Blockbuster: Labor’s weather control “renewables plan” turns out to be half a trillion more than expected

Green fantasy Bubble Popped

By Jo Nova

Finally, twenty years too late, Australian leaders are talking about the galactic cost of making a spare energy grid that might, maybe, hopefully one day reduce world temperatures by one thousandth of a degree. Sadly they are still not talking about why that’s a pointless quest, why CO2 feeds the poor, warmth is good, humans emissions are irrelevant, or how science has become a turgid swamp patrolled by dead sacred cows. But it’s a start!

We got the trifecta: Our car-crash energy bills, the revolution of common sense in the US, and the appearance of our own election on the horizon have set off the Air-raid sirens to wake a sleeping nation.

It’s only half a trillion dollars

The Minister for Energy says the cost of renewables by 2050 will be $122 billion (AUD). Not convinced, the Opposition commissioned a study that estimates it’s more like $650 billion. But what’s a half a trillion dollars when you have hope, faith, and a fantasy to make storms a bit nicer? It’s a horror show. The Labor Government wants every family of four to spend something like $100,000 on their wind and solar vision over the next 25 years. There goes the house deposit, the uni fees, the family holidays. There goes our lifestyle.

Australian energy is twice the price

Things are so bad here in Renewable Crash Test Dummy World, that the CEO of Glencore said Australian energy costs twice as much as in the US, Canada, China and India. Glencore, is the largest coal miner in Australia, the fifth largest miner in the world, and employs about 140,000 people.  Gary Nagle went on to tell the Daily Telegraph  that Australia has a bad attitude:

He argued that the negative attitude to coal in Australia was increasingly out of step with other parts of the world.

“Many stakeholders globally are now taking a more pragmatic view about coal,” Mr Nagle said.

It’s such a first world problem. Imagine being the world’s largest coal exporter nation every other year, and spending billions to undermine one of your two largest industries? How did we get here, standing on a plank, sawing the ship off?

Tricked by “free energy” scam

The electricity-fashion-queens chased a vision of fairy-energy so they could win cat-walk parades at the UN, but lose in every other race that matters. The wind and sun appear to be free, but cost us the Earth to collect, and the Universe to store.

All the politicians had to do was get scientists and engineers to debate in public and they would have realized that they can’t keep electricity in a shoe-box, or post it from the Simpson Desert to Sydney harbor. Instead, they employed the yes-men who agreed with the vision, and sacked, silenced or never funded the 1,000 engineers who could have told them it was stupid.

That, and they all watched the ABC:

Bowen, others should be ashamed of our $650bn renewables disaster

Robert Gottleibsen, The Australian

Since Federation, Australian ministers on both sides of the parliament have made major mistakes and misleading statements. But nothing in our history matches the looming renewable energy conversion financial disaster.

The Bowen calculations are based on “net present value”, or NPV, which involves calculating the final cost and adjusting it back to the current dollars. But commercial infrastructure projections work on what will actually be outlaid. Frontier have now done those outlay calculations to 2050 for the governments and now the public.

And of course, by 2050 all the windmills and sacred glass panels will be due to expire and we will need to find a very big hole to bury them in, and start again with the fire-hose from the bank account spraying direct to China.

The only hope, as Gottleibsen says, is if the protests from farmers and country towns have glued up the plans enough that we can pull the pin before we sink any more into this pit.

It only makes sense if imaginary “carbon credits” had some value:

So, the state and federal governments devised a system which I would call “rigging the books”. But they would justify it by saying carbon savings had a value which must be counted in the project.

And so, a transmission network hypothetically costing $100m would be given a carbon credit, which would reduce its “cost” substantially and justify investment. Frontier calculates that some $80bn of the $650bn came from these carbon credits.

And this half a trillion doesn’t include half the country (the Western half and the Northern Territory). The price can only rise.

Despite the blockbuster costs, Frontier Economics have almost certainly underestimated the true cost of converting Australia into a third-world nation. The direct costs are bad, but the secondary costs are existential. Once the factories and mines are gone, who is left to defend the green-god ideology?

9.9 out of 10 based on 115 ratings

95 comments to Blockbuster: Labor’s weather control “renewables plan” turns out to be half a trillion more than expected

  • #
    Just+Thinkin'

    Black-Out Bowen, RESIGBN NOW.

    This bloke has stuffed up EVERY portfolio he has had.

    A bloke with a little bit of knowledge is dangerous.

    A bloke with NO knowledge is a disaster.

    641

    • #
      John B

      He should be at COP29 by now enjoying his beef ribs, champagne and caviar.
      Not much to see from the Lame Stream Media about COP29. Have they forgotten about it?

