By Jo Nova
The world really is waking up to the terrible truth about the forced “green transition”. The Wall Street Journal (finally) speaks the blasphemy out loud — countries with a lot of renewables are “hemorrhaging industry”, they face right-wing revolts in elections, they can’t keep up in the AI race, and the system wide costs of renewable electricity are crippling.
The pagan quest to do rain-dances with electrical generators has become an existential threat. If AI is the next revolution, then the lands of green fantasia have already lost the race. There’s a global contest to create the first world dominating AI before anyone else does. This is not an exponential curve we can afford to lose. The first nation to crack adversaries encryption codes, hack their defenses, design the killer bioweapon, or build a self replicating drone army — potentially takes it all.
The contest is, above all, an energy competition. Ponder that gram for gram, each day the human brain uses ten times the energy than muscle does, yet despite that stupendous cost, it conquered the world.
For twenty years some rich countries became mired in corruption and virtuous beauty contests. They toyed with fripperies like imaginary weather-control a century hence, while their adversaries built the engines of real power.
Europe’s Green Energy Rush Slashed Emissions—and Crippled the Economy
By Tom Fairless and Max Colchester, The Wall Street Journal
Europe has succeeded in slashing carbon emissions more than any other region—by 30% from 2005 levels, compared with a 17% drop for the U.S. But along the way, the rush to renewables has helped drive up electricity prices in much of the continent.
Germany now has the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world, while the U.K. has the highest industrial electricity rates, according to a basket of 28 major economies analyzed by the International Energy Agency. Italy isn’t far behind. Average electricity prices for heavy industries in the European Union remain roughly twice those in the U.S. and 50% above China. Energy prices have also grown more volatile as the share of renewables increased.
It is crippling industry and hobbling Europe’s ability to attract key economic drivers like artificial intelligence, which requires cheap and abundant electricity.
The WSJ authors have plenty of stories of crippled business — Ireland had to stop new data centres opening for at least three years, because existing data centres consumed a fifth of the nations electricity supply. One German data centre operator wanted to expand but was told he’d have to wait ten years for the electricity supply to grow.
Polls show half of British consumers are planning to ration energy use this winter as they struggle with wholesale electricity costs that are 80% higher than the U.S.
Suddenly the consensus has flipped
This is a big shift. After twenty years of “clean energy” being cheaper , now they say that while the high energy prices aren’t completely the fault of the green transition… (did you see what they did there?) “a good chunk of the increase is thanks to the shift to renewables, say business executives and some economists.” So the generalized, unnamed mass of experts are now on the same side as the skeptics?
It’s reasonably big picture
The WSJ explains all the things that skeptics have been saying for years. That the wind and sun might be “free” but collecting, distributing and storing the free energy turned out to be horribly expensive.
Only in Europe and the UK (and in Australia) did nations foolishly cut off (or blow up) the old reliable energy system before they had a working substitute in place. In past energy transitions people kept using the old fuel until the new one was widely available and cheaper. This fake transition was driven by ideology, not the free market:
“Very clearly the cost of the transition has never been admitted or recognized,” said Gordon Hughes, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and a former adviser on energy to the World Bank. “There is a massive dishonesty involved.”
Finally — A professor said something useful!
Even the Greens themselves want oil and gas now
The tide is receding so fast on green energy that even former fans are calling for oil and gas to step up (probably because they know a widespread blackout or horror show in the bills would be bad for renewable subsidy farmers):
Some green entrepreneurs in the U.K. have started pushing politicians to ensure the oil-and-gas industry can help ease the transition. Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy, which has championed wind farms, called on the U.K. to renew offshore oil-and-gas exploration in the North Sea, so that it doesn’t have to ship gas in from across the globe. Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity and a climate activist who used to fund the protest group Just Stop Oil, wants lower taxes for existing oil-and-gas projects in the North Sea.
It’s just one feature article in one newspaper, but word will spread.
One of the first comments:
h/t to Helen Dyer who says “Energy poverty in this country, so rich in coal, gas, uranium and thorium, is a crime against our people. ”
I don’t know who Helen Dyer is, but she is on the money. The way in which this Renewable Transition has been foisted on us when we had a cheap, reliable network that was the envy of the world backed by hundreds of years of easily accessible raw materials is a crime.
I knew someone very well – an internationally awarded, very successful Environmental Scientist – who, one night at a party I was pressuring hard on CO2 and it (no gender, no ID) stated “Tim, I know CO2 is not an issue, but I push this because it will help achieve my political aims.” I have (while this person was very, very close to me) put them out of my Life, for more than ten years now. Just an intolerable level of Hatred for Life, Society and Freedom 9a stated Socialist) from them and I could stand it no longer.
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Tony has explained here in years past that before the state governments decided to sell power stations and transmission lines there were plans prepared for upgrading or replacing coal fired power stations as they reached planned retirement scheduled timing.
New South Wales Electricity Commission were an example, a well advanced future power station fleet future.
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The idea behind the entire story is that ’emissions’ will destroy the planet because ’emissions’ build up in the air, temperatures will soar and everyone will drown. And no one has ever proven any of these things.
The second idea is that wind and solar are ‘free’ and will lower electricity costs over time. Which has proven absurdly wrong.
No one believes this except the old Empires of Europe. France, Germany and Britain and Britain’s old Commonwealth. And it is destroying them. Not Climate Change but the belief in man made Climate Change.
Everyone else knows it is a hoax. Especially the people selling the windmills and solar panels.
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The Australian government knows this and is moving all the CO2 taxes from electricity to mining, shipping, agriculture, manufacturing, transport(including air), sewage, the ‘big polluters’. Albanese’s Safeguard Mechanism, based on Gillard’s Carbon Credits. Currently at 10%, by 2029 massive hidden CO2 taxes to save the world will reach 35%. Inflation will skyrocket, jobs will crash, economic independence and defence will be impossible.
No government will be able to fix this. Industries which took decades to build. Chemical, metal, manufacturing, farming, mining will be gone. But it’s fine. Everyone can work for the government. Just increase the taxes.
