We’re on the precipice of a radical experiment with a national electricity grid
The AEMO (manager of the Australian grid) has finally released the major report on problems coming in the next ten years on our national grid, and it’s worse than they thought even six months ago. They euphemistically refer to the coming “reliability gaps”. They could have said “blackouts” instead, but a gap in reliability sounds so much nicer.
Bizarrely, the lead graph of the 175 page AEMO report goes right off the scale, mysteriously peaking in the unknown and invisible real estate off the top of the chart. And they’re not projecting troubles fifty years from now. Those cropped peaks of invisible pain hit from 2027.
And even the pain we can see is apparently quite bad. Two states are already likely to breach “the interim reliability measure” in this coming summer. Ominously, just one day after releasing the report, the AEMO is calling for tenders for “reliability reserves” in South Australia and Victoria. Apparently, they want offers of industries ready to shut down who aren’t already on the list, and they want spare generation too — get this — even asking for “small onsite generators”. Does that sound bad to you? It sounds bad to me.
As the calm analyst Paul McArdle says:
“Based on current trajectory, we’re in for a world of pain ahead. …the AEMO projections are looking pretty dire.”
Consider figure 1: A decade of blackouts coming
Have you ever seen a graph like this that hides the peaks? In the “central scenario” of the cropped graph — “only” four states of Australia go off the charts. Imagine what the bad scenario looks like…
AEMO, ESOO, 2023. Figure 1 shows the reliability forecast and indicative reliability forecast for the 2023 ESOO Central scenario. This forecast considers only the sub-set of known developments that have demonstrated sufficient commitment towards commissioning in the NEM (those developments classified as committed or anticipated), including announced retirements, and allows for project delivery schedules that may be slower than proponents have advised based on observed development, approval and commissioning requirements.
Given that South Australia flew in diesel jet engines for back up generation at one point (General Electric aero-derivative turbines) — perhaps we can ask Qatar Airlines if they can plug some planes straight into our grid? (The government won’t let them fly in more passengers, in case it screws up Qantas profits, but that means they must have a few planes they can spare.)
A leap to Figure 43 suggests those hidden peaks of Figure 1 might be quite high in NSW and Victoria. Figure 43 shows the same “Central Scenario” as Figure 1 — this time as dotted lines — and we are allowed to see a bit more of the graph. The y axis is the same Expected Unserved Energy (%) this time reaching up to 0.007%. But the NSW (blue) and Victorian (grey) lines are doing the Moonshot thing in 2027. They’re headed to infinity or some number the AEMO didn’t want to graph.
AEMO, ESOO, 2023,
The solid lines in Figure 43 are the slightly better scenarios that include contributions from CER or “Consumer Energy Resources” (that’s you!). This is what the future looks like with more help from things like solar panels on rooftops, home batteries, and Electric Vehicles. It’s also the best we can do with DSP assistance — which means Demand Side Participation — those people who participate by not demanding electricity. In normal English we would call them the customers who are paid to stay away or something.
Ten different ways to go without electricity
The AEMO doesn’t use the word blackout, but it has a dozen flavours of blackouts-by-another-name, many of them voluntary or subsidized and somewhat prearranged. It looks so much better on paper to say “DSP” but it means someone, somewhere going without electricity when they would otherwise have used it. DSP gets 146 mentions in the AEMO report, giving us some idea on how mini-blackouts are now an essential part of managing a very sick grid.
At a minimum DSP may just be an inconvenience — people have to program their washing machine and pool filter to run at lunchtime, which sounds fine until you have only one sunny day that week and you have six loads of washing. In a rich world without “reliability gaps” you would just run it, conveniently, from 5 to 10 pm the night before.
DSP is code for people willing (or dragged), in some sense, to have a voluntary mini-blackout — and the report notes the major factor driving an increase in DSP uptake is because electricity is now more expensive (what a great thing?). The AEMO notes: “These higher prices have led to more benefits to customers participating in DSP schemes or responding directly to market signals”. Table 5 lists the Negawatts of voluntary outages when prices rise to $1,000, $5,000 and $7,500 per megawatt hour…
Now that Alice lives in Downunder-land — more expensive electricity means customers get more “benefits” when they don’t use it. See how this works? Only the wealthy will have the convenience of electricity whenever they want it. The underclass will be cooking on barbeques, and getting up earlier each day to program the washing machine and set up the timers for the scooters.
Ominously the AEMO projects a lot more voluntary blackouts:
AEMO, ESOO, 2023
Drowning in complexity
The message in 42 tables and 100 figures is unspoken, but obvious — the Australian grid is drowning in complexity, there are so many moving unpredictable parts. The report models the various possibilities of low rain, low wind, low stocks of fossil fuels, droughts, heatwaves, and unexpected outages. They try to model some combinations and permutations of multiple troubles occurring simultaneously. Whether we get and can afford electricity now depends on ocean currents in the Pacific that no one can predict. We live in the land of drought and flooding rains, and we’re hoping the weather will be nice.
The AEMO brightly says that it can be managed, see Figure 2, if we just build 10,000 kilometers of high transmission lines through farmland and forests, and then finish all the wind farms and solar magic panels, along with lots more voluntary blackouts, “consumer investments” (home batteries) and dispatchable capacity (whatever could that be?)
The last thought is the predictions for South Australia:
There is an 84% chance under a “neutral/unknown climate outlook” that South Australia will have no blackouts this summer. But there is a 16% chance that some will occur, and these are most likely to be 1-3 hours long affecting 5 to 30% of the region (which means “of the state”, presumably). But there is a tiny chance they might lose half the state for as much as 16 hours (spread over four different nights, say). I bet they are praying they don’t get a hot windless week?
But even if they don’t have one blackout, more of people’s lives will be wasted paying electricity bills and reading articles on how to save electricity, how to reprogram the pool filter, how to charge the kids scooter, how to put out fires started by the scooter…
If that’s a neutral/unknown outlook, what does it look like for a long hot summer?
Finally, for the data nerds: The text that officially goes with the graph above:
Figure 22 shows a bubble plot of the distribution of USE outcomes that are forecast in South Australia for the 2023-24 summer, under a neutral/unknown climate outlook. It includes the total outage duration and average depth in each simulation
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- The remainder of simulations, which are collectively 16% probable, are represented by the other bubbles on
the chart. Should USE occur, it is most likely to occur for between one hour and three hours and be of an
average USE magnitude equivalent to between 5% and 30% of average regional demand. Within each event,
larger magnitudes of USE than the average may occur during the duration of the event. - There is a very low probability for USE as deep as 55% of average regional demand, or as long as 16 total
hours, which may occur over multiple individual USE events, for example four different evenings. These
outcomes each represent the result of a single annual simulation, with an estimated probability of
approximately 1 in 4,000.
