By Jo Nova
The invisible shrinking solar industry
Quietly, the world manufacturing base for solar panels has been shrinking for nearly two years and yet hardly anyone knows. Especially not the Prime Minister of Australia who set up the the $1 billion Solar Sunshot a year ago to artificially create an Australian solar panel manufacturing industry, twenty years too late, and with the worst possible timing.
China has already captured the solar market and killed it.
Gluts have consequences
The CCP is making twice as many solar panels as the world wants to buy. The latest trend is from bad to worse.
Let’s remember this story, the next time the propaganda media try to tell us solar panels are setting new records. Isn’t this the sort of thing our investigative sleuths at the ABC-BBC-CBC should have been digging out before elections were held? Doesn’t this change everything?
Australia is supposed to be going gangbusters “leading the world” and installing 22,000 panels a day to meet our Net Zero target, but no one else in the world is doing that.
China’s solar giants quietly shed a third of their workforces last year
Reuters
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- Over 40 solar firms have delisted, gone bankrupt or been sold since 2024
- The industry lost $60 billion last year.
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BEIJING, August 1 (Reuters) – China’s biggest solar firms shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year, company filings show, as one of the industries hand-picked by Beijing to drive economic growth grapples with falling prices and steep losses.
There is a glut on our grids too
… 4 million Australian homeowners are set for disappointment as energy retailers all but stop buying their solar power – blowing out the promised return on investment (ROI) and pushing customers towards costly batteries.
Solar customers in Victoria, in particular, recently received notifications from their retailers that their feed-in tariff (FIT) had been slashed as of 1 July,…
POST NOTE: 44,000 panels a day corrected to 22,000. The target is 44GW…
Yet enough proles in Australia will still vote in the direction that supports this rubbish that us Deniers have known for years.
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Its far worse than a stranded asset. Its yesterday’s technology. Just like lithium batteries. Nerds have no ability to “discover” anything. They follow fads fed by government policy. Free money drives their every thought as the connection fee to the grid keeps rising. Its about to become the major part of the bill. Government driven taxation to pay Union backed superannuation financiers at 8% interest. Ex-pollies on the “super” board at exorbitant director’s fees.
If you buy a government backed battery you WILL stay connected to the grid! Union fees without union membership. Labor support without a vote. Once you take that bribe you join the electrical renters. Trapped by your own lack of neurons.
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Is it idiocy or complicit ideologue propaganda that has kept the climate scam and the wind/solar scam going for so long?
The left leaning media may be both idiotic and complicit ideologues – they are certainly not keeping the b*stards honest!
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I’d say it’s greed Erasmus. The investors are greedy, the politicians are greedy, the ETU is greedy, the importers are greedy and the Chinese are greedy. The media is stupid and the citizens believe, not know. It’s the human condition. We are asleep and in a dream. We need something or someone to shake us awake.
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O what a shame…NOT. We are defacing our country with these things. I think they call them farms where the land is covered with them like near the town of Warwick on the New England highway. I wonder what happens when there is a large concentration of them, do they create a heat island? Do they destroy the ground beneath them? Is the area so full of concrete that it is permanently unusable? Where do they go when they die? We know for sure when a turbine is put in place the huge concrete block is forever.
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The solution may be insisting that turbines should deposit a sum necessity for the removal of that concrete block.
Suitably invested so the amount grows until the turbine is demolished.
SILLY ME! The Government (State or Federal) is so desperate for money it will be spent almost as quickly as deposited, leaving us taxpayers having to pay for removing the concrete.
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The huge steel reinforced concrete block cannot be reused due to life fatigue and will never be demolished. It is simply too expensive and logistically difficult to do so therefore that piece of former earth is forever unproductive as an organic support medium.
If the site owners wish to erect another successor tower they will need to build another block which means more environmental destruction.
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The earth will continue to erode around the blocks. In a thousand years scholars of the new steam age will be writing speculative papers on why ancient peoples built temples of stone monoliths then wiped themselves out…
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We should send in the ADF. Those towers make excellent targets for jets, or artillery, or armed drones. Turn them into rubble and the engineers can come in and clean up the mess with bulldozers.
Troops can use them as practice foxholes or remote command posts for the next lot of wind turbines.
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A couple of years ago there was a program on the ABC about a farmer on the west coast of Tasmania that leased some land for wind turbines. The project manager said that each turbine sat on a 700 tonne block of concrete. At about 1 tonne per cubic metre of concrete, that’s a block 10m x 10m x 7m.
