.
00
should have added for those who don’t know…these BBC World Service radio programs are repeated over and over, and reach potentially tens of millions of listeners worldwide.
no doubt many of the listeners believe these guests are intelligent, well-informed individuals, or else BBC wouldn’t have them on!
btw Isabel Hilton is, by far, the most irritating voice on the program, and the most embedded with the FakeNewsMSM.
40
They sound like UN-compatible climate activists – are they?
10
I came across this article on the popular RealClear website.
How to Predict a Revolution in the Dark
A CIA-published essay describes why energy markets are windows into the world’s secrets.
The takeaway is summed up here:
221
Pretty much what Maurice Strong ordered at the 1992 Rio conference on climate change. Words to the effect that it’s their (the environmentalists) job to bring down the industrialised west.
100
And its no suprise we have a para-military police force and many police-state laws enacted but not in use ( yet ) and schools with 6′ govt-funded fences around them so they could function as holding centres….
Put bluntly, it seems an internal energy driven conflict within Oz is on the cards….it seems all the preparations are made to handle this.
I hope I’m wrong…but many people I suspect privately would probably agree with my assessment…
We also have, I think, limited time of an open democracy. Once the hammer falls ( possibly with an OS armed conflict as the trigger ), we will have a form of fascist martial law in operation.
20
Encarta CD ROMs for every student, dinged-up laptops in every classroom, fluffy chinese batts in every ceiling, stealthy oiler subs by next century, uphill Snowy scheme…Now what about LED torches in every hospital ward, delivered in a hundred days or they’re free?
I know, I know…there might be a problem recharging on hot days.
Wait! Kerosene pressure lamps in every hospital ward! Delivered in a hundred days or…What’s that you said? South Australia already bought them all!
130
“SORRY WE DO NOT HAVE COMPLETE LAMPS AT THE MOMENT”
http://tilleylamp.co.uk/lamps
Are they filling a bulk order for SA?
70
With NotEnoughEnergyCoin.
30
It will probably get worse. Few countries recover without revolution, and you seem far from that.
And the more folks buckle down and cope, the more the nabobs of nuttieness feel free to continue
their governing omniscience, and broadcast to the masses how well they are doing.
The Orwellian mule who simply works harder and solves problems from below does not come to
a good end; roasting the swine is the only answer.
From time to time, a Thatcher or a Reagan comes along, but if the system breaker is in the form of a Trump, ya
still gotta go for it. ….if the other choice is really surgery done in the dark.
And we hope we get Trump, and not Chavez. It can go either way sometimes.
Someone who says that a government caused failure simply shows the need for more government can be tolerated when government is tinkering around the edges of society, as in the early 19th century….when operating at our core not so much.
Giving government power over any essential of life, gives government power over all life, which is inevitably misused, even if with the
best of intentions. You’re there, folks…from the sound of it it will soon be structurally impossible for your grid to provide enough power for a growing economy. The next step is rationing (by political clout) to provide a merely functioning economy. The next step is…..
Revolution? Emigration? Venezuela? A diesel generator based economy? Chaos?
Aussies are likely too nice to cause any suffering to those who have caused this mess; they’ll soon be comfortably retired with full state funding, giving each other awards and bragging about how close they came to REALLY solving the problem….if only they could have gone that one last step….old socialists never die, they just complain their implementation wasn’t pure enough.
If this disgusts you, raise your hand.
270
Take-home message:
“The message has gone out to the world that this leading vanguard of renewables doesn’t have enough electricity to run lights at hospitals.”
100
Diesel not running ?
I was told Diesel was running at the time
30
According to the widget they were using diesel .
20
Anero.id shows zero diesel usage for last three days?
10
When it was up to the $14 grand mark I looked at the widget site and seen 30 in the column for diesel
30
Remember , SA have many other Diesel generators , eg,..PRO1&3, ANGAS1$2 etc (Piston engines and turbines) ,in addition to the latest “portable ” GE turbine units ..SATGN1 and SATGS1.
They definitely ran several of the original diesel sets on the 18/19th jan during the afternoon periods
But, apparently they did not run the GE sets.
40
Oops !
That should read PORO1 $ 3
10
Australia has fallen into the hands of saboteurs. They won’t stop until it’s ruined.
130
We all know that in a mature altruistic society, none of the players who economically benefit from the current arrangements would ever dare “GAME” the the system!/ sarc.
Those hard working, dedicated folk at Enron were poorly understood & just plain unlucky………………..
Aren’t we lucky that so many of our financial institutions are deeply proud of their Green credentials. I will have to get my super into a wind farm owner or a gas derivative player.
& just to get you in the mood:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6nARSpM-0s
40
There is now so much money, meaning debt finance, tied up in wind and solar generation that it would inflict incredible damage on the banking sector if the subsidies dried up. That is why Tony Abbott failed. The banking sector own and operate Australia. The faces in Canberra are the puppets.
If you have money in a bank and/or super you are invested in wind and solar large scale generation.
70
Well put.
10
“If you have money in a bank and/or super you are invested in wind and solar large scale generation.”
You do have choice how your super money is invested, I deliberately changed mine after my fund rather arrogantly and paternalistically started saving the planet.
30
How about that for chutzpah!
90
“Hi ho hi ho it’s off to work we go”
Similarly hot for the next 4 days here.
How is today shaping up for power?
30
They’re starting early
Data Dashboard has NSW – Vic red already
Tas – Vic red
Wind not doing much (SA 126, Vic 23, Tas 64, NSW 419)
Vic – SA close to max on both
And the smaller interconnector just went from its usual SA – Vic capacity figure to -6 as I was watching. Not sure what that means.
50
Thank goodness Qld still has some decent coal fired power available.
I hope the palace-chook doesn’t destroy it.
Loosing Liddell in a few years will be bad enough !!
https://s19.postimg.org/4mw9dfjcj/Oz_elect_on_knife_edge.png
50
Jo
Looks like some peripheral costs
“Tesla’s massive battery in Australia was paid up to $1000/MWh to charge itself”
https://electrek.co/2018/01/14/teslas-massive-battery-in-australia-was-paid-up-to-1000-mwh-to-charge-itself/
Via Ewan Mearns and SDA
90
Follow that money! Who got that extra $400 million? The same people who will get it the next time, and the time after that, etc.
70
Trouble is that the people who vote get no direct feedback mechanism that they can relate to the power crisis e.g. my bill will still show 29c a kWh for this period. At some later date as power cost flow through he system and new tariffs are struck we will grumble about price rises and move on, while SA and VIC ministers continue to chant about “renewables creating downward pressure on prices”
80
Don’t blame the power companies for this fiasco. They are just doing what businesses are supposed to do – make as much profit as long as it’s legal. Blame the government for making investments in coal fired power plants so unattractive it’s now impossible for any private company to build one. I find it two faced and hypocritical when I hear a government official complaining about say AGL for making huge profits and denying the public of cheap electricity. If the government was serious they would scrap the ETS and provide huge tax incentives for companies to build new coal fired power stations IMMEDIATELY. Given such actions don’t appear likley, all I can say is ALL of the blame for the growing problem of escalating electricity prices and decreasing reliability of supply rests on the government and the people who vote them there. Any other excuse or explanation is pure BS.
130
The election campaign is underway in South Australia at the moment. We’re well on our way to having all our problems solved again.
70
Libs need 53+% or something like that, don’t they.?
Not that it matters, they are all cast in the Bletherall mould anyway.
31
No, there was a redistribution of electoral boundaries which made it more even and the Liberals (in theory) only need 50% of the 2 party preferred vote. Their trouble is that it won’t be a two party vote this time, partly because of Xenophon and partly because the SA Liberals are carrying 2 handicaps (one is Turnbull and the other is ummm, his name will come to me, sort of Leader of the Opposition).
00
the SA Liberals are carrying 2 handicaps (one is Turnbull and…
I left the party because of Turnbull. Renewal of membership came around and I realised I was not remotely interested in paying for the privilege of having all my views and opinions utterly ignored.
That was 2016, just before the Federal.
