As Western grids are teetering, people are suddenly realizing demand for electricity is about to skyrocket
Unstoppable demands are about to meet immovable rocks. A year ago the grid managers thought they had their five year plans figured out, but now the same experts think we are going to need to add twice as much generation as they did then. The watt-hogs have arrived to chew on some gigawatt hours.
The usual slow grid planning processes are getting upended. Take the US State of Georgia for example. They have scored lots of new electric vehicle and battery factories, a few large “clean energy” manufacturing projects, and have attracted a bunch of energy-sucking data centers, but all of these things add massive loads to the grid.
In the last 22 years demand for electricity hasn’t growth much, so in 2022 Georgia Power were expecting to close their coal fired plants pretty soon, and not even put forward a new plan til 2025. Instead Georgia Power are knocking on the state regulators door to let it expand generation. They’re now expecting winter demand will grow 17 times faster than their previous plan, and summer use will explode to 28 times more*. In 2022 they thought the system might be OK until 2030. Now they think the “shortfalls” start by 2025. And 70% of the capacity they want to add is fossil fuel based.
It could be the worst possible time, say, for politicians to force cars and trucks to run off the grid too…
The Coming Electricity Crisis
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal
Artificial-intelligence data centers and climate rules are pushing the power grid to what could become a breaking point.
AEP Ohio says new data centers and Intel’s $20 billion planned chip plant will increase strain on the grid. Chip factories and data centers can consume 100 times more power than a typical industrial business. … A new Micron chip factory in upstate New York is expected to require as much power by the 2040s as the states of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
Electricity demand to power data centers is projected to increase by 13% to 15% compounded annually through 2030.
The shortage of power is already slowing the building of new data centres by up to six years. It’s so bad, Amazon just bought a 1,200 acre data warehouse right next to a nuclear plant so it can live off nuclear energy. The data center may use up to 960 MW of power, which would be nearly 40% of all the power provided by the nuclear plant.
It’s almost like the CCP is in charge of our electricity grids?
The green subsidies make the unreliable generators happy, but more unreliables in turn destroys the market for the reliable guys. There’s not much point running major capital infrastructure as a back up for a second rate generators. Not surprisingly, many of the essential generators are about to go off to grid-heaven forever and the new replacements are, as the bureaucrats say “not clearly identified” yet.
PJM Interconnection runs the wholesale power market on 13 US States. They latest report signals trouble coming according to the WSJ:
About 20 gigawatts of fossil-fuel power are scheduled to retire over the next two years—enough to power 15 million homes—including a large natural-gas plant in Massachusetts that serves as a crucial source of electricity in cold snaps. PJM’s external market monitor last week warned that up to 30% of the region’s installed capacity is at risk of retiring by 2030.
Meantime, the Inflation Reduction Act’s huge renewable subsidies make it harder for fossil-fuel and nuclear plants to compete in wholesale power markets. The cost of producing power from solar and wind is roughly the same as from natural gas. But IRA tax credits can offset up to 50% of the cost of renewable operators.
All the artificial intelligence arriving appears to be shining a light onto human stupidity.
Who could have guessed that if we subsidize unreliable generators we would get an unreliable grid?
______________________________
*If you follow that link, beware, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article was supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. See at ajc.com/donate/climate/.
The problem is that those who know something about electricity generation have to try and explain the problem to those stupid enough who think that renewables are the solution.
720
People have no idea of what a traditional coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro (not SH2) plant does and have likely never see one. They have certainly seen plenty of wind and solar plantations and think that they do the same thing as power plants, and Leftist voters think they produce cheaper and more reliable electricity.
Back in the day when Australian “schools” taught something useful, it was common to take kids on tours of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme and/or coal plants. In Gippsland in Victoria, near the demolished Hazelwood Power station there was an educational centre concerned with coal mining and electricity generation. That is now closed down and is in a very sad, sorry, decaying, vandalised state.
541
This is quite true and covers several issues we have in the U.S.
Frankly, I’m tired. I’ve thrown in the towel. I’ve done the best I can to isolate/insulate my home from these idiots, which really means I have a heavily insulated home with a woodstove and propane heat.
I’ve railed for years now that the general public is incapable of simple math. If you apply simple math to any one of these issues regarding energy, it’s clear that the proposed solutions haven’t work, don’t currently work, and will never work, but as long as it’s proposed by someone supporting the liberal agenda, it’s solid gold and will save us all.
I’ve asked “friends” where the additional watts will come from to support this massive transition. I even make it simple by reducing it to just a very small local slice, the road I live on. It’s 10mi long. Has maybe 300-400 hundred houses on it, as it ends in a small town. l ask what will happen when just 1/2 of these homes all add high amperage chargers for their cars. The answer is transformers need to be upgraded, substations need to be upgraded, new lines run, and more power needs to be available on the grid. I especially focus on the last part with a followup, if we’re going to at least double the demand for electricity by mandating electric vehicles, electric heat, electric cooking appliances, where is this additional electricity going to come from?
The answer? Don’t worry, silly man, it’s all in Biden’s infrastructure bill. Everything will be fine, your power bill is going to be slashed in half!
I truly believe that if I push the argument any further, I’m likely to be stoned in the town square for speaking such heresy.
It truly is this out of control, and I live in a very rural area in the state of Maine.
