By Jo Nova
The The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has made up some fantasy figures suggesting a teensy weensy price rise is on the way in five years time unless we buy more unreliable generators, add more batteries and install giant high voltage lines. Somehow, miraculously, electricity prices will fall slightly in the next five years while we spend the hundreds of billions of dollars adding all that infrastructure. Sure.
The AEMC report feels like it was created to fill a very specific political advertising campaign. Don’t scare the horses with big price rises, but just scare them enough to justify us spending a kiloton of money on our crony renewable friends and Chinese pals, OK?
Households face sharp electricity price rise without urgent action, key agency warns
By Colin Packham, The Australian
Households could face a 13 per cent jump in electricity prices early next decade unless the rollouts of renewable energy, battery storage and transmission are accelerated, the country’s energy market rule maker has warned.
And if the “decline” in prices doesn’t happen, will the AEMC staff pay Victorians the difference from their own salaries, or is there no cost at all for them being completely bonkers wrong?
The Australian Energy Market Commission said it expected a decline in residential electricity prices between 2025 and 2030 if the transition proceeded along official estimates. But it warned that the transition depended on a “critical five-year window” in which the pace of renewable generation and battery deployment must keep ahead of rising demand and the retirement of ageing coal plants.
The AEMC sound more and more like a late night TV informercial. Buy our product to make energy cheap and if prices start to rise, buy even more.
[Ms Anna Collyer] said the analysis “clearly shows renewable energy and batteries drives prices down,” with the risk of rising prices emerging “if we slow down renewable deployment as coal plants retire”.
It’s time there were consequences for Blob Agencies.
Subsidies just hide the true cost
Mr Blackout Bowen, the Minister for Weather Control, knows the answer is to fool the people into buying more subsidized solar panels and batteries, because even though none of them are worth buying outright, when we all do it together the money disappears off some electricity bills and the real cost is hidden in a million consumer bills. The rebates on the solar panels are paid by raising the cost of electricity to everyone else. But that price never appears on any invoice.
Every time you buy frozen peas you pay more than you would have, so the supermarket, the farmer, and the factory can pay their higher electricity bills which subsided your solar panels. This is a dragon that eats its own tail at 50 hertz.
Mr Bowen lies from beginning to end:
After running coal plants into the ground and sabotaging them, he blames them for the price rises that happen when they are not there. Which industry is billing us for those high spikes in prices — it’s the battery men you love at $478 per MWh, not the coal plants!
“The AEMC makes clear [that] slowing the renewables rollout and sweating ageing, unreliable coal will drive up energy bills and pollution. Yet this is exactly what the Coalition’s anti-renewables plan is designed to do,” said Mr Bowen.
“It’s simple: when coal breaks down, your bills go up – that’s why we’ve got to keep rolling out reliable renewables, and help more households embrace solar and batteries,” he said.
“The Coalition’s anti-renewables plan will cost Australians more.”
Conversely, faster construction of renewables, grid batteries and transmission could ease pressure. The commission finds that “faster wind and transmission delivery could reduce prices by up to 10 per cent,” while a faster uptake of household batteries “can reduce electricity costs for all households by up to 3 per cent annually”.
Watch the poison pea — see how the word “average” disguises the theft:
Despite the projected increase in per-unit electricity prices, household electricity bills themselves may not rise. The AEMC notes that “average household electricity costs are projected to remain stable”, as improved energy efficiency and rooftop solar uptake more than offsets increased demand from gas switching and EV charging.
So the key question is who gets to pay the below average costs and who gets to pay the above average cost? It’s a stupid question — in Socialist-Paradise they both pay above average. There are no savings. Poor people pay more for rich people to put on economically inefficient solar panels, and the richer people pay more for solar panels no one needed when we ran a cheap coal fired grid. In a world of subsidies, we all lose!
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This post is dedicated to Max Hedt, ROM, a commenter we wish was still with us.
Known for some long but contemplative, big-picture, original, thoughts. (Sorry I don’t have time to find the best of 3,400!)
It’s so Orwellian that they endlessly say that wind and solar is the “cheapest form of electricity production” and yet it is obvious that the more we get of it, the higher the price consumers pay.
Before Johnnie Howard, fake conservative, committed Australia to the destruction of its energy supply in 1997, we had among the cheapest electricity in the world, now its among the most expensive.
Despite Australian resisting some of the more extreme recommendations of the Kyoto Agreement, Howard nevertheless set us on the road to economic ruination via “renewables”.
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Don’t forget the role the media plays in the political rub and tug of war. Outcomes are rarely just due to the pollies.
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John Howard was a suburban lawyer. Having sat next to him for many years I can only say his main focus was getting re-elected. I can only talk first-hand. Needless to say I voted for the womanising drunk. When sober he had a plan.
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By ‘womanising drunk’, I take it that you mean Bob Hawke?
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Must be, John Howard does not drink and is a fitness fanatic
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they endlessly say that wind and solar is the “cheapest form of electricity production” and yet it is obvious that the more we get of it, the higher the price consumers pay.
That may very well be true.
HOWEVER there is the slight issue that where the power is able to be produced and where the power needs to be used are OFTEN different locations, separated by non-trivial distances.
Hence the relative advantage that residential consumers have found in placing solar panels on their roofs. And as has been noted, destroying the balance that was needed to keep total system costs to a minimum.
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The only slight downward pressure on electricity bills, not prices, is because people can’t afford to use electricity and so use less of it, choosing to freeze in winter or boil in summer to save electricity used for heating or cooling or foregoing other comforts and conveniences.
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All this and they have just arrived at the place where the early Wind Farms and early Solar adopters have to replace their infrastructure, and we find that the owners of the Codrington Wind Farm in Western Victoria will not be replacing it , but shutting it down. Evidently it is not a feasible investment going forward. This will join the long list of future wind and Solar projects that are failing to proceed in the current environment.
And we still need to build up to 4x nameplate capacity of these Renewables to cover for their really poor “actual” real life delivery. We have only just but started on this build requirement, and we are rapidly falling behind.
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When will the “people “ learn??? We must switch the subsidies OFF! The Codrington farm in Victoria will probably be offered more subsidies to stay on line. Nobody in their right mind will invest their own capital in a scam but if the government steals tax payers money& throws it at them they’ll happily grab it. Somebody with the resources to keep an eye on developments needs to keep the public informed!