- The remainder of simulations, which are collectively 16% probable, are represented by the other bubbles on
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REFERENCES
The AEMO 2023 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) report, a 10-year reliability outlook that signals development needs for each state in the National Electricity Market (NEM). August 31, 2023
AEMO — Interim Reliability Reserves Invitation to Tender 2023/24, Sept 1, 2023
Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
You can all embrace these minor power murmurs with pride and fortitude, knowing that you are not only saving your country but indeed the whole world. We humbly thank the Aussie population for their noble self sacrifice for the greater good.
1082
Lets have a dry run now to show EVERY voter how to live for a couple of weeks without reliable electricity.
Then have an election. We already have a booking for the VOICE.
730
Ramp up those air conditioners and bring it on!
440
Sounds perverse but something has to show the clown show and the plebs how ridiculous the green dream is. More power to the farmers and real conservationists who see the destruction of farmland and forrest as too high a price to pay for the city virtue signallers.
600
Just call it load shedding, and tell us each day how much load was shed. We’d like to know. Everybody needs to know.
Make sure that the load that was shed for precautionary purposes is included.
Meanwhile, we are going back to coal for transport. Our daughter has booked us on the steam train to Dungog or Gloucester next weekend. I wonder, could it be the loco that took me from Muswellbrook to school in Sydney 65 years ago?
210
That seems very apt since all of these ecofascist ideas are taking us backwards to technology our ancestors advanced from. Welcome to the Retardocene.
180
Thanks Blackout Bowen, AirBusAlbo (Where’s Australia and who are Australians – “Your Electrcity Bills will come down $275”) & Labor/Greens/Teals – Australia is governed by Idiots
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Albo & the ALP conmen lied about the $275.00 AND THEY’RE LYING ABOUT THE VOICE.
NEVER TRUST A SOCIALIST! And that includes 50% of the LNP! They’re selling Australia to the new World Government Mob!
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AirBusAlbo (“Where is Australia, Who are Australians?”) – “By 2050 No Australian Child will be living with Power!”
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To hijack a famous warmist quote – by 2050 children won’t know what an electricity supply is.
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Perhaps Australia’s politicians agree with Chinese President-For-Life Xi Jinping that instead of complaining, people need to learn to “eat bitterness”
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Energy Alchemy ? I mean this progress backward to the beginning of history is not based on science?
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Reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb_tJ59bSzg&t=1128s
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It is good to know that us Western Australians are not included.
We will continue to have our own blackouts…
We closed our coal mine, so now we import our coal from NSW.
Different calorific value (a bit complex for lefties & greenies), who also think black coal is dirtier than brown coal.
180
We need a SA-WA interconnector – we can send nothing to each other and commiserate about closing down our brown coal mines – we closed ours at Leigh Creek and for an extra celebration, blew up Northern power station which was purpose built for that Leigh Creek coal. We have staked a very strong claim for the leading state in the energy idiocy Olympics. We are facing ever stiffer competition from all the rest of you though.
220
Well, I mean if we are going to build 10,000klms of powerlines to connect all this useless supply , the very least we can do is wack in the SAWA interconnector. We should WA miss out on cross border dumping of instability and intermittency ?
70
No, for gawd’s sake NO. We want to stay well away from your unstable costly grid.
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WA actually has more immediate concerns. Rooftop solar PV creates a different problem for WA’s grid, and this has been recognised for years: the “duck curve”. In the middle of the day, excess solar power feeding back into the grid reduces what AEMO terms as “operational demand”. This reduced demand forces all other generators to curtail their output.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-01/rise-of-rooftop-solar-power-jeopardising-wa-energy-grid/11731452
The technical issue is that the grid requires a minimum amount of synchronous power to maintain grid stability. Unsurprisingly, renewable power from solar does not provide synchronous power.
As that ABC article indicates, any significant network disturbance during a period of low grid stability could result in grid-wide blackouts. The solution to avoiding a grid-wide blackout is to have rolling blackouts across the state instead.
AEMO has been tracking this problem in WA for years:
https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/wholesale-electricity-market-wem/system-operations/integrating-utility-scale-renewables-and-distributed-energy-resources-in-the-swis
This AEMO report is predicting that WA will hit a minimum operational demand of 700 MW between 2022 and 2024. At that point, the AEMO’s ability to meet power system security requirements will become limited. Below 600 MW, the WA grid will be “in a zone of ‘heightened power system security threat’ as the dispatch options materially decrease”.
Not “your grid is going to collapse within two years, because you refuse to stop your rooftop solar subsidy schemes”. And not even the first bullet under “findings”, but tucked down at the fourth bullet. The WA grid is now guaranteed to become unstable once minimum operational demand is below 600MW. Yet, that same report indicates that continued growth in rooftop solar installations will result in a rapid decline in minimum operational demand to 232 MW by 2025-2026.
If AEMO is correct, WA will most likely be the first state to suffer major blackouts. Time to buy an “emergency” generator I think!
120
Easy, just reset the residence meters to prevent power exports back to the grid.
60
That’s actually what AEMO wants to do. Replace all inverters with “smart” inverters. But there is no legislation in place to do so, and I expect that the various state governments will not be interested in funding such a scheme, nor will individual owners want to fork out for something that provides them with zero additional utility!
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“You can all embrace these minor power murmurs with pride and fortitude, knowing that you are not only saving your country but indeed the whole world. We humbly thank the Aussie population for their noble self sacrifice for the greater good.”
What TonyB is trying to say, is: “What a bunch of hopeless losers!“
120
Stockpile numerous cases of fine AU wine, candles, and blankets.
It is rumored a combination of the above can make a dark cold evening into a happy memory.
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Wandering from the main topic here, but relevant insofar as it is a further example of just how destructive an Australian government can be. Of fine AU wine. And the CSIRO.
I finished school in 1960. I then developed the habit of drinking alcoholic beverages. There were Beer, wine and Spirits. The only wine we unsophisticated plebs knew were the fortified wines. But the huge number of European migrants were introducing us to the “table’ wines, increasing the overall demand for wine.
It became fashionable to try a wine when dining out. Some were good, some were not, I couldn’t tell which without opening a bottle, so I stuck to beer.
Penfolds, one of our leading winemakers, abandoned their 100 year old vines at Dalwood and planted a new 2,000 acre vineyard up the valley at Wybong. The Adelaide Steamship Company planted a supposed 1,000 acres, it looke more like 400 to 500 to me, but that is by the way, over the hill at Sandy Hollow, on the main road, now a highway.
In 1970 driving along the road through the vineyard you could see that the black grapes had not been picked. They were left to rot on the vine. The word went out that there had been a big drop in the demand for red wine.
Nobody asked me, but if they had asked me I could have told them why. They had bottled an awful lot of poison and labelled it red wine.
