It’s Santa’s happy hour in electricity land
Finally, No really, renewables are so cheap we can switch to them and change the global climate for free.
This is a new study by the kind of “independent” group that is totally dependent on Big Gov handouts. It compares Australian prices to other obscenely expensive countries and finds that “renewables push down prices”. Compared to what? Not compared to nations with cheap electricity. And not compared to most of the last thirty years in Australia before we added all the unreliable gear.
The tricky graphs clearly baffled Peter Hannam. If only he were a journalist, he could have asked some hard hitting questions and shown this study to be the concocted vaporous PR exercise that it was.
‘No trilemma’: Study finds increased renewables push down power prices
Peter Hannam, Sydney Morning Herald
Renewable energy drives down wholesale power prices well in excess of subsidy costs and a further expansion of wind and solar would likely push them lower still, a study of Australian and European markets shows.
If renewables actually reduced average prices, this would be a first. Around the world, the more intermittent generators you have, the more you have to pay for electricity.
Figure 1 The Y-axis shows residential electricity prices for the second half of 2014 from Eurostat. The X-axis installed wind + solar capacity for 2014 as reported in the 2015 BP statistical review normalised to W per capita using population data for 2014 as reported by the UN. Source: Euan Mearns.
Say it again: there is no country on Earth with lots of solar and wind power and cheap electricity.
We don’t need a tricky model, we just need a graph.
Compared to what?
The findings come as Neoen, owner of the world’s largest lithium battery, claimed the storage unit in South Australia had saved the wholesale market about $40 million in its first year of operation.
The battery, whose capital costs have been reported as $90 million, had saved almost $40 million a year in Frequency Control Ancillary Service, benefiting SA and other regions.
Saved the market how much and compared to what? FCAS or Frequency control service charges hit a record high of $73 million last quarter (AEMO Q3 report, p 16). Has the battery saved us any money at all, or is it just that insanely expensive services could have been insane + $40m more? Wasn’t FCAS essentially free when we just ran with big coal plants?
The renewables research by the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, a hub set up by the Victorian government, examined the wholesales electricity market in South Australia from 2013-18 and compared it with the high-cost energy markets in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Britain.
Plum choice. None of these four nations have cheap electricity. Don’t we want to be cheap compared to… our competitors instead?
It’s a magical time of free money. Finally you can have cake, eat cake, and stabilize the grid with cake
Bruce Mountain, director of the centre and the lead author of the report, said there was no longer an industry trade-off between power prices, reliability and greenhouse gas emissions.
This group could have called itself the “Renewable Energy Industry Lobby Group”.
The Victorian Energy Policy Centre (VEPC) was set up by an organization that says climate change is real and we should spend billions on it. That organization has pegged its bets (and staked its reputation) entirely on a forced renewables transition. It also consumes more than a quarter of the entire state GDP.
The VEPC calls itself “independent” which is the luxury of government funded groups that are permitted to ignore the largest vested interests in their state and pretend it is not a vested interest.
This subsidy we don’t need, shouldn’t stop, and other Soviet bed time stories
The Prof says they don’t need subsidies, but the subsidies “pay for themselves” so therefore the government should do it more and faster. I think we’ve heard this before somewhere…
But Professor Mountain said if the objective is to bring prices down, “you ought to be hastening the entry of cleaner sources more quickly than otherwise would happen”.
“There is no doubt that the market left to itself will bring in wind and solar but if you bring it in more quickly and it can pay for itself so handsomely why would you not seek to do it?” he said, adding that the SA experience would be mirrored in other states such as Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
Indeed, in the non-communist-world, paying for something in advance to earn a greater return is known as “investing”. Since this is supposedly guaranteed free money, obviously Australia does not have entrepreneurs anymore. Either that, or Mountain is spinning a sales job, advertising lemons that don’t sell in the real world, because they don’t work, aren’t competitive and go out of business when the subsidies are cut off.
But who could blame him, Bruce Mountain is in a sense, a de facto employee of The Victorian Government, if he said anything less, they might have to shut down the centre, or at least, cancel next years grant. I’m sure everything he says is true (in a limited sense), and it just didn’t occur to him to compare us to countries with cheap electricity. Sure.
As for subsidies, we all know they prop up inefficient business and destroy jobs. Firstly jobs vanish thanks to the opportunity cost as other businesses close because they can’t afford electricity, then, secondly when the subsidy bubble bursts. The Germans have been cutting their subsidies, and it’s a bloodbath with 80,000 solar jobs gone. In Australia, when there were threats to review the RET scheme 90% of new large scale investments dried up. In China when $15 billion dollars of solar subsides were suddenly axed in June this year, solar stocks fell up to 30% the next day.
Notably, a Chinese academic explained at the time that the Chinese government was cutting the subsidies to make electricity cheaper — the exact opposite of what the Australian academic says. Who to believe? Should the government make investments or leave it to the market? See the Soviet Union versus USA, 20th Century.
One day, Australians hope to be as advanced as the Chinese in free market thinking for our electricity grid.
Back when Australian electricity was $30 a megawatt hour…
Renewables are so cheap that our wholesale electricity prices have tripled. For years the Australian NEM kept around a middling price of $30 per megawatt hour. Now it’s $90.
So try to make sense of this sentence:
In 2018, average wholesale spot prices in SA were $38 per megawatt-hour cheaper because of renewables, easily triple the $11/MWh cost of subsidies, the report found.
Cheaper than what? That’s a cost savings supposedly larger than the total cost used to be.
But when you are on a flimsy analogy, run with it!
“We estimate that expanding wind generation will reduce wholesale prices at the rate of around 9¢ per MWh, per one MWh of additional wind generation,” it said. “For solar – almost all of which has so far been on household roofs – we estimate the wholesale price reduction at the rate of around 26¢/MWh, per one MWh of additional solar production.”
Don’t believe your lying eyes:
Australian Wholesale Electricity prices, NEM 1999 –2017 | Click to enlarge | Graph from WattClarity.com.au.
Same for retail prices in Australia
Electricity prices were stable for a quarter of a century. Then we introduced renewables in a big way. Must be a coincidence…
Indexed Real Consumer Electricity Prices, Australia, 1955-2017.
The Sydney Morning Herald obviously serves its readers so well that subscriptions have gone through the roof, I hear the historic masthead was bought out and handed over to Channel Nine today.
It’s stories like these that get them there.
Note the disclaimer on the VCEP report: Scientific research may be incomplete
Disclaimer: The Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University advise that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research. The reader is advised and needs to be aware that such information may be incomplete or unable to be used in any specific situation. No reliance or actions must therefore be made on that information without seeking prior expert professional, scientific and technical advice. To the extent permitted by law, the Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University (including its employees and consultants) exclude all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and any other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using this publication (in part or in whole) and any information or material contained in it.
Publisher: Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
No kidding.
Handy questions journalists could’ve asked
- Is there any country around the world which has a high penetration of intermittent renewables and cheap electricity? Name them…
- Why didn’t the VEPC study compare Australia to the USA? The chief of BlueScope steel says energy costs are ten times less in the USA.
- If renewables are so cheap, why do so few companies invest in them without subsidies? (See subsidy withdrawals in Germany, China, Spain, UK and Australia).
- If renewables are so cheap, why is China secretly building more coal power plants?
- Australian electricity wholesale costs were around $30 per MWh for years on the national grid, then we added renewables. Shouldn’t the prices have gone down?
- If this study was supposed to calculate the comparative cost of renewables why did the VEPC ignore decades of our electricity price history. It seems like such an obvious thing to do?
- Did the VEPC take into account the hidden costs of intermittent power — how the irregular supply affects other generators and raises their costs? eg.Stacy, 2015, showed wind generation makes gas power 30% more expensive.
REFERENCE:
Associate Professor Bruce Mountain, Dr Steven Percy, Dr Asli Kars, Adjunct Associate Professor Hugh Saddler and Farhad Billimoria (2018) Does renewable electricity generation reduce electricity prices? Victoria Energy Policy Centre.
AEMO Quarterly Energy Dynamics, Q3, 2018
Stacy, T. Taylor, G. (2015) The Levelized Cost of Electricity from Existing Generation Sources, Institute for Energy Research (IER), based on EIA figures in the USA.
There is the real tragedy. It gives their whole report an unearned verisimilitude designed to confuse and obfuscate the real situation.
More simply put, “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!”
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I think that they meant based on scientific malfeasance.
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I must have hit on a nerve having won the thumbs down race. They must already know that they can’t win based on the IPCC’s malfeasant pseudo-science which is why they’re afraid to engage. But then again, if they’ve been paying attention, they have good reason to fear the scientific truth.