130
So many are convinced that battery technology will satisfy the stored component of generation. You can’t reason with some – it’s a faith thing that they have. The Earth is blessed with abundant stored energy thanks to the Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic periods. (largely). If the West and Australia in particular can overcome this madness and elect some RESPONSIBLE people it would be wonderful. Somehow I doubt it with a submissive and brain-dead population getting an overdose of pie in the sky solutions from an equally clueless media.
450
“…those stupid enough who think that renewables are the solution.”
Another problem, the residents of Canberra, primarily politicians and public serpents who make energy policy decisions, have convinced themselves that their protectorate runs on “100% renewables” when all it is, is a devious accounting trick. No sizeable place can run on ruinables as King and Flinders Islands in Bass Strait demonstrate every day.
The only exception is when a country has a lot of properly managed hydro and has enough reserve capacity to take them through times of drought, etc..
321
What hope do we have when a certified idiot has been elected as Prime Minister?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=277676687177920
291
That’s why politicians and senior public serpents shouldn’t be allowed to make scientific or engineering decisions.
301
Our PM and Energy Minister, commonly known as Dumb and Dumber.
230
We are all waiting for the Energy Minister to “totally redeem himself”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TViEzHJrMcM
30
This sounds like “ElBowen”!
Comments from SDA
“C’mon now, Justin just does announcements, he doesn’t do explanations.”
And
“PM Juthtin needs a new honorific.
The Great Equalizer.
He’s made more Canadians equally worried about food, housing, transportation and heat than all the previous government leader-thieves combined.”
31
Graeme,
It is not only a mess affecting electricity generation. Electricity management is but one clear example of a fast moving, bewildering intellectual change affecting logic, experience of the past, truth, common sense, artificial silencing of capable thinkers to favour those with a devotion to a cult.
Forty years ago some papers speculated that low levels of Cadmium in drinking waters would lower IQ on a global scale. Cadmium or whatever, I am afraid of the consequences of irrational thinking expanding among decision makers. I have had 50 years of science experience. I can contrast science management then and now. Then was ever so much better, leading to better standards of living and private wealth. Today is an incomprehensible mangle of degradation.
Geoff S
391
Geoff:
I had (fortunately brief) period with a Geelong factory which released cadmium salts into Port Phillip bay. The Company’s “solution” was to dilute the waste with lots (thousands of litres) of tap water. Another company was using cadmium plating on a 5 litre scale. Analyses by the Victorian regulatory “Authorities” showed a high concentration and they were threatened with prosecution despite the amount of cadmium released by them being a fraction of a percent of that polluting the bay.
It also reminding of me when (in the mid ’70s) a drum of chemicals arrived with the latest hazard warnings from the USA which finished with the warning “Known to cause Cancer in California”. 24 years later I know it was still in use with no-one bothering with any such protections (in several companies) or in anythere other than California.
40
I am on the radio regularly and find it near to impossible to inform the uninformable about renewables, EVs and AGW. For instance there is a regular on 2SM who maintains 25 nuclear power plants would only supply 25% of Australia’s electricity. I point out Britain is currently building 2 nuclear power plants, Sizewall C and Hinkley Point C, both 3000MW. Australia’s electricity demand is about 30000 MW but even that elementary division, 30000/3000 = 10, is beyond the deluded. The 2 British nuclear plants have been greatly delayed by lawfare by the greenies so that also enables the deluded to blather on about cost and construction time; both of these British plants have literally had years and 100s of $millions added to their time and cost.
160
When they ever learn? When will they ever learn? Never it seems. While we destroy our own power grid China does not. The people doing this are not working for us because we suffer without benefit and the way things are going it will get much worse. We are being white anted and because it is so obvious I can only conclude it is being done on purpose by people who are determined to destroy our economy. Add the influx of immigrants who have no requirement to become Australian as we know it but simply live here enjoying what we created. We are also under attack by Aboriginal activists who take the benefits of a modern society but now prevent new sources of desperately needed energy from being delivered. The country is in a mess but politicians like Albo, Bowen, Burke and Plibersek are deliberately making it worse. Who are they working for because it ain’t us.
480
You can’t make this up,
Camel Harris of course is completely deaf, dumb and blind to the reality of power and grid demands and thinks EVs are a great idea!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/8-states-now-say-complete-ban-gas-powered/
151
There will be a whole industry in maintaing and refurbishing and driving obsolete, unsafe old cars.
Just like in Cuba and African countries.
290
Not for long though.
We dont have the same political objectives as Cuba or African countries,..so with our increasing Green cancer it wont take long for some overambitious poly to legislate ..
..impossible compulsory vehicle emmissions test levels, ..
..or.. ban ICE use in city, urban, suburban, residential , etc areas.
..Or, simple vehicle age limits,..
..or..restrict/ban the sale of fuel to only authorised users (Ag, commercial, etc)
Sadly, Western authorities already have too many ways of controling our vehicle use
240
David,
driving obsolete, unsafe old cars
My Dress Up Barbie Doll 1994 Toyota Series 80 GXL 4.5l EFI Landcruiser definitely not unsafe – about to add Bendix Ultimate Toyota 80 Series Landcruiser Brake Booster Upgrade
Using 98 Premium, Mobil 1 Synthetic since 1000km Servixe and all fluids changed every 2 years – still drives like new
Similarly 2006 Honda Jazz 1.3l Gli – 115,000km – Similarly 98 Premium, Mobil 1 Oil since new, and CVT Fluid flushed and changed every 10,000 kms as do short City trips – also drives like new and Magic Seats amazing what you can carry
200
Hi OldOzzie, I didn’t have in mind cars like yours, but these fine African examples:
https://youtu.be/SFPBLwpkJbQ
https://youtu.be/n5PBEdRCilU
110
Heh – that one beats all – Cuba, you are way behind – Courtesy of Labor Blackout Bowen & Labor Albosleezy coming to Australia next
170
Here is where Chrissy Bowen is taking Australia
120
“The Answer is Bowen in The Wind”
100
Thank you Ross, you’re spot on.