The next development was that some of our more astute vignerons got together with the CSIRO to develop the science of wine making. And not by half did they do it. Australian vignerons took their wines to win prizes around the world. With the aid of the CSIRO they had stolen a march on the rest of the world in quality control in winemaking.
So the word went out that there was a big future for the Australian wine industry exporting high quality wines around the world.
Presented with this scenario any government with an ounce of intelligence would have been offering incentives to develop this trade so that they could collect the taxes on the income generated. But not Hawke and Keating. They liked to collect their taxes in advance of production. They whacked on a “WIne Tax”, which cut off the supply of capital needed to develop this industry.
Furthermore, it so devalued the industry that listed companies, including some of our biggest winemakers, were sold off at stressed prices to foreigners, notably French based firms, which gave those firms ownership of the world leading Australian technology.
So the ALP’s urge to destroy didn’t start last week.
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Bring back the ice house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)
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Why can’t our electrons have a Voice;
The AEMO Statement From The Heart.
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Many of them now identify as neutrinos.
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Back in the day when they used to teach mathematics or simple data analysis in school they would teach children to appropriately scale the axes of a graph (or for pendants, a plot) to allow inclusion of the data to be presented.
The style of the cropped graph suggests it was generated in Excel. Excel (or any software) would have automatically scaled the graph appropriately to include all data. Someone would have to have edited it to exclude the important information.
600
why would a pendant want a plot?
70
Typo. It was meant to be pedant.
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Only we pendants noticed
30
Australia can become a world leader in green tech. Freezers that keep food frozen even after 48 hours without power. GMO modified crops that won’t spoil so quickly at higher temperatures. You know, stuff which helps navigate a world of unreliable electric supply.
It isn’t easy going green.
322
It’s also not smart, if you “go green” simply because some Luddite anti-science “experts” claim the sky is falling.
510
Bring on the blackouts. People need to learn the hard way. Young people especially who have been indoctrinated at school and university.
As for AEMO, they always crow about irrelevant solar. Nice to know they are finally warning of what any informed person could see coming. But too late to save Australia from the inevitable blackouts. AEMO needed to be warning us more than a decade ago. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
670
You assume that is what they would learn and take away from it. It’s just as likely they will quake and wail that is a consequence of climate change and lordy! we need more windmills!
Their plans don’t work and cannot work, yet onward they march. It’s a strange world we live in.
310
And wait for the statements about “unreliable” coal power supply causing this…
10
We may not be at the FUBAR stage yet but give the political class another 5 years and I think we will be able to rightly state that our country has reached 3rd world status.
Yet most voters will continue to vote for either of the uniparty.
Go figure!
160
I have been saying this for a good while. Until the lights and other contraptions stop working the people won’t understand. Only when reality bites will any sensible change occur. Until then the people need to suffer and experience the greenlabor dream.
40
Can see a world coming where we have expensive unreliable electricity.
That is going to mess things up in ways that go far beyond inconvenience.
Gaps in haphazard power generation can be filled with backup generation but fuel cost for the backup skyrockets. This is caused by placing a premium value on green (unreliable) energy. How can you put a lower value on ‘reliable’ energy backup?
Society exploits ‘just in time’ supply chains in manufacturing building warehousing and delivery. For example, consider the impacts of the Suez and Panama canals and the chaos that occurs when they are blocked.
How do resturants manufactureers and construction survive haphazard energy availability? Closing down for a day to week because energy is scarce at the moment is going to seriously affect the cost of doing business. Much more than just inconvenient.
360
Raving,
I am old enough to remember the long blackouts just after EWWII, when unions were grasping for more power.
In those days, we still had wood stoves, a copper in the back yard for washing, a clothes line between trees to dry the laundry, no aircon, no hot water system, a fridge cooled by weekly delivery of big ice blocks.
A blackopuit in tose days was tolerable, but hated.
A blackout these days is vastly more damaging. Yet, I see no words from our “Governments” that blackouts are not allowed as a measure of control for power generation plans.
Maybe our top pollies and regulators have already filled their homes and offices with expensive backup equipment like diesel generators to reduce their personal severity. How nice! Geoff S
240
Hi Geoff, reading your description of how we used to live makes me all nostalgic. We had solar hot water, the old man would put heaps of buckets made out of 4-gallon kero tins out in the sun and hot water galore for bath, laundry etc plus we were upmarket we had a kero fridge no less!
140
Rusty,
About 1955 Dad got my brothers and me to help build a rooftop solar hot water system. Plans came from CSIRO. There was a frame about 3m x 1m with 3 square glass panels above a pained black copper sheet to which zig-zags of half inch copper water pipes were braised.
This was in Townsille, where sun is plentiful.
It worked in the summertime, but in winter with 5 users, it too often ran cool. So Dad added a storage tank (insulated by RAAF surplus woollen greatcoats) and a 240 volt immersion heater with thermostat control.
We think of this as a pioneering effort, one that combats the popular thinking that global warming sceptics refuse to have anything to do with renewables ideas. Folks, we led the way.
Geoff S
30
They don’t. Perhaps all part of a plan to further cull businesses.
10
What energy providers seem to have forgotten is that during blackouts electricity consumption meters stop dead. So does the revenue from electricity usage. It costs a fortune to have mass blackouts. It’ll also cost a fortune when consumers start suing their providers for damaged appliances, spoiled food in refrigerators & freezers.
Can you imagine spoiled food claims from restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools and of course hundreds of thousands of homes!
Energy providers will lose $$$$ millions. Just ask ESKOM in South Africa what blackouts lasting up to 10 hours per day reduces their revenues by. Welcome to the 3rd world Australia! No revenue = no maintenance = shrinking the supply problem further & faster =
Unemployment = chaos!
There is an alternative of course. Simple really! Get rid of the dumbass politicians driving this insanity. That means politicians who “ believe “, on both sides of the aisle.
620
What about food manufacturing? Powers off silos of milk goes bad, meat processors freezers don’t freeze, coolstores can’t chill, thousands of tonnes of product,fruit,vegetables etc that needs to be refrigerated or frozen gone,the costs, astronomical!
50
There will also be many workers not getting to work as their EVs will either not be able to be charged or they would have been drained to feed back into the grid while the powers that be attempt to stop the grid from failing
I wonder if they factored in the increase in electrical load after all of the commercial and private gas appliances have converted to electric
30
This is where it will hurt – most suburbs have transformers that supply sufficient for the average load for a suburb – add three EVs on charge and that’s about it – add 20 and you blow the transformer – EV owners will become the pariahs of the neighbourhood….
10
Who would have thought?
Shut down a reliable coal-fired generator or three, restrict gas availability, and rely on intermittent wind and solar generators without mandating they must also come with batteries to allow dispatchable supply.
Last night at 6pm across the entire AEMO grid, solar 300 MW, wind 800 MW, battery 200 MW, coal 16,500 MW.