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A major part of the calculation was to reduce the lifestyle quality of the West.
It was unfair.
Fear and guilt was required to induce the peoples of the West to accept being reduced.
It worked.
Especially the production of a new class of billionaires … soon to be trillionaires… to oversee and enforce the equitable global poverty they have set into motion.
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Yes.
The people who instilled this had long given up on improving the economies of “developing” countries – the money and assets just disappeared as quickly as they were donated.
To such people, the answer became obvious. Reduce the West’s living standards to a much lower level. That way, every one gets a prize. Ours is a reduction in guilt … not.
Nonetheless, Australia is determined to keep implementing this. 90+ seats to 40 seats tells the story.
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“To such people, the answer became obvious. Reduce the West’s living standards to a much lower level. That way, every one gets a prize. Ours is a reduction in guilt … not.”
That’s how the left roll, their idea of equality is for everyone to suffer poverty together.
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Except them.
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Meanwhile, how were the “developing countries” fairing.
In Africa generally, no better, or worse. Still riven with roving militias funded by Russia.
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Just on your last point about people selling the windmills and solar panels.
I am not convinced that they know they are furthering a hoax. I think they are just pursuing once in a lifetime business opportunities. As Warren Buffet says he would not pursue windmill investments without the government subsidies.
Business after all is pretty much a moral vacuum. And those who pursue some moral cause in business are almost certain to prove the adage that going woke means going broke.
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News out today in the Daily Telegraph. Chris Bowen’s CIS is now funding a Chinese company, 90% owned by the CCP, to install a battery. The funding promises the company that regardless of it making a profit, the taxpayer will give it one. So now we buy the equipment, build the transmission lines and then have to pay them to make a profit. It doesn’t get much sicker than that.
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Also funding a Chinese based solar panel manufacturing venture in the NSW Hunter Valley.
Meanwhile world leading manufacturer China has cut back production because supply has now exceeded demand.
And in Australia rooftop solar and battery storage is subsidised by governments and the spending and hidden cost is fuelling underlying inflation to be accounted for in the near future.
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If you think a self-immolating e-scooter is bad, consider a fire in a battery the size of a two-storey house.
Not just the annoying smoke and flames from an unquenchable blaze, but literally tonnes of toxic fumes, ash / fallout, downwind.
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“No one believes this except the old Empires of Europe. France, Germany and Britain and Britain’s old Commonwealth. And it is destroying them. Not Climate ”
Just read at News.com that Putin has publicly said that Russia is prepared for a war with Europe . Of course he is, Europe already in energy deficit, limited manufacturing capability and full of people that are not European. What better time to shoot up a few offshore wind factories with winter under way. The populace is ripe for quick surrender all with minimal involvement of troops on the ground.
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Russia has always been prepared for a war with European powers. When has that NOT been true? Napoleon, Britain, Germany, Poland, Japan, China? The world’s biggest country with many neighbours has been under siege for 200 years. The surprise was that Russia survived, with massive losses, more than everyone else combined except China.
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As I read Donald Trump’s actions wrt Ukraine/Russia and Europe, he is telling Europe they need to defend themselves, the days of America doing it all are over, and he is telling Russia that he wants them on his side when China starts shooting. The former may work, the latter doesn’t look too good (not yet).
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Well at least “The EU Contingent” have their new campaign song tuned up –
“We’re going to hang out the washing on the Dnieper Line
If the Dnieper Line’s still there”
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That was the plan.
And it worked, as it did in other Western countries including Australia except the United States under TRUMP.
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Citizens need to understand that the leaders of the Leftist activists behind the destruction of the energy supply aren’t merely stupid “do-gooders” like many of their followers, but they are quite evil people.
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How much of this can be attributed to renewables as opposed to the shutdown of industry and its relocation to China and the CO2 emissions being transferred there as well?
I suspect that ruinables in reality don’t cause any significant reduction in CO2 emissions, not that CO2 is a problem anyway.
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I wonder about the arithmetic in this alleged reduction.
For example the idea that the DRAX power plant shifted from coal to American wood chips. All based on a crazy idea that there is old carbon dioxide and new carbon dioxide and that they are different? When was a scientist ever involved in this emotional clap trap? And you can be sure that the DRAX power plant now counts as zero emissions. Which is ridiculous.
Plus the subtraction of the hundreds of taxpayer funded ‘tree’ farms which grow nothing. As in Australia.
The arithmetic of CO2 emissions is just insane, lies and non science. Run by people who could not pass a simple test in Chemistry or physics.
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The people of the world need energy, that can’t be argued.
In previous years, (go back a couple of hundred), the energy source that was used for heating and cooking, even industry like smelting metals, was wood. Many regions of the world lost their trees to feed that need. This changed the environment and may have resulted in significant changes to the locals. For example, less game to hunt, more flooding, more erosion of soils, loss of arable land, etc.
When coal was used as a replacement for wood, the trees were no longer required, at least not at the same rate. Trees then did what trees do and in multiple places they grew back, reforming the forests, etc. Obviously, the old diversity of a forest would take a little longer to come back but it is happening/has happened.
Coal, oil and gas, are finite, one day they will run down. It might be a long time, but they will run out or at least become too expensive to extract and use.
We need another energy source. I don’t really care whether it be wind, solar, nuclear or unicorn farts. The source doesn’t really matter. One thing does. We need to note that wood wasn’t removed from use before an alternative was in place. The alternative wasn’t forced on the people, it won because of a measured benefit, whether it be cost, availability, reliability, convenience, energy density, etc.
It sickens me to know that our ‘leaders’ are destroying our power sources and denying us access without providing or permitting a replacement. The way things are going, we’ll go back to using wood soon. And 8 billion people using wood won’t take long to outstrip the forests. What then?
Will countries go to war to secure an energy source, fighting for oil, coal and gas? I just can’t see anyone fighting to take a windy promontory. Will the people drive their ‘leaders’ out of corner offices in the drive to survive? Will they do it in time?