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Its simple….if a person or business provides misleading information with intent, it could be said it has a case to answer regards market manipulation or straight deception …. there are laws againt that…
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Original Steve: If only it were that simple. Here in US, it’s complicated by “laws against that” being enforced against possible rivals to Hillary (like Gen. Patreus, who would have easily won presidency as a D in 2016 except law was strictly enforced against him) or supporters of Trump (like Gen Flynn); but not enforced against Hillary or her staff. Unfortunately for Ds (but good for everybody including Ds), they learned too late that treating “straight deceptions” from Hillary as a feature instead of a bug was a losing proposition.
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I was out doing my Christmas shopping and was thinking of buying ten odd Telsla Model 3s for my relatives. This would help save the planet from global warming by replacing their ICE cars. It was at that moment I saw that they would be forced to keep their ICE cars otherwise they would be dependent upon renewables to power up their Teslas and it would mean no reliable car. My present would force hardship on my relatives who are all bleating about what a total reprobate I am for getting my money from fossil fuels.
My name is Greedy Australia. Just call me Greed for short.
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Geoff:
it’s probably just as well you didn’t succumb to that huge temptation. At the rate Teslas catch fire, you would soon start losing relatives. That’s not something which is mentioned in the sales brochure. Nor do I know if the insurance companies have noticed that little peccadillo … yet.
Have you ever wondered why each purchase of a Tesla requires you to sign a non-disclosure agreement?
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No: not so—It’s incomplete scientific research on exactly the same basis that the IPCC leaves out 99.9% of the Sun’s magnetic activity but includes the 0.1%. TSI variation.
C’mon guys. Get it right! That too is based on incomplete scientific research but the IPCC doesn’t say that. Instead they invoke The Solar Constant.
The Solar Constant. Yep, pretty good for a known variable star! 🙂
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“Renewable energy drives down wholesale power prices well in excess of subsidy costs.” Excellent. Abolish subsidies NOW.
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these sort of reports are a gift to eg the LNP. here in QLD all the PM would have to say on a visit would be, well here we have a report that states renewables reduce power prices, and the QLD government is going to require 50% renewables. private industry requires no more incentive than to be able to compete in that market to fund such projects itself. no more subsidies are required.
any complaints by private industry such as the solar/wind/battery people can be referred directly to the report. any complaints by opposition can be directly referred to the report. any complaints by media heads can be referred to the report.
stick to the report like glue, and see how fast it is disowned.
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Yes, abolish them.
They want certainty for the electricity market.
How can there be certainty with subsidies that could change at any time.
No subsidies means certainty.
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Some decades back it was decided that there would be state-directed capitalism on both sides of the world. The state-directed capitalism of China was to be based on massive production, that of the developed West on massive consumption. Clever people like Henry Kissinger knew why. (Are you clever? I thought not.) It was easier to get a massive slave state to do the producing gig. It’s never hard to talk people into consuming.
It was about free trade, you see. Free trade means you finesse the hell out of all kinds of debts, concessions, regulations, cartels, subsidies and the like to make people and nations behave the way clever people think they should. If people and nations don’t behave like good neo-liberal free trade types you starve them of all trade in a most illiberal fashion. (Only do this if you have the option to clobber them militarily. So get a military budget the size of Texas and a covert military budget for…I dunno…going to Mars or something?)
Oh, and if anybody complains about industrial wastelands, degraded infrastructure, unbalanced national economies, societal dislocation, crumbling borders and so on, just remind them how much their real estate is worth. They always like that.
Above all, say it’s all being done for the planet thingy, which reacts really badly to the CO2 of white Europeans. Must be all the milk we drink. Burn Aussie coal in Asia and there’s no prob. We’re too lactic!
And remember: there’s always Mars.
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Not to worry, by prediction is that theres oil on Mars too.
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“Anything succeeds or fails based on irrelevant standards”.
Dr. Thomas Sowell
It appears Dr. Sowell is onto something…….
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Bruce Mountain, making a mountain out of a mole hill, claims that intermittent, subsidy -bolstered, renewable energy,(supported behind the scenes by 24/7 fossil fuel energy ramping up and down) must be cheaper!
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Bruce Mountain wouldn’t come to the profit so the profit went to Bruce Mountain.
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A major factor in rising electricity bills is the closure of old power stations. Something old has to close? Nooooo, imagine the chaos and cost if there were closure of old roads and railway stations.
The lowest cost grid has to be based on a small number of power stations that continue forever via refurbishment. Sadly “Greens” have been successful in pushing anti-corporation memes with zero rational basis, such as old things have to close, and the grid has to be “distributed”.
But, to get this low cost grid you have to have some central planning, the modern obsession with free market competition is also part of the problem.
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Or forcing perfectly good internal combustion engine vehicles off the roads and into the scrap yards.
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One theory, and not a bad one, is that as soon as you buy any product it becomes local. Sell an old Toyota or VW and you are selling a wholly Australian-owned product to an Australian. This is not something ever likely to show up in corporate success figures, nor is the scrapping of usable machinery deemed to be “wasting the planet’s resources”, though that is exactly what it is.
This is why Big Green goes hand-in-hand with corporations, despite the odd tiff. Think of the corporate gains to be made by scrapping France’s entire car fleet. This time it’s because of naughty diesel, last time it was naughty gasoline. Next time it will be naughty lithium and naughty cobalt from naughty mines in Bolivia and Congo.
Programmed scrapping, sub-prime financing, forced consumption…The carpet-bags all come in an alluring shade of deep green these days, but they’re otherwise unchanged.
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Virginia, do you mean to tell me there’s no Santa Claus? How dare you?
Then where do all the free goodies come from, not only at Christmas but the year round?
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, whether you like it or not. He steals from those who have to give to those who have not. Isn’t that the way it’s always been done?
I believe the “experts” call it social justice. It’s the “in” thing right now. Just listen to Nancy Pelosi if you don’t believe me. She’s the chief spokesperson for Santa these days, just as she was 2 years ago.
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The only problem is that once I thought that guy’s name was Robin Hood. Well Errol Flynn couldn’t live forever I guess. 😉
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And if you don’t understand any of this, that’s alright. It just means you aren’t old enough yet. So rejoice in your innocence while you can. It’s hard enough to keep these days without mention of characters you never heard of.
Oops, gotta run again. Here come those pesky men with the big net.
Why do they always show up when I’m having so much fun?
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He was replaced by Russell Crowe who plays Russell Crowe in many movies.
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Well, he’s better at that than some.
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Who plays Russell Crowe?
lol
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Dennis,
we just don’t know who plays Russell Crowe. We haven’t managed to get that far into the onion. Yet.
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Who is Russell Crowe?!
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Russell Crowe is a New Zealand film actor who starred in the film Gladiator. (18 years ago.)
He’s since starred in a few others but they were so memorable I can’t remember which ones they were.
Oh yes, he was in Master and Commander.
I think he owns a patch of the millionaire’s paradise of Queenstown, the most expensive land in New Zealand in the South Island mountains where it snows every winter. Near Lake Tekapo, but sensibly lives somewhere warmer like in Rose Bay Sydney which is somewhere in New South Wales.
His second major claim to fame was being the cousin of one of New Zealand’s famous cricketers … Martin Crowe, I think it was … Apparently he has a bit of a temper, having thrown the odd semi-public tantrum.
Still an NZ citizen …
Umm, does that help?
[Please, can we take this to the Midweek Unthreaded? Too far OT – Jo]
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I was vaguely aware that he was a film star type, but as I hardly ever bother with films, especially with those sort of titles (!), I wouldn’t have a clue as to what he looks like!
As a teenager I could never see why my peers put up posters of pop and film stars…yuk. I was always aware of how much self-centred falsity was there in any pics and posters they had.
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I think I saw Russell Crowe land on my lawn yesterday to eat some poor dead thing. If that’s not the right RC then you’re on your own.
He seems to be of no more consequence than any other bird.
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And then I saw your comment, Jo. Sorry.
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Roy
Time to rerun this
https://starecat.com/santa-claus-before-you-make-fun-of-children-for-believing-in-me-remember-there-are-adults-who-still-believe-in-socialism/
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Apropos of the season for sure. I still hope Santa will stop at my place if for no other reason than that I’ve been nice rather than naughty all year long. 😉
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The RET (Renewable Energy Theft) works the opposite way in Australia. It takes from the poor electricity consumers and gives to the more wealthy owners of grid scale intermittent and rooftop solar.