This is why Blackout Bowen is committing $12 billion to Snowy2 (originally $2 billion), and $20 billion to “”rewire the nation.”
400
Plus billions buying out the States so they controlled the whole mess
120
They’ve got to buy out the states to prevent contradictions and independent thoughts on their ideology. Dictatorship!!
90
One way of thinking of evil, ‘Is that which undermines or compromises the common good’. Stupidity simply amplifies that which is evil. Bowen’s stupid push to wreck the environment is also working against the common good.
120
“Last night at 6pm across the entire AEMO grid, solar 300 MW, wind 800 MW, battery 200 MW, coal 16,500 MW.
This is why Blackout Bowen is committing $12 billion to Snowy2 (originally $2 billion), and $20 billion to “”rewire the nation.””
The abovementioned Bowen is obviously very wealthy.
Ohh – hang on!
Is that – tax-payers’ tens of billions he’s spending??
Surely not!
Auto -astonished at how fast some socialists run out of other peoples’ money!
40
Most of us have seen this coming for at least a decade. The “reliability gap” of our MSM and our politicians has been obvious. It reminds me of the last line in the 1960s movie Romeo and Juliet:
All are punish’d.
Some deserve to be punished rather more.
240
Paul McArdle points out that the reliability gap is actually a best case scenario:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2023/08/31aug-2023esoo-constraints/
AEMO’s modelling excludes limitations beyond ‘System Normal’, so ignores things like grid outages and transmission constraints. But as Figure 3 of the ESOO shows, these constraints “are becoming increasingly material to market outcomes”.
50
Australia, you need a new political party. An untarnished one. The people will vote for it once the blackouts begin. The only questoin is how the big parties will try to prevent it getting off the gound. They will fight dirty. Very dirty.
310
Any new political party will need to fight like demented werewolves to get ANY positive space in the media. The TV and newspapers will make it virtually impossible for a startup to get traction.
170
Unless a charismatic personality, witty, intelligent and charming, walks in out of the blue. Someone who can convince the electorate that global warming is natural and closing coal fired power stations is only virtue signalling.
This individual would probably kick off his campaign in the senate and give the Teals a run for their money.
70
You can all thank the WEF because you are all soon going to be ecstatically happy, in a state of grace even – because you vill haf NOTHING !!
(And you’re not alone Australia)
190
We have the following conservative-oriented parties:
United Australia Party
Liberal Democrats
One Nation
We don’t need to start a new party but support those.
Liberals are useless and support the madness and are no longer conservative.
541
Problem David! Splitting the vote among 4 parties will ensure the ALP / Green coalition remains in power for the next 30 years.!!
70
Preferential voting fixes that.
82
With 50% of the LNP preferencing ALP??
Remember there’s an agenda at work here…….WEF / UN. Etc
91
Make it optional and we’d have a chance.
30
Graham, it really make no difference if it’s Liberal or Labor/Green in power, they are just two factions of the one Uniparty. They are essentially in lockstep.
So it is not really wasting a vote giving it to a conservative party because the Liberals have proved they are beyond redemption.
It’s also Liberals under Howard that first allowed unreliables to connect to the grid and then Turnbull signed us into the Paris Accords.
If we can divert enough people away from the LibLabs the country has some hope.
141
Liberal and Labo(u)r – two cheeks of the same a*se.
110
But as ever the media will continue to dupe the people. I wonder if we’ll wake up.
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A quick glance at this morning’s online MSM papers (Saturday Sep 2) shows absolutely NO coverage of this at all.
No surprise there. As a commenter above reiterated, those with enough money will be able to buy expensive power, so no voluntary blackouts for them. Predicted about 20 years ago.
The very slippery CEO of AEMO has decided on the good cop/bad cop routine, but with himself playing both roles simultaneously.
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‘Bugger all’: Florence the machine’s progress at $12b Snowy 2.0
The Florence tunnel boring machine stuck underground at the Snowy 2.0 construction project in NSW has made “bugger all” progress since it was commissioned in March last year, but Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes remains hopeful the huge machine will resume its three-year job within weeks.
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/bugger-toyota-hilux-commercial-1999
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How the renewables rush could push up interest rates
The indisputable reality is that the transition to carbon-free energy will be very expensive for years to come and likely to add to inflation.
John Kehoe – AFR Economics editor
The big fib that the rush to net zero carbon emissions will lead to “cheaper” energy prices is being exposed.
You don’t need to be a climate change sceptic to face up to the indisputable reality that the transition to renewable energy will be very, very expensive for consumers and taxpayers for years to come.
It is likely to add to inflation and may lead to higher interest rates than otherwise for home borrowers. No less an authority than the incoming governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Michele Bullock, warned of the inflation risk from the energy transition in a clear-eyed speech this week.
The Albanese government is aiming to lower emissions by 43 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 and increase renewable energy to 82 per cent of total generation across the power system.
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Energy needs a contest of ideas, not a rigid central plan
A single-minded path and the dogmatic pursuit of impossible targets lacks the flexibility this vast transformation will demand.
Matthew Warren – Energy expert
This week’s warnings about the deteriorating reliability of our electricity system reflect an energy transformation caged by ideology at a time when pragmatism is desperately needed.
Rebuilding an electricity system powered only by renewable generation is radical and unproven. Delivering this will be a remarkable feat of engineering. It will require constant adjustment to respond to unforeseen delays and setbacks. Difficulty is inevitable. The real issue is how we respond to such adversity.
Energy policy has become intolerant at the very time we need a contest of ideas.
As state governments have assumed a greater role in driving investment, dissent from their political narrative has been strongly discouraged.
Energy industry conferences have the ersatz optimism of a one-party state. Independent energy agencies charged with guiding the process have been pressured into cooperating by an increasingly political approach to an engineering problem.
Debate has been stifled and polarised. Planning is centralised and singular. Absolute and impossible targets are de rigueur.
Electricity grids are slow to build and slow to break.
The annual reliability forecasts issued by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) at the end of winter every year are designed to call out potential reliability risks years in advance, because it takes time to get the necessary large-scale generation approved and built.
Anxiety about reliability this summer has been overstated and overblown – and, in any case, there is very little anyone can do about it. The real challenge is whether governments will act decisively to mitigate more significant reliability risks emerging in the second half of this decade.
Setbacks will be part of the transformation. We should assume there will be many more, and we should be prepared to adapt.
The most fragile of these is Victoria because of its reliance on three ageing coal generators and the current absence of any replacement capacity.
The easiest way to address this risk is to build some gas peaking generators, as is planned in NSW and as occurred in South Australia after the system blackout.
Gas peakers work well with renewables and can cover for ageing coal in a crisis.
But talk of gas is forbidden in Victoria, even if this means cutting secret deals with coal generators to keep them running longer instead.