Until a replacement is allowed, we’ll use whatever is before us. I’d love to see nuclear for electrical loads but I just can’t see the Oz public being allowed to chose that option. Democracy denied. Their computer says no. So we’ll continue down this slide to oblivion, first we lose industry, then we’ll lose convenience, then the people.
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You are many steps in advance of the powers that be. Sooner or later they will discover the truth in what you say. And the simplicity will ensure that the message will penetrate rapidly when it does.
As Janis Joplin once sang, don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone.
I just hope the world doesn’t follow the next line which was to pave paradise to put up a parking lot
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Joni Mitchell, actually. And it’s a correct point. But I believe nothing, ever, will penetrate the broken brains of the Muddle-Headed Wombats. They are lost.
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Yes. Joni Mitchell. Of course it was.
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“The people of the world need energy, that can’t be argued.”
Not only the energy, Eng Ian, but all the other “by products ” of energy production. Going nuclear provides energy, it doesn’t provide by products. So in a world of instant gratification how many people would survive tooth extraction without pain control; let alone the building agony of childbirth and major diseases.
Don’t worry about housing, clothing, food production, we live in a world that requires the production of oil
,coal and gas whether the clowns believe it or not.
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This, from the Wall Street Journal article, didn’t sound right:
Which (to my reading) sets China’s industrial electricity 33% more expensive than America’s.
Not according to this list which gives business electricity costs of 14.8 and 9.6 per kWh for the USA and China respectively.
That puts the US price about 50% above China’s. Perhaps that’s how the reporter flubbed the percentage calcs. A pity because the accurate statement would read better: … roughly twice those in the U.S. and three times those in China.
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Innumeracy in the chattering classes is rampant. It surprises me not at all that a journalist got the math wrong. I trust a plumber’s or carpenter’s math more than I trust a journalist’s math. They may not be able to perform advanced math, but their livelihoods require them to get the basic stuff right.
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Or at least to get more overcharging events than under.
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You’re average journalist would struggle to count to 20 with their shoes and socks off.
I spent most of the ’90s in near daily contact with the Canberra Press Gallery, attended functions at the National Press Club, and went drinking with journos on a semi regular basis.
I very rapidly realised after arriving in that milieu that the average journalist was a moron with a surface facility for words.
The reason they go into words is because they can’t handle numbers.
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This is an extremely interesting line to me:
“There’s a global contest to create the first world dominating (sic) AI before anyone else does.”
Second paragraph.
This will take some time to explain, but the short version is that we may be on the eve of our own self-destruction.
………..
………..
For more generations than I can count, Western world-religion(s) have been looking for the ‘anti-Christ’. Each generation thought that it was going to be the last. As a young lad in the ’60’s, my generation reached the point that it felt that Henry Kissenger was going to be the ‘anti-Christ’.
I have a different take on it. A careful study of Revelation does not indicate that the ‘anti-Christ’ is necessarily a corporeal being. It is a real thing, yes, but not necessarily something like you and me.
Just recently, visiting my daughter, who uses one of those ‘assistants’ in her house, I asked it about A.I., and the safeguards which prevent it from becoming malevolent. After much ‘discussion’, it admitted that even with ‘safeguards’ (e.g., Asimov’s Three Laws), there is nothing preventing A.I. from turning malevolent.
About ten years ago, I made the following observation:
** Start with the word, “Anti-Christ”
………
** In Western religion(s), Christ is the incarnate Diety, or God; this then leads us to the alternate description, “Anti-God”
………
** If we accept what is given to us in English translations of the Torah and/or Bible, the name the Hebrew people use for God is ‘Jehovah’; So, we go the next step and say the ‘anti-Christ’ is “Anti-Jehovah”
………
** Hopefully, everyone saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; recall the scene near the end where Indiana (Harrison Ford) is trying to retrieve the Holy Grail (to save his father, played by the late, great Sean Connery). Remember that he was going to ‘walk in the name of God’, and steps on the “J”, only to fall through; until he remembers that in Latin, Jehovah starts with an “I”
………
Anti-Iehovah … … … … … or, as we call it today, A. I.
………….
And, just recently, I saw a report that a nationally-known political commentator (USA) was seen on a video, making statements contrary to his own moral code; someone who follows this commentator came to the realization that this was, in fact, an A.I.-generated fake.
That set me to thinking, if this commentator can be faked into making statements contrary to his own values, what is to stop any random law-enforcement agency making a fake of me (or you), confessing to a crime which they might suspect me (or you) of committing (even though [I/you] [am/are] actually innocent of that particular act)?
Is anyone else concerned about this?
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Yes, there is no “j” sound in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin but the Hebrew the letter yod (י) is equivalent to a j consonant or i vowel in English, depending on context and in Hebrew pronounced as “y” or “ee”, context dependent. In transliteration from Hebrew yod (י) is typically brought across as a j. And “j” wasn’t distinguished from “i” in Italian (descended from Latin) until the 16th century and English in the 17th century.
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Long live Indi and the last crusade. I get, (some of), my Education from Hollywood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arMXzgiZsJQ
Based on a true story, it just hasn’t been published in a peer reviewed publication, yet.
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Maybe it is time for those promoting adverse consequences to be identified and punished.
Personally, I regard it as a crime to be a knowing participant in schemes that cause harm to the national economy.
For an example, start with AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator. As a non-elected group, they advise the federal government about choice of methods to generate large scale electricity. In the AEMO reports that I have read (not all of them) there has been a disclaimer that I interpret as meaning that AEMO does not issue public reports about generation methods that are not preferred government policy.
If so, AEMO would not report that a return to coal generated electricity is lower cost than continuing with renewables because more renewables are preferred government policy and coal is a demon.
Now, it is plausible that some AEMO people have done enough economic analysis, perhaps privately, to know that coal electricity has always been less expensive than renewables for common sense reasons backed by the recorded history.
Yet when the AEMO person tells the public that renewables are cheapest, that person might be aware of “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” The question arises whether the person is “allowed” to tell fibs because “Policy” dominates over “Truth”.
