Image by Vicente Godoy from Pixabay
We can’t even run a cement factory all day anymore
Get your candles for summer! Unlike the last three years the Australian national grid won’t be rescued by another cooler La Nina this year. Fears of rolling blackouts are fraying nerves at The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit. The transition is described as stuttering, gridlocked, faltering, and the government as “desperate”.
Things are so bad, former CEO’s of major generators are warning that “the lights are going to go out” and accusing one Energy Minister of speaking “complete and utter horseshit” because they don’t think we need reliable peaking gas plants to replace coal power. Said Energy Minister has responded by refusing to even take his calls. That’s really going to work. Meanwhile Japan is getting nervous just watching us, afraid we have screwed things up so badly we can’t be relied on to keep sending them gas.
Not only is summer nerve-wracking, but things are already so bad, one of our largest cement producers is shutting down nearly every day because it can’t afford to pay for the peak electricity spikes even in springtime. Here in Renewable World it’s cheaper to let 5,500 workers sit around for 30 minutes than pay for electricity. The company was paying 54% more for electricity than the year before.
Riding the Express Train to the Renewable Faraway Tree
The numbers are staggering. Australia is racing headlong to the glorious 82 per cent renewables target by 2030. The catch is that the national grid at the moment uses coal for 62% of its electricity. The opposition energy spokesman is calling it “lunacy”, which it is. To reach the land of sunshine and breezes, our grid manager, the AEMO, is theoretically going to close two-thirds of the country’s existing coal power generation in the next ten years.
To put this in perspective, since the last hot summer we’ve shut down Liddell Coal plant, and still haven’t fixed the coal turbine that blew up in Queensland two years ago. New renewable investment has ground to a halt when it clearly should be going gangbusters. No one wants to build new wind and solar plants until someone builds the 10,000 kilometers of high voltage lines to reach distant cheap windy real estate, and no one wants to live or farm next to those transmission towers, so the protests are fierce.
Energy Summit confirms stuttering transition is not on track
Decarbonising Australia’s fossil-fuelled electricity grid is proving slower and more costly than previously advertised, with reliability risks increasing as the exits of coal-fired power plants run ahead of cleaner and reliable replacement generation.
Nerves are frayed “We’re not having an honest conversation”:
‘Get your candles’: energy experts are ‘terrified’ about this summer
Angela MacDonald-Smith, Australian Financial Review
Former Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad said, “the lights are going to go out” in a return to normal conditions after three mild summers and said politicians were not listening to the warnings about the risks around supply, while the industry was not speaking up enough.
“That’s our problem,” he said. “We’re not having the honest conversations and us in the industry we’re not speaking up.”
Mr Broad, who abruptly exited Snowy Hydro last year after a run-in with Mr Bowen, accused Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio of speaking “complete and utter horseshit” in her refusal to recognise the need for peaking gas power plants in Victoria as coal power exits the system.
He listed Ms D’Ambrosio among energy sector figures who would no longer take his calls as he tried to get the message through, including former Australian Energy Market Operator Audrey Zibelman.
We can’t even run a cement factory all day anymore:
The startling reason Boral is stopping production almost every day
Chanticleer, The Australian Financial Review
Mr Bansal [the chief executive of Boral] told the Summit that Boral’s electricity price rose by 54 per cent in the 12 months to the second half of last year, and have not retreated, counter to expectations.
He said Boral had about 5500 “blue collar” workers who were being told to stand aside and do nothing for 30 minutes at a time when power prices made it too expensive to operate.
“At a certain price during the day, when the price goes up [to] a certain level, our manufacturing stops because we’ve worked out economically it’s actually better to have thousands of people waiting idle for the prices to come down then actually do the work,” he said.
“That’s a real issue we are facing every single day on 300 manufacturing sites across the country. So we are extremely nervous what that means.”
The chief at Boral pointed out that he’s not willing to sign up to 20 year electricity contracts because everything is so uncertain.
They still don’t understand the difference between reliable and unreliable power
It’s OK, the believers protest, Australia has added 20 gigawatts of solar.
“Australia has three-and-a-half-million solar systems installed and that represents around 20 gigawatts of potential output,” Westerman says.
“That’s more than seven Eraring power stations at full output and capable of meeting almost half the energy demand in the day when the sun is shining at its brightest.”
As if solar panels can be measured on the same page as a coal plant. For half an hour a day, on a good day, only in summer, and as long as the clouds don’t roll over, the peak output might be like seven coal plants. These people are crazy.