Since then not one member of the party has asked me why I am no longer a member. I have seen people and been asked casually why I haven’t been around lately, but no one seems to have picked up on the fact my membership was deliberately allowed to end.
They have however asked me if I am willing and able to help with the campaign by putting up posters and/or manning a booth, so nice to know I am still loved when they need something.
40
MudCrab:
i have solved how to remember WhatsHisName because the Liberal candidate and helpers were handing out free shopping bags with the candidate’s name and that of the leader of the opposition on it. Very handy and I can keep a Xenophon flyer in it to suppress their enthusiasm when they ask about my voting intentions..
I hope that the Conservatives field a candidate.
00
Unfortunately I feel the only problems that will be solved after the March election are the ones that involve new and pointless roadwork projects. Should get at least 12 months grace before we are graced with new vote grab… I mean investments in the future.
00
The RET is the problem and until it is rescinded we will have this problem. Read the following article explaining how the RET works and you will see why.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/QG/RenewableEnergy
John
40
I agree – I meant to say RET and not ETS but in the end it’s the same nonsense under a different name.
10
“Two day heat wave” huh? Oxymoron: Greek, oxumōros ‘pointedly foolish,’ from oxus ‘sharp’ + mōros ‘foolish.’
According to our / their NZ MetService Com, “A heat wave, as defined by the UK MetOffice, occurs when the daily maximum temperature exceeds the average maximum temperature by five degrees or more for five consecutive days.” Apparently the 0.04% magic molecule can now compress FIVE days into TWO in Australiar. We’re doomed!
71
RIP to a great man:
21 Jan: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: RIP: Weather Channel founder John Coleman dies – Called ‘global warming’ a ‘hoax’
http://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01/21/rip-weather-channel-founder-john-coleman-dies-called-global-warming-a-hoax/
70
20 Jan: HuffPo: Pentagon Drops Climate From National Defense Strategy In Retreat From Bush-Era Policy
The National Defense Strategy has included climate change as a threat since 2008.
By Alexander C. Kaufman
A summary document released Friday morning makes no mention of “climate,” “warming,” “planet,” “sea levels” or even “temperature.” All 22 uses of the word “environment” refer to the strategic or security landscape. The 11-page memo (LINK), signed by Defense Secretary James Mattis, is the first update to the policy in a decade…
It’s unlikely the Department of Defense will release a full National Defense Strategy report; instead, the document is expected to remain classified. The Pentagon did not immediately return a call requesting comment…
The move comes a month after the White House dropped climate change from the list of threats in its National Security Strategy. But it was not unexpected. Days after the president released his security memo, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian official said the National Defense Strategy would not “specifically address climate change.” …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/pentagon-climate-trump_us_5a611feae4b01d91b254278d
20 Jan: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: Nobel Prize-winning scientist declares global warming ‘fake news’: ‘I agree with Pres. Trump, absolutely’
http://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01/20/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-declares-global-warming-fake-news-i-agree-with-pres-trump-absolutely/
20
19 Jan: Scientific American: New Climate Censorship Tracker Comes Online
The project has so far assembled 96 entries of federal restrictions or prohibitions on climate science since November 2016
by Adam Aton
(Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News)
Columbia University and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund today launched an online tracker of the Trump administration’s crackdown on climate science.
The project, called the Silencing Science Tracker, has so far assembled 96 entries of federal restrictions or prohibitions on climate science since November 2016. The database is built from media reports, and it’s searchable by agency, date and type of action…
The Silencing Science Tracker joins similar efforts by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which also monitors other fields like health science, and the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which has closely tracked changes to government websites.
“An administration like this requires multiple points of oversight,” said Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists…
Part of the challenge is that there are so many avenues by which to attack science, with a new attempt coming more than once a week on average, he said. That’s an unprecedented pace, even under a Republican president.
“Under [the George W. Bush administration] it was more likely that inconvenient science would be suppressed, but this administration is disrupting the scientific process itself,” Halpern said…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-climate-censorship-tracker-comes-online/
00
Columbia University also known as the Communist University. Sheltered the German Cultural Marxists when they fled from Nazi Germany.
30
21 Jan: Reuters: Noah Barkin: Europe readies ripost to Trump’s “America First” push in Davos
The charge will be led by French President Emmanuel Macron, the new star of European politics, who in an audacious move, has invited many of the business leaders who will be in Davos to the Palace of Versailles on Monday to press them to invest in France…
When he speaks in Davos on Wednesday, the former investment banker will offer his own “diagnosis” of globalization and set out a vision for addressing widening inequalities, ***global warming and the rise of nationalism, his advisers say…
22 Jan: ANI News: Heavy snowfall at Davos ahead of WEF summit
Davos, a town in the Swiss Alps and also the venue for World Economic Forum (WEF) summit 2018 experienced a heavy snow on Sunday.
One of the residents termed the snowfall as “exceptional,” in a Twitter post.
“The snow awaits you in Davos @minniemelange It’s an exceptional snowfall for an exceptional year!,” the tweet read…
(THE IRONY?) Taking a potshot at United States President Donald Trump, another one tweeted, “No more railway connection to #Davos due to heavy snowfall. Does Mother nature probably not want Mr. #Trump up here in the mountains.”…
https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/heavy-snowfall-at-davos-ahead-of-wef-summit201801220124220001/
21 Jan: LeNewsSwitzerland: Further heavy snow and rain forecast to hit Switzerland
Switzerland is expected to be hit by more heavy snow and rain over the next three days, which will add to the significant snow that has already fallen. The avalanche warning has been raised to 5, the highest level, across much of the Swiss Alps.
Further roads were expected to close. The road out of the Val d’Anniviers was expected to shut at 8PM and could remain closed until Tuesday, Pascal Stoebener, head of natural dangers in Valais, told the newspaper Le Nouvelliste. People have been advised to leave or risk being trapped until Tuesday.
Stoebener described the snowfall as exceptional, with snow levels exceeding those in 1999 when the alpine region was shutdown by heavy snow. Parts of western Valais and the Bernese Oberland above 2000m should expect 1 to 1.5 metres of new snow, according to Meteonews…
Zermatt has again been cut off form the outside world. Trains stopped running on Saturday night due to rock falls. The road in has been cut too. People queued in Zermatt on Sunday to be helicoptered out…
In addition, the train line between Spiez (BE) and Goppenstein (VS) has been disrupted. In eastern Switzerland, train lines between Filisur and Davos have been cut…
http://lenews.ch/2018/01/21/further-heavy-snow-and-rain-forecast-to-hit-switzerland/
10
21 Jan: CNBC: Global leaders need to be in ‘listening mode’ at Davos, says WEF executive
As it turns out, gathering world leaders in Davos is the easy part, while getting them to agree on the solutions to the world’s most pressing problems such as climate change, sustainable industrial development, global inequality and poverty is far harder…
Howell is a member of WEF’s management board and is in charge of delivering the annual Davos event, as well as the forum’s other meetings in China and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)…
“It’s really an exercise in active listening — to understand what the Chinese might be saying on ‘X’ topic, or what the French feel about ‘Y’ topic… The chance of a more resilient and robust solution stems from that.”…
“This will be the 48th year and obviously it creates a sense of community. Whether it’s a business or government or civil society or the media, they feel like they’re part of something,” he told CNBC.
“The real commitment (of everyone attending) is to come every year to a ***really cold and faraway place and spend the week together — and I’m really impressed when I meet people there who have been there 10, 15 or 20 years. So what it does best is create that sense of community.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/15/global-leaders-at-davos-need-to-listen-says-wef-exec.html
22 Jan: Australian: Sarah Hanson-Young pays own fare to mingle with world leaders at Davos by Rosie Lewis
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young — who campaigns against company tax cuts and was late to pay back taxpayer-funded bills — has travelled to the Swiss Alps to rub shoulders with the world’s top chief executives and political leaders.
The Greens’ spokeswoman for finance and trade, who was named a World Economic Forum young global leader in 2016, is in Davos for the summit after paying her way to attend the conference.