Is it now time to start police investigations into officials who are causing large economic damage to Australia when fibbing? I am not a lawyer, but I recall illegal actions described like “Knowingly making false utterances to obtain financial gain.” The gain would be the pay packet.
My hypothesis is that Australia could return to previous high standards of living and prosperity if officials advising governments were prosecuted when they put lies ahead of truth when recommending about policy.
Geoff S
p.s. Yes, “Truth” is a difficult concept to formalise in law. I use the word here as a shortcut expression that most will understand.
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Maybe it is time for those promoting adverse consequences to be identified and punished.
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list …
Bowen, Kean, Turnbull, Albanese, Labor, the Greens, the Teals, the LINO “moderates”. It is actually a long list!
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William’s list is giving off Arya Stark vibes. Lets hope no on it ends up being baked into a pie.
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William, we could add to that List: Tim Flattery, CEO’s / directors or whatever actual title but in a position of influence at the CSIRO, AER, AEMC, BOM, ABC, Climate Council, Smart Energy Council, Engineers Australia… and many more
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Quite so Geoff, but the question is where such accountability would take us.
I imagine that public service recruitment would fall dramatically if there was a rider that not only will you be paid but you will personally be held responsible for your actions.
And who would stand for parliament or other public office?
Perhaps on third thought it might be a good time for just a little accountability. Present company excepted of course.
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Decarbonising is the objective. Electricity costs are not the priority.
If Australia relies on China to make all the stuff Australia needs then it is technically feasible to decardbonising the NEM grid. That requires NOT counting imported carbon.
I provided the Finkel enquiry with the scope of solar powered grid back in 2016. It can be done with 240GW of solar panels and 750GWh of batteries. Cost of the order of $1.5tr. And it would likely need replacement every 20 years. So project term of 20 years.
The electricity cost would work out around 70c/kWh.
There has been a slight reduction in cost of solar panels and batteries but not much and everything lease like transmission lines and land access is more expensive.
So there is no doubt that anyone involved in the grid development will know decarbonising ids very expensive.
Are people lying – no because they are working on the lowest cost decarbonised electricity grid. But they failed to recognise that rooftops have a massive competitive advantage over utility scale wind and solar – they own their demand. So the lowest cost decarbonised power is rooftop solar and battery as about 10M Australians already know.
A decarbonised grid means Australia is de-industrialised.
The priority simply needs to shift from decarbonising to just lowest cost electricity. And than can be achieved almost over night by extending bidding intervals to 24 hours and nominated capacity must be available at any time in that 24 hours. Run all remaining coal plants at their most economic output all the time.
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Which about 70% of the population cannot afford. Brilliant.
Deflection – the costs of these installations will drop – is unconvincing.
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750GWHr of battery storage. How many days is that at peak daily demand? And your 20 year replacement, I guess that works for the solar but the batteries are going to need a little more attention than that.
How many synchronous condensers have you allowed for?
I have a feeling that with a government hand in this, your estimate will be under by around 90%, especially as you’ve noted the additional costs still to be added, such as land and transmission lines.
Did you also factor in the rise in cost of the components as the demand increases from a trickle to that required to purchase, eg how long do you to purchase 750GWHr of battery and what will the increased demand do the supply price. I’m thinking it’ll go up. Just like petrol at Easter, if you need it now, you’ll pay more.
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A recent article by Lars Schernikau gives large-scale battery systems a lifetime of only 10-13 years. And Schernikau tends to get his facts correct. He has provided links to his data sources.
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None. The power rating of the battery would need to be up around 200GW to accept the maximum charge. That level is way above the fault level of all exiting coal generators.
The scoping exercise was based on June 2016 average consumption of 23GW. The battery can supply the load for 33 hours. It is lower cost to have a gas or coal generator of about 1GW to keep the battery charging when you know it is going to be close to the limit. The solar overbuild is more than 10-fold and the battery size was based on actual June data from Broken Hill solar. So the battery recovers quickly on a sunny day even in winter.
My specification for Melbourne for off-grid solar is CF of 4%; meaning 25X overbuild and 50 hour battery rating . But clouds are more common in Melbourne than Broken Hill or northern region of Victoria.
June 2025 average demand is now down to 21.7GW. So the 240GW/750GWh system would have some margin.
The thing is that both grid scale wind and solar are stranded assets. If such a system was built, no one could afford to pay for the electricity and the whole grid becomes a dead asset. You would not get tenants unless the premises had its own battery.
It seems that household batteries can be installed at 100MWh per week so say 5GWh per year. Total demand will level at around 20GW on present trend so around 500GWh of storage would be adequate. There is already maybe 300GWh in storage in the NEM. So that leaves households to contribute about 200GWh or 40 years of installation at current rate. But life is likely not more than 20 years so the current rate of installation needs to double and maintain that rate until longer lasting batteries are available.
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Electricity systems should not be designed based on averages. Planes, bridges, buildings are designed to cope with more than a maximum load, and electricity systems should be the same. The required reliability is 99.998%, and you cannot achieve that based on averages.
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Australian transmission line cost has risen from A$2.5m/km a couple of years ago to the silly figure of $13m/km, and will most likely continue to rise further.
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They get around the truth question by talking about the lowest “cost of generation”, not the retail cost to the end users, all the while talking about the ability to power so many homes and omit mentioning such insignificant things like hospitals, water supply or emergency services etc.
It’s enough for them to include “generation”, and omit “retail”.
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Thanks again to Jo Nova trying to bring us up to speed on the real data.
Here again is the world’s co2 emissions and the so called developed OECD countries and the developing NON OECD countries like China, India + Asia etc.
At the bottom I’ve also added Australia, Germany and the UK. What a joke we are and yet very few pollies seem to understand our problems, YET.
How long before we start to WAKE UP?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS~GBR~DEU
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Again just have a look at that very STEEP World c02 trajectory since 1945 and ask how we could be so dumb in 2025.