Australians should protest and shout,
Leaving those in control in no doubt,
Of the wrong that they did,
In wrecking the grid,
When the lights all start to go out.
–Ruairi
AS the old joke goes:
‘What did we use before candles?’
‘Electricity.’
550
No longer a joke. “Load shedding” is hidden blackouts.
We need the details of load shedding to be published every day, lest the politicians escape their responsibility.
These shutdowns are a one way street to permanent shutdowns.
481
“Load shedding” ?? your biggest load to shed is the politicians. You guys can furnish the terminology for doing the quickest way of dumping any load
220
“We need the details of load shedding to be published every day, lest the politicians escape their responsibility.”
Who is going to do the reporting, all our media are fawning leftards, bought and paid for.
290
Exactly, and until the morons who support “renewables” or more correctly, Unreliables, start to experience regular blackouts that inconvenience them, nothing will change.
Once a few media outlets lose power a few times they will start to take notice and start to hold idiots like the Vic Energy Minister accountable.
180
Political Pipe Dreams meet up with Reality AND Reality is winning. Strange that.
Blackout Bowen – The Feral Guv’ment Minister for “stuffing things up”.
250
There are plenty of his colleagues jostling for that portfolio. Perhaps make it a super-ministry and give them all a suitable title?
80
His considerable talent for stuffing things up was on display in the KRUDD govt, now we have a front row seat again.
100
And yet we keep getting told the LIE by the anti-energy lobby that wind and solar is “the cheapest and most reliable” of all electricity production methods.
The reality is that the more wind and solar we get, the more expensive electricity becomes.
It is an obvious fact ignored by most except members of the thinking community, an extreme minority.
It is impossible to run an industrial civilisation on wind and solar. The storage to make it emulate a power station is prohibitive in cost, if not physically impossible.
530
David M,
This nonsense that “renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels for electricity” is central to misleading the public. Many times I have wanted a task force of volunteers to show the real comparative costs, but I am too old and without funds.
We need to identify the economic analysis that best applies to NEM and WA and NT, summarise why it is best, show the correct practical cost difference in a simple way and then push it, push it, push it. There are many readers here who have the experience and skills to do this. Who would volunteer here and now to lead the effort?
Surely there are some corporations by now that have known the big lie, have been intimidated, are now being punished by high power costs and finally have the guts to go public, with backing money.
This ginger group needs to be ready with public and media contact details, to say effective words when the first blackout comes.
The role of bodies like AEMO and CSIRO, who are paid to provide accurate, neutral data, needs examination. There must be people within those organisations who know the reality, so they need a platform to which they can speak anonymously if they fear reprisals.
Electricity is a vital need, not a political football.
Geoff S
350
We might as well just import cement from China who can produce it with cheap electricity (partly made with Australian gas and coal!) because they don’t have any CO2 emissions limits.
381
Perhaps the cement plants should switch to night working when it would be cheaper. Yes, not nice for the workers but suffering to save the planet is what it is all about.
20
How to solve the problem of expensive concrete due to expensive electricity?
Regress to building high rise buildings in timber.
Yes, chop down forests to “save the planet”.
SEE LINK FOR REST
180
Has anyone asked the question, what will happen if it catches fire because some EV battery went poof?
370
Speaking of which – massive car park fire at Luton airport.
140
The ABC has this brief report. Little detail so far.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-11/luton-airport-lond-flights-suspended-fire-car-park-collapse/102962578
Cheers
Dave B
80
Still no mention of the cause.
My imagination is going wild with wondering.
90
To all.. Cause will take some time to know, if at all.
The actual incident Bedfordshire Fire responded to, was a single car alight at Luton airport.
The fire currently occurring is in the third level of the Luton Airport Terminal car park 2. The carpark levels are open to the air.
The fire is affecting approx 30% of the L3 floorplan. Atm the wind has increased in a favourable direction and is blowing the fire back on itself.
The structure has been compromised as it is basically an external steel lattice, pillar with concrete floors. The exposed steel doesn’t like 600+ degree heat for an extended period.
Firefighters would be pumping into a ground level booster and using the internal hydrants. The water that can be used is restricted by the diameter of the riser. You would be lucky to get 80 litres per second which is not enough to extinguish the amount of vehicles alight.
What firefighters would do is cool the structual steel. If the structure is determined to be compromised, internal firefighting operations will be withdrawn.