      281

      • #
        Just+Thinkin'

        See Black-Out has red thumbed both of us.

        I just wonder if he did the right thing and actually SWAM there; to reduce his carbon footprint, of course.

        00

  • #
    Eng_Ian

    The closing paragraph of the article hits the nail on the head.

    What are the people to do for work when there is no manufacturing in Oz?

    You can have ruinable power but you can’t have it with heavy industry. And that means the end of a lot of employment. No job, no money for food. This has started badly and it’s going to end a whole lot worse.

    660

    • #
      Bushkid

      Exactly.
      You can’t run a country and its economy by selling each other coffee, haircuts and real estate – especially if nobody’s got any money to pay for any of it.

      720

      • #
        ExIronCurtain

        Don’t forget massages. Has anyone noticed how many of these parlours have popped up lately?
        Who can afford so many $80 fees?

        10

    • #

      Be positive. The worm is turning. Onwards and Upwards. The USA is leading the charge for the West. The West is the Best.

      And this is the end for “Albo Sleazy” and “Blackout Bowen”, etc.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXqPNlng6uI

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      • #
        Diego

        Hold onto your eggs. They aren’t chickens yet. When presented with a choice between following the USA or GB, Australian politicians are attracted to the knighthoods and invariably follow GB. If it can be believed, Starmer seems even further down the path of leading his country to financial ruin than Albanese seemingly with a hung-ho attitude to bust through or bust.

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  • #
    Ardy

    When a trillion dollars disappears from any economy for no productive outcome, there are consequences.
    THIS is the primary cause of the housing crisis.
    That money ought to have remained in the hands of working Australians, not lining the pockets of the Green scam racketeers.
    Vastly more people would now be in homes with mortgages, paying them off if this outrageous scam had been prevented.
    Only when the 20-and-30-somethings realise this, when that penny drops, can we see change.
    Unfortunately their indoctrination in schools has prepared them for a lifetime of victimhood.

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    • #
      RickWill

      When a trillion dollars disappears from any economy for no productive outcome

      It is far worse than “no productive outcome”. All that expenditure has opened the door for those with wealth to extract income from those without wealth and it will continue as long as the mandated theft from electricity consumers continues.

      Any government majority could stop the mandated theft in a matter of weeks. The wind and solar farms are not going to go on strike. They will just stop producing when the price is zero rather than minus $40/MWh.

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    • #
      Ted1

      About the housing crisis.

      In the early 1980s it was plain to see that housing rentals were very heavily subsidised by capital gain. The foot of pages 2 and 3 of the Saturday SMH were full of ads for new housing. Rents were affordable.

      After election the Hawke government abolished negative gearing and imposed a capital gains tax. I thought this madness, as rents would skyrocket as investment fled the housing sector.

      Sure enough the ads in the SMH switched to refurbished housing, as capital fled the sector. But rents did not skyrocket. There must have been a lot of empty houses.

      How many empty houses are there now?

      They switched back after 2 years

      20

  • #
    nb

    Germans have a long record of technological achievement, and their green policies have now introduced a new word into the political vocablary: Schwachkopf. It is fair to suggest that Schwachkopf defines all modern marxist theory (MMT). Think green, think red, think Schwachkopf.

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  • #
    kmac

    Jo, great article. An old image but I love the expression “standing on a plank, sawing the ship off”. Small typo wih an “as” missing in the 4th para: Australian energy costs twice as much AS in the US etc.

    200

    • #
      PeterPetrum

      Amazing how the brain fills those gaps without having to think about it. That’s exactly how I read it, until reading your post.

      50

      • #
        Jon Rattin

        Your comment may provide us with a clue as to why people actually accept Albo and Big Wind Bowen’s costings and schedules. For example, there is a glaring gap in the future provision of base load power to support the renewables, yet the minds of these people seemingly “fill the gap” and decide the scheme will be successful. The glitch is breezed over and it blends seamlessly into the narrative.

        As we can see the aforementioned
        typo has been corrected in paragraph 4- don’t similarly expect any corrections in the climate quackery of Albo and Bowen…

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      • #
        MichaelinBrisbane

        On the other hand, if you are looking for something and it’s not where you expect to be it’s hard to find. Someone put the Vegemite on the wrong shelf yesterday. My toast went cold this morning before I could spot it!