Then there’s the never mentioned CO2 emissions from making and transporting the concrete, either as ready mixed concrete or transporting the concrete mixer and materials to the site.
Then there’s the never mentioned CO2 emissions from digging each 700 cubic metre hole and removing the dirt.
Then there’s the never mentioned CO2 emissions emitted while transporting the wind turbine components to the site. Around the same time I think, I read an article about a wind farm that was being built in the Snowy Mountains. Blades were shipped into Eden NSW and transported to the site. Each blade so long that it was transported separately on a truck to the site. The blades were so long that each truck required an escort front and back, plus a police escort. Then each vehicle returned to the pick up site for another blade.
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A cubic metre of reinforced concrete weighs about 2.5 tonnes. 700 tonnes equates to 280 cubic metres. That is a small base. The current turbines require a base of between 1000 and 1200 tonnes of concrete and rebar and can be up to 10 metres deep depending on the soil structure.
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Maybe the transportation of one turbine blade at a time is the inspiration for the title for a new film –
Blade Runner…………………………..
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Then there’s BPA (Bisphenol A) a toxic chemical in epoxy resins used to coat the wind turbine blades. Small fragments of resin erode with frictional wear, not to mention burial of the blades at end of turbine(s) unsustainable life. BPA bearing resin fragments migrate into drainage headwater catchments intiating from ridgelines where turbines are located. All members of food chain affected! Does this sound environmentally friendly?
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Hard to find any articles about ACTUAL foundation removal since it is highly unlikely to be carried out.
Here is a consultants report about building the foundations- you get an idea of the problem with pictures showing the size, amount of materials and the huge web of steel reinforcing that goes into the base.
https://icubed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Practical-Assessment-of-Mass-Concrete-Construction-for-Wind-1.pdf
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A public information session held to discuss a wind factory project spoke to the concrete foundations. Apparently (allegedly ) these foundations have to be at least 1 metre below the original ground level. If this is always true, then at least vegetation will regrow. The ground may not be any good for cultivation however. I have no idea what the decay processes are for concrete or if they produce toxins. How do these footings compare to the many areas of the country that have close to surface rock like basalt or granite?
Of course maybe a well set demolition charge could break these footings at least allowing water ingress and tree root penetration.
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I doubt that a normal explosion will do much damage to a 1200 tonne block of concrete. Quite a few countries have tried to remove their WW2 concrete emplacements with no success- that’s why they are still there, 80 years on.
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The concrete foundations don’t have to be there forever.
Once we finally elect decent people rather than lying politicians, and sanity is restored, they could serve as an excellent means to educate the members of the professional leech class in the value of hard work.
All those subsidy-thieves and union-maaates sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment for crimes of treason against the Australian People case be given the job of breaking them up by hand.
Sledge hammers and cold chisels.
And given a work quota to achieve daily.
No make quota- no eat.
Some might think that somewhat harsh, but it’s totally within the bounds of their socialist ideology.
A pipe-dream?
Certainly.
But one has to have aspirations, doesn’t one?
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It is hard to know what will happen. Years ago I read of a facility built on leased public land that the concrete foundation would be taken down 3 feet below the original surface level and then covered and re-landscaped. Will this happen? Who knows?
In contrast to that there is an old Darrieus turbine standing after about 40 years, and never produced electricity.
You can see this by using Street View in Google Earth Pro. It is east of the road: 47.101065, -120.750094
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” Unlike all the expert prophesies, coal production is still growing, and solar factories are the stranded assets. ”
I can see the day approaching very soon when a coal fired power plant will become a goldmine, simply because it can produce power ON DEMAND, something solar and windmills cannot and don’t do.
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Thank goodness NZ still has one (1) ‘gold mine’ still standing – apart from small industrial coal furnaces operated by businesses – which, despite decades of calls from whackjobs to dismantle it, now has three (3) solar/wind gentailers teaming up to import & stockpile even more nasty dirty Indonesian coal to keep the old girl going ‘just in case’ the ship hits the fan on a cloudy calm day.
The German language has some very colourful guttural words to describe this situation. Personally I prefer our Deniers’ pronouns: Told. You. So.
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And lest anyone forget, prior to a certain marxist jabcinda, said “gold mine” was all but mothballed.
But back then of course we had all that “black gold” and gas fired power stations.
Now we don’t even have Marsden Point refinery so we can neither import nor export crude.
Why its almost like a design to destroy a country by a foreign power.
But then who would do that ?
