Supplied by Snowy Hydro
Australia’s star “Renewables BackUp” the Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme has been delayed another two years. The pumped storage mammoth looks more like a ghost elephant every day. When last we heard, Florence the hapless tunnel boring machine started on a 15 kilometer tunnel and carved through 150 meters of rock only to get stuck in some sand, where it is still stuck months later. Now the completion date has blown out to late 2029.
When it started in 2017 it was supposed to cost $2 billion, and be finished in four years. Now, if we include transmission lines, the cost is about $20 billion, and the four years has become twelve. Even the Greens leader Adam Bandt thinks it should be ditched. It’s that bad.
Paul Broad was the CEO of Snowy Hydro for ten years until August last year. So he managed one of Australia’s largest single generators for a decade. Now that he’s free to speak, he’s scathing about the renewables transition. On Thursday he spoke to Ben Fordham of 2GB radio making it clear what a fantasy project NetZero is:
“The notion that you’re going to have 80 per cent renewables in our system by 2030 is, to use the vernacular, bullshit,” Mr Broad said.
“Eraring [Coal power station] CANNOT close…If the lights don’t go out I’ll be awfully surprised,” he said.
‘The truth is… this transition, if it ever occurs, it will take 80 years… not eight.’
There are massive changes that need to occur.
“And I’m deeply concerned about the rush, the notion that somehow this is all magic … we’ll close a big base-load power plant that’s kept our lights on for yours and my life … and there are all these alternatives out there.
“Well, it’s not. I can be absolutely, 100 per cent certain it’s not available.” — ABC News
The standard marketing for Snowy 2.0 includes this line, which was supposed to impress us:
” It will store enough energy to power 3 million homes for a week.”
But for $20 billion dollars we could build new coal plants to power 3 million homes for the whole dang year. We could build a nuclear plant.
Would you like pollution, feral pests and a money eating machine?
Ted Woodley in The Australian sums up just how disastrous this is electrically, as well as environmentally:
And Snowy 2.0 will be a very inefficient battery, consuming about 1.5 kilowatt-hours for pumping for each 1.0 kilowatt-hour it delivers, due to losses in the pumping/ generation cycle and in transmission (two ways). Further, its claimed cyclic storage capacity will be constrained by the unequal volumes of the upper and lower reservoirs and the need to integrate operation with the existing Tumut 3 pumped hydro station.
Environmentally, vast construction sites and roads/tracks across 35km of Kosciuszko National Park have destroyed thousands of hectares of native alpine habitat. Twenty million tonnes of excavated spoil will be dumped in the Park and reservoirs, enough to cover a football field to a height of three kilometres.
Pest fish and pathogens will be transported from Talbingo Reservoir to Tantangara Reservoir and then across the alps into the Murray, Snowy, Murrumbidgee and Tumut headwaters, overwhelming native species and devastating trout fishing. Four 330kV transmission lines on two sets of 70-metre towers will traverse eight kilometres of the Park over a cleared easement swathe up to 140 metres wide. This will be the first time transmission lines are erected in a NSW national park for 50 years.
From The Daily Mail: we find out it’s really our Energy Minister that’s the problem
Broad resigned because “Mr Bowen became the Energy Minister” and Bowen wanted to run a gas plant on hydrogen that didn’t exist:
He [Broad] said said he resigned as Snowy Hydro CEO last August after nine years in charge because after Mr Bowen became the Energy Minister ‘I was dead in the water, so it was only a matter of time before I formally resigned.’
‘Particularly the gas plant at Kurri Kurri (in NSW). (former Coalition energy minister) Angus Taylor and I were very strong that you needed gas to keep the lights on. ‘And we had more gas in NSW than we know what to do with. We need gas (for) when the sun’s not shining, when the wind’s not blowing … (but) Chris Bowen was against Kurri Kurri. ‘Then he said, we’re going to run Kurri Kurri 30 per cent on hydrogen.
There is no hydrogen … and there won’t be for another 10, 20 years at the earliest,’ [Broad] said.
Imagine if they’d put out this announcement the week before the Liddell coal fired plant closed?
Ted Woodley is former managing director of PowerNet, GasNet, EnergyAustralia, GrainCorp and China Light & Power Systems (Hong Kong).
h/t Crakar24, David B, Eric Worrall, Strop,
- Snowy 2.0 could win Prize for Most Globally Stupid Green Engineering Project
- Australia’s Biggest Renewable Energy Project, Snowy 2.0, grinds to a halt, with a stuck bore
- More bad luck! Snowy Hydro can’t run much because it has *too much water*
- Snowy 2.0, twice the cost, half the value, wastes a quarter of the energy, and wrecks the environment
The tragic thing is in Turnbull’s marketing campaign which leveraged off the excellent reputation and engineering excellence of the original Snowy Hydro Scheme.
The idea of Snowy Hydro 2 was known about by the real engineers of the original Snowy Hydro Scheme 1949-1974 but was dismissed as not practical or economically viable and it still isn’t.
I think many people believe this is actually a primary generator rather than an energy-consuming Big Battery.
Like everything to do with the Green/Left, it was deceptive at best and a lie at worst.
This again confirms why politicians shouldn’t be allowed to make scientific or engineering decisions.
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And a very lossy battery. 33% losses on charging. And the bill is now expected to be north of $20Billion, if and when it it finished.
You are talking major nuclear power station money and build time. And the devastation of the Snowy Mountains National Park is incredible. For what? It’s all a fantasy of Mad Green Malcolm and his wife. He is shaping up as the second worst Prime Minister of a lifetime, after Julia Gillard.
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At least I don’t think Gillard killed any workers in her quest for edjacation revalootion, as if school halls and tuckshops are going to make the kids any smarter, unlike the Kruddster and his mad batts revalootion.