The reliability risks are the result of delays in getting new renewables into the market. Transmission infrastructure is progressing much slower than anticipated, the cost and completion of critical storage infrastructure like Snowy 2.0 was wildly underestimated.
Some regional communities have strongly resisted plans to run large transmission poles through their neighbourhood. Roads and bridges in some renewable zones may not be wide or strong enough to carry the huge trucks carrying giant wind turbine blades.
Still no plan B
But right now, there is only one plan, one idea for the transformation.
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As it is, the promise of energy bills going down appears unlikely, especially given they will need to pay for at least some of the estimated $320 billion needed to rebuild our electricity supply.
That’s a bill likely to be paid off over generations, so cost really does matter.
The narrowness of our energy policy is ultimately the result of an enduring political divide.
Having spent more than a decade in office, the Coalition has suddenly discovered nuclear energy in opposition.
It’s a spoiling tactic that will only serve to marginalise one of the two clean energy options available to energy planners.
At least AEMO’s latest reliability warning may result in a more realistic appreciation of the technical challenges that confront us this century.
121
We have and it is our responsibility to spread the news. The MSM will not do it so we must. Everyone here is old enough to have nothing to lose so why not a grey revolution?
60
“The report models the various possibilities of low rain, low wind, low stocks of fossil fuels, droughts, heatwaves, and unexpected outages.”. To that they should add the possibility of re-starting a closed coal-fired power station (a) if it has not been blown up and (b) if it has been blown up.
It is tempting to say that AEMO should all be sacked for not saying anything earlier (they must have known years ago that this couldn’t work) and for not giving us the full truth now. But the real culprits surely are the greedy so-and-sos pressuring the politicians to funnel public money into useless expensive schemes and to muzzle AEMO. I want to see them all jailed for longer than, say, the Proud Boys, because they have wilfully done more damage than the Proud Boys ever could.
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‘Low stocks of fossil fuels’. Not what I’ve heard. Particularly here in Victoria. Also enough uranium to last until the sun REALLY stops shining.
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Another spanner in the works?
“Carbon Capture: BUSTED!?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/09/01/carbon-capture-busted/
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They could also model what if we p*ss*d all this renewable crap off and started again. What if we had a completely open mind?
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We celebrated the election of the Albanese government by buying a generator. At least the fridge and freezer can be kept going. Got a dual fuel carby for it. Can run on unleaded or barby gas bottles.
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A worthwhile investment if your living arrangements allow it. The people in high density developments and apartments will find the going tough.
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Especially when the penthouse dwellers don’t have an elevator working just when they were going to some woke gathering.
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b-but how is this possible when renewable energy is “Clean, abundant and free”🤔
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/apr/30/greentech.scienceofclimatechange
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Nice pick up. That article is a classic from 2008.
Clean, abundant and free? As a slogan it ranks right up there with safe and effective!
My favourite rhetorical question in the face of mindless optimism is to ask what could possibly go wrong?
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Australia is at the forefront of a brave new world. An advanced society that deliberately and willingly seeks out an intermittent haphazard electric supply. while offloading onto the electric grid as much as possible.
Maybe that is the future. I remember when water utility prices were so low, it wasn’t metered and cost a few hundred dollars a year. Times change, even in water rich Ontario.
I don’t think much thought has been given to the hidden costs of unreliable electricity. Day length outages can lead to spoiled food, frozen pipes and dangerous temperatures.
Is it okay if the train and subway don’t run and buses/taxis/trucks are unable to charge up? What happens to solar powered farm when it cannot draw upon the electric grid on those occasional power sparse days? The old reliable power grid let’s you down at the worst possible time.
Society makes this ‘fair weather’ mistake all the time. We buildmin flood plains. We build weekend hideaways in remote treed wildfire zones. We buildon the edge of volcanoes and at the bottom of steep river vallies, forgetting that deserts have flash floods because it is so rare..
Humanity is a master at risking the precarious location..
Who thought there could be a wildfire in a place that occasionally has wildfires!
Climate change or not, we need to go into things with our eyes open. Accepting a degraded power supply is like taking the gas motor out of the sailboat. Being becalmed can kill you and make journies much more unpredictable.
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Why California Electricity Costs Have More than Doubled
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When this report was released, I purchased a reasonably hefty generator ( on the assumption that diesel will available). When the AEMO are saying that it really means “opportunities for investment ” and blackout bowen is waving his arms around saying “its all good”, its hard to have faith that it will be.
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The Lefty loonies tell us we must aim for their NUT ZERO emissions, but according to the CSIRO Australia and the ENTIRE SH is already a NET ZERO SINK of co2 and the NH is a NET ZERO SOURCE of co2.
BIG SURPRISE NOT.
Here’s the quote from their CSIRO Tassie Cape Grim site.
But please can anyone tell us AGAIN why we’re WASTING endless BILLIONs of $ and soon TRILLIONs of $ to WRECK our ELECTRICITY GRIDS just so we can suffer future BLACKOUTs?
Anyone have any ideas?
“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)”.
“The Cape Grim baseline carbon dioxide data displayed show both the annual cycle and the long-term trend”.
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Here’s the CSIRO Cape Grim link and see their quote under Seasonal Variation.
https://capegrim.csiro.au/
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Included in the seasonal variation is the statement that the Northern Hemisphere is a net source of carbon dioxide, the Southern Hemisphere a net sink so I would expect that NH readings to be higher than those in the SH.
According to the NOAA site, the global average in 2022 was 417ppm, so I would expect the CSIRO readings to be less than the global average. Yet the CSIRO readings are about average.
Link to the NOAA site.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide
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Two more things stand out to me:
1. On the charts, 4 states disappear into the stratosphere, and only 1 (Qld) returns to the graph. So NSW and Vic will have at least 6 years of “unexpected unserved energy” and SA at least 4
2. The solar installation subsidy was introduced in 2011, which means that by 2027 there will be a massive amount of solar panels reaching the end of their useful life. What are the implications of losing the power they produce from the very many householders who do not have the funds or the inclination to replace the panels?
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The natural sequence of development is to build power plants for industry first and have people use it in a secondary sense as an afterthought. This is the reason that sustainable electricity projectscfail in Africa. They are built for the home consumer. They make the mistake ofvassuming that the home consumer earns money to support the electric supply.
Itvis industry that has the money to pay for the electricity. The industry pays for the building and running of the power station. The public consumer is a secondary revenue stream.
Try selling haphazard power to business. You can see the problem.
Forget about business and sell only to the home consumer. Who pays the home consumer?
If a region has no industry/business and only consumers … it is cash poor.
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Germany has been charging homeowners more for electricity so that industry paid less and could stay comoetitive. It failed, eventually. What a surprise.