Don’t our clueless pollies even bother to check the World co2 emissions data?
With the NON OECD booming co2 emissions we have no hope of reducing that trajectory at all.
Then there’s the 1.53 BILLION Africans who also want genuine BASELOAD energy as well.
When will our clueless donkeys start to THINK?
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The graph of CO2 ’emissions’ is exponential. The graph of CO2 is a dead straight line at 0.4%. A slightly lower angle straight line before about 1950. No sign of any human activity or anything else. Bushfires, volcanoes, lockdown, change in population from 1 billion to 8 billion. Nothing. And yet we are told that the growth is due to humans. Would someone like to prove that? And as I have written, there is absolute C14 proof that CO2 growth is not from fossil fuels.
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TdeF I don’t know whether that steep curve since 1945 is caused by Human co2 emissions or not.
But we do know that co2 warming effect is very saturated today and the warming effect in the future will be much less.
That’s if we think Humans have much of a role anyway.
The Royal Society even tell us that we could stop all Human co2 emissions today and we wouldn’t see a drop in temperature for thousands of years.
Anyway I want to see us drop the entire super expensive, unreliables nonsense and build only BASELOAD energy ASAP.
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What steep curve? This is the graph of atmospheric CO2. It’s a dead straight line, most unusual for any physical change. And symptomatic of a slow drift of an equilibrium amount, probably caused by slight ocean surface warming. An increase since 1900 of about 40%.
This is the graph of total CO2 from fossil fuels showing an increase of 3500% since 1900.
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Sorry, I meant steep rise in co2 emissions and not co2 levels as measured in the atmosphere.
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Putin is relishing EU demise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa3HNcrDn1c
Putin has warned the EU about stealing Russian assets. He is prepared to take EU on and It would be unholy. I doubt US would offer any assistance – NATO or not.
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As they say history does not repeat but it does rhyme.
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As I posted yesterday –
Johnny Rotten
December 2, 2025 at 2:52 am · Reply
Why Nations Fail
“The pattern is clear: nations that secure affordable, firm, reliable energy prosper; nations that treat energy as ideology decline.
Energy policy is destiny.
It determines which nations manufacture, innovate and attract investment, and which lose industries, competitiveness and geopolitical autonomy. It shapes household living standards, regional cohesion, national budgets and strategic security.
Australia is not doomed to failure. But it is drifting – and the drift is psychological, not technological. A refusal to re-examine assumptions, even as evidence accumulates, is precisely the dynamic Why Nations Fail describes: institutions that stop learning.
The warnings are clear. The global lessons are visible. The data is unambiguous. The only question is whether Australia’s leaders can overcome the inertia and self-protective instincts that have undone other nations, and act before the correction becomes severe.”
From the Spectator Australia –
More at –
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/12/why-nations-fail/
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Listening to Liberal Shadow Energy minister Dan Tehan on radio talkback, they still don’t have a clue how the grid works and what is really needed to stop the drift to Net Zero oblivion, Pauline Hanson of One Nation makes the same mistakes, they both advocate for rooftop solar while simultaneously talking about getting more coal in the mix or using for longer, while not realising it’s rooftop solar that is cannibalising Coal’s run time efficiency /economy.
Tehan and Libs are still believers in the Climate alarmist narrative and only advocate for a slower transition rather than saying the truth, which is it’s all a lie and not required at all.
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What I find really upsetting are the opportunistic and lying politicians on all sides.
John Howard brought in the most successful hidden CO2 tax in 2001 without mentioning either CO2 or tax. A three shell trick involving green certificates which punished fossil fuel power suppliers (non approved) and gave the cash to everyone else (wind, solar, wave, hot rocks)(approved suppliers). It was so devious and successful that it was copied immediately in the UK. No one voted for this.
Julia Gillard (‘there will be no carbon tax in a Government I lead’) brought in Agricultural Carbon Credits 2011, the foundation of Albanese’s 2022 ‘Safeguard Mechanism’, which extends this Certificate theft to every field of activity, hidden from the public and buried in the costs and passed onto the public as ‘inflation’. Destined to shut down every activity which generates CO2, from flying to sewage to agriculture and manufacturing and transport. And no one knows about it. The media say nothing.
And the people at the top continue to do as they please without parliamentary oversight. Malcolm Turnbull gave $444 million in cash to his wife’s little committee to ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef. No one applied for the money. No one knew what to do with it. But it was handed over. Parliament had no say.
Even the gift of $2.3Million to Brittany Higgens without justification was outrageous. She had served her purpose and her friends (Wong, Kennealy, Gallagher) saw she was rewarded with public money. Gallagher just lied about her part to parliament. No consequences.
Albanese spent $1Billion on shares in a failing Californian Quantum computing startup. No justification. No returns. Parliament had no say. And we, the people, still pay interest on the borrowed money. Presumably forever.
Malcolm Turnbull approved $2.5Billion for Snowy II to be finished in two years. No business plan, no cost justification. Ten years later it is over $20+ billion with no end in sight. Parliament had no say. Even today.
The way in which our ‘leaders’ spend our money without parliamentary oversight or even passing debate is amazing. It is not Democracy. It is theft without representation.
And John Howard two years ago had the cheek to say to me that he was ‘agnostic’ on Climate Change. Then why did he wreck the joint?
In all this, individual actors like Howard, Gillard, Turnbull, Morrison, Albanese have done as they pleased without explanation or justification. Morrison told no one he was going to agree to Nett Zero. When did the press even take issue with the ‘Safeguard mechanism’ now wreaking havoc in Australia. The cone of silence has descended, enforced by governments just like the old Sales Tax.
As for Biden and Starmer, words fail. The difference between these people and communist tyrants is zero. And both have locked up innocent people for simply objecting to their absolute rule. The police in the UK are arresting people now for their opinions. And in the US over 1,000 people were jailed for three years for a peaceful protest infiltrated by 250 armed FBI agents and orchestrated by the US speaker, Nancy Pelosi. The third most powerful person in Congress.