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A person of many ideas that Greens would be proud to have;
https://web.archive.org/web/20180815225610/http://stopturnbull.com/a-change-of-tactics-2000-2009/
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Just think how bad Turnbull was if the polls had a majority of people believe K.Rudd would be a better PM (65% vs 14%).
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Thanks. I had forgotten just what an ignorant, treacherous weasel Turnbull was.
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You are too kind, TdeF.
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A comment from the former head of Snowy Hydro at Sky yesterday was that Snowy 02 tunnels are far too long for an efficient pumped hydro system.
He also said that if the Transition is ever completed it would take at least 80 years.
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Just imagine how bad some “green” (sic) idea would have to be for the leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, to think it should be ditched. They support all ridiculous green ideas so they must think this one to be especially atrocious. For once in my life I find myself in agreement with them!
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Snowy 2 is only a disaster if you think the idea was to supply electricity. It wasn’t. The delays in Snowy 2 will become the excuse for power rationing when it is introduced sometime soon.
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I fully expect power rationing to happen along with a marketing campaign to suggest you are “selfish” if you want to be warm or cool, or want to go more than 15 minutes walking distance from your designated residence.
Enough power will be allowed for some night time domestic lighting, to run an Internet connected appliance to receive government propaganda and a small amount of power to heat your once-daily ration of insects and gruel.
Of course, these conditions will only apply to non-Elites.
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And monumental “spillage” to the usual suspects.
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Waiting for a cargo cult mentality to develop around Snowy 2. Sure things are tough now but just you wait till Snowy 2 is online!! we will be cruising, all thanks to Malcom Turnbull!
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Is it perhaps a pumped hutzpah, hide-woe plan?
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The Energy Realists of Australia have a note on Snowy2.0 with some serious modelling that shows the scheme is a complete dud by any standard.
For example the upper Reservoir has never been more than 70% full in the 23 years to December 2020. This means that there has never been sufficient water to generate the specified 350 GWh of electrical energy over 175 hours.
In addition, the long-term average weekly volume of the the in the same 23 years, is 18.15% which allows only 32 GL to be used for generation.
The long-term average storage available in the lower reservoir is approximately 33 GL. This volume is clearly insufficient to support 175 hours of generation, unless the water is allowed to spill which may violate the conditions of the ‘Snowy Water Licence”.
And that is just the start.
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Rafe, have you looked at the CSIRO’s recent energy storage report? It seems clear from this report that there is no viable way forward for adequate energy storage to cover the long-duration NEM energy shortages if the NEM was to move to mainly renewable energy.
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Perhaps Snowy2 should be stopped while they are a bit behind. it will only get worse.
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I think it would be appropriate to call Snowy 2 a “pipe dream.” Why on earth do we not go nuclear, the newer plants are nothing like the old. Plus we we have the best uranium in the world but a few so called greenies with big mouths shut the whole thing down. How come Greens get all the say? To me they are doing the most damage to the environment above all else.
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I’ve got nothing against nuclear, but why on earth should Australia saddle itself with a power supply we have to pay others for (enriched uranium fuel rods) when almost the entire continent floats on a bed of thermal coal?
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Surely one significant advantage of small-scale and micro-scale nuclear is that you can locate the energy sources close to town centres, thus avoiding the need for long costly transmission lines.
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They are using 500Kv lines. The losses are tiny. UHVDC would mean zero losses at over 1Mv.
And I would keep ALL power generation as far from major cities as possible, which is really easy in Australia. 83% of Victorians live in Melbourne, for example. 17million of Australia’s 25 million live in just the capitals, half the population in just three cities. We have the least need for micro nuclear and their need for weapons grade highly enriched uranium.
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Their losses may be small, but at a cost of $2.3m/km, the lines are not cheap. And I was unaware that the micro reactors require weapons-grade uranium – is there a reference for that? Would like to know more about them.
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Fuel source depends on the technology used.
The UK Rolls Royce modular system is based on Uranium fuel , whilst some of the US designs use Thorium Salt tech.
Other fuels include the use of waste fuel rods fron old tech reactors.
There are several options under development
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The greens hate nuclear energy because it produces cheap plentiful power which is the lifeblood of Capitalism.
The capitalist system produces prosperity, prosperity is the enemy of the Left.
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I don’t understand how a professional engineer could, in good conscience, work on a totally dud project like this or at least speak out against it.
Are there no morals or ethics left among engineers any more? And no critical thinking skills to understand the nature of the anthropogenic global warming fraud?
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Everyone has a price?
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That’s what it means to be professional.
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Liberal voter.
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I think that’s a step too far. As an employee you cannot make moral judgments or value judgments about every project, from dams to freeways to airports to power stations.
There are major areas like Defence for example which employs a lot of engineers. Weapons research in particular.
Even bridges and tunnels have ecological and financial pro and contra arguments. Frigates and submarines.
Any professional would go mad if they had to morally evaluate and financially justify every project. It’s nothing like the moral questions around designing and building efficient NAZI incinerators at death camps. They even had competitions. Or biological weapons like anthrax or the Wuhan flu. I don’t think a water pumping system is a moral question at all.
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And as for a job where people think their bosses are idi*ts, that’s the normal job. Again not a moral observation. I expect teachers have the same opinion of the curriculum they teach and often they are right, especially today.
If the Prime Minister cannot get it straight, we cannot rely on workers to see more clearly. I remember the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne which was a rolling disaster and completely unnecessary then and now. At huge cost we built a very tall long bridge to get across the shallow narrow Yarra river which turned sharply right just after the bridge. Later 2km upstream we had to build yet another bridge to get people over the same river so they could get onto the bridge over the river. All because Premier Bolte wanted a bridge like Sydney. And now of course it’s a huge man made bottleneck.