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Yes, they keep talking about building more intermittent generators, but many of the ones already built are coming to the end of their short lives and it will be a full time job just replacing those, let alone new builds.
Plus on top of all that, an infeasibly large amount of battery storage will be required to keeps the lights on.
Much if not all of the rapidly diminishing economic output of Australia will be devoted to just building or replacing short-lived ruinables infrastructure.
I have zero sympathy for the economic suffering of the stupid people who voted for this madness.
Remember people, sooner or later the borrowed money is going to run out. I’d say sooner rather than later.
Total government debt, federal, state and local now:
$2.197 trillion.
http://australiandebtclock.com.au/
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End of life of a “renewal” energy project means they will find out how much they have lost. With both wind and solar, the costs are known but every day is different so the energy generated will not be known until the last watt has been generated and the project has been shut down.
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Yet another issue is that even with an interconnected east coast grid, the wind tends to blow or not blow all at the same time over the entire continent. So you can’t compensate for a wind drought in, say Victoriastan with wind in Queenslandistan as it will tend to be not blowing in both places.
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The mob that promote the idea ‘that the wind always blows somewhere’ need to get out more often.
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As data from the Bass Strait islands shows, it doesn’t even blow regularly in those supposedly windy places. And recent North Sea wind data shows that the wind there fails around 20% of the time.
Anton and Paul’s data shows that on average, the grid wind fails a bit less than once every three days.
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“So that 7 days falls to 4. Blocking highs can stop wind for many more days than that.”
After the first full discharge, how long will it take to “recharge” this fiasco. The way I see it is, if the full discharge is required then the cause of this is a “wind, solar” shortage. If this shortage continues for more than a week then there is no cheap “surplus” of electricity to pump the water back. Pumping requires the very same energy demanded by the east coast to keep the lights on at exactly the same time it’s not available. I guess the solution is giant diesel generators to recharge the battery. I’m certainly no Einstein but I reckon I can see a few hard faults in this whole process.
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I fully expect the water will be pumped back uphill using coal or diesel generators.
Yes, they really are that crazy.
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Whatever you do don’t mention pushing that material uphill with a sharp stick!!
They really are running out of ideas. Don’t give them any!!
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David, I wonder if SH is allowed to access the three hours of “free” electricity in the middle of the day to pump the water back uphill at Tumut Pond and Khancoban?
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And, wind and “solar” are inextricably linked to the big, thermonuclear device in the sky.
Even the “hottest” bureaucrats have ZERO control over that piece of kit. 93 million miles away. as it is.
Remember that, not so long ago. “experts” were floating the idea that “WE” may have to disperse “reflective particles” into / above the Stratosphere to fend off “excessive” radiation from the Sun.
Hint: The planet’s fleet of volcanoes does this with monotonous regularity. Some times things get “overdone” and we have a few years / decades of “years without a Summer”. Such events were recorded in glorious colour by contemporary European water-colourists. Essentially hand-painted records of lurid sunsets over a few years. LONG before the arrival of colour photography. Unsurprisingly, during such events plants, being solar fueled, start dying or reducing their “productivity”. Lower temperatures and FAMINE grip much of the globe. It is all there in the geological (and even written) records.
The last time Krakatau (correct spelling) cut loose, in the 19th century, exactly this happened.
Previous Indonesian eruptions from rippers like Toba and Tambora caused very noticeable reductions in life, including human life. This can be visualized as an “hour-glassing Centuries of “normal”, interrupted by a few hears of seriously reduced sunlight AND massive “ashfalls”. Plants die, Herbivores die, carnivores die and even the scavengers eventually run out of tucker. BTW, much the same thing happens whrn the planet gets whacked by “space stuff the size of a small suburb, arrives at 40 thousand Kilometres per hour. That is when the survivors might recall the something “different” happened.
Remember all the excitement over that relatively small Hunga Tonga eruption.
BTW; how much fairy-dust is involved in extracting and processing all the materials used in these “alt” power systems. What is the “equivalent” “resource / energy cost of a string of compact reactors; conventional like the CANDU series or more creatively, Thorium-fueled reactors to drive the steam turbines that in turn, spin the big alternators. Note: the German post Office, during the reign of the failed post-card painter, operated the ENTIRE German nuclear programme. They were looking closely at Thorium as n alternative to Uranium and the even more toxic Plutonium. The victorious “allies carved up all of the known and “mysterious” research projects after the nazi nag fell at the last hurdle.Hence the sudden flourishing’ of atomic and aerospace science, post war. There was a fairly undignified “competition to see who would “liberate” which scientists and research “projects. Patton’s wild ride across the collapsing Reich was NOT random; he had a “shopping list” that took his troops deep into Czechoslovakia; seeking very specific documents, hardware and people; it is a fascinating saga.
And all we have here in Oz is a herd of freeloaders and Luddites, telling us thet we have to tighten our belts.
“Batteries are a sick joke on that scale. If you understand what a Lithium Ion fire in a cheap yuppie-scooter can do, try to imagine the joys of a runaway fire in a “battery” the size of a decent two-storey house. Nikola Tesla clearly demonstrated the absolute superiority of Alternating Current ofver Edison’s Direct Current, way back in the 19th Century.
The ONLY “science” in the eco-loons’ playbook is POLITICAL Science.
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“The guaranteed output from wind and solar is ZERO. It doesn’t matter how many you have. Zero is zero.”
There is one thing guaranteed about energy from solar panels. No energy is produced between the dusk and daylight.
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Simple maths that our esteemed colleagues struggle to understand, 0 X (pick a number) = 0.
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The upside is that we can look forward to the closure of wind farms and the collapse of Big Wind (I predict 2035). The downside is the billions wasted on this massive petri dish.
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Like Jacinta declaring free public transport in Victoria on weekends through until the end of January, can’t wait for Blackout Bowen to declare free electricity on Fridays as the next election draws closer.
And Treasurer Jim says he is considering extending the $75 per quarter electricity rebate to home owners.
But when you are “saving the planet”, scatter our money everywhere.
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Off grid solar has a major benefit. It will still work during the inevitable blackouts that the Bowen Bus is driving us to at high speed.
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Yes, but not everyone can afford that and/or do not have sufficient roof space, or are apartment dwellers.
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Would be lower cost in South Australia than just using the grid by a good margin.
I have a small off-grid system that has powered my fridge and freezer for the past 13 years. I can add more load if needed for an emergency.