Its not like the jabber is getting paid off by Chinese funds at Harvard is it?
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Toll Due Sew …
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We’ve known for years that toxic, unreliable, super expensive, W & S are environmental disasters and W = just 30% capacity factor and S = 15% CF.
That’s just 3.6 months a year for W and just 1.8 months for Solar. Who in their right mind would vote for these toxic, unreliable disasters?
When will we abandon these TRILLIONs of $ disasters and only build reliable BASELOAD energy like Coal, Gas or Nuclear for a more prosperous future?
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Neville,
You make the same ‘mistake’ as all the others who know what they are talking about. Despite the numbers, (proven CF values, as quoted), and the obvious lack of suitability of these generators, these ruinable items are not only destined to stay, they are to be expanded.
The government can FIX that issue of no power when you actually want it. They’ll just legislate that you can only have power when it is available.
You may me surprised about how quick they can roll this feature out.
They will also dictate that IF you provide your own batteries to provide for your needs during these legislated lack of supply periods, then you must also allow the government to tap into this reserve to provide for others.
How dare you try to be productive around the clock, around the working week or through all seasons.
The legislation is coming, Bowen will see to it. First he rolls out the batteries to the homes…..
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” First he rolls out the batteries to the homes…..”
Using YOUR money.
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Eng_Ian
“The government can FIX that issue of no power when you actually want it. They’ll just legislate that you can only have power when it is available.”
In the UK this is touted as a new discovery – ‘Virtual Power Stations’ …
In English English – rationing.
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Bowen has doubled down on “renewables”. There is already a new round of AEMO capacity contracts destined to be opened by the end of this year. I would not be surprised with greater direct involvement from China through their current ownership of electricity assets in Australia.
What are the odds of Labor losing the next election. What are the odds of Sussan Ley being the next PM. What are the odds the LNP will have coal and gas on the table rather than wind, solar and batteries.
Lets say that Trumpian inspired reversal of LNP policy sees Australia pivot back to coal in three years. They will have to undo all the contracts that currently guarantee wind and solar owners a return on investment. No one knows what that is other than a few government employees working in Bowen’s department and maybe some in AEMO. I suspect there will be big settlements on offer.
Australia has lost the capacity to engineer coal fired power stations. The expertise will likely come from China because Germany, USA, and UK have also lost that capacity. Dealing with Chinese engineering in the Australian environment will take time – two years to establish a base and get planning permission. Four years for the environmental side to jump the hurdles. Then five years to prepare the new site and construct the power station using Chinese sourced plant.
My estimate for Australia’s next coal fired power station – possible by 2040 if all the hurdles could be overcome. But don’t hold your breath. You need look no further than Snowy 2 to see how well the Federal Government can run large engineering projects.
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Blow the chinese!! Australia should have aligned itself with other Asian countries building infrastructure. Japan would be my first choice. They’ve built HELE coal generators of late and so have Vietnam Thailand etc. The Japs should have built our subs but at least now they’re building our future navy frigates. Well, until some politicians decide that’s not a good idea and change the contracts. Japan probably could have assisted to build high speed rail as well. It seems such a no brainer to me- they already like our gas and coal and once had large manufacturing assets here – eg Toyota.
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And South Korea. They are also great at building Nuclear Power Plants in quick time and at reasonable cost.
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Ooooh –
“Nuclear” – sharp intake of breath!
“Quick Time” – dunno about Australia, but in the UK that now appears to be against the [unwritten – but doubtless the Noble Lord Hermer, Yoomin Rites Lawyer, will sort that] constitution.
“At reasonable Cost” – ditto, and very un-British … after all, we have limitless money for the Government [Two-Tier Kier’s, elected by <21% of the registered electorate] to 'invest'.
And –
Invest now means waste; give to pals; or spend on wholly unnecessary windymills and slaver panels and Diversity workshops.
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I’m assuming that doesn’t apply in Tasmania where increased solar just means winding down the dispatchable hydro and holding the water in the dams – which is a good thing (overflowing dams here seems unlikely)?
Or am I missing something?
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At Garma, Albo gives
Yeah, that’ll work til the next wet season. Dusty as all hell in the dry and solar panels don’t like that.
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Does it really cost that much to rub two sticks together. I am assuming traditional Aboriginal science will come to the fore.
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I have some suspicion that Australia and UK are involved in Belt and Road deals with China for investment in electricity infrastructure. These will be long term arrangements with guaranteed return. The government (taxpayers) may pick up some of the cost initially but it will eventually fall to electricity consumers.
