The people making wonder wind turbines are having a tough time. They thought they were picking the hottest new industry, saving the world, and expecting to make great money. Instead supply chains are in crisis, competition is fierce, and profit margins are razor tight. They know that the solar panel industry has largely gone to China, and worry that wind turbine manufacturing will do the same.
What they don’t seem to realize is that the reason the factories went to China is that the country isn’t powered by wind turbines. No country powered by unreliable power is also a growing manufacturing base. And as well as having cheap coal power, China also has the advantage of cheap slave labor, few environmental rules, no ethics and hardly any red tape. It’s a red-light flasher. About now, a wise investor might be wondering about the the odd disconnect in the idea of building devices to save the world while imprisoning people and polluting lakes. What if the environmental movement is a hollow geostrategic trojan fantasy serving Russians, Chicomms, socialists and investment banker cartels?
For Ben Hunt, the light-bulb moment isn’t there yet. These are the guys trying to make ends meet with real products for real consumers. But they haven’t done quite enough homework. Ben Hunt thinks carbon dioxide controls the climate and the world needs wind towers. He thinks “the message isn’t hitting home hard enough” as if showing people more climate-porn-storms will make their industry grow when they’re already at 130% saturation and have been for decades.
Opinion: Distribution of value in the wind industry is broken – it’s time for a new settlement
Windpower Monthly
27 June 2022
by Ben Hunt
Former Siemens Gamesa insider says turbine manufacturers are in dire need of the bright future they were promised
Ben Hunt wrote to colleagues to say “it will get worse before it gets better”
One of the first responses I received was very instructive: “When I joined more than 15 years ago, I was told that I was joining the sector with the brightest and most promising future. The problem is that it is a future that seems never to come.”
The Wind Turbine OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturer) are struggling to turn a profit, and worry that they can’t compete with China:
It is fair to say that that sums up much of the prevailing mood in the wind turbine OEM sector right now with all the major western OEMs struggling to turn a profit. It is not unusual to hear senior industry figures raising the spectre of the fate of the European solar manufacturing industry, long ago lost to the east.
While everything should be going gangbusters for the highly fashionable, saintly industry, reality is no fun:
Instead the news is full of stories of lay-offs, factory closures and eye-watering financial losses. And the resources required for the necessary investments are in jeopardy.
The fantasy is alive and well even if the wheels are falling off:
Wind is a cost effective, inexhaustible and clean provider of secure energy that isn’t going to further poison the planet.
Somehow, however, that message isn’t hitting home anything like hard enough. At Davos late last month, the discourse turned back towards nuclear, shale and more large-scale fossil to overcome the energy crunch.
Many in the industry believed these arguments long since won, but the fight is ongoing, and I’m really not sure we are winning.
After 30 years of the media doing nothing but glowing soft agitprop for the wind industry, blaming fossil fuels just doesn’t cut it.
..it is time to take the gloves off in the lobbying area. The fossil industry is more established, better resourced and more aggressive. The case for wind and renewables needs to be more forceful and more focused. We have been guilty of being too polite and too naïve, perhaps believing the overwhelming weight of argument is enough. It clearly isn’t.
What part of BP being Beyond Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell lobbying the World Bank against coal doesn’t make sense? The gas industry has been trying to demonize coal and CO2 just as much as the renewables industries have. And so have the bankers — the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Morgan Stanley –they’re all fans of wind farms. But in the end, the world is paying $400 a ton for coal.
h/t Rafe Champion
[Off topic]AD
30
Well said sir.
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AEMO releases 30-year electricity market roadmap – PDF 104 Pages – 30/06/2022
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) today published the 2022 Integrated System Plan (ISP), outlining a 30-year roadmap of investments for the National Electricity Market (NEM).
AEMO has involved more than 1,500 stakeholders – including policy makers, governments, consumers and energy industry representatives – to produce its third ISP, based on rigorous economic and engineering analysis.
AEMO CEO, Daniel Westerman, said: “Australia is experiencing a complex, rapid and irreversible energy transformation.”
“The 2022 ISP informs Australia’s energy transformation, based on an ‘optimal development path’ of essential transmission investments that will efficiently enable low-cost, firmed renewable energy to replace exiting coal generation.
“These transmission projects are forecast to deliver $28 billion in net market benefits, returning 2.2 times their cost of $12.7 billion, which represents just 7% of the total generation, storage and network investment in the NEM,” he said.
The ODP identifies five projects as immediately actionable which should progress as urgently as possible: HumeLink, VNI West, Marinus Link, Sydney Ring and New England REZ Transmission Link. While delivery dates are as advised by project proponents, earlier delivery would provide valuable insurance for any faster transition or additional benefits to consumers.
As part of developing the ISP AEMO and stakeholders identified the most likely future for the NEM, called the ‘step change’ scenario, having considered ageing generation plants, technical innovation, economics, government policies, energy security and consumer choice.
“The step change scenario forecasts annual electricity consumption from the grid will double by 2050, as transport, heating, cooking and industrial processes are electrified and 60% of current coal generation exiting by 2030,” Mr Westerman said.
“To maintain a secure, reliable and affordable electricity supply for consumers through this transition to 2050, investment is required for a nine-fold increase in grid-scale wind and solar capacity, triple the firming capacity (dispatchable storage, hydro and gas-fired generation) and a near five-fold increase in distributed solar,” he said.
Mr Westerman said that the need to cost-effectively deliver the investment in firmed renewables has gathered momentum in recent months.
“We’ve recently seen market dynamics exhibiting the step change scenario, including accelerated coal-fired power station closures. In addition, generation unavailability and high commodity prices further highlight the need to invest in the transmission plan outlined in the ISP to support firmed renewables,” Mr Westerman said.
“The ISP will help industry participants, investors, governments and communities plan for the decarbonisation of the power system to deliver low-cost, firmed renewable electricity with reliability and security.
“Importantly, the ISP will help meet state and national climate targets, and contribute to economic growth through low-cost, reliable energy,” he said.
ENDS
80
It really does sound like the Ukie Govt reporting on how the war with Russia is going.. All busy fighting valiantly against great odds towards a bright future, but completely divorced from reality on the ground.
“based on rigorous economic and engineering analysis.” I think I’ll take Tony’s view on that!
So, “a nine-fold increase in grid-scale wind and solar capacity, triple the firming capacity (dispatchable storage, hydro and gas-fired generation) and a near five-fold increase in distributed solar,” is all we need. Although having used the cheapest/most efficient sites for wind, pump storage and hydro dams already, the cost of each additional unit will go up and the effectiveness of it on the grid will go down.
Its probably already too late to triple the backups apart from good ol’ gas.
There won’t be a 5X takeup in household solar unless energy prices and Govt subsidies go up at least that much, most people who want solar already have it.
..and by the time they make 10X the wind and solar farms the first ones will need replacing.
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Sounds like something out of an episode of “Utopia”. Classic public service claptrap. Endless production of reports which nobody reads – apart from maybe the Executive Summary.
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“The ISP will help industry participants, investors, governments and communities plan for the decarbonisation of the power system to deliver low-cost, firmed renewable electricity with reliability and security.
“Importantly, the ISP will help meet state and national climate targets, and contribute to economic growth through low-cost, reliable energy,” he said.
Oxymoron.
20
AEMO says we must accelerate the “move away from coal” and push more renewables, storage and transmission infrastructure, according to another of Perry Williams articles in the Orstraylian.