50
That 2nd video puts the Cubans efforts to shame!
Wow!
60
There is still a demand for 100 year old Model T Fords – Average price A$25,000
https://www.classic.com/m/ford/model-t/#
60
One for sale in Melbourne
https://www.justcars.com.au/cars-for-sale/1915-ford-model-t-depot-hack/JCW5260683
60
My supercharged 3.8 litre V6 Statesman is in top mechanical condition, with no strong reason to junk it. It is a better, safer car for long distance driving than the modern SUV. The SUV typically has superfluous weight from size, tip-over high centre of gravity, loss of road feel, poorer braking from weight, no gain from a distracting TV screen with backward looking camera.
These days, logic in automobile design is an optional extra.
Geoff S
120
And it’s clear that the “designers” have never even done basic maintenance on a car because otherwise they wouldn’t locate basic service items in such ridiculous positions which take a long time and/or ridiculous amounts of disassembly to access.
80
David,
Cars are designed to be made in automated factories and are not mechanic friendly . Just look into the engine bay of modern cars – there is no room around the motor anywhere . Its almost at the stage that you have to remove the motor to change the spark plugs . “Emission control” devices have taken over and have to be removed to do most jobs on engines . There aren’t many mechanics left anyway – just “Service Technicians” who only know how to “service” your car , not fix it . They just plug in the code reader to the car and it tells them what to do….
30
Of many vehicles that I have worked on the only one that shows signs of thought for the fixer after the factory is a 1981 Alfa Romeo Alfetta.
There is always just enough room – though you might need some tips from the workshop manual.
An example
It looks like you need to take out the RHS front engine mount to get the starter out.
The starter has a third mount at the front (a necessity as I am assured that it stops the starter cracking the alloy bell housing). This mount is actually a cap held on by the extended bolts that hold the starter together. And, if you loosen the nuts holding it the starter swings out around the engine mount.
20
I have a 64.5 model year V8 Ford Mustang that still runs strong and provides plenty of CO2 plant food as an added bonus when I take it for a run.
No complicated electronics so it is easy to maintain and spare parts are readily available and affordable.
70
Toyota are currently running many ads for their B4ZX EV
Definitely affordable for the average battler’s family mover:
FULL DRIVEAWAY
A$71,161
/sarc
60
Russia, China, Nth Korea, Iran etc must be laughing their heads off at our lunacy and wondering how long before the OECD countries collapse completely.
I’m not a very well educated bloke but I understood this BS and FRAUD decades ago and yet so many true BELIEVERS and so called scientists, pollies, MSM etc still hold fast to their delusional nonsense.
Even B O Bowen , Albo, Labor and the loony Greens must know the truth but they don’t know how to abandon the sinking ship.
310
Repeal John Howard’s Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001 and watch the whole rotten mess collapse. The 2023 Safeguard Mechanism even worse. It’s all theft, not taxation. Buried in all your household bills. Illegal.
Wind energy is short term and not affordable. Household solar is not distributable. Neither is reliable. No one would buy them given a choice. They are subsidized by ripping off coal electricity payments. Coal is free and we are not allowed use it. Our biggest export.
And the vast cost of unique distribution to thousands of windmills and wind farms are not an investment. They are a total waste.
The parliament has bypassed funding wind and solar by the device of carbon credits and Green certificates which your energy supplier is forced to buy. And now all big companies who actually make, transport, grow stuff are having to buy forests which make no difference at all to CO2.
“There will be no carbon tax in a government I lead” is a lie. By all parties. We are building nothing for the future. And destroying what was already done. For nothing.
No Federal government has ever had a mandate for Carbon tax, so there is no legislated carbon tax.
Billions in household payments ordered by our governments are not in the budget because they are illegal. They are mandated theft and should be challenged in the High Court as illegal, beyond the power of an elected government which is not an absolute dictatorship, which is where Australia is headed.
I am staggered that the coal, gas, diesel, petrol, electricity distributors are not taking their vast losses and grievances to the High Court. They are playing along because it’s not their money being stolen. Some are doing quite well living the lie.
Since Magna Carta it has been illegal for a government to order payments to third parties, let alone for nothing. And this Australian legal ‘invention’ has been copied to the UK. It is an abomination in a democracy. It is possibly criminal.
Wind is not cheap. Solar is not cheap. Coal is free. Gas is free. But we are told the exact reverse and billions of our money flow to opportunists. Meanwhile it is not even in the Federal budget. We the tax payers and electricity users need to stop governments running away with our cash and simultaneously claiming a budget balanced with coal and iron ore exports. The posturing is only slightly worse than the lie.
Stop the carbon ripoff. This is a democracy. We never gave our government the power to order theft, obligatory payments to third parties. It’s our money and we do not even get a say where it goes. That’s not a democracy.
Worse 98% of fossil fuel CO2 comes from overseas, 40% from China alone and we have a policy of nett zero? But at least the Chinese Government, not the people, is prepared to allow people to buy our wine and coal after trying to wipe out everyone with their bioweapon. And they are threatening another?