The destruction of Western societies by agents of foreign powers, especially China, is incredibly obvious. Communist China devotee and would be US VP Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota and his close Somali friends and their mass fraud. The checks and brakes of parliamentary review have just vanished. Albanese and Daniel Andrews before him and Walz in Minnesota are clearly commuting to China to get their orders.
In a nuclear world, the way to win the next war is to cripple your enemies. And it’s working just fine, shutting down their power supply, manufacturing, destroying their social cohesion, bankrupting their economies. None of it is accidental.
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I’m looking forward to the day when the cognitive dissonance in Chris Bowen’s head makes it explode. It would almost be worth another term of Labor. He’s probably too thick to get it anyway.
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Makes you wonder doesn’t it. Was the whole climate change scam, just that- a scam? Orchestrated by some nefarious, shadowy figures to provided investment opportunities. There’s certainly plenty of real and anecdotal evidence to suggest this. More recently I learned that the dangers of methane as a powerful “greenhouse” gas was resurrected in order to sell fake meat. (eg. Beyond meat ). Now that that has failed all the initial investors ( including Bill Gates ) have quietly pulled their money. The whole methane scare will now die a second death because I seem to remember it being largely debunked back in the late 1990’s.
Talking of Bill Gates. He persuaded governments and companies to fund his climate projects, murdered a lot of cows, spent billions blocking out the Sun, cut down trees to save carbon, and helped create ‘Climate Anxiety’ across today’s youth. Basically, the Earth is overpopulated ,so don’t have any babies and guess what, it’s working. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he simply decided Climate Change wasn’t a thing anymore.
I repeat, the whole thing is a scam, but at least with a personal scam I get the choice to choose options. If some dodgy painter turns up at my doorstep and offers to paint the house for cash, at least I get a choice. With the whole carbon transition action by “my ” government I get no choice. Bad luck, taxpayer, it’s your turn to pay that larger electricity bill. Or pay for a $96m BOM website upgrade that’s worse.
Europe has no doubt been scammed to cripple their economy and so has Australia.
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It did not start out as a scam. But a lot of people made their living from it and did all they could to silent dissent. They came out with notions like “the science is settled” and labelled those with plausible alternatives “deniers”.
There is no doubt it is scam now. This is the Hansen paper that set the course:
https://www.sealevel.info/hansen1988.pdf
No one reviewed that paper to point out it was all a fairy tale until 2018:
https://www.sealevel.info/hansen1988_retrospective.html
Once the UNIPCC started to run with it, they could see money just rolling in for “climate ambition” that they could cream off and avoid the humiliating task of asking countries for their annual donation.
Basically, the western world has locked in their economic demise based on this pile of poo.
No climate model predicted that record snowfall would be a feature every year this century. And no climate model predicted Greenland would be gaining altitude this century.
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We (in Australia) adopt too many things from the US. A lot unfavourable.
We caught the climate change virus from the US and Hansen/Gore were patients 0 and 1 in the whole climate epidemic. The mass spreaders! Then things cascaded from there. UN got on board, more compliant scientists thought they could make a name for themselves. Then you had the wannabes, like Turnbull who thought he was the Aussie Al Gore.
I think the big investors came along much later, thought they could make a quick buck. Along with the investors came the scammers and shysters. Which always happens in any industry. Because the climate change blob is an industry now.
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What do we call something that’s been brainwashed into people’s heads that is very likely not to be washed out?
Or children going to be able to return to a normal view of human relationship to nature?
This cultural phenomenon is far greater than just a ‘scam’ and the grift it spawned.
The economic demise is one thing, the psychological damage may be greater.
Can people who damage priceless art come to a realization beyond their action that approaches normalcy?
I personally know people that can’t (as in are literally incapable) of even hearing the information known by those of us that have been able to go outside the brainwash.
Add the demon spawn of Climate Change, Pandemic, and we are facing an unprecedented collapse of trust in the knowledge hierarchy, of which I can’t recall an historical example, at least on this scale.
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“What do we call something . . . .?”
I submit that around these parts that is known as a dead loss.
That’s in official New Zild, as she is spoke.
It might be the same in Strine.
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” Was the whole climate change scam, just that- a scam? ”
My understanding is that the short answer is a resounding “Yes”
And Donna La Framboise showed that in her book “The Delinquent Teenager” some years back.
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The good old brain…it can understand advanced physics or write a symphony with just a Snickers bar, no power station needed.
A mere 0.3kWh a day, but as is always the case, it’s not efficient as around 50% of the energy consumed is wasted as heat.
The brain, unlike muscles, never rests so it’s not a fair comparison.
The brain uses about 35 times nore power in internal communication than in actual computation.
Interestingly when someone “thinks hard” energy use only goes up around 5%.
Thinking hard only uses 5% more glucose than when you’re fast asleep. Those background processes suck the juice all right!
Cough, Windows 11, cough.
No, the myth of us only using around 10% of our brain power us just that, a myth. Sadly for most, it’s more like 90%.
Biocomputing is the way forward. Photonic computing is almost here and silicon chip tech is waving goodybe to the world in tears from aboard the Silicon-Titanic.
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It also costs energy to refresh RAM in a computer.
And speaking of work. Physics tells us that work is done in lifting a mass. The work being proportional to the height gained multiplied by the gravitational force and by the mass of the item.
So a mass that is not lifted but is at a rest elevation is not requiring any work input.
So why do your arms ache and become tired when you have a brick held in your hands above your head for a few minutes?
(A structural engineering lecturer posed that one just to screw with the student’s minds)
I’ll give you the answer later….. if you want it.
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ATP depletion.
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Another data point talking of electricity prices.
Recently in the UK I had the pleasure of riding in my son’s electric car from London to Stonehenge which is around 160km return. He started with something less than full charge and planned a recharge on the way home.
Sure enough he found a charging station with a fast charger. Standard is 50kW. This one was 150kW. And yes the cable did get noticeably warm to hot during the charge. The attached roadside services were quite pleasant for our 15 minute stay for a snack and a nappy change for my new grand daughter. Several levels more inviting than roadside stops in Australia. But I digress.