This link takes you through who currently owns the electrical infrastructure in Australia:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-21/chinese-investment-in-the-australian-power-grid/7766086
My bet is that Albanese will be looking for China to invest more into the Australian grid. Australia is already a dumping ground for Chinese made solar panels and batteries now that the US market for panels is in rapid decline – 31% down y-o-y.. The BBB removes Federal incentives for solar panels so that will hasten the demise..
Anyone in Australia hoping to see sanity return to electricity supply is in for a long wait.
I also suspect that Australia and UK’s pivot to China will take the US out of AUKUS.
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Yes to that.
Elbow et al do not want nuclear subs (or nuclear anything) as that technology is as leprosy to the left.
So the tactic is to cause such prickly, constant disagreement with the Trump administration that the US will pull out of AUKUS because Elbow simply cannot be trusted. Then Elbow will blame Trump for killing the nuclear sub deal.
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” I also suspect that Australia and UK’s pivot to China will take the US out of AUKUS.”
So it will just become AUK…ward.
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‘Anyone in Australia hoping to see sanity return to electricity supply is in for a long wait.’
Not as long as you may think.
https://www.mattcanavan.com.au/cq-today-time-to-face-coal-reality/
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As Canavan comments, the CSIRO GenCost is still over-pricing coal power. I haven’t looked at the latest GenCost, but the last one only used two hour’s backup for wind and solar, and that’s way off the mark. So the combination of over-pricing coal (and no doubt they have done the same for gas and nuclear), plus under-estimating the amount of backup required for renewables, means that once again, GenCost is useless.
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Again here’s their revelation that at last reveals their full cost of toxic, unreliable W & S.
This is from Melbourne Uni, Qld Uni and the Nous Group. And they estimate that the full cost would be up to 9 TRILLION $ by 2040.
BTW the full cost of the Coalition’s Nuclear policy is about 0.15 trillion + operational to 2100 + has a capacity factor of 93% and not the 0.6 trillion dollars claimed by the Labor liars and con merchants plus their mates in the Unions and the MSM.
Please read this if you have the time.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/net-zero-study-finds-australia-needs-nearly-three-terawatts-of-wind-and-solar/#:~:text=Australia%20will%20need%20nearly%20three%20terrawatts%2C%20or%203%2C000,to%20%249%20trillion%2C%20according%20to%20a%20new%20study.
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Here’s the first few paragraphs of the Renew Economy Report.
BTW does anyone really think we could increase our electricity supply from 30 GW to 3000 GW in so short a duration and using unreliable, toxic W & S?
Then replace the entire toxic, unreliable mess every 15 to 20 Years?
Here’s their quote…..
“Australia will need nearly three terrawatts, or 3,000 gigawatts, of wind and solar if it is to meet its goal of a net zero economy by 2030, a plan that could cost up to $9 trillion, according to a new study”.
“The astonishing numbers are revealed in a new report – Net Zero Australia – put together by Melbourne University, the University of Queensland, and the Nous Group, and released on Wednesday”.
“To put the 3,000 gigawatts of wind and solar in some context, Australia currently only has about 30GW of large scale wind and solar across the country. So it has a lot to do”.
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I expect Bowen and Albanese do. And I have my suspicion that Albaese’s visit to China in the footsteps of Dan the man was to rekindle the Belt and Road talks with China.
China is installing around 1GW a year of wind and solar. They now have an excess capacity since USA and EU have gone cold on Chinese supplied W&S.
Give Chinese firms open doors to Australian farmland and Albanese could get close to the 2030 target. Just take well armed police out into the bush and stare down the unsocial farmers.
China has a rapidly ageing population. The only way they will be able to afford aged care is if they have guaranteed income from the coming generations around the world; that includes Australia.
China has unrivalled capacity to build the electric age. Albanese can see a future where Australians are driving Chinese made EVs powered by Chinese made wind turbines, solar panels and batteries with energy transported by Chinese constructed power lines. The B-doubles will be replaced with high speed electric rail and electric delivery vans.
Chinese battery company CATL has a 4- tonne aircraft under tests and an 8-tonne aircraft with a 3000km range on the drawing board. CATL is the largest battery manufacturer in the world so has the R&D to make things happen.
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..is that payload or takeoff weight ?
Either way, its not very awe inspireing compared to Fossil fueled aircraft.
Having big resources and budgets doesnt neccessarily guarentee big results.