And the current Premier stopped a fully funded simple tunnel which would have vastly relieved inner city traffic and even classed the old dead end freeway as an historic monument so future generations could not fix the problem. So 40,000 cars and trucks go through the inner city for political reasons. Allegedly on behalf of the residents of the same suburbs.
The people to hold to account are the politicians not the workers and engineers. Malcolm Turnbull fully expects a statue. So did Nero and the adjacent Colosseum was named after his colossal statue. Snowy II is not a real project which was expected to have a real benefit. It is a monument to Malcolm Turnbull and his reign. A total failure.
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And besides, these are real men, professionals working hard. Thousands of men and women with families. Let’s not attack the people doing a hard job, even an impossible job.
It may all be a cover for Malcolm’s outrageous theft of $444Million from Treasury for his wife’s committee to ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef. No proposal. No application. The recipients didn’t even know about it and could not explain it. 7 1/2 tons of gold. What was it? A promise over dinner, a nice bottle of red?
What has the Australian public received in return for their money? Where is the accounting? Who has the cash? Have they spent it already? How do you hide a massive $444Million in cash? Did they get a receipt? Fly-buys points?
Snowy II may end up a massive failure or a successful waste of billions for nothing. It would not be the first time. But what happened to the stolen $444Million? Not a whisper. Certainly not an accounting or a progress report on something which didn’t need doing and for which there was no plan.
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David
As a professional engineer my plain speaking at a large food based company over the companies parlous operational performance and my engineering based advice on various projects was not appreciated. I was conveniently shown the door in a restructure. That company has massively struggled ever since whilst the company that I assisted, and still assist, in the same area has more than quadrupled sales and moved to far larger premises recently, and is rapidly filling that up with new product.
The huge issue is that dud companies and dud systems are being propped up by subsidies and govt payments. Snowy 2.0 is an obvious example but the whole wind and solar boondoggle would never be going anywhere without rigging of the power pricing system and huge amounts of taxpayer dollars.
I am now of the view that we need to have the whole lot come crashing down, and very badly, before anybody will wake up here in this country. I know many will be hurt and ruined but the Left allow no other course now. When the blackouts destroy industries and cause massive waste in our food supply chain, with the risk of starvation only then will many in this country wake up.
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You are quite right Prophet of Boom but any restoration of sanity and wellbeing for society is being deliberately thwarted by the willful destruction of useful infrastructure such as closed power stations. The willful ignorance outweighs the political wickedness or at least is on a par with it.
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Does anyone know the “walk away” price for this disaster?
How much will taxpayers be hit to cancel the project right now, pay out the contracts and remediate the environmental damage already done?
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Probably a bit more than the Turdbull French subs disaster, and a bit less than the Turdbull NBN disaster.
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Turnbull rescued the NBN.
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Ask Cloughs.
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Whatever the walk away price is, it is a bargain compared to continuing the inevitable catastrophe.
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Haven’t the contractors been going broke one after the other, it just might be super easy to stop, just wait 5 minutes then extract the pin.
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Re: Minister, Chris Bowen, and his role in all this. I venture the opinion that he, with his determination to press on regardless with technically flawed ‘solutions’ could well be the man who single-handedly brings down the current government. It may take a lot of blackouts and a lot of public suffering but when it all fails it will be he and the govt that will get the blame.
Please stay in public view, Paul Broad.
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Pretty sure that whoever from the Labor party was in charge of “Energy”, you would still be getting the same totally idiotic decisions being made.
Every one of them, and a large number of Lib members, is totally brain-washed into the AGW anti-CO2 cult.
The totally irrational and gormless energy destruction decisions would continue regardless.
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Most Libs (pretend conservatives) are just as green as Green-Labor, some are much more so.
Some like Matt Kean (NSW), are real fanatic “true believers” in the Cult, much more so than your typical Labor or even Green hack.
And this was a project of the embedded Labor PM of the Liberal Party as well.
Remember the last election in Vicdanistan? The Libs promised more extreme Green projects and targets than even Andrews’ commies.
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David, look at Kean’s and Bowen’s eyes when they are talking about climate change and renewables. They have been drinking something. Not sure what but I don’t think it is a good thing.
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Kool-Aid, it’s the drink of choice these days, so it seems…
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“The Libs promised more extreme Green projects and targets than even Andrews’ commies.”
And haven’t been heard from since ! 😉
I wonder if they learnt anything from that… I very much doubt it. !
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The fact that we now have a minister for ‘energy AND climate change’ should tell the populace all they need to know. Of course, the current crop of temporary parasites think the populace does not need to know.
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BoBo is a special kind of idiot though, cast your mind back to the refugee boats debacle.
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Spent a month in Australia back in 1999, wonderful trip, beautiful country. I can feel your pain dealing with the liberal left. I am from the United States and recently worked at the only two large nuclear units being built in the country. New design started in 2007 and still not operational and the design wasn’t finished until 2021. Major corrections were needed in 2022 and there is hope the first unit may go operational in 2023. The utility building it had to sell part of their regulatory area in order to offset the impact to the corporation financially.
The main problem dealing with the left is they are so good at making their BS sound so sweet that all those with very little common sense can decipher their lies. Look what we’re dealing with Trader Joe in Kamala Harris, a criminal and a moron.
China is just laughing so hard it must hurt. We have given it the name, the Genghis Kong affect for world domination. The rich peddling this crap and accepting dark money don’t realize all the money and gold in the world will not help them save their heads when China comes to collect.
[wee edit. – LVA]
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Paul Broad will be referred to by the vindinctive Bowen as a “disgruntled ex-employee”.
Back when Lord Waffle announced Snowy2, I described the geological conditions for tunnelling (on another website) as typical tectonically induced alpine geology, with opposing faults, tight folds, shears, bedding plane shears, abutting perched waters – all with no useful geological horizon for reliable surface seismic echo – and consequently extremely difficult and expensive to tunnel through. Snowy 1 also showed that in its’ records, maps and reports.