We are being failed by all political parties. I do not count the Greens as they are the opportunistic enemies of humanity. Nor the Teals , the upper middle class useful idiots. But Bandt is an avowed communist like Albanese. All they want is power. Our power. And of course our hard earned money.
As for electric cars, there should be zero subsidies. They are of zero benefit to the society. It is again the case that people who cannot afford electric cars are being robbed to pay those who can. And they can build their own distribution network. No government or consumer had to pay a tax to build petrol distribution. Why should we pay, directly or indirectly for electric cars? They are signs of a corruption in our government. People are free to buy what they want, but there is no benefit to Australians in any subsidies for electric cars.
Quite apart from any suggestion that we Australians are saving ourselves and the world by reducing world CO2. That’s a ridiculous lie. Nothing humans have ever done has had an effect on world CO2.
This theft has to stop. And it could be stopped in the High Court.
460
This awareness of the cash theft started when I read about all the new windfarms in South Australia. And wondered how the government was paying for them. So I looked at the South Australian budget. Not a cent was spent.
What it means is that governments are giving billions to ‘investors’ who use your money to build windmills and subsidized solar panels for which you have to pay third parties, even home owners. That is theft buried in every electricity purchase, not taxation.
Governments do not have a right to raise money except by taxation and that goes into the general revenue and has to be accounted for to voters at budget time. This new idea which has swept the world is to create government enforced credits and make companies and individuals buy and trade in them, enforced with severe penalties. By innocuously groups like the Clean Energy people.
And we Australians now have a 2011 legislated carbon farming credits system. People are paid to grow trees. And when you buy anything made in Australia, you have to buy Australian carbon credits. And of course overseas carbon credits.
So now when you buy Australian made goods, they also now contain CO2 penalties, soon to reach 35%. Our largest plastics manufacturer just fled the country. And we could stop making steel and concrete and glass and metals. In the UK they have stopped making steel. They only melt old steel now. Steel manfacturing has been forced to stop. This will happen soon in Australia too. And zinc, aluminum, lead and more. All because of legislated carbon dioxide penalties administered by your government with the cash going to third parties, often overseas.
We Australians at election after election said NO to these Carbon Dioxide taxes/credits. And it has all been put in place without ever telling anyone.
There should be outrage. But the papers say nothing. No one says a thing. And the Federal Treasurer gets up and says he has balanced the budget. While administering theft and extortion on a mafia scale.
420
Further..
Who is funding the 1000s of km of new Interconnector Transmission lines ?
(eg, the SA to NSW currently under construction)
….answer ,..Taxpayers.
..and who benifits ?
Answer.. the benificiaries will be the private owners of the SA wind and solar farms who currently are restricted in generation output by limited demand during daylight hours due to domestic RT solar use.
250
Yes, to them everything is free. The public paid off the loan and the windmills just generate cash. And the public pays for the transmission lines. Not only do they sell our free electricity and keep the cash, but they get as much again in Green certificates. So they are paid double. At no cost to them.
It’s the first time government mandated and hidden public money has been used to fund private businesses and all their capital costs and who then charge twice for free energy. On windmills for which we have paid but they legally own. All hidden, secret Green cash. Rivers of it.
This is not about saving the planet. That’s ridiculous.
220
“Repeal John Howard’s Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001….”
Most supporters of the pretend conservative Liberal Party don’t realise how much damage Howard and the Liberals have done to Australia’s energy supply. Of course, Labor/Green is just as bad.
Liberals have:
-In 1971 shut down construction of the Jervis Bay nuclear power plant, already under construction.
-Allowed non-dispatchable “generators” to connect to the grid (Howard).
-Sold much of our gas supply to the Chicomms at world’s cheapest prices with no provision for inflation or market price on a bizarre 30 year contract, still running. (Howard)
-Banned nuclear power by law. (Howard).
-Thrown away billions on SH2. (Turnbull)
-Introduced high taxes for petrol and subsidies for ethanol. (Fraser and Howard) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-29/record-prices-are-at-record-highs-fraser-government-john-howard/100575924
-Ongoing belief in the anthropogenic global warming fraud and support for related policies.
-At the last state election in Vicdanistan having even more extreme Green policies than Labor.
There are many other crimes against the energy supply the Liberals (fake conservatives) have undertaken. I’m sure others will add more to the list.
(I once compiled a list before and posted it here but can’t find it now.)
241
And how many tens of thousands of public servants on taxpayer wages are being used to enforce this theft? How many climate scientists earn their entire living from preaching a fantasy end of world scenario which they must know is fake? It’s been 36 years of world ending runaway man made CO2 driven Armageddon. A generation has passed with no sign of a problem, no rising seas, no mass drowning, no climate refugees and the polar bears are in record numbers, once we counted them.
Fraud, fraud, fraud. At your expense.
300
Embedded in our Victorian Constitution, compliments of the state Liberals. All drilling for hydrocarbons is banned!
60
To stop the madness all that’s required is a political leader with a large set of gonads to outlaw all the subsidies & Green taxes / tariffs / levies etc.
Without subsidies just stand by & watch the free market forces smash this fraud !!
10
The graphic at the top is brilliant and conveys the darkness, the lack of human awareness of the imminent collapse of society related to the turbines and solar panels that litter our world.
We humans deserve better.
210
In the West we had The Scientific Revolution and The Age of Enlightenment and except for some interruptions like world wars, mankind was advancing at an amazing pace.