Most real technology breakthroughs are the result of individual thinking.
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CATL started in 2011. It had revenue of USD50bn in 2024. A company does not need to be making the technology breakthrough to be good. They need to be able to recognise breakthrough and take commercial advantage of them.
CATL best battery has energy density of 500Wh/kg. Aviation fuel burnt in a jet engine delivers around 4,000Wh/kg. You then need to look at the storage of the fuel and the engine weight to produce the thrust compared with what can be done with electrical systems. Only time will tell if CATL can convert their battery prowess into working aircraft.
Model aircraft have been dominated by battery power for most of this century; all-but eliminating the conventional piston engine.
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Model aircraft fly for 5 or 10 minutes before coming back down to change the battery.
How many airports are you proposing we build between Melb and Sydney?
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It will need to be 10X that before any reasonable sized aircraft with enough range to be commercial , is practical.
Boeing data states a 737 burns 12600 kg of fuel for a 4 hour flight, with 2300 kg being burned during the 15 min take off and climb section.
Using your figure of 4000 WH/ kg, that suggests 50.4 GWh total for the 4 hours and 9.2 GWh for TO and climb.
A battery of 500Wh/kg would would weigh 100,800 kg for the same 4 hr flight . (8 times more that the jet fuel load )…
..AND that means an extra 88000 kg take off weight..more than DOUBLE the total loaded 737 take off weight !!
So then all that energy consumption will dramatically increase to suit .
AND.. that huge weight doe not reduce as the flight progresses, such that it would have to land with all that weight (180,000+ kg) still on board !
Totally impractical …and that is just a small 737 size plane.
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” Having big resources and budgets doesn’t neccessarily guarantee big results.
Most real technology breakthroughs are the result of individual thinking.”
One of the best examples of that is the Wright Brothers.
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I smell a rat straight away, describing aircraft in those terms is similar to calling CO2 ‘carbon’, or describing a wind factory as being able to provide power to ‘x number of homes’, based on name plate figures, just ill advised gobbledegook.
Yes, there are 2 person ‘trainer size aircraft’ that have a little over an hour flight time, so until the boffins can suspend the laws of physics, there’s not much been achieved yet.
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An aircraft the size of a 737 would require 700 tonnes of batteries to replace its fuel.
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Shades of the long forgotten Gossamer Albatross, instead of pedal power driving the prop we could have pedal power driving generators to charge the batteries to power the props.
Should be a measure for international travel, if you can’t pedal for hours and hours at a time , no seat for you on the electric aeroplane!
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The operational keyword here is ‘on the drawingboard’.
Phone me again when it is ‘in the air’.
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There’s the mainstream media, but then there’s also the new media. Which is now, well, not that new anymore. You can watch endless social media on the miracles of solar power and batteries and how this is a new revolution that’s going to save the world. Not for this little black duck, it isn’t. Watched a Youtube video yesterday on Bunnings Hardware getting into the solar :batteries market and how thousands of people have already signed up to their deal. Which is no money up front- always a winning marketing ploy. Trouble is, now there’s not enough product to supply and the chokepoint is the batteries. So maybe not the solar panels which theoretically we should have oodles of. Apparently, 66 % of Aussie homes still don’t have solar, even with all the incentives, rebates and give aways. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe they smell a rat- or perhaps they are practical cynics after all.
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In my old house I had solar – very good with 44c rebate.
Currently NO! Apart from site isn’t that good.
If electricity prices keep going up – thanks to DimWit Chris and DimWit Albo – I will have to check a (gas powered) diesel generator for use when the costs shoot up.
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And if you want another wasted billion dollars in cash, look no further than the new water pipeline to Gladstone.
Our favorite stockbroker PhD billionaire Dr. Twiggy Forrest promoted Green hydrogen as comparable to Harry Potter magic and Poof! He changed his mind there’s no reason to have built it.
To be fair this is partly because the new Queensland government refused to spend another speculative $1.6Billion on Twiggy’s idea. His ideas, working Australian’s cash.
A billion dollar pipeline for no reason.
What happened to taking advice from the 6,316 people in the CSIRO or the tens of thousands in Universities? Or even the thousands of qualified scientists and engineers who don’t work for either?
Apart from the near destruction of Brisbane with the collapse of the earthworks dam at Wivenhoe, he can only be compared to Prof Tim Flannery, expert in dead giant wombats where Twiggy is an expert in Mako Sharks.