Rival South Australian senators yesterday questioned her attendance at the summit after The Australian revealed earlier this month that she had left government invoices unpaid for more than 120 days on numerous occasions and overspent on staff travel by up to $20,460…
The theme of this year’s summit is “creating a shared future in a fractured world”, with the meeting expected to attract participants including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Elton John and possibly US President Donald Trump…
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Trade Minister Steven Ciobo will also be at the WEF in an official capacity…
Corman: “Australia is a globally focused, outward-looking, open trading economy. It is very much in our national interest … to be represented at the WEF.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sarah-hansonyoung-pays-own-fare-to-mingle-with-world-leaders-at-davos/news-story/1b6d8a7d80fc27b72f3f9f55c08aa4da
10
pat:
Corman: “Australia is a globally focused, outward-looking, open trading economy. It is very much in our national interest … to be represented at the WEF.”… I remember when he was thought of as sensible. We should have sent Turnbull, Shorten, Frydenberg, Pyne and Hunt as well. Hanson-Young is going anyway. Then we could pray for an avalanche.
31
She is just signalling the end of her local career, and jockeying Rudd like, for a gig in one of the international alarmist/planet saving/UN generic organisations.
Living off the public purse from cardle to grave is a popular and lucrative career path. Its better than working.
10
22 Jan: Guardian: Beyond Davos – in avalanche country – lies an inescapable fragility
by Larry Elliott, Economics Editor
As global economy booms, crises in social, environmental and political landscape abound
There are more beautiful towns in Switzerland than Davos but the high alps that ring the valley in which it sits are picture-postcard perfect, especially when the rising sun kisses the mountain tops at dawn. But appearances can be deceptive and the snow defences that girdle the slopes are a reminder that this is avalanche country, stunning yet fragile…
The same recklessness applies to the environment, only more so. Global leaders gave themselves a big pat on the back when they signed the Paris climate-change accord in late 2015 but the commitments won’t be enough to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures even in the unlikely event that they are adhered to. The warning signs – the hottest non-El Niño year on record, a devastating hurricane season and the first rise in CO2 emissions in four years – are flashing red. Noting that biodiversity is being lost as mass-extinction rates rise and that air and sea pollution were posing an increasing threat to human health, the WEF made this simple but frightening comment: “We have been pushing our planet to the brink and the damage is becoming increasingly clear.” There will be much talk in Davos this week of creating a carbon-free economy, but the rhetoric that doesn’t really square with an estimated 1,000 flights by private jet into and out of Switzerland for the five-day event…
Davos is like a giant gated community where the 1% can mingle with each other and pretend that they care about the other 99%…
In the 18 years since Bill Clinton addressed Davos – he the last US president to do so – the idea that globalisation would prove to be a unifying force has died a slow death…
As it has become clear multilateral organisations and institutions cannot be relied upon to deliver the good life, electorates have sought protection from their own governments. From state-sponsored cyberattacks to threats of trade wars, nationalism is on the rise.
So that’s the Davos reality this year: economic fragility, environmental fragility, social fragility and political fragility. And it’s worth remembering that when there’s a threat of an avalanche, one rifle shot or even an untimely bellow can bring the whole mountain down.
Why? Because Donald Trump comes to Davos on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/21/davos-avalanche-country-conceals-overriding-fragility-global-economy
hilarious:
22 Jan: Reuters: Davos organizer still counting on Trump to attend
by Alex Threlfall; Writing by Michael Shields; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall
The World Economic Forum (WEF) still expects U.S. President Donald Trump to attend its annual meeting in the Swiss Alps this week, the forum’s chairman Klaus Schwab said on Sunday.
Schwab made the comments in an interview with Reuters a day after White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the trip was up in the air because of the federal government shutdown in the United States…
Asked if he had any indication that Trump’s trip was in flux, Schwab said: “No, we haven‘t. Until now we hope that the trip will be maintained … we’ll see what the final outcome is.” …
Heavy snow in the Alps has made travel difficult in many regions given the heightened danger of avalanches.
The main road leading to Davos was covered with snow. The town’s website for avalanche information advised people in nearly 30 residences to seek more secure dwellings for Sunday evening.
Schwab said he wasn’t worried that weather would prevent attendees from coming to the event, which officially starts on Tuesday.
“No, I‘m happy because it provides Davos with what it should be — the aspect of a global village, but a village where you know nature plays still a very important role and, in our discussion, the whole environmental issue will also be at the forefront of what we do here,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-trump/davos-organizer-still-counting-on-trump-to-attend-idUSKBN1FA0V3
10
This World Economic Forum has been in the news a lot lately, mostly going on about the ‘Climate Crisis’ and all that (including an Eric Worrall post at WUWT where I posted this info earlier.
AL GORE IS ON THEIR BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
So are more of the usual suspects involved in pushing the CAGW scam.
https://www.weforum.org/about/leadership-and-governance
This octopus has many arms.
50
21 Jan: SwissInfo: Avalanche threat cuts off Zermatt for second time in two weeks
Shuttle helicopter flights have been arranged by Air Zermatt beginning at noon on Sunday to transport guests from the resort, where it’s estimated that 9,000 people are currently staying.
On Sunday afternoon, swissinfo.ch journalist Susan Misicka shot a video of the situation on the ground, shortly before tourists heard that the helicopter tickets were nearly sold out. Some had been waiting in sub-freezing temperatures for more than two hours. The tourism office invited guests to make overnight arrangements, noting that “the village is prepared for such cases and has enough supplies.”…
By the end of the day on Sunday, heavy precipitation and winds resulted in the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Researchexternal link raising the avalanche risk level across the northern ridge of the Alps to the maximum of five — ‘very strong risk’.
At lower altitudes, many roads and railways had been closed off earlier in the weekend due to the threat of landslides.
On Saturday, the greatest safety risk was mainly restricted to the western canton of Valais, but by Sunday morning, mass snowfall sparked the closure of several railway lines in Graubünden in the east and Ticino in the south…
***Notably, the line running between Filisur and Davos, which is one of two rail access routes to the site of the World Economic Forum to be held next week, is closed...
The line connecting Geneva to Lyon in France has also been affected, with a landslide interrupting travel. Replacement buses are running, although connections are not guaranteed, according to rail authorities.
The Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSuisseexternal link reported Sunday that Switzerland can expect nearly a metre (3.3 feet) of snow in total between Saturday afternoon and Monday night, mainly in Valais and Graubünden. Valais police have recommended avoiding all unnecessary travel in the region…
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/level-4_avalanche-risk-remains-elevated-in-southern-switzerland/43839370
10
[…] note by Tom Quirk and Paul Miskelly was first posted by Joanne Nova who provided editorial input to it. tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; Posted by Tom Quirk at […]
00
What are the implications of these monstrous half-hour tariff peaks to $14,000.00 or so, for the owners of electric cars recharging their batteries at commercial stations in a few years time?
Is there any guarantee from the Organ-Grinding Greens and their performing Labor and Laboral monkeys that electric car-buying gullibles will be insulated from their own stupidity? Will they have to queue up by the charging station with an eye on the current half-hourly A.E.M.O. tariff until they can afford a recharge?
91
re the death of John Coleman. sometime between four hours ago and two hours ago, the Associated Press obit was changed. added into the opening para is “but later drew anger from people for his open distrust of climate change”:
original:
John Coleman, Co-Founder of the Weather Channel, Dies at 83
New York Times – 4 hours ago
John Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” over a six-decade broadcasting career, died on Saturday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 83.
original:
21 Jan: Chicago Sun-Times: John Coleman, Chicago meteorologist and Weather Channel co-founder, dies at 83
Associated Press: John Coleman, Chicago meteorologist and Weather Channel co-founder, dies at 83
LAS VEGAS — Former Chicago weather forecaster John Coleman, who co-founded The Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during a six-decade broadcasting career, has died. He was 83…
(FINAL PARA) As the science of climate change was promoted by Al Gore and others, Coleman became a vocal skeptic. “There is no significant manmade global warming,” he said in a 2008 speech to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. “There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/john-coleman-ex-chicago-meterologist-and-weather-channel-co-founder-dies-at-83/
btw the final para also seems to have been excised from the original too.
now we have:
John Coleman, Co-Founder of the Weather Channel, Dies at 83
New York Times – 2 hours ago
A broadcaster who co-founded The Weather Channel ***but later drew anger from people for his open distrust of climate change has died in Las Vegas. John Coleman was 83…
Weather Channel co-founder who slammed climate change dies
John Coleman, who co-founded The Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during a six-decade broadcasting career ***but who later drew people’s anger for his open distrust of climate change, has died. He was 83
ABC America – 2 hrs ago
Weather Channel co-founder who slammed climate change dies
Washington Post – 1 hour ago
John Coleman, who co-founded The Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during a six-decade broadcasting career ***but who later drew people’s anger for his open distrust of climate change, has died. He was 83…
many, many more examples of this re-write can be found online.
why not write “who won applause from the public for speaking out against the manmade global warming scam”?