Re the cause. Imho, due to the heat, size and length of operations, it will be difficult to identify the initial ignition point. What we would look for is witnesses, initial and subsequent callers, CCTV footage, airport staff.
It looks to be approx 80 cars involved at this point. In NSW we could “possibly” get the ignition point of this fire to a 10 x 10m area. (6 cars)
Understand that part of the floor area of Terminal car park 2, Level 3, (if it remains standing) would be a black, twisted sticky mess.
Caveat… This is my humble opinion based on three decades of experience. FYI only.
__________
[I have put a post up on the situation at Luton so people can discuss this there. Thanks – Jo]
70
Well that was quite prescient, apparently the building has now collapsed internally….
50
Apart from fire, you’ve got crack, split, warp, rot and termites, wonderful stuff.
110
“you’ve got crack, split, warp, rot and termites, wonderful stuff.”
It certainly will be Ronin, it will have lignin binders, mould inhibitors, insecticides and whatever else needs to be applied to give the building any sort of functional life span.
All these “additives” will of course be harmless to humans, good for the environment and probably require special approvals to be disposed of.
Whats not to like?
160
Thanks for the link to the “Timber” high rise.
Like all Climate BS from our ABC, they don’t tell the whole story.
The wonderful image of the timber ceiling shows the core of the building is actually structural concrete.
280
Yes, the lift shaft has to be concrete and you can see the basement levels are also concrete construction to support the weight and allow high span areas, probably for parking, etc. Also interesting is the statement that they have utilised scrap timber destined for woodchip as a planet saving excercise while also admitting much of the structural timber has been shipped from interstate – to an island state – and spruce was imported from either Europe or the U.S.A.
170
I believe there is a 9 story building in Darling Harbour , Sydney, that also has a timber structure.
20
I managed a software business in New Zealand for a while. We built enterprise management tools for the forestry industry, a sector I hadn’t been exposed to before.
Soon after moving over there, I was bemused to hear that the usual eco-loons frequently targeted forestry operations. The surprising thing was that they didn’t differentiate between pine plantations and old-growth indigenous forests. For them, a tree is a tree is a tree.
Even setting aside the highly relevant differences between them, they couldn’t grasp that using timber as a building material is perhaps one of the most eco-friendly and sustainable methods of building available to us.
I recall winding up one scruffy little dole bludger who took umbrage at the felling of some fast-growing pine when I told him they were essentially 15yr-old cabbages. He was too angry to stop and think about it.
Also relevant from that time was the failure of specially planted pine forest as financial investments. This was, at the time, hailed as one of the best ‘green’ investments. However, much as nowadays, this turned out to be untrue and just another green scheme set up to enrich a small few at the cost of naive investors (where have we heard that before). The plantations grew in value as they grew in height but nobody questioned the absurd valuations for a long time, until an experienced ‘cruiser’ (forester) did a professional valuation based on standard forestry criteria. It turned out that the pine, specially bred to grow quickly, was complete rubbish and worth just a fraction of its balance sheet valuation. This was twenty years ago and it beggars belief that people still put their money into green schemes which, one by one, turn out to be duds.
110
“the felling of some fast-growing pine when I told him they were essentially 15yr-old cabbages.”
Coleslaw at your place probably has splinters then?
20
Termites licking their mandibles……..
20
Every day I get a certain Insurance Journal; and have lost count of the Bushwaa that is expounded about the Climate. Frankly, I cant be bothered responding to the rubbish. But out of the blue yesterday, one of the chiefs of the industry made the statement that climate is not the concern they thought it was.
Bloody hell – it has taken so long to realise they have been had by the Rentiers like Black Rock et al.
As for the blackouts, Benny Peiser of the GWPF is right, they need to occur, to shock the public out of its malaise. Call it climate defibrillation.
410
As Thomas Sowell puts it, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”
But we keep electing people on their promises of a free lunch.
300
The three truths have been pushed aside by the adoption of the New Religion that has penetrated The West.
The Engineering Truth.
The Financial Truth.
The Environmental Truth.
These “Truths” have been discussed and the wrongs exposed ad nauseam but cannot surface into public perception from the Schwamp of the modern government-public service? insestuism.
The only solution to our current religious dilemma is to Drain The Schwamp, and do it quickly.
There’s not much time left.
250
Dig just a little into the source material and you get this gem
‘ The revelation at The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit that one of the country’s key manufacturers was regularly curtailing production in response to electricity prices’
Don’t you love market capitalism
013
Peter, when we had a free market in electricity we paid 10c a KWh and it was almost all coal powered.