Tim Flannery’s Hot Rocks only took $93Million from the public and much more from investors and lost the lot. “The technology is straightforward”. How would a wombat fancier know?
Why doesn’t any government in Australia have to make cost benefit analysis before they throw away billions. I suppose it makes Albanese’s cool Billion$$$ for a share in a purely speculative Californian Quantum computer company look reasonable. After all, they might succeed. IBM don’t think so, but Albanese knows better.
Politicians are doing whatever enters their heads, based on the wild fantasies of non scientists. And Forrest is looking closer to Valdemort than Harry Potter.
All care, no responsibility, our money.
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It’s getting very annoying when Prof Flannery and Dr Forrest claim advanced science and technology skills simply because dead wombats and Mako sharks are in the Science department.
There is a need for a new name for alleged science studies which require no tertiary science at all. And college footballer Al Gore’s Harvard degree was in politics, not meteorology. The damage done by such faux scientists is immense.
Could I suggest the Harry Potter school of Wizardry and Witchcraft?
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Their CSIRO are the leading climate scammers. The various governments have been taking advice from them.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/Climate-Science-Centre
CSIRO long ago sacked anyone who offered sound engineering advice. Everything is couched in terms of toeing the line on Climate. Part of the reason I got involved in the Climate debate was due to one of my wife’s tennis partners explaining how her middle aged son was sacked from the CSIRO for offering well researched data that countered the Global Warming™ fairy tale. This was more than a decade before the Peter Ridd story.
This gives CSIROs mission on Hydrogen future:
Building a hydrogen industry for Australia and the world
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/fuels/hydrogen?start=0&count=12
The last place any serious engineering firm would go for advice is their CSIRO. The whole organisation is a serious hindrance to Australia’s industrial development.
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Agree. Sell the lot. CSIRO, BOM, ABC, SBS. Save billions. Hire real scientists on contract for advice. Not the Climate Council.
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Seriously who would buy any of these alphabet agencies, useless woke entities.
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Exactly. So that’s what they are worth. But you will get cash for the assets. A supercomputer with a secret price. Broadcast bands. Rights to Peppa Pig. Archive material. And the secret businesses of automatic sheep shearing and cloud seeding.
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I like it. Bluey can be turned into a climate change denialist and inform the kids what’s really happening.
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CSIRO, lobbyists in lab coats.
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You would think with an organization with 6318 people, someone might have a clue about CO2 and whether it is man made and whether increasing CO2 causes significant warming and whether the benefits of increased CO2 greatly outweigh any downside? But it’s all about more solar panels and how cheap they are and how nuclear power is really bad. So much so that we are one of the few countries in the world without nuclear power and the ONLY one to have made it illegal. So when this windmill fantasy finally blows over, there should be a serious examination of the role of the CSIRO in stopping the advancement of science in Australia.
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OMG!! There’s really 6000 people working at CSIRO?? Which is the real problem because there’s god know’s how many people also working in the Department of Climate Action and Energy – Chris Bowen’s hand maidens. Everyday they go to work, believing in AGW/MMCC and then contribute their total work time towards the goal of solving that non existent problem. I suppose we have to be slightly thankful they’re government employees- so not that efficient. Whereas anyone opposing that narrative are generally non paid part-timers.
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Capital G for God. Proper noun 🙂
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Plus 316 people in reception. Unless they are at morning tea.
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How do they actually occupy their working time? Ticking boxes?
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They’re not allowed to look out of the window in the morning because then they’d have nothing to do in the afternoon.
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here in the UK the Civil Serpents certainly have a lot to do to pass the time …
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/04/whitehall-woke-events-civil-service-lgbt/
Again, usual Telegraph paywall, but the hard copy reveals many LGBTQIABCDEF + courses, support; listening circles for trans allies, etc.; pre- & post-menopausal syndrome; and similar stuff [including union work] – in working hours.
In their own hours, no problem, but not in the hours I (and other taxpayers!) pay them to develop policy – err – come to think of it …
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We have just finished a 46hour blackout IN Armidale. A large area of the New England Tablelands has been without power for days. There are still large areas around Uralla and Walcha that still have no power. This is not because of any lack of planning or any of the usual suspects that are discussed here on this site.
We had a very large winter snowstorm event that blocked all road, rail and air access to those towns above as well many other smaller ones.
This is rare but NOT unprecedented, as historical photos of the area show heavy snowfall events in the past.
Many houses are wholly electric including heating. Fortunately (or wisely) we decided to keep the stove as a gas cooktop and we have a gas BBQ.