30
WaPo still had the original 2 hrs ago:
The Latest: TV meteorologist behind The Weather Channel dies
Washington Post – 2 hours ago
John Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during a six-decade broadcasting career, has died. He was 83.
WaPo has to make 2 corrections!
also ****this is how the re-write now ends:
21 Jan: WaPo: Weather Channel co-founder who slammed climate change dies
***PHOTO CAPTION: CORRECTS THAT COLEMAN IS AT RIGHT, NOT LEFT ETC
By Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — John Coleman, who co-founded The Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during a six-decade broadcasting career ***but who later drew people’s anger for his open distrust of climate change, has died. He was 83…
****(FINAL PARAS) National Weather Service forecaster Alex Tardy said Coleman’s death was “a big loss for the weather community.”
“He brought a lot of energy and color and enthusiasm to forecasting,” Tardy said. “My kids loved watching him on TV.”
Coleman also drew anger during the later years of his career for his views on global warming, which he called a “hoax” and a “scam.” In a 2013 KUSI news segment, Coleman, while talking about a global warming study, chastised national media for reporting on it from “an environmental point of view and their continuing liberal, political agenda.”
His views combined with his weatherman background led to appearances on cable news outlets, where he voiced his doubts about climate change.
Tardy said Coleman never tried to push his skepticism about climate change being man-made.
“We had good talks,” Tardy told the San Diego Union-Tribune . “I enjoyed it.”
***This story has been corrected to show the weatherman’s name is John Coleman, not Joe Coleman.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/weather-channel-co-founder-who-slammed-climate-change-dies/2018/01/21/315d37f2-ff09-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html?utm_term=.732958e5798a
10
just imagine – the great John Coleman doubted ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’. what a low-level sleaze Samenow is. don’t speak ill of the dead, mate.
even so, there is much positive stuff inbetween the excerpts below:
21 Jan: WaPo: Jason Samenow: John Coleman, Weather Channel founder and climate change doubter, dies at 83
The 83-year-old Coleman, in his later years, may have become best known for championing skepticism about the human role in climate change…
(READ THE POSITIVES)
Over the past 15 years, Coleman became a vocal doubter of human contributions to climate change and opposed actions to address the challenge. As recently as December 2017, he wrote, “There is no significant man-made global warming at this time, there has not been any in the past and there is no reason to fear any in the future.”
Coleman’s stance on climate change was far out of step with mainstream science. In 2014, the Weather Channel distanced itself from its founder on the issue. “[H]e hasn’t been with us in 31 years,” said then-chief executive David Kenny on CNN. “So he’s not really speaking for the Weather Channel in any way today.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/01/21/john-coleman-weather-channel-founder-and-climate-change-doubter-dies-at-83/?utm_term=.7a9aa23bc67a
10
google results on John Coleman has this Snopes piece as the top of “All” results in my search today:
Snopes: Weather Channel Founder on Climate Change
Comments by Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman supposedly refute global warming. Are his remarks an accurate analysis of climate change?
Claim: Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman provided evidence that convincingly refutes the concept of anthropogenic global warming
Rating: False.
On 1 June 2017, President Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international accord that seeks to “bring all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.” Many environmentalists, scientists, politicians, and others criticized President Trump’s decision, one entity among that group of dissenters being the web site of the Weather Channel, which was altered in ways that clearly indicated disagreement with the President’s announcement…
In November 2007 (John) Coleman penned a widely-reproduced essay in which he labeled global warming “the greatest scam in history” and “a manufactured crisis,” and delivered a speech in that same vein to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce in June 2008:
(FINAL EXCERPT: “There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces (LINK).”
Although this item is ***superficially “true” in the sense that the words quoted above were indeed written by John Coleman, the statement that they “refute” global warming (i.e., prove it to be false) is something of an exaggeration. As Coleman’s critics have noted, he does not hold a degree in climatology or any related discipline, nor has he studied or conducted any research in that field; he merely parrots arguments advanced by others…
(QUOTES WaPo ARTICLE WITHOUT PROVIDING A LINK)
Both Fox News and CNN have recently invited John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel and former TV meteorologist, to express his views about climate change to their national audiences. Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and I’m not even sure he knows what he actually believes…ETC
(QUOTES Columbia Journalism Review article WITHOUT PROVIDING A LINK)
For the many Americans who don’t understand the difference between weather — the short-term behavior of the atmosphere — and climate — the broader system in which weather happens — Coleman’s professional background made him a genuine authority on global warming. It was an impression that Coleman encouraged. Global warming “is not something you ‘believe in,’” he wrote in his essay. “It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise.”
Except that it wasn’t…ETC
https://www.snopes.com/politics/science/coleman.asp
here is the CJR article – back in 2010…AND NEARLY 4,000 WORDS LONG!
2010: Columbia Journalism Review: Hot Air: Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?
By Charles Homans (LATER JOINED NYT)
https://archives.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php?page=all
the WaPo article Snopes quotes from COINCIDENTALLY shows up on the first page of google NEWS results on John Coleman today!
Why does anyone pay attention to John Coleman, Weather Channel co-founder, on climate change
Washington Post-3 Nov. 2014
Both Fox News and CNN have recently invited John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel and former TV meteorologist, to express his views about climate change to their national audiences…
Weather Channel: Co-founder doesn’t speak for us on global warming
Highly Cited-CNNMoney-2 Nov. 2014
DRAIN THE MSM SWAMP.
10
should have added Snopes doesn’t even state where their excerpts were from – no mention of WaPo or CJR in their piece.
the WaPo piece is behind a paywall, but this archived page unsurprisingly reveals the writer is the vile JASON SAMENOW:
Nov 2014: WaPo: Jason Samenow: Why does anyone pay attention to John Coleman, Weather Channel co-founder, on climate change?
His position further demonstrates an incredible lack of respect and regard for scores of intelligent, hard-working climate scientists, some of whom are politically conservative, who have dedicated their careers to objectively examining data and publishing research that indicate human-induced warming.
Whereas Coleman rejects appealing to authority and consensus as a solid argument for manmade global warming, he uses exactly the same tactic to cast doubt on it. In the CNN interview he refers to 31,000 “scientists” who have signed a petition with a dissenting view on manmade global warming. Yet this petition has been repeatedly debunked for lack of quality control, not to mention it represents a miniscule fraction (~0.3%) of all U.S. science graduates (source Skeptical Science)…
I can’t read Coleman’s mind and motivations. But what’s crystal clear is that he’s not providing good, objective information or a credible viewpoint on the issue. He doesn’t deserve the attention he’s getting – even after a stupendous career as a broadcast weather professional.
https://archive.is/fszS3#selection-3377.0-3381.13
00
I would just like to draw your attention to the following, and this is from the AER, (Australian Energy Regulator) an arm of the Federal Government, and deals with the cost structure for electrical power generation: (my bolding here)
Okay then, this is the diagram they use to explain it, and if I could post the image here, I would, but this is the link to that diagram at my home site. Keep in mind that this diagram is simplistic in nature, but it is indicative.
Note the dark brown colour at the bottom, because that is the existing power at the time it starts to rise.
As new power is needed, the new ‘colours’ are added at their bid price, and it is adjusted every five minutes according to how much if any, new power is required, or how much the total then drops away, keeping in mind that it’s last on, first off principle.
Then, at the end of the half hour, the total cost is averaged and ALL (get that, ALL of them) of them get paid that new average amount.