I looked into going off-grid entirely but there is still a lot of value to leaching off the grid.
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CSIRO, Australia’s “premier” “scientific” “research” organisation devote an entire Web page to highlight this one statement:
Can someone remind me why it has a budget of $1.761 billion 2025-2026 when it promotes obvious lies like this?
It should be shut down!
Their glory days of 1950’s and 1960’s are long gone.
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Add those billions to the billions saved by not building transmission lines and the CIS to offset losses by the wind and solar swindlers and use that to build a proper power station and to reduce consumers bills. Oh. Throw in the billion plus we could save by shutting the ABC.
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I will take it up the CSIRO complaints. They encouraging mammoth waste of resources.
Rooftop solar and battery may make economic sense if it is hanging off an industrial grid. But there is no way that solar and/or wind can be competitive with coal.
The grid is heading for de-industrialisation because grid solar and wind cannot compete with rooftops. The 700MW of installed utility solar capacity in SA earned $9,700 in the energy market and probably paid more in the FCAS market when they did generate
This is their generation yesterday:
https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed&hide=battery_charging,exports,imports,distillate,gas_steam,gas_ccgt,gas_ocgt,gas_recip,battery_discharging,wind,solar_rooftop
If there were no rooftops, the curves would have risen to 700MW by 10am through to 3pm. It could have produces another 38GWh.
The CSIRO have lost sight of the fact that there is no economy of scale with solar – in fact it is negative because of the land acquisition requirement. Wind just does not cut it because it goes missing for too long.
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I have sent this to the author of the GenCost report:
Paul
I would like to point out the major flaw in the GenCost report. It has failed to recognise the overwhelming market power of rooftop solar in the way the electricity market is moving. Fundamentally, rooftops have dedicated demand and every rooftop reduces wholesale demand. This trend is now long established with wholesale monthly demand peaking in July 2008.
The utility solar in South Australia is now clearly a stranded asset. Utility solar in the other States face a similar problem.
Your promotion of utility scale wind and solar is leading Australia down a path of de-industrialisation. All high electrical energy users are on the brink of economic collapse as grid costs spiral up due to increasing costs imposed on reducing demand.
The grid needs to be returned to daily bidding intervals and the bid capacity must be available to supply that capacity at any time or all of the full 24 hours or be penalised for lack of compliance.
Rick W
I will let you know if I get a reply.
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I would have been more succinct, if solar is the cheapest source of electricity, how much is a MWHr at 2:00 am?
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Here is a link to his contact details:
https://people.csiro.au/g/p/paul-graham
Choose your method and go for it. I avoid phoning in the event that they do not know of me.
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Ta, now to avoid the stalking/harassment claims that his office is sure to issue.
You just can’t send facts to people like this.
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CSIRO – ‘….even when the integration costs of renewables are included…….’ These costs obviously include the buildout of all transmission lines to connect this shambles together. I saw an estimate on this site the other day of up to $13 million p/km. If we need 30,000km of line, my calculations show a cost of $390,000,000,000 at today’s prices (which will be certain to blow out enormously, like everything these imbeciles touch) without all the other on-costs. Consider my mind boggled. Please explain how this makes electricity cheaper.
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Now add the storage so that you can tap solar at night or wind during a blocking high.
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As I said – without all the other on-costs. Who knows how much? No-one. If I had told my clients that I would be happy to take on their project on the basis that the end cost was unknown and potentially unaffordable, I would have been given short shrift indeed.
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And somebody else, who lied through their teeth, got the job for the promised price.
It was only when the money ran out that the client learned just how little was delivered.
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VNI West, 240 kms of line, was supposed to cost $1.8bn. Now estimated to cost $7.6bn, +/- 30/50%. (JoNova 1August) That’s an incredible $32m/km. Rachael Blaxendale in The Australian took the +50% figure of $11.4bn, or $58m/km.
CopperString, 800 kms, started at $1.7bn in 2021, now estimated to cost $9bn, or $11.25m/km.
EnergyConnect, 900kms, has had a 71% price increase to $4.1bn, or $4.55m/km.
HumeLink had a $1bn estimate in 2020. 2023 estimate was $5bn. The remaining 365kms is estimated to cost $4.4bn, or $12bn/km.
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Underground cables are starting to look cheap at those rates. Less objections when you bury them. And less objections means less cost/complaints/hassles/on-site labour.
$4550/m available to pay for three conductors and an Earth lead, all buried 1.5m down, (nearly there). It the price goes up just a little more…..
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I believe the quoted prices included extras such as substations and switchyards. Ted Woodley’s HumeLink article (The Australian 29 November 2024) includes the statement that oversees experts had stated that burying the line would only cost another 50%.
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The electricity will be cheap. The network costs, however, ….
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Yesterday there was a graph of selected countries ranked by the price of electricity. It is a pity the graph did not go higher. It could have included Australia and my electricity supplier, Origin. Correction, my previous supplier. Origin’s top rate, Peak, is over 58 cents/kWh, the Shoulder charge (most of the time) 53 cents/kWh. I think Australia is probably the dearest electricity and due to increase.
Will batteries really save you money? Who will pay for their eventual replacement or the panels for that matter. A coal fired system would be oh so much simpler, cheaper and far more reliable. Who will save us? Not Labor, not the Greens. Who?
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Not labor lite either.
They are fence sitting, ready to fall back in line with the wishes of their masters, they’ll never agree to build coal, not while ssecond place Sussan is in charge.
Message for Sussan, if you want solar or wind in the grid, then have the generators provide the back-up and the interconnection network. Show me draft legislation that will be enacted in a first term to back it up.
Anything less is just waffle, it’s just more of the ‘$275 off your electricity bill’ spin.
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This Saturday I have the opportunity to speak with Matt Canavan and my local member, Alison Penfold. I will be asking a similar question. The Opposition have to state its policy in hard terms that we can absorb and promote. At the moment I can only tell my friends that things might be better.
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The “suppliers” are merely a retailer, adding COST to the actual price of electricity
I remember the “old days”, before rationalization..
For example, Queensland had several regional “electrical authorities” your basic quango, which oversaw generation and distribution.
They actually had “retail” stores where you could pay your bills, get technical advice about appliances and some even sold such things
What we currently endure is corporate socialism run wild.
Re “off-grid” systems:
You are NOT serious unless you are self-sufficient.