What part of socialist-green-wrecked-market don’t you get?
170
What are you talking about? That was when there was no market and we purchased from the local authority or county council. The it was privatised, and we were assured that competition would drive prices. Which is true, but the direction was up not down. This was our version of Thatcherism
32
Can’t see the forest for the trees.
Your mates are sorting that issue out as I type, you know, to save the forest.
50
First and foremost they have a responsibility to the shareholders, anyway the prices are falling because of warm weather.
‘Milder than normal weather during winter and early spring contributed to lower demand and increased renewable energy – aided by windy and sunny conditions – were among the factors sending prices lower.’
10
If it means the difference between wilfully ignorant people like you deciding the value, price and availability of things, and something approaching a pseudo-free market, then yes, yes I do love capitalism, thanks.
40
Those big batteries delivered just 300 MW for a couple of hours at the evening peak demand last night.
Peaking open cycle gas turbines delivered 950 MW, and combined cycle gas turbines delivered 1,800 MW.
Solar delivered 200 MW, wind 700 MW.
The only reliable “renewable” – hydro – delivered 3,700 MW (but are we heading into the next drought?)
Snowy2 is supposed to deliver up to 2,000 MW if it ever gets finished, along with the new transmission lines.
Meanwhile those unfashionable coal generators delivered 16,000 MW to keep the lights on, having had to curtail output during the day to 10,000 MW.
Rather than shut down cement and other factories like steel and aluminium, let’s curtail Canberra usage as they claim to be 100% renewables.
370
Dr Finkel once told the senate that we can’t make a difference to the climate, even if we removed all of our 1.1% of global co2 emissions.
But now he’s telling us we must change to TOXIC W & S and use Hydrogen for his so called Base-Load energy.
The cost of his EXPERIMENT would be HORRENDOUS and could be ditched in very quick time and would probably recover little of the added co2 to make the TOXIC W & S disasters and the replacements every 15 to 20 years.
So how will we fund their 1.2 to 1.5 TRILLION $ by 2030 and 7 to 9 TRILLION $ by 2060 and replacing their ongoing TOXIC mess every 15 to 20 years thereafter?
And of course ZERO change to our climate forever, according to Dr Finkel. Here’s Dr Finkel’s strange thought experiment on Sky News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n7gzrn8naY
120
There is now a “low carbon” (sic) cement.
Not sure about cost or durability.
Presumably it was developed for virtue signaling purposes and/or to reduce the possibility that the Government would ban cement and concrete.
https://www.cementaustralia.com.au/GreenCem
41
A main sewer line collapsed into a sinkhole in Auckland two weeks ago and its contents are still flushing into the harbour… Yesterday it was announced ‘low-carbon’ eco-friendly concrete pipes will be used to repair the leak… meanwhile goop is still running into the ocean 2 weeks on… Thankfully I don’t live in the ‘Super City’ and besides, who would?
70
It should have been fixed that night if they knew what they are doing, which they obviously don’t.
40
People will only ORGANISE when blackouts hit them. So GOOD.
80
“and still haven’t fixed the coal turbine that blew up in Queensland two years ago.”
To be honest, I was kinda shocked that Plukka decided to repair it, I thought for sure we’d get the ‘we’ll build a turbine or two and a battery to replace it.’
50
In my view the breakdown at Callide warrants a criminal investigation.
A report has been published, but much more is needed.
I have only glanced at it, but I recall that early in that report a generator “motored” for more than half an hour before “blowing up”.
I am an old farmer, not a technician. So I have to use my imagination, which suggests to me that “motored” means it ran out of sync. Whatever it was, I would expect that any such failure would instantly raise an alarm, leading to measures which prevented further breakdowns. Not wait half an hour unattended.
So this looks to me like criminal negligence at the very least, but more likely sabotage. The curious way it has failed to get repaired (contractors going broke) boosts suspicion of sabotage, possibly at the very highest level of the management. (Government).
30
Australians should protest and shout,
Leaving those in control in no doubt,
Of the wrong that they did ,
In wrecking the grid,
When the lights all start to go out.
230
This is madness!
80
Are you sure it is not Sparta?