        50

  • #
    HB

    Things are about to change albasleezie and bo bo are about to be trumped
    https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7021513567682142208

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    • #
      Penguinite

      To complete the card game analogy Labor has called a “MISÈRE” which is a declaration (as in the game of Whist/Euchre/500 et al) by which a card player engages to lose every trick but win the hand. Trouble is they’ve stacked the deck with Green/Teal cards

      100

  • #
    Uber

    Let’s hope this is the beginning of Dutton’s core election strategy. Please God, grant us a meaningful government to vote for. Amen.

    330

  • #

    “But what’s a half a trillion dollars when you have hope, faith, and a fantasy to make storms a bit nicer? It’s a horror show”

    More like Faith, Hope and No Charity.

    Give the LayBore Partee an Abacus. Net Zero is the collective IQ of this Feral Guv’ment.

    210

    • #
      another ian

      Remember that Chiefio quote –

      “Then there is hope. But hope is not a strategy”

      So while “ElBowen” are hoping good time for some opposition strategy

      30

  • #
    Turtle

    How did we get here, standing on a plank, sawing the ship off?

    Love it!

    180

    • #
      Bill Burrows

      When you are on song Jo (most days) your subtle humour brings a welcome smile and sanity into a world increasingly run by nincompoops. But be careful with the misinformation before your site falls victim to the thoughtless police. For example, some of your contributors probably think that the person standing on the plank sawing the ship off was really doing the reverse? Hopefully the Senate will reject such illogical conclusions by not passing the government’s stupid attack on freedom of expression this week.

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  • #
    Roy

    A trillion here, a trillion there. Soon you are talking real money.

    290

  • #
    david

    When there is little food left on supermarket shelves and service stations have fuel available only every 2nd day (if your lucky) some Australians may wake up. Perhaps not. OK, how about no power to charge smart phones? That’s likely to focus attention!

    280

  • #
    RickWill

    If Finkel had produced an honest report, this fantasy could have ended long ago. His report set Australia down a track of economic annihilation. All heavy industry in Australia is now on life support.

    My submission to the Finkel enquiry determined the lowest cost option for solar and storage to meet the winter NEM demand was 240GW of solar and 750GWh of batteries. I did not offer a cost but such a system would cost of the order of AUD1,500,000,000,000.

    I concluded that any combination of intermittent generation and dispatchable generation was unlikely to yield a lower cost power supply than 100% dispatchable that is predominantly based on coal fired steam.

    There are economic uses for solar and storage. In Australia now, that is many suburban households. But only because the retail price of electricity has increased so much.

    The CSIRO and BoM are the most culpable for their promotion of the climate scam. The funding method of tertiary education also needs to be overhauled. Peter Ridd’s dismissal highlights how screwed the present funding model really is.

    Just Trump’s election has been a blessing for the entire world as the climate scare mongers crawl back into their boxes. Why should the USA fund the UN when they are pushing an anti-USA agenda.

    430

    • #
      TdeF

      And I tackled him on this. He was so excited to be important and said for every paper I could find, he could find one which contradicted it. He didn’t listen. The personal opportunity of a lifetime. Facts don’t matter.

      80

  • #
    • #
      RickWill

      Australia has a very mild climate by global standards. Most people live near the coast, which rarely gets above 35C and frosts are rare on coastal regions. Farms further inland can experience wider extremes.

      The mild climate results in relative low demand for household energy.

      The climate in UK is generally on the colder side. Much of the UK will get snow today. Nowhere near as bad as Canada or Russia but still relatively cold so energy demand for each household is greater than in Australia. So the GBP300k per household is likely close to the money. It would not be practical to run a UK household on solar power but it is in Australia.

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      • #
        Graeme4

        I’m not sure why Australia would be much different than the UK, as the solar CFs only differ by 6%.Bowen today is attempting to say that Australia, being sunny, can exist on solar power, but surely this is completely untrue.

        20

  • #
    Paul Miskelly

    Hi Jo,
    This is an absolutely brilliant distillation of the Frontier Economics Report that the Coalition commissioned. The Report itself is heavy going but well worth the read for the economists among us. Is it possible to provide an ungated link?
    Well done you.
    Cheers,
    Paul Miskelly

    160

    • #
      Neville

      Paul can you tell us the real Australian CFs of W & S?
      I thought perhaps 35% for wind and about 15% for solar, but some other guesstimates now seem to go higher. Any ideas?

      20

      • #
        Paul Miskelly

        Hi Neville,
        TonyfromOz has the numbers from looking at the AEMO data over the long term, so I hope he will hop in with a reply. He has said a little less than 30 percent for wind and falling as more sites come on line. I confirm, but did so from only 2 years of AEMO data.
        Similarly, I think he supplied a figure of 15 percent overall for solar. I have seen a figure of 25 percent from 2 years only of AEMO data for an individual solar farm that I looked at in northern NSW, but I expect they vary widely, as do the wind farms.
        I hope this helps and, even more, I hope it prompts Tony.
        Cheers,
        Paul Miskelly

        90

        • #
          Neville

          Thanks Paul and was asking because I asked Tony the same question months ago and you’re in the same ball park.
          But I find that some of the claims from the promoters are much higher and I think that’s just more BS and nonsense.