AEMO should stick to administrative tasks and not stick their oar into political policy matters. It’s the “move away from coal” and the deluded opposition to nuclear that have caused the power system to be put in its current parlous state.
The nation’s future depends on more coal and nuclear. We will sink without them, and China will inherit the riches we seem intent on failing to use.
540
“Inexhaustible” is the only true word in that sentence – but one which needs to be qualified by the words “but intermittent”!
520
“Wind is a cost effective, inexhaustible and clean provider of secure energy that isn’t going to further poison the planet.”
What about the visual pollution while the windmills are working and after they become defunct at any time from 8 years to 20 years in the future, no one wants to own them after the subsidies have been harvested so they are left to rot.
320
No, “inexhaustible” is false too. No need to dignify it with “intermittent”. That the wind might blow tomorrow or next week or next year doesn’t make up for the fact that it has run out right now.
240
I thought it needed un-dignifying, hence the extra words. Matter of interpretation I guess! 🙂
30
Interesting sentence that one.
cost effective – false – most expensive imaginable
inexhaustible – false – runs out every time it gets dark and the wind stops blowing
clean – false – always check how the sausages are made
secure – false – intermittent is the word
isn’t going to poison the planet – false – those rare earth minerals don’t mine themselves you know
Does a quintuple negative make a positive in the teal mind.
390
Right now at 6.18 am aest wind , solar and battery are supplying around 7% of the east coast grid supply . And that’s something that they need to get their heads around .
530
Yes Robert but any teal will tell you that means around 15 times as many solar panels and batteries need to be installed.
200
What they don’t seem to realize is that the reason the factories went to China is that the country isn’t powered by wind turbines.
Brilliant line, Jo.
630
If it were true. The real reason that China dominates manufacturing is economies of scale. To put things in perspective, wind supplies 9.9% of Australia’s power versus 6.1% in China.
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How does that put anything in “perspective”? if anything it reinforces Jos point.
You can have all the scale in the world , but if you dont have a stable energy supply you do not have manufacturing.
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“wind supplies 9.9% of Australia’s power versus 6.1% in China.”
That’s on a good day, simon.
281
China has to do virtue signaling with unreliables so they can demonstrate their commitment to the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
However, they don’t allow the “showcase” unreliables to effect electricity prices. This is unique to all other countries because in every other example in the world more unreliables ALWAYS means higher electricity prices. Presumably they are prepared to take a huge loss on unreliables to prove their “green” credentials.
They are not stupid, you know!
Of the advanced industrial countries, China has among the cheapest electricity prices. Australia among the most expensive along with other countries with a commitment to the scam.
Competitive electricity prices here:
https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/electricity_prices/
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The real reason why China dominates manufacturing is that China doesn’t operate on a 40 hour week.
121
Remember in socialist France, you weren’t allowed to do overtime or take work home with you, how did that work out.
80
During the 1980s to early 2000s the factories I managed operated 12-hour shifts regularly and 24-hours sometimes here in NSW.
The reasons why Australia is uncompetitive for most businesses as a base for manufacturing are many and varied and the rot set in when Labor signed the UN Lima Protocol in 1975 agreeing to the gradual transfer of most manufacturing to developing nations, like China.
I decided against a board supported management buyout of a consistently three times industry average profit before tax (operating profit) because of the growing list of deterrents that I believed would eventually force closure of the factories here, and the cost would have been difficult to absorb and operating with imported products would have reduced profitability. About ten years after I decided to retire after the business was sold to a foreign buyer and I remained for the duration of my new employment contract period negotiated.
30
So is the UN the problem?
00
Economies of scales is only important where you need to recoup the initial high cost of design and infrastructure. These things are less complex than cars and doubtful that they had to retool factories in the past 15 years.
Australia only uses a bit more wind, but if you hadn’t noticed, Australia and Europe can pay an extraordinary amount for power. China doesn’t do this to it’s manufacturing industry. Wind power is tokenism over there.
Of course, it cheap labour and less care for workers and the environment that makes the real difference.
120
If you take the subsidies away,NOBODY would touche these windmills with a forty foot pole.
20
Simon, China’s per capita co2 emissions are as high or higher than the EU countries.
Also China today has a life expectancy of about 77 or about the same as the USA.
And China has about 30% of global co2 emissions and DITTO another 30% for other developing countries and India about 7%.
Start to think for a change and you’ll soon abandon your crazy religious cult.
200
Unfortunately Ben Hunt is one of the well-meaning but naive “useful idiots” who was fooled.
He doesn’t understand the business model or the political objectives of unreliable wind and solar power.
1) The business model is not to produce electricity, it is to harvest subsidies for the Elite owners. Clearly the proposition of producing electricity with those things is absurd and pointless from an engineering point of view. If you actually wanted to produce electricity you’d use a proper inexpensive and reliable generator like coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro.
2) The political objective of solar and wind power is to bring about the destruction of the West (Western Civilisation and its high standard of living, industrial and political might and Enlightenment values) via the reduction of the standard of living and industrial capacity bought about by the lack of availability of electricity due to the intermittent nature and high cost of the unreliables. In addition, Enlightenment values such as freedom of thought and expression are being systematically destroyed for “the greater good* of this new “socialist utopia” being imposed upon us. It obviously has nothing to do with climate because the world’s largest emitter of CO2 is excluded, plus there are no non-fraudulent measurements proving either “global warming” or a plausible mechanism by which present concentrations of CO2 might do this, especially the miniscule amount of CO2 of anthropogenic origin.
580
Another point is the massive misdirection of producive financial, intellectual, political, industrial, social and media resources (and others) due the preoccupation with “climate change” and the installation of unreliable generators.
Imagine what could be achieved if those resources were directed toward something real and worthwhile?
470
China directs it’s resources to building tanks, fighter planes & aircraft carriers while the West fight over abortion rights, blocking workers by green morons, virtue signalling, and other unproductive wastes of time and energy.
160
China has also built a reported 68 million empty apartments which would seem to suggest their capital allocation policies are suboptimal at best and completely insane at worst.
80
That’s the main reason we don’t have to direct our “resources to building tanks, fighter planes & aircraft carriers “
30
We are fortunate to have poisonous snakes galore and oceans full of sharks as a deterrent. 😄
20
Don’t forget the spiders (and cane toads).
30
Drop bears??
30
And the reason there is an associated suppression of freedom of thought and expression that goes along with the unreliables is summarised by J. Robert Oppenheimer:
380
The destruction associated with the Renewables industry is unbelievable and, as JoJoDFB has hinted above, it may be linked to the ugly problem of human greed that has been with mankind forever.
The American experience is briefly outlined in the link and I’ve deliberately avoided linking to the photos of the ugly US spent wind turbines which the original installers can’t remove because the company has gone bust.
https://www.riteon.org.au/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-litter-the-united-states/
As goes America, so Australia.
Renewables has never been about providing electricity from ethical sources, nor about the environment or cheap reliable power; the deal has always been about Money through Manipulation and Dominating politics.
360
JoJoDFB’s comment at #1 was a tangential swipe at the reasons behind the “approval” process for Renewables.
The fact is that “Trusts” are run by many of the world’s elites and they are nominally in place to carry out Charitable functions which help the down and out.