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With the indulgence of Ho and mods – Roy, I have a question. I watched Trump battle with Nancy over border control this morning (talk about dumb democrats ignoring evidence). It seems to me that the wall reduces effort everywhere and in the long term will save billions. It (Australia saved about 3b a year and rising by closing our leaky border to welfare seekers). It also occurred to me that many Americans might be willing to donate to a wall fund if it were set up. If trump did that, it would also be very embarrassing to democrats.
Why doesn’t the president prosecute the economic argument (the savings to taxpayers) or arrange to build it privately using donations.
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Ur, Sorry Jo autocorrect got abusive…
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Auto correct or typo Bob? After all H is right next to J on the keyboard!
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Auto correct, I swiped jo and it inserted Ho , missed it as I was swiping
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In that the CIA agent who lied her head off at the Kavanaugh hearings creamed a cool million from crowd funding, the dough for the wall should be a piece of cake.
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Bob,
Sorry to be so late witH a non answer. I really don’t know why the president does some of the tings he does or doesn’t do some of the things he doesn’t do.
A wall has one weakness, they all know how to dig so I’m not sure how much benefit we would get in the long run.
Personally I’m of the opinion that armed marines would soon stop the march northward when it becomes known that no one will get across the border. This march of trespassers is an orchestrated attack and we are at war. Is it just coincidence that they all come to a crossing point that leads to the promised land of California? I doubt it.
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The heavy lifting of making carbon based fuels unprofitable is the LGC (ROC in England). If you buy carbon based electricity, you have to buy these certificates. You do not have to pay if you buy wind power. As the certificates are $65-$85 a MWhr, that is 6.5 to 8.5c a kw hr. If you cannot find LGCs, you have to pay a fine of 6.5c kw/hr.
So carbon based power is the proposed retail of say 4.5c kw/hr plus 6.4c kw/hr or 11c kwhr to buy. That means wind suppliers have no price pressure at all. They can charge at least 11c kw/hr. As well they get say 8.5c kwhr anyway, even if they do not sell. So they get 19.5c kw/hr while the carbon producer gets 4.5c kw/hr. For the same thing sold at the same price.
On top of that, the carbon producer has to pay the State government a Royalty for coal, gas, oil. The State government does not charge for wind. It’s not as if one is free and one is not. It’s just that one is taxed and one is not. Both are free so it is another Carbon tax.
And we are told wind is cheap? It is not taxed. They get paid even if they do not sell. Plus they do not have to compete with a far cheaper source.
This is all designed to economically destroy carbon fuels while pushing billions of our cash without our knowledge to anyone who agrees to build wind or solar. Why would wind or solar be cheaper? They get billions in cash for existing, pay no State taxes, get direct grants, have no competition and you have to buy their product, even if you don’t want it, like suburban lunchtime solar.
It gets sillier. As an example, the community based Hepburn Wind group despite their profits managed to post a loss by claiming depreciation on ‘their’ two windmills, as if they paid for them when we did. So they were able to pay of ‘their’ windmill ten years early and get a tax free break on depreciation on ‘their’ investment. In fact thanks to the LGCs, you bought they windmill, you pay for LGCs as well as the electricity and they still get $800K a year of additional cash and a tax free break of $400K a year depreciating their windmills. They have just also received $500,000 of government money (your money) to build a solar farm. When does this stop?
South Australia’s only plastics recycler was forced to close last year because they could not afford the electricity. 35 people lost their jobs. However an unattended windmill receives $800,000 in cash just for existing plus the world’s highest electricity prices plus full $400,000 depreciation tax deduction on an investment for which the buyers of coal power paid. Why? This all started with a clever Act of Federal Parliament which took over private electricity pricing by law in 2000 to force us to pay for their dreams of a landscape covered in windmills and solar panels neither of which work on a hot still summer night.
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The other bit of market-rigging is that renewables get priority over fossil fuels. That is any electricity generated by the turbines is purchased and fed into the grid – except for exceptional circumstances in the UK when they are paid to stop the fans. The coal-fired power stations are only paid for electricity demanded. Any person an understanding of fixed and variable costs will realize that as renewables increase, coal-fired power plant utilization will decrease and therefore unit costs of electricity will go up.
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It’s called creative pricing and creative marketing.
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And creative political policy
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I was amazed to read that you have exactly the same ripoff in the UK. ROCs. Currentlyh £45.58 for 1MwHr. Buried in the 2008 Climate Change bill created by the scientists at “Friends of the Earth” and enthusiastically endorsed by most in parliament.
You cannot compare non competing power sources when you are paying one to be built and even just to exist and taxing the other out of existence, without actually legislating a tax. So illegally, or at least against the principles established by Magna Carta, a prohibition on the forced enrichment of third parties.
Few parliamentarians in the world would dare vote against such virtue signalling, especially as no one knows about the massive carbon tax in effect and it is outside the government revenue and budget.
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The ROC rate is high, but the number of ROCs per megawatt varies. Offshore wind gets 2 ROCs and onshore wind 0.9. Burning wood pellets (biomass) in converted coal-fired power stations earns 1 ROC. The largest power station in the UK is Drax B, which had a capacity of 3.9 GW when it burnt coal. Now two-thirds is converted to burning wood pellets imported from the USA. The ROC roughly doubles revenue per megawatt. Drax is listed on the Stock Exchange, and the Power Station is almost the entirety of its business. The 5-year financial history has seen revenues rise from £2062m in 2013 to £3685m in 2017. Underlying profit after tax has declined from £142m to £3m. Even the massive subsidies cannot stop the profit decline. Despite not reducing its CO2 emissions it is now part of the global energy revolution.
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Sniff sniff. Smells like the World Bank …
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An amazing summary, thanks.
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When any group provides analyses of costs they should be prepared to sign off that it is a true and fair view. Like professionals they should aim for objectivity.
However, attempts at objectivity require some comprehension of the difference between the positive and normative. That is between fact and opinion. For academics who use complex models with unjustifiable assumptions, then do not sense-check the outputs, aiming for objectivity is not just totally alien, but threatening to their world-view.
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It turns out constraining carbon (sic) from the atmosphere with solar panels and windmills is a truly lousy way of stopping carbon (sic) induced zombie cyclones …
The Bureau of Meteorology says the so-called zombie cyclone, located northwest of Mornington Island, is expected to intensify further after it redeveloped into a category one system on Tuesday night, AAP reports.
Forecasters have doubled down on their weather warnings for the week ahead saying a “triple threat” from the cyclone in the north and a strong low pressure system in the south could lead to the “biggest weather event for eastern Australia” since at least March.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/residents-in-remote-queensland-warned-as-zombie-cyclone-owen-intensifies/news-story/37bfae00fcad59a1a7a1fd0fe71805df
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Of course.
You could triple the number of solar panels in Queensland, raise the cost of energy, and you couldn’t prevent a zombie cyclone, as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reminded us …
0.17: “I can’t control the weather.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbhVrb7zMs&feature=youtu.be
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Maybe someone should ask super chook why all the billions we’ve paid hasn’t prevented all the cyclones?
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Why do I hear the jovial elites singing?
Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye……
We got the Schools,
We got the Health care,
We got the energy,
and you got squat.
Vote for me and I’ll set you free……
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Ask Macron how that worked out for him…
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“Renewable energy drives down wholesale power prices well in excess of subsidy costs and a further expansion of wind and solar would likely push them lower still…”
Peter Hannam needs a holiday. A trip to Paris should do the trick.
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Actually a 8 week compulsory working holiday in France for all Fairfax journalists would I think sort out a lot of their ideological stupidities…
Maybe Channel 9 could organise it ?
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In rural France, at local wages. Visits to wineries prohibited.
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Green Santa won’t be happy with Bill Gates …
“How are you going to make steel”? warmist BillGates defends fossil energy without actually saying the words “fossil energy” …
“Here’s Tokyo, you have 27M people.
You have 3 days of a cyclone, basically every year.
It’s 22GW over 3 days.
(Laughing) Tell me what battery solution is going to sit there and provide power?
I mean, let’s not joke around, your multiple orders of magnitude, oh, $100 per kilowatt, that’s nothing.
That doesn’t solve the reliability problem.”
via twitter: https://twitter.com/dmichie66/status/1071847554650857472
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Without delving into the Twittersphere……
…i would have thought BG would have been promoting his own modular Nuclear system,..rather than Fossil fuels ?
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Although we can and do blame the MSM for spreading propaganda and lies resulting in too many people to make the wrong decisions, the people themselves have the responsibility to think and decide whether the MSM is telling the truth or not. After all we all know the MSM can and do get many things totally wrong. The MSM can say anything they like. They can for example say the earth is flat. It does not mean the people should automatically believe it’s true. According to a recent survey 4% of young millennials aged 18 to 24 believe the earth is flat and a further 14 percent showed scepticism in either direction. Another 16 percent simply ticked the “other/not sure” box. So there are a fair amount of people who don’t believe the earth is not flat. With those sort of statistics it’s no wonder the MSM have such an easy time convincing so many people of many other untruths. People need to wake up to themselves and use their noggin and do their own research – but they won’t. Hence things will have to get much more painful before more noggins are kicked started into life.