          70

          • #
            Graeme4

            Tony has advised a tad under 30%, after over six years of monitoring the grid. Tony’s figure for solar was 16.26%. When you combine the two, based on their usage, the combined CF is 23%.

            50

      • #
        RickWill

        Rooftops are eroding the CFs of wind and solar. The market opportunity for intermittent grid generation in Australia is hitting a brick wall. Any new capacity erodes the CFs of existing plant.

        The actual capacity factor for wind in Q@ was 25.2%
        https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/major-publications/qed/2024/qed-q2-2024.pdf?la=en

        The actual for solar is high teens.

        See page 31.

        Snowy 2 will need to be completed before the CFs improve. Until then, they are on a downward trend due to grid constraints and economic offloading.

        100

        • #
          Graeme4

          Tend to agree with Tony’s solar average of 16.26%, which would be across all eastern states. I only obtain 9% from my Perth home solar in June and July, and this was 21% in October.

          40

    • #
      Graeme4

      Paul, a question constantly arising in the thousands of comments recently in The Australian is: Does the Frontier report include the replacement of solar and wind over the longer lifetimes of coal, gas and nuclear?
      Or is it just a one-off initial cost comparison?

      30

    • #
  • #
    Neville

    Thanks again to Jo for taking up the fight against toxic W & S and yet this has already cost the OECD countries many trillions of dollars over the last 30 years.
    The return on investment is SFA and yet this waste of time and money doesn’t seem to penetrate their thick skulls.
    I hope Trump can make a difference but I’ll believe it when I see it. But I’ll be voting for the Coalition in 2025 and the clueless Labor and Greens last.

    140

    • #
      Peter C

      Coalition do not yet deserve your primary vote.
      They have not yet taken up the cudgels to bash renewables nor Climate Change.

      Vote Lib Dems, PHON and UAP first, Coalition a distant 4th , then Labor,Teals and Greens at the bottom.

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      • #
        RickWill

        Spot on. LNP need to get the message that it is time to stop the climate scam. Bring back Tony Abbott or get Peta Credlin into the top spot.

        210

  • #
    Neville

    Sky news will have a special on Nuclear plus the full net zero cost tonight at 8 pm.
    We can only hope some of the more stupid members of parliament have the time to try and learn something.

    150

  • #
    RickWill

    If you have not seen this video that Chris Wright made then you should:
    https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7021513567682142208

    This guy will be instrumental in making USA great again.

    120

    • #
      Bill Burrows

      Thanks for the link Rick. Chris Wright would seem to be an ideal choice as Trump’s Energy Secretary. Makes one wonder who is the equivalent bureaucrat in DCCEW giving advice to our Chris Bowen. For when it comes to technology portfolios there are very few politicians capable of mastering their brief. Bowen is an obvious example of a Minister out of his depth.

      140

    • #
      Another Delcon

      Some very good points in the video . The Left’s habit of twisting or inverting the meanings of words are a tool they often use and should be exposed more often .
      One point I would disagree with CW on is where he says that humans have caused CO2 in the atmosphere to rise by 50% . What we do NOW has little effect on current atmospheric CO2 .
      Human emissions of CO2 are 3% of total emissions , the rest coming from nature . Australia has about 1% of that 3% . So there is no way our emissions could have any measurable effect on atmospheric CO2 levels .
      Furthermore , if the atmospheric CO2 level rises then the rate of absorption into the ocean increases .
      Ocean temperatures drive atmospheric CO2 content . There is about 800 to 1000 years delay after a change in atmospheric temperature ( cause ) and atmospheric CO2 content ( effect ) .
      Here is another video :
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRhNOv1Uo4M
      Here Gerard Holland adds some numbers to the horrendous costs alluded to in Jo’s excellent article .
      A small error ( corrected in comments ) : The cost per person for this ” transition ” is 95 Thousand dollars , not million .
      But the punch line not mentioned is that actually it will NEVER work ( unless they keep gas ) as demonstrated by what happened in Broken Hill the other day .
      If you haven’t got 300 tons of spinning mas to stabilize the grid then you haven’t got a grid !