Paul Broad read that comment, or was referred to it, as he responded in the MSM with the old line about “we have the best engineering geologists” etc and blah. This response said that he was well aware of the real issues but Lord Waffle was insistent.
Reality has now mugged them all. Such a surprise …
Only a black start will alter this trajectory. I expect power rationing will be enforced to try and avoid this. Rationing already exists in the form of having the Tomago smelter turned off for 2 hours at a time (limited by the need to keep the pot lines from freezing) with under-the-table compensation paid to the smelter by the taxpayer. During last winter (2022), the smelter was turned off over 35 times in one month. The MSM, ABC etc will never report that. even though they know it full well.
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This was all common knowledge by the original engineers of Snowy Hydro 1 as you say, as well as anyone vaguely familiar with important Australian geology.
And did SH2 people not read geotechnical reports from SH1 and did they not do a geotechnical survey for SH2?
It is simply remarkable that this project went ahead at all. It was doomed on the basis of geology alone, let alone the overall defective concept.
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Politicians have done more financial harm to Australia than all the global conflicts and natural disasters put together. Every five years or so since WW2 when their reign is looking shaky they ignite a major initiative that will solve all our problems. In reality, of course, it is to save them from oblivion! Snowy 2.0 is a prime example. Following his SSM debacle Malcolm Turnball was nearing his “use-by date” and needed a game changer. His successor “Scom0” thought he would achieve immortality with covid. Today we have Alb0 and co doing something similar with a V2P. All they ever succeed in doing is divide us!
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Not only to Australia, imagine 😀
Habeck Assembles the Mafia
From a German article via deepl.com:
The affairs of Mr Habeck and Mr Graichen Germa source
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What you have said most eloquently can be summed up quite simply as;
‘Jobs for the boys’
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Two points.
Projects as large as Snowy Hydro 2.0 should be using project monitoring tools like Earned Value Management, which track actual budget and schedule performance against the original plan. Optimistic project managers sometimes pretend that a project going over budget and over schedule can magically improve performance and get “back on track”. Realistic project managers hope that initial delays will be due to startup issues, or learning curve issues at the start of any new project with a new team. They assume that project performance will improve to at least what had been the original plan.
Earned Value tells a different story. Pessimistic project managers know that Earned Value shows real world achievement, and is unlikely to improve over the life of a complex, unique project. Snowy Hydro 2.0 now has 6 years of project performance in its records. Anyone who makes estimates of completion dates and completion costs without using EVM has no idea what those future targets will look like. If they are using EVM, but not extrapolating their performance over the last six years, then the estimates for completion dates and completion costs are deliberately misleading and well short of what it will take to complete this project.
The second point is about the business case for Snowy Hydro 2.0. At $2B, it might have been a worthwhile investment, based on the additional electricity it can generate over its life. At some point, as construction costs increase, the viability of the business case weakens, simply because of the estimated cost of electricity it needs to sell to cover increased infrastructure costs as well as storage losses. And the problem, as costs keep blowing out, is that this project will never end up being economically viable, simply because no one will be able to afford the cost of electricity at the price Snowy Hydro 2.0 needs to sell it!
So, where is the Energy Minister? When will he start talking about the failing business case for Snowy Hydro 2.0? As a failing initiative of a previous LNP government, there are plenty of political points to be made, and many excellent sound bites about this failing white elephant!
Except that it is a “renewable” project!
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In Australia, the Earned Value Management methodology is codified in Australian Standard:
It’s remarkable that it apparently isn’t being followed. But it’s a “green” project. Truth, efficiency and cost don’t matter…
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The ” Cone of Silence” has been drawn over the whole project.
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All projects should be subject to earned value monitoring, except for those from the Green Blob which are exempt from any kind of oversight as their moral standing gives them the credit required to bulldoze through any regulatory or economic roadblocks.
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I think you are being way too generous. The benefits would have been a napkin calculation put into a spreadsheet once, and shown in a powerpoint.
All that has ever mattered is how much money the various governments are willing to sink. It was never set up with a seperate company taking on all the debt and having a buisness case to repay it.
Snowy 2.0 will be like the ITER: At any point in time the $$$ and time required until completion *gets larger, and never goes down* – because they main point of these projects is to fleece as much money as possible and drag it out. Remember the managers are going millions of dollars in bonuses each year they remain on the project.
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Paul Broad is to be congratulated for telling us the real truth. Most thinkers and those on this blog already knew what he has just told us, but hopefully, he may have educated a few of the sheeple. Bowen of course will just bluster on with his unfolding disaster. Hopefully, he will bring down this useless Government with this industrial sized disaster.
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Glenn,
Paul Broad knew the “real truth” when Turdbull gave birth to it in 2016. He knew the “real truth” in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 while he happily collected a handsome salary for working on it under successive LIBERAL govts. The “real truth” only became a problem with the change of govt.
What on earth makes you think another change of govt again will make any difference?
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I can’t post the detailed table here but see:
https://www.transparency.gov.au/annual-reports/snowy-hydro-limited/reporting-year/2021-22-30
Snowy Hydro Limited Annual Report 2021-22
Executive Remuneration for FY2022
Executives received a mix of remuneration during FY2022 including fixed and variable remuneration.
The table below summarises the remuneration that was received in relation to FY2022 which includes FAR and any variable reward. It is calculated under an accrual basis in accordance with statutory rules and applicable Accounting Standards.
Table 2: Executive KMP statutory disclosures
Paul Broad Total $2,773,940
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/snowy-hydro-20-bosses-get-45m-in-bonuses/news-story/62c8a053ca5f9ff846a72268110d87e8
Snowy Hydro 2.0 bosses get $4.5m in bonuses
6:55AM MARCH 17, 2023
(PAYWALLED)
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Who was the NSW Labor clown in charge of Energy.. Keen?