The further you get from the “grid”, the more it makes sense to be “off grid”,basically because, as a rule, the cost of running a “branch” to your establishment will cost MUCH MORE than a comprehensive photo-voltaic rig that has serious “excess capacity”, not skimping on panels, cabling , batteries and inverters..
In the Burbs? How may “modern’ houses can handle the weight of a 25 Kilowatt(peak) panel array on the roof? How many suburban “patches” are big enough to “ground-mount” such an array?
Does the system have a “Kill-switch” easily accessible? in the event of a daytime house fire with a roof-mounted system, are the over-stretched fire crew going to be keen on spraying conductive town water on something churning out 900 – 1000 Volts, . Most likely they will wait until the roof framing gives in and dumps the “problem” into the seat of the fire.
The yachting types have been fitting solar and wind-powered generators to a variety of watercraft for at least 60 years. Basically to charge batteries thet run riding / navigation lights, radio gear and a couple of “cabin lights”
The advent of LED lighting has reduced the demand on power, but this has allowed the craft to be fitted with “back-up” radios, depth-sounders, etc
More serious vessels, like actual, ocean-going passenger and cargo ships, have serious excess capacity from their BIG diesel motors, which, commonly, these days actually drive the propulsion screw AND the steerable thrusters that enable precise self docking.. You would have to clad the entire vessel in panels to get a fraction of the juice needed, anywhere and any time..
Early steamships were not a serious match for the sail-driven Clippers, “Parking a 300 ft windjammer required a bunch of beefy rowers to nudge the ship into dick. Steam power required a LOT of coaling ports at relatively short intervals. That is, until some clever type invented the triple-expansion steam engine.the steam went through the engine three times, in increasingly large cylinders. Saving on coal and with faster run times.
Then came steam turbine, making ships go further and faster than ever before. Burning “bunker oil” meant ease of fuel handling and less danger from coal-dust explosions. As noticed during WW2, they burned easily ans merrily.
That all wound down steadily after WW2 with the uptake of Diesel “Cathedral’ engines. What it sounds like; your basic in-line diesel motor, but three storeys tall.
Stuff changes, from time to time. There was only ONE nuclear-powered cargo ship ever built,the NS Savannah. POLITICS. Our Russian cousins, however, operate a small fleet of nuclear-powered ICE BREAKERS. Basically back to steam turbines feeding from an atomic water-heater.
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Lawrie,
58c/ kWhr is 38cents US, so well under the top. My cost (Ergon) is 41.34c US.
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“Households could face a 13 per cent jump in electricity prices early next decade”
Rubbish. There is no way the jump in electricity prices is as little as this in a decade or even a year.
Renewables rollout is unsustainable, unaffordable, unrealistic and prices ever coming down totally unbelievable.
And the Federal government is ramping up their secret 35% CO2 tax. And the press says nothing.
Australia ‘saving the planet’ makes no sense at all? It’s a lie. 95% of the world’s population is burning as much fossil fuel as they can afford, especially China and India.
For us coal and gas are, one of our two biggest exports but we are not allowed use them. Why?
Now the Greens activists want us to stop exporting anything at all, especially coal. Who pays their unemployment benefits? And how many are public servants, especially in education, health and the CSIRO?
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South Australia is touted as the “renewables” powerhouse. However, when you look into the data it still pays more for coal through imports than it does for wind or solar.
This is the SA data for the last 24 hours:
https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed
The purple is imports and comes from lignite fired generators. The lignite generators earned $360k in the energy market while the wind earns $372k in the energy market. But wind pay the coal generators in the FCAS market so it is more than likely that the Victorian coal generators were the highest earners in the SA market yesterday. And it was a good day for wind.
Note that the grid solar only earnt $9.7k in the energy market. They could well have paid more for FCAS services. Definitely a dead asset.
Rooftops produced 34% of all the energy in South Australia in the past 24 hours and it cost $308k to handle the glut, which the rooftop owners did not pay for.
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I love it that FCAS costs are hidden, being paid for as an averaged amount, probably lumped onto the distributors and hence your daily connection part of the bill.
For those not up to speed, the payment is based on having a generator supply less than their maximum output when they actually could be supplying more. For example, Generator A is capable of supplying 1000MW, but to allow for frequency control, it is supplying only 500MW. You have to pay EXTRA for someone not to be producing at their maximum.
If the grid demand increases, the frequency starts to drop due to the higher loads on all the connected generators, (a little like a car on a highway starting up a hill). Generator A, (acting in FCAS mode), also senses this and ramps up, providing the necessary power till the frequency again hits the desired target, (akin to the driver pressing down on the accelerator a little harder).
If the grid demand decrease, the frequency rises and a correction happens again but obviously with the opposite sense.
So that’s what FCAS is, ALL generators can do this, (according to green publications), just as long as they are delivering less electrical power than what is available to generate at that moment.
I’d love to know how a solar factory could ever be operating in FCAS mode RELIABLY. Imagine a sunny day, the factory has a name plate of 10MW, so they set their output at 5MW. And then a cloud goes over……. Not only are they no longer capable of ramping up, they are actually not even meeting their commitment to supply 5MW, they have effectively just caused grid to lose 5MW of generation. To the grid, this would look like a 5MW load just started up. The frequency is now going to drop until a real generator steps up.
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Variable, non-dispatchable supply should never have been allowed to connect to the grid, it is an albatross around the neck of the ‘proper’ generators that we, the consumers, all pay for.
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Yep – allowing them to connect was the beginning of the end of the grid.
Not all pay for it. The subsidy harvesters have been doing good business. Even small scale scammers like me can reduce energy cost to zero but still wear the general inflation – probably about even overall.
AEMO is approaching budget of $1,000,000,000 sas it employs more people to manage the growing complexity and their average income is $124k. You can bet the boss is maybe $600k plus being the head of a now large organisation.
They pay more to this bozo but the wholesale market produces less because people are taking their demand away.. And none of them understand why. But why should they when their salary depends on them not understanding.
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The trouble is there seems no end to their BS and lies and the average Aussie has little idea of the mess from toxic W & S + batteries.
And if the grid solar can’t make a future profit and we close our only reliable BASELOAD coal stns we’re in for a very desperate future.
Then what about future Aussie AI centres or do we forget about that and leave it all to China?
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“In a world of subsidies, we all lose!”
Never a truer word was spoken… No matter what the subject, Govt subsidies always cost us more.
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From Rafe’s info, a very good breakdown of the renewables subsidies was supplied, which added up to $16bn/year. And that was only the major subsidies.
