Jo Nova — “Australia – Crash Test Dummy of Renewable Energy”: Monday night US. Tuesday morning AU

I’ll be discussing the absurdity of Destroying Perfectly good Electricity Grids in Australia with the Friends of Science in Calgary, Canada with a presentation then Q&A. It will be live 7pm MDT Monday evening in Canada/USA and Tuesday 10th morning in Australia (11am EST, 9am WST). It will be available to watch afterwards as the wonderful Ian Plimer’s is now from last week.

“Australia – Crash Test Dummy of Renewable Energy” with Joanne Nova

Friends of Science, Event, May 2022, Ian Plimer, Jo Nova.
 
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34 comments to Jo Nova — “Australia – Crash Test Dummy of Renewable Energy”: Monday night US. Tuesday morning AU

  • #
    Jojodogfacedboy

    Our governments have NEVER done a responsible renewable harvesting as capitalism make everything have a monetary value that very few can access as governments have chosen corporations or individuals run this science experiment show.
    We could very much live in a renewable and responsible paradise…

    But others choose profits and restrictions over such nonsense.

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    • #
      Beta Blocker

      Jojodogfacedboy, the advocates of renewables in Australia and here in the US claim that the solution to the ever-rising cost of electricity is to quickly expand wind and solar backed by battery storage. Here where I live in the US Northwest, this claim has been sold with great success to the public and to our politicians.

      One way to quickly expand wind and solar is for our respective governments — at the federal, state, and local levels — to guarantee a ten percent annual rate of return on every dollar invested in the renewables, without regard to the impacts on the cost of electricity for business and residential consumers.

      The expansion of wind and solar will then proceed more or less as fast as predicted — up until the point is reached where demand for renewable technology outstrips supply to such an extent that no increase in the price of electricity, however large, will produce larger supplies of wind turbines, solar panels, and grid-scale batteries.

      When that point is eventually reached, how much will electricity cost? Two times what it costs today, on average? Three times? Five times? Ten times?

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      • #
        Jojodogfacedboy

        In Canada, our biggest air pollution is trees burning from forest fires.
        We’ve harvested less than one percent do to lack of accessibility and Government’s Restrictions.
        That’s just one area and they grow back. We have hundreds of thousands of Lakes with no access as well.
        Most isolated communities are reliant on waterways or rail.
        All those areas in between in most part, never been explored.
        We’ve got over 2,000 golf courses, so I guess leisure is more important.
        Our health and safety laws make jobs impossible without government approved training.

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      • #
        PeterS

        It won’t matter how much more it will cost as it will be scarce and our society will collapse into chaos and mayhem as people start starving to death due to a variety of reasons, the lack of stable and cheap power being just one of them. So vote accordingly in the coming elections in the attempt to avoid such an outcome. It might not work but at least we must give it a try. Those who keep voting for the majors are part of the problem, not the solution. Those who watched Outsiders last Sunday know exactly what to do: https://majorslast.com/

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          Graeme No.3

          Ah! That explains those green coloured core flutes I’ve seen. (preaching to the converted in my case).

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        • #

          Oh no, we are all doomed.

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          Lawrie

          Much as I share your disgust at the majors I do not think your solution is viable. Puting the ALP, LNP last ensures that the Greens and their green Teals will be in charge and that is a fate worse than death. If you think things are bad now just imagine Adam Bandt calling the shots. There would be no private enterprise and bureaucracy would run riot. No wealth generation equals poverty for all except the very small elite.

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          • #
            Ronin

            I will be putting Albotross and the gangrenes last, followed by the independents, only two parties can form govt at the moment and hopefully it won’t be the red team.

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      • #
        Lawrie

        Beta Blocker. Since this time last year some 7 MW of coal fired power has been closed on the National Energy Market (NEM). Last April wholesale price for electricity was $60 -$70 per MW. This April it was in excess of $200 per MW. One state managed a fourfold increase in wholesale. Coal was blamed of course with little regard to the truth that without it then wind and solar are unsustainable and the inevitable result will be blackouts and factory close downs. So in answer to your question – at least four times dearer.

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          Beta Blocker

          What isn’t being acknowledged by advocates of the renewables — the politicians and the wind & solar technologists alike — is that our legacy coal-fired and gas-fired plants currently supply the necessary dispatchable backup services for wind and solar, and that the costs of those dispatchable backup services are being carried by those legacy plants.

          At the accelerated pace of plant closures of our legacy generation capacity the Biden administration will be enforcing, then four times more expensive electricity is probably in the ballpark for what power will cost in the US Northwest in roughly a decade’s time. 99% of the people who live in this region have no clue as to what is in store for them as the green energy transition moves forward.