Most genuine progress has now stopped with huge wastes of resources devoted to implementing “green” schemes and massive associated rules and regulations. Of course, there is great moral decay as well. That’s just two examples.
It’s all part of the engineered move toward totalitarianism and politicians are now openly and unashamedly advocating censorship and other restrictions on freedom. In the more extreme Nanny States such as Australia we saw just how far they were prepared to go during the covid lockups.
Quoting Orwell’s prophetic Nineteen Eighty Four:
250
We’ve moved from the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Endarkment.
(Didn’t come up with it myself, heard it somewhere.)
The Age of Endarkment is the intent of the Globalists.
Or Globulists as I call them (that one is mine 🙂 ).
An amorphous undefinable soulless Glob that is absorbing us.
Like the death of Tasha Yar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYgBX9RniZU
140
“Net Zero” is just a rebadging of Pol Pot’s “Year Zero”
90
It’s interesting isn’t it?
The Left thought two mutually contradictory things (as with all their “thoughts”*):
1) You can shut down the electricity supply of non-Elites.
2) With Big Tech collaborators such as Goolag and Farcebook they can use AI to control and manipulate public opinion and even interfere with US elections (as revealed when Musk released the Twitter Files). And it’s been confirmed on numerous occasions the extreme Left bias and extreme wokeism and historical revisionism of AI to the extraordinary degree that it thought a typical National Socialist soldier was of African appearance.
AI, as programmed, is a tool of the Left. It so happens that the two weapons the Left want to use to control the Western World and destroy freedom, energy and AI both need each other, LoL, LoL, LoL.
210
David,
Was it you who had a “paper” with Watt Clarity, regarding the equivalence of electrical and liquid sources of energy?
I recall seeing some such, a while back.
A lot of my year(s) has been on
the road. I’ll pass a one, two or
three trailer fuel combination and wonder how we imagine that’s going
to look, in the wires overhead.
Har … har … har.
100
Andrew Bolt talks to Mark Mills about the so called renewable energy and the impossibility of a quick transition to the TOXIC W & S rubbish.
Bolt’s intro is very good and starts with the clueless Flannery and BO Bowen yapping about how cheap our energy will be before he jets off to COP 28.
Mark Mills has so much of the data that nails their cheaper energy idiocy and he laughs out loud at Bowen and some of the so called renewables fantasy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XymJogShmmU&t=1s
171
There are many contenders, but I believe Bowen to be the most ignorant and damaging politician Australia has ever seen, and he is aided and abetted by the equally clueless Albanese. Bowen is causing generational damage to the country but is too stupid to realise it, or even begin to understand that what he is promoting is physically impossible to achieve. So we all pay for a fool’s vanity.
320
William,
Might have to look a touch further. Chris Bowen is just the puppet.
When you find the
ventriloquist, scan the horizon.
More to this, than the one party state we’re in.
190
” Bowen is causing generational damage to the country but is too stupid to realise it, ”
Wrong, BO Bowen knows EXACTLY what he is doing.
And he told us by attending a photo shoot with AnAl just recently when they both flew in SEPARATE jets.
BO Bowen and AnAl DO NOT CARE about the Australian people.
200
These two treasonous clowns are acting on the instructions of the WEF and UN
181
William, you need to watch a couple of TV shows. Firstly the Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister British comedy satirical series. (Paul Eddiington as Minister/ Prime Minister of the UK). Most people think it’s comedy, but so many in the public service and government have commented for decades that it’s reality TV. Even Malcolm Fraser ( past Australian PM) made a similar comment. Then also the Australian TV series Utopia. What you learn from both these series ( and it’s sadly true) is that Chris Bowen is just the elected PR spokesperson for the Department of Energy. So, he basically gets up in press conferences etc and spruiks all the policy given to him by the department and bureaucrats. He has no choice. So, if the LNP ( supposedly conservative party) was still in power I have no doubt that Angus Taylor or similar would be making all the same type of announcements regarding energy policy in Australia. Actually Taylor would be much more devious about these announcments etc based on his past history. A past history where he promoted pumped hydro in South Australia ( driest state in Australia), converted companies from using coal fired electricity to gas, subsidised hydrogen and in their time started building that white elephant project – Snowy Hydro II. Yep, Chris Bowen is a nincompoop, but the LNP reps weren’t/aren’t much better. I’ve seen Scott Morrison doing photo shoots at EV charging stations just the same as Albanese.
90
We always hear about seniors having to choose between food or medicine.
Server farms supporting the digital world suck up as much energy as a small country.
What will happen wheb the young-uns have to choose between a comfortable environment, cooking, transportation or their cell phones.
150
Nah, no probs.
Those server farmers will just move to where the power is. That is lots of constant, reliable power 24/7, with adequate backup. Base load from coal, primary backup from nuclear and secondary backup from hydro. And lots of cheap labour. And I’m sure they’ll be able to adjust to CPP law. Until they’re taken over, by that data-loving state.
70
Yet we can easily prove that we are living in the best period in Human history, but the fantasists, MSM, pollies, so called scientists etc repeatedly ignore very simple sums and lie to people.
Let’s start at 1950 and global life expectancy at about 46.5 years and compare 2023 life expectancy of about 72 years.
But only 2.5 billion in 1950 and 8 billion in 2023 and much higher standard of living, much higher GDP per capita, education, calorie intake etc today.