      140

  • #
    Neville

    Never forget that the scientists don’t believe we can make a difference even if we stopped all Human co2 emissions today.
    Their reference is the Eemian world’s temperature plunging into the next full glaciation and then the thousands of years lag before co2 levels dropped.
    And co2 levels 115,000 years ago were only 275 ppm at the end of the Eemian.

    50

    • #
      Neville

      But the Eemian was 8 c warmer than our Holocene and SLs were 6 to 9 metres higher then today in 2024, according to the co2 Coalition scientists.
      Again co2 levels today are about 423 ppm , but only 275 ppm in the much warmer Eemian.
      You’d think this would make Scientists more sceptical about the co2 control knob?

      80

    • #

      The CO2 levels are only just recovering from historical lows. We should all be cheering China, India, Russia, Indonesia and everyone else for pumping the CO2 out. And the Once Great Britain who started the Industrial Revolution with all that burning of King Coal.

      Old King Cole was a merry old soul.
      And a merry old soul was he,
      He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl
      And he called for his fiddlers three.
      Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
      And a very fine fiddle had he,
      Oh there’s none so rare, as can compare
      With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

      King Coal of course. They never could spell the English in those daze. LOL

      70

    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Neville, true.

      “Unlike conventional pollutants, gases like carbon dioxide linger for millennia. Even if we stopped all emissions today… we’d be dealing with an abnormal climate for centuries”.

      The rantings of the neighbourhood wino? A teenage action-hero activist? A fa’fa’fine Green member?

      No, a Princeton astro-physicist IPCC author turned travelling snake-oil salesman by the name of Michael Oppenheimer (no relation to his namesake of ‘I am become Death’ infamy, but hey, it’s the same name) via our state propaganda broadcaster, RNZ, on ‘30 with Guyon Espiner’, supposedly ‘frank and cutting’ journalism.

      No wonder children are scared ****less! Evil walks among us, bedecked with medals and jewels and a coat of authenticity – beware.

      80

  • #
    Paul Miskelly

    To Neville at #14.1
    Hi Neville,
    I have had some difficulties posting a reply.
    For wind the AEMO data shows, long-term, something less than 30 percent and falling as more wind farms come on line. Yes, that’s not a misprint. It’s nowhere near the 35-40 percent claimed by proponents. The 30 percent figure comes from TonyfromOz’ long-term, exhaustive, examination of AEMO data.
    I think your 15 percent figure for solar also comes from Tony’s work.
    I confirm 29.9 percent overall for wind, looking at AEMO data back just 2 years earlier this year.
    I hope this prompts a more comprehensive reply from TonyfromOz.
    Cheers,
    Paul Miskelly

    100

    • #
      Neville

      Thanks again Paul and see my earlier reply above.

      10

    • #
      Graeme4

      Thanks for confirming Tony’s figure Paul. It’s interesting that GenCost claimed that the wind CF would be higher than this, yet never provided any references for their assumptions. And another Aust. Report only looked at one wind farm output, not the grid average.

      20

    • #

      Paul mentions this:

      He has said a little less than 30 percent for wind and falling as more sites come on line.

      That’s the strange thing in all of this.

      We have been told endlessly that the technology is improving, and that, as newer wind plants come on line, then that Capacity Factor (CF) (for those newer plants, and then for the overall) will increase, and will increase in a very short time.

      In fact, the exact opposite is what is actually happening.

      I have no idea why I even included it in the first place, and why is it always like that, eh. You include something you think is not all that relevant, only to find it actually offers further insight into something you had no idea would happen.

      I have a long term CF, now calculated over 320 weeks, so more than six years now. That CF right now is 29.93%, so all but spot on the 30% I was originally told was only my made up figure, spurring the idea to actually record the data to prove my point.

      Now, as part of that I also decided (who knows why?) to keep a record of the most recent 52 week year CF, and it’s easy enough to do, just add the most recent week, and take off the corresponding week last year.

      In the last 12 Months, Australia has added 13 new Industrial wind plants with an addition of around 3200MW in Nameplate, and all of these new plants have been newer technology, all with much larger generators, in bigger nacelles on taller towers with consequently much longer blades ‘out front’.

      So now we have a total Nameplate of 13,460MW from 91 individual wind plants. (so, using that 30% CF, then that’s an average generation of just 4038MW, a stark difference from the total Nameplate)

      Now instead of the CF increasing because of this newer technology, the CF has in fact gone backwards to the point that for that most recent 52 week yearly CF percentage, it has fallen to just a tick higher than just 27%, almost a full three percent lower than the long term CF percentage.

      At no time in the last six years I have been keeping this data has that long term CF gone higher than 31%, and has stayed remarkably close to 30% all that time.