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Even if Australia got a rational government tomorrow and they understood we needed to replace defective windmills and solar panels with coal, gas or (gasp!) nuclear power stations, at the glacial rate things get done (or not done) in Australia it would take at least 15 to 20 years to get just one power station once you take into account inquiries, numerous legal challenges and lawfare, planning approvals, union opposition, Leftist opposition etc..
It’s just not going to happen.
Meanwhile, the Chicomms can build a 2GW ultrasupercritical coal plant in 22 months and are building around 2 per week.
https://china.edf.com/en/our-activities/coal-fired/fuzhou-coal-fired
https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-new-coal-power-plants-per-week-in-2022/
Can someone remind me again what the definition of “insane” is, please?
210
Perhaps it also depends on the election cycle. The liberals are talking about energy from nuclear sources now. When they are next in power they could start to implement such ideas which labor will oppose of course, as long as they are in opposition. Then labor will win another election and will, as they often do, come up with the bright idea to bring in energy nuclear sources, as if it was their idea.
30
The Liberals are fully committed to unreliables and the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
I have no problem with nuclear power but the only reason the Liberals pretend to support it is because they fundamentally believe anthropogenic CO2 is bad. They also know, for the reasons I stated, there is almost no chance of a nuclear power station being built in Australia by the time we need it (which is now).
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David, ..
..”even if “. ..that change of policy was to happen, ..it would be a total reversal of direction..
…..So, it is just as possible that the planning and regulation delays could be over ruled ( Emergency laws ?) to enable a fast build program..
Its been done before,…remember the Vaxcine /FDA/testing requirements ?
If they want it to happen, they can re write the rules !
40
During the fall of Rome it was slow and steady and most people didn’t notice or care. Many kept on partying and having a good time, slaves excepted. Similarly for the successor of Rome, the West today.
Factors that contributed to the Fall of Rome can be debated endlessly but include a migration crisis, genuine climate change, lack of political leadership, a dysfunctional military, excessive government expenditure and a financial crisis, leaders who thought they were gods, various forms of immorality, unnecessary wars, excessive taxes, invasion and settlement of Barbarians, invasion by Attila the Hun (by request of Honoria, sister of Emperor Valentinian III), puppet rulers like Maximus and Attalus, etc..
It all sounds so familiar, huh?
170
“Clean, abundant and free”. So is coal. It is just lying around and you just dig it up and burn it.
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And 100% natural!
Ancient biomass.
60
In Once Great Britain they are trying to solve the unreliables crisis by paying people NOT to use electricity at certain times.
Of course, the consumer will just have the cost of this added to their electricity bill…
Jeff Taylor discusses this at: https://youtu.be/yNQh9E6haw0
He also comments on the Orwellian terminology being used.
80
When did the AU economy collapse? Slowly at first, and then suddenly.
AU has an incompetent government, incompetent grid operators, an ignorant, delusional, marxist, populace, and a spineless group of electrical power engineers.
AU will get the train wreck they seem to want and deserve, because no one seems to understand that AU is in a rail tunnel and the bright light ahead is the locomotive that will destroy everything.
That the “Lucky Country” could be so imbecilic is difficult to imagine. This is not a game. When, not if, that grid goes down, the anarchy, poverty , instability, and pain will be near indescribable. Are there no Adults in the room who can discipline the unruly children of green fantasies and economic/technological ignorance? Citizenship is not a spectator sport. If the AU Citizens allow this travesty, then they deserve what they’ve chosen.
As a reminder: When the Grid fails, in 3 days the cities will devolve into anarchy, in 3 weeks, the suburban areas, in 3 months, the rural survivors will repel all boarders with extreme prejudice. In one year, 25% or more of the population will be lost. This is what happens when the supply chains, food chains, energy chains, etc, fail for lack of energy. Game this out any way you wish, but if these clowns let this happen, it will be hell on Earth. You get the Government you vote for and allow.
Heaven help the innocent in all this, because the Govt won’t, the Greens won’t, the incompetent/illiterate can’t and won’t. You’re on your own.
320
Excellent comment, Lance.
150
Society has a shelf life of 3 days. Without water, food, power, internet, cell phones, refrigeration, air cons, insulin, etc, people go crazy.
To allow this insanity is unthinkable. The human cost is unthinkable. That it is allowed based on fantasy, complacency, ignorance, and ideology, is beyond belief. No one is immune to the consequences. It doesn’t matter what one believes. The reality of a grid collapse is going to make paupers, thieves, criminals, murderers,of everyone who experiences the reality of a total collapse of society. There is no reset button. Once this happens, all the excuses and gob smacked navel gazing idiots opinions won’t matter. Everyone will know life in 1850 for weeks, months or years. This is a civilizational collapse moment. That more do not understand the consequences is proof of general population incompetency to think critically.
But, on the other hand, some people like to watch slow motion train wrecks. So maybe AU provides that entertainment at their own expense.
190
Lance, you might want to put those sentiments in a letter to the Anti-energy Minister Bowen, preferably a snail mail as I think those have more impact.
90
Pessimistic Lance.
But until I lived in Townsville through the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi I failed to appreciate just how reliant people are on energy and transportation. Only the presence of the army barracks and their ability to light up the supermarket near Lavarack, and get the water treatment plant going preserved any sense of normality. And of course the food wastage was horrendous. Transport saved the day by finding a way of restocking with goods from far away.
But of course the major cities do not each have a supersized army barracks nearby to save the day.
150
Destroying an economy by destroying its electricity system is exactly what is happening today in South Africa. It has only taken 30 years, but is fairly simple to do if you replace experienced engineers with incompetents, set up the system so that those at the top skim millions or billions out of the economy, and fail to plan for simple things, like the increase in electricity demand to take into account your growing population:
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/south-africas-power-failures-are-a-symptom-of-a-deeper-disease/
None of that could ever happen in Australia, right? Just change “incompetents” to “renewable zealots”, “skimming” to “subsidies”, and add the following options to increase electricity demand: ban the use of natural gas in new homes, demand a switch of old appliances in existing homes from gas to electricity, subsidise the sale of EVs and ban the sale of ICE vehicles, then change vehicle consumption targets to suit the sale of more EVs.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
120
AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, is tasked with advising Australians of the best way to enjoy cheap and reliable future electricity.
AEMO is paid for by the taxes of Australian people. Its first responsibility is to we, the people. Governments are to be seen as special interest groups with capacity to interfere with the line of responsibility from AEMO to the people. In a sense, they are to be regarded as like Greenpeace or other climate NGOs of unhappy people trying to impose their pet minority views on unwilling others.
Past AEMO reports have carried disclaimers that overall produce concentration on a “renewables” future – with special definitions of the misleading term “renewables” or the various AEMO acronyms for them. Introductory AEMO report statements in general resemble “AEMO investigates only electricity generation types that are consistent with government net zero carbon policy.” This is akin to saying that AEMO has given into climate activism. AEMO has the wider responsibility to avoid activism.