But our poorest continent Africa had life expectancy of about 36 years in 1950 and population of just 227 million.
Africa population today is about 1490 million and life expectancy of about 64 years and much better standard of living, education, calorie intake and health care etc.
Humans today are flourishing and at an UNPRECEDENTED level compared to any time in our recent history. And all because of Fossil fuels and the Industrial Revolution. Who doesn’t understand these very simple sums?
170
You can check Macrotrends for the UN data on life expectancy, population, child mortality etc since 1950 at the link.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/WLD/world/population
30
What this is telling me, as it should a lot of other people, is
that the people we elected to government are NOT there for the
wellbeing of the people who “elected” them.
They are singing off an entirely different hymn sheet. And, guess what?
They DO NOT bloody care.
170
A sign of things to come {The Real World and not the Fantasy World of Bowen and his corrupt CSIRO mates}
Despite Hawaiian Electric’s warning that bills would increase when the Oahu coal plant closed, many people are shocked by just how much their monthly bills are going up.
Social media users have been on fire recently asking why their electric bills are skyrocketing with drastic increases over a short time period.
“Just wondering if other’s HECO bill went up as much as mine did? It has been steadily increasing with the gas prices but this last one we just received was $78 higher than last month’s $285! That seems like a lot and I thought I heard that the increase with the coal burning plant closing was going to be about $15 or so. I’m in shock!” one person posted on the social media platform NextDoor.com.
The response from other posters was immediate.
“Ours went up $85. Shocked, no A/C either. Really??”
“Same here. Went from $300 to $380 the previous month and this month went up to $445!!! And we don’t even have AC.”
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Questions for all you Australians:
Is German electric production more or less than 10 years ago
Is American electric production more or less than 10 years ago
Yes:
No:
No change:
If you answered no change you are correct.
So how in the hell are we going to do: Artificial Intelligence, Electric Cars and Data Centers for Amazon, Facebook, Rumble, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok and so forth?
Answer: Not happening – there is going to be one hell of a crunch coming. Choose you home location carefully. I am in the middle of four giant hydro plants here in NW Montana: Kerr Dam, Clark Fork Dam, Libby Dam and Hungry Horse Dam – 2,000,000 MW – enough for 4,000,000 homes and we only have 1,000,000 people in a state bigger than Germany.
We export our electricity. If we have a shortage, well…………….
The Communist States of California, Washington and Oregon can go suck eggs.
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Germany’s electricity consumption fell by 17.3% from 2012 to 2022 according the the BP World Energy Report. USA up by only 5.5%
China and India both inceased their’s by 62%.
So guess where AI and Data centres will find a home?
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Where there is reliable, cheap power and a reliable rule of law. % consumption figures dont really mean much in terms of present and future capacity or what base they are coming off or reliability.
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People just have no concept about the consumption of electricity.
It just comes out of ‘the hole in wall’, and umm, no one cares where it comes from ….. or for that fact, what is being consumed by anyone other than what they consume in their own home.
The average home consumes around 18.5KWH a day, and when people look at their own electricity bill, all they really do look out is the largest number on the page ….. the cost for that period of time. Some people ‘might’ look at those (total) KWH consumed, but my guess would be that number would be few.
So then, just have a wander round your local Woolies and while you shop, notice the deli section, and all the cool and cold storage just in the front of the supermarket, without thinking of the huge fridges and freezers out the back, and here, very very very few people would even think of the power consumption in a supermarket.
While the average home consumes that 18.5KWH per day, the average Woolies consumes ….. 4070KWH ….. PER DAY. The Woolworths chain of 1400 supermarkets across Australia consume 1% of all Australia’s power consumption.
So, an average Woolies (and for that fact, an average Coles Supermarket as well) consumes the same electricity as 220 homes.
Within 16 kilometres (ten miles for readers outside Oz) of where I am sitting now, there are 11 Woolworths and 8 Coles Supermarkets. So that’s the equivalent power consumption of 4180 average homes.
When you try and tell people that Australia’s total power consumption is 208TW per annum, (just the AEMO coverage area) numbers like that are just way outside any comprehension. So they look at their power bill, and maybe just maybe that average 18.5KWH consumption for their home, and now wrap you head around 208TerraWattHours ….. 208,000,000,000KWH, oh, and rising with each new year.
Don’t even begin to try and explain the extra power required for Artificial Intelligence, Electric Vehicles and the like, or where it’s going to come from, or how it might be generated, or how nearly all of that is required absolutely, 100% of the time, or ….. and on and on and on.
Norman Lindsay wrote The Magic Pudding back in 1918. Chris Bowen has a black marker pen just changing the text here and there.
Tony.
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As a corollary, people who get electric cars need to know that they have to pay for everything they use. Electricity, distribution, charging stations, registration. And higher registration, insurance, maintenance costs are likely along with a high risk of random self immolation.
The rest of the community has no interest in turning off their own lights, washing machines, dryers, microwaves, electronic devices, computers just so a few with very expensive electric cars can charge them quickly whenever and whereever they like.
A sticker on the windscreen of every Tesla, Polestar, Leaf should say
*FLAT BATTERIES INCLUDED*.
Charging batteries is entirely the responsibility and cost of the owner.
The car maker and the government disclaim any responsibility to provide any or adequate, fast, local electricity.
Signed Chris Bowen, Minister for flat batteries.
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And *PARKING OUTSIDE AND AWAY FROM HOUSES AND OTHER CARS IS ADVISED*
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If you hear a buzzing sound move well away.