The cost was around 80p per kWh with nearby petrol bowsers at around 170p per litre.
On the way home we did a back of the envelope calculation which suggested the electricity was slightly more expensive than petrol.
The economics worked for him because he could charge for around 8p per kWh at home.
But where in the world can you find mains power for half a dozen simultaneous 150kW charging stations in one place?
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Who is Helen Dyer? AI cannot find her.
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Helen commented on the original WSJ article. Thus, I assume that Helen, like many of Jo’s readers, also reads and relates to these issues via other media. Therefore, we can all be fans.
10
John Galt’s wife
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FG, how does the son do the 8p per kwh, solar or power co green discount.
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Europe paid a very heavy price,
Cutting emissions for a fool’s paradise,
Lost our industrial base,
Winning the climate-change race,
By a useless absurd sacrifice.
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The experiment was a success. Australia is well on the way to reproducing that result. Follow the money. The so called ‘Green experiment’ has been a successful money laundering scam by globalist stakeholders like the WEF’s bankster-government cartels.
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Repeating what I said on WUWT this afternoon concerning AEMO pushing the panic button ….
Neither AEMO nor the Ozonian advocates of a green energy future are willing to perform an all-up engineering feasibility analysis for a 90% wind and solar power grid for all of Australia which demonstrates the technical and economic feasibility of such a grid.
Why? Because to do so would expose the enormous financial costs and the enormous project risks of moving to a 90% wind and solar power grid in the timeframe Australia’s green energy advocates claim is possible. (Or to get there at all, actually.)
However, I will note once again as I did two years ago that a collaborative effort among Australia’s green energy critics could produce a crowd-sourced feasibility design for a 90% wind & solar power grid which is technically credible and which could then be used for professionally estimating its associated project costs, project schedule, and its project risks.
For the grid design itself, one could take a reasonably detailed look at which green energy components best go where on the Australian continent; how many wind turbines, solar panels, and storage batteries are needed; and what kinds of upgrades to the Australian power transmission and distribution system are needed, including such components as grid-forming inverters and all-of-the-continent generation control & coordination systems.
And then, based on what the feasibility design effort produces, develop a reasonably documented estimate as to what it will cost and how long it will take.
Hey all you Australian anti green energy guys and gals …. You’ve been talking about these issues for years on end, but little has changed in all that time.
Take a new tack and get into the nitty-gritty details of the issues in a way which produces a centrally-documented basis of technical and economic criticism — a documented analysis product which can be used as a foundation for effective political action.
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This is what the Feral Guv’ment should have already done.
Talk to Blackout Bowen and see whether he listens and acts.
Good Luck with that.
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The point is that Chris Bowen won’t do it, so someone else has to.
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No one in the LayBore Feral Guv’ment will do it as they won’t want to admit that they were wrong.
The next Mob that gets voted in can then try and fix it.
Oh dear. And DEAR it will be. For the Voters, Taxpayers and those not even born yet.
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Aidan Morrison of the Centre for Independent Studies and the CIS team have done numerous in depth studies, as has the IPA (the Institute of Public Affairs, also PAGE Research have done detailed reports on the cost of a high percentage Renewable grid Vs Hydrocarbon showing the true costs of net Zero delusion.
All either ignored or smeared by main stream media, Green energy advocates and Labor government who are all desperate for the Gren grift to continue to the detriment of the Australian economy.
Yes, it’s an information war but when one side has much more ability to influence the narrative and squash discussion its a hard slog to get any traction.
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We have seen any number of research reports from independent think tanks such as CIS and IPS, and from other independent research organizations here in the US, which contain lots of graphs and verbiage as to what wind & solar backed by batteries will cost.
What we have not seen is an easily-understood visual presentation of where the Net Zero transition stands today in relation to where it needs to go to achieve the Net Zero / Green Energy dream. It is this kind of presentation which gets the attention of those who are inclined to learn more about the issues of a mostly wind & solar power grid.
In my mind, this easily-understood visual presentation starts off with a map of the Australian continent which illustrates where and how much of the existing renewable energy infrastructure is now located, and where and how much new RE infrastructure must be added to reach a 90% wind & solar power grid.
This map also locates the existing coal-fired plants, their capacities, and their projected dates for shutdown.
Creating this kind of map — or even a series of maps which show the time-phased progression of adding new RE infrastructure — this work would be part and parcel of producing an engineering feasibility analysis for a 90% wind and solar power grid for all of Australia which demonstrates the technical and economic feasibility of such a grid.
For purposes of gaining the attention of the interested public, the maps become a window teaser into the lower-level nitty-gritty details of the engineering feasibility analysis. Then come the supporting graphs and the supporting verbiage of what the costs and the schedules must be to achieve the Net Zero power grid dream on the schedule the climate activists are calling for.
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I find this an incredible example of how some high paid people live in a world disconnected from reality, like our woke and deceitful politicians.
“NEWS: Jaguar has fired design boss Gerry McGovern, who led the design team for the controversial Type 00 concept.
Earlier this year, Jaguar said it was fine losing its current customer base: “Jaguar is fine with targeting a different audience, even if that means saying goodbye to most of its existing customers.””
_________________________________________
Who needs manufacturing? Cheap energy? An adequate stable power supply? And one not based on Chinese electronics embedded in windmills and solar panels and electric cars etc.?
Someone might do what has been done to Russian owners of Porsche cars.
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Sounds likexany number of failed woke Hollywood producers that claimed they were targetting a “modern audience” one that only existed in their head. They cant see that personal bubble does not equal real world.
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My most recent Ergon electricity bill shows a total cost (residential + night rate + service fee) of US$ 0.4134 per kilowatt hour, so just behind Germany. Nice to know we’re keeping up with the best in the world.
Daily service fee increased 69% in 2 years.
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South Australia is leading the world in both cost of grid electricity and use of weather dependent electricity generators.