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        • #
          Ronin

          7 MW, that would hardly light a tennis court.

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    • #
      Bruce

      Classic Marxist gibberish!

      The place for “solar / wind is in “micro-installations” on far-flung properties, research stations, etc.

      I have been involved in a few such projects where the cost of running in “grid” power was astronomical.

      The lase one had enough “grunt” , 24 / 7, to power the farm house full of conventional 230V appliances and lighting fixtures, and the workshop / machine shed..

      The panels were NOT on the house or shed roof, but in arrays atop serious steel poles, fitted with gimbal heads for seasonal adjustment / maintenance. There was a sizeable bank of deep-cycle batteries in a newly-built wooden shed and a SERIOUS inverter rig in an adjacent “dog-house” (electronics and acid fumes make for interesting times). The house had previously been powered by a diesel generator, at night or as required. A couple of kerosene-powered refrigerators, (yes, folks, there are such things; related to the gas-powered serious camping fridges). Cooking continued to be done on a huge, slow-combustion stove that also ran the hot-water system. NOT a rig likely to be found in inner suburbia.

      The old “house” diesel generator was retained as was the three-phase one bolted to a trailer along with a serious welder. It’s a bit pointless to try to build or repair cattle grids, yards, etc. with a cheap stick-welder from the big green hardware shop.

      So, much of the stuff about the simplicity and “value’ of domestic solar rigs is at best, economical with the truth. Most of it is bent and / or virtue signalling. Wind-power? Ditto. Again, quite a few “out there”, usually float-charging starter batteries for diesel powered equipment. Also common on serious off-shore sailing yachts; again, charging batteries for lighting, navigation and communication electronics, etc. Horses for courses.

      That I regularly receive unsolicited phone calls from bogus numbers, generating false data for caller ID; (probably a crime under the law, but NOBODY cares), trying to tell me about some Government “rebate” on solar, tells me the entire rock show is a FRAUD. And, as for “grid feed” from a dinky domestic inverter? Get serious!

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      • #
        Ronin

        Yep, somewhere that’s kilometers from the nearest grid and where it’s hard to truck in diesel in the wet season.

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      • #
        Graham Richards

        For a lesson in reality go & stand in the middle of the nearest city with a population in excess of 150,000 & watch the movement of people,goods, transportation, construction. Remember to equate what you observe to the population of capital cities with populations of up to 5,000,000.
        Try to imagine the size of the batteries required to provide energy to maintain those cities.
        In particular transportation in Melbourne with its light rail + general rail. Sydney with its rail system, ferries. Don’t forget the elevators & escalators in multilevel offices, residential high rises. Not to mention the suburban sprawl. Will you charge your batteries for your EV using another battery?
        The day the last coal / gas fired power generators are switched off WILL be Armageddon.
        Life as you know will grind to a halt within 6 months.

        Imagine cities like London, Paris, New York, Tokyo & many others running off batteries which derive their ‘charge’ from solar & wind unreliables. Believe me you don’t want to be anywhere near those locations when the riots & revolution start. It’s all one big Fairytale !

        And to cap it all you will not be able to afford the small amount electricity that is available .
        It will not have coal or gas generators to subsidise the power. Look forward to conservatively at least 10 times the current cost.

        Let’s go nuclear & stop the nonsense dead it’s tracks. Better still stick to fossil fuels!

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  • #
    stewartpid

    Geez and Calgary served up a snowy Monday for Jo’s presentation …. sorry about that Jo.
    About 15 cm at my house but melting fast now at noon and sunny.
    Good luck with your talk.

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  • #
    Erasmus

    Any faith I had in politicians has been destroyed by their mishandling of energy, closely followed by their disastrous mishandling of COVID.

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    • #
      Old Moss

      You are very, very, gentle, Erasmus, in fact their “mishandling” has been tantamount to treasonous.

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      I could add plenty more but it would be a shorter list of matters which any recent government had handled well. The trouble is of course, recalling one ..

      Mind you, many of the things that conservatives see as policy mistakes appear to be welcome ‘features’ to the average Lefty.

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      • #
        Ronin

        ‘Mind you, many of the things that conservatives see as policy mistakes appear to be welcome ‘features’ to the average Lefty.’

        Steve spot on, conservative stuff-ups are a commos’ wet dream.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    China and Russia rejoice at America’s quest to go green

    China and Russia are great War historians of WWI and WWII, and know that the countries that control the minerals, crude oil, and natural gas, controls the world! Biden has done an excellent job of relinquishing “CONTROL” for the “green” materials to China, and relinquishing “CONTROL” of the crude oil to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia! G@d help America!