Trusts have been linked to the Trudeau, Clinton and Gates families and I suspect that the “administrative costs” of looking after the day to day operations is significant. In many smaller charities in Australia the administrative costs are often 80% of turnover and the large international ones may be the same?
So, why are Renewables being installed, they don’t produce electricity, are expensive and are environmental nightmares.
The “Trusts” seem to offer an explanation.
200
Keith,
Not so much trusts as NGO’s . They get to funnel funds (Tax free) wherever they want and get tax deductions for it . That’s how they control the universities and schools and promote green and woke ideologies . Follow the money…
60
My apologies for being immoderate.
50
I have seen this scrapyard debris back in 2016 on a coach trip around the US southwest, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon etc, there are square miles of rusted, broken, non working piles of junk all along the ridges going through the Mohave Desert towards Vegas.
220
That would be Altamont Pass wind subsidy farm.
It is America’s oldest wind subsidy farm and has been in use since 1981. US subsidies that are harvested are typically in the form of tax credits, the only reason Warren Buffet said he invests in them.
It is a total death zone for flying wildlife on the rare occasions the propellers are spinning although some claim the killing rate has been decreased by various measures. Not sure I believe it though.
120
Consider that for all the tremendous visual and infrasound pollution, the disposal nightmare plus the murderous effect on wildlife, the Altamont Pass wind subsidy farm has a nameplate (meaningless) of a mere 576MW producing an average of 125 MW. It occupies 3400 acres.
That is not even close to a typical modern coal, gas or nuclear power station.
Also, if it was a proper power station it would occupy a tiny proportion of that area, not kill wildlife or cause other problems and the same power station would STILL BE IN OOERATION TODAY AFTER 41 YEARS.
The Altamont Pass wind subsidy farm has been through numerous generations and thousands of wind turbines during that time. (It started with 4930.)
100
Heard on AM, their abc news, AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman is calling for $13 Billion to be spent running transmission cables to bring ‘lowest cost and secure’ power to cities and industry. I take issue to being lied to, lowest cost and most secure ?, you surely must be joking sir.
370
Only part of the story…
Why it will cost $320b to ditch coal
…and a complete waste of time and an incomplete costing. They have obviously not factored in the cost of grid-scale batteries or any other means for firm generation.
70
Only $320 squillon? Let’s organise a lamington sale!
10
I have seen estimates exceeding one trillion dollars.
30
Because nuclear is still off the table.
Australia could re-power with nuclear for half of that amount.
Not that there’s an urgent need. It simply makes sense to replace coal power generation technology as it reaches end of life with nuclear to conserve stocks of coal for other purposes, including coal-to-liquid fuels.
Fuel for transportation is at least as important for Australia as electrical power generation. Keeping coal available maintains an option.
20
AEMO has informed us this morning that the entire eastern Australian region could be powered by their TOXIC, UNRELIABLE, RUINABLES by 2025.
Are these people really that stupid or are they now so confident of their BS and fra-d that they already know there’ll be no serious push back by pollies or so called scientists or engineers or the MSM etc, no matter how outrageous their latest claims are?
So who will pay for the 15 to 20 year burial of these TOXIC environmental disasters and who will then pay to replace them AGAIN and AGAIN?
280
The terrifying thing is that once the grid goes down and people realise we need proper power generation IT WILL BE TOO LATE.
1) The coal power stations will have been hastily destroyed as per Australian policy.
2) Long lead times of many years to build a proper coal, gas or nuclear power station. Even more so in Australia because of massive development restrictions everywhere (“greentape”).
3) Even LONGER lead times apart from that mentioned above because at about the same time as this happens, other countries will be coming to the same realisation. There will be a huge worldwide demand for proper power stations and not enough capacity to supply them.
We are in for a period of MANY YEARS of ENERGY STARVATION.
190
Suburbia may soon resonate to the din of 3 million power generators in back yards; as is the case in other third-world banana republics.
10
Seriously? In 2½ years’ time?
Where did you hear, see, read that?
10
OK.
Thanks.
Found it:
So, the goal that I’m setting for us, Australia’s independent system operator, is to harness the
talents, capabilities, experience and know-how across the industry, to engineer grids that are
capable of running at 100% instantaneous penetration of renewable energy.
And do this by 2025!
So, that’s a grid able to manage 100 per cent renewables penetration – at any moment in any day –
by 2025.
That’s not decades away. It’s just a few years’ time.
https://aemo.com.au/newsroom/news-updates/the-view-from-the-control-room
Clearly, he’s delusional. Time to clean out the upper echelons.
60
We gave windmills the flick more than 100 years ago(along with the Stanley Steamer)So,just who the hell said that these monstrosities were the answer to a NON PROBLEM???????By the way,hows SA’s windmills and solar panels going?????Not very good are they??????Take away the inter-connector from Victoria and watch them squeal.Lol.
00
08:05, Victoria- $631 Mwh, .86% being supplied by toxic S&W.
Bwahahhahahaahahah
120
It’s like organic farming – Farmer are told it will be highly profitable…at some point in the future. Consumers’ are told it will be much cheaper…at some point in the future.
140
Shame it is neither, a bit like ‘unreliables’.
90
Exactly, and like in any other agricultural sector a new market is usually flooded with product very quickly. The result being that margins nosedive and there’s very little profit.
50
Foreign Policy – In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong
A nationwide experiment is abandoned after producing only misery.
80
Excellent account. Rajapaksa’s authoritarian green zeal collided with the thermodynamic reality behind productive agriculture.
70
“The air is filled with a constant, ambient, smell of sulphur. It’s the kind of industrial landscape that America and Europe has largely forgotten – at one time parts of Detroit or Sheffield must have looked and smelled like this.”
China is factory to the world, much as Birmingham and Pittsburgh would have been hellish places.
60
BTW here’s that statement from AEMO and the link. I suppose 100% of King island’s power is also provided by RUINABLEs for a few minute intervals every day, but what happens in hours of wind droughts and night time and heavy cloud cover? DUH?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-30/aemo-integrated-system-plan-guide-reliable-electricity-market/101193176
“Coal-fired power stations planning to close ahead of schedule are adding to the pressure to modernise the electricity grid quickly.
“The future of Australia’s energy is a matter of great national urgency,” the report states, noting that 100 per cent of electricity on the east coast could — at times — be provided by renewable energy as soon as 2025.
“This plan is for a true transformation of the National Electricity Market, from fossil fuels to firmed renewables. It calls for levels of investment in generation, storage, transmission and system services that exceed all previous efforts combined”.
60
This program is beyond misconceived verging on infantile. I supposed a firmed renewable is like a fortified election, one has a sense lies are being told.
20
Flinders Is, 85% diesel, thanks Rudolph.
90
And King Island is around 80% diesel.
40
Add Outback Australia (Central and Northern) diesel generators.
10
Labor have been the chair for about 5 mins, now Bowen has dumped their bid to lower power bills by $275, what a surprise.
140
Just heard a soundbite on an Agenda Initiated Radio News (or Australian Independent Radio News are they call themselves) broadcast that “More coal fired power stations will close earlier according to the head of the AEMO”. That was filler between other quick fire stories. This is on a sports radio programme on Sky Radio Sports. These soundbites are a massive issue with the unthinking and uninformed. I had a run in recently with a talkback host here in Newcastle recently about journalistic integrity. The Oppenheimer quote provided by DM in 6.2 above applies equally to journos as all others. Yet, they think they are above it.