He backed the closure of both Liddell and Eraring.
Anti-CO2 AGW “belief” is a multi-party disease.
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He is a Liberal, and held various portfolios in the previous Liberal/National Coalition government.
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He is what I described as LINO left (Liberal In Name Only) and part of the left faction that has caused so many problems for the Coalition beginning 1990s.
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The first time I heard RINO I thought of our LINO and added that here LINO should be put on the floor and trampled on.
I look at the crazy people and opinions here and around the world. Even in true democracies these evil people get to be cantidates. They then appoint heads of departments who in turn appoint other socialist staff.
Their ABC is a classic example where we will never get balanced journalism.
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“He is a Liberal,”
Nope, never a conservative.
A liberal, in a American context, maybe.
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I think the clown community, who are actually useful members of society, unlike Matt Kean, would be offended by being compared to him…
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Speaking of Eraring
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/origin-green-lights-big-battery-to-replace-nation-s-largest-coal-plant-20230420-p5d20h.html
That’s weird I did not think batteries could generate electricity?
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“That’s weird I did not think batteries could generate electricity?”
Plenty of sparks though.
So, like the “pony story” there must be electricity in there somewhere
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Operational life estimated 10 to 15 years before replacement.
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One day one of these giant batteries will catch fire and there will never be another built, such will be the holocaust that will develop in the area around the burning battery.
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Nothing…a change of Government back to the LNP would change nothing at a guess…they are as stupid as the bunch of clowns we presently have giving orders. Until these political hacks stop drinking the climate change Kool aid, we are stuffed.
I can understand why Broad said nothing whilst employed. In hindsight, he got to have the last laugh as he has thrown that idiot Bowen under a large Bus.
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A similar scheme/scam is unfolding here too: Lake Onslow pumped hydro, originally quoted at NZ$4,000,000, has now blown-out 400% to NZ$16,000,000, with not even one shovel-load of schist being turned – oh to be a Labour Govt ‘consultant’, kah-ching!
Lake Onslow is in Central Otago in the South Island, the hottest AND coldest AND driest part of NZ, a reservoir from the gold-mining days of yore, high on a peneplain above the Clutha River (already dammed in two places for hydro electricity). The scam – oops, scheme – is to pump excess water-flow uphill to create an emergency back-up battery for when river levels are low.
Back-country enthusiasts, hunters and fishers, locals, even environmentalists, are opposed to it, yet Megan Woods, Minister for Destroying NZ’s Energy Independence, recently signed-off the OK for we peasants to pay $16 million (probably $64 million) for this Green white elephant. And similar to you, our ‘opposition’ leader is so wokely weak he squeaks like a mouse with a lisp.
And to think 20mya this area was 6-8 degrees Celsius warmer with a climate similar to S.E. Queensland. Must’ve been the crocodiles and turtles wot done it.
PS. I’ve quoted ‘millions’ of dollars, but maybe it’s billions? Ms Woods wouldn’t give a hoot, it ain’t her money after all.
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Greg >”I’ve quoted ‘millions’ of dollars, but maybe it’s billions?”
Yep, a $15.7 Billion opportunity cost.
Apparently we’ve no cost of living crisis, housing crisis, nursing crisis, [insert whatever crises here]
$15.7 Billion would (SHOULD) go a long way right now.
Before 6.7 percent pa inflation eats it up.
Also,
‘The Iron Law of Megaprojects’
Over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-iron-law-of-megaprojects-18b886590f0b
“Performance data for megaprojects speak their own language. Nine out of ten such projects have cost overruns. Overruns of up to 50 percent in real terms are common, over 50 percent not uncommon. Cost overrun for the Channel tunnel, the longest underwater rail tunnel in Europe, connecting the UK and France, was 80 percent in real terms. For Denver International Airport, 200 percent. Boston’s Big Dig, 220 percent. The Canadian firearms registry, 590 percent. The Sydney Opera House, 1,400 percent (see more examples in the table below). * “
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Dams, dam costs and damnable cost overruns
Petheram & McMahon 2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589915519300100
Abstract
Major restructuring including commercialisation of the water authorities in Australia during the past several decades has resulted in the loss of much valuable information on dam infrastructure costs. This paper sets out to provide an Australian perspective on dam costs and dam cost overruns, examine patterns of dam costs and cost overruns, and develop a good predictor of costs and cost overruns for the Australian situation.
Several cost metrics, dam costs and related data, were collated for 98 dams constructed across Australia since 1888.
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Cost of living crisis, housing crisis, nursing crisis, so what…
FGS, do you not realise there’s a climate crisis. /sarc
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Our very own Porky Premier, Miss Palletchook, wants to create a Snowy111 by utilising the Borumba dam SW of Noosa as a pumped hydro dam.
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If the government had half a brain it would cut and run right now. The losses up to this point would be tiny compared with potential future losses.
But they don’t have half a brain and they will continue to throw more money at this monstrous and inefficient power storage system just to suit the ego of the green left. .
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There’s an old saying that has merit today, quit while you are behind, son.
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Even the Socialist Morning Herald carried an opinion piece as early as March 2022 that this was a White Elephant.
SEE LINK FOR REST
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Never forget that none of these delusional, TOXIC disasters will make the slightest difference to our climate or weather by 2040 or 2070 or by 2100.
BUT they’ll certainly wreck our electricity grids and cost businesses and the Aussie taxpayers tens of billions of $ for DECADES and all for NOTHING.
We should be building new COAL power stations in every state and ditching the lunacies of Snowy Hydro 2 + TOXIC W & S + batteries forever.