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I notice that the usual suspects in the meeja are doggedly fighting to hold the cloud cuckoo land’s high ground by having vested shills… I mean, “experts” assert that the cost of installation of renewables is not responsible for the increase in energy prices. They even say it with straight faces. Some are even saying that there really is no increase in energy prices.
I wonder if they will manage to maintain their stoic demeanours when the costs of transmission hit our bills, not to mention the removal of the government “bribes”… I mean, bill relief payments.
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COP this BS from the AEMO System Security Plan through to 2050……..LOL –
“The coal-fired generation that has powered Australia for decades is retiring and renewable energy, firmed with storage and backed up by gas, presents the lowest-cost pathway to meet consumer needs as well as government energy and emission policies through to 2050.”
How on earth can some Mob state that this ‘presents the lowest-cost pathway’ when no one including AEMO has costed it?
What a load of BS from a load of ‘shiney bums’ who have NFI about how an Electricity Grid should work. Australia had a very good one over 30 years ago powered by KING COAL.
Beam me up Scotty………….
https://www.aemo.com.au/newsroom/media-release/aemo-publishes-system-security-plan
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Isnt it comforting then that we have abundant and affordable gas supply and a well managed market. I mean , if gas is a cornerstone of grid security, you wouldnt want silly stuff going on in the gas market like:
Exporting while having local shortages
Importing your own gas back from Asia
Clutching at straws with gas terminal proposals
Having States actively campaigning against gas demand
Thank goodness for that. Lucky we are to have such big picture leaders.
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Now the Conservatives in Australia have walked away from net zero their cheapest advertising running thru to the next election is to pay for Metropolitan physical billboards & social media billboards accessible to all with a ‘Gaslighting Graph’.
Column 1: The date of every mention of the cheapest energy being renewables. Column 2: The wholesale & retail prices of power on the same day. All annotated.
Continual smug sanctimony is all very well from Albobo & Bobowen from the Canberra Circus tent, but their own words and the direct veriable contradiction is the best way to inform young voters why their dollar doesn’t go anywhere any more.
Facts matter!
Time to fight for Australia if you’re a conservative politician.
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The gaslighting will have to cease… we’re running out of gas.
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There’s so much ammunition for the opposition, it’s hard to know where to start.
10
it’s hard to know where to start.
Why do I suspect that will be the conclusion of the opposition as well?
And therefore they will sit on their hands (or other body parts)
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And there is more to the AEMO Plan towards 2050 –
“We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land, seas and waters across Australia.
We honour the wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past and present and
embrace future generations.
We acknowledge that, wherever we work, we do so on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
lands. We pay respect to the world’s oldest continuing culture and First Nations peoples’
deep and continuing connection to Country; and hope that our work can benefit both people
and Country.
OK, so let’s go back to the Stone Age.
Any takers?
The ‘Ruinables’ will take you there.
But the Elite Marxists will not do the Stone Age, only you the Serfs will. LOL
They have their Mod Cons and nice stuff.
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I note the talk about ‘transmission lines’, massive interconnectors, HVDC transmission. Another 30,000km of towers we never needed before. Costs unbelievable.
Twenty years ago we had plenty of electricity and gas. And didn’t need new transmission lines. Nor did we need a “National Grid” controlled by Canberra. All electricity was State owned and used minerals/gas which were state owned. If you lost electricity you had gas. And v.v. No longer.
The view of this it the move to a Trillion $ ‘distribution’ system no one needed and no one wanted. Except Canberra. No one lives in 95% of Australia.
And all to harvest ‘free’ energy when we have hundreds of years of coal in the ground. And made our own gas.
How it that even remotely sensible to destroy what we already have and at enormous cost build a national grid we don’t need and all of which has to be replaced every 10 to 20 years? We are building nothing because nothing is serviceable, maintainable.
None of it makes sense unless there is a plan to shut down all of Australia. With one strike. Or one switch. In Canberra.
Then who needs to invade Australian? Just turn off the refrigerators, the machines, the cars, telephones, the internet, the air conditioners, the traffic lights. With one switch. It is what you worst enemy would love you to do. No invasion necessary. And we are paying for it all. It’s not the lucky country, not with our governments.
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I remember years ago before the Sydney Harbour Tunnel was built.
Just shut down the Sydney Harbour Bridge (road and rail) on a Saturday when loads of people were at the Races losing their money and ‘Bobs yer Uncle’, it’s Invasion Day.
Now, it is much easier as the Chinese are already here (mainly their women) and Computers can do a lot of damage.
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This my recommendation to the Laybore Feral Guv’ment –
And the BOM (Bunch of Muppets).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zaQgbACc1E
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The first nation to crack adversaries encryption codes, hack their defenses, design the killer bioweapon, or build a self replicating drone army — potentially takes it all.
Potentially takes what all? Humans will be dead by then. The Terminator movies might not be fictional.
NB Encryption code cracking won’t be by AI but by quantum computers. It’s not too hard to design codes difficult even for those, but I doubt that most militaries will get round to it; they don’t change fast.
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I don’t usually blow my own Trumpet, but I basically predicted this all in 2017 with my series of articles on “Enerconics” which took the fact that global GDP is extremely closely related to global energy usage and drew the conclusion that energy supply was the key determinant of all economies. Or to put it another way, if you want to destroy the west, get them to adopt Nut Zero (which goes along way to explaining why Russia was funding groups pushing Nut Zero).
https://scottishsceptic.uk/2017/08/26/enerconics-simplified/
I now see the idiots in power in the UK have a Boldrick style “cunning plan” to revive the small bit of industry needed to create the arms to fight a war with Russia if the idiots chose to push Russia into war.
However industry is not a single organism, but an ecosystem that relies on all the parts being available. So, even if they could start producing some arms, they will find that with everything else coming from China, there are numerous vital components and technologies that can and will be cut off the moment any war is declared with Russia.
Thus (As Putin clearly understands) once you kill your energy supply and kill your industries, you kill your ability to fight wars and therefore your importance as a global player.
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