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At least three coal generators of Liddell size. How bloody stupid are we to tolerate politicians that allow this to happen? Scratch that. How bloody stupid are we to tolerate politicians that make this happen?
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4 x 500Mw is a good size, I was talking to a legal person well up in Qld govt energy dept, it was stated that a unit the size of Kogan Ck at 750 mw was too big for a single unit, when it trips and it does now and then, it causes quite a bounce in the grid
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To slightly alter the possibly apocryphal annual confidential report on an artillery officer:
The Australian government pays public servants to provide honest, frank and fearless advice on electricity generation. It seems quite clear that many public servants are defrauding the Australian government.
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BJ,
Then identify them, investigate, call in the police and allow the normal processes of the law to operate.
Those public servants who knows they provide less than “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but there truth should quit their jobs now before the law takes off.
Geoff S
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We seem to always ignore the fact that we have to destroy the environment if we continue with toxic grid W & S and yet we know now that this is becoming a stranded mess.
And how will we replace this lunacy in about 15 to 20 years?
IOW we are building this toxic mess for no benefit at all and our remaining industries will vanish and no reliable energy for the fabled AI centres.
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” “It’s simple: when coal breaks down, your bills go up – ”
What Black-Out could add here, but seeing as he won’t, I will.
“And when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow, nothing happens, because you will have NO power. Therefore, no extra costs”.
And you’ll be praying for the reliability of the coal fired power stations. They DO NOT care if the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. And the transmission lines are already there.
WHAT A BONUS.
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Man made global warming / climate change is a scam. Atmospheric CO2 is not the control knob of weather. The more people that come to realise this fact, the closer we get to a rational debate.
James Delingpole, the long time climate skeptic and author of “Watermelons”, puts it best “
Because saying that is just as effective as when the alarmists say the rising seas will flood all our coastal cities in boiling, acidic seawater. Or that the arctic regions will all melt. Saying it’s a scam, is all you need amongst your friends, workmates, neighbours and family. Just pink pill them. Whatever you do don’t get bogged down in the scientific babble, it wont work. Maybe talk about how everyone’s power bills keep going up, when they’re supposed to be going down. He or she who actually pays the bill will be a quick convert, for starters. It worked on Bill Gates, it’s going to work on Joe and Jill Average as well.
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“Atmospheric CO2 is not the control knob of weather.”
My eternal point is that mankind is not the controller of CO2. The presumption that we can is completely unfounded in well established science. CO2 is in rapid huge worldwide exchange with the vast deep oceans which cover 72% of the planet. Fossil fuel adds a tiny 0.02% annually, nothing more.
Nothing we can do has changed or can change atmospheric CO2 levels. If CO2 goes up, trees grow in direct proportion, as NASA has proven. Gillard’s Agricultural Carbon Credits (2011) are non science. As is Albaneses’ 35% CO2 tax, the “Safeguard Mechanism 2022)”
Whether CO2 changes the weather is a moot point, nothing more. “THE Science” is made up. Emotion. A scare campaign by Climatebaggers starting with Al Gore and the UN. Power and trillions in cash. After 37 years of vast spending on a climate disaster allegedly started in 1750, where exactly is the problem? Can we have our coal power plants back please? Just like China?
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The funniest part of “The Science” is that fossil fuel CO2 output is actually double the CO2 increase!
So proponents of man made CO2 have to argue that the oceans are full of CO2 but each year take half of new fossil fuel CO2. Not all of CO2, just the fossil fuel CO2.
As this is absurd, 0.5% of all CO2, meaning an exchange time of 200 years to rotate all Co2 through the ocean. Because the oceans are ‘full’ but can still accept a little bit even though 98% of CO2 is in the ocean, not the air. It’s quite an amazing coincidence that the oceans became full of CO2 in 1750.
This is contradicted by scores of real science papers, strangely most prior to the IPCC in 1988. Clearly disagreeing is not publishable. The obvious has to be hidden.
Since then few papers have been published, most notably Stallinga in 2022 in which he concludes
(1) The adjustment time is never larger than the residence time and is less than 5 years.
(2) The idea of the atmosphere being stable at 280 ppm in pre-industrial times is untenable.
(3) Nearly 90% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide has already been removed from the atmosphere.
And I would revise 90% to 98%, but the point is made by 36 authors in Table 1.
Is this concealment of what was the obvious truth until 1988 a conspiracy? Of course. The public can’t handle the truth. It would cost too many bright shiny new Climate jobs. And untold trillions in spending to control CO2, spending which has done absolutely nothing to affect CO2. ‘Emissions’ yes. But CO2, no measurable effect.
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As for the impact on electricity prices. We had surplus cheap 24/7 electricity in the 1950s, perfectly adequate reliable commandable electricity backed up with gas and coal.
It’s why Alcoa came to Australia. Now it is all vastly subsidized to make aluminum at a loss. Which is why we now have huge American tariffs on aluminum.
Wind was considered obviously too variable, unreliable and hydro very limited and solar costs were in massive distribution cost, not simple domestic use. Absurdly wasteful taxation subsidized applications like swimming pool heating was possibly cheaper and lower maintenance and capital cost with simple methods. Especially for those who could afford swimming pools.
Everything is upside down. And all the hidden CO2 taxes hit the poor who otherwise pay no tax. The rich and middle class are the beneficiaries in their electric cars, rooftop solar and hidden subsidies and payin rates. None of this is available to those struggling to pay living costs.
It’s a complete reversal of Labor policy, to rob the poor to subsidize a low emissions moral luxury lifestyle for the rich. No wonder workers are abandoning Labor, both here and in the UK.
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A solar panel is a device, hypocritically promoted by socialists, that converts poor people’s money into wealthy people’s money.
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The finest form of regressive taxation ever invented. Too subtle for the plebs to understand and they keep voting for more of it.
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So how do we keep the fabled Aussie AI centres COOL during our hot summers or perhaps a very nasty heatwave?
At least our visiting whales are safer now because even the lying Labor, Greens and Teals loonies can’t get the investment in offshore wind anymore.
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Yes, AI and data centres need two important ingredients.
Electricity and (usually for the really big ones) water for cooling.
Amazon has nuclear powered data centres, Elon has purchased a gas power station from overseas as there is now a severe shortage of power station construction capacity in the US since TRUMP liberated the energy supply.