So, the existing total at the bottom, no matter how cheaply they bid in the first place get paid that new HIGHER amount for all the power they deliver during that half hour.
I’ll just do this for Victoria, as they still do have coal fired power, and that was where the Unit failed for an hour and a half on that Thursday.
Okay then, now go to the minimum power consumption time, 4AM, the Base Load time I keep mentioning.
The total power consumption for that Friday Morning was just under 4800MW, and the cost at that time was around $55/MWH. Coal fired power, always the lowest bidder, because they can generate their power at the cheapest cost would have been ‘around’ say $40/MWH, and the others, some hydro, some wind, and some gas fired made up the rest of the power consumed, this raising the average cost to that $55/MWH. Coal fired power was generating 4400MW of that 4800MW total, so for an hour either side of that 4AM Base Load time, they delivered 8800MWH, (4400MW X 2 Hours) and received the average cost for that of $55/MWH, so a total of $484,000.
Okay, now scroll forward to when that one Unit failed at the Loy Yang B plant, and the power cost spiked horrendously to over $12000/MWH
The total generated power at that time was 9000MW or so.
Coal fired power was delivering 3860MW, because it was a coal fired Unit which failed, hence 4400MW minus the 540MW of the failed Unit.
The average cost for the hour and a half it was offline for spiked to $12000/MWH.
So, for that hour and a half, the remaining coal fired power plants received 3860MW X 1.5Hrs X $12000/MWH, so, a total of $69,480,000 fo their generated power.
One of those was AGL, you know ….. “We’re getting out of coal!”
They own Loy Yang A, and all four of their Units were on line generating 2100MW so for the hour and a half of the ‘crisis’, they received, umm, $37.8 Million.
Now, why on Earth would you get out of coal?
Tony.
90
TonyfromOz –
you might want to listen to this. headline is immediately misleading, as Weatherill twice says “should be fine” not “will be”:
22 Jan: 5AA Radio Adelaide: Jay Weatherill Says Power Grid Will Be “Fine” During Coming Heatwave
Premier Jay Weatherill has reassured South Aussies their power supply will hold up during the extreme heat set to the state later this week.
“Our advice from the Australian Energy Market Operator is that we’ll be fine,” Mr Weatherill told FIVEaa on Monday. “The reason we’ll be fine is because our energy plan has brought on extra supply…”
“Pelican Point is now operating, we’ve got the battery there and of course we’ve got the backup state-owned generators. Leaving aside some catastrophe we should be fine.”
LISTEN: AUDIO: AT 6mins30secs to 9mins10secs: Premier asked about heatwave, power with Tesla battery etc. should be fine, etc. SA as saviours. renewables the only way to bring prices down, etc.
at 10.35mins in. Caller says his power was out for 2 hours yesterday. Premier answers. It happens all around the world…It will happen again in the next few days.
https://www.fiveaa.com.au/shows/david-and-will/Jay-Weatherill-Says-Power-Grid-Will-Be-Fine-During-Coming-Heatwave
20
Thanks Tony.
I have a 20 lb. chunk of anthracite from eastern Pennsylvania. If I could get that into the mix during one of the times — I’d be rich.
I wonder when the costs show up at places of business, say a grocery store, small factory, or even a home? In the real world, when do these numbers become known?
Our bill comes once a month for our house, after the electricity is used.
As you might guess, I’m having trouble understanding what this means to people’s bank accounts.
30
You would get out of coal when your plant gets near end of life. Just buy some cheap and cheerful peaking plants and you can get on the same bandwagon.
00
OT but the BOM forecast for today is winds becoming light from the early afternoon , just had some massive gusts come thru and the wind is anything but light .
Still no warnings about the northeast of Victoriastan.
11
14.35 EST
Wind Turbines
SA
6 @ 30%
1@ 60%
3 @ zero
VIC
2 @ 30%
7 @ zero
TAS
1 @ 60%
1 @ 30%
NSW
1 @ 90%
4 @ zero
Compliance Factor
30
Glad I didn’t recharge my new electric car last Friday oh it wasn’t a problem the bowser was termed off.!
20
both articles behind paywall:
21 Jan: UK Sunday Times: Peter Evans: Now energy giants must treat small firms better
Small businesses are paying through the nose for their power — and it needs to stop
When the boss of the energy watchdog Ofgem faced MPs this month, he made a startling admission. Dermot Nolan said the regulator “should have done better” in protecting low-income households from extortionate gas and electricity prices. He is right: why should the most vulnerable pay more than they can afford to heat their homes? The government’s planned price cap cannot come soon enough.
Nolan should now switch his attention to the commercial market. For too long, small companies — the business equivalent of vulnerable people — have suffered disproportionately at the hands of energy suppliers and unscrupulous brokers. The Competition & Markets
Authority (CMA) estimates that small businesses pay about £500m more a year than they would if the market functioned properly…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/now-energy-giants-must-treat-small-firms-better-zh5ww376x
21 Jan: UK Times: Ali Hussain: And they call this a smart meter . . .
The government wants one of these hi-tech devices in every home. But why do they so often leave customers stuck in the dark?
Harry Smith never wanted to have to send an energy reading to his supplier again. A smart meter does this automatically, so he agreed to have one installed. The only problem is that his meter, installed by British Gas two years ago, cannot be used by other suppliers, so when he switched to a rival to save money, he could no longer avoid the chore.
The task is not easy for Smith, who turns 80 next month, as his electricity meter is tucked away in a dark cupboard. “I have to lie down with a torch to read it,” he said. To make matters worse, the device is more difficult to read than his old analogue meter. Instead of noting down a simple number, he…
(excerpts found elsewhere)
However, the process has been beset by delays and confusion, much of it caused by suppliers rushing to install meters without ensuring they would be compatible with their competitors’ systems – a problem that has not arisen in other European countries, where smart meters are standardised across the industry. The Energy Ombudsman received 1,554 complaints about smart meters last year, mainly disputes about the amount of gas or electricity used, engineers failing to turn up for appointments or faulty installations, some of which resulted in gas leaks. The ombudsman found in favour of householders in more than two-thirds of the cases…
The government is considering extending the date to 2023. In response to mounting criticism from the industry and complaints from consumers, the National Audit Office has just announced an investigation. It will assess whether the government is “maximising the chances that smart meters will achieve their intended long-term benefits”. This will be the public spending watchdog’s third inquiry into the meter roll-out in seven years…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/money/and-they-call-this-a-smart-meter-bxdrbdx52
10
19 Jan: Irish Independent: John Mulligan: Solar farms handed €140m ISIF boost
The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) has teamed up with German solar and wind park operator Capital Stage to invest €140m in 20 solar parks in Ireland.
There has been a large number of applications made for solar parks in Ireland, but some applications – especially for large-scale projects – have been turned down by local authorities because of the absence of a national strategic framework for their development.
The parks that ISIF and Capital Stage are planning to finance will generate a total of 140MW of electricity. They will range in size from between 5MW and 25MW.
By the end of last year, planning permission was secured for sites that will generate 110MW of the total. Remaining sites are expected to secure permission in the first quarter of this year. The parks are primarily located along the east and southwest coasts.
Power Capital was established by Peter Duff and Justin Brown in 2011.
Mr Duff said Power Capital is “engaging with large energy consumers in Ireland who have commitments in terms of meeting their high energy demands through renewable sources”.
The Government has committed to generating 40pc of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.
That target is set to be missed, which would see the Government eventually have to fork out hundreds of millions of euro for carbon credits.
https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/solar-farms-handed-140m-isif-boost-36505739.html
2015: Irish Times: Why do we need the Irish Strategic Investment Fund?
The Irish Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) used to be the National Pensions Reserve Fund. It held investments that would in time be liquidated to pay for social welfare and public service pensions. It went the way of the dodo when the economy hit the rocks and the fund was raided to recapitalise the banks.
It was rebadged as the ISIF and the rump of its money made subject to a new statutory mandate “to invest on a commercial basis to support economic activity and employment in Ireland”…
Anybody who thought that the ISIF would choose to address market failure – the best rationale for State commercial investment – will be disappointed…READ ON
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/why-do-we-need-the-irish-strategic-investment-fund-1.2153512
10
time will tell how this works out:
18 Jan: Irish Times: State fund announces major investment in solar energy
Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is to co-invest €140 million in 20 new solar parks
by Eoin Burke-Kennedy
A recent KMPG report on the potential benefits of solar energy in Ireland concluded that the industry could reasonably deploy more than 3,750 MW of solar from now to 2030, supporting more than €2 billion in gross value added, more than €800 million in direct taxes and sustaining 7,300 jobs…
Paul Saunders, head of innovation and special investments at ISIF, said: “ This partnership supports Ireland’s continued transition to a low carbon economy against a backdrop of Ireland possessing a solar resource similar to that in southern UK and northern Germany where solar energy has delivered steady returns for institutional investors.”…
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/state-fund-announces-major-investment-in-solar-energy-1.3360500
10
In today’s Ballarat Courier, they highlighted a local blackout on Friday, 19Jan18. In all, 3600 customers were blacked out.
Now, Buninyong has a battery! Yes, it was mooted as the largest when it was first installed. It is 2MW, and supposedly could power 3000 customers for 60 minutes! Wow! All for $8 million!
And last Friday, the battery was used for the first time since being installed.
And what did it do? It powered just 760 customers for 50 minutes!
Apparently the locals are not happy with their new high tech saviour!
So it could only manage 25% of what it was allegedly capable of? Not very cost effective IMO. Backup diesel genny at least can power as long as you have fuel!
Here is the link to the report.
http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/5179717/buninyong-battery-kicks-in-but-residents-still-feeling-the-heat/?cs=12
70
Rob I’ve been told by locals that their big battery makes a loud noise when running , any truth to this?
40
Not sure Yonniestone. Haven’t seen it close up, or heard it running. I did read an early report that suggested it was noisy, and was a bugger to keep cool! Hence the noise from the cooling fans. I believe they also had an issue with the fire retardant system, creating a toxic? environment. I assume that has now been remedied, but who knows?
20
And I thought no State or Country could screw up energy policy as much as the Ontario , Canada, Liberals . Wrong again .
But hey as long as the planet is saved .
Government robbing the people was never so clear .
70
22 Jan: Lithgow Mercury: Wollemi National Park burns as heatwave conditions hit region
by Kirsty Horton
Chifley-Lithgow fire crews were kept very busy over the weekend, with multiple fires in the region. As well as the Portland blaze there were two fires in Bathurst on Saturday.
One was sparked on the Mitchell Highway at Bathurst ***when the fuse dropped out of a solar panel. It burned three hectares…
VIDEO: 21 Jan: 9News: with AAP: Police suspect Royal National Park bushfire was deliberately lit
Sydney’s Royal National Park will remain closed today due to a suspicious bushfire, as the Rural Fire Service declares total fire bans across four regions of New South Wales.
The blaze, which authorities suspect was deliberately lit yesterday, has burnt through more than 600 hectares.
A photograph taken by a hiker showing at least seven different ignition points could hold the key to helping capturing the potential arsonist…
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/01/20/13/21/emergency-crews-called-to-bundeena-fire-south-of-sydney
16 Jan: SBS: AAP: Police hunt for Perth’s ash-cloud arsonist
Police suspect an arsonist is responsible for the bushfire which blanketed Perth in a large cloud of ash as it burnt through thousands of hectares in Mundaring.
Specialist investigators are scouring the park for evidence, a NSW Police spokesperson said…
An arsonist is suspected to have started the fire in Sawyer’s Valley at about 8:30am on Sunday.
Arson squad detectives have asked for the public’s help to track down the driver of a grey early 2000s model Ford Falcon, which was seen on Gorrie Road in the area of Hancock Brook in the Mundaring State Forest.
Around 200 firefighters battled the blaze at its peak as it burned through about 3000 hectares of bushland and threatened homes and property near Mundaring Weir…
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/police-hunt-for-perth-s-ash-cloud-arsonist
20
Missed weakend unshreaded again! So solly! OTOH Commercial beer producers actually ‘carbonate’ their filtered pasteurized dregs into bottles cans at 30psi (2 Atmospheres).This all has to do with my recent Ma beer froze!
Take any aluminum canned beer down to my local 20°F, -5°C. Such does not freeze as the pressure is to high! (Has little rotational inertia about the cylindrical axis). Take such into 15°C home environment, and open under ‘throttled’ gas expansion! Tab breaks off, ice pick, even pounding #0 Phillips screwdriver through can. Tis a messy hoot to watch! Foam everware! Will not stop! Can we have some scientific explanation from academic meteorologists, that clearly know everting ’bout CO2.
All the best!-will-
20
Will you could try Jacking, Make beer more alcoholic or just chuck em as they’re stuffed.
10
Hi Jo Nova,
Hedging – the missing monetary factor in your article. Although the monetary transactions you describe in the NEM are correct, almost all electricity retailers will have most, if not all, of their customers consumption covered by hedge deals with generators, and other counter parties. When NEM prices are high, the generators will pay the retailers and vice versa when prices are low. This settlement is done outside of the AEMO NEM settlement process. Some retailers are Gentailers, where a significant amount of the electricity their customers use is generated by the retailer themselves. If a retailer didn’t hedge they would be bankrupt very quickly when a high price event occurs, and would be kicked out of the market by AEMO (its happened). In summary the real, and final amount of money that changes hands, after hedges are settled, will be no where near the dollars figures you reference.
Regards
Jeff C.
30
Thanks Jeff, we need to know more about how this works. I’m aware companies are playing the market trying to hedge. We’ve written about that before as CEO’s are now energy traders and it must be consuming a lot more of their head-space.
How big are the hedge markets compared to the spot? This we need to know.
So anyone else with insight into this, please speak up.
41
Hi Jo,
As an FYI , I worked in the electricity industry, retail and network for many years, with major and smaller companies. Please ask any specific questions and I’ll do my best to provide a clear answer. It can be a very confusing area, and often not well understood even by those within the industry.
In answer to your question, hedging ( there are different types) is not really playing the market, but extremely prudent business practice for the benefit of the retailer (and customer) setting a known buy price ( strike price) so the electricity retailer can resell the power to customer at a set price. Lets say a simple hedge has a strike price of $20MWh and the retailer then on sells that power for $30MWh to an end use customer.
Lets say the pool price for half an hour was $12. The retailer pays $12 into the market. The retailer would then pay $8 to the generator in an off market (non AEMO) settlement. The generator would also get paid $12 from the market giving them a total of $20.
In the next half hour the pool price goes up to $65MWh . The generator gets paid $65 by the market, and would pay the retailer $45, while the retailer would pay the market $65. The retailer ends up paying $20.00MWh, and the customer $30MWh.
In the next half hour the pool price jumps to $14,000MWh. The retailer pays the market $14,000 the generator gets paid $14,000 from the market, and generator then pays the retailer $13,980. The end result is the he generator gets paid $20, the retailer buys the power for $20, and the customer pays $30.00
Regards
Jeff C.
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Thank you Jeff. This is very interesting, and I appreciate your help.
Assuming retailers know that a $14k spike is coming sometime in summer — they would all want to hedge against that. But what’s the price? Do they need to pay $100 all summer every day to cover against the cost of one $14k spikes? If so, people are paying more for electricity on other days and the cost is spread across the summer.
Because hedging is a zero sum gain, there must be a loser for every winner. So I don’t feel hedging can solve the problem in the way an extra coal fired unit could — for example — by adding more competitive generation. The analysts for the generators must be betting the other way, estimating how much they can make off the summer spikes and upping the prices for the hedges accordingly.
And then there is the need to buy RETs and fulfill the govt forced requirement for 14% renewables. How many hedges can a wind farm sell, when they can’t predict the wind? I’m sure they can sell some…
Cheers, I do want to know more.
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Jo, you could read this early intro doc from the AEMO which explains the operation of the NEM. here at your abc
I do think that your article is misleading with its conflation of the spot market pricing with the financial markets as Jeff C points out.
While the NEM is not totally the ‘free market’ your dreams of, it does have many hallmarks of a ‘free market’. You like to blame the Governments for all that is wrong with the electricity market but much of the pricing in the market is perfectly normal market practice which is optimizing the return for its shareholders not being philanthropic toward the consumers. Sure the things like the RET are certainly distorting factors but I think you overplay those. When the RET finally goes away, I can’t see electricity prices plummeting. Remember too that the Gov also interferes with things like caps on the spot price whereas in a real free market there would be no such caps. The financial markets where the actual pricing are set are certainly less controlled by the Gov. You make the simple assertion that (if the Gov allowed it, by way of not interfering in the market) that somehow there would be many more generators competing with each other to drive the price down. You never explain how that would work in a fixed size market. Is that supported by some sort of model you guys have developed? Intuition would tell me that a profitable free market would evolve to be one that has just enough to supply that fixed market and not a whole lot of surplus. The Gov developed network of coal fired stations have historically worked that way. Queensland had lots of load shedding and as loads grew and the Gov there simply built new stations. You never seem to acknowledge the fact that only Govs have built all of the coal stations, even in recent warming panic times. In earlier comments you advocated for a Gov that does not get involved in electricity supply and generation and only looks after defence (a military Gov I presume) as being the ideal, but I must admit that I would have much dread and anxiety about the prospect of that.
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Your comment sounds as though you are an advocat for something but I’m not sure what.
It certainly doesn’t cover a reasoned approach to the assessment of the current electricity supply dramas that our politicians are inflicting on the nation.
We are well aware that the RET is not the only scam or distortion influencing power pricing but it is a significant part of a very unhealthy system.
You do not have a “free market” when renewables must be purchased in preference to coal fired power. The financial mechanics of rorting of the electricity system has been given good coverage on this blog, but as Jo points out, it is always good to get a bit more detail on the “insurance” needed by producers to cover them for irregularities caused by the presence of “renewables” in the mix.
And let’s not forget that insurance is ultimately paid for by the consumers.
I would much rather have Engineered Electricity than the Political version we currently have.
KK
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Joe, Deny this #1: There is no country in the world with lots of wind and solar that also has cheap electricity.
Deny this #2: 1600 new coal plants being built in the rest of the world.
Agree. The RET has been wrecking our grid for years. It will take years to fix it. At the click of a finger, we won’t create either USC coal or Nukes and be competitive.
As to your idealized free market criticism: Once upon a time we didn’t need to have a market for stability of the grid til the government forced lots of unstable unreliable generators on it. Now we have a market for FCAS to achieve what coal plants gave us for free.
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Jo I am not too sure how any of those challenges relate to my point and I certainly wouldn’t deny either of them. I am just trying to keep a bit of scientific reasoning in the discussion so price increases and gouges can be fully explained and understood rather than the simplistic explanation of the dichotomy of forces of good (the free market and a few conservative politicians it would seem) vs forces of evil (anything or anyone not in that first group) thinking of the dark ages which the discussion seems to gravitate to. I note that a great many of the new coal stations around the world are being built by Govs and for most part they are lefty Govs. That is a bit similar to the situation in Qld at least. The point that I am trying to make or at least get you to explain, is how a free market in what is a very static or well defined and limited market is encouraged to build new power stations so we have over capacity and somehow get by selling x percent in a competitive market. I am not disputing your comments on the RET and all the other Gov interference just questioning if that is all that is going on.
I note too that many factors came together in the last 20 years – the old Gov coal stations approaching their planned end of life, the move to privatise many of previous Gov functions, the whole warming panic and renewable rush, the mining of our gas resources. Sure the correlation is there in your first point, I don’t deny that but I have trouble accepting the explanation that it is just the forces of evil behind it and that a totally free market would see us good (the whole correlation is not causation argument we like to have). Geez, if I had a coal station and some poles and wires I would be gouging too while everyone was busy blaming those forces of evil. So if you are convinced that ALL of the price rises are the forces of evil alone and that the free market is not riding the wave of panic too just say so but if you can explain it so much the better. The way I see it, free market votes in the folk they want, could be any party, the voted in folk do what they are told, the free market adjusts itself accordingly and sells windmills or gas or coal or whatever they can make a killing on. I note too your view that it is too late already and that the forces of evil have stuffed the market already and that it will take years before the free market can strut its stuff – so I guess I wont be seeing any free market magic happening for a long time? It is a pity that that free market is not a bit more robust in the face of those evil Gov moves. At least Mr Trump does not share your view and hopes to turn things around quickly. While you highlight the evil forces, at least the generators get around the strict Gov NEM rules by contracting their trade on the usual financial markets. You should at least be happy (and maybe even acknowledge it) that this is happening because the situation you portrayed in your article seemed (to me at least) quite alarmist rather than researched and considered (maybe even a bit like your outrage at the proposed 2 stroke motor rules – just sayin’)
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Joe
You have obviously missed a lot of previous discussion here.
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Well that explains why you are confused. Citizens do the voting, not “the free market”.
The free market does all it can to influence the voters, and since the media overlooks a lot of that completely, some get away with it. How do you feel about the vested interests that are renewables companies, carbon bankers (every financial institution), electrical giants that make pointless batteries etc all do as much influencing as they can without any scrutiny.
They are only doing what any market player would – protecting their cash cow (govt subsidies).
You seem a bit confused again. The Government controls the guns, the army, the jails and about 25% of the economy directly. The free open market doesn’t. How is it supposed to “be robust” against that?
As for your other questions, Australia had cheap reliable electricity for years, both with and without the AEMO. But it’s never had cheap electricity with a lot of wind and solar.
We just need to stop trying to change the weather with our power generators.
If hte government got out of the way things would get better as fast as possible, but Kevin Rudd signed the RET til 2030 didn’t he?
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Good Evening Jo,
Couple of points
1. The AER documents / hedging you refer to are something totally altogether different from the Generator / Retailer hedging I’m referring to. The AER is discussing cross NEM regional flows which result in settlement differentials (under or over) as different regions have different prices at the same time. Here’s a link to an AEMO document – if you’re a glutton for punishment – not that I’m remotely suggesting you should read it: http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Guide_to_the_Settlements_Residue_Auction_July_14.pdf
The hedging relevant to final price that the consumer pays is explained concisely and succinctly here: http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/electricity/report/28-electricity-appendixc.pdf which I highly recommend reading.
2. A PDF Deloitte study is highly recommended reading – succinctly and concisely explains the situation in SA, written in 2015 it predicted the instability that would occur ( as we all know a state wide black out ), and also explains the market machinations in regard to the financial side and market operation.
https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/economics/articles/energy-markets-implications-renewables-sa-case-study.html
In a nutshell:
Non market based (RET) financial drivers incentivise wind installation, with wind then having a nominal marginal cost to operate after it’s built – but power is not dispatchable and power is only there when the wind blows. Likewise for solar, however solar is more predictable.
Lots of installed wind capacity, and good winds lock out traditional generators for a significant portion of time, when the wind is blowing.
Traditional generators revenues fall below standing costs; that is they lose money.
Due to the laws of basic economics the traditional generators are then moth balled or demolished or some additional funding is needed to keep them going when the wind stops blowing.
Also, and a critical also…..
The power grid requires large synchronous alternating current machines (generators), all synchronised together, all rotating 50 times a second. Keeping the frequency stable is essentially the way in which the amount energy from the coal/gas /hydro/nuc is matched up with the amount of electrical energy required. These large machines also provide spinning inertia, which allow the grid to cope with fluctuations in demand – that is they are slow to speed up or down, allowing the generators to adjust the energy input accordingly to match the change in demand with the inertia keeping show running.
Neither wind nor solar provide frequency or inertia.
SA still has some traditional generation, but to a large extent relies on an extension cord to Victoria. Not a good strategy. When SA was blacked out, political figures stated it wasn’t due to the large portion of wind and the SA – delusional nonsense.
Regards
Jeff C
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Hi Jo,
Retailers don’t know that a $14k spike is coming or not – it will only come when a market VoLL (value of lost load) event occurs, which in practice means load shedding, that is demand exceeds supply. If there is plenty of supply, and the means to deliver the power a VoLL won’t occur.
The idea of a hedge – my example is simplistic – is to remove risk, ensure certainty, and even out pricing for suppliers and consumers. Hedging is one of the key components of the reason for existence of retailers. Strike prices /hedge types could differ considerably over time, for example you could set up a hedge for each half hour.
If a retailer hasn’t covered all of their customer’s load with hedging ( or generation that they own – a natural hedge) they leave themselves exposed to the market price. Sometimes they may be in front, however if there is a VoLL event or even a period of high market prices, they would find themselves burning through massive amounts of cash in a very short period of time. Once they can’t pay the market they are kicked out – and are probably calling in the receivers.
There are risks to hedging – the liquidity of the counter-party for example; ENRON springs to mind.
If there is a shortage of supply, the generators are in a stronger position to negotiate higher prices, some may even elect to not hedge a portion of their production to potentially capitalise on high pool prices. More base-load in the market should see more even , and competitive, pricing for example a coal generator wants to stay on all the time, not ramp up and down, and is incentivised to enter contracts that recognise that fact.
I can’t comment on wind / solar generator hedging / wholesale green power purchase agreements. As far as I’m aware the market must take wind /solar by default when it’s generated. There’s no doubt various green schemes ( in addition to other government mandated requirements) forced into the market impact the price that consumers pay. In addition to the RET, Victoria for example mandates that retailers must purchase solar generated power flowing into the grid at $113.00 regardless of what the market price is. This of course is then added to a consumer’s power bill. http://www.energy.vic.gov.au/renewable-energy/victorian-feed-in-tariff/current-feed-in-tariff In addition there is the VEET scheme – once again added to power bills. http://www.energymakeovers.com.au/blog/work-veet-scheme/ Older feed in tariff schemes are funded by adding charges to network bills, in Vic this is $600MWh. Once again added to power bills.
Regards
Jeff
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Interesting, detailed comments Jeff.
Would it be true to say that normal power hedging operates on a “price trigger” and that “renewables hedging” for wind and solar, if you could buy it, would need a Volume trigger?
KK
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Hi All,
It’s getting a little old, but a good link for Hedging 101 none the less. I’ll see what else I can dig up regarding wind/solar deals. Many wind/solar projects only go ahead on the basis of forward power purchase agreements.
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/electricity/report/28-electricity-appendixc.pdf
Note that there are often intermediate parties in these transactions, and deals can be resold/traded/split up etc. You don’t need to be a generator or a retailer. Lets say you had a hedge deal to buy power at $20 in a years time, then the prices went up a year later to say $60, you could sell that deal and make $40.
Rgds
Jeff C
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Jeff, thanks, I recognize that the Australian electricity market is a PhD level analysis.
Your comment here could turn out to be v. useful and insightful:
That would mean that by reducing the reliable generators and increasing the intermittent unpredictable ones we’ve created a situation where spikes are more likely – which fits the empirical evidence showing that there are far more spikes now than there used to be. It is what I have suspected, by adding in more volatility, there is more opportunity to game the system, which previously worked quite well. Over the first decade and half the average price was $30/MWh.
If the market were truly free (no RET or other state rules trying to pick winners) I would assume that large companies would forward buy contracts long term to ensure electricity supply, and they would pay a slight premium for certainty, which could only be supplied by coal/gas/hydro/nukes/biomass.
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Jeff — AER has hedging figures
https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/interregional-hedging-%E2%80%93-auction-proceeds-and-settlement-residues
If I am reading it correctly, the last available stats say that there were $40m in residues for the whole quarter from June 30th to Sept 30th. Likewise, $40 in auction proceeds.
From the information:
Hence, hedging would be a small part of the total cost.
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Hedging is insurance. The providers of the insurance tend to be the banks: indeed, they can make it a condition of investment loans that insurance be taken out on price risk, interest rate risk, exchange rate risk, etc. Wherever insurance is compulsory, it is an added cost. The cost of insurance depends on the riskiness of the insured risk. High risk insurance can be extremely profitable – at least until the risk goes off the scale. Adding renewables into the grid and cutting fairly reliably dispatchable generation to the bone has dramatically increased the cost of insurance, which the banks do not provide for free. The cost is of course paid by consumers.
Banks tend to have the advantage over other market players that they see the full deal flow, which allows them to be fairly certain in pricing their insurance offerings on a profitable basis. They also tend to have the brightest sparks working on pricing and trading models and algorithms.
The alternative to financial hedging is physical hedging. In the context of the grid that means having extra, fairly reliable, dispatchable capacity on hand to cover against extreme events. The cheapest way to do that is normally to use low capital cost generation, because you need to minimise the cost of standing by, rather than the cost of fuel for the relatively small number of hours it will be activated. That means diesel or OCGT at the margin. In a big grid with high renewables penetration, you will probably need also to run other conventional generation to cover extended periods of low renewables output – and to pay for it accordingly. Go green, invest twice over.
Of course, you really should start by trying to design a generating and transmission portfolio that offers high reliability and low cost, taking account of both demand variation and the ability to meet it, and risks such as commodity fuel price, loss of a unit, loss of a transmission line, etc. When you distort that process, expect costs to soar.
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I understand the way that a hedge deal works but I’ve never seen a negative $14,000.00 price so there must be a lot of wheeling and dealing and probably kickbacks for this to work .
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Robert. I’m shocked.
Are you suggesting that power generators might be acting in such a way as to game the system?
🙂
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As I understand it, AEMO caps prices at $14,200 on the upside and minus $1,000 on the downside. Since a coal station cannot stop on a dime, the less severe downside makes it more possible to keep coal running (and providing inertia to the grid) when there is oversupply from wind/solar. It also makes it easier for wind to find a hedge to avoid needing to curtail because of the negative price. I would suspect that is paid for by either a monetary up front premium, or a more complex contract that also includes the hedge counterparty getting a generous share of price upsides.
00
looking at the Drax Tracker, this seems to be more boasting about a temporary glitch in an otherwise unremarkable wind power story:
18 Jan: CleanTechnica: Joshua S. Hill: UK Wind Power Output Breaks Record, Tops 13 Gigawatts
British electrical power generation company Drax Group runs an independent tracker, Drax Electric Insights, which gathers together the disparate energy sources generating electricity in the UK and analyzes the supply, demand, price, and environmental impacts.
The latest big news from monitoring the Drax Electric Insights tracker was the role that wind energy played in the UK electricity mix over the past week — as can be seen below. Specifically, wind energy output topped 10 gigawatts (GW) on Saturday and continued to climb to top out at 13.5 GW, or 29% of the country’s supply, in the middle of the day on Wednesday…
TWEET: Drax: Drumroll … the actual Great #Britain
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missing from the comment!
TWEET: Drax: Drumroll … the actual Great #Britain
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very odd. twice the remainder of the comment has not appeared. will try one last time, with the full, original comment:
looking at the Drax Tracker, this seems to be more boasting about a temporary glitch in an otherwise unremarkable wind power story:
18 Jan: CleanTechnica: Joshua S. Hill: UK Wind Power Output Breaks Record, Tops 13 Gigawatts
British electrical power generation company Drax Group runs an independent tracker, Drax Electric Insights, which gathers together the disparate energy sources generating electricity in the UK and analyzes the supply, demand, price, and environmental impacts.
The latest big news from monitoring the Drax Electric Insights tracker was the role that wind energy played in the UK electricity mix over the past week — as can be seen below. Specifically, wind energy output topped 10 gigawatts (GW) on Saturday and continued to climb to top out at 13.5 GW, or 29% of the country’s supply, in the middle of the day on Wednesday…
TWEET: Drax: Drumroll … the actual Great #Britain
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same thing has happened for a third time. go to Drax on Twitter or get the url for Clean Technica by searching the headline.
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I was just thinking of a spin line for renewables, how does this sound.
The current extremely heat wave is a consequence of climate change caused by fossil fuelled power stations. To meet this threat fossil fuel must be stopped immediately and replaced with clean renewables this action will stop climate change.
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so gas plants have no running costs now? eh??
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[…] Nova: Australian heat wave adds $400 million to electricity costs The cost of electricity for the 18 and 19 January two day heat wave may be found from data on the […]
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