80
Well there goes a night AFL grand final …..and the pink ball cricket fiasco……and the Commonwealth/ Olympic Games will need to be daytime only …..and on it goes ….the MCG may have to have its own wind turbines and spectators will need to have solar panels on their caps to power the pie warmers by each seat ….
60
Or possibly a boom in large scale diesel generators. Multiply King Island by about 4,000.
40
I had that same thought yesterday. That, if you followed the woke movement of saving electricity along its logical trajectory then all night time entertainment should be curtailed. The first to go should be night sports because they can be played in daylight, right? Then, there should be a movement to turn off or reduce freeway/street lighting. The list goes on and on.
70
What a sh…. fight, is anyone controlling this or is it just a free for all, shut stuff down when you feel like it, what a farce, we will be barely surviving on backyard generators.
10
Just heard a soundbite on an Agenda Initiated Radio News (or Australian Independent Radio News as they call themselves) broadcast that “More coal fired power stations will close earlier according to the head of the AEMO”. That was filler between other quick fire stories. This is on a sports radio programme on Sky Radio Sports. These soundbites are a massive issue with the unthinking and uninformed. I had a run in recently with a talkback host here in Newcastle recently about journalistic integrity. The Oppenheimer quote provided by DM in 6.2 above applies equally to journos as all others. Yet, they think they are above it.
30
Sorry! Slow internet!
40
Irreversible’: Wave of coal shutdowns expected
Coal power generators are expected to further bring forward plant closures, adding urgency to $12.7 billion of priority transmission projects that are part of $320 billion of total investment needed by 2050, the Australian Energy Market Operator says.
AEMO’s updated blueprint for the grid released on Thursday envisages 14 gigawatts of coal power generating capacity in the National Electricity Market will close by 2030, with no pulling back from the estimate in the draft for the 2022 Integrated System Plan released in December.
That compares with just 8 GW of closures announced so far, implying the market operator expects a big wave of shutdowns that have not yet been announced as renewable energy flows grow.
To achieve the clean energy transition while maintaining reliable supply, total generating capacity in the NEM will need to increase more than fourfold from the current level to nearly 300 GW by 2050, the final version of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) says.
AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman said developments since it issued the draft ISP in December – with Origin Energy bringing forward the closure of its Eraring generator in NSW by as much as seven years, and AGL Energy accelerating the closure of its coal power stations – only reinforced the rapid pace of change, which AEMO described as “accelerating and irreversible”.
“If there’s one message that comes out of this ISP it is the reinforcement about how urgent it is to act on investment in, yes, transmission, on renewables and on firming and infrastructure,” Mr Westerman told The Australian Financial Review.
He said the current energy supply crunch, which included an unprecedented nine-day suspension of the NEM that ended last Friday, only underlined the need for reforms and investment. The package of actions under way include an overhaul in the structure of the NEM.
In all, nine times more utility-scale wind and solar power capacity is needed in the NEM by 2050 to replace coal plants and meet electricity demand expected to almost double by that time, as well as nearly five times the capacity of rooftop solar and three times as much “firming” capacity, including gas power, storage and pumped hydro.
“What we’re talking about here is just a staggering amount of investment,” Mr Westerman said.
AEMO singled out five transmission projects as “immediately actionable” and that should progress as urgently as possible so the system can cope with the changing energy system. Those include the $3.3 billion HumeLink project in NSW, which will help connect the delayed Snowy 2.0 project and should be delivered by July 2026 at the latest, and the $3 billion VNI West project in Victoria, due by July 2031 or earlier.
The Marinus Link project, involving a second underwater line from Tasmania to Victoria, is also included, but its timing has been put back by two years from the draft, and its cost increased by almost $300 million to $3.78 billion.
Federal energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen said the ISP confirmed Australia’s energy mix would “change dramatically”, and slammed the former government’s failure to be more honest about the pace of change.
That had “left us playing catch-up in the build-out of new generation,” he said.
“The ISP lays out the scale of this over 30 years – electricity demand to nearly double across the grid, storage capacity to increase by a factor of 30, and we already know well the task in transmission.”
Mr Bowen said the ISP was a “world-class document” but complained it was not properly funded, pointing to the support that Labor’s Rewiring the Nation plan will provide for the needed investment.
30
Why it will cost $320b to ditch coal (in three maps and a chart)
The transition away from energy generated by coal on our electricity grid is inevitable, but it will take decades to achieve and cost more than $400 billion.
The end of coal-fired power in Australia is inevitable. But the transition away from fossil fuels in our electricity grid, which will take several decades, requires careful planning now to maintain energy security, avoid rocketing electricity prices and ensure workers remain employed, while Australia also meets its emissions targets.
And it won’t be cheap. It is estimated it will cost about $320 billion to develop, operate and maintain the generation, storage and infrastructure investments of the main electricity system to 2050.
Here are five diagrams that explain how we currently use electricity, what the transition to net zero emissions by 2050 could look like, the investment required, and the big hurdles Australia is facing to get there.
1. How many coal-fired power stations are there in Australia?
Despite a surge in investment in renewable energy projects that use wind and solar power, burning coal remains the key way electricity is generated in Australia. It is also the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
(The electricity sector was responsible for 172 million tonnes of emissions in 2020 – about a third of Australia’s total emissions.)
Many of the country’s power plants are more than 30 years old and are working well beyond their ideal lifespan, which makes them increasingly unreliable and more costly to run.
That means that irrespective of climate change concerns, the existing electricity system will not last forever and will need to be rebuilt, says Frank Jotzo, professor of climate change economics at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.
“A large share of the existing coal-fired power fleet is simply not available when it is absolutely needed, which is a good deal of what’s behind the current energy crisis,” Jotzo says.
About one-third of Australia’s coal-fired power stations closed between 2012 and 2017, and the remaining 19 are due to close over the coming decades.
The largest in operation is Eraring, on the shores of Lake Macquarie, which accounts for about one quarter of NSW’s power requirements.
Although the government has agreed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) says coal-fired power plants are likely to shut much earlier than expected, which means the main electricity grid could become coal-free by 2040.
A speedy transition would be better for the environment, but Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood warns that “if you go too fast on reducing emissions you will stuff up on the reliability and affordability [of electricity], and you need to get the balance right”.
A big concern for the government is that producers of coal will, in fact, exit the market even sooner than expected, and with little warning, which could leave the market without enough electricity and push prices up significantly, while the transition is still under way.
One proposal is for the government to introduce a “capacity mechanism”, where electricity providers would essentially be paid extra money to “keep the lights on” if there is an emergency, even if they aren’t producing energy.
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California Dreaming – 2. Where do we get our power from now? And what will that look like by 2050?
Most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Last year, 59.1 per cent of the electricity generated came from coal, and 7.7 per cent from gas.
But renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, is catching up.
In 2001, renewable energy accounted for just 11 per cent of Australia’s total electricity generation. Twenty years later, it accounted for 32.5 per cent.
In its Step Change (most likely) scenario, AEMO says renewable energy as a share of the total energy generated on the grid will rise to 83 per cent by 2030-31, to 96 per cent by 2040, and to 98 per cent by 2050.
Wind and solar farms are the most affordable way to get renewable energy in Australia and will be the dominant source of electricity in the future (the map above shows the surge in investment in large-scale renewables over the past two decades).