39
Blackouts schmackouts! Be independent of vagaries of the grid. Get a generator. They come in various capacities. If you want it to run your house you will need a qualified electrician to wire an isolator switch into your power board so that the electricity grid can be isolated from your generator input. Pluggable appliances like the fridge, kettle and lighting can be run from a proper capacity portable generator that can comfortably supply those appliances either singly or all at once. For running more sensitive devices like computors you may need a voltage regulator to protect the IC’s from over or under voltage. If you are running a cement factory you may need to invest in something with serious grunt like a Caterpillar 3516B diesel generator, but you’ll need to have a large shed to house it. There ya. Everyone’s problem solved.
80
I saw this coming back in 2017 and installed a 9kVA diesel genset. Made in China of course, a copy of a three cylinder Gardener and the alternator looks OK. Once I stopped all the water and oil leaks ( this thing was brand new ! ) it ran quite well and easily runs the whole house, aircon included. Then things started to break…DC Isolator, Radiator Cap, Fuel Shutoff solenoid and then the solid state regulator.
I think I’ve managed to tame the thing and it now has 50 or more hours running ( I run it for half an hour under load per month ). I also had to rustproof the sound enclosure it lives in, as rust set in almost from day 1. Why did I go Chinese…the name brand stuff was eye wateringly expensive.
It cost me around $6000 to install,and that includes the large cement pad it sits on and the electrical wiring so I can isolate the house from the mains.
Now…is it feasible to run it long term…No. The cost of diesel (it burns about 2.5 litres per hour at rated output ) would send you broke, but used with some common sense, a tankful of diesel could last you easily two weeks or more with careful useage.
I still think it was a good idea, and it has been used in earnest several times in unplanned outages and a few planned outages. Even with the cost of replacement parts, it has been a cheaper purchase than a Caterpillar or other name brand of probably better quality.
Of course if the manure really hits the fan, I’m only self sufficient whilst I can get diesel, but I figure this will probably be the last fuel to run out …or maybe not ?
Should I have had to do all the above…NO….but our political leaders have trashed the place and this is what you have to do to have some sort of backup plan.
120
How many hours has it got on it now Glenn.
These things from China and India should be regarded as a preassembled kit, dismantle it when you get it home and go through it with a fine tooth comb, the generator bearings will go next.
40
Still not much over 50 hours Ronin, but if that lunatic Bowen continues on his present trajectory, and we have any unplanned coal fired power station failures, it may get some hard use for as long as I can get diesel fuel. It seems to have settled down now, and most of it is easy to work on and it came with reasonable service manuals and parts diagrams thankfully. Parts are ex Brisbane.
50
I have a small 3.0 kV.. portable generator for those 1hr-2 day power cuts.
But i suspect if there is a major blackout, fuel supplies will both be in high demand and very likely be hard to find with pumps not powered.
So it has occurred to me that a decent 5-10 kW solar set up and 10 kWh of battery storage, may be a good investment to be ready for any major event.
In reality that could be done for <$10k , and may even reduce current electricity bills whilst the grid still functions.
My hesitation is knowing that it is unlikely iwill stii live in this property for another 5 years, and when i move i would have to repeat the investment again.
50
Chad,
Prepping unfortunately makes sense now . I am considering adding batteries to existing solar (I have a small petrol generator for emergencies) . If I am going to be hit for feeding into the grid , and then face random blackouts at inconvenient times the case for storage becomes stronger . I cannot stop what’s about to happen , but I can try to mitigate its effects .
20
I watched some guy compare small engines made by Honda, Walmart, Briggs & Stratton plus a couple of Chinese versions. He was an engineer and so measured EVERYTHING after running them. The wear rates on friction surfaces (bore, cam, bearings) with the Chinese stuff was incredible. Definitely cheese metal. The oil consumption was high, too. Basically, they were unfit for purpose.
60
A quarter the price. The ones I bought were exact copies of Yanmar, parts interchangeable. But the base material seemed inferior. So was the paint.
On one well I put a 3hp Hatz motor, German. It gave sterling service for many years. When I replaced it I got a Yanmar. Japanese. A pretty little motor with aluminium block. It lasted about half as long. Replaced it with an apparently identical motor, except the label said “Made in Italy”. It looked shiny enough, but failed spectacularly, with the crankcase splitting in two. Which left me wondering if perhaps it was only labelled in Italy, but made in China.
20
I have an old Kubota diesel, 6KVA, single cylinder, (runs well, little bit of noise) runs the whole house including the coffee machine, but not the hot water, made in Japan. I brought it secondhand 20 years ago and it gets a lot of use, 16 days solid thanks to cyclone Larry, 9 days for Yasi and at least 4 hours every other week, thanks to Ergon.