Importantly, there must be some official body to warn governments that their policy constraints are dangerous. AEMO seems to be the logical candidate, but we the people are not seeing this happen. AEMO seems to think it is not allowed to write words like “Renewables are too costly and unreliable for Australia’s best future. We should immediately build new coal generation facilities at these locations, A, B, C.”
Germany’s Energiewende has now demonstrated that renewables penetration beyond 50% becomes too expensive to continue. Yet AEMO talks of 75% and 90% penetration in Australia. Where is the evidence of AEMO learning from Germany, or even our own King Island experiment?
AEMO should be running and comparing cost:benefit studies of all electricity generation types that have ratios that could favour adoption as dominant or even small-player parts. For example, the 20% or so of present global electricity from nuclear indicates that it could have a place in Australia. AEMO are not vocal about this.
It is possible that AEMO have been costing and comparing other types of generation, but not telling the public. They should have been doing those comparisons. If they are not telling the public, then the CEO ought to resign on the spot for deceit.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission ought to investigate AEMO with the enthusiasm of its look into Qantas. Qantas is small fry compared to AEMO. AEMO has the capacity (and seemingly the intention) to consider only a “green future” without regard to what is best when activism is removed. Vast amounts of national money can be lost by a wrong recommendation, vast advantages gained from getting it right. ACCC should work to get it right, to remove activism and politics from AEMO and so serve the Australian people. Geoff S
190
Ah yes. The King Island success story. You too can create a sustainable power supply. All it takes are some windmills, solar panels, a battery and a barge to ship in enough diesel to keep the generators running.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
180
King Island (and Flinders Island) are the two places in the world where “renewables” might conceivably work, right in the middle of the Roaring Forties, and they don’t even work there without heavy reliance on reliable fossil fuels.
190
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
00
…and dont forget the “not often mentioned”. wave power generator …
https://www.waveswell.com/king-island-project-2/
30
Good blog Jo everything you say is correct. And I agree pretty well with all of the comments above. One thing I don’t think has been mentioned is of additional power that will be required for electric vehicles. These things are being brought in at this extremely difficult time for the energy market and can only exacerbate the crisis that surely must follow . .
200
AGAIN the 2022 OWI Data tell us that fossil fuels still supply 84.92% of global primary energy by source and traditional bio mass also supplies another 6.91%. THINK.
And S & W supply just 2.13% globally by SOURCE.
IOW S & W are a just a delusional fairy tale after WASTING TRILLIONs of $ for decades on these UNRELIABLE TOXIC disasters.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy-share-inc-biomass
70
BTW Willis Eschenbach employed the same accurate method used by OWI Data for total primary energy used by SOURCE and found Fossil fuels were 92% and Non Fossil were 8%.
And S & W were just 2.1% of that 8%. So very similar to the accurate OWI Data summary. See down the list for World primary energy by SOURCE at the link.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/07/fossil-and-non-fossil-fuels/
70
At least in WA, the electricity retailers add on a daily supply charge. Pn my case just over $1/day plus GST.
Given that reliability of supply will be essential in an all electric economy, why should the customer be billed for supply, when that supply is interrupted?
Talk to your local state member: If the grid supply of power is interrupted for more than a minute, then the daily supply charge can not be levied.
80
I don’t think this can be called an experiment when we all knew what the outcome would be well in advance. What’s being implemented is a deliberate sabotage of the grid to destroy the nation and boost China.
140
With 2.5kw continuous pure sine petrol generators (65dB so pretty quiet too) under $700 on ebay, they would appear to be a wise purchase for those without independent power systems.
No food for 3-4 days and anarchy?
One tin of baked beans (under $1 ea.) per day too unaffordable?
Tough times makes tough men (and women).
80
The problem with petrol/gasoline is it degrades with long term storage.
Diesel has a much longer shelf life.
However, I suppose there’ll be sufficient blackouts that you’ll have enough turnover of your fuel supply.
80
We have to assume petrol stations will run on generators inorder to pump fuel?
How long will the fuel last per fuel station once the liquid fuels demand increases on black out?
How will the ?state wide / district wide black outs effect bulk fuel distribution/delivery?
How soon will rationing of liquid fuels be enforced after black outs commence?
How soon b4 pillage of liquid fuels for domestic power generation starts?
Etc…..
70
No probs Mike. There probably won’t be any internet connection to drive their payment system, so it’ll all just stall and there’ll be plenty of fuel still there when the power comes back – eventually.
Cheers
Dave B
41
Yes david, but there is the other problem with no internet payments,…few will have access to the cash needed to buy food ( if any is available ?) , water ( the mains utility pumps are electric, so no tap water ) , or fuel ( even if the servo has a generator )
.. So unless you are a tankwater, off grid, self sufficient, farmer type,….
……then you are going to have a hard time !
40
I think when the blackouts start, there’ll be demand for generators that will make them much more expensive than they are now.
60
Victoria had a dry run for this back in January 2018. Hot weather (gee, it’s Summer no less) coincided with some maintenance on a coal generator and I think there was a bushfire threatening an inter connector from NSW. Whatever. We had what they euphemistically called “ controlled outages”. Which are just rolling blackouts. Big industry power users were requested to stop production. Then area by area we sat in the dark with our a/c’s off for 2 hours. Then the head dimwit ( Ambrosio , Minister for High priced Energy and Climate scam) blamed it on the unreliability of coal. Even though that generator had been operating 110% of full whack for years. Everyone get prepared for the political spin while you sweat eating your 1/2 cold meat and salad for tea.
90
Solar and wind are the cheapest form of energy!
You can’t be billed for energy when none is available. Is this what Bowen is really hanging the truth of his statement on?
90
Good point!
No power, no charge.
60
That king island power dashboard suma up the expensive failure of net zero right there, 98% of the power being provided by diesel generators.
100
“Now that Alice lives in Downunder-land — more expensive electricity means customers get more “benefits” when they don’t use it. See how this works? Only the wealthy will have the convenience of electricity whenever they want it. The underclass will be cooking on barbeques, and getting up earlier each day to program the washing machine and set up the timers for the scooters.”
Hey Blackout Bowen, the voters did not sign up for this. Thankfully you will be gone in 2025 at the next Feral Gov’ment Election. In the meantime. we all suffer under your maladministration as the Minister for stuffing things up.
Not just ‘Mission Impossible’, it’s ‘Emissions Impossible’.
80
“. . . the voters did not sign up for this.” Didn’t they: voting ALP, Greens and Teals and others?
60
The Feral Guv’ment only got around a third of the vote.
40
The real danger is not even mentioned in the ESOO, because AEMO assumes “the market” can fix it!
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2023/08/high-aggschedtarget-jan2020-part1/
This energy transition is not building enough dispatchable capacity, or what renewable advocates prefer to call “firming capacity”. As the above article points out, despite vast resources invested in renewables since 2009, the amount of dispatchable capacity needed to cover peak demand periods has not reduced.