Exothermic reaction underway.
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A friend today told me that their provider, AGL, has an 8c/kWh rate overnight if you have an EV.
My rate is 27.7c/kWh
This could be seen as another subsidy for EV owners to add to the many other renewable subsidies.
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Without coal, gas or nuclear to provide back-up to weather-dependent wind and solar to achieve even 98% of the time reliablity with batteries would cost around A$6 to 10 Trillion.
So it will never happen.
The dark times are returning.
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I have no clue what power may be needed for AI,…
.. but i can estimate what might be needed for EVs….(we have been here before !)
Average distance driven by australian car drivers is 35km per day (ref ABS)
If that were an EV @ 5 km per kWh,..it would require 7kWh each day.
So, if we ever get even 1 million EVs on our roads, that would add 7GWhs to our daily 570 GWh demand (0.1%)…
…and that assume they ALL use grid supply to charge…which wont happen.!
Note…. Currently there are <200,000 EVs in Au, and with annual car sales at approx 1.0 m per year it is going to take a long time (5+yrs ?) before that 1m is reached (if ever ?)
HOWEVER ..
In the next 5 years the Gov’mt plan to build 1.2m new homes for our ever increasing population, and at our average of 18.5 kWh per home , that suggests an additional 22+ GWh per day will be required for them alone.😱
So EVs are far from being the biggest risk to electrical power supplies in the near future.
.
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I find it hard to believe that any data center could consume 960MW,..(23GWh per day !)
..as most sources suggest they range around 100-150MW !
However assuming they might demand 250MW (6.0GWh per day),..we wont need many of those to place a huge increase on grid supply..
Just 1 would require as much grid capacity as all the 1.0 m EVs we are likely to see in the next 5 years.
How many big data centers is Australia likely to build in the next few years ?
“ 24 Oct 2023(Bloomberg) — Microsoft will invest A$5 billion ($3.2 billion) in Australia to expand its cloud computing and AI infrastructure over the next two years, in what the US company described as its largest investment in the country in four decades.. Announced as part of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit ”
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…and Amazon also..
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Funny that all the major supermarkets claim to be 100% “renewable” powered. Which is impossible except in the faux ACT fantasy paper shuffling sense.
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Apparently if they buy shares in companies that operate wind and solar installations as shareholders they become 100 per cent renewable business operators.
The ACT Government uses a similar deception.
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Then run Net Zero ads on TV Dennis featuring wind turbines with motionless blades and solar panels in the shade. ( Coles did that last year )
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It’s almost like the far-left Socialist Albanese government is crippling Australia’s energy capability as a prerequisite to a takeover by the PRC-CCP. If that happened the CCP would likely have no hesitation in using our energy resources of coal and uranium to establish a reliable 24/7/365 baseload energy system using the existing grid infrastructure to rebuild our economy for their own superpower needs.
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Doomed Planet
A Fool and Our Money Are Soon Parted
1st April 2024 – Peter Smith
Recall Solyndra, eagerly pushed by President Obama at the time? One of many subsidised green schemes which bit the dust, this one taking US$570 million of taxpayers’ money with it.
I couldn’t help thinking of it when Chris Bowen was announcing his new “Solar SunShot” program, which, reportedly, will oversee production subsidies and grants to increase Australia’s role in the global solar manufacturing supply chain. Gotta get in on that global supply chain.
Bowen’s aim is to boost the manufacture of solar panels in Australia. And he’s gifted his endeavour $1 billion of our money to get the ball rolling. In any event, it won’t be enough because China can produce panels much more cheaply than ever they can be produced here. Just to make sure that is the case Bowen will want our panels to be made using “the cheapest form of energy” which, unfortunately, turns out to be the dearest form of energy; namely, renewable energy. To boot, his ministerial colleague Tony Burke, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, is reducing flexibility in the labour market at the behest of his union mates. Not a happy prospect for any kind of manufacturing in Australia, never mind one that has no natural advantages.
Bowen’s announcement, with the Prime Minister and Damien Nicks, CEO of AGL, in tow, was made in the Hunter Valley. Coal country NSW where, to quote from Renew Economy, “AGL Energy has teamed up with local solar innovator SunDrive to explore the joint development of…solar manufacturing…” Apparently, this is just part of the activities AGL envisages on the sites where Liddell coal-fired power station once stood, churning out affordable and reliable power, and where Bayswater still stands, though scheduled for closure in the early 2030s.
I studied economics but am not sure what “circular economic principles” are. Must have missed that lecture.
I’ve just watched Climate – The Movie. It’s worth a watch.
The debunkers will be out in force, like RMIT-ABC fact checkers on steroids.
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Doomed Planet
Trust us, Kids, We’re Climate ‘Educators’
2nd April 2024 – Tony Thomas
There’s nothing new about academics stoking schoolkids’ climate fears and depression.
But nothing I’ve previously seen can match the onslaught on those from seven upwards by the University of Tasmania (UTas), which helped it gain World No 1 ranking for climate activism. [1] ABC Radio has assisted by publicising and recruiting kids for the program.[2]
The university’s Curious Climate Schools unit has arranged for teachers of more than 2000 Tassie kids in scores of schools to run class “brainstorms” about the alleged global warming peril. Each class forwards its ten best questions to a pool of 80 activist “experts” mobilised within the university and externally. Strangely they include the Chinese Academy of Sciences — China pumps out 35 per cent of the world’s human-caused CO2 emissions.