Since both power stations and dams are both banned in Australia, it’s not clear where these commodities will come from.
I wrote an article on data centres and cloud computing.
https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2025/January/Data+Centres+%2526+Cloud+Computing
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You don’t actually need water for cooling but when you don’t have it, it does raise the need for lots of cooling fans to replace the efficiencies of evaporating water. Imagine this for the back of your refrigerator.
https://www.google.com/maps/@-20.6168075,116.7658335,253m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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In QLD, both Millmerran and Kogan Ck have air-cooled condensers.
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On my recent road trip to Canberra, I took a small diversion and visited the Millmerran Power Station. (you know ….. as you do!) I had tried to arrange a visit to get a guided tour of the plant, but that did not eventuate, sadly, and all I was allowed to do was to visit the viewing area at the front of the plant on the outside of the fence. So, all I could do was take some images, and in the next week or so, I’m going to add this visit to my Road Trip Series of Posts at my home site.
Just two of the images I did take were (1) of one of the two cooling condensers and (2) the section on the main notice board with a short description of how they work.
Incidentally, the water (to ‘make’ the steam) for the plant comes via pipeline from the waste water treatment plant at Toowoomba, 80Km away, and the coal comes via enclosed conveyor belt from the Plant’s own coal mine, the Commodore mine, which is adjacent to the Plant.
Everything about this Supercritical coal fired plant gives the complete lie to filthy dirty unsustainable environmental vandalism that coal fired power is supposed to be.
Tony.
PostScript – The emails and phone calls to arrange the visit to the plant covered five days, and three people. The upshot was (sort of what I expected) that no, they couldn’t arrange the visit, quoting workplace health and safety measures etc. The last thing I was told was that they had checked, as this request was such a novel one, as ….. NO ONE had ever asked to visit the site in the entire time the plant has been open, and that’s been, umm, 23 years! They did mention that they might consider a visit in the future, you know, (don’t tell anyone) if you were to ask again.
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This Millmerran Plant with its two 425MW Units delivers 7% of Queensland’s power, and that’s an average of 5800GWH each year.
The total Nameplate for wind generation in Queensland is 1934MW, so that’s 2.28 times the Nameplate of Millmerran.
Wind generation in Queensland delivered 2877GWH, so just a little less than half the power from this one coal fired power plant.
Tony.
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The Darling Downs Power Station also has an air cooled condenser.
20
Perhaps all the data centres should be built in Iceland and leased to various countries, cooling shouldn’t be much of a problem and they have plenty of hydro and geothermal energy.
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This is just more green propaganda. We all know that power prices will keep going up as more RE is added. In fact every new watt of RE is more expensive than the one added before because of the system costs, which all go up exponentially as more and more storage, transmission and synchronous condensers are required.
The only way these green Marxist government activists can claim that RE is cheaper is by referring to the fake modeling, carried out by government funded bodies using taxpayer funds to provide a predetermined ‘APPROVED’ answer. This whole scam is a massive fraud on society. It’s already been called out by many commentators that transmission costs are running up to 6x higher than projected and snowy 2 will end up 10x more expensive. Cost overruns that are an order of magnitude higher than modeled simply can’t keep happening unless the models are rigged.
Of course the media support of the fake numbers and the endless government spin are the only reasons this scam has continued for so long. IMO – The big test of public trust has already failed as people now head towards One Nation in droves and we can expect this to continue and both major parties have been active participants in the world’s biggest scam. Electricity rates of > $1 / kWh are all but locked in as those massive transmission and battery storage contracts are written with guarantees of rivers of gold from already stressed taxpayers.
I’ve already said this many times, but it’s already too late to save us from economic armageddon. We went past the point of no return when Labor was reelected earlier in the year. What follows won’t be fun. From an economic perspective we’re now effectively a new case study of a country without any manufacturing left and with an energy grid that is too expensive for manufacturing to ever start back up, combined with the world’s most expensive and least productive labour force. We’ll also be a country where we can’t produce any food due to the cost, but we won’t have any money to import food from overseas or anything else for that matter. Today, even mining companies need subsidies to dig up what was cheap and profitable yesterday and it all comes down to energy costs. To make matters even worse, we’ll be hostage to China, who will effectively control every watt of expensive and unreliable energy purchased and consumed in the nation.
And, for the green activists that pushed us down this path of economic armageddon, thinking if we act then others will be compelled to follow…
What you have done is created the greatest poster child for what must never, ever, be attempted again by another country, and under any circumstances !!!
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Well said Serge.
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The sad thing about Australian politicians and the senior public serpents who tell them what to think, is that they don’t realise how ignorant and stupid they are.
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Being stupid is like being dead. Only those on the outside know.
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Or they do. I know the default is idiocy, ignorance but China has infiltrated so many places and systems. I have been amazed that Mitch McConnell is married to the much younger daughter of a Chinese billionaire. Short of controlling Congress, he controlled the Senate.
Prospective VP Tim Walz spent a lot of time in China but lied about being there for the Tienamen massacre, which he excuses as nothing much. He openly praises the Chinese government as a superior form of governmnet and he’s the Governor of Minnesota!
There are even publicly visible and labelled Chinese police stations in Ireland operating to control their Chinese immigrants. It’s like a gigantic and rich secret society, embedded now in every country and using cash and migrants to infiltrate and control. None of this is accidental. Germany planted people everywhere before WWII. Russia as well.
What’s the chance China has bought influence in Australia at every level, on all sides of politics? And Labor and Liberals and Greens and Teals are ALL demanding more windmills and solar panels. It’s always worrying when all politicians agree but 70% of Australians do not. As with The Voice.
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Their so called dangerous CC is built on lies and fear and the MSM love to join in and try to panic the public at every opportunity.
Zali Steggall was interviewed on Sky News recently and made to look a fool about CC and cyclones etc.
In the meantime, here’s Aussie cyclones from the BOM over the last 55 years and the 2 trends are lower over that period.