Very easy to sell good genets. Moves with you and you store the electrons in a drum, which you use for other equipment, cycle it through you truck.
I thought about Solar and Battery, I shouldn’t have to as we had a perfectly good grid. It’s the nudge principle, bump us off the cliff, doing their work for them, the plan.
60
Just for comparison Glenn. I put in an off grid system in 2016 and the 8kva Kubota generator has put in 950hrs. The only problem in that time is that the frequency drifted outside of the allowable range for the inverter (SP Pro)and the easy fix for that was to adjust the revs of the genny to get the frequency back in range. Uses around 2l/hr diesel and runs for around 5-6hrs to get the batteries up to full charge from when it cuts in. A wonderful outfit, and yes, I am feeling fairly smug at the moment.
60
“As if solar panels can be measured on the same page as a coal plant. For half an hour a day, on a good day, only in summer, and as long as the clouds don’t roll over, the peak output might be like seven coal plants. These people are crazy.”
They just don’t get it.
100
I notice that Transfield is now talking compulsory acquisition for the land through which their transmission lines go in NSW. This is really stupid. This is high value farming land.
190
Don’t forget the Left’s war against agriculture.
It’s all part of the plan.
E.g. fertiliser restrictions, land use restrictions, gradually elimination of meat and eggs, promotion of insect eating etc.. (For non-Elites.)
180
It’s more about their war against private property – one of the pillars of socialism.
110
A while back an electrical engineer told me – this gold plating thing they talk about, it’s not quite that. What it is, is overinvestment in transmission lines, too many, not necessary, but it’s a fail proof investment, can’t lose money, only make it, so they’re never refused. But we don’t need them.
60
[…] From Jo Nova […]
30
If their goal is population reduction there will be a large number of corpses to be rid of. Burial and cremation are energy prohibitive so will composting become the disposal method and the fertilizer of the future? Of course there is always the Soylent Green option.
60
Anyone got the manual on how to drive a Cat D9? I never wanted to do that but a few of us may have to learn how to bury the bodies.
20
Love your posts and comment section Jonova! You are a diamond!
70
There is an increasing number of Australian households that won’t notice the blackouts when they come, because they are already disconnected from the grid because of inability to pay their power bills.
150
Can I say I am in complete agreement with Paul Broad regarding Victoria’s energy minister. Not only does she talk “ horse shit”, she is a complete [insert favorite rude word to describe an extremely foolish person]I don’t want to even repeat her name. When Vic had rolling blackouts back in the summer of 2017/18, she had the audacity to blame it on the unreliability of coal.
170
The socialist chickens are coming home to roost for our zombie corporations. The two key production inputs, energy and labour, are being eviscerated by policy and bureaucracy, while the zombies cheered it along with their virtue-signalling wokeness. Well guess what. Now the sky really is falling.
111
Does the cement factory work at night? I thought it would be a day time operation when all the solar is making electricity so cheap they give it away?
30
Is it not the dream to have hydrogen factories pumping out hydrogen from dawn to dusk with their solar panels? I’m sure I’ve seen that in cartoon form somewhere.
70
Another green unicorn promoted by fools who know nothing of what they spruik.
20
The one in Darwin operates at night, off peak, only. That’s the Grinding circuit.
If they run 30 seconds overtime their whole night’s production is charged at peak. Sit down money is not an issue, N/S grind and fill the silos, D/S bag and whatever else they turn the stuff into.
N/T have a power shortage issue. Different issue to this post.
Had a friend who worked as the Grinding operator.
50
Boral bossfeller: “That’s a real issue we are facing every single day on 300 manufacturing sites across the country. So we are extremely nervous what that means.”
What it means is that when Boral goes broke the socialists will take ownership of your plant and workers.
But I bet you were cheering them on as you greased your way up the pole.
50
Yep, most of Australian big industry has been at worst complicit and at best silent, in regard to this cheap/reliable power wrecking madness.
60
We will just increase the imports https://www.cemnet.com/global-cement-report/country/philippines
(first one is called Big Boss Cement 🙂
Cement Imports by Country
Below are the 15 countries that bought the highest dollar value worth of cement during 2022.