“It is hard for any energy source to compete with wind and solar in Australia because sunshine is relatively strong in most parts of the country, wind speeds are relatively high and land is so cheap, so other technologies [such as nuclear] are really more for other parts of the world where these pre-conditions aren’t so good,” Jotzo explains.
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Reality that They really don’t get – 3. What if the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing?
Beyond solar and wind energy, working out the remaining 10 per cent of the electricity requirements is something we really haven’t got the perfect answer for yet, Wood says.
The government is anxious to avoid a worst-case scenario in the electricity market, which would be a shortfall in supply that leads to blackouts.
While blackouts have been rare to date (and it’s more about the infrastructure of the grid than a lack of energy), Australia will need to not only increase wind and solar power generation but also triple its “dispatchable or firming capacity” – that is, top-up power from other sources.
The technology exists, but opinions differ as to where the top-up power should come from because of the different costs involved, how efficient they are, and environmental concerns.
“Storage technology, in the form of giant batteries and pumped hydro, will augment our wind and solar capabilities, while a tiny bit of gas will likely be in the mix as well [despite being a fossil fuel], particularly for peak demand periods,” Jotzo says.
Batteries are fast to dispatch and therefore ideal for short-term responses (just a couple of hours) to a power outage. However, they tend to hold only a small amount of energy before they need to be recharged.
“It would be uneconomical to build a battery that could run on full tilt for several days, so the batteries are more for short-term fluctuations,” says Jotzo.
On the other hand, pumped hydro, such as the $5.1 billion Snowy Hydro 2.0 project, is better for longer-term fluctuations in weather.
Water gets pumped up a hill, during a period when renewable energy is available (over days or weeks at a time), then during the same period the water runs back down through a turbine, releasing the energy. However, pumped hydro is expensive to build and comes at a cost to the environment.
The other option for “dispatchable energy” is gas, but how much of a role it will play on the grid comes down to the balance of costs between building pumped hydro storage and running gas-fired generators.
“We don’t know what the future gas price will be, what the future emissions penalty will be on gas-fired generators – those things will make a big difference,” Jotzo says.
“There is plenty of analysis done that shows the grid can run without any gas at all, so that’s technically possible. However, we may always want to have some gas in the background to cater for peak demand periods when we are running short of other energy.”
According to the AEMO road map, gas will remain part of the electricity generation mix through to 2050, but emissions would need to be offset elsewhere in the economy.
While some people suggest nuclear energy has a role in Australia’s future energy mix, Jotzo says it is not a viable option for several reasons: Australia does not have the infrastructure, the engineering basis nor the social licence – which is the biggest barrier.
“Nuclear is an expensive technology that you use in some parts of the world where it is difficult to come up with the alternatives. The high latitudes, high population density, that’s where nuclear comes into its own,” he says.
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No Kidding – 3. The current energy grid needs an overhaul
The biggest challenge in the transition away from coal-fired power to renewable energy is actually getting that energy onto the electricity grid and to consumers.
Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) is one of the world’s longest interconnected power systems with about 40,000 kilometres of transmission lines and cables.
It connects six states and territories: Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia (Western Australia and the Northern Territory have separate grids). It is responsible for more than 80 per cent of the country’s electricity emissions.
The current NEM grid was designed to transport power from (mostly) coal-fired power plants in one direction to homes and businesses. Now significant investment is needed to reconfigure the grid by replacing old infrastructure such as coal-fired power stations and installing 10,000 kilometres of new transmission lines to connect renewable energy sources such as wind and solar farms that are often geographically dispersed.
The grid must also be modernised to support a two-way energy flow to account for the growing number of households with rooftop photovoltaic panels (PVs) that are connected to the grid and distributing and selling their energy back on the NEM.
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Finally, Probably Send Australia Broke – What will the transition cost and where to from here?
According to the AEMO, about $320 billion will be needed to develop, operate and maintain the generation, storage and future network investments of the NEM to 2050.
“That’s the single largest challenge – mobilising all of that capital to completely revamp the infrastructure,” says Jotzo.
While it’s a huge amount of money, the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood says it is important to keep in mind that even if we replace old coal-fired power stations with new ones, we would have to spend about one-third of that to keep the existing system up to date.
The cost of renewable energy is lower than energy produced by fossil fuels, but prices are expected to rise to cover the cost of a new transmission and storage system in the medium term before becoming more affordable in the long term.
A new wind or solar park in Australia produces energy at about $50 per megawatt hour, whereas recent wholesale prices have been around the $200 to $300 mark, Jotzo says.
“The way we need to look at this is that it is a sort of decade-long massive investment project that will yield productivity benefits in the 2030s, 2040s and 2050s,” he says.
Wood says what is clear is that the government needs an integrated energy and climate change policy that is also connected to the rest of the economy, which will in turn give investors confidence in the market transition.
“Our political leaders need to be clear with the Australian people that this is something we need to do, it’s worth doing, and we’re doing it for the right reasons. But it’s not going to be simple, it’s not going to be cheap. But it’s not going to kill us all either, it’s going to be doable,” he says.
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“A speedy transition would be better for the environment, but Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood warns that “if you go too fast on reducing emissions you will stuff up on the reliability and affordability [of electricity], and you need to get the balance right”.”
There you have it…… we’re screwed.
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Are the going to teach the country a lesson or the idiot minister?
Perhaps shut everything down early refuse to restart wait for the offers ?
00
Anyone who has been following GWPF, which is has now been rebranded as ” Net Zero watch” would have read the stories about the struggling wind industry. How, opposition to wind installations has increased in much of Europe with also in parts of the US. That movement is starting to emerge here in Australia. But, Australia is still seen as a big potential market for wind with the industry loving both sides of politics here in Australia. But now the cracks are starting to appear. An application for a wind install in Gippsland Victoria has recently been rejected and now the Vic Govt have plans for offshore wind. Once the politicians start talking about “off shore” you know the jig is up.
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So why don’t the MSM or pollies or so called scientists etc tell us the TRUTH about their new TOXIC, RUINABLE, UNRELIABLE future?
Here AGAIN is Mark Mills’ latest video about these environmental TOXIC disasters and it only takes about 5 minutes of your time.
Ask yourself why would so called concerned people want to inflict this terrible TOXIC future on our GREENING planet and all because of their delusional BELIEF in their fanatical religious cult?
And a transcript is available at the link.
https://www.prageru.com/video/how-much-energy-will-the-world-need
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Meanwhile Elbow learns what NATO Stands for – Looking after Australia’s Interests
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Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
June 30, 2022 at 9:19 am
Business Terry McCrann
Why Chris Bowen is the weakest link in the Albanese government
Faced with the biggest energy crisis in Australia’s history, Chris Bowen has done a combination of absolutely nothing and doubling down on the lunacy that caused the mess in the first place.
There’s one huge and dangerously potent exception to the ‘Labor-starting cautiously’ theme I argued yesterday.
This is the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.
Coming into office to be faced immediately with the biggest energy crisis in Australian history – with prices of both electricity and gas going through the roof and with the very real threat of actual electricity blackouts and also gas shortages at the same time – what did Bowen do?
Simply, instructively and ominously, a combination of absolutely nothing and doubling down on the very cocktail of drift and the killing off our gas and real electricity generation that has caused the mess we are already in and has taken us right to the edge of a truly cataclysmic cliff.