      Now, I have absolutely no idea at all why the incorrect figure is used, and I think that no one might actually have even bothered to even work it out for themselves. The maths is simple really, and I’m surprised no one has even bothered to check. I still get called out occasionally that I’m wrong.

      Tony.

      20

  • #
    Mayday

    The woke mainstream media once again revealed their true agenda, running a protection racket for the left.
    JFK jr. eating a McDonald’s hamburger on Trumps plane was newsworthy while censoring a half a trillion dollar cost blowout in Australia’s renewable program.

    120

  • #

    “The Bowen calculations are based on “net present value”, or NPV, which involves calculating the final cost and adjusting it back to the current dollars.”

    Rubbish. Bowen has never done the numbers as his IQ is “Net Zero”. He is a Bone Head. This report explains the initial cost much of which has been hidden from the Australian Public/Voters. Now as revealed, the Alleged Emperor has no Clothes and has NFI. Case closed. Begone you Marxists to the ends of the Universe.

    100

    • #
      Old Goat

      Jonny,
      Bowen will probably drag out the “sunk cost” argument and try to continue . He’s not that stupid , just ruthless and is aware that he cannot back down without losing credibility . Gamblers have a habit of doubling down when losing….

      70

    • #
      Graeme4

      I think the figures came from GenCost, which in turn came from Aurecon, which in turn came from…? Who the heck knows?

      20

  • #

    What Happens When The Lights Go Out?

    If you have access to Sky News, then don’t forget to watch Chris Uhlmann’s Net Zero Investigation at 8.00 pm tonight –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joeer8aiG70

    60

  • #

    What Happens When The Lights Go Out?

    If you have access to Sky News, then don’t forget to watch Chris Uhlmann’s Net Zero Investigation at 8.00 pm tonight –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joeer8aiG70

    70

    • #
      PeterPetrum

      In Queensland (where my wife and I are at the moment) it will be 7:00pm. We will be watching!

      70

    • #
      Neville

      Thanks J R for the Peta Credlin interview with Chris Uhlmann for tonight’s show.
      Everyone should wet their appetite for 8 pm tonight and very impressed that Chris calls net zero a fra-d and Peta calls it BS.
      My thoughts exactly, just look up the data and think.

      90

  • #
    John Hultquist

    we will need to find a very big hole to bury them in

    Not likely. I suspect they will remain like the ancient Mayan temples or the Egyptian pyramids. I can’t imagine that every project is backed by an annuity that will be there in 20 or 30 years to remove the old stuff.
    There will be a tipping point into decrepitude, followed by finger pointing, with no entity ready to take on the task. Some may be bulldozed aside (using the land for a better purpose), with a big pile of junk to be seen from space. 🙈

    70

  • #
    wal1957

    Chris Ulman on Sky News talking about his doco which airs tonight. 11 minutes.
    Exposing (again) the folly of renewables.
    Well worth a view.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aMJ5FH9zcA

    70

    • #
      Neville

      Great video wal1957 and more top quotes from Chris Uhlmann like….

      Canberra pollies are illiterate.
      Ridicules B O Bowen’s lunacy about “W & S are free”.
      And we would have quickly ended this fra-d if voters were told the truth decades ago etc.
      I can’t wait to watch this program tonight.

      80

  • #
    dlk

    it’s basically treason under the guise of ‘saving the planet’

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  • #
    David Maddison

    How can no one with some basic science and engineering knowledge and in a position of power or influence not be brave enough to speak up and say something about this insanity?

    And as the USA has an outbreak of reason and common sense, Australia is accelerating in the opposite direction. Planned destruction is objective of the Australian Government.

    120

    • #

      The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.

      Australia is a Signatory.

      Article 19
      Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

      I have emailed this to Albo Sleazies Office. I wonder if I will get a reply. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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        This is what I have emailed to the PM’s Office –

        “I would like to point out the following in regard to the MisInformation/DisInformation Bill currently before the Australian Senate.

        Australia is a Signatory to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – It is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected

        And Article 19 says this –

        Article 19
        Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

        How do you relate your MAD Bill to this?” And it was drafted before you were born or even thought of.

        Kind regards,

        Johnny Rotten

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    David

    Inheritance tax will solve the funding challenge.
    “ ya vill own nothing and be happy”

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    Ken

    Whether it’s $122 billion or $650 billion is beside the point. It’s all unnecessary expenditure with no benefit and it will all need to be repaid by us, the battling consumers and taxpayers of Australia.