More than 600 questions have come in. The “experts” get themselves filmed answering the questions and the entire compendium of climate alarmism is offered to all kids on-line.
The scheme ran from 2020-23 and is underway again in 2024. The executives want it to go national and international. The brainwashing is evident in Tassie kids’ questions like “How long do we have until the earth becomes uninhabitable?” and “How long before climate change will destroy the earth?”
Its agenda, as I see it, is to turn nervous kids into activists, climate-strikers and future Teal and Greens voters.
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How easy would it be for a totalitarian communist dictatorship to win a war against the Western woke world in the next couple of years. With the woke gullible Western world’s economy’s relying more on unreliable renewables and the dwindling 24/7 coal fired power stations go the way the green blob DoDo, afew missiles aimed at what’s left of the 24/7 coal fired power stations and BANG, welcome to the 1800s with CCP characteristics. Enjoy your clean energy future kids, elections have consequences.
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Thats a very good graphic at the head of the post, as they often are. There are some creative souls out there.
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In the news today motor vehicle dealers in Australia have just realised that a government regulation requiring them to install EV recharge at dealerships face a huge bill for city suburban installation and much more for country towns.
Worse and apparently not even considered local grids are also going to need upgrading with sub-stations to handle the recharge stations.
Australia wide a huge amount of money involved plus labour and materials.
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“requiring them to install EV recharge at dealerships”
That government mandate turns every dealership into an electricity vendor, whether they like it or not. That’s standover. Pure extortion. If they want to be an electric car dealer, they have to provide electricity. No choice. An absolutely undemocratic demand on a commercial business. No car dealership has to sell petrol, let alone the huge cost of installing and maintaining tanks and bowsers and real estate. And staff.
More illegal government excess. Utterly wrong. Who gave the government such power to prefer one privileged type of transport over another? And again doesn’t cost the government a cent. A aggressive dictatorship. Why is the commerce of selling cars the business of a government? We can only hope that dealers walk away in droves. It’s the one option they have and we hope they exercise it.
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You will not use gas. Explore for gas. Frack for gas.
You will not use coal.
You will not use petrol
You will not pick up sticks in the forest.
You will not even think about nuclear
and
You will eat insects.
You will not use fertilizer.
You will drive electric cars and pay every conceivable cost for others or subsidize them.
You have no say in the matter.
You will thank aborigines for everything you have
Or you will not be welcome.
..
This is the dictatorial view of modern governments. All in the name of saving the planet? Utter rubbish. Science fra*d.
They do not or should not have such powers over commercial enterprise. Or the ability to use penalties to enforce their rule. Restraint, imprisonment, fines.
It started with saving the planet. And became a world dictatorship with the Chinese bioweapon. And now we are told what cars to drive
and that we should pay for it all.
How did it get to this? These are powers never given to a democratic government. They have just been assumed in the name of the Green religion. The High Priests are clamping down and the sheep are being herded into the pen.
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The federal government has
Defence
Foreign exchange
Foreign affairs
Income tax
Pandemics.
It does not have mining, resources, education, health, police. Everything else is with the states.
And by stretching foreign affairs with the UN, they have seized National power with a National grid
and dictate all electrical power from Canberra.
An enormous amount of the Federal Government is doing with Green certificates, Carbon Farming credits, Green Energy is likely not
a power they have under the constitution and therefore illegal. And the cash demanded from ‘big polluters’ and ‘energy retailers’ is not a tax, so also quite illegal.
Which is why they wanted to change the Constitution with The Voice before anyone noticed. It was never about the wellbeing of aboriginals. As if that is not obvious from the conflagration in Alice Springs.
The Albanese government is completely out of control. And the Liberals and Nationals say nothing.
It’s not just the absurd economics of electric cars. People are welcome to buy anything they like. From windmills to solar panels to electric cars. But everyone else should not have to pay for them.
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The more catastrophic the consequences of any perceived threat, the more likely that otherwise skeptical human beings will hand over their freedoms in exchange for the elusive promise of personal security. Political systems specialize in exploiting this “Save Me!” impulse for maximum leverage. “Looming apocalypse” is Big Government’s best salesman every year.
Ghost stories about “global warming” work the same way. If voters can be convinced that their economic freedom is leading to humanity’s extinction, then they will accept costly regulations and “green energy”-induced inflation. If they can be brainwashed into believing that hydrocarbon energy is evil, then they will actively protest for a future with intermittent yet expensive electric power. If they can be deluded into thinking that only politicians and central bankers can save the planet, then they will embrace communism in order to fight “climate change.” Given the fact that Earth’s climate is always naturally changing — whether humans are alive to notice or not — governments’ success in conditioning gullible people to fear every change in the weather has been remarkably effective in creating voluntary slaves.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/03/no_author/globalism-thrives-on-crisis/
We need more helicopters (solar powered of course) to patrol remote beaches (as with Covid) looking for campers using propane canisters to cook food.
Gotta save the planet!
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driftwood?
Or is that too hard to find among the discarded plastic items
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Jo,
How did you make that title image? Was there some generative AI involved?
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The CCP already owns most of out primary and “real-estate” sectors, so, why not our power sector.
A different “Paddock to plate”.
The degenerates in Canberra have been cheering this on for decades.
But none dare call it “treason”.
Funny, that.
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Is it just me or do we really need all this big data? Does it really improve our lives so much that it is worth the energy it uses?
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