Bowen, in the privacy of his delusions, undoubtedly thought he was given an agenda-setting landmark speech to the National Press Club in Canberra Wednesday. It was in fact a mess of sludge and – clearly to Bowen, utterly uncomprehended – contradiction.
He ruled out banning future coal and gas projects, but said he would not approve anything that was “inconsistent with our mandate”.
That’s a mandate which effectively totally bans certainly coal-fired power stations and is all but incompatible with gas-fired power stations.
Does anyone seriously think this Labor Government and this ‘Energy’ minister is going to even grudgingly approve far less aggressively push for either coal or gas?
I put ‘Energy’ in quotation marks because it is seriously important to note that Bowen is the “Climate Change and Energy” minister – not the other way round. This government has made it officially clear that the main policy objective and focus is on ‘Climate Change’. It is officially not on ‘Energy’. Not on actually securing energy for 26m Australians – far less, securing that energy at the cheapest possible price and reliably and without rationing. That is secondary.
That in itself is disturbing enough in a generalised sense. But putting the preference for ‘Climate Change’ over ‘Energy’ in the hands of Bowen makes it far worse, for he is the very worst combination of ambition unmatched by ability and rather petulant enthusiasms. He’s not one that takes even discussion far less contradiction well. And in his short and unremarkable ministerial career he’s shown a predilection for childish enthusiasms. In his portfolio space his enthusiasm is clearly not energy for Australians but Rudd-style climate change posturing – made dangerously worse by exactly the same energy unicorn delusions of the official Dark Greens.
In his Wednesday posturing Bowen said the – my words, very definitely not his: utterly insane, devastatingly destructive and completely unachievable – 43 per cent CO2 emissions cuts by 2030 was not a ceiling but a floor.
That’s to say, give me more – climate change-posturing cuts, not more actual real, reliable, electricity and gas. Yes, he walked into an inherited mess that boiled over thanks in part but only part to Russia, so far as gas was concerned. The electricity mess was all entirely home-grown. But what has he done about it? What did he commit Wednesday to do now to cut prices for electricity and gas and guarantee supply?
Zero, zip, nada nothing. His speech was almost all about the wonderful world of Australia’s (fantasy) renewables future.
The one ‘today thing’ he boasted about was encouraging more EVs and building more EV chargers?
Does he understand – and it is a serious question, given that we are talking about Bowen – that EVs take electricity from the grid, they do nothing to add electricity to the grid?
Be afraid, be very afraid: he’s the ministerial twerp shaping your energy future.
Let me finish with one prediction: the seismic event in this Albanese Cabinet’s future could well develop to be a titanic struggle and climactic clash between Bowen’s lunacy and Treasurer Chalmers realism
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A white pill story to start the day. Their ideology can not be bent, but their economics can. Love it!
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Also, there is a perception that these wind installs can be built very quickly compared to more traditional coal and gas fired generators. But, in reality, there are probably similar or even longer time frames required for wind motion power installations (WIMPI or WIMPY’s). Case in point. A WIMPI was recently constructed near Berrybank (Lismore ) Victoria. I recently spent some time working on a farm close to this install. The farmer told me the original approaches for contracts to the landowners were completed in the early 2000’s. Hence, from approval to final construction was at least 15 years.
The Vic govt have been banging on about off-shore wind, but they are not expected to come online until the early 2030’s. How’s that Berrybank WIMPY going? It is rated as 181 MW nameplate. Today is it producing zero, zilch, nada, duckegg, 0% output.
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.. Today, it is producing zilch, nada, duckegg, 0% output. ( I must proof read my comments more diligently!)
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“Wind is a cost effective, inexhaustible and clean provider of secure energy that isn’t going to further poison the planet.”
Wind energy is free but there is considerable cost in converting the wind energy to useable energy such as electricity and with current technology so it is not cost effective.
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Yes, not cost effective and none of the other imaginary virtues offered either.
20
Coal is free, gas is free, water is free, the sun is free, the wind is free.
But the costs are in converting inputs into cost effective outputs.
10
Critical thinker knew when the climate activism moved from lunatics speed dialing the mainstream trashmedia to have them run around major cities chasing the right intersection where Extinction Establishment had glued themselves to the road and moved on to billionaires claiming the debate was over that this was now about return on renewables investments!
Ben Hunt is as deluded as the US Democrats bleating to the propaganda media that the only way to secure the future and stop ‘extreme events’ like hurricanes is renewables where blackouts happen daily and bulldozers run off hope!
The obvious question to a wind turbine enthusiast is; how much power is produced in hurricanes, cyclones, etc to propel us thru these disastrous times? What is the lifespan of a turbine? How is it recycled so it doesn’t add to the real problem -pollution? How many metals and minerals are required to mine, manufacture, deliver and dispatch a turbine?
Facts over consensus needs to be the next evolution in green rhetoric, but alas, the debate is over, as the move to ‘renewables’ is one thing in human history which doesn’t have an evolutionary process. It is the complete package now!
This truly IS the second coming for mankind!
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I can’t believe the nonsense that Energy Minister Chris Bowen is getting away with. Labor has already dumped its election promise to reduce power bills by $275 a year by 2025 – after just six weeks in power. Bowen admitted the modelling which produced that figure is already out of date and can’t be relied upon. So what does their new model say about increasing electricity prices?
AEMO is saying in the OZ today that its energy system would need a nine-fold increase in wind and solar capacity by 2050. And $10 billion more in network expansion.
And Alba(un)ese “Our goal is for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower.” And “vows to ease world energy and food shortages.”
He has a magic pudding?
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It’s basically just the year 2012 all over again. Chris Bowen then repeating the mantra that refugee boats turnarounds couldn’t be achieved and that there were push/pull factors that individual governments couldn’t control. He repeated that over and over. The more he talked the more boats arrived. Now, he’s going to repeat the mantra that more renewables are needed and that the LNP hadn’t done enough. So, based on that theory I expect the energy supply crisis to get worse, the more ridiculous statements he makes. Maybe the media will actually wake up earlier this time?
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My prediction is that the media will wake up when their diesel generators run out of fuel.
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More from Mark Mills about the PHYSICAL limits etc of TOXIC S & W RUINABLES.
Only 5 minutes to understand why these TOXIC disasters are a waste of time and a waste of endless TRILLIONs of $ even if we were stupid enough to BELIEVE in their crazy ideas.
https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar
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China, Russia, climate change and COVID-19: New poll reveals what Australians are the most concerned about
A new poll shows Australians are more concerned about the threats posed by China and Russia over the likes of COVID-19 and climate change.
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’Not a Joke!’
😔 Poll: Entire World ‘Unhappier, More Stressed’ Since Joe Biden Took Over
Especially Afghanistan
40
Saw a tweet with over a thousand likes that said simply:
“81 million votes and I still have not seen one Joe Biden bumper sticker or t-shirt ever.”
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The RE dream is just a mirage that sits on the horizon and never gets any closer, regardless of how fast you travel and how much money you spend. It’s interesting to finally see some people are waking up to the reality, but with so much human capital invested and so much at stake, we can expect more than a mountain of denial from those responsible for pushing this economy destroying / fake energy solution.
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AGAIN here’s the data from Michael Shellenberger about the RELIABLE, BASE-LOAD and incredibly SAFE history of Nuclear energy.