People helped each other and got through or are still getting through the effects of this event.
What was surprising (or not) was the lack of publicity of this on the main stream media that I heard. There were no deaths (as far as I know) attributable to this event. Many trees have been damaged but of course will recover probably benefitting from a good pruning.
The solar panels and wind turbines didn’t help (they were covered in snow and there was no wind). Of course coal fired or nuclear power wouldn’t have helped either!
I just finished shovelling snow off the back path so my wife could hang out the washing!
It really was a most picturesque site and will be remembered by all the young ones for the rest of their lives having got to build snowmen (oops is that allowed?) and have snowball fights.
You know – all those kids that were never going to know what snow was?
Of course the highly indoctrinated believers are probably saying this was the result of “climate disruption” or “extreme weather from increased green-house gases”. I wouldn’t know because I have given up discussing this topic with them!
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Indisputable evidence of Global Warming of course. Everything is.
And I suppose the solar panels were covered in snow too and you could not see the sun anyway. So keeping the gas on was a great idea. Massive energy in a bottle. Country towns in Victoria (Heathecote) are having their gas cut off even now. All to prevent warming. It’s what happens when politicians have Climate policies.
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And a dwelling in the city.
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I trust the politicians have their gas supply cut off first to set a good example to their voters.
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Why should a snow storm cause power outage?
Nearly all the listed outages that have a cause are “wires down”.
https://disaster.armidale.nsw.gov.au/light/dashboard/overview
Sky News has a detailed report on the snowhere – no point to unmute unless you like their choice of music:
https://www.skynews.com.au/breaking-news/thousands-without-power-cut-off-as-massive-snowfall-blankets-northern-nsw/news-story/7498d6a3037a95921167abb3c14c34c1
The number of lines down indicates that the lines have not been well maintained. That includes the conditions of poles and clearing growth overhanging or in the vicinity of power lines.
Given that the government agencies have Global Warming™ on steroids, I expect any line worker in the poles and wires team suggesting that the lines were not up to handling a snow storm would be laughed out of the room. But there should not be trees overhanging the lines for the fire risk
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James, my niece & her fiancé & kids live in Armidale (on the road leading up to the old nunnery (?) which is now apartments) and like yourself, don’t believe in the CCCult™️.
Thankfully her hubby-to-be is an old-school salt of the earth local lad, whose house has a fireplace, even though they hadn’t lost their power when I spoke with her on Saturday (he was outside chopping more firewood).
When I was there in early January I’d go outside for a smoke in the shade of a (flame?) tree to avoid the sun: my niece sent photos of her kids out beside the very same tree building impossible! snowmen & trying to catch fat snowflakes on their tongues… so cute. This ‘climate change’ theory thingy is soooooo versatile – especially when it’s two-below-zero.
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That is very close to where we live. I am surprised they were not blacked out. most of the southern part was until yesterday afternoon. One small area is still out.
Valid point about maintenance RickWill. There are many large eucalypts on city housing blocks and special permits are required to have them lopped or removed – mostly refused.
Wattles and gumtrees are not adapted for heavy snow loads (except Eucalyptus pauciflora aka snowgums of course). Most of the spruces and pines were fine!
Quite a few folks have wood fires but they are actively discouraged by the council because we have an air pollution problem down in the valley. That is REAL pollution of sorts, I suppose.
Firewood is now incredibly expensive and getting more difficult to source.
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Hi James,
Thanks for a very detailed report.
A very good mate of mine was an electric power engineer with Country Energy. He was Leith Elder. He was based in Goulburn for many years and very highly respected in country NSW.
Years ago, after such an event that you have just experienced, James, Leith managed to convince Country Energy to install a set of very slippery lines on the 66 kV line from Goulburn to Crookwell for precisely that reason: these lines shed snow, avoiding the sort of buildup that very likely happened in the recent event that you describe. They are not cheap.
Unlike places such as the US, in most areas in NSW that are marginal for snowfall, when it comes it is wet, soggy, and it clumps. Unlike powder dry snow, wet snow very easily clumps and builds up into a heavy load on such as power lines, making them prone to sag – leading, at the very least, to shorting to earth, and even breakage.
So, maybe it doesn’t matter how well those lines in the Armidale region were maintained, unless they were Leith’s slippery lines, they were going to fail in this type of event. (Sorry to say this, RickWill, but it may not be a maintenance issue after all.)
James, you were very wise to keep the gas and or wood heating.