The maximum demand of the NEM has been about 34,000MW. As Paul McArdle points out, since we started this energy transition in 2009, we have installed about 20,000MW of wind and large scale solar power, and anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000MW of rooftop solar. Yet the dispatchable capacity needed on the NEM, what he calls Aggregated Scheduled Target, has hardly declined at all!
That’s one of the fundamental problems with this transition. AEMO has structured the NEM as an energy market, not a capacity market. Exactly the same problem as AEMO is forecasting now has already happened elsewhere in the world:
https://judithcurry.com/2021/02/18/assigning-blame-for-the-blackouts-in-texas/
Fortunately for us, our peak demands do not occur in the middle of a winter where the outside air temperature drops to -19degC. However, the risk of blackouts is very real. And unsurprisingly, more renewables will not ease this risk.
The good news? There is no good news! Just more technical issues that will impact the grid, all in the next few years.
90
G’day Pauly,
I suggest your comment would be improved if you had included the word “nameplate” in this sentence:
” …, we have installed about 20,000MW of wind and…”.
And maybe “none of it despatchable”.
Cheers
Dave B
80
G’day David of Cooyal in Oz,
I didn’t want to confuse the issue of dispatchable capacity with discussions about Capacity Factor, which only works when averaging of output occurs over long periods of time.
The real challenge with dispatchable capacity is that it is entirely about peak demand, at a particular time, on a particular day. The statistics in the WattClarity article are very interesting, and point to the problems that the renewable industry ignores:
“Of interest is the duration of time in which (for this day) AggSchedTarget rises above the ‘next highest’ period from Q1 2020*. On this day it is 81 x DIs (6.75 hours)” and
“The duration of the ‘Insurance-Style Firming Product’ was in this case 8.75 hours i.e. A total of 105 x DIs (8.75 hours)”
30
I don’t think Australia is much different from other Western countries, most are on the edge.
80
Most other countries were smart enough to mothball their power stations. Australia destroyed theirs with great urgency.
And few other countries have governments plus an army of useful idiots of the Left who are such fanatical believers in the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
100
Politicians seem to take great delight in being photographed pushing the button to start the demolition which can then be seen in the background.
20
The great EV fraud – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiRzpKWshwU
50
Australia was once called the lucky country, now it’s just a stupid country, and you voted for it, but of course the rich TEAL voters won’t feel the pain…bwahaha.
50
I am living overseas slowly watching my country go down the shitter. Thanks Albo, thanks Bowen, thanks Labor
70
No sign of Simon and Peter Fitz reassuring us that all is well, there is no risk of blackouts.
I wonder are they living the ruinable dream, solar panels on the roof, EV in the garage, battery on the wall, and most importantly, cut off from the grid. Somehow I doubt it.
90
G’day BJ and nothing much has changed since Don Aitkin has passed on.
His blog has been left unchanged and I’ve read some of the articles again and the comments we made and I don’t think I’d change anything I wrote then about their CC lunacy.
But we continue to waste endless billions of $ and for nothing, except the W & S cost will really escalate when we have to quickly replace these TOXIC disasters again and again.
50
Neville
At least Stu and Chrissy Warren seem to have disappeared into well deserved oblivion.
30
Yes BJ there is that I suppose, but they both gave Don a hard time on occasions.
But Don like Jo was able to argue with logic and reason, although that doesn’t really sink in with silly religious extremists.
20
The reality is that AEMO is a major part of the problem. When highlighting the increasing likelihood of not meeting its renewables targets in the 2030 time frame a few months ago the pathetic response was we have to try. To which my question is why? And the real answer is because you have a climate zealot running AEMO and the employees are his disciples. In Australia we’ve had the advantage of watching Germany go down a similar path and totally stuffing their economy driving out its manufacturing industry. But at least Germany has neighbours like France who they can plug into. Australia’s an island so when we have blackouts we have no one to plug in the extension cord to.
AEMO and the state governments have been digging a hole and when they realise this hole is not working their answer is to dig faster. Time to press pause ( a real pause). No more renewables a ban. Restore coal plants to supply the electricity 24/7 and incorporate renewables only if necessary. If people can’t be convinced that the best answer is to do nothing on emissions then we have to go nuclear. At least you know it is reliable ( in fact even more reliable than coal. And when Bowen tries to tell you it’s too expensive ask him what is the cost of a system that doesn’t work. I would argue that it’s infinitely more expensive than the alternative. Less and less people are dying from climate events as Bjorn Lombergs chart shows but more and more will die from climate policy when blackouts and energy poverty affect us all.
70
The energy mix is the issue. Renewables are ‘intermittent’ supply, meaning not reliable to the extent you need ‘shadow’ generation assets to fully address this issue no matter how much noddy ‘green stuff’ is installed. Germany’s issue is gas which is used in lots of industrial processes. LNG, if available, creates a permanently high energy input cost for Germany. As for the French they have issues – one is that the French reactor fleet is getting old all at the same time and is exposed to emerging ‘type’ faults like brittle metal, corrosion, etc. With Niger the French might lose access to the Uranium fuel they need which might be considered an existential threat to the French state.
30
One of the crazy things about a grid built on renewables. If you are a zealot you believe that climate fluctuations will be more frequent and more extreme. Yet you go out of your way to design a system which is more likely to break down on those extreme weather days either freezing cold like happened in Texas or extremely hot as happened in South Australia. Energy rationing only takes place at times when energy is most in demand and most needed. How dumb is that.
80
The solution to washing clothes of the one dry day of the week is so simple! Subsidise programmable clothes dryers for everyone, You know it makes sense as there will be more rain when the weather returns to normal with all the green elections in Australia! Tim Flappery told me so! /s.
40
Start collecting firewood NOW; before it becomes a Capital Offence.
While you are at it, give a thought how to prevent your thoughtful “squirreling / bandicooting” away from people who are already willing to kill you for “wrong-thought”.
It is NOT “paranoia” when someone is really out to “get” you.
40
Yep, thinking of buying a genset. I’ve been waiting and putting it off but seems now is the time, the black outs are coming, if not now, soon.
20
Once people realise what’s going on, the prices of generators will skyrocket. Get one sooner rather than later.
40
Failure of the grid is all baked in. Only a matter of time.
40
Come on you useful idiots with EVs, get them hooked up to the grid so we can keep the lights on.
10
There is nothing more destructive to human progress and endeavour than a Left-wing zealot. It’s all ‘for your own good to sacrifice for the collective’.
10
I would suggest the “the interim reliability measure” commence in Teal electorates, Canberra, Every state Parliament district, roll onto Twiggy’s mines and HQ suburbs and keep the power running to the only people in this country who can critically think thru solutions to throwing these economics vandals out.
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