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We follow each other because it is not possible to check every fact. Not everyone even has ability to do it.
In a well-known study people are asked which of tree sticks A, B and C is the longest – They are 3 cm, 2 cm and 1 cm in that order. So, A is clearly the longest and C shortest. If the starter strongly claims the C is the longest, high proportion of the others agree with him. But if we have one denier in the group, the others start to believe in their eyes. This why MSM tries to get rid of the dissidents.
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So instead we are to give into postmodernists who are not committed to explaining their reasoning? Here’s a bewildering conversation with postmodern philosopher, Laurie Calhoun,
“When I had occasion to ask her whether or not it was a fact that giraffes are taller than ants, she replied that it was not a fact, but rather an article of religious faith in our culture.”
This explains how absurd it is for people not to do their own research to assess the truthfulness of MSM so called “facts”.
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You have to put the three sticks in a proper perspective. Meaningless measurements should be ignored, and perpetrators punished.
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‘Manufacturers and heavy industry may be forced to shift operations overseas or shut down as energy prices soar.’ Oz
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Given many other high costs they have to endure I’m surprised they are still here. I suspect not much longer as countries like China and India continue to build 100’s of coal fired power stations. Makes me wonder how long it will be before we have to import everything, including food and water. This nation is often called the lucky country. Not any more that’s for sure.
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‘This nation is often called the lucky country.’
Donald Horne meant that to be ironic, we have an abundance of resources but useless politicians managing it.
Talk to me about Whyalla and what you think Cory will say?
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I don’t read minds. Ask him.
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Dear Cory,
As you know the Whyalla consortium want to turn that town into a real satellite city with 80,000 people. At first they intend to appease the Gaia worshippers with renewables, but the next generation will require something a little stronger.
What to do?
20
Gupta’s track record is of doing what is necessary to get things done and the business profitable. He will do the same in Wyalla.
00
They being what’s left after UN Lima Agreement to transfer manufacturing industry to third world (like China and India) countries, signed by the Whitlam Union Labor Government in 1975.
30
In Theory renewables work well provided it’s a sunny day 24/7 and it’s windy 24/7 but alas that never ever happens requiring extra sources of generation or supply .
So you
70
Unreliable Energy admission?
The recommendations that came out of Poland was to increase the number of electric trains and trams and to announce that they will decrease coal to 60% in the next ten to fifteen years or so replaced by ‘renewables’ but with nuclear power.
Morning Mail
40
I wonder if I might crack some dozer work on the track construction when our main road goes electric?
“Electric dozer?” you say? “Electric powerline?” I say
Well Cat is selling them but they still have diesels at the front.
20
The belief that renewables will push down prices is just so typical of the ALP+Greens who perhaps will soon be our political masters. Yet France is giving us a front row seat of what happens when we let such political tendencies into power. I just shake my head why are we so stupid? As Stefan below says for France we might find ourselves saying the same thing about Australia very soon.
France: Burn Till You Learn!
70
Australia only nation to join US at pro-coal event at COP24 climate talks
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/11/australia-only-nation-to-join-us-at-pro-coal-event-at-cop24-climate-talks?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
130
So mark..Does it bother you ?
It does not bother me.
100
The sooner the Australian Government stands with President Trump’s America the better.
ANZUS Treaty and AJAPUS too.
United we stand.
90
What about USMCA?
20
Spealing of politicians in trouble, I notice, right on cue, a shooting in France as a timely ( ahem ) distraction from Macrons yellow vest trouble……..as predicted….
At least it wasnt a war….but that could kuck off between russia and the USA if the USA Deep State has its way….the US Deep State are stupid- the russians have warned them they can put the USA to sleep, and Id believe the russians on that one. They likely have Scalar tech as well, which can dud nukes, so….
40
Yep, Russia is ahead by far in missile tech.
21
‘The ANZUS treaty recognised that an armed attack in the Pacific area on one member would endanger the peace and safety of the others. … After the war the Americans wanted Japan to remain strong as a barrier to the spread of communism in East Asia.’
The communists are walking through the front door with bags of money, time to get real.
We should scrap ANZUS and replace America with Indonesia.
10
Having read the summary of “Does renewable electricity generation reduce electricity prices?” by Associate Professor Bruce Mountain, Dr Steven Percy, Dr Asli Kars, Adjunct Associate Professor Hugh Saddler and Farhad Billimoria (from AEMO), I think I now understand why they selected SA to arrive at their conclusion.
Figure E2 in their report explains it all. SA’s only current options to meet electricity demand are high priced gas using combined cycle and open cycle gas/desel turbines and wind/solar. They no longer have coal as an option.
Dr Finkel reported levelised costs as follows:
Wind $92/MWhr (no backup)
Combined Cycle Gas Turbine $83/MWhr
Open Cycle Gas Turbine $123/MWhr
Supercritical Coal $76/MWhr (unavailable in SA)
SA baseload is currently supplied by combined cycle gas turbines at Pelican Point, Osborne, and Torrens, but then they must rely on high cost open cycle gas and diesel turbines – and when wind is available it therefore lowers the spot price compared to open cycle gas or diesel. But that ignores the fact that when the wind doesn’t blow you must retain 100% gas capability to meet peak evening demand, so SA consumers are being forced to pay for the investment in wind generators and the backup gas/diesel generators – double the investment, therefore higher prices overall. SA wholesale price is currently $93/MWhr, but that excludes the impact of renewable certificates on the retail price, and the added network infrastructure costs to cope with a highly variable intermittent and distributed generation system.
Their study would be of greater value if they had built their model to include coal – perhaps they could study the impact of the closure of Hazelwood coal station on wholesale electricity prices in Victoria – an increase from $30-40/MWhr to $90/MWhr despite 1700 MW of wind nameplate capacity with more to come. They indicate that a broader study is forthcoming.
120
They would be bl**dy lucky to get Open Cycle gas turbine generation at that price. Some time ago the operators were ‘reluctant’ to bid for supply under $300 per MWh.
50
You are forgetting their back up guarantee…. The Vic interconnector !
Not only does it provide essential backup for when wind/solar , but it also provides a “sink” for excess power fluctuations, letting the gas geny’s keep rolling instead of shutting off.
00
‘ Frequency control service”..Ummmmm now that is an interesting issue.
There was a time when the frequency of the power was mandated by the rules of the state power authorities.
This was to ensure that the electricity provided by generators was ‘good quality’ power.. After all what’s the point of buying power which shorts out electrical equipment in our homes or businesses ? In fact I suspect that doing so would would ahve made the generation company liable for the damages caused.
But wind & solar cannot provide power which id good quality.It crap power with varying frequencies..So now we have a new ‘industry’ which provides “Frequency control service”
At an extra charge of course.
What crap artists !
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Bill,
The importance of frequency control
Years agone, in a small town with its own diesel power supply, one of the resident publicservants was supplied with the mandatory mains synchronous electric clock.
On the one day of the week when it was used it was religiously set correctly at 9 am, and the officer departed religiously at 5 pm.
That was his golf day.
50
So ? I think you missed my point Ian.
Or maybe wanted to make your own.
But crap power from wind & solar which needs it’s frequency sorting out before we can use it is so, so DUMB !
Of course folks often just go & get another TV or computer or kettle or stove or whatever on warranty or maybe just fork out cash again…and again …and again. and again….
70
Bill
By the standards of today that was crap power.
But it was power and a lot better than what went before.
Also that “off frequencies” can be useful
10
Way back about then Birdsville also had power from a Pelton wheel on the bore.
Attended a movie there one summer night. Projector mounted in the hall doorway, pointed at the screen out in the street, with the seats there also.
The video part worked ok, the sound not so much.
Again I presume the 50 cps was more or less.
10
Perhaps of interest.
The “mains” follow the load. Providing voltage, frequency, and reactive power as necessary to stabilise the grid.
Wind and Solar “follow” the mains voltage and frequency.
Therefore, they provide nothing towards either voltage or frequency stability.
Without the synchronous thermal plants, there is nothing for the solar and wind stations to “follow”.
If there is a voltage drop at the mains due to inductive loads, that must be compensated by injecting reactive power.
Grid operators may dispatch reactive power from a synchronous thermal plant. Solar and wind plants cannot do that.