Can’t stupid Zali spend a lousy 5 minutes online and look up the BOM Data for herself? I hope this works.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=CrDDcETl&id=75F1A71D444FC9B06023BD70CA81FAAAF355AA24&thid=OIP.CrDDcETlfCtN7-B6jPKNmgHaE1&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.0ab0c37044e57c2b4defe07a8cf28d9a%3frik%3dJKpV86r6gcpwvQ%26riu%3dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.bom.gov.au%252fclimate%252fcyclones%252ftcs-per-year.png%26ehk%3dyyPOUmHgHG8kNcNm%252ffAzVOGf%252bSKrpt%252fNn%252fc0%252bYPVEgk%253d%26risl%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=2194&expw=3363&q=latest+bom+graphs+on+australian+cyclones&FORM=IRPRST&ck=4ED854E76647E80F3A837A4A6A54A5BC&selectedIndex=0&itb=0&idpp=overlayview&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
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I saw that interview and when it was pointed out by Laura Jayes that the number of cyclones, including intense cyclones, had reduced considerably in Australia over the past 50 years, she answered by saying “tell that to the people of Lismore”.
What kind of Answer is that ?. The lack of intellect in the left wing political class never ceases to amaze.
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“tell that to the people of Lismore”
For goodness sake- it’s all about “the feels”.
Ask Jacinda.
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The people of Lismore get flooded as Lismore is built on the banks of a river with another river slightly upstream flowing into it.
So when it rains ‘cats and dogs’ further upstream, the joint gets flooded.
The whole town needs to be moved to higher ground and out of the way of the quite frequent flooding.
This is not rocket science.
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“It’s simple: when coal breaks down, your bills go up ”
Would that be clear proof that coal keeps the prices down.
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Rooftop solar is suitable for some people but not everyone. My parents house is positioned next to a huge messmate eucalyptus tree- solar panels wouldn’t receive enough sunlight to justify the expenditure of installing a system.
Renters have enough trouble getting a leaky shower head replaced let alone the landlord forking out for a solar power installation.
Power companies have already started to try and persuade customers to incorporate their solar batteries into a VPN. What’s to stop them draining your battery when there is a power outage? And what if the government down track wants to pass legislation to make it compulsory to join a VPN?
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I know a pensioner that is very frugal with her power usage, so recommended to her that she not instal a solar system, as I doubt that she would achieve the savings required to pay off the system within the lifetime of the shortest-life component, presumably the inverter.
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The insanity is coming to an end. But even if it wasn’t, making such rules would just increase the incentive to leave the grid.
When their ABC is talking about electricity and getting aggressive with morons, you know the pendulum has swung:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-26/when-will-power-prices-come-down-/106056846
Sadly not quite there yet.
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Looking at my local community after the recent hail storms in Brisbane, there are not to many working solar panels at present, but plenty of damaged and useless ones.
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Andrew Bolt tells us why the toxic, unreliable W & S disasters are a con trick and asks why the climate fanatics are so keen to destroy our energy grid.
He tries to dumb down the built in spinning inertia protection we have with proper BASELOAD energy like coal, gas or Nuclear.
This only takes 9 minutes, but I’m sure the average Aussie will learn something.
And Andrew starts with many trees and birds nests destroyed near Dubbo NSW and many young birds are abandoned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Qrpvks9EI
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Grasshopper: Master – isn’t this the same as bills going up if no coal exists?
Master: you are learning well, Grasshopper.
Grasshopper: Master – why can the energy minister not see it too?
Master: he’s a dumbf*** Grasshopper.
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Bowen has a black belt in stupidity. Sensei Albo, master of the the Flaggin Dragon academy, has taught him well.
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And he has a ‘Beach House’ at Bawley Point in NSW close to the sea water.
So much for rising sea levels.
He is also in very Bad Company along with Tim Tam Flannery and many others with properties very close to the sea water.
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Remembering ROM
ROM made a lot of comments on this blog. I don’t know how to look them all up.
An original idea he had came because he had looked at a world globe and realised that a highly volcanic area in India with massive lava outflows was 180 degrees opposite the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
From this he formed the idea that the two events could be related; namely that a meteorote impact on one side of the Earth could cause volcanism on the opposite side due to stresses on the Earth’s crust.
His idea is very similar to the contra-coup brain injury, where a blow on one side of the head causes a brain injury on the opposite side.
ROM claimed that he had written up his idea and presented it to a scientific journal but it was rejected. I was going to try resurrect his paper so he could claim the credit for his original idea but he said he had lost the manuscript and could no longer remember where he had submitted it.
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The idea of volcanic era ending events is not new, the Deccan Traps were once thought to be a contributor to the end of geological era but this has been discounted, see link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps
With regard to the location on the globe. The impact site was about 20N, just like the Deccan Traps, so that is a 40 degree error in latitude. In longitude, the error is around 8 degrees, much closer. A 40 degree error is like Brisbane to Perth, quite a miss.
It must also be noted that the Deccan Traps were occurring before and after the impact, they span a 600–800,000 year time period between around 66.3 to 65.6 million years ago. The impact was slightly over 66 million years ago. I think that the impact idea, (causing the volcanic field), would have been more sound if it had started on the impact date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
With regard to the brain injury simile, the skull is relatively very thick compared to the mean diameter of the head, the Earth’s crust is relatively very thin in comparison, it would be hard to align the two concepts together based on the relative stiffness of each. The skull is between 7 and 8 mm thick and around 15-20cm across, a thickness to diameter ratio of around 1:23. The Earth’s crust, allowing say 40km for a continental average would mean the ratio of thickness to diameter was around 1:320. A notably leaner ratio. The crust also softens appreciably with depth, bone not so much.
ROM had some great thoughts. I’d like to think that one day, when my time is up, that someone would take the time to collate all that I’ve contributed, right or wrong and let others pick through them. Some may prove right, some would be very, very wrong but can still be a light that others can see, even if it is a lighthouse highlighting the path to avoid.
Vale ROM
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Good points Ian,
Yes the Deccan Traps are not diametrically opposite the Chicxulub impact crater. I looked that up also. The theory needs modification, or maybe there is another Deccan traps in the Indian Ocean, under the sea.
The contra- coup head Injury is not an exact analogy. The contra-coup injury affects the brain, not the bone.
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Peter C:
“maybe there is another Deccan traps in the Indian Ocean, under the sea” – there is about 1,000 km trail of volcanic debris because the Indian sub-continent was moving fairly rapidly (until it collided with Asia) after it had split off Madagascar.
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This might be ROMs original comment on the topic, much shorter than he usually writes:
https://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/massive-eltanin-meteor-2-5-million-years-ago-set-off-mass-tsunami-changed-the-climate/#comment-1129709
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From the above –
[Ms Anna Collyer] said the analysis “clearly shows renewable energy and batteries drives prices down,”
So show the Taxpayer the analysis and how about a second opinion from an Independent body. I can ask a Dr for a second opinion so why not with your Mob.?