Just 5 minutes of your time to learn the facts.
https://www.prageru.com/video/abundant-clean-and-safe
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Needs to be balanced with the high cost and unsolved very long term safe storage of the spent fuel .
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“The bottom line shows nuclear costs (including all costs of design, construction and commissioning) coming in at $5,596/kwH.
Large scale solar at more than $14,882/kw/H, wind at more than $12372/kw/H and fossil fuels (gas a coal with carbon capture and storage) at $10,280kw/H.
The figures for renewables used in the comparison were taken from AEMO/CSIRO data.
Furthermore, the type of plants being added to more than 440 existing nuclear plants globally would easily fit on the sites currently housing the ageing coal fired plants. In addition, of the SMRs were installed on existing power staton sites, the majority of workers would work in the same roles – looking after boilers, pumps and transmission – with just a few nuclear technicians needed to tend to the reactor.”
Sunday Telegraph June 26, 2022
10
I can see ‘too big to fail’ and ‘we’ve come too far’ getting bandied about when the maths and physics denier greens finally realize the dream is just out of reach.
20
Yes but what about the deluded teals of the world. They won’t take kindly to being identified as deluded idiots.
31
With Bowen in charge as Energy Minister, we know now that the power situation is just going to deteriorate into a major debacle.
Stand by for rolling ‘greenouts’.
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To quote a Sky News guest commentator, he is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
10
Driving between Geelong and Daylesford, for a couple of years I would notice a gravel parking lot near Ballan always full of pickups and utes, maybe forty or fifty vehicles or more, and wondered what was going on that was taking so long to finish. Then, one day, I saw the first wind turbine standing tall in a paddock.
Some research indicated what was going on was the Moorabool Wind Farm, started by Westwind Energy (a member of the “Clean Energy Council”) based in Gisborne, who sold the project to Goldwind Australia in 2016. GA may sound as Ozzie as a four’n’twenty pie but is actually a fully owned subsidiary of Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co Ltd, a company headquartered in Beijing and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where it has a stock market capitalization of HK$69 billion, about US$10 billion. It is one of the biggest wind turbine manufacturers and operators in the world.
The Moorabool Wind Farm has about 107 turbines operational, scattered on both sides of the Ballan Road. You will see them driving through the area.
Farmers get generous land use fees. Contractors get money. Local workers get a few jobs. Politicians get to virtue signal. Shires are onboard – often filled with greenies. The only patsy seems to be the electricity user who gets high prices.
Somebody has to pay for the golden wind. I guess China harvests most of the gold.
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Mark Mill’s tells us that their so called GREEN (?????) energy has cost the world about 5 trillion $ over the last 20 years.
So 5 trillion $ WASTED to generate just 3% of global electricity would mean that the world govts would have to WASTE another 160 TRILLION $ in a few more dacades, to even approach 100% from their TOXIC RUINABLEs.
Of course this is impossible by 2050 or 2100 and beyond because the entire TOXIC mess has to be bulldozed and buried every 15 to 20 years and renewed AGAIN and AGAIN forever. THINK about it?
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Just checked the NEM watch Live Supply & Demand Widget: Wind is supplying only 5.6% of the total demand (10:25 AM).
And they want to still build more of these inefficient monstrosities?
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HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?
Each summer, whenever there is a heat wave, we are likely to see headlines touting the weather as evidence of global warming. But what do the data actually look like if you take a historical perspective? This Watts Up With That post provides a good overview of U.S. heat wave data. Here are some of the charts.
This is from the EPA, the U.S. Annual Heat Wave Index from 1895-2020:
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A Tribute to Wind-Watchers
Rafe Champion
Posted on June 29, 2022
The time has come to face the fact that the transition to renewable green energy has gone as far as it can go with existing storage technology.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, the Federal Government is planning to legislate for a more ambition RE target and the push to get rid of coal dominates the public debate.
Several times a year there are periods with next to no wind across the whole of South Eastern Australia, the National Energy Market (NEM).
These “wind droughts” can be described as icebergs in the path of the RE Titanic.
Who knows about wind droughts?
Very few people pay close attention to the wind apart from cyclists, sailors and spin bowlers. For many years dedicated wind-watchers have been trying to sound a warning about the “icebergs” but the captain and passengers on the RE Titanic remain blissfully unaware.
This is a very strange situation. Obviously the supply of wind is critical for wind power in the way that the water supply is fundamental for irrigation but the windpower industry has apparently been built without bothering about wind droughts. Billions of dollars have been spent on wind and solar facilities that deliver no power on windless night
We developed a false sense of security because nobody had to worry about the wind supply or even think about it when we had enough conventional (mostly coal) power to provide energy security. However over the last two decades eleven coal power stations have closed in SE Australia. Some of the 19 remaining are near the end of their working lives and one of them has started to phase out (Liddell, in NSW.)
AT THE TIPPING POINT
We have reached a critical tipping point. If we lose any more fossil power capacity then at times of peak demand some input from the wind and sun will be necessary. Previously it did not matter whether the sun shone or the wind blew because the wind and solar plants were just expensive ornaments attached to the grid.
As plans proceed to get rid of coal, then every wind drought will threaten the power supply and prolonged wind droughts will be catastrophic.
The recent convulsions and price explosions in the system will become chronic.
No power-intensive industry will be viable unless the coal plants are kept on line in good running order for the foreseeable future.
If the coal capacity is not maintained, then more gas will have to be burned at crippling cost.
The official response is to accelerate the rollout of windmills and solar panels but these make no contribution to the grid on windless nights. Building more capacity does not help, any more than having a big petrol tanks in a car helps when it is empty.
All of this this would appear to be stating the bleeding obvious but it apparently eluded the masterminds of the electricity system that we have today.
Wind and solar power can displace coal power but not replace it.
20
Open Nem is very good
granular and historic data
1D, 3D, 7D, 30D, 1Y, ALL – Monthly ALL – 1999-2022 – https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all&interval=1M
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In this outline we will update on the troop and military movements and then explain why the war with Russia is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. In many ways this will be the “Climate Change War,” you will see why below.
Deafening Drumbeats for War – Biden Sends More U.S. Troops to Ukraine Border, 101st Airborne Deployed, Six Destroyers to Mediterranean, F-35 Squadrons to U.K.
There is a slow-motion buildup to a hot war with Russia happening. The NATO and western alliance motive for the war is clear {Go Deep}. The question is rapidly moving from “if” to “when.”
The NATO and western alliance that is currently engaging in the military buildup against Russia is the exact same alliance of governments’ who are chasing the climate change agenda at all costs.
I know it sounds outlandish, but the World Economic Forum multinational corporations that influence and manipulate geopolitical politics are the driving force for this needed war with Russia. Their holy grail of Climate Change policy, and the massive shift in global economic power that comes with executing the climate change agenda, is so consequential to the geopolitical world that such a massive move is needed.
More specifically, we already know there is going to be a global food shortage as a result of the new world order energy policy that underpins the Build Back Better agenda.
We also know the majority voices, including the United States, within the NATO alliance have decided it is more important to follow the climate change policy than it is to feed people. [Africa Example]
I cannot emphasize this enough. If you do not accept the scale, scope and severity of the collective west’s entrenched commitment to climate change, you will be caught off-guard and not understand what is coming.
NATO and Western Govt, led by the policy of Joe Biden, have placed oil and gas sanctions against Russia. Those U.S-led Russian energy sanctions follow similar sanctions already in place against oil and gas from Iran and Venezuela.