Grid stability is wholly dependent upon synchronous thermal plants. Period. The End. QED.
130
Peter Hannam is so ideologically wedded to renewable energy that he is unable to function as a journalist – that is, report the facts and leave everything else to speculative discussion by others.
Instead, like a lot of green writers, he is a blinkered advocate with no interest in the pea and thimble tricks that are the RET and the deliberately opaque renewables costs.
For his reference, the true cost of renewable energy is:
construction costs amortised over working life
+operating costs including maintenance and replacement costs
+grid connection costs amortised over working life
+grid voltage/frequency stabilisation costs
+conventional generation standby/backup costs (capital+operating)
and not one mention of any subsidy.
171
Great outline.
50
DaveR
Plus don’t forget, intermittent power makes every other kind of generator operate at a lower efficiency, and thus be more expensive.
Plus there are ramping costs – to cope with the higher level of volatility and more rapid changes in load.
Plus we need to totally rewrite the rules for our auction-market. At the moment the highest winning bid sets the price for all winning generators — so there is an incentive to get rid of the cheapest bidders. When conglomerates own coal-gas-wind etc part of their portfolio is going to profit if they close another part of their portfolio.
EG AGL and Liddell. Who wants $250m for an assett when it’s worth more to throw it in the trash?
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Jo,
A wonderful summary in the last bit on “handy questions for Journalists”.
You can explain the science until you go blue in the face, but asking them to explain The Reality of Renewables puts the onus on them.
Realities like, our industry closing and moving offshore.
KK
110
Jo,
A wonderful summary in the last bit on “handy questions for Journalists”.
You can explain the science until you go blue in the face, but asking them to explain The Reality of Renewables puts the onus on them.
Realities like, our industry closing and moving offshore.
KK
40
I’m sorry, I’ll read that again…
50
Touche
20
Attempting to get reality from these people was shown recently when Andrew Bolt interviewed Bill Shorten.
When told that he could be shown a graph showing that cyclone frequency was dropping according to BOM figures, Bill replied “would you like to see my graph?”.
I was left wondering where Bill is getting his info if the Australian BOM are not a good enough source for him.
As the state of the climate is the reason for the insistence that we move to renewables, there needs to be more questions asked of our betters to get some specifics from them as to their sources.
Unfortunately, getting a straight answer from a pollie is impossible.
10
is Hannam dumber than theirABC’s Jackson Gothe-Snape, who writes that electricity bills have only gone up a third (or 35%) IN A DECADE? anyone agree?
22 Nov: ABC: Power bill pressures vs emissions vs reliability: Behind the new election battleground
By political reporter Jackson Gothe-Snape
***In the past decade, people are paying ***one third more than they used to in order to keep the lights on…
***Over the past 10 years, Australians have opened their energy bills to see an increase of ***35 per cent.
***That would be even higher were it not for a general reduction in electricity use over this time…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-22/australian-energy-market-explained-price-emissions-reliability/10499256
40
Electricity prices rises – see Jo’s chart above. In the last decade consumer electricity index per ABS has risen from 100 to 195. Perhaps Gothe-Snape had a simple typo – 35% instead of 95%. Or was it more fake news? Repeat after me 100 times: “Renewables are cheaper then fossils.”
50
Pat, two points there — householders with solar pay low “off peak” rates and got a subsidized installation.
Secondly, householders without solar use less and less electricity. Bills may have only gone up by a third, but people are using air conditioners less, and spending more on light globes and other things.
Hence analyzing “bills” alone hides the other costs — lower productivity, higher indoor temps in summer, lower temps in winter (potentially increasing mortality and flu/virus cases), poor sleep due to LED lighting, expenses to reduce electricity use, etc etc. Stress due to lower disposable income.
100
The following paragraph from VEPC paper gives insights into how they determine that more wind energy lowers wholesale price:
Essentially it is looking at the variation in wholesale price as wind output goes up and down. Unsurprisingly it finds that as wind generation increases, the wholesale price falls. It then concludes that that more wind generators will lower the wholesale price although acknowledging that the price reduction will be less as the proportion of intermittent production increases.
It does acknowledge that solar, in particular, is harming base load generation:
The only truly reliable form of flexible generation in Australia is gas. So intermittents are acknowledged as squeezing out coal for gas.
The paper is highly flawed with incredibly skewed conclusion. It draws conclusion from looking at the wholesale price response to variations in wind generation. It does not attempt to consider the cost impact of substituting coal generation with more flexible gas; the cost of system stability services; the cost of additional transmission and distribution infrastructure or the cost of mandated transfer payments from consumers to intermittent generators.
With faulty thinking like this it is inevitable that there is a long way to go before reality strikes. It is such a simplistic perspective. Look at the wind generation output on any day and see wholesale price fall as wind picks up and price increase as wind dies down – conclude that more wind capacity will lower wholesale price. This is what politicians are being fed.
The paper examined various US markets but the price comparisons were only made with countries have high penetration of intermittents. Price comparisons with the USA markets would have caused the conclusion to be seriously questioned.
80
RickWill, thanks, this kind of analysis is useful. I have yet to get my teeth into that paper properly. I read enough to know it was model based, chose SA, trimmed out “spikes” and ignored cheap coal power nations.
It appears the Andrews government paid for an “independent” authority to write a foregone conclusion. Mountain got his PhD last week, I mean last year. Now he’s an Assoc Prof, so he can be introduced on TV as a Prof.
Nobody mentions that he spent ten years running CME — . “Director, Carbon and Energy Markets and co-founder, [MI] Retail Energy. Energy economist with specialism in regulatory economics”
He’s an engineer (who should know better) and accountant with a PhD in (….?) which explains why he doesn’t have a clue about the flaws of a Keynesian economics and can state with a straight face that the subsidies “make money” and therefore the government should do more of it. Why don’t we just nationalize all corporations and let the government “make money”? Can’t think…
His PhD? “His PhD from Victoria University was on the political economy of energy regulation in Australia”
90
Ahhh yes Victoria University..The University some folks in Victoria have to go to because they can’t get accepted into Melbourne or Monash or RMIT or Swinbourne or even proudly leftish Latrobe…. 🙁
20
this would help enumerates…not!
AUDIO: 5min: 11 Dec: 6pr: Greens Pledge Free Tertiary Education Ahead of Federal Election
by Oliver Peterson
They are proposing free undergraduate university degrees and TAFE qualifications as part of an education plan that the party says would transform Australia.
Today Oliver Peterson spoke to WA Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John about the five point plan they’ll be taking to the next federal election…
https://www.6pr.com.au/podcast/greens-pledge-free-tertiary-education-ahead-of-federal-election/
Greens ‘bias’ alleged on ABC radio’s RN Breakfast
The Australian-9 hours ago
The ABC’s flagship radio program faces accusations of Greens bias after it was revealed that RN Breakfast hosted double the number of interviews with Australian Greens senators this year compared with Labor senators and crossbenchers…
12 Dec: Bolt blog: WHO IS THE ABC’S CONSERVATIVE FRAN KELLY?
And those chats with Greens are friendly (LINK)…
An ABC submission to a Senate estimates hearing shows Labor senators were interviewed on Fran Kelly’s program 11 times from November last year up to October, compared with 24 Greens senator interviews.
Government senators have been on air with RN Breakfast 48 times, and crossbench senators 16 times, despite their holding the balance of power.
That last figure is changing fast. Kelly has been extraordinarily keen on interviewing Left-wing independent Kerryn Phelps, who pushes many of Kelly’s own political positions. Those interviews have all sounded like friends chatting…
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/who-is-the-abcs-conservative-fran-kelly/news-story/b46b1ad8a92b6fea642e5460894aff3d
30
Perhaps one way to make people aware of how much money is being ripped off their electricity bills is to itemize them.
1. Daniel Andrews tripled the price of coal from $100 a tonne to $300 a tonne. It forced the closure of Hazelwood. Show coal costs to the government on the bill. This at least is a State Government income.
2. Show RET costs on the bill. Then you will see that you are paying half your electricity bill for the RET and the markups on the RET by your electricity retailer. Of course you get nothing from this.
3. Show how much your electricity retailer is forced to pay for solar power they have to buy. This money goes to people who get an income from you. Often for this you get nothing.
Then people might get an understanding of why we have the world’s highest electricity prices with the world’s most energy rich country per head of population, after perhaps Saudi Arabia. This mess only started with #2, the Federal Government’s takeover of electricity prices to save the planet from ‘Global Warming’.
120
Massive increased costs of these fuels is how they intend to inhibit their use. So all coal , gas power plants will be forced to close regardless.
30
Hmm!
I was just wondering.