It’s all a load of BS with Electrickery prices for Hoseholds up 37% in the year to October 2025. The B of S and the RBA have confirmed this.
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Households and not Hoseholds.
Scottie from Marketing couldn’t hold a hose. LOL.
10
Here Dr Nott tells us that the 19th century cyclones were more severe than the 20th century and today we know that the 21st century cyclones are less severe than the 20th century over the last 25 years.
The LIA ended around 1850 so that LIA period would’ve seen a much greater temperature differential between the tropics and the poles.
Today that differential is not as extreme. Another reason we should be grateful for a bit more warming today.
Here’s Dr Notts’ Abstract from his study.
“Abstract”
[1] “Prediction of future tropical cyclone climate scenarios requires identification of quasi-periodicities at a variety of temporal scales. Extension of records to identify trends at century and millennial scales is important, but to date the emerging field of paleotempestology has been hindered by the lack of a suitable methodology to discern the intensity of prehistoric storms. Here a technique to quantify the central pressure of prehistoric tropical cyclones is presented in detail and demonstrated for the tropical southwest Pacific region. The importance of extending records to century time scales is highlighted for northeast Australia, where a virtual absence of category 5 cyclones during the 20th century stands in contrast to an active period of severe cyclogenesis during the previous century. Several land crossing storms during the 19th century achieved central pressures lower than that ever recorded historically and close to the theoretical thermodynamic limit of storms for the region. This technique can be applied to all tropical and subtropical regions globally and will assist in obtaining more realistic predictions for future storm scenarios with implications for insurance premiums, urban and infrastructural design, and emergency planning”.
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Here’s a link to Dr Nott’s PR cyclone study.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002JD002726
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I wonder whether the ‘weather’ BOM (Bunch of Muppets) are aware of this.
Probably not as they have ‘cloth ears’.
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JR I’m sure they are aware of Dr Notts’ work over many years.
Here’s a short video from earlier this year on their ABC and at the end he tells us that recent cyclones are less severe and near the end they mention his studies also cover the last 2000 years on our east coast.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-07/cyclone-expert-explains-what-its-like-in-the-eye/105025836
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Very Good and thanks for that.
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While Mr Bowen is speaking with a forked tongue about bad fossil fuel and good clean renewables, what is he saying about gas, that other fossil fuel, which is powering the $600 million dollar gas-fired power plant in Kurri Kurri? It’s a safe bet that Bowen won’t say that gas fired power plants like Kurri Kurri are required to keep the renewables push looking viable as a result of life support from a fossil fuel source.
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Could the clueless BO Bowen donkey be replaced as energy minister? Only time will tell but it should be ASAP and good riddance to dumb rubbish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3BQVDvxnj4
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POTUS Trump has worked tirelessly to resolve numerous wars. Russia-Ukraine proving somewhat challenging.
I expect Trump’s greatest victory will prove to be peace with the climate. He is ending the war against carbon dioxide.
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“[Ms Anna Collyer] said the analysis “clearly shows renewable energy and batteries drives prices down,”…. Ms Anna Collyer has proven in multiple recorded podcasts / interviews to be heavily afflicted with Woke Mind Virus and Climate Catastrophising Sickness and should not be in any position of power and influence over our Energy systems. The same affliction is present in Daniel Westermann – head of AEMO.
Actually it appears all of the leaders of our energy system regulatory bodies must have attended the same “super spreader’ event or function, as they all display chronic symptoms of these two debilitating conditions that prevent them having rational and critical thinking abilities.
Ben Beatie does an excellent review of the WMV and CCS afflicting these people in his The Baseload Podcast series, I encourage readers to check it out on Spotify or other podcast media.
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Ben Beatie is an Electrical Engineer and I follow his podcasts. He should get Blackout Bowen’s job in a real world.
And the English Lady from Watt-Logic. She is excellent and should be running the UK Guv’ment’s Energy Portfolio. And NOT that ‘Silly Brand’ idiot.
A clone of Blackout Bowen or maybe they are unidentical twins. LOL.
20
Here’s the abstract from Dr Notts 2024 study covering the last 6,000 years of our east coast cyclones.
Dr Nott has found that CAT 5 cyclones were 5 times more prevalent in the last 6,000 years than in the more recent time period.
So again no problems today when co2 levels are about 424 ppm compared to the last 5,900 + years when co2 levels were about 280 to 300 ppm.
When will our pollies + MSM loonies etc WAKE UP and THINK and SAVE us TRILLIONs of $ and only build SAFE, RELIABLE, BASELOAD power generation?
“Abstract”
“Natural hazard risk is assessed by leveraging, among other things, the historical record. However, if the record is short then there is the danger that risk models are not capturing the true envelope of natural variability. In the case of tropical cyclones in Australia, the most reliable observational record spans less than 50 years. Here, we use a much longer (ca. 6000-year) chronology of intense paleo-cyclones and, for the first time, blend this information with a catastrophe loss model to reassess tropical cyclone wind risk in Northeast Australia. Results suggests that the past several decades have been abnormally quiescent compared to the long-term mean (albeit with significant temporal variability). Category 5 cyclones made landfall within a section of the northeast coast of Australia almost five times more frequently, on average, over the late Holocene period than at present. If the physical environment were to revert to the long-term mean state, our modelling suggests that under the present-day exposure setting, insured losses in the area would rise by over 200%. While there remain limitations in incorporating paleoclimate data into a present-day view of risk, the value of paleoclimate data lies in contextualizing the present-day risk environment, rather than complementing it, and supporting worst-case disaster planning”.
30
Since its introduction under Rudd Solar has always been middle class welfare, The fed gov offered subsidies to make solar cheap enough for middle class home owners but still out of reach for low income and renters then forced providers to pay upto ten times the going wholesale rate for feedin tariffs forcing them to increase their base rate to cover the cost.The outcome was rich people got tax payer funded solar panels and free electricity and poor people paid more tax and higher electricity bills. Then to rub salt in the wounds they gave tax cuts to the rich.
Now Bowen is expanding the death spiral by offering free electricity when retired babyboomers are at home running their A/C and heating, charging their EV’s and batteries while the strugglers who can’t afford the latest programable white goods are driving their petrol cars from the outer suburbs to work while no bodies home and power bills increase to cover the costs to the providers.
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Same in UK:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp84yymxpjno
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