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By Jo Nova
With exquisite timing, another price rise in Australian electricity arrived just in time for the next election
As the Opposition point out the Labor government went to the last election telling us 97 times how they would make our electricity $275 cheaper, but with the latest rise, it’ll cost more like $1,300 more than it did before the Labor party were elected. Prices look set to rise about two or three times faster than inflation. But coming after big blockbuster rises two years in a row, even a 5 or 10% rise is nasty.
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER). Being part of The Blob, diplomatically and uselessly blame nearly every part of the system, as though this is just bad luck, even though they must know exactly which single dominant factor has changed in the last 30 years.
Average wholesale market spot prices increased across 2024, impacted by factors such as high demand, coal generator and network outages, and low solar and wind output that drove high price events across DMO regions. These high price events have also affected the price of wholesale electricity contracts for 2025–26.
Meanwhile Minister Chris Bowen, Mr Blackout himself, blames coal and the Russians:
Energy Minister Chris Bowen defended the government’s energy policy, insisting that the unreliability of coal was responsible for the rise.
“Not a day in the last two years have we had a coal-fired power station not break down somewhere in Australia,” he said. “Not talking about planned maintenance, I’m talking about unexpected breakdowns which then see energy prices spike. The government wants to replace that power with “more reliable, cleaner, cheaper renewable energy”, he said.
“What we have seen is substantial world movements in energy prices as a direct result of the long tail of Covid and supply-chain issues, but also of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday.
As for the failures of coal plants, it’s like being gas-lit. If electricity costs more when we have less coal, what happens when we have no coal?
No one is buying the pandemic-war-excuse anymore. The price of oil is the same as what it was before Covid and the Ukrainian war, so is the price of coal, and LNG. In any case, Australia is one the top three exporters of coal and gas in the world, and so if we’re short, it’s because we screwed up.
The real problem with the “old” coal plants is that we are running them full tilt, treating them like dirt and giving them away to corporations for $1 (Vale Liddell!) Many of the companies that own coal plants also own a suite of competing generators and happen to benefit when some coal breaks down because they earn more off the price spikes. In a fake free market, AGL paid $1 for Liddell, but wouldn’t sell it for $250 million a few years later because it was worth more dead than it was as a functioning plant.
The auction rules for the Australian electricity market means that the highest winning bid that was needed by the market operator is paid to every single player who successful bid (even though they may have offered a lower price). So removing a low bidder shifts the winning bid “up” a layer to the next highest bidder in the stack. Effectively, nearly every big player benefits when one low cost asset is disabled or removed.
The top accepted bid sets the price for all the players.
If we had of used rune stones and chicken entrails to design our national energy policy it wouldn’t be this embarrassing.
Will any journalist pin that Minister down with some basic questions? Does he realize coal plants can be maintained for 50 to 70 years? If we delay “Net Zero” targets by ten years, or even a hundred, would any Australian notice? How many degrees of cooling will we achieve and at what cost? What are the interest payments costing us on our global weather control… (Readers can suggest more questions below. What should an Energy Minister know?)
The leader of the opposition has called for the Energy Minister to be sacked. The mystery is why he was put there in the first place.
“…. Australia is one the top three exporters of coal and gas in the world, and so if we’re short, it’s because we screwed up”
“Screw-up”?
Hardly.
Deliberate Alinsky-style sabotage.
Yet, none dare call it TREASON..
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The sabotage extends a lot further than power. The CFMEU are the current standard bearers.
And yes, elements of what we are seeing are certainly treasonous. I rate Net Zero as bare faced treason.
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This is because Chris Bowen is not the minister for energy. His official title is Minister for Climate Change and Energy. So, in his little brain CC comes first. It was also the title when Angus Taylor was the incumbent in the previous LNP government. Hence, also within Canberra that means they think the two parts of the title are linked. If we had a Minister for Cheap Energy, things would be different. But I think little Chrissy should probably be the Minister for Silly Walks anyway.
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Reminds me of when Wilson Tuckey was Minister for Forestry and conservation. Except Wilson Tuckey knew he was taking the Mickey.
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‘What should an Energy Minister know?’
Any fool could show him the door.
BBB = Bye-Bye Bowen & I don’t even live there.
RIP HMS Australia 🇦🇺
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Ben Beattie’s wonderful The Baseload Podcast is back for the year. As an electrical engineer he does a great job getting to the bottom of this mess.
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“If we had of used rune stones…”
“Had of”? What language is OZ using now?
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AI-lingo by the reads of it 😃
Lying Language Models™️ haven’t computed apostrophes nor contractions yet, unless Jo is using the voice-to-text Al Gore Rhythm method.
How’s about ‘had have’ or had’ve fo’ short – and for your own sake and your wallets Australia, that Bowen-bird needs to walk the plank… quick-smart!
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I commented yesterday that Jo could get her favourite AI tool to write some of these articles. Thought later, that would be a great experiment. What if she did and nobody noticed?
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That’s not only bogan English, it’s also a pleonasm.
The word *of* is redundant.
The sentence should have read, “If we had used rune stones…”
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Or: “Had we used rune stones . . . “
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“The government wants to replace that power with “more reliable, cleaner, cheaper renewable energy”, he said.”
If the ruinables were reliable there would be no need for the coal-fired generators or any other backup system.
More ruinables will be just as (un)reliable and still need a backup.