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There’s no climate CRISIS or stupid Biden’s EXISTENTIAL THREAT and we know that Humans have flourished since 1950 and life expectancy has soared from 45.5 years then to 73 years in 2023.
Of course poor African life expectancy just 36 yrs in 1950 and 64 years today.
World population in 1950 about 2.7 billion and 8.1 billion today.
Africa’s population soared from just 227 million in 1950 to 1430+ million today. When will they WAKE UP?
BTW a new study has found that Greece has thrived over a long time with the usual drought and high rainfall periods. Again no crisis or EXISTENTIAL THREAT for Greece eithier.
So why can’t our so called scientists spend a few minutes to look up the DATA and admit they’ve been wrong since Dr Hansen’s BS speech in 1988?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/04/the-case-of-the-missing-climate-crisis-greek-edition/
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Students in primary school should read Dr Hansen’s ’80s speech to American government with its predictions and timelines.
They should then look at the what as actually happened. Polar ice caps are dramatic. Hansaen said in 1988 that there would be no Arctic ice this century. That is after 1999. The satelite pictures show two plctures on a page and you can select the dates for both photos. It is interesting and intriguing. Many 10 to 12 year olds are innocent and uninhibited and would ask why would you believe this man who gets everything so wrong? He has had 35 years and when questioned his response, “It’s worse than I though” when questioned
Hansen, as he was becoming obviously wrong, would extend the dates.
ln 1988 it was 8 years Nowi it 35 years.
The polar plctures reveal that the ice always comes and goes.
Pictures of ice falling off icebergs are often fraudulent. I ask children to put an iceblock in water and watch what happens.
Other changes break icebergs. Heat would melt them. Extremist could use explosives to time their photography. This has happend “State of Fear” is supposedly a work of fiction but the references and bibliography prove it’s basis.
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The entire original properly engineered Snowy Hydro Scheme cost $820 million by the time it was finished in 1974.
Using the Reserve Bank of Australia’s inflation calculator that is equivalent to $7.5 billion today.
Thst’s about half the cost of the SH2 disaster which will likely never perform any useful function, if it is ever finished at all.
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It is the biggest “money-go-round” in Oz history, and has been deliberately constructed that way for the benefit of a small nun=mber of the “usual suspects”.
It may also be intended as a “precedent” for a steady succession of even bigger “capers”, ALL at the expense of teh punters, plus “spillage”..
Even the concept of “steady, reliable water flow” westwards is dodgy. Actual rivers and streams need to be “sluiced out” from time to time; it “freshens” them up and deposits fresh silt on the floodplains.
Ask Victorians who still live along the Murray about the shenanigans that have gone on regarding the massive diversion of river water to Melbourne, at the expense of the crop-growers.
There is probably not a single virtue-signaling eco-nazi in Batman’s Village who is even aware that some of their tap water was “stolen” from the food-growing types, who the loons despise, anyway. The vapid cretins made their intentions and level of malice quite clear as the opposed any possible dam construction or enhancement, just as they have in Queensland. Amusingly enough, the original “Snowy Scheme” was a displaced realization of the much maligned but never actually attempted Bradfield Scheme in Queensland. The closest thing here was the serious pipeline built from the “flood-mitigation” Wivenhoe Dam to a VERY large, coal-fired power station a fair way cross-country and UP a couple of thousand feet. The power station was built right beside a huge coal deposit, but the local water supply was decidedly inadequate, especially in an extended dry spell.
“Experts”; they could kill us all. And some of them clearly intend to give a good try.
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AGAIN here’s the truth from the CSIRO Cape Grim site. The NH is a NET SOURCE of co2 and the SH is a NET SINK. Of course the NH population over 7 billion and SH under 1 billion in 2023. And this only takes a few minutes to find the facts about co2 emissions.
Here’s the CSIRO direct quote.
“Seasonal variation”
“Carbon dioxide concentrations show seasonal variations (annual cycles) that vary according to global location and altitude. Several processes contribute to carbon dioxide annual cycles: for example, uptake and release of carbon dioxide by terrestrial plants and the oceans, and the transport of carbon dioxide around the globe from source regions (the Northern Hemisphere is a net source of carbon dioxide, the Southern Hemisphere a net sink)”.
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Neville, you seem to imply that the reason for the majority of CO2 emissions in the NH is the high population compared with the SH ?
I think you will find there are much more complex answers than population concentrations…
EG ..
Much greater land mass in NH means higher natural CO2 emissions from plant decay..
Combined with much lower Ocean areas in NH to Sink CO2.
And vice versa the SH with lower land mass area to emit CO2, and higher ocean areas to sink any CO2.
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Sucked in all you brainwashed climate change alarmists striking school kids,extinction rebellion, just stop oil, parents for climate change..ect….because of your stupidity in thinking that Australia can run on fairy floss electricity generation, your children will be paying for all of this economic vandalism for generations….well done and enjoy..bwahaha, bwahaha, bwahaha.
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Normally I’d leave it to the lefties to cite ReNewEconomy.. but this shows they even they have realised how much nonsense Snowy 2 is.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/snowy-2-0-the-making-of-one-of-australias-most-spectacular-infrastructure-debacles/
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Normally those loons cheer on that stuff as if it’s a gold plated success, so it must be appallingly bad.
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I would think Australia’s energy disaster is no longer fixable in any reasonable time frame, or at all.
The country has been sabotaged at the highest levels.
Even if we got a rational government (which won’t happen), state or federal, the cost to pay out contracts and subsidies and price guarantees for all the “green” energy projects would be staggering. And Australia already has a national debt, federal, state and local of well over $1.6 trillion. Where will the money come from?
On top of all that, a voting majority of Australians are too dumbed-down to understand or care.
And EVEN if there was a decision to build a coal or nuclear power station, there would be at least a decade of inquiries and planning approvals and then another decade or so of building with massive featherbedding and rorting by the CFMEU (construction union).