How does something (wind and solar) that only delivers between 8% and 10% of all generated power ….. lower the electricity prices?
See the text and the graphs below the data from Monday’s daily electrical Post.
Australian Daily Electrical Power Generation Data – Monday 10th December 2018
Tony.
150
How?
Because:
The costs of operation, maintenance, and distribution of power across the mains is billed to utilities, not to intermittents.
The costs of throttling back a fully capable thermal generator plant are not costed to the intermittents.
The costs of running “hot, ready, thermal, standby, power 24/7/365” just in case there is a drop in wind or a cloudy day, are not costed out to the intermittents.
In simplistic terms, the “actual costs” of stabilizing the grid are not costed out properly according to which source is causing those costs. Further on, the intermittent suppliers and users are not properly billed for their “use” of the existing infrastructure which is paid for by ratepayers without subsidy.
The entire costing model is flawed, a lie, and and utter propaganda.
Quite sure that Tony understands all of this. I’m just attempting to partially answer the question asked.
40
On second thought, Tony, it is because:
The AU Govt has wrested control of the national grid and national economy for political gain at the expense of the populace.
Only utter Morons would crash an otherwise stable power grid for the sake of navel gazing illusions. But Politicians are not Morons, they are power hungry, greedy, parasitic, traitors. ( might have missed a few things but you get the drift)
Follow the money. That’s why things are off the rails. Money. Power by money. Money by subsidy. Power by acquiescence.
Most certainly not in the interests of the Citizenry.
Just guessing, but guessing it isn’t quite so far off the mark.
41
Only utter morons who appear to be happy to do over the general population by sabotaging thier reliable means of economuc and physical life spport…..
This is a religious war, and before anyone scoffs , think about what other actions that appear so misguided and foolush could it be other than a blind religious following. Disclaimer- as a Christian I have seen quite a few misguided religious people, but whats happening now is non- Christian in its actions, indeed it appears occult/ Satanic in its activity.
11
Counterpoint to the “study” by Prof Mountain
Peter Foster: Another report reluctantly admits that ‘green’ energy is a disastrous flop
And here is the BS compiled by the IEA in a desperate attempt to spin a bright renewably powered future plus the lead comment that sums up the government agendas driving this.
World Energy Outlook 2018 – The gold standard of energy analysis
60
Total Bulldust !
Why do they keep fooling themselves ?
They compare using “nameplate” capacity figures for wind and solar.
Divide their numbers by 5 at least , to reflect CF values.
00
you don’t say! of course “these climatic variations ***don’t have to cause ***significant disruptions to the electricity grid”:
11 Dec: Phys.org: How climate impacts solar and wind power supply
by Sarah Fecht, Earth Institute, Columbia University
One of the challenges with solar and wind power is that, on any given day, the sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing when we want it to. Now, zooming out, researchers at Columbia’s Earth Institute have found that the same could be true on the scale of years to decades.
Long-term climate patterns such as El Niño “could change where the wind is blowing and where the sun is shining” for one to ten years at a time, says study author David Farnham, who completed the research at the Columbia Water Center. Farnham’s work is the first to highlight what these longer-term patterns could mean for renewable power generation.
Farnham presented his findings, which are based on U.S. data from the past 50-70 years, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C on Tuesday. The research is about to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and is co-authored by Upmanu Lall from the Columbia Water Center and Vijay Modi from Columbia’s department of Earth and Environmental Engineering and department of Mechanical Engineering. Farnham is now a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution for Science…
With smart planning and interconnected systems, these climatic variations don’t have to cause significant disruptions to the electricity grid…
(LINK)
https://phys.org/news/2018-12-climate-impacts-solar-power.html
10
“One of the challenges with solar and wind power is that, on any given day, the sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing when we want it to. Now, zooming out, researchers at Columbia’s Earth Institute have found that the same could be true on the scale of years to decades.”
Learn the lesson..if it dont work, DONT use it!
70
finally a Nitin Sethi article that is not behind a paywall:
12 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: Katowice: Africa Group of Nations boycott talks at negotiator levels
US and other rich nations go back on the agreements they had made last week
by Nitin Sethi
They did so after the US and other developed countries went back on even the proposals they had agreed to over the first week at Katowice over rules for climate finance and global stocktake under the Paris Agreement…
But, on Monday evening, the African Group of Negotiators decided to not engage at the negotiators’ level on climate finance. Then, the contagion spread to other rooms with developed countries picking the same strategy of sliding back from positions they had taken earlier to reach compromises.
“We did not walk out. We boycotted the ‘informals informal’. It is a strong word I know. But that word correctly represents our anger and frustration with our developed country partners. Forget reducing differences they are not even sticking to the compromises they made last week on climate finance and global stock take,” said one African negotiator.
The negotiator-level discussions were held under an arrangement called ‘informal informal’. Climate finance refers to a package of decisions that the Katowice talks have to take to operationalise the flow of funds from rich nations to the poor under the Paris Agreement. The global stocktake refers to the mid-course review of country’s targets under the Paris Agreement to see if they stack up well against the climate action required to keep global temperature rise in control…
An Indian negotiator confirmed that the talks had seen developed country negotiators backtrack instead of trying to bridge gaps.
All groups, including the AGN group, and others did continue to engage at the ministerial level though in the hope that the impasse would be broken when the ministers take over the talks entirely starting Wednesday morning.
“It is a waste of time at this stage if the developed countries are asking us to only engage on their proposals and do not want ours to be even part of the conversation what is the use of sitting in these rooms through the night?” another African negotiator said.
***Another developing country negotiator said, “They do not want a Paris Agreement. They want a Paris Reporting Agreement for the developing countries. There is no money on the table, there is low ambition but they want to put higher and higher burden on developing countries to report to them about our economies. We did not sign a reporting agreement at Paris.”
At the ministerial level, the African Group, as well as others, reiterated their red-lines on climate finance. “The ministers heard us, the presidency heard us and so did the executive secretary of the UNFCCC. We have made it amply clear, we are not here to discuss only proposals that the developed country partners present. It cannot be that the starting point is just their proposals. A bridge requires us to start with two sides that are far apart,” he added…
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/katowice-africa-group-of-nations-boycott-talks-at-negotiator-levels-118121100706_1.html
10
What a startling statement :”The Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University advise that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research. The reader is advised and needs to be aware that such information may be incomplete or unable to be used in any specific situation.” So now, scientific research is incomplete and unable to be used in any specific situation! That is what I call progress!!
100
is that Spot Price hockey-stick that I can see in the data?
20
11 Dec: CleanEnergyWire: COP24 blog – Germany pledges 70 million euros extra to Adaptation Fund
by Julian Wettengel
Germany is under scrutiny at the UN climate summit COP24 in Poland: the country will fail its 2020 climate target and only the next year will show if a push to phase-out coal-fired power production will result in an end date for the CO2 intensive fuel…
Climate action and the exit from coal-fired power generation can only be successful if it takes the concerns of employees and affected regions seriously, (German environment minister Svenja Schulze) said. “Almost half of our CO₂ emissions come from the energy industry. That is the climate perspective. But the social dimension is also important. This is not an excuse for delaying action,” said Schulze.
Becoming more ambitious in climate action is hard for any country, and Germany is no exception, said Schulze. “We are experiencing how challenging the transformation to a climate-friendly society is for a highly industrialised country,” she added…
The international community was “closely monitoring, whether Germany succeeds with the Energiewende” and whether it does so without structural economic breaks…
Kerstine Appunn 11 Dec 2018, 11:45
Will it be Bonn again?
The German delegation says „no”. “We have told the UNFCCC that Germany will not be available to host an event the size of last year’s COP23 in Bonn,” environment state secretary Jochen Flasbarth said. It was costly and not very gratifying to get an event like this off the ground on short notice of just a year, he added. But there was interest in presiding over the 2019 COP from several states in South-America or the Caribbean.
Another source told CLEW that Canada would be prepared to host COP25 on behalf of a Latin American or Caribbean country if they weren’t able to stem the technical and financial side of the conference themselves.
Sven Egenter 11 Dec 2018, 11:38
Don’t be afraid to implement necessary changes: Policymakers should take action to make their societies more climate-friendly without delaying them for fear of a public backlash, the vice-mayor for environment and transport of Oslo, Lan Marie Nguyen Berg said at the World Climate Summit side event at the COP24. “Actually, make the change, don’t delay it, people get nervous. When you do it, people adapt quickly,” she said…
– Nguyen Berg’s answer to a question referring to the protests in France contrasts with warnings from politicians and energy transition experts in recent weeks, including German ministers, who have repeatedly pointed to the so-called yellow vests as a reminder that a just transition was key for success.