How is it that the ruinables are able to bid to supply power when they cannot guarantee that the wind will blow, the sun will shine, the clouds will disappear and they are not required to install an alternate technology to ensure they can provide what they are bidding for?
“more reliable, cleaner, cheaper renewable energy” is an oxymoron spoken by a moron
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It’s all very well for the would be PM Peter Dutton to call for Bowen to be sacked while at the same time pushing Net Zero and more solar/wind. Both Labor and Libs think we’re idiots, and to some extent they’re right! The TEAL/Green blob just have to sit on the sidelines and keep stum as the next election is unlikely to resolve our power dilemma because with a hung Parliament they will be the “King Makers”. The Libs are controlled by a small collective of LINOs that are able to dictate policy by veto!
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Would readers please note that chickens are in short supply due to govt stupidity, and that turkeys (non human variety) and seagulls can be substituted instead.
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Blackout Bone Head Bowen is a Goose. Add that one to the company of chickens, turkeys and seagulls
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There is a rather simple answer to this.
Any Generator, of any type, must “bid into the load”, 24 hours in advance, based upon previous days profile, with absolute liability, at fixed price. Peaking or spot generation would be at market price.
Either the Generator Can provide the bid, or not. If not, the Generator must provide the Bid power at any cost to the Generator.
That would separate those who Can from those who Cannot.
Reliable Generators can, and will, bid into the load. Non-Dispatchable W/S cannot do that, as they are unreliable Generators.
Liability costs will separate the Producers from the Pretenders.
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I know B O Bowen is a stupid donkey but even he should be able to understand these accurate, but very simple graph lines.
First the world has been on the same Human co2 emissions trajectory since 1945. Look at the world from 1945 through to 2023.
The NON OECD has been booming since 2000 and the OECD actually emits less annual co2 emissions today than in 1988.
And that tiny near horizontal Aussie line at the bottom is just 1% of global co2 emissions.
We obviously can’t continue to use TOXIC UNRELIABLE W & S anymore even though 90% + of Aussies voters don’t know SFA about these graph lines.
And probably most barking mad Labor, Greens and Teals voters couldn’t care less about the real data.
So why aren’t Bowen and the other left wing loonies demanding that the NON OECD countries stop all co2 emission increases TODAY?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS
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Schernikau and Smith are big on addition of conventional energy because wind and solar are unsustainable.
They explain that wind and solar are a net drain on the energy balance of the industrialized world. They are energy stealers, incapable of making an independent living. They sponge on more efficient providers like spoiled children who never leave home, raiding the ‘fridge, using the car without asking and leaving their stuff lying around the house. And don’t even think about the mess in their own rooms!
https://open.substack.com/pub/rafechampion/p/wind-and-solar-the-energy-thieves
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Runinables are not even useful supplements to the power system due to their intermittency. Australia will not evolve to become a key player in the adoption of advanced technologies like AI given the energy requirements.
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Note the AGL logo and motto on the graph – ‘Energy In Action’. The perfect motto for the stupid country – ‘Energy Inaction’.
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Just to show there are foolish politicians everywhere, have a look at this. Where it says Pensylvania you could easily insert Australia, or maybe more specifically Victoria.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/youve-got-blackout-pennsylvania
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Last month energy expert Aidan Morrison explained to John Anderson why the CSIRO report is BS and why energy prices will keep rising under Labor.
This short video is only about 4 minutes but the full interview is available on you tube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSpAUm3Pcdw
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Strictly speaking, Bowen is correct when he states “Not a day in the last two years have we had a coal-fired power station not break down somewhere in Australia”. Except that he is using incorrect phrasing to cover his misinformation.
One coal fired power station was “broken down” for far longer than two years: Callide’s C4 power plant in Queensland:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/08/30aug-cpp4-rts-commences/
This power plant needed its turbine and generator completely rebuilt after a catastrophic failure destroyed both back in May 2021.
Bowen won’t mention Callide C4, because it destroys his meme about old coal fired plants breaking down due to age. Callide C4 was only commissioned in 2001, so not even 20 years old when it suffered its “unplanned outage”.
Similarly, Bowen doesn’t like to use actual data, because it would show that coal fired generator availability has actually considerably improved over the last two years, as the experts show:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/08/coal-fired-unit-performance-has-improved-markedly/
So clearly, the increase in electricity costs since Labor came to power cannot be attributed to an increase in coal fired generator outages. Unavailability has been decreasing since January 2023, and is back down to 2014 levels.
Just another porky that he likes to use to fool those who take him at his word!
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From the Gob of Blackout Bonehead Bowen –
“What we have seen is substantial world movements in energy prices as a direct result of the long tail of Covid and supply-chain issues, but also of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday.
World energy prices and the Russian invasion? What a dope. Australia does not import electricity. It is all generated here. And what does a Coal Fired Electricity Plant have to do with the Feral Gov’ment erecting loads of Transmission lines for the solar and wind toy plants. The Coal fired Transmission lines have been here for yonks and only need ongoing maintenance. Not much of the way of increased costs there and ongoing maintenance of the Coal Fired Plants is a known factor and shouldn’t be an issue either.
And the Coal Fired Plants are the back ups for the Unreliables. the Batteries are not big enough for this and never will be. Astronomically expensive and there are not enough resources to build the Ginormous ones anyway. And what happens when they catch fire?
Sack Bowen NOW and lets get the Engineers back on the case and build back better.
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This election, the Labor Party are done like a duck dinner.
Sadly … to mix a metaphor … there aren’t a lot of good options on the table.
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