It’s just not going to happen. Australia once had a promising future, but no longer.
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That about sums it up nicely David. It is going to take many years to fix ( if it can be fixed ) and I cannot see that happening anytime soon with the Dills we have in Canberra, aided by the Labor Premiers.
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Pushing the proverbial up hill.
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A lot of the BS, all over the world, started with a political slogan: “Yes we can.” back in 2008.
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And the BS continues under Obama’s third term and maybe a fourth. The DemocRATs seem confident of winning a fourth term for him. More correctly, they KNOW they’ll win a fourth term.
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Obama describes his Third Term.
(30 secs)
https://youtu.be/JI2Xtqd4Mts
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You also see that in SpaceX/ Elon Musk vision of going to Mars. Give Elon his credit for other projects, but this one is seriously nutty.
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Nicked from “Bob the Builder” a kids tv program, says it all.
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An explanation for those who have not already worked it out why woke and these projects are happening. Posted on TAE today … . Well worth your time.
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The greens/lefties etc normally sweep cockups under the carpet. It’s now the turn of those with common sense to do the clean up. There’s a big hole with a boring machine in it, fill the rest of the hole with green / Labor climate maniacs & fill it, seal it, permanently.
Clean up & sweeping it up complete, never to be seen or spoken of again!
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I know we love to hang it on Bowen, because he has always been a useless minister but all his crazy ideas are obviously supported by the public service and bureaucrats assisting him. Which is why this white elephant project appeared to get going so damn quickly. Also, just to be fairly bipartisan the LNP should not get away scot free on this as well. Angus Taylor arguably was almost as bad as Bowen. At one stage in the lead up to the last Fed election he was promoting pumped hydro for South Australia and had assisted a company in Qld from moving from coal power electricity source to gas sourced power. It’s been mostly under the LNP watch our electricity grid has been vandalised. It was the NSW LNP state government who have also supported the closing of Liddell. Again, we have a Uniparty on energy when it comes to either Labor/Greens or LNP.
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Must be funny at the Parliament House lunch time soccer game to pick a team when you are all on the same side, wear the same jersey and are hell bent on kicking into the same goal.
The stupid thing is we are paying for these career politicians to spend the day in makeup, hoping for a photo op and rehearsing from the current song sheet.
Prior to the selling of the concept that ‘If you pay peanuts you get Monkeys’ we had many who, read the proposed legislation and represented their community and not the Uni party pre-selectors.
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Agreed…Taylor has drunk almost as much Kool Aid as Bowen when it comes to climate change.
50
Looks as though I’ll have to keep repeating, the Coalition is ALL ABOARD on the Climate Change Scam. Same policy, different salesmen.
Our two Political parties have merged into the Uniparty. No hope for Australia until this mess is sorted!!
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“but all his crazy ideas are obviously supported by the public service and bureaucrats assisting him. ”
It would be handy if they were jusy taking the mickey
30
Wasn’t Taylor known as ‘Angus Failure’.
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Traditionally we have also falsely exalted the original Snowy Hydro scheme built in the 1950’s. If you actually look at the hard numbers of power produced and its limitations when it is either too dry or too wet, they are not that impressive. In term of total power production hydro power is still very small. The 1950’s project was impressive and possibly boosted the morale of the nation coming out of WW2, but that’s about it. We could have spent the same amount of money building a nuclear industry and been heaps better off.
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Electricity generation is only one part of the original SHS.
It also has pumped hydro for load balancing and is used for water storage and irrigation.
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Its primary purpose was irrigation – that’s why it was conceived in the first place.
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Again , way overstated. The bulk of Australia’s irrigation area and agricultural produce ( as a result of) is supplied by the Murray Darling / Goulburn systems. The irrigation water from the Snowy is less significant.
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It’s where the Murray/Murrumbidgee gets its water.
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There are two great fictions currently on display.
Firstly, fantasy number one: “Energy Transition” … After 40 years and a trillion or so dollars the so-called “energy transition” has hardly started. Reality – After 40 years renewables are only about 2% of the total global energy mix. What hope 100% transition by 2050!!! There has been no significant energy transition to renewables.
Secondly, fantasy number two “Net Zero 2050” … Given that there are zero feasible carbon capture and storage options on the table then net zero equates to Absolute Zero 2050. Even a brief consideration of the implications of that in just thirty years leaves your eyes popping? If you need a help envisaging what Net Zero/Absolute Zero looks like – have a quick look at North Korea!
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/13/no-flying-by-2050-is-the-world-finally-waking-up-to-what-net-zero-really-means/
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‘NO FLYING at all by 2050. No new petrol/diesel cars by 2030; by 2050 road use restricted to 60% of today’s level.’
What they probably envisage, short solar powered flights but no mass transit by air. Cruise ships will be out of fashion by 2050?
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Australia seems to have forgotten that Snowy was about irrigation, not electricity generation. The hydro was just an afterthought, kind of a ‘why not?’ moment. It has had a remarkable impact on our agricultural production as far as I am aware.
Snowy 2, however, is an idiot’s fantasy. 12 years to build a power station that doesn’t produce any power? Our civilisation has come to its end.
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[…] Climate Realists of Five Dock, JoNova; “… you were being realistic and they didn’t want to hear it. …” […]
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Aloha! Its still a very viable quote …
The four most expensive words in the English language are: “This time it’s different.” ~ Sir John Templeton
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what if the coal-fired power station starts identifying as wind and solar?
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looks like i solved the global warming crisis, lefties.
61
Clever AF.
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You’re all (mostly) making the same mistake of assuming that this is environmental zealotry, or ignorance.
It’s actually neither. In the case of the Greens, the environmentalism is cover for their political objectives, and for the rest it’s just greed. All these schemes and white elephants make SOMEBODY richer. Billions and billions of dollars are being stolen from ordinary working and middle class citizens and transferred to the wealthy or, in the case of our current politicians, held on account so to speak, for when they retire from politics.