    The reason it’s all so unnecessary is the fact that all that needed to be done, starting back in the 80’s and 90’s was to improve and expand the existing coal fired power station fleet in all states with the addition of some gas turbine stations. This would have covered all the needs of growth in population, commerce and industry. The Country would have been much further advanced and in a much more competitive position globally.

    The recent decades of obsession with CO2 emissions has done irreparable damage to this country for no reason.

    CO2 is not a problem, it is beneficial in many ways to all life on the planet.

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      It has been proven by Viv Forbes and others that Australia is already better than Net Zero. In fact the Country is way below a Zero. And there is no Net.

      The Land of Australia with all of its Greenery and the Continental Shelf around Australia is absorbing shed loads of CO2 and way way more than the 27 million humans and the countless animals farting (along with humans) are emitting with their activities.

      So, the UN should be paying Australia to keeping it up. Now, where is my Pension Bonus for outlining this?

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      It has been proven by Viv Forbes and others that Australia is already better than Net Zero. In fact the Country is way below a Zero. And there is no Net.

      The Land of Australia with all of its Greenery and the Continental Shelf around Australia is absorbing shed loads of CO2 and way way more than the 27 million humans and the countless animals far$ing (along with humans) are emitting with their activities.

      So, the UN should be paying Australia to keeping it up. Now, where is my Pension Bonus for outlining this?

      Click to Edit –

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    Dennis

    The British Government has announced Australia is ‘expected’ to join the UK and US in signing an agreement to speed up the development of civilian nuclear energy and decarbonise industry.

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    Dennis

    2024 Nuclear Events Australia Albanese Labor Government

    * February contract signed with Rolls-Royce UK and orders placed for delivery of SMRs for the AUKUS new generation design nuclear submarines.

    * More recently an agreement signed with 14 countries in Indo Pacific Region for nuclear power stations to be built.

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      OldOzzie

      First sub modernisation in Australia marks milestone

      By Lisa West – November 18, 2024

      The U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Centre (NUWC) Division Newport recently achieved a significant milestone with the first modernisation of a U.S. submarine in Australian waters, underscoring the growing collaboration between the U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia under the AUKUS partnership.

      Engineering agents Matthew George, Daniel Braman, and Dillon Savitzky, from NUWC Division Newport’s Sensors and Sonar Systems Department, played a key role in the three-week Submarine Tendered Maintenance Period (STMP) at HMAS Stirling in Perth, Australia.

      This historic effort marked the first instance of a joint American-Australian team performing maintenance on a nuclear-powered attack submarine, specifically the Virginia-class USS Hawaii (SSN 776).

      The STMP focused on modernising the submarine’s thinline towed array handling system, integrating Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel into the process. Rear Admiral Lincoln Reifsteck, U.S. Navy AUKUS Integration and Acquisition Programme Manager, described the event as a critical step in establishing Australia’s sovereign nuclear-powered submarine capability.

      “The importance of this event cannot be overstated. These last few weeks provided essential maintenance and stewardship experience for our Australian partners,” Reifsteck said.

      Savitzky highlighted the collaborative nature of the mission, “The main thing is that we integrated with a foreign military and trained them on how to do maintenance, repair, troubleshooting, and modernisation on our system. They’re in the process of building up their infrastructure and capability.”

      The Australian personnel demonstrated eagerness and aptitude throughout the process, with George praising their commitment, “They certainly had a great thirst for knowledge, and they picked up everything pretty quickly.”

      This operation is a cornerstone of AUKUS Pillar 1, aiming to deliver a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability to Australia by the early 2030s.

      It is also the first U.S. submarine maintenance conducted in Australian waters since the Second World War.

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    Graeme4

    And now Bowen and Albanese have rejected an offer from the UK and U.S. to join a consortium to move forward with nuclear, with Bowen stupidly rabitting on about how sunny in Perth and other cities it can be, completely neglecting the fact that Australia’s average solar CF is only 16%, only marginally better than UK and Europe at 10-11%.

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    IainC of The Ponds

    The sleight of hand in the Labor costings has been clear for years, in that they focus solely on the wind/solar farm capital expenditure, and ignore the enormous additional costs required for converting random solar/wind input to a reliable, dispatchable and continuous grid.
    The giant Sun Cable project (110km2 solar panels piping 3GW of electrons to Darwin and then on to Singapore) costings belled this cat years ago. The raw capex for 3GW of solar panels can be had for 3bn, and the power lines for another 2-3bn. This is the Labor fraction you read about. However, to spread the 3GW power out from 6-8h a day to 24h a day required another 10-15GW panels to charge 40-45GWh of giant batteries during the day, so that battery power could be sent at night. This reliability/continuity part boosted the total capex to around 35bn, 6-8x the “raw build” cost. This extra 30bn (multiply by 20 for the national grid) to stabilise the grid so it resembled smooth coal output 24/7 is the bit Labor won’t talk about.