Australia needs dedicated engineers such as the wonderful, great, late, Leith Elder.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
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So the energy companies can’t afford to pay FIT’s for your roof-top solar input to the grid but are they going to pay for the energy they surrepticiously suck out of your solar storage batteries? Going off grid is looking to be the only sensible and realistic way to make solar generated electricity worthwhile.
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It is still economic to stay connected even if you do not take power from the grid. If you do not have an electricity connection, you do not qualify for the electricity assistance.
Staying connected and getting paid for it is good insurance because you can sail close to the wind without risk of flat battery. But do not get sucked into batteries with strings that allows the retailer to use your battery for playing arbitrage.
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Jo it is gluts not glut’s which have consequences.
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There should be a rule that only non-subsidised dispatchable generators can connect to the grid.
That would solve the “renewables” problem.
How could Leftists argue against that because they already tell us solar and wind are the cheapest forms of electricity production and also the most reliable. Therefore no subsidies should be necessary and no expensive batteries (because they claim “reliability”).
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A cloudy, rainy, windless day in Perth this morning
According to the NEM dashboard at (10:20 WST), the main WA grid is running on about 75% fossil fuels (coal, 37.8%; gas, 35.8%) with wind only contributing 2.6%. The rest with solar. What a wonderful NetZero world we are looking forward to in WA (sarc.)
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A few days ago, my home solar system, capable of delivering 30-35 kWh on summer days, only delivered 3.7kWh all day. Insufficient to run my dwelling, much less able to recharge any battery.
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According to Craig Kelly B O Bowen deliberately misled the parliament yesterday, but you can be the judge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKoP847V0ss
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He did deliberately mislead but it was taken as a joke – intended or not. He has complete contempt for the place in line with most Australians.
The true answer to the question might surprise many. Without rebates the average household cost is flat. With rebates, the price has come down.
I have not had an electricity bill for 14 years now. I know others who do not have electricity bills either.
Asking a question about the average household cost of electricity is not very smart. Bowen was even sillier to try to deflect the question.
He could have been really smart and ask did you mean with our without rebate. The opposition would have responded without rebate. He wound then give average household costs that were almost unchanged.
Average households are buying less electricity for a combination of reasons. Average bill in NSW in Q4 2024 was $331. This is unchanged from 2019.
What LNP should be hammering home is the highly regressive nature where home owners can use rooftop and battery to reduce their exposure to rising prices while the renters are locked into the upward cost spiral. The grid is stuffed and they need to admit their failings on starting the rot with the RET and getting rid of the CSIRO that has pushed this Climate Change™ scam. The starting point is to only allow dispatcghablew generation to connect; also recognising that batteries are not generators but could be paired with gas turbines or other guaranteed fuel source.
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Good news.
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NEM experts are paying close attention to the amount of excess solar generation already being curtailed by AEMO:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/09/01sept-largesolar-curtailment-80percent/
During periods of low demand, AEMO has curtailed up to 80% of solar generation from large solar farms. As the experts ask, “who’d want to build a new (stand-alone) Large Solar Farm in the NEM?”
Curtailment happens when a generator reduces output, and can be due to a variety of reasons:
1. Economic curtailment: this is a result of excess generation, driving the wholesale price negative. Negative prices mean that the generator must pay someone else to take their excess capacity. Because negative prices are not economically sustainable, generators curtail their own output when prices drop towards zero.
2. Network curtailment: because many renewable energy zones are in remote regions, and transmission line capacity to those regions has not been upgraded, AEMO is frequently forced to curtail renewable output to the limit of existing transmission line capacity:
https://www.aemo.com.au/aemo/apps/visualisations/map.html
3. Grid stability: AEMO has determined the minimum amount of synchronous generation needed to maintain grid stability across the NEM. When renewable generation is likely to reduce synchronous generation below these minimum levels, AEMO curtails renewable output:
https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/security_and_reliability/system_security_planning/2024-system-strength-inertia-and-nscas-reports-infographic.pdf?la=en
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Great article thanks Jo.
Also check out Robert Bryce’s latest SUNBLOCK: The Global Fight To Save Farmland From Big Solar
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Now for those ‘foul’ windmills!
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A Facebooker interested in putting panels on her roof asked the other day what negative feed-in was and whether it was worthwhile installing said solar. I gave her chapter and verse on how it all works and that basically she shouldn’t expect any revenue from selling back to the grid, but she was so dismayed she deleted her original post. Bit rude, I thought, because I’d put quite a bit of time into my comment.
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