In an earlier panel, Gilles Vermot Desroches, the Chief Sustainability Officer for French company Schneider Electric had stressed this point. “We can realise the vision of net-zero by 2050,” he said, adding that the technologies were already there. But companies and politicians had to talk to citizens about the changes. “Without people on board we are against the people as we found out in France,” he said…
https://www.cleanergywire.org/news/cop24-blog-countries-could-ratched-ambition-thanks-cheaper-renewables
10
10 Dec: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: UN colludes with climate protesters to disrupt & shut down Trump admin. pro-energy event at UN summit
Climate Depot Exclusive
KATOWICE — The United Nations gave its blessing to a massive climate protest during the Trump administration’s pro-energy event today at the climate summit (COP24) in Poland, according to the U.S. delegation. The UN pre-authorized and pre-planned the wide-scale interruption that shut down the Trump White House’s pro-fossil fuel event.
Officials from the U.S. delegation told Climate Depot on Monday that the UN informed the U.S. that the environmental activists would be authorized by the UN to disrupt the U.S. event for at least “7 minutes” and the green protesters would be granted the floor halt the event and give speeches during the U.S. event…READ ON
http://www.climatedepot.com/2018/12/10/un-colludes-with-climate-protesters-to-disrupt-shut-down-trump-admin-pro-energy-event-at-un-summit/
11 Dec: Fox News: More than 130 arrested at Pelosi’s Capitol Hill office amid environmental-activist demonstration
By Frank Miles; Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report
U.S. Capitol Police told Fox News 138 people were arrested Monday during demonstrations by Green New Deal supporters at the Capitol Hill office of House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif…
Hundreds of young demonstrators turned out Monday on Capitol Hill to push Democrats on a package of ambitious environmental goals — including a nationwide transition to 100-percent power from renewable sources within as little as 10 years — that’s been dubbed the Green New Deal…
Already embraced by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., an increasingly influential figure on the left, the Green New Deal is designed to nudge prospective Democratic presidential candidates to stake out aggressive positions on climate change.
The Green New Deal deliberately omits details on how to reorient the United States toward the drastic carbon-emissions reductions it demands, instead calling for a select committee in the House to devise a plan by 2020. That timetable is designed to rally Democrats behind a climate-change strategy as they’re picking a nominee to take on President Trump, who has rolled back multiple environmental regulations and cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human activity is driving global warming…
Other issues dominated the debate during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, and climate change barely registered during the 2016 general election…
The plan, named for the New Deal that reshaped America under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, envisions a costly and dramatically remodeled U.S. energy infrastructure as soon as 2030. It’s a shift from where Democrats laid down their symbolic markers on climate change as recently as last year…
Some opponents have cast the goals as idealistic and politically risky…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/environmental-activists-arrested-pelosi-capitol-hill-office
30
11 Dec: WaPo: What to know about the big climate change meeting in Katowice, Poland
by Chris Mooney
But the surge of optimism that came with Paris has faded lately…
So what’s on the agenda in Poland?
The answer starts with the Paris agreement, which was negotiated three years ago, has been signed by 197 countries and is a mere 27 pages long…
But those 27 pages leave open to interpretation many fine points for how it will all work. So in Poland, countries are performing a detailed annotation of the Paris agreement, drafting a “rule book” that will span hundreds of pages…
For instance, it will be hard for countries to trust that their fellow nations are cutting emissions without clear standards for reporting and vetting. Not everybody is ready to accept a process like the one followed in the United States, which not only publishes its emissions totals but also has an independent review of the findings.
“A number of the developing countries are resisting that kind of model for themselves. They see it as an intrusion on their sovereignty,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the many participants in Poland this week…
On Tuesday and Wednesday is the “Talanoa Dialogue,” which will bring together world leaders in a series of group meetings to discuss these key questions: “Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/10/whats-happening-poland-right-now-fix-climate-change-why-you-should-be-paying-attention/?utm_term=.74def70ed7ac
***snow in December is a “novelty” for this Kiwi?
TWEET: Jo Tyndall, APA co-chair and New Zealand Climate Change Ambassador
Tuesday dawns with a dusting of snow @COP24Katowice. ***For us Antipodeans, it’s a novelty. By 5.00 pm today, cleaned up draft guidelines must be ready. Let’s do this
PIC
11 Dec 2018
https://twitter.com/JoTyndallNZ/status/1072384470991417344
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10 Dec: Fox News: Ocasio-Cortez backs green policies that would hurt the poor and cripple our economy
by Liz Peek
(Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. A former columnist for the Fiscal Times, she writes for The Hill and contributes frequently to Fox News, the New York Sun and other publications)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promises that going green – removing all fossil fuels from our energy mix – will “establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States.”
In fact, her proposal would cripple our economy and hurt our poorest citizens…
Evidence of the staggering costs imposed by green policies is provided by other IEA data, which compares electricity costs in different countries. In the United States, the cost of electricity for households earlier this year was $129 per megawatt. In Germany, a country that leapt into renewables with enthusiasm, and imposed hefty taxes to squelch demand for fossil fuels, the cost is $343.59. Does Ms. Ocasio-Cortez really want to impose a near-tripling of electricity costs on Americans?
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez might want to visit France, a sympathetic left-leaning country, which is currently convulsed by people who are really, really angry over recently-enacted green policies of the kind that she might embrace…
The lesson for Macron, for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other policy makers is that people may be concerned about global warming and increasing emissions, but they are considerably more worried about making ends meet…
Polling on the subject bears this out. While a global Pew study found that 54 percent of people in 40 countries thought that climate change was a “very serious problem,” a survey conducted by the UN at about the same time, which elicited almost 7 million responses, showed people ranking climate change the least of their concerns. Global warming came in dead last behind better education, better health care, better job opportunities and thirteen other issues.
Even in the U.S., where 6 of 10 respondents to the Pew poll say their community is already being impacted by climate change, the issue ranks 17th in a list of policy priorities…
Why this disconnect? One reason is that the extreme alarmism from environmentalists has numbed us to the perils of rising emissions. If you are endlessly lectured about how eating meat or driving your Chevy will cause entire populations to be swept away by rising sea levels, it becomes overwhelming. People tune out.
It is also true that some of the wilder predictions of disaster have failed to materialize, leading to profound skepticism…READ ON
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liz-peek-ocasio-cortez-backs-green-policies-that-would-hurt-the-poor-and-cripple-our-economy
11 Dec: The Hill: Wind and solar clash with energy reality
By J. Winston Porter
(J. Winston Porter, Ph.D., is a national energy and environmental consultant, based in Atlanta, GA. He is a former assistant administrator of the EPA in Washington DC)
In the name of protecting the environment, some public and political leaders want most of our electrical energy to come from renewables…
A group of Democrats, led by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), is floating the idea of a “Green New Deal” calling for a transition to 100 percent renewable power.
Not only are renewable portfolio standards expensive and a burden on consumers, new research from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows they don’t always work in reducing carbon emissions. This is because there is enormous uncertainty about how quickly renewable systems can be built, what the cost will be and what the consequences will be for the electricity network…
Those who disparage the use of coal forget that it accounts for 30 percent of America’s electricity generation and more than 40 percent of the world’s electricity supply. The implications of coal’s continuing importance in the United States and globally are enormous.
Abandoning coal to reduce emissions would not only be economically ruinous in large parts of the world, but simply impossible. The idea of expecting countries like China and India to quit the very fuel they continue to lean on for a secure supply of electricity makes no sense. Nor would it be wise to ban the construction of new coal plants in the United States…
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/420846-wind-and-solar-clash-with-energy-reality
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More delusional fake news nonsense for the delusional populace to enjoy over breaky on their Iphone8s.
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Hey Shorten! I know how to reduce the domestic electric bills..chop down those big poles with the wirly things on top..then cover the dam panels with dust or spray paint them.
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11 Dec: EurActiv:COP24 dairy – day #9
By Claire Stam reporting from Katowice
Germany. Germanwatch, the New Climate Institute and the Climate Action Network released on Monday (10 December) its annual Climate Change Performance Index (LINK-DOWNLOADS) that shows Germany is falling further behind in climate protection.
The country once praised for its energy transition (the Energiewende) and for taking the lead on climate change now comes at the 27th position, five places below its rank last year…
Climate damages tax. A “climate damages tax” levied on oil, gas and coal companies could raise $300 billion a year by 2030 to bail out communities paying the price of global warming, the WWF said in a proposal released on Monday (10 December).