    How is it possible that America has allowed itself to become so dependent on authoritarian countries like China, Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia over the 30 years since the end of the Cold War? The weaponization of energy by China and Russia have been extensively discussed in the three books co-authored by Ronald Stein and Todd Royal, including the 2022 Pulitzer Prize nominated book, “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy.”

    America is in a fast pursuit toward achieving President Biden’s stated goal that “we are going to get rid of fossil fuels.” Today, Biden supports and encourages banks and investment giants to collude to reshape economies and energy infrastructure with their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) divesting in fossil fuels movement. ESG is an extremely dangerous precedent as the American people never voted to give banks this sort of control over our country.

    In addition to relinquishing national security to our dependence on China and Russia, that dependency for the fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of more than 50,000 jets in the world, more than 50,000 merchant ships circumventing this globe, and the military and space programs, will continue to be the catalyst for shortages and inflation in America.

    As the world’s eight billion continues to grow its population, the increasing demands for those oil-based products will face shortages of supply–the obvious impact for Americans being continuous shortages and inflation.

    China, the world’s top greenhouse gas polluter ignores climate pledges as it tops the list in building new coal plants. It continues to lead all countries in the domestic development of new coal plants, commissioning more new coal capacity in 2021 than the rest of the world combined. China has just over half the number of coal plants in the world and relies on them to generate about 60 percent of its electricity.

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  • #
    Kalm Keith

    There can be no transition to “renewable green energy” at the moment and it could only occur when the appropriate research and development phases have been completed.

    Until then no renewables should be on the general grid.

    I estimate that if this sensible approach was used to ensure an efficient, cost effective system, the implementation date would be very close to the twelfth of never.

    Should research produce a functioning arrangement before then I’m sure that Johnny Mathis would be very impressed.

    KK

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  • #
    el+gordo

    The past is a key to the present, so where exactly are we?

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  • #
    Don B

    Jo –
    Excellent presentation – really enjoyable and informative.

    Any chance that you could occasionally do a video presentation on this blog?

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  • #
    Ronin

    And if you drive a non Tesla, too bad, you can’t use a Tesla station.

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  • #
    Serge Wright

    RE and especially solar, has lots of use cases, but powering an energy grid isn’t one of them unless you have almost free and unlimited storage. CC & RE is being used by the UN and progressives to create their new world order, because they know it will create severe limits on consumption. Energy restrictions under the guise of saving the planet is the ultimate control tool. Once we move into the next phase we’ll see demand management kick in and that’s the start. Demand management doesn’t get much mention, but that’s what underpins their entire new world order. This concept has been snuck in when discussing innocuous scenarios such as heatwaves, because that’s how the left works. It’s warfare by inches. After we have the concept of demand management embedded into the energy grid it will then be extended to meat, fuel, holidays, house size, plane travel and everything the left deems is bad.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    Biden’s favorite auto batteries lighten wallets

    For the love of lithium

    By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Monday, May 9, 2022

    Revolutionizing the world by switching to “clean” energy takes a lot of dirt under the fingernails. It’s a sobering realization that is frequently glossed over in the rush for a seat in electric vehicles. Digging into the details shows powering emissions-free cars and trucks that clear the heavens means moving the earth in search of lithium, the pricey element vital for the future of trendy transportation.

    The Biden administration on Monday announced a $3.1 billion initiative to boost production of the lithium batteries required to meet the president’s goal of ensuring that EVs comprise 50 % of nationwide auto sales by 2030. “We need a lot of batteries,” said White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy.

    She isn’t kidding. The current production of lithium batteries adds up to less than 10% of global market requirements projected in a decade, EV automaker Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe tells The Wall Street Journal, “meaning, 90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist.”

    The supply chain for silvery lithium, the lightest metal found on Earth, traces back to its largest source: China. The United States possesses its own lithium but mines it in only one location, Nevada. It’s ironic that while Mr. Biden and official Washington punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by banning purchases of its oil and gas, they are simultaneously rendering Americans more energy-dependent on another hostile adversary, China. How smart is that?

    In recognition of the inconsistency, the administration has earmarked some of its battery production funds for speeding the opening of new domestic lithium mines. In addition to Nevada, projects are slated for California, Maine and North Carolina.

    There is a catch: The same environmentalist allies who have risen up to shut down domestic fossil fuel production are on the warpath over the likely ecological damage resulting from the president’s lithium excavations. The Sierra Club, among other opponents, has come out in opposition to exploratory drilling in search of the metal in California’s Mojave Desert.

    With the demand for lithium batteries soaring, though, the price tag on EVs may force all but the wealthiest to hang on to their four-wheeled gas-burners. The base price for a Tesla Model Y, for example, has climbed from just under $50,000 a year ago to $63,000 now.

    At $20,000 above the cost of a new, conventional-fuel car, it could take more than a decade for drivers to break even.

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