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    another ian

    FWIW – more “nut-zero maths”

    “The Math Behind New York City’s Local Law 97 Does Not Add Up”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/11/18/the-math-behind-new-york-citys-local-law-97-does-not-add-up/

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    Paulie

    Three points that add to your discussion, Jo:

    1. No one anywhere in the world has been able to demonstrate a prototype grid running entirely on energy produced by wind and solar. Without a working prototype, no one has a functional design of the future grid that we are supposed to be transitioning to. Without a functional design, no one knows how much wind, solar or storage will be needed. Without those numbers, all estimates at the total cost of a Net Zero grid are just guesses.

    2. Simon Michaux, Associate Professor at Geological Survey of Finland, has published two new papers highlighting the physical resources needed to achieve the UN’s vaunted transition to Net Zero electricity:
    https://tupa.gtk.fi/julkaisu/bulletin/bt_416.pdf

    As the introduction of his second paper states:
    “An estimate is presented for the total quantity of metals required to manufacture a single generation of renewable technology units (EV’s, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.) … It was shown that both 2019 global mine production, 2022 global reserve estimates, 2022 mineral resources, and estimates of undersea resources, were manifestly inadequate for meeting projected demand for copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and vanadium.”

    3. The Frontier Economics report highlights that its economic modelling is very similar to AEMO’s existing economic modelling. That means Chris Bowen has known the true cost of this renewables transition for some time, but has deliberately withheld the information from Australian taxpayers.

    The reason is obvious. If we accept CSIRO GenCost’s inflated $19,000/kW for large nuclear capital costs, then a 1MW nuclear reactor will cost Australians $19M. If we then accept Frontier Economics total cost for the renewable transition as being $642 billion, it means we could afford to build 34 brand new nuclear reactors, for the same price.

    Of course, we don’t need that much nuclear generation. Baseload at night is only 18MW, and the maximum native demand on the NEM ever has been 38MW. The market demand on the NEM is reduced by rooftop solar feed-in during the day, and never much above 32MW. So the LNP’s nuclear option is not only affordable, but will probably only cost Australians about half as much as the renewables transition. Of course, this ignores the fact that renewables only last about 20 years, so that cost can only keep going up!

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      Exactly. And as a few Posters have stated here before. Do the experiment of “Ruin A Balls” in the ACT first and see if it works. If it doesn’t then don’t do it anywhere else in Australia.

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        BTW. The LNP Guv’ment in QLD are 100% in favour of Coal Fired Power Stations. And these Power Stations are owned by the Taxpayers. Get that “Albo Sleazy” and “Blackout Bowen”. The Power is owned by the people of QLD. Power to the People. LOL

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        MeAgain

        It is also a perfect 15 minute city experiment. Just get the Parliament to run on Zoom.

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    mike reed

    Hi there,
    Okay when you are living in a car with your family or worse off a tent and I have seen this traveling our country over the last 15 years there has to be a moment in peoples minds that say this is all BS and then
    ask the simple one word question -WHY ?????? The answer is hey we’ve been conned by horrible people who we have been electing overt least the last 30 years .These con artists Politicians and their running dog lackeys public servants don’t give a rats arse when their lives are totally unaffected because they live in a parallel universe (they still own houses and multiple of them -their kids are well fed and in private schools)
    If you want to see the truth -then just spend a few minutes watching how these bastards don’t answer questions in senate estimates committees being put to them by truth speakers like Senators Rennick and Roberts
    their informed answers are blatant lies or the classic “I will take that on notice senator” oh and then go off and have a boozy lunch in Canberra somewhere ?? and or phone their kids who are off overseas somewhere on a “school excursion” Its all lies and fraud and I have seen some terrible things in my lifetime and now I have to be witness more of this BS .Sorry forgive me for my rant but the Australia I was born in deserves much better than this !!!
    Cheers Mike Reed

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    another ian

    FWIW

    “Trudeau’s New Low”

    “North Korea is top of the league for persecuting Christians, but there is a nation that is rising through the ranks-one that probably none would suspect of having such a dubious distinction. That nation is Canada. Yes, Trudeau’s dystopia has become even more dark, dangerous and dispiriting. This is the nation where not only do people with physical disabilities feel under pressure to be euthanised and free speech is curtailed; it is also the place where arson attacks on churches have become a regular outrage.”

    More at

    https://thenewconservative.co.uk/trudeaus-new-low/

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