United States: US$2.7 billion (17.9% of total cement imports)
Philippines: $638.1 million (4.3%)
China: $600.9 million (4%)
United Kingdom: $577.9 million (3.9%)
France: $571.5 million (3.8%)
Netherlands: $515.1 million (3.4%)
Israel: $439.4 million (2.9%)
Bangladesh: $340.7 million (2.3%)
Italy: $286.9 million (1.9%)
Ivory Coast: $284.8 million (1.9%)
Singapore: $276.5 million (1.8%)
Australia: $239.7 million (1.6%)
Hong Kong: $233.8 million (1.6%)
Belgium: $219.9 million (1.5%)
Taiwan: $213.9 million (1.4%)
50
When I studied chemistry in high school many years ago, CO2 was CO2 and methane was methane. Then, as we are told, in recent times the approximately 1% CO2 produced as a result of burning fossil fuels causes global warming and climate change and must be stopped. No mention of any other CO2 produced as a result of human activity, such as wine and beer fermentation, and bread making.
Now it seems that methane is similar. An energy production business is advertising gas supply comprised of hydrogen and bio-methane. I presume the bio-methane is produced by composting plant material. The methane extracted from the earth is bad and must be stopped as is the methane produced by animals used for meat production, and we must stop eating meat.
101
You seem very confused.
18
DM, I follow your comments and very much appreciate your perspective. Follow this, new coal plants, with smoke stack scrubber technology, replacing rural coal plants which have none of this. C.f. China & India replacing local Coal Energy providing plants, with new cleaner technology. Looks like, on paper, that they’re just adding Coal plants, but they’re cleaning the air with newer technology. Aka, the fish are returning to the lakes, streams, and rivers in the Adirondacks.Stuff like that …
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AU energy sector is “Toast”, as the team of Zibelman and D’Ambrosio have zero useful accomplishments in energy.
Ms Audrey Zibelman has a history of failing upward. How that happened is a mystery as ample warnings were given:
American Lunatics Destroying Australia’s Power Supply: AEMO Head, Audrey Zibelman Pushes RET Suicide Pact
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/10/02/american-lunatics-destroying-australias-power-supply-aemo-head-audrey-zibelman-pushes-ret-suicide-pact/
Lily D’Ambrosio received an Arts degree from the University of Melbourne in 1986 and later a Diploma in Public Policy. That isn’t nearly related to Energy. She is not qualified to make decisions in the energy sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_D%27Ambrosio
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Yes blackouts are inevitable sooner or later.
And then the excuses and the blame game will start.
And the cost to the Australian economy will be huge . .
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I’ve bought a 2nd Swap and go gas bottle.
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My energy provider Origin has informed me that they will replacing my existing old meter with a new smart one in the near future. I use only about 18 Kw has per day and I know that I can refuse to allow this.
Any advice . .
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I recently went through the same process. I told them I was happy with my existing setup and they then advised that I can keep it, but would have to PAY to have the meters read. So…in went the smart meters that failed day 1. They eventually sorted it, and during the many phone calls , I discovered that they use the mobile phone system from midnight to dawn when it is not doing much, to dump the data back to HQ. I now get billed monthly instead of quarterly…I think they are worried that as we all go broke, they want to find out quicker when you have run out of money…and of course, these smart meters also allow them to use time of day billing…use electricity when it is in demand, and you pay through the nose in 15 minute blocks.
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Just say no, it is an option.
I got the notice, phoned them and they logged it.
They can’t charge you for the reading, as that charge is already included in the bill.
Because of my dog they would not come into the yard, so we filled a form out for them, the wife phoned them last quarter.
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I know someone who works at a chlorine plant in Victoriastan. The govt hands over large amounts of our cash to them, to NOT RUN when it gets a bit hot. How many more like that?
Criminally insane people (mostly socialists) masquerading as public servants have wrecked our biggest competitive advantage on the back of an ooga booga scare campaign that has not got a single doomsday prediction right (hence the name change from globull warming to the all encompassing climate change). And all this for what? No measurable change to temps or climate. I remember when penny wong, kevin rudd and the CSIRO were telling us Australias climate had changed to a “permanent drought” and that dams would never fill again….How can it be that this is forgotten and brushed under the carpet? Where is the accountability? Where is the skepticism and questions from so called journalists?
I welcome the blackouts, hopefully a few of the sheep finally wake up to the complete and utter nation destroying madness, foisted on us without consent.
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This one image shows why renewables will never cut it, and why taking away REAL power generation will inevitably lead to blackouts, power rationing, load shedding, call it whatever you want.