Simultaneously the G7, Western Alliance will not allow Africa to develop their own use of natural gas to produce fertilizer to increase crop yield/harvest. [source] The G7 control food production in Africa by controlling the energy company investment needed to manufacture fertilizer.
Question – Any Bets on this occurring before US November Elections when Democrats face a Wipeout?
00
Aussie Climate Minister Promises to Legislate Away that Evil CO2
Essay by Eric Worrall
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/29/aussie-climate-minister-promises-to-legislate-away-that-evil-co2/
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If you want to know what it’s going to be like under Bowen as Energy minister, cast your mind back to when 50,000 undocumented illegal feral refugees escaped into the countryside under Bowens watch, and multiply by 100.
00
I found this from a few years ago:
“Ben Hunt has assumed the role of Global Head of Corporate Affairs leading the Corporate Communications & Public Affairs department. After assignments in the political sector and as a journalist he has held different roles in communications, media relations and corporate social responsibility in international companies for the last 13 years.”
Ben is missing characteristics needed to get my attention, such as training in science and engineering, and common sense.
Moving on — nothing of interest.
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John Sheldrick says:
June 30, 2022 at 11:16 am
Bob Dylan got it all wrong yer’ know
The answer is not blowing in the wind.
10
The Jerry Jeff Walker version is more like it for renewables IMO
10
https://genius.com/Jerry-jeff-walker-pissin-in-the-wind-lyrics
Particularly the chorus
“[Chorus]
Pissin’ in the wind
Bettin’ on our losin’ friends
Makin’ the same mistakes we swear we’ll never make again
Pissin’ in the wind
But it’s blowin’ on all our friends
We’re gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren”
00
Iconic Aussie manufacturer goes bust after 75 years in business unable to compete with cheap Chinese imports
– Treg Trailers a long-running Adelaide business will close down on Thursday
– The owners said they simply couldn’t compete with cheap Chinese imports
– China has been bullying Australia by banning exports over last two years
‘My father used to say people will soon forget the price, but they’ll never forget the quality, and we’ve had a sensational reputation,’ he said.
‘But in recent times there’s all the Chinese imports. You can buy a trailer now, which is absolute rubbish compared to what we build.’
‘But it’s like a toaster now – you expect it to last two or three years and then you chuck it away and you buy another one.’
Mr Tregoning said that his father had invented a special type of coupling joint to tow the trailers that is superior to the typical ball joint – but that the Chinese copied them and even branded them ‘Treg’.
He said he’d spoken to lawyers who advised him he could end up pouring millions of dollars into pursuing legal action and likely get nowhere.
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During the 1980s I attended a meeting with senior public service employees to discuss alleged dumping of products from China and the loss of market share for Australian manufacturers resulting.
I was told, off the record, that the Labor Government was not interested, China was purchasing aluminium from Australia valued at more than the combined market share of Australian product manufacturers under attack from imports from China.
So Australian businesses and employees were not considered.
20
We are being conditioned to think of electricity as a scarce and luxury commodity and will be thought of as being “selfish” for demanding it.
Next on the agenda, as I keep warning about but no one seems to believe me, will be a war against meat and the heavy promotion of insect consumption for non-Elites.
20
Bill Gates is the largest private land owner in the US. No meat for the peasants…
10
Who would have thought that an unreliable source of power that gets mothballed after only 10-20 years would not be a winner (other than the subsidy farming)…My god there are some naive people out there.
How many windmills are needed to replace a coal power station? How much productive land? trees felled? steel? concrete? roads? transmission lines? rare earth minerals? Diesel back up for calm days? etc, etc, etc – The white elephants produce a NET INCREASE IN CO2 ‘EMISSIONS’ over their full life cycle! So how are they saving the planet exactly? How about the poisoning of water tables in chinese cities where they mine and process the minerals for turbines? Clean and green…They might as well spit in your face and tell you its 100 year old whiskey.
Biggest con who ever sold this crap – even bigger con was who bought it and are decimating our grid (our sellout uniparty politicians).
There needs to be trials and prison time for what has been done.
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When they get done with the covid Nuremberg trials, they can start with the climate Nuremberg trials.
20
I can’t wait to read the financial pages and listen to the financial commentators talking about wind turbine businesses closing because the shareholders realise that dismantling, buying new turbines and installing expenses would just about cost them the dividends on subsidised profit after tax income from their shareholding.
And Minister Bowen waving his hands around like a windmill in a cyclone demanding that those shareholders do the right thing and replace those valuable assets.
/sarc.
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There used to be a dual-listed kiwi/Aussie company on the stock market called Tilt Renewables. It didn’t produce much real power but was worth billions. It seems to have vanished from the share market tables so I checked what happened to it. And the answer illustrates the complete mess we are in.
As of this year Tilt Renewables has merged with the Powering Australian Renewables Fund in a complex $2.75 billion transaction to create the largest private developer and generator of renewable electricity in Australia.
But here’s the real kicker: who is behind the Powering Australian Renewables Fund? Who owns and controls them?
Well, they are a consortium comprised of the following three players: AGL Energy, a Queensland Investment Corporation (owned by the Qld state government) infrastructure fund, and the Federal government’s own much ballyhooed Future Fund.
This is as political as it gets. And is why AGL the public company is in such dire straits. Everyone has hitched their caboose to the Renewables train.
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BP Statistical Review of World Energy
The challenges and uncertainties facing the global energy system are at their greatest for almost 50 years. bp’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2022 reveals that the growing shortages and increasing prices highlight the continuing importance of energy ‘security’ and ‘affordability’ alongside ‘lower carbon’ when addressing the energy trilemma
Energy developments
. Primary energy demand increased by 5.8% in 2021, exceeding 2019 levels by 1.3%.
. Between 2019 and 2021, renewable energy increased by over 8EJ. Consumption of fossil fuels was broadly unchanged.
. Fossil fuels accounted for 82% of primary energy use last year, down from 83% in 2019 and 85% five years ago.
INTERACTIVE CHART The increase in carbon emissions in 2021 was driven by the rebound in economic growth
Oil
Coal
. Coal prices rose dramatically in 2021, with European prices averaging $121/tonne and the Asian marker price averaging $145/t, its highest since 2008.
. Coal consumption grew over 6% in 2021 to 160 EJ, slightly above 2019 levels and its highest level since 2014.
. China and India accounted for over 70% of the growth in coal demand in 2021, increasing by 3.7 and 2.7 EJ, respectively.
. Global production matched consumption with an increase in supply of 440mt. China and India accounted for much of the increase in production, which was largely consumed domestically, as well as Indonesia, supporting higher exports.
. Notably, both Europe and North America showed an increase in coal consumption in 2021 after nearly 10 years of back-to-back declines.
Renewables, hydro and nuclear energy
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I was accused of trying to demoralize people today, LOL.
Say it again: “Wind and solar are by far the best and cheapest sources of energy!”
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It would seem that the both the UK and the EU member states are not as well-informed as Albo and his little mate Chris Bowen: the news from over there during these last few days is that in these nations (except for France, busily patching up its nuclear fleet), the inevitable transition has indeed begun, no guesses – to old king coal.
Seems that with Russian gas being cut off, some sort of alternative reality has taken effect over there, big time.
Am I missing something here?
Paul Miskelly
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