When you see a fanatical gleam in the eyes of somebody like Bowen, you’re being deceived. That faraway thing he’s focused on isn’t utopia for the common man, but a mansion with ocean views and all the trappings of ‘loadsamoney’, some years down the line. With the Greens, they’re looking forward to a massive bonfire that will consume modern democracy and capitalism, ushering in their dream of a socialist future.
The koalas can take a hike then.
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Guessing that they’ll do the maximum damage to the National Park, and only then abandon the scheme. That would include razing another 8km by 140m swathe of native vegetation for the transmission line easement. There will be no budget for remediation and revegetation, of course – greenies believe the Nature Goddess does this work for free.
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Renewables, the new holy grail,
Costing billions to little avail,
As alarmists still pass,
On reliable coal and gas,
Grid supply lines are destined to fail.
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[…] Climate Realists of Five Dock, JoNova; “… you were being realistic and they didn’t want to hear it. …” – Aussie climate and […]
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Here’s more SOLID PROOF that our climate has been the best ever since 1970.IOW very BENIGN.
Here are the pertinent facts that really matter.
Global population more than doubled since 1970, from 3.7 billion then to 8.1 billion today.
YET since 1970 people DYING from hunger is at the LOWEST level since 1860. So when will they start to THINK and WAKE UP?
Look at the graph from OWI Data. Just more PROOF that so called scientists, pollies, the MSM and all educational facilities are either liars or idiots.
https://ourworldindata.org/famine-mortality-over-the-long-run
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[…] Climate Realists of Five Dock, JoNova; “… you were being realistic and they didn’t want to hear it. …” – Aussie climate and […]
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Most days I’m glad I moved from Australia several years ago. The high standard of living the country enjoyed is being white-anted at an accelerating rate, and the sane people (the type that posts here 😉 ) are not just ignored by the crooks and morons in government, bureaucrazy, academia and media, but are actively sought out for public shaming by them.
How does Bowen think the country will function effectively with such inadequate power generation? He’s clearly not bright enough to think through the pros and cons himself, so it seems his little noggin has been filled with fact-free utopian feelings by those who surround him.
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Bowen himself doesn’t expect these schemes to actually work, and he probably knows that sanity will have to prevail before we get to the nationwide blackout stage. What he and his ilk are trying to do is accumulate vast wealth during this period of insanity so that, when power and other things become extraordinarily expensive and out of reach of the plebs, he will be able to afford as much as he wants.
He, along with the criminals in the WEF etc, expect to be firmly positioned as the powerful and wealthy elites by the time the faeces hit the fan – and that’s when the militarised police forces will come in handy.
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who says the goal is function and not destruction? (enter the WEF, world bank, digital currency and social credit score)
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People forget the basic business model of pumped hydro: making money from the price difference between buying (when power is cheap) and selling power (when power is expensive). Not an easy job with high losses and other constraints as described by other people. What will happen if snowy hydro 2 does not run profitably for a while (other than that the tax payer will foot the bill)?
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Perhaps like Basslink – go broke?
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And the politicians involved by then retired and/or working elsewhere and in denial, all care taken, no responsibility they would claim.
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[…] Local weather Realists of 5 Dock, JoNova; “… you have been being practical they usually didn’t need to hear it. …” – Aussie […]
00
A project so bad that even Adam Bandt won’t support it??!!! This is surely the new high water mark for wasting money on ‘renewables’. Nothing could surpass that! And never forget who gave us this lemon to end all lemons – The Turdball.
20
LOFLMAO. Just hilarious.
Was that Turn..bullshit he said?
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The key comment being ‘if it ever occurs’. As we know it is impossible to deliver a net zero economy that is anything other than a dead one, it is just how much suffering will be inflicted before the global fascists are dealt with.
10
Paul Broad is correct. The AEMO knows that we are fast approaching an energy cliff.
The AEMO ” Feb 2023 Update to their 2022 Electric Statement of Opportunities” has a graph on page 4 that shows UnServed Energy (USE) (aka blackouts) will skyrocket from 2025-2027. The blackout quantity will be AT LEAST 0.004% of annual forecast energy demand. The graph lines shoot up vertically past 0.004% indicating that the estimate from their modelling could be way above 0.004%, Doesn’t sound much does it?
Assume annual demand in 2030 is as low as 800 million MWh.
Multiply that by 0.004% and get 32 million KWh.
Assume each home uses 15KWh per day and divide this into the 32 million KWh.
The result is equivalent to 2.1 million homes without power for a full day …. or 4.2 million for 12 hours …. or any other combination.
Then Snowy Hydro 2 will not be a saviour. Neither will C. Bowen’s 40 new turbines a month and 22,000 new solar panels a day until 2030 which he stated in November 2022 would be needed.
I don’t expect the ABC to highlight this issue.
10
Aloha! Debt will be the death of climate change as we descend into the human nature of corruption and warfare. No Western nation can afford green and without government subsidies and tax incentives green cannot function. The marxists must preserve social security and medicare and military over green. Thanks to their failure in China and the threat of the ccp and Russia there will need to be much larger military budgets. Inflation and corrupt supply chains are choking off green’s future. They have run out of other people’s money as crime and homelessness grows faster than US GDP!
10
With Albo and BoBo at the helm, expect more idiocy, as if we need more.
Flinders Island, the showcase unreliables scheme, 100 % diesel.
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[…] Climate Realists of Five Dock, JoNova; “… you were being realistic and they didn’t want to hear it. …” – Aussie climate […]
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[…] Climate Realists of Five Dock, JoNova; “… you were being realistic and they didn’t want to hear it. …” – Aussie climate […]
00