Renewable Power versus ACTUAL power consumption at daily Peak Power Consumption time
The date at the top of the image (7 September 2021) was the one day in the year when all indicators were as close as possible to the calculated averages for ALL of those indicators, and there were seven indicators, so finding one day in that year when ALL of them were close was no easy task at all.
While the image looks fairly self explanatory, the detail required for a full explanation was no easy thing at all, and I had to explain it comprehensively at the Post of mine at this link shown below. Now, that explanation was needed, pretty much word for word, so you can see just how those two images at the very bottom of the Post were just lost in that required explanation.
However, if I had just shown those two images, opponents of what I wrote who did not want to hear that would have shredded it with hyperbole, asking for the data behind it. (the second image was this one, showing renewables versus the Base Load at 4AM every day.)
Electrical Power Data In Pictures – Supply And Consumption And Renewables
Tony.
PostScript – See that word Difference on that first image, and that actual power highlighted in red, 19596MW. Well, between 17000MW and 18000MW of that is from coal fired power. THAT is why we cannot do without coal fired power.
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Could you try sending that to the anti-energy Minister, Tony?
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Good work Tony, I notice that ruinables in the middle of the day, can’t even make what is needed at 4 am.
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Australians sure love their bravado.
B.S. I love you.
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Book Review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry
By Rupert Darwall
Just over three decades ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by President George H. W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro.
The first assumption is that climate change is caused exclusively by human emissions of greenhouse gases, principally from the combustion of fossil fuels. The second asserts that all the climate impacts from burning fossil fuels are unambiguously bad for people and planet. The third is that the solution is the progressive—and preferably rapid—elimination of fossil fuels, requiring mankind to do without its main source of energy.
Five presidents and a generation later, this paradigm has been elevated into an overriding planetary imperative.
A minority of climate scientists have consistently rejected the three axioms of government-approved climate science, a notable exponent being MIT’s Richard Lindzen.
Rarer still, and possibly unique, is the climate scientist who once subscribed to the three propositions but subsequently changed her mind.
Such is Judith Curry. That alone makes her new book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk, exceptional. Subtitled Rethinking Our Response, the book not only challenges the third UN climate proposition on policy responses but rethinks the first and second.
In her book, Curry questions, rethinks, and rejects the three propositions of the UN climate-change paradigm, and she replaces the paradigm with a new one.
Proposition #1: Rehabilitate natural variability
Proposition #2: Restore balance to assessing climate-change impacts
Proposition #3: Prioritize adaptation to a changing climate
An alternative to the UN climate-change paradigm
Curry rejects the UN climate-policy paradigm and what she calls the “politics of climate scarcity” and the associated politics of energy and material scarcity, and she advises abandonment of arbitrary temperature targets. Instead, the focus should be on appraising specific regional risks and vulnerabilities and proactively developing responses to them that have greater benefits than costs, noting the importance of prosperity, as people are less exposed to weather and climate shocks if they are not poor.
The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is much less pressing than the IPCC and the UN contend because of the implausibility of extreme emissions scenarios such as RCP 8.5 and of high values for the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Natural variability is likely to slow down the rate of warming over the next few decades, and further time can be bought by targeting greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, which account for up to 45% of human-caused warming.
Climate Uncertainty and Risk is more than a book.
Curry has produced a single-author counter to the IPCC that offers a radical alternative to the UN paradigm of climate change that could well serve as a manual for a future Republican administration.
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Very low energy trolling from Peter Fitz and Gee Aye today.
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Sorry
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” Hello Darkness my old Friend”, just getting used to it.
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Isn’t there a smelter with one melting pot frozen solid after they did loadshedding service just that bit too well, a few years back?
I’ve a feeling I learned about that right here.
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“Former Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad said, “the lights are going to go out” in a return to normal conditions after three mild summers….”
This guy aught to be cancelled, or sanctioned, or have his bank accounts frozen for spreading disinformation. Barely a day goes by that we are not told that recent summers have broken all sorts of records for being “the hottest on record!” and that summers are getting hotter.
Either this guy is lying, or the BOM has been lying. I wonder which it is?
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No, they are not crazy. Ignorant, stupid, uneducated or just plain lying. We are the crazy ones because we just complain but put up with the foolishness. Which group should we insult by calling them fools? Us or them?
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[…] Jo Nova Blog […]
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This article is such a load nonsense. You clearly don’t know the difference between load shedding and demand response (and neither does the AFR journo. A shame as they usually aren’t too bad).
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Feel free to explain what you mean David. Anyone can put two techno terms into a otherwise meaningless complaint.
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