“We recommend that the CDT is introduced in 2021 at a low initial rate of $5 per tonne of CO2, increasing by $5 per tonne each year until 2030 to $50 a tonne, with the expectation that it is increased at the rate of $10 per tonne annually after that to reach $250 a tonne by 2050.”…ETC
https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/cop24-dairy-day-9/
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11 Dec: CarbonBrief: Guest post: Ten charts show how the world is progressing on clean energy
by Dr Iain Staffell
(Dr Iain Staffell is a senior lecturer in sustainable energy at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy. He leads the Electric Insights project reporting interactive real-time and quarterly summary information on the UK’s electricity mix)
In our Energy Revolution Global Outlook report, written with colleagues at Imperial College London and E4tech – and published by Drax – we rank progress in 25 major world economies…
The ten charts below compare these 25 countries today and their progress over the last decade…
Conclusion
All in all, progress towards clean energy around the world is mixed, with some countries pushing ahead on many fronts but others going backwards. Overall, our rankings show that the world’s nations are falling far short of what is needed and that progress over the next decade must be far stronger to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-ten-charts-show-how-the-world-is-progressing-on-clean-energy
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11 Dec: EurActiv: Poland increasingly deporting activists from COP24
By Aline Robert
Poland has already deported 14 people from Central Europe since the beginning of COP24, including two members of the Georgian delegation. Many NGOs are questioning the legality of these bans on entering Polish territory…
***Just like it occurred when COP was held in France, on the pretext of a terrorist threat, the Polish government toughened the body of law governing possibilities to refuse foreigners access to the Polish territory. However, the use of deportation possibilities has clearly been beyond the scope of this.
According to 350.org, some of the demonstrators were threatened with being banned from the Schengen area for five years, before then being redirected towards a flight to their home country, or arrested and put on a train leaving Polish territory…
(Svitlana Romanko, Eastern Europe Caucasus and Central Asia Coordinator at 350.org) believed that authoritarian regimes, such as Poland, have difficulty accepting that civil society is taking up the climate debate and is notably pushing for renewable energy sources. Climate marches have been banned in Katowice for security reasons…
***The Polish government has adopted a law restricting access to its territory during the 22 November-16 December period, ***as France and Germany were able to do so during previous COP conferences. The Polish government believes that the deportations were carried out lawfully…
“In order to enter Polish territory, you have to have a valid passport and not be listed on the Schengen Information System [SIS],” a spokesperson from the Polish government told EURACTIV France.
According to Polish customs, the people who were deported did not comply with one of these two conditions…
A male Georgian citizen is still at Katowice airport and is refusing to take a flight in the other direction.
***The situation is a matter of concern to the UN Secretariat, ***especially as some of those who were deported had received accreditation to participate at the conference and some of the Georgian nationals were part of its official delegation.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/poland-increasingly-deporting-activists-from-cop24/
either give the COPs over to the CAGW activists or everyone else stay away. UN is manipulating the situation.
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12 Dec: Xinhua: UN chief returning to COP24 to help get more “positive” outcome
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres headed back on Tuesday to the UN climate change conference in Katowice, Poland in a bid to reach a “positive outcome” in face of division on a final document.
Guterres, who was attending the conference on a global migration compact, “will do all that he can to encourage the member states in Katowice to move towards a positive outcome,” Farhan Haq, UN deputy spokesman, told reporters here at a regular briefing…
The Katowice meeting has witnessed Russia and the United States — among other states — voicing opposition to draft text to be included in the final outcome document…
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-12/12/c_137667550.htm
11 Dec: EurActiv: ‘Loss and Damage’ emerges as crunch item at COP24
By Claire Stam reporting from Katowice
“Loss and Damage” is turning into one of the most intensively negotiated agenda items in Katowice, said Reinhard Mechler, deputy director of the Risk and Resilience (RISK) research program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
“Nothing is clear at this stage of the negotiations,” he told EURACTIV.
One of the different financial structures discussed around ‘Loss and Damage‘ is the idea of setting up climate insurances, explained Colin McQuistan, climate change and disaster risk reduction senior adviser at Practical Action, a development charity based in the UK.
“The question is how vulnerable people can afford to pay premiums,” he said…
“Loss and damage is currently being bracketed in most of the negotiations items related to the Paris Rulebook because developed countries are pushing back on this issue,” said Saleemul Huq, from the International Institute for Environment and Development…
In Katowice, developing countries are now trying to prevent ‘Loss and Damage’ from being merged with adaptation. “Loss and damage must be reflected separately throughout the Paris Rulebook: in finance, accounting, transparency and the global stocktake,” he said.
“At COP24, the main agenda is the rulebook for the Paris Agreement with measures, reporting and verification (or MRV) being discussed on every negotiating items,” he continued.
“What developing countries are trying to do is to include ‘Loss and Damage’ in every of these negotiating items,” Huq said.
“This is because you cannot talk transparency without loss and damage, you cannot talk finance without loss and damage, you cannot talk mitigation without loss and damage, you cannot talk adaptation without loss and damage,” he explained. “So the developing countries’ negotiators are pushing for loss and damage to become integrated into every agenda item and they are getting pushed back”.
***But the US and Europe “have refused to talk about ‘Loss and Damage’ on finance, arguing that the financial support issue should be focused on mitigation and adaptation only,” Huq said…
“This is a very bad sign,” said Marie-Lena Hutfils, a policy advisor on climate risk management at German NGO Germanwatch. “It denies the reality of vulnerable countries who are already facing the worst impacts of climate change, which go beyond their capacity to adapt,” she said…
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/loss-and-damage-emerges-as-major-crunch-negotiation-item-at-cop24/
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Great piece Jo. SMH and The Age losing market share all the time as its activist reporters are incapable of reporting facts. Won’t be long and they will both be gone.
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Where the ABC cannot go broke just because no one watches it. The ABC is like the RET, taking our money without any concern that we get anything back. Government enabled robbery.
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Another warm to hot summer’s day in Vic and SA with temperatures in the low 30s, and how’s that wind going? Well, prices are above $100/MWhr, and that wind is delivering just 400 MW in SA versus demand of 1600 MW rising to 1900 MW peak this evening, and 600 MW of wind in Vic versus demand of 6300 MW rising to 7200 MW peak this evening.
On Dec 6/7 with temps in the high 30s, SA peak demand was 2575 MW, and Vic peak 8465 MW. Wind in SA delivered just 300 MW for that evening peak, and 300 MW in Vic. When it wasn’t really needed in the middle of the day, wind delivered 1200 MW in each of SA and Vic.
And on Dec 6/7, daily average wholesale prices were $117/$148 in SA and $115/160 in Vic.
But according to the learned professor and his cohorts, it would have been $38 worse without that wind.
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As is often the case, comments are not open on Hannam’s propaganda. No matter, he is a bit of a high priest to the alarmists who haunt the comments pages there and who refuse to accept any fact that challenges their orthodoxy. They will be swallowing all of this uncritically and will regurgitate it back when you point out the errors and fallacies. If the SMH says it is true, it must be true, even if it is demonstrably wrong!
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We are all living through a monumental Anthropogenic Climate Hoax Experience (ACHE). Yes it’s a real ACHE. Not only for the world and our hearts, but for our wallets too. This beautiful planet is aching badly.
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11 Dec: Fox News: NY Times’ Paul Krugman says US part of ‘new axis of evil’ with Russia, Saudi Arabia
By Samuel Chamberlain; The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times opinion contributor Paul Krugman tweeted Monday that the United States had joined Russia and Saudi Arabia in a “new axis of evil,” after those three countries and Kuwait objected to the United Nations’ endorsement of a landmark study on global warming…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ny-times-paul-krugman-says-us-part-of-new-axis-of-evil-with-russia-saudi-arabia
Newsweek includes everything, including Mueller/Russia garbage in their piece:
10 Dec: Newsweek: U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia Are the ‘New Axis of Evil,’ New York Times Columnist Slams Refusal to Accept Climate Science
By Jason Lemon
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman slammed Washington’s decision to ally itself with Russia and Saudi Arabia in refusing to welcome the findings of a major international report that warned of the life-threatening impact of climate change.
On Monday, the Nobel Prize–winning economist posted a tweet to strongly criticize the move by the administration of President Donald Trump, which came despite a recent federal government report emphasizing the risk of climate change to the U.S. economy.
“There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia—and the United States,” Krugman wrote, retweeting a post that included a link to a Washington Post on the Trump administration’s decision…
https://www.newsweek.com/us-saudi-arabia-russia-new-axis-evil-paul-krugman-climate-change-1252445
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“City Al Gore Featured in Movie Is Losing Millions After Going 100% Green Energy”
I guess there is “one born every minute.”
H/T – John Ray’s “Greenie Watch”
(apologies if